More than 100 voices from churches across Richmond made up the Greater Metropolitan Choir, which ministered in song at today's Emancipation Proclamation Service at Fifth Baptist Church.

RICHMOND, Va.– Even though it was a bright sunny day, a near capacity crowd at one West end church heard a lot about rain on this Emancipation Proclamation Day service.

The hundreds who packed Fifth Baptist Church on Cary Street for the city’s 72nd celebration of the famous proclamation signed January 1, 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln that freed slaves in Virginia and nine other states, also heard from  both the Richmond’s first black mayor and the city’s current mayor, the second to be directly-elected.

Scent of Rain

H. Beecher Hicks, senior pastor of Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Baptist Church, in his address, drew parallels between the prophetic words of Ezekiel about shepherds who were irresponsible in not caring for needs of the unfortunate and some in government today who have abandoned a sense of a social agenda.

“What do you do?” Hicks said when “the poor get poorer and the rich go to tea parties.”

H. Beecher Hicks, senior pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC gave the address at Richmond's Emancipation Day Service.

The “scent of rain” Hicks spoke of blessings that come from unexpected showers from God

“If I smell the rain before it comes, it’s a sign of what God is about to do,” Hicks told the crowd of attendees from dozens of area churches, many of which have pastors who are members of the Baptist Ministers Conference of Richmond and Vicinity, the sponsor of today’s service.

Full disclosure:  Dr. Hicks was my pastor for four years when I was an undergraduate student at Howard University in the early 1990s.

Usually held on New Year’s Day, this year’s Emancipation Day Service was delayed a day due to the New Year coming in on a Sunday.

Former Richmond Mayor, Current Mayor Speak

Not scheduled to speak, Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones, who until recently pastored First Baptist Church of South Richmond, reminded the crowd of mostly African American attendees how important it is to know where we’ve come from and who brought us here.

He was one of several speakers who made reference to some of the conflicts even among those within the movement for civil rights and human rights. 

“All of our enemies are not on the other side,” Jones said. ” Some even look like us.”

Near the conclusion of the service, State Senator Henry L. Marsh, who was Richmond’s first African American elected mayor in the mid 1970s, spoke of his pleasure with Jones’ leadership as the second so-called “strong mayor”  despite Marsh’s own reservations about the switch from the council-manager form of city government several years ago.

Marsh urged attendees to join him in fighting proposals in the upcoming Virginia General Assembly to change state’s Voter ID laws.

Emancipation Services Elsewhere

Richmond was one of several cities where events were sponsored this week to remind attendees of the historic significance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

In Athens, Ga., civil rights pioneers were recognized and paid tribute to during a service in the Northeast Georgia community Sunday.

Meanwhile, church services were held in Indianapolis and in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, an Emancipation Proclamation parade preceded that community’s anniversary worship service.

Can you imagine watching baptism on an iPhone?  What about one of the nation’s oldest churches doing away with the use of hymnals?   Wireless connectivity enabling computing anywhere in the church building?

These things are already the norm in many places of worship, especially so-called megachurches.   But, in 2012 it may not  just be the megachurch that’s going high tech . 

I couldn’t help but note the tweets of Bishop Joseph Walker’s parishioners at Mount Zion Baptist in Nashville.

@ Angelo1906 tweeted

Watching @MtZionNashville on my Mt. Zion iPhone app. Man oh man, how I miss Nashville! Watched nearly 20 baptisms this mornin. #GloryToGod

@06Chocolate Thunder also wrote

@MtZionNashville has an app. It’s free…. Go download it. #TeamAndroid and #TeamIphone.

These tweets from Mt. Zion Baptist in the Music City (which most would term mega-churches with multiple locations) came on the same day as Richmond’s First African Baptist launched a new media and technology initiative that will take advantage of the smartphones that more and more churchgoers are bringing to church even as others are reading their Bible on an iPad or other ereader. 

