It is a strange morning. Unlike any Sunday morning in my life. This is the first Sunday of our COVID-19 closure. I am at church expecting no one to come. No classrooms will be filled, the sanctuary will remain silent. I am missing the happy greetings of friends arriving at church together, the purposeful scurry of leaders doing the jobs they have committed to accomplish, and my anticipation that soon I will be preaching to a people who have graciously come to listen.
I know there are many pastors who are having the same experience today. Like me, they have spent the week carefully listening to government proclamations, contacting health agencies, finding the best medical advice, talking to other clergy and church leaders, considering options, and most of all, praying in order to make the difficult decision to suspend services.
It is not an easy decision to ask the church not to gather as the Body of Christ on our chosen day to study, worship, pray, and share the love we have for God and for each other. Coming together is so central to being the church that we cannot imagine not spending the first day of each week with fellow believers. So why take such a dramatic action?
I understand the epidemiological and medical reasons for the large-scale cancellations we are seeing. We are at a critical juncture when this virus becomes a community-spread germ instead of an infection traceable to specific encounters. Public health agencies are asking for social distancing at this point to prevent an explosion of cases severely impacting medical facilities as seen elsewhere in our world.
But there is another layer of consideration that is more significant to our core values as a community of faith. We are cancelling services as an act of love. First, it is a loving act for our fellow believers in our community of faith. We can say, “Don’t come if you feel ill, are over 65, are in a high-risk group, or have been around sick people.” But the desire to see friends, fulfill obligations, a sense it can’t happen to me, or just plain good habits often overrule thoughtful decision making. Sometimes collective wisdom in more important that individual choice. We are loving one another by not exposing vulnerable individuals to the possibility of infection. Our care for sisters and brothers in Christ necessitates that we sacrifice in this significant way.
Secondly, canceling services is an act of love for our world. “Love your neighbor,” we are commanded by Jesus. As governments and medical institutions struggle to deal with the threat of this pandemic virus it is our ministry of loving our neighbors that leads us to step forward and set an example. We are making necessary sacrifices to follow government agency guidelines in slowing the spread of COVID-19 because we love our neighbors, our community, our world.
I don’t know how many Sunday mornings I will spend alone at church, I don’t know the impact this pandemic will have on our community. I don’t know when “normal” will become normal again. But I do know this. There is no greater force at work in our world than the love of God. And we, at First Baptist Church, are going to do everything we can to be a part of expressing that love in our church and to our world.
Category Archives: The Future
A Strange Morning
Filed under Church, God, Grace, Love, Making a Difference, Morrow, Pastor, The Future
New Opportunities
Last Sunday I had the very great privilege to receive a call from the First Baptist Church of Morrow, Georgia, to become their pastor. It is an opportunity that I have been eagerly anticipating. It is a marvelous thing to have confidence in having discovered and be following God’s will in moving to Morrow and beginning this new relationship.
Let me share some things that have impressed me about First Baptist, Morrow. One is a solid commitment to be an agent of change in its neighborhood though sharing the love of God in a variety of ways. This clear vision of God’s calling for the congregation, already articulated through ministries, will continue to be a guiding commitment in the future.
Another is First Baptist, Morrow’s recognition that we are all, both women and men, gifted and called into the ministry of the church. Having ordained ministers and deacons of both genders is an essential aspect of the church’s relevancy to the world in which we live, reliance on a careful reading of God’s word, and respect for the transformational grace of God express in all who believe.
I am also impressed with the church’s ongoing commitment to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship movement while maintaining historic connections with Southern Baptist life. The respectful way that Morrow deals with each members preferences for supporting cooperative relationships with other Baptists reflects a solid understanding the priesthood of the believer and the value Baptist have always found in their diversity.
I could hardly list reasons I am excited about new opportunities at First Baptist, Morrow, without mentioning the great ministerial staff already there. I know that one of my greatest sources of joy will be building new collegiate relationships with each of them as we partner together in leadership at First Baptist.
Filed under Blessing, God, Missional, Morrow, Pastor, The Future, Transformation
Maundy Thursday, 2011
I have never waited longer to share in the Holy Meal. It is April 21, 2011. The last time Maundy Thursday took place this late in the year was April 22, 1943, the latest it is possible for it and surrounding Holy Week events to ever take place. The next year I will wait this long for Maundy Thursday will be 2038 when I will be 83 years old.
We owe this movable observance to the Hebrew lunar calendar by which the date of Passover is determined. Simply put, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. So Easter and its connected religious observances are constantly wandering around our calendar. The result is that people younger than 68, along with me, have never waited this long for Maundy Thursday before.
The wait this year focuses my attention to another wait always a part of Holy Communion. In the words of institution found in First Corinthians chapter eleven Paul says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” The last three words, “until He comes,” make every Lord’s Supper an anticipation of an other event for which we wait.
