Reprinted from The News Reporter, Feb. 2, 2012, Page 1-A
On Easter Sunday, organizers of a bold and unique event hope to make Whiteville a real place of letters for hundreds of people. Several volunteers are planning a project they’re calling Walk With Jesus that will begin with a sunrise service on April 8. It is believed that this will be a powerful event for all participants on this holy day.
The Easter service will feature a diverse group of talented musicians and speakers from area churches, offering a
On Easter Sunday, organizers of a bold and unique event hope to make Whiteville a real place of letters for hundreds of people. Several volunteers are planning a project they’re calling Walk With Jesus that will begin with a sunrise service on April 8. It is believed that this will be a powerful event for all participants on this holy day.
The Easter service will feature a diverse group of talented musicians and speakers from area churches, offering a
memorable experience for up to 1,000 people near the glass BB&T building across from City Hall. After the service ends, those people will get to work on an ambitious and unprecedented challenge, and every one will be needed for the task ahead.
Each person, furnished with several sticks of sidewalk chalk and a selection of scriptures, will set out to an assigned area of sidewalk. In the next half hour or so, the residents of Columbus County and their friends will hand write the entire text of the New Testament.
All 27 books. All 138,020 words.
No small feat, considering this will take some 14,000 sticks of chalk. But with enough participation, each person should have to write only 100-200 words.
Teaming up to help organize this event are Janice Young, Mark Gilchrist and Stephanie Miller. The News Reporter has offered to help sponsor the event. As the writing is completed, it is expected that participants and others will tour the area looking for their favorite scriptures, and enjoying the verses, chapters and books in a way never seen before. The event will take place on the sidewalks along Madison Street and its cross streets, from Calhoun on the north side to Pecan Street on the south.
It is expected that writing and walking should conclude in time for people who want to leave and attend Easter services at their own churches.
Working on the technical side of the writing project, Gilchrist has scouted more than three miles of sidewalks, which hints to one of his interests in this event. To view this project in its entirety, one will have to walk a few miles, and Gilchrist has long been an advocate of fitness in the area. Another project he works with, Take the Lake, has offered its support.
Walking has been promoted lately as the most sensible form of exercise, and trekking through closed streets of downtown Whiteville should be a positive experience for hundreds of people.
The City of Whiteville and its council received this project with enthusiasm. Town Manager Larry Faison and Police Lieutenant Marc McGee have worked with the organizers with keen interest in public safety, given the number of streets to be closed. Organizers, working with a shortened schedule to launch the event this year, proposed the concept to the council last week and submitted a formal application Wednesday morning. Both the city and N.C. DOT must approve the application, a process about which both McGee and Faison have said they felt confident.
Representatives of area churches are invited to participate in an important input-gathering meeting next Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 4 p.m. at the Interim Centre off North J.K. Powell Boulevard across from Food Lion. They will be asked for their perspectives on making this event memorable for the spiritual community.
Churches are asked to “adopt” books, with the larger congregations taking on greater challenges of books such as Matthew, Luke and Acts, and smaller churches working on Colossians and other books. The News Reporter and Whiteville.com will publish names of churches as they adopt books, with the tally growing larger as more churches sign on. Information on numbers needed for each book, and the opportunity to sign up will be posted on Whiteville.com.
Organizers envision groups introducing their books at the event with small displays, either drawn with chalk, or small dioramas, either homemade or “live” with actors.
This event should present the books of the New Testament in a way that no one anywhere has experienced. Families will be able to walk freely through books of the Bible on this holiest of days, visiting verses and passages that have become friends to them, and reacquainting themselves with the written word on a Walk With Jesus.
Each person, furnished with several sticks of sidewalk chalk and a selection of scriptures, will set out to an assigned area of sidewalk. In the next half hour or so, the residents of Columbus County and their friends will hand write the entire text of the New Testament.
All 27 books. All 138,020 words.
No small feat, considering this will take some 14,000 sticks of chalk. But with enough participation, each person should have to write only 100-200 words.
Teaming up to help organize this event are Janice Young, Mark Gilchrist and Stephanie Miller. The News Reporter has offered to help sponsor the event. As the writing is completed, it is expected that participants and others will tour the area looking for their favorite scriptures, and enjoying the verses, chapters and books in a way never seen before. The event will take place on the sidewalks along Madison Street and its cross streets, from Calhoun on the north side to Pecan Street on the south.
It is expected that writing and walking should conclude in time for people who want to leave and attend Easter services at their own churches.
Working on the technical side of the writing project, Gilchrist has scouted more than three miles of sidewalks, which hints to one of his interests in this event. To view this project in its entirety, one will have to walk a few miles, and Gilchrist has long been an advocate of fitness in the area. Another project he works with, Take the Lake, has offered its support.
Walking has been promoted lately as the most sensible form of exercise, and trekking through closed streets of downtown Whiteville should be a positive experience for hundreds of people.
The City of Whiteville and its council received this project with enthusiasm. Town Manager Larry Faison and Police Lieutenant Marc McGee have worked with the organizers with keen interest in public safety, given the number of streets to be closed. Organizers, working with a shortened schedule to launch the event this year, proposed the concept to the council last week and submitted a formal application Wednesday morning. Both the city and N.C. DOT must approve the application, a process about which both McGee and Faison have said they felt confident.
Representatives of area churches are invited to participate in an important input-gathering meeting next Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 4 p.m. at the Interim Centre off North J.K. Powell Boulevard across from Food Lion. They will be asked for their perspectives on making this event memorable for the spiritual community.
Churches are asked to “adopt” books, with the larger congregations taking on greater challenges of books such as Matthew, Luke and Acts, and smaller churches working on Colossians and other books. The News Reporter and Whiteville.com will publish names of churches as they adopt books, with the tally growing larger as more churches sign on. Information on numbers needed for each book, and the opportunity to sign up will be posted on Whiteville.com.
Organizers envision groups introducing their books at the event with small displays, either drawn with chalk, or small dioramas, either homemade or “live” with actors.
This event should present the books of the New Testament in a way that no one anywhere has experienced. Families will be able to walk freely through books of the Bible on this holiest of days, visiting verses and passages that have become friends to them, and reacquainting themselves with the written word on a Walk With Jesus.