Photo Courtesy: ZDNet

“Most people come to church, they bring some sort of device,” said Rodney Waller, senior pastor of Richmond’s First African Baptist Church. “We want our church to become wireless.”

Waller says by Easter, which falls on April 8, he wants his hundreds of parishioners to be reading the scripture from a large screen in the front of the church, which is located in Barton Heights community on the city’s northside.   Instead of hymnals, worshipers will sing from words projected on screen and scripture references will be beamed so that everyone has the same translation of the Bible.

The shift in technology at the 231-year-old First African Baptist  may be  indicative of a move that is happening in more and more local churches, regardless of size.  The reality of churchgoers who use smartphones and tablet devices everywhere else mandates that the traditional ways of worship be brought into the 21st century.

Today is the first Sunday I can remember when there was no church bulletin at First African Baptist Church (my home church).  The bulletins are not distributed at every service, replaced by a monthly printed newsletter.

It will be an exciting year to watch places of worship as they gear-up for high-tech Bible Study, evangelism, mission work and community ministry.   Stay tuned.

The man doing the talking, Dr. Rodney Waller, the pastor of my home church, First African Baptist Church,  a 231-year-old congregation where I grew up.

Courtesy:First African Baptist Church

The rare occasion to hear the same minister in a 12-hour period came because New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday.  So, Waller delivered a message, “No Vacancy” on New Year’s Eve.    Based in prophetic book of Isaiah, the sermonic text in the first nine verses of the sixth chapter tells of what the prophet saw when King Uzziah died.

Waller said our faith shows us that there is “no vacancy” on the throne of God.  Because he’s in control, we as followers of Jesus Christ have to look upward (toward God),  inward (towards ourselves) and outward (toward others we can help). 

Our upward, inward and outward looks are reflective of the Faith Forward that Waller says we must have in 2012.  Last night’s message was followed the first Sunday sermon on the theme of Faith with a look Abraham’s faith when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering (see Genesis 22).  

Waller challenged us that when it comes to our faith,  as we start 2012 to plan on the following:

• Expect our faith to be challenged
• Focus on the promise of God and not seek justification
• Learn to depend on God to provide our needs

I was going to recover good health through continuing weight loss.  I was going to recover time by stepping down from leadership positions that require too much of my time.  I was going to recover order in my life.

I wrote 364 days ago the following:

Besides my health and my time,  I will recover order in my own life by having fewer things to do.   That means withdrawing from AT LEAST THREE leadership roles in 2011.  I am looking forward to having order because I have finally acknowledged the limitations that mandate I prioritize and cut from my agenda things that are just not humanly possible to accomplish.   Setting clear boundaries is an important step for me in 2011.

Now tonight, it’s the end of 2011 and I have miserably failed in these attempts to make the necessary changes in my life.  Does this mean 2011 was a year of failure for me?

No, I won’t go that far.  But, hindsight says there are deeper issues that prompted me to languish in my efforts at recovery.   Understanding WHY These were areas where recovery was needed is an important first step in the right direction as I consider what to do in 2012.

I believe in New Year’s Resolutions only IF There are clear, measurable ways to reach those things we resolve to do and someone to whom we can be accountable to chart our progress Month-by-month, week-by-week and even day-by-day.

I lost 4.2 pounds this week.  So the health recovery was not entirely a failure.  While year-to-year, I experienced a slight weight gain (2010 compared to 2011), the difference is one of just three pounds.  

So, in the final three hours of the year as I prepare now to watch in the new year with fellow congregants at Fourth Baptist Church this evening, I think about why Idid not recover some things in 2011 and what I must change to recover those things EARLY in 2012.  

Tonight I purchased a boatlaod of Thank You Cards because I have resolved to immediately spend some time writing to  thank those who helped me accomplish what I DID accomplish in 2011.  It’s never too late to say thank you.   

Recovery relationships that have deteriorated due to lack of maintenance is another area that I must give immediate attention in the opening days of the new year. 

The reflection continues.   I must have an update by the time we reach 2012. 

