Speaking to God for the people, Speaking to the people for God
When this book was published in 2019, Maxie D. Dunnam was eighty-four years old and still active in ministry, serving as Minister at Large at Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He answered the call to preach when he was seventeen and preached all his life. As he put it, “I still feel I’m doing what I was created to do.”
Dunnam provides a “life-giving truth”: verbalizing something gives it a reality that is not there until the word is spoken.
He explained that at seventeen, the notion of preparing to become a preacher had tumbled around in his mind for months. Then, when he could think of nothing else for several weeks, he told his pastor, “I think I’m being called to preach.” As Dunnam recalled, his pastor had a wry, telling smile, but his smile that day was more telling than it could have ever been before. “I know,” he said, “I’ve just been waiting for you to acknowledge it.” Those words gave solid substance to Dunnam’s struggle; and when his pastor asked, “Are you going to answer?”
Dunnam responded, “I said yes, my calling became real.”
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