Integrated Thanksgiving Service

Before Thanksgiving, Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Simsville, Alabama had its seventh annual community Thanksgiving service with our "sister" church, Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist. What a remarkable idea and blessing this was, and what foresight from the leaders in our little church.

Last Thanksgiving, we had the service at the "black" church and our minister, Larry Layne, delivered the message. This year, we hosted the service, and Rev. Glover delivered the message. What a treat. This dear old man is now 85 and this was his third service that day. He had undergone 42 chemo treatments this year and yet was committed to carrying on this long-overdue tradition. I only wish that all of mankind could be as committed to being the Christian examples set by Rev. Larry Layne and Rev. Glover, as well as the membership of Mt. Carmel.

Sunday we learned that Larry Layne is resigning as pastor of our little church. Larry is a full-time Hospice Chaplain at Prattville Baptist, a Chaplain in the Air Guard, and has led our little flock for eight years. He is being deployed to Iraq in January as Wing Chaplain and will be away for four months. Last year, he was deployed to Landstuhl AFB in Germany.

I pray that we will continue to carry on this blessed tradition in our little community. We are all made in God's image and He was the Great Artist who painted each of us with a different brush, much like He did the flowers in the field. What an inspiration to put aside all our denominations, races and creeds and come before the throne of the Almighty and worship Him as the One God of us all and to be reminded forevermore that Heaven has no back door.

This is the holiest of seasons for Christians everywhere and I pray that in honor of these two men of God we commit ourselves to peace in our homes, our communities, our nation and the world. It all begins with each of us and if we all strived to live by the Golden Rule--Do unto others as you would have them do unto you--there would be no domestic violence, no crimes, and no wars. As the song says, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."