Looks like we have the rare opportunity in the Birmingham (Ala.)  television market  to see a “classy” way for a local TV news anchor to exit his position.

In the local television news business, anchors and reporters change stations more often than some of us change shoes.

Usually, there will be a brief farewell on the person’s last on-air appearance and then the person disappears.  And sometimes, management will stipulate “no on-air goodbyes.”

Alabama’s 13 has decided to allow Chris Pollone, an 11-year veteran at the Media General-owned NBC affiliate, to do a series of farewell-oriented reports during the 10 p.m. newscast this week.

Pollone announced today that he’s leaving the area after getting married in a couple of weeks.  He and his new wife will be living in New York City.

I caught the first of his farewell stories tonight.  It focused on the sports stories he’s enjoyed covering over his decade plus one at the Birmingham station.  Tomorrow night’s installment is supposed to be about Pollone’s favorite foods.

Is this news?  Not really.  But, it’s Christmas week and there’s not a lot going on.    So why not?

Pollone’s Legacy?

Since we’re talking about Pollone’s departure, it’s worth asking, what will be Chris Pollone’s legacy in Birmingham TV?

During his 11 years, WVTM has been through at least one ownership change and numerous anchor shake-ups.  Only a few years ago, it was NBC 13.  Now it’s known as “Alabama’ 13.”

When I first met Pollone, it was over e-mail as I queried him about stories he produced in his 10 p.m. newscast.    He was always kind in engaging me, in spite of my pesky questions.

I think AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT is a must for broadcasters.  Pollone has shown how to do that well and built an audience around his content.

Even his competitors interact with him on Twitter. I’m curious after he leaves WVTM, what will happen to his Twitter handle?  @ChrisAla13.  Will he have to start over building back up to the more than 2,000 followers he has now?

Pollone’s also mastered how to do News and SPORTS well.  Few in the business can do that very well, especially in the Birmingham market.

On a personal note as a journalism professor now, I have appreciated what he’s done to take up time with our students who are coming along behind him.

In one case, at least one of my University of Alabama students attributes her exposure to the broadcast news business based on Pollone’s encouragement and mentoring.

These are some of the things I think Pollone will be remembered for as he departs the nation’s 39th largest television market.

Where Should Pollone Land Next?

In his on-air an announcement tonight, Pollone made it clear that he is not sure where he will land next?   But, he alluded to the fact that he hopes to stay in this career track.

Might he make the jump from Market Number 39 to the Number-1 TV market?   In this day in time, stations in top-ten markets are hiring what are known in the business as “one-man bands”   Pollone is well-acquainted with this way of reporting.

Maybe he ends up on one of local network owned-and-operated stations as a digital journalist or all-platform journalists.

Marriage is on his mind right now.  But, after the wedding cake is gone and excitement of making this life change has worn off, Pollone should end up on the air somewhere soon.

The New York local stations (or their network operations) could probably learn a lot from this versatile, cross-platform reporter who loves Syracuse University.   Maybe he’ll end up like Bill FItzgerald, who left WVTM several years ago for a stint at MSNBC and now is the main anchor in my hometown of Richmond, Va. at my former TV station, WTVR-TV, the CBS affiliate.

Hey, Bristol, Connecticut is a mere two-hour drive from “The Big Apple.  It would be a heck of a commute.  But, ESPN would not be a bad place for Pollone to land.

We’ve grown to love watching him here in Birmingham and will miss seeing him on the air.

Best wishes Chris!

The longtime pastor has outlasted most who’ve come and gone  from pulpits in the hundreds of churches in Virginia’s state capital. 

Jones’  message was delivered less than a mile from his church on Lamb Avenue and only a few blocks from First African Baptist Church, whose members joined those from Trinity and Triumphant in a Thanksgiving tradition that goes back longer than 20 years.

