In November, Dallas hosted Sojourners’ Justice Revival. Com-bining the tradition of Billy Graham with that of Martin Luther King Jr., Dallas churches came together across racial, theological, and geographic boundaries to connect personal faith to social justice.
Rev. Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. preached the opening night. Dr. Holmes, who has been ministering in the Dallas area for more than 50 years, said of the Justice Revival, “This is historic ... we have never come together like this.” He added that he had been waiting for this his whole life.
On that first night, a young man stayed afterward to talk to me. “I’m ready,” he said. “Ready for what?” I asked. “Ready to change the world!” This young African American told me that he was the youngest Methodist minister in the state of Texas. He drove into Dallas every night from the small, rural town he is serving.
Church historians say that spiritual activity doesn’t get to be called “revival” until it has changed something in the society. This revival had specific goals laid out by the pastors who came together—creating at least 25 church partnerships with Dallas public schools and advocating for 700 new units of permanent housing for chronically homeless people. The Revival has already hired a full-time organizer to make sure those goals are met. “What has changed,” the pastor of an evangelical megachurch said to me, “is that our church used to be just internally focused, but now it is externally focused.”
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