I grew up in a Pentecostal Holiness church as I spent my formative years with my grandmother, Eva Mae, in Foley, Alabama. It was a small yet intimate community of faith whose common and most frequent meeting place was the church. And since my grandmother was an older woman, much of my time was spent with the “mothers” of the church. Today, I can look back and say that my time with her and those women were some of the best years of my life.

My preaching ministry began even before she or I knew it. She was the first person to put a notebook in my hand and say, “Write down all the scriptures that the preacher says.” And so I did. I filled the notebook and would give it back to her after each service. When they were filled, she would simply give me another. I never reviewed the scriptures with her but I do remember seeing her study them during the week. When she died, I returned to the house that we had shared together and searched for those notebooks but was unable to find one, probably blinded by the incomparable loss of my first theologian.

Positioned on a literal dirt road and way back in the woods, it was one of three small churches. Our church was Bibleway Holiness Church #3. Initially, the church was pastored by “Lizzie” Williams, a woman of great religious fervor who had a smile that told me that everything would be alright after while. The second pastor was unable to visit us each Sunday so we traveled to either Bibleway #1 or #2 for worship when it wasn’t his Sunday to be with us. It was at Bibleway that I led the people in song, a few of them my own compositions and that I came to know Jesus in the pardoning of my sins. I fell in love with the Church at first sight here.

There is an old song that I often heard during testimony service as a child. Often, before persons would stand up to tell of the goodness of God and the miraculous wonders that the “lawyer in the courtroom” or the “doctor in the sickroom” had performed, they would begin with a song. One of my favorites was a call and response song; its memory I awakened to this morning. The leader would stand up and begin, “I believe I’ll run on” and the congregation would respond, “See what the end gone’ be.” It was the leader’s declaration of persistence in the race of faith and the congregation’s response seemed as if an encouragement to go on.

I don’t know where The Daily Race is going to lead me though I am certain of my convictions to live a race- less life but I believe I’ll run on…