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Pages and Tunes

All Dressed Up & No Place to Go

by Wallace Phillips
©2007 by Wallace Phillips

Next Monday Americans across the country will celebrate Martin Luther King Day. How appropriate that this issue of Pages and Tunes includes a book that would make Dr. King proud.

Dr. King rightly observed that the 11 o’clock hour on Sunday was the most segregated in all the earth. Wallace Phillips couldn’t agree more. In All Dressed Up & No Place to Go, Phillips candidly shares his personal journey from being racially prejudiced to pastoring an ethnically diverse Assemblies of God church in small town North Carolina.

Phillips asks some hard questions: Why is the church today so segregated? Why are we divided? Why does race or ethnicity serve as a characteristic of why we are part of a particular gathering of believers? Why is the church unprepared to meet the needs of some who would love to be part of the fellowship? He is right-on in his assessment that “The church that we see today does not include everyone. Some are excluded intentionally, while others are often overlooked or not targeted as candidates for the church because of race, socio-economic status, or the mere fact that we’re not prepared to minister to their unique needs.”

Phillips encourages readers to examine their attitudes towards those less fortunate—and embrace them as Jesus would. A place to start is by looking around your own congregation, taking note of those who seem to have less or to be less—and intentionally reaching out to them. Many of our churches today are making great progress toward reconciliation, while others still need to be encouraged.

Finally, Phillips offers practical helps for overcoming prejudice and relieving poverty in one’s own community. A must-read for anyone truly interested in fulfilling Jesus’ mandate to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

PATTY KENNEDY is assistant web content editor for the national Women’s Ministries Department. She also writes book and music reviews for Pages and Tunes, a free e-newsletter provided by the national Women’s Ministries Department.

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