Today was the first time in more than a decade that I was able to renew this tradition of attending the Thanksgiving Service, which rotates between the three churches whose pastors take turns each year bringing the Thanksgiving Day Message.   Setting with my uncle his fiance and my mother, I was reminded of the times that I was brought to this fellowship service as a child.

“Every day is a day of Thanksgiving,” Jones said.”We as Christians who are born again in the newness of light don’t need a special day because every day is Thanksgiving.”

He used the words of Psalm 92 and story of King David as recounted in the book of Chronicles to depict the Biblical imperative to give thanks. 

“Sometimes we are so busy  asking that we don’t take the time to thank God for what He’s already done,” Jones said.

More than 300 packed the Trinity Baptist sanctuary, which is located at 2811 Fendall Avenue.

Hearing Dr. Jones’ message and the words of both Trinity’s pastor, Dr. A. Lincoln James, Jr. and my own home pastor, Dr. Rodney Waller really put me in the right frame of mind for this traditional holiday that often gets overlooked by the rush for Christmas.

For CNN, O’Brien’s address here comes four days before the worldwide premiere of the next “Black in America” documentary.    “Black in America:Silicon Valley, the New Promised Land” airs this Sunday, Nov. 13.

We are likely to see CNN Special Correspondent Soledad O'Brien build on some of the points from her latest book in tonight's address at University of Alabama.

For the University of Alabama, O’Brien’s visit falls in the same week as a statewide diversity enhancement conference involving administrators, faculty and staff from 12 of the state’s 14 colleges and universities.

Monday’s event was targeted at those responsible for such things as hiring faculty, allocating budgetary resources and improving the overall climate for diversity on our state’s campuses.

Tonight, our nearly 32,000 students will be the target of much of what we expect the former “Today Show” anchor and Harvard graduate to address in her talk entitled “Diversity: On TV, Behind the Scenes and In Our Lives.”

It’s been just over a year since the University of Alabama paid tribute to Autherine Lucy Foster, James Hood and the late Vivian Malone Jones, the three African-American students whose enrollment represented UA’s first steps toward desegregation.

We won’t soon forget the November 3, 2010 dedication of the Malone-Hood Plaza and Autherine Lucy Clock Tower.

But, across the country, Alabama’s been cast in somewhat of a negative spotlight the last few months because of HB 56, a law aimed at curbing illegal immigration in our state.   Governor Robert Bentley now says the law needs to be simplified.

As an Afro Cuban, Soledad O’Brien has brought authenticity to the discussion of the national debate over immigration reform.   Here in Tuscaloosa,  standing room only crowds gathered to discuss her 2008 documentary
“Latino in America”

While the numbers were much smaller for last month’s discussion of “Latino in America 2: In Her Corner,” the passion of the student panel of three Hispanic students who told their stories was just as strong as the central figures in the documentary.

Tonight’s much-anticipated visit by O’Brien allows us to the discussions about race and ethnicity outside of a single classroom and engage an entire campus, which itself has been mired in controversies that remind us that there is work to be done to promote the University as a welcoming environment for everyone.

Additionally, for journalists like myself who are charged with preparing the next generation of media practitioners, O’Brien will shine the light not only on the issues captured with her camera, but behind the camera to see the experience of the producers of these media messages.

It all happens just about 12 hours from now.

Looking back at the panels and the papers presented as well as our keynote last night, these FIVE Points come to mind:

1.  Convergence is not about the tools, technology or legacy media, it’s about the audience and its role.

2. Modeling of What Convergence is still needs to be done with both theoretical development and new data-gathering.

3. Digital Media and their own sustainability are now worthy of discussion and dialogue.

4. There is still a digital divide when it comes to multimedia or convergence journalism education.

5. Longitudinal Research may be harder to come by, especially when media outlets have a “no survey” policy.   What are the implications of this for future convergence/multimedia research?

On the second day of this 10th convergence gathering, we saw both of these phenomena as results of the third installment of a longitudinal study on cross-platform partnerships were presented this morning.

