{"id":56093,"date":"2016-10-23T22:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/will_willimons_wonderful_story_of_an_angry_duke_university_student_parent\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T22:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T22:00:03","slug":"will_willimons_wonderful_story_of_an_angry_duke_university_student_parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=56093","title":{"rendered":"Will Willimon&#39;s wonderful story of an angry Duke University student parent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fourthchurch.org\/sermons\/2016\/081416.html\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Will] Willimon once preached about an encounter he had with the father of a graduating student. The father called his office and exploded over the phone. \u201cI hold you personally responsible for this,\u201d\u009d he yelled at Willimon. The father was angry because his graduate-school-bound daughter had decided (in the father\u2019s words) \u201cto throw it all away and go and do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian church.\u201d\u009d The father screamed, \u201cIsn\u2019t that absurd! She has a bachelor of science degree from Duke University, and she is going to dig ditches in Haiti! I hold you responsible for this!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Willimon, not easily intimidated, asked him, \u201cWhy me?\u201d\u009d The father replied, \u201cYou ingratiated yourself and filled her with all this religion stuff.\u201d\u009d Dr. Willimon was quick to reply, \u201cSir, weren\u2019t you the one who had her baptized?\u201d\u009d \u201cWell, well, well, yes,\u201d\u009d the father stumbled. \u201cAnd didn\u2019t you take her to Sunday school when she was a little girl?\u201d\u009d \u201cWell, well, yes.\u201d\u009d \u201cAnd didn\u2019t you allow your daughter to go on those youth group ski trips to Colorado when she was in high school?\u201d\u009d \u201cYes, but what does that have to do with anything?\u201d\u009d replied the father, becoming more and more aggravated. \u201cSir,\u201d\u009d Willimon concluded, \u201cyou are the reason she is throwing it all away. You introduced her to Jesus. Not me!\u201d\u009d \u201cBut,\u201d\u009d said the father, \u201call we wanted was a Presbyterian.\u201d\u009d Willimon replied, \u201cWell, sorry sir, you messed up. You\u2019ve gone and made a disciple.\u201d\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8211;shared by my coworker Craige Borrett in the morning sermon and one of my favorite Willimon stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From here: [Will] Willimon once preached about an encounter he had with the father of a graduating student. The father called his office and exploded over the phone. \u201cI hold you personally responsible for this,\u201d\u009d he yelled at Willimon. The<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=56093\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,39,50,206,101,162,168,241,98,435,182,184,177,439,108,34,169,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-caribbean","category-children","category-christology","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-haiti","category-marriage-family","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-missions","category-parish-ministry","category-pastoral-theology","category-preaching-homiletics","category-religion-culture","category-theology","category-theology-scripture","category-young-adults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}