Deep in the believer’s heart is a yearning for a more complete experience of the presence of God than it seems possible to know in the midst of this world. There is always a dark edging in on the light when we stand before the table of God. Inexplicable tragedy, the fragility of life, injustice unheeded, and many other troubles are over our shoulders, waiting on us to turn and leave the Presence behind. Today I will not be able to hear, “This is my body broken…” without thinking for the thousands of bodies mangled in the debris of Japan’s tsunami.
“Until I come,” is a promise that this will not always be so. As God was present in the incarnation of Jesus, as Christ is present in the church as we gather in communion, so will the presence of God banish all else in the eternal and complete revelation of God’s redemption through the coming of Jesus Christ for which we wait.
We have had to patiently wait the coming of Maundy Thursday this year, the timing determined by the movements of heavenly bodies we do not, nor will not, control. And we will patiently wait, as people of promise, in faith, for the eternal moment whose timing we can not understand when we will be in God’s presence forever.
Filed under Church, Corinthians, Holy Communion, Holy Week, Hope, Japan, Jesus, Maundy Thursday, Paul, The Future, Waiting
Forgiveness and Hope
The link in this post will play a sermon I preached at First Baptist Church, Madison, on July 19, 2009. The texts for the day were Jeremiah 18:1-6 and John 8:2-11, the potter reforming the clay and the woman caught in adultery. The sermon focuses on the importance of forgiveness for the past in order to experience hope in the future.
Click this link to listen to the sermon: ForgivenessAndHope
Filed under Blessing, Forgiveness, Grace, Hope, Jeremiah, Jesus, John, The Future
On 125 Years
Sunday, November 1, we at First Baptist Church of Madison, AL, celebrate our 125th anniversary. In 1860 the Liberty Baptist Association, now the Madison Baptist Association, hired a missionary to be an itinerant preacher and church planter. Madison Station, a small community around a railroad stop was one of the sites where the association planned to start a new church. With the turmoil of the Civil War and the hardships of recovery it is not surprising that it took years of faithful work by the association to see that dream come about. Finally, in 1884, a group of believers began meeting every Sunday two blocks from the railroad station, right were we are today. A new church was born, now called First Baptist Church of Madison, Alabama.
As I reflect I am reminded of some aspects of our history that provide important signposts for the future. The beginning of First Baptist Church was intentional. A group of believers decided on a plan, provided the needed resources, an implemented their plan to start a church in Madison. While here is always room for the serendipitous in the unfolding of God’s will, the church is always at its best when it is intentional. Envisioning an outcome, planning a path to its fruition, provided what is needed, all theese things, an important part of who we must do as we move into our future.
The beginning of First Baptist was also missional. First Baptist was started because the Liberty Baptist Association had a mission and used that understanding to direct what they intended to do. Providing places for believers to worship, for the gospel to be proclaimed, and for ministry to extend the work of the kingdom all were what those early Baptists accepted as their mission. They not only intended to start a church in Madison, they intended to do so because it fulfilled their mission.
The beginning of First Baptist contextual as well. The clustering of settlers around a railroad station, the difficulty of travel to the nearest church, Mt. Zion Baptist, the needs of the small but growing cummunity, all these were a part of the context that framed the beginning of First Baptist Church. The context of ministry is always changing. The church as its best is able to adjust quickly to new circumstance, new challenges, and new opportunities as it constantly response to the context of ministry in which we find ourselves.
Intentional, Missional, Contextual – Three words that describe our beginnings 125 years ago. Intentional, Missional, Contextual – Three words that will serve us well as we move into our future.
Filed under Church, Contextual, History, Intentional, Missional, The Future
“You need to lead now. You know where we are going.”
This week has been a great mass of emotions all clustered around one significant event. Last Sunday Wesley, my middle child, and I left for Waco, Texas to get him moved and ready to begin his seminary education at the Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University. Every parent knows the mixture of emotions such an event evokes; sadness, joy, grief, pride, loneliness, and others. All these feelings are a part of the process of letting go of our children as they make their own way into an adult world.
One moment was particularly poignant for me, however, and unique, as Wesley not only goes off to graduate school, but takes an important step in following his calling into the ministry. We left for our long trip with two carloads of Wesley’s worldly possessions. Since Wesley had never driven to Texas, having flown in for his campus visits, I was in the lead with Wesley following behind as we made our way from Madison through Memphis, Little Rock, Texarkana, Dallas, and on to Waco. But I had never been to Baylor’s campus. So as we neared our destination I telephoned Wesley and said, “You need to lead now. You know where we are going.”
Almost immediately I began reflecting on my words not as a practical tactic for taking the right exit off the interstate but as a statement of faith. I believe that God calls new leaders for the church from each generation of believers and enables those leaders to envision new directions as we minister to an ever-changing world. “You need to lead now,” is my blessing that I give to Wesley and all other young men and women that God is calling to be the leaders of the church in a dynamic future. “You know where we are going,” is my pledge to always listen carefully to the ideas of young ministers who understand the future better than I do.
God bless you, Wesley, and God bless all your colleagues. You need to lead now. You know where we are going.
Quiet Faith 