The three entrances always bothered a young Frank Dew. In downtown Lumberton, a small city in eastern North Carolina, the Carolina Theater had a door for whites, a door for Blacks, and a door for members of Lumbee Tribe. Instead of looking away and moving on, Frank looked within. He wanted to find a way - some way - to right what he thought was wrong. He has.
"Calling: A Memoir of Ministry" is Frank's story. It unveils how a middle-class kid nicknamed Buzzard blazed a trail less traveled. He became a Presbyterian minister and renown social justice warrior in North Carolina, and along the way, he ran into small moments that opened his eyes to possibilities he never imagined. Like in the narthex of his home church. Frank was a junior at Wake Forest when he ran into a senior at Lumberton High he didn't know. She walked up to him and asked, "You go to Wake, right? Tell me about Wake Forest."
That moment changed Frank's life. He later married Michie Harriss, and together, they shared a life geared to help, as Frank likes to say, "the least, the last, and the left out." They were like two pieces of a puzzle. They fit.
After a half-century in ministry, Frank continues to impact North Carolinians. In the gentlest of ways, he helps us understand the difference between
believing
in Jesus and
following
Jesus.
The Rev. Frank Dew does know the difference. That's his life. That's his book.