John Perkins grew up in crushing poverty in rural Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers. His mother died when he was seven months old. His brother was shot and killed by a white police officer when John was a teenager. He fled to California in 1947 vowing never to go back. Then he gave his life to Christ and felt called to return — back to the state that had already taken so much from him, back to the people who had nothing, back to the place he feared.

He went back to Mendenhall, Mississippi and spent years building schools, health clinics, housing cooperatives, and a voter registration programme. In 1970, when he went to bail out students who had been arrested during a peaceful protest, police officers detained him and beat him nearly to death over several hours in a jail cell. He was hospitalised for months. A heart attack followed. Two-thirds of his stomach had to be removed. Lying in that hospital bed, he made a decision that is very hard to explain in purely human terms. He chose to forgive the men who had beaten him. He chose to go back. He chose to keep serving. He said later: "What I admire about Dr. Martin Luther King was that he could face death and remain nonviolent. Jesus taught me that. I had learned to hate white people. But I could not hold that hate and serve the gospel at the same time." He spent the next fifty years building one of the most influential Christian community development movements in the world. He died in March 2026, at ninety-five years old, still in Mississippi.

Jesus said the greatest among you will be your servant. John Perkins did not achieve greatness by climbing upward. He became great by going down — back to the place of his pain, back to the people who needed him most, towel in hand.

Prayer: Lord, give us John Perkins' willingness to go back — to the hard place, the painful place, the place that costs something. May we serve not where it is comfortable but where it is needed. Amen.