My name is Will Brewbaker. My wife, Sara, and I have been members of Blacknall for two years, and our daughter, Lucy, has been a regular attender for two months. (She's only four months old!) I’m currently a Ph.D. student at Duke, where I study poetry & Christian theology.
More than 30 years ago, my parents spent an impactful season at Blacknall before moving to Alabama, where I was born. In many ways, then, Blacknall was a part of me before I was a part of it. Since moving to Durham, Sara and I have been warmly welcomed into the Blacknall community. With Lucy’s birth, we’ve been overwhelmed by the care and love that we’ve received from our Blacknall family.
I first got involved at Blacknall by co-leading a Sunday School class, Literature & the Christian Life. In many ways, this title tells my own story as a Christian. Over the years, poems — whether the Psalms, the Magnificat, or the poetry of T.S. Eliot — have supplied me with words for my own questions, doubts, worries, and wonderings. But they’ve also supplied me with a way to understand God’s goodness. “Christ plays,” writes Hopkins, “in ten thousand places.” Indeed, He does. As a deacon, I would hope to serve our community with the same joy and generosity of spirit with which Sara, Lucy, and I have been served thus far — which is, of course, the same joy in which Christ continues to live.