Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU public media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. I'm Brent Copeland. I'm a retired pastor and a citizen of Tallahassee. My own father has been a role model for me. He was also a Presbyterian pastor and he had to cut his teeth during the civil rights movement and helping a congregation later through the struggles of the Vietnam War era. And he managed to do that by maintaining a pastoral connection to people, but also standing up for what he thought were the values of the faith as applied to the culture. Walking that balance between pastoral concerns and so-called prophetic concerns is a tough challenge for any pastor. So he was one model. The obvious ones are people like Martin Luther King Jr. who is an obvious model for any pastor. Communities of faith right now have a particular challenge to try to help to bring the nation together around common values, values of equality and justice and inclusion and reasonable conversation that doesn't devolve into ad hominem arguments and personal attacks. I think religious communities can model that for the whole of the community. The key words in our faith tradition are grace and gratitude. So I'm just very grateful for the grace that I've been shown through the years from my own congregation and from people in this community. And I'm grateful to Tallahassee for providing the place where my own children could grow and prosper. I'm Grant Copeland. I'm a retired pastor and a happy member of the community of Tallahassee. You're listening to voices that inspire.