Guest blog post from Tony Walker on Day 2 of The Justice Conference. Tony accepted Jesus as his Lord in Savior in October, you can watch his baptism and testimony here:
Guest blog from Tony:
Today was exceptional!!! From 9am to 9pm, conviction surrounded me and took over me as the day grew older. My highlight, or may I say, one of my highlights, was the great opportunity to meet John Perkins. Being a younger black male, unfortunately I would have to say that I wasn’t too familiar with his philanthropy, but I knew of him. John Perkins was a key leader in the Civil Rights Movement, and he is the founder of the Christian Community Development Association. To hear him speak to a mass audience as if he was addressing a relative, or like he was talking directly to me, was more powerful to me than any other speaker I experienced this weekend. Astounding is an understatement.
It’s 7:45pm, the panel is being filled by the speakers that were saved for last, obviously the best ones. I’m in the back of this HUGE conference room, waiting for the GRAND FINALE! Then he speaks…. When this happened, I was overwhelmed!!! His testimony was short and simple, but impacted my soul tremendously due to similarities. I couldn’t believe it! It was like God was speaking to me through this person I’ve never met before. To hear so much Grace and Glory from a story that shared the same plot and pain as mine, 700 miles away from my domain, really brought me to humility, I mean I was humbled! John lost his brother (so did I), John was a victim of police brutality (so was I), John believes in multicultural worshiping (so do I), and so on… I HAD to meet him!
I then left Noah and positioned myself closer to the stage to meet this person that brought tears to my eyes, I seriously had to regain my composure. With his autobiography in hand, Let Justice Roll Down, I approached him, “Mr. Perkins, my name is Tony Walker, I’m from Michigan, and I drove 11 hours to this convention with my pastor”. I then shared a little of my testimony and surprisingly he dropped a tear, pulled me to the side, and we shared some more. He signed my book “To Tony, with love and respect. Gal 2: 20, John Perkins” – and even wrote down his cell phone number! He gave me a hug, then we parted ways, he had 300+ people waiting to meet him lol. These paragraphs lack the intensity that I felt tonight, due to me being drained and half asleep as I type this, but I can honestly say that this weekend made a difference and I’m truly grateful to have had the chance to meet a wonderful human being in today’s society. Hope was assured and my faith grew stronger in His glory. God is GREAT!!!
Related posts:
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Leave a Reply