From one pastor to another, a helping hand

TYLER, Texas-Sometimes media attention to a good story can have dramatic effects. Such was the case with a profile that the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly did on Pastor David Brown, a modern-day circuit rider who pastors seven small, mostly black Baptist congregations in Mississippi and Louisiana. Every Sunday he visits at least three […]

TYLER, Texas-Sometimes media attention to a good story can have dramatic effects. Such was the case with a profile that the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly did on Pastor David Brown, a modern-day circuit rider who pastors seven small, mostly black Baptist congregations in Mississippi and Louisiana. Every Sunday he visits at least three of them, driving hundreds of miles in his old, battered Chevrolet. His salary comes from whatever goes into the collection plate, and he has high blood pressure, diabetes-and no health insurance. Three hundred miles away, John Robbins is pastor of Marvin United Methodist Church, a prosperous mostly white congregation of 3,000 people. Robbins saw the Religion & Ethics profile of Brown, and couldn’t turn away. He decided to get his church involved.

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