Thomas Campbell's 250 year-old pulpit serves as centerpiece for Unity Forum in Austin, Texas.

Thomas Campbell's pulpit was the centerpiece where the University Avenue Church of Christ and Central Christian Church in Austin, Texas, hosted the 2nd Annual Greater Austin Stone-Campbell Forum on Christian Unity, July 11th and 12th, 2009. The pulpit originated in a small Presbyterian Church in Ahorey, Northern Ireland, where Thomas Campbell was the second preacher to fill the space behind this hand-crafted piece of pine.  The pulpit stood in the Ahorey congregation for another 150 years, before being replaced by new furniture and moved to the Orangemen's Lodge of Ahorey to be used for occasional religious services in their lodge hall.

Fast forward to the 1980s when Dr. Ed Enzor, an ACU communications professor, and his wife Norma formed a relationship with Dr. Alfred R. Scott.  Dr. Scott had just retired from the lead ministry position at the Ahorey Church.  Eventually the pulpit arrived at Abilene Christian University and was used during the 1986 Lectureship entitled "The Living Restoration."  Since that time, the pulpit has remained on permanent display in the Center for Restoration Studies at ACU. For the first time since 1986 the pulpit left its home when it was delivered to and returned from Austin for the Stone-Campbell Forum on Christian Unity.

Participants inculded in the dialogue included: Dr. Jeff Peterson, from the Austin Graduate School of Theology;  Dr. D. Newell Williams, President of Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University; Dr. Robert Rea, from Lincoln Christian University and Seminary;  Dr. Michael Sweeney, President of Emmanuel School of Religion; Dr. Leroy Garrett, Restoration Movement historian, writer, and speaker; Dr. Jack Reese, Dean of the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University; Dr. Eddie Sharp, Preacher from the University Avenue Church of Christ, Austin, Texas; B.J. Pierce, Chairman of the Greater Austin/Central Texas Area Stone-Campbell Dialogue Committee.