A Kansas City reverend and community organizer on Sunday urged Second Baptist Church's congregation to leave the so-called safety of church stained-glass windows and affect change in the community.
The Rev. Deth Im spoke to about 50 people at the church's second annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration.
He said that in a 1963 letter from jail in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote: "I had felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the south would be our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents. All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetized security of stained-glass windows."
Five months later in Birmingham, four people were killed in a Baptist church that was bombed.
"May we never get anesthetized by sitting inside the pews of a church to believe that this is what the world is like, and this is what God calls us to do. It's a myth," Im said.
"It becomes easy for us to sit in our pews and say, "Yes, we love Dr. King, and he did all the risking, and what we're going to do is we're going to talk about what he did."
He also took aim at elected officials.
"We've got a bunch of legislators who are doing whatever they want to do with their pants unzipped, and you know what their answer is? Let's make sure we put a dress code on the interns.
"We have a governor and we have a Legislature that says $7.50 an hour is what people can make, and they can raise a family on that, and it's a living wage. In the state of Missouri, 450 percent is the average interest rate on payday loans, and we believe you can charge up to 1,900 percent."
The way forward is through organized communities of faith, Im said, adding that activists need to be aware that communities are interrelated tapestries.
"Our work is not done," Im said, drawing a standing ovation at the end of his speech.
The Rev. W.T. Edmonson invited Im to speak at the church after meeting him at a Missouri Faith Voices conference.
"Rev. Im is about the business of cleaning things up," Edmonson said, adding that Im speaks to those who are in power, but also organizes people at a grass-roots level. He said Im spent considerable time in Ferguson after the unrest there in 2014.
Before Im spoke, Gail Jones told the congregation: "This is not an African-American holiday. It is the people's holiday. And it is for the young, the old, of all race, color, creeds, national origin and religion, who hold the keys to the fulfillment of Rev. King's dreams."
King endured being in jail 29 times, she said. He was stabbed, and lived under constant threat. Still, she said, he practiced what he preached about non-violence, and didn't carry a weapon to defend himself.
Non-violence, she said, is not aggressive physically, but strongly aggressive spiritually.
Second Baptist Pastor Cornell Sudduth summed up at the end of the service: "We have come a mighty long way, but there is much further to go."