9/11 Remembrance




On this day 17 years ago I was in Detroit, Michigan pastoring a church. I received a call from a church member asking me if I had seen the news. I had not- I was at the church with no TV to watch news and internet then was not what it is today. 


More than the news reports and the awful scenes that replay through my mind not just on this day but every time I have been in NYC I remember...


  • scenes filled with people running for their very existence
  • a dear friend who worked in the financial district recalling her experience of walking miles and miles to get back to safety
  • scenes from the Pentagon - listening to the stories being told of their escape
  • an eerie silence as DTW was shut down
  • the questions of why did this happen? how could so many atrocities happen in one day- no in a few hours? and what will we do now?

In a matter of a few hours America was forever CHANGED! 

As a pastor I remember...

  • The church filling up with people on a Wednesday evening the day after
  • So many questions without answers 
  • A prayer vigil held with the community to help all of us feel like we at least did something to help

The one thing that stands out about 9/11/2001 and the few days following is that as a nation EVERYONE realized we needed each other. It seems we had something that bonded us together, something that we all could talk about. 

When people gathered at church on 9/12/2001 we tried to console one another. We demonstrated deep love, care, and unity with friends and neighbors who didn’t even attend church on a regular basis. 

Seventeen years later- we still need each other. We still need to love one another deeply and demonstrate it. Our country still NEEDS a healing that only God can bring. This is the love our nation needs, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.(1)” It is accepting this love ðŸ’— that will change us to then be the change in our world. We may not always see things like our neighbor but when LOVE abounds we rise above those differences. 

Can we be people who daily live and practice the same love God demonstrated to us?  If so, when will we begin?



(1) Romans 5:6-8 NLT 

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