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The National Geographic is a wonderful magazine. The photographs in it bring the beauty of far away cultures to life. The stories in it do a wonderful job of telling how people you have never heard of live their lives.
Last year, National Geographic did a story on the Berber people of North Africa. I was particularly interested in this story since the Berbers are the focus of our global mission efforts. The photographs were taken in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and they were brilliant. You may be able to see them by visiting the National Geographic website. At any rate, these are the kinds of stories that National Geographic does — stories that explore the majesty and mystery of remote cultures and out-of-the-way places.
Normally, National Geographic brings us information from the Amazon and Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, if they were to do a story about our way of life and our place in the world, what would the focus of that story be? Appalachian history? The Great Smokey Mountains? TVA? Oak Ridge? Tennessee football?
There are certainly numerous cultural and geographic features in our region that might prove worthy of a National Geographic story. However, the film crews from Jupiter Entertainment have not pointed their cameras at any of those worthy features. They have been in our fair city filming a National Geographic television documentary about road building. That’s right — road building. Our own I-40/75 and the widening thereof has been the star of the show.
Does that surprise you? I am guessing most of us suspected something like this for a long time. Forget nuclear energy, forget majestic mountains, forget college athletics — we are the road-building capital of the universe. Unlike the poet, Robert Frost, who discovered two roads diverging the wood and found that he could not travel both, and choosing the one less traveled by, I have traveled by two roads a good part of my life.
The first road is the one that is the subject of National Geographic’s documentary. Occasional trips to Knoxville as a child gave me my first exposure to it. The first time I drove on it was the spring of my sophomore year in high school after the prom. (I hope Momma doesn’t read this.) Later, it took me to Carson-Newman. Later still, it took me to Louisville, Kentucky, to Southern Seminary where I met Patti. I know it is just a road, but that road has made a difference in my life.
The other road is spiritual in nature. It is the road that Jesus invites us to travel. While it is spiritual in nature, it still takes you places. The earliest manifestation of it that I can recall was the stretch that ran from Mammaw and Pappaw Ledford’s house to Ozone Missionary Baptist Church. How many times did I travel that road with them?
Somewhere along the way, I realized they had made a choice to be on that road and that I would need to make a choice as well. They showed me the way, but they could not walk it for me. This road has made all the difference.
You have traveled both of these roads and you have your own stories of them. The people you have met, the places you have seen while traveling these roads, have shaped who you are.
Now, there is another road just ahead of us. “The Road” , as we are calling it, isn’t actually a road — it is a worship service. Nevertheless, it is our hope that it will move people in the direction of Jesus.
Why does a worship service need a name? Well, in the planning stages, we were calling our new service the “third service” because we already had two and it would be the third one. However, on the Sunday morning schedule, it would be the second service, not the third. We already had a second service, so we couldn’t call it the second service. We named it “The Road.”
In the Bible, we hear Jesus talking about a road that leads to life. We see the Apostle Paul discover a new way of living on the Road to Damascus. While traveling on the road to Emmaus, two travelers experience the presence of Christ. This is what we hope will happen on The Road at Ball Camp.
Joy and Peace,
Ed
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