Jake Batsell

SMU Researchers Camille Kraeplin and Carrie Anna Criado started researching convergence in newspapers and television newsrooms in 2000.   Today, Kraeplin continues to do that work and has a new team member– Jake Batsell, who joined the SMU faculty after a stint at The Dallas Morning News.

According to data gathered earlier this year, platform-specific partnerships have become less relevant and are falling out of favor.

“Newsrooms are accepting the public as their convergence partner,” Batsell said.

Batsell presented the latest results at the conference this morning after doing the third survey earlier this year.  The first phase of the research was based on data collected in 2002-2003 and the second in 2004-2005.

It is notable that fewer newspapers responded to the 2011 survey and that several television stations, particularly those that are part of the Fox Broadcast Group, have implemented a “no surveys” policy.

Cory Armstrong

Not only was Batsell new to the crew presenting at this conference, the moderator for the session, Cory Armstrong is also a first-time attendee.

Armstrong is the associate editor of Mass Communication & Society, one of the leading academic journals in the mass communication field.

The results from the Kraeplin & Batsell research followed an earlier presentation based of a Model for Converged Journalism, which Virginia Tech’s Jenn MacKay based on Josh Meyrowitz’s Information System Theory.

“I think this is a testament to the enduring impact of this conference,” Batsell said.   “We’re really re-thinking convergence as a result of this conference.  I think that’s exciting.”

Thursday night  the former newspaper editor and writer of the widely read “Stop the Presses” Editor & Publisher Column for more than 10 years, told those here at the Convergence & Society Conference how eBooks may replace college textbooks in two years while poking fun at newspapers and magazines that still make it more expensive for customers who don’t want their print editions.

On his web site, Outing describes himself as “a thought leader in the online media industry and on news innovation and digital transformation.”  And in spite of a recent bike accident that kept him grounded in Colorado, Outing delivered some thoughts that still have me scratching my head.

Steve Outing of Digital Media Test Kitchen delivered a keynote address at USC's Convergence Conference via Skype Thursday night. A bike accident kept him grounded in Boulder, Colo.

As a national board member of the Society of Professional Journalists, I, along with many of my fellow journalism educators, have spent the last year or so, criticizing the officials at CU-Boulder for dismantling the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

While the University proceeds with the formation of a new “college of information, communication, media and technology,” many of us outside of Boulder hold the institution up as an example of WHAT NOT TO DO if we want to preserve the future of journalism

Even so,  Outing’s Digital Media Test Kitchen is cooking up some ideas that, like it or not, we journalism educators who mostly worked in legacy media outlets (newspapers, radio and television stations), have to at least taste.

“It’s fairly new and we’re still finding our way,” Outing said in describing his applied research center.  ”A big part of it is we’re collaborating with other parts of the University as well as local and non-local start-up companies.”

So far, the Digital News Test Kitchen has been researching new business models for college media that don’t involve a print edition, developing news games and tackling issues such as news source quality and credibility, article veracity and accuracy.

Among the ideas about sustainable news organizations in this period of digital transition Outing let us sample from his Test Kitchen Thursday were the following:

• Newspapers should be more like The Guardian, which has committed 80% of its resources on its digital edition while only spending 20% on the print edition
• Newspapers are doing a much better job than magazines of producing recyclable versions of their print editions
• The quick adoption of tablet computers and the public’s embrace of eReaders suggest the time for students using just eBooks as textbooks is a couple of years away
• eReaders present an awesome opportunity for those producing news
• The next big thing that we need to be looking at is the environmental impact of digital media

Outing noted that he was affiliated with what he called an “infamous journalism program that last year was a School.”

Whatever CU-Boulder does with its program, Outing’s Test Kitchen may represent the wave of the future both in form and message– academic units without the “journalism-centric” nameplate that are not just embracing, but accelerating the demise of dead-tree editions of news publications.

I say this as I will scurry to the newsstand Friday morning to find a copy of The State newspaper, Columbia’s McClatchy-owned daily.