Enlarge The Temple Beth El Choir sang "This Little Light Of Mine."

Posted: January 18th, 2010 Greg Lacour

The Xchange Sermons series kicked off Jan. 15 with a rousing sermon by an African-American university president in a Jewish temple on Shabbat.

The president was Dr. Ron Carter of Johnson C. Smith University, the occasion Temple Beth El’s annual Shabbat service honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., himself a Baptist preacher.

Temple Beth El has held an MLK Shabbat service every year for the past 15. But this night, as Rabbi Judith Schindler told a congregation that spilled out of the Levine Jewish Community Center on Providence Road, was different. It was a night for two congregations, two peoples, two faiths, to – as an impassioned Carter said during his sermon – “share a common purpose that God himself declares genuine.”

The common purpose is what Mecklenburg Ministries and Crossroads Charlotte are aiming for in the Xchange Sermons series, which will run until the end of February, Black History Month. In those six weeks, clergy from 28 congregations throughout Charlotte will swap pulpits and deliver sermons to other congregations and other faiths – Baptist and Presbyterian, Jewish and Lutheran, Muslim and Methodist, Catholic and Baha’i.

The timing is intentional, with MLK Day on Jan. 18. “The Xchange Sermons series is a wonderful way to honor the work and teachings of Dr. King, whose faith taught him that imagining a changed world is not enough,” says Dr. Maria Hanlin, Mecklenburg Ministries’ executive director. “Action is required.”

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Posted: January 18th, 2010 Crystal Dempsey

A photo taken by Crossroads Charlotte Correspondent James Willamor was featured on Jan. 18 in a post on fashion designer Kenneth Cole's Awearness Blog.

Willamor took a photo of a young woman working at Crisis Assistance Ministry on Hands On Charlotte Day in October.

Cole, who is also an activist, uses the Awearness blog to raise social awareness and features posts from people around the world.

Posted: January 18th, 2010 Tonya Jameson

In politics, we don’t talk anymore. We divide and conquer.

Former Republican congressman Jim Leach of Iowa wants to calm the deafening cacophony of disagreement that has upended political discussion. Leach, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, urges for a return to civility to politics. He’s embarked on a 50-state tour called “Civility and Bridging Cultures.” He spoke to a near-capacity audience of citizenra, city leaders and politicians on Jan. 14 at Levine Museum of the New South. North Carolina was the fifth state on his tour.

For 45 minutes, Leach mixed history and sports analogies to examine how our politicians don’t talk to each other anymore. “This concept of civility implies politeness, but civil discourse is about far more than good etiquette,” he said. “At its core civility requires respectful engagement and willingness to consider the views of others.”

Leach compared political climate to the European system of government, in which there are majority and opposition parties. Leach said when he served in Congress, both parties worked together to pass legislation. Today, he says, the role of the minority party has shifted into opposing everything proposed by the majority. He decried the name-calling and demonizing that now passes for disagreement.

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Posted: January 15th, 2010 Andria Krewson

If you’re on a bus that gets stuck in the mud, everyone has to get out and push.

My daughter brought that lesson back from her trip to Honduras in early January. It was one of many lessons she brought back, but it struck me as the most universal.

She has now been twice, to Villa Soleada, a place supported by Students Helping Honduras, a young growing nonprofit focusing on a particular village.

Four days after her first visit last spring, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit off the Honduran coast, knocking out the bridge that just days before had returned her to the San Pedro Sula airport.

But she wanted to go back. She bought her plane ticket in September, for a January trip, and brought it up whenever someone questioned her wisdom.

“Sorry, I have my plane ticket,” she’d say. You’re not stopping me, in other words.

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