Phil Stone, a former sports broadcaster and director of broadcasting for the Christian Business Men’s Connection speaks during Greenwood’s 31st annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast Saturday at The Nest Event Center in Greenwood. Stone was the featured guest speaker at the breakfast.
NOAH CRENSHAW | DAILY JOURNAL
If there’s one thing Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers wants everyone to know about the city, it’s that Greenwood accepts everyone no matter who they are.
Myers emphasized that during the city’s 31st annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast Saturday morning, the first since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The prayer breakfast is an event organized by the Christian Business Men’s Connection of Greater Greenwood, where community members, city and county officials, and some state officials gather to pray for the mayor, the city, other levels of government, schools, law enforcement and military service-members. Saturday’s breakfast was the first one in more than two years, after having been canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
During this year’s breakfast, CBMC member Don Prichard acknowledged the current state of the world after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He prayed for the invasion to end without further escalation of the conflict and that Russia withdraw from Ukraine.
Like previous years, the mayor gave a speech thanking the community for their support. Myers started the speech by saying he would start differently than he had in years past by sharing a story.
Myers had received a letter from one of his teachers at Greenwood High School. In the letter, the teacher talked about the “renewed Greenwood” and how everyone should be proud of the impression the city presents to both residents and visitors. His teacher’s approval had a special impact on him, he said.
“It comes back to who we are. It comes back to what we believe in (here) in Greenwood. … I’m confident you’ll agree that creating the best quality of life is central to what we do in Greenwood. That is what we do,” Myers said.
People often ask how they can pray for the city, and as community leaders came together to pray on Saturday, they should pray for the people serving the city. They have helped make the city what it is now, he said.
Since Myers first took office in 2011, the city has grown by more than 17,000 people. The improvements and developments being built in Greenwood are adding even more, and sometimes people forget one part about the growth — that it can be an opportunity for faith leaders to reach out to new people and show them Greenwood cares about them, too.
“The reason they’re coming to Greenwood is because we are a community that cares, that loves, that prays, that accepts everybody no matter who you are, no matter what you believe,” Myers said. “We’re here to accept you and bring you in, to work with you, worship with you and spend time with you as a family.”
“That’s what Greenwood’s about and that’s what we are here for today.”
Myers’ speech was followed by a speech by CBMC Broadcasting Director Phil Stone, this year’s guest speaker. Stone, who is from Columbus, Ohio, is a former sports broadcaster who did play-by-play for NBC Sports, ESPN and other networks. He was also an announcer for the Prime Ticket Network’s Pac-10 coverage.
Stone recounted memorable moments from his career before shifting to some of his main talking points. The networks Stone has been on tried to assemble the best collection of people to announce and produce their coverage of games, and if no one came together as a team to get stuff done, nothing would have happened. He then applied the analogy to local government.
“If we didn’t perform to the best of our abilities as a team, as a police department, as a fire department, as a … mayor’s office,” Stone said. “If we don’t come together as a team with everybody pulling their fair share, we will not get where we want to get to.”
He also encouraged the audience to not wait to be great, and later talked about how he connected with God and Jesus Christ. Stone had no church upbringing, but when he was in his 40s, he faced a rut in his life and his friends convinced him to go to church. He felt as though he accomplished everything in life, but he wanted something more, he said.
After some discussions with a pastor, who encouraged him to read a book titled “Half Time,” he realized what was next for him, and the rest is history, he said.
“In the blink of an eye, I crossed over from a life without Christ to one in which my ticket is punched for the greatest thrill ride that I could have ever imagined,” Stone said. “I had the assurance, finally, of knowing that I had the creator of the universe … on my side, on my bench, on my team.”
Later, he told the breakfast he did have some regrets when it came to who he didn’t tell about his new life with Christ. But now, he trumpets his faith everywhere, he said.
“I don’t know one person in the last 27 years … that’s a Christian today who has ever regretted accepting Christ,” Stone said. “I haven’t heard one person say that to me.”
