Learn how Martin Luther King Jr. transformed a minister’s worldview

“Listening to God’s Call: How Meeting Martin Luther King Jr. Changed my Life” will be presented on Sunday, Oct. 26, at Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist, 5 W. Washington St., Oswego.

The Rev. John A. Boryk of Des Plaines, a retired United Methodist minister and 1967 Aurora College graduate, will be guest preacher at Good Shepherd UMC at 8:30 and 10 a.m. worship. The public is invited.

Rev. Boryk will chronicle how as a college senior theology/psychology major he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in March 1965.

Before retiring, Rev. Boryk served congregations in Dolton, Harvey, Rockford Aldersgate, Belvidere, Duran and Park Ridge First UMC.

According to the pastor, he attended schools in North Carolina, Kosciusko, Miss.; and Ardmore, Okla., where he graduated from high school.

“I was raised in Jim Crow south segregated schools and carried bigoted feelings of white superiority,” he said. At the urging of his college religion professors, he attended an appearance of Dr. King in Chicago. Thinking King was a troublemaker, Rev. Boryk took with him “30 Biblical Reasons for Segregation” to confront Dr. King.

“Instead,” he said, “I experienced an upsetting cathartic experience. A week later I was in Selma, Ala., crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge led by Dr. King and civil rights leaders on the way to Montgomery, the state capitol. This led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”

For more information, call (630) 554-3269 or visit Goodshepherdoswego.org.