Tennessean Message of the Week

Message of the Week: Fire tested church's faith, made its people stronger

By THE REV. JIM KITCHENS

It was certainly not a call I would have ever expected.
My wife and I were asleep in a hotel in Bakersfield, Calif., having just left our home near Sacramento on a journey to our new home in Nashville and my new call as pastor of Second Presbyterian Church.

When the cell phone rang at 5:30 a.m., my wife dived for it, thinking one of our daughters was calling. And if she was calling that early in the morning, something had to be wrong.
It was not a daughter on the line but something WAS wrong. The chair of the pastor nominating committee from Second was on the phone.
"Jim," she told me, "the church burned down this morning."
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