Davey Lyon says that for many people, Lowndes County is “just kind of forgotten.”

“It’s rural, it’s poor, it’s between Selma and Montgomery, and people just pass right through.”

But for Lyon, it’s Jerusalem. It’s the place where he was raised and where he’s raising his family. It’s the place where God called him into ministry, and it’s the place where he and God did business about some prejudices he grew up with.

And most of all, it’s the place where God is starting to write a new story, Lyon said.

“I’ve lived in Lowndes County my whole life. I was born and raised here, and I have seen from all angles the racial divide,” he noted. “We see in Lowndes County very little of what Revelation 7:9 tells us Heaven is like.”

In the past couple of years, as racial tensions escalated across the country, Lyon and his wife Amber began to feel God calling them to be active participants in sharing the gospel with people who look different.

“Our world is a broken world, and the only thing that is going to make any sense of it, the only thing that is going to bring hope of healing or any healing at all, is Jesus,” Lyon declared.

So he prayed, and began to explore what God might be asking them to do. From 2017 until early 2020, he’d been pastor of a small church in the county seat of Hayneville and working for the Alabama Department of Transportation. He stepped away from the church to finish seminary, but God made it clear he was to stay in Lowndes County and take extension classes.

The fact that Lyon felt led to stay guided his prayers…continued.

This article was published at thealabamabaptist.org. Click here to read the full article.