Dallas-area pastors urged members Sunday to celebrate Barack Obama's inauguration as a historic milestone that can lead to greater racial unity.

Preachers recalled the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders that made Obama's election possible. Martin Luther King Day today precedes Obama's inauguration as the country's 44th president on Tuesday.

"We're standing at the edge of a new future," said the Rev. Tyrone Gordon, senior pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in East Dallas. "As Dr. King did, the president-elect inspires the young and old, male and female, people of all races the world over. He lets us know that barriers can be overcome."

The Rev. Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship urged people, regardless of their political views, to support Obama.

"Our responsibility is to do all we can to make sure his success is our success and that we share in the blessings of this hour," he said. "We hope the divisions that marked us in the past will not be the divisions that mark us in the future as we move forward."

Some pastors warned congregants that Obama's inauguration doesn't signal the end of racial strife.

"We are far from God's promised land," said the Rev. Joe Clifford of First Presbyterian Church of Dallas. "The sin of racism continues to distort our world. ... Generations of institutional racism, including slavery, the intentional dismantling of the family unit, segregation, and the effective segregation today given the nature of the public school system, are not fixed by the election of Barack Obama."

Many churches, including St. Luke's Methodist and Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, are showing the telecast of Obama's swearing-in ceremony Tuesday morning for members and guests.

Bridgette Gibson, who attended St. Luke's Sunday, said she will travel to Washington, D.C., to attend the inauguration.

"It gives me hope," she said. "I really think this is the true essence of the United States being united. It's not just about one race. It took all of us for this to become a reality."

Stan Nabors, another worshipper at St. Luke's, agreed.

"This is an exciting time, not only for African-Americans, but for all Americans," he said. "I don't think we're to the point all racism has been eliminated, but I think we've made some great strides."

Evans told congregants he'll speak at an inaugural prayer breakfast in Washington today. He said he was unsure whether Obama would attend.

Evans said he sees the breakfast as a "great opportunity to connect the spiritual with the political and the social."

"We will seek, to whatever degree we can, to influence him [Obama] to a biblical worldview," Evans said in an interview.

"God created politics and government, and he should have a say in how [government] functions."

Gordon said he believed God had intervened in history with the election of Obama.

"Because I am a person of faith, I do not believe in fate, chance and luck," he said. "I believe in divine destiny. God is trying to tell us something, and I hope we don't silence the divine voice. He has opened a door that some said would never be opened to a person of color in this nation."

Staff writer Sam Hodges contributed to this report.