DORAVILLE, Ga. (BP) – The charge to “Let Freedom Run” typically spices Pastor Bill Kelly’s devotion at the annual Martin Luther King 5K Drum Run kicking off Jan. 20 from First Baptist Church of Doraville, he told Baptist Press in advance of the 14th annual community event.
“His understanding of the heart of God gave him the strength to stand against injustice,” Kelly said of King. “We stand together living out his dream of races and cultures coming together in a spirit of love, grace and acceptance.”
The run is among various outreaches Southern Baptists will participate in to honor King’s legacy on a rare occurrence of the day coinciding with the U.S. presidential inauguration, only the third time since MLK Day became a federal holiday in 1983.
Always held on the third Monday in January as a date falling near King’s birthday of Jan. 15, the holiday fell on Inauguration Day on President Bill Clinton’s second inauguration in 1997 and President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013. Inauguration Day is held annually on Jan. 20th, with a public ceremony on the 21st when the day falls on a Sunday.
This year, the day coincides with the second inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Among other Southern Baptist outreaches, The View Church in Menifee, Calif., will observe MLK Day Jan. 19 with its fifth annual MLK Ecumenical Service at 6:30 p.m., honoring five individuals as living legends for their community, academic and ecclesiastical leadership, as well as their embodiment of King’s legacy, including Lifeway Christian Resources executive Mark Croston.
“We want to highlight and bring remembrance to the necessary and impactful work of Dr. King,” The View Church Lead Pastor Gregory Perkins told Baptist Press. “We do not want his legacy to be an epithet. We want it to be living and breathing.”
Croston, Lifeway’s national director of Black Church Ministries, will receive the Pinnacle Award, the evening’s highest honor intended to embody the accolades of all awards presented that evening.
In Doraville, about 1,000 have already registered for the drum run that typically draws 1,200 or so runners and another 200 race volunteers, Kelly said of the event founded by Chip Owens and benefitting several nonprofits including churches, schools and community groups.
Kelly applauds First Doraville’s membership for participating. Members greet race participants, individually share their testimony as opportunity arises, host a prayer tent that typically draws about 30 people for prayer, and receives prayer requests that are lifted up at subsequent church prayer meetings. Kelly presents the Gospel, tying it to King’s life, during the opening devotion in the church fellowship hall which houses onsite registration.
It’s a good outreach event for a Southern Baptist church, Kelly said.
“I saw it as an opportunity for us to be involved in the community by using it as an outreach event,” he said, “and then to let others out in the community be aware of the fact that Southern Baptist churches are open to cultural differences.
“A lot of Baptist churches, they’re getting away from using Baptist in their name and going to community churches and so forth,” he said, “because they don’t want to be associated with and called a Baptist church. We’re not ashamed to be Baptist, and we wanted the community to know we’re open and diverse, as far as those race and cultural issues.”
The church that averages just over 50 in worship has a congregation of Anglo, Black, Hispanic and Asian members, is economically diverse, including even some homeless members, and lends its building to a Korean and two Hispanic congregations, Kelly said.
In Menifee, Perkins will honor a slate of leaders from a diverse background. Completing the list of honorees are Fuller Seminary President David Emmanuel Goatley, receiving the Champion for Justice Award; Thelma Day, retired dean of academic affairs for the Los Angeles Community College District, receiving the MLK Public Service Award; Warren Stewart Sr., senior pastor, First Institutional Baptist Church (Progressive National Baptist Convention) of Phoenix, MLK Pastoral Leadership Award; and John Moreland, director of Black Church Programs and Urban Track for Lilly Pathways Grant at Denver Seminary, receiving the MLK Award of Excellence.
Tim Gramling, vice president for diversity and dean of the Dr. Robert K. Jabs School of Business at California Baptist University, will serve as the keynote speaker.