Ep 130: Love Your Hometown (w/ David Salisbury)

What can some hometown stories teach us about how to love our community?

Well, my good friend David Salisbury will tell us all about that here in just a bit.

But first, I want to welcome you to the show. This is For Your Sunday Morning Drive, the short podcast with a simple goal of providing some thoughts for your drive to church to take your mind off the worldly and point it towards the spiritual. And I hope we can do that for you today.

I'm Daniel Dalp, and I'll actually be riding shotgun this morning because in the driver's seat is Brother David.

David is the pulpit minister at the Henderson Church of Christ, right across the river from me in Henderson, Kentucky. If you know him or you've spent time around him, then you know that he's passionate about Jesus and that he truly cares about the community he works in. That's one of many reasons I'm glad that he'll be sharing his thoughts on the topic at hand.

David, welcome to the show.

And we better get it on the road this morning.

This is Episode 130, "Love Your Hometown."

Let's go to church.

I'm in Henderson, Kentucky, and one of my favorite things to do here is to learn about the people who lived here before us. I love to tell people about my new hometown. We've been here 13 years, and I think this is one of the most amazing places to live.

We've had some really interesting characters come through this little town on the Ohio River. This morning, I want to tell you about a few of them.

Back in the early 1800s, there was a man named Wyatt Ingram. Wyatt made his living selling things. He'd live here in Henderson, and he'd put together a whole boatload, literally, of goods. He'd make himself a log raft and float down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers all the way to New Orleans. And then he'd sell all his goods, and then he'd sell the flatboat.

Now think about that for a minute. You're hundreds of miles from home, and you just sold your ride. So what do you do?

Well, Wyatt started walking all the way from New Orleans to Henderson, Kentucky. And according to our local history, he made that trip 13 times.

Now, I don't know what you and your family feel about long trips, but I used to complain about a long car ride. I can't imagine walking from New Orleans.

But you know what I love about that story? No matter how far Wyatt traveled, he knew where home was, and he always kept coming back.

I think there's something important about knowing where home is. You know, home doesn't have to be the place you were born. It might not even be the place you grew up. Sometimes life takes us other places, maybe even somewhere we never expected to be. We discover that we found a home there.

But wherever home is, I think it's worth loving. And when you love a place, you want other people to experience it, too.

That brings me to another Henderson character, Frederick Eisfelder.

We've got some old letters from Eisfelder in which he would encourage his friends to come visit Henderson. He'd throw a big party for lots of his gentlemen friends to come to town, and he would introduce them to some of the eligible young ladies who lived here.

You see, Eisfelder thought Henderson was a pretty good place to live, a pretty good place to find a wife, and he wanted his friends to call Henderson home, too.

I wonder how many families got their start because somebody decided to come visit Henderson.

I'm not suggesting you start matchmaking for all your single friends, but I do love the idea of being so happy about where you live that you want to share it with people you care about.

And that brings me to one more Henderson story I want you to imagine.

You're back in high school, and as you sit in our high school science class, you discover that your teacher used to be a professional wrestler. And not just any professional wrestler. He'd also played football at Notre Dame and in the NFL.

Oh, and by the way, during World War II, he worked as a spy behind enemy lines, serving in Italy.

His name was Jumpin' Joe Savoldi, and after all those adventures, he ended up teaching science at Henderson County High School.

Can you imagine the stories he would tell?

But here's what interests me most about Joe. After everything he'd experienced and everything he'd accomplished, he spent part of his life teaching young people. He had something to give, and he used it to invest in the next generation.

And I think that's one of the most important ways we can love our hometown.

You know, the Bible has a lot to say about loving the place where God has put us.

In the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 29, God's people were in Babylon. They didn't want to be in Babylon. They were in exile there. They were far away from the place that they called home, and for most of them, they wanted nothing more than to just go back.

But God gave them some surprising instructions. He said, build houses, plant gardens, raise families, seek the welfare of the city where you're living. He even told them to pray for that city.

Think about that. God wanted them to care about a place they hadn't even chosen to live.

And I think there's a lesson there for us, too. Wherever God has placed you, there are people around you who need to experience His love.

And that kind of brings me back to those three Henderson stories.

Wyatt Ingram reminds me to remember where home is, to appreciate the people and places that have helped shape my life, and not to take them for granted.

Frederick Eisfelder reminds me to invite my friends. When something is good, we naturally want to share it, and that ought to be true of our church family, too.

If our church is a place where we found friendship and encouragement and people who help us grow closer to Jesus, why wouldn't we want others to experience that?

And Joseph Savoldi reminds me that loving a place means investing in its people.

We all have something to give. Maybe you can teach a child, or encourage a teenager, or help a struggling family, or simply spend some time with somebody who needs a friend to combat the loneliness.

You don't have to be a professional wrestler or a secret agent to make a difference in somebody's life.

I love my hometown. I love learning its history and sharing its stories. But I want to do more than just celebrate the people who lived here 100 years ago. I want to be part of making this a better place for the people who live here today.

And I want that for our church, too. I want us to be the kind of church that loves its community so much that our neighbors are glad we're here, not just because we invite them to worship with us, but because we're genuinely interested in their lives.

We care about our families here. And when there's a need, we're looking for ways to help. Because that's part of what it means to love our neighbors as Jesus taught us.

So here's something to talk about as you head to church this morning.

What do you love about your hometown?

Who are the people who've made it special to you?

What's one thing you and your family could do this week to make it a better place for somebody else?

Because there's more to loving your hometown than knowing its history. It's about loving the people who are making history right now.

What do you love about your hometown?

Who are the people who've made it special for you?

And what's one thing you and your family could do this week to make it a better place for somebody else?

And as always, I'll throw it over to Evelyn for this week's kids question.

How can we show our neighbors that we love them?

Hey, thanks for listening. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your day, out of your week, to spend it with us.

A big thanks to David for being on the show this morning.

Don't discount how important it is to love your community, especially when the goal is to share Jesus with them.

I hope you have a wonderful day of worship, and I hope you have a fantastic week.

Keep living for Jesus, and I'll see you Sunday.