Reminisces

Memory is a funny thing. The older you get, the sweeter and more elusive the memories become. We tend to choose not to remember the bad things as readily as the good things. This is the reason why we refer to the past as “The Golden Years” as if it were all a bowl of cherries with no pits.

Such is the case with my first pastorate. I look back and remember with great fondness the wonderful people with whom I was blessed to serve. They loved me for the most part with an unconditional love and acceptance, letting a young minister “cut his teeth” on the ministry without a great deal of complaint regarding his shortcomings. They were and are still a very earthy people, mostly farmers by trade. They taught me much about agriculture and provided my family with a huge amount of various types of vegetables and fruits during our tenure there. In many ways, they showed us the love of Christ and probably didn’t even realize it. To this day, through our continued connections they still do.

I remember how I first candidated for the position there. I had sent my resume to the chairman of deacons at the encouragement of the son of the pastor under whom I was first ordained to the ministry. I had assumed this deacon chairman was also the chair of the church’s search committee since I was told that was the way other churches handled pastoral vacancies. (Unbeknownst to me, the church had no search committee. Or better yet, the deacon chairman was it!) Shortly after he received my information, he contacted me and arranged for me to come and preach at both of that Sunday’s services, bringing my family with me (at that time being Lori and our niece, Amy. The Lord had not yet begun sending our other five blessings.) After the morning service during lunch with the deacon chairman and his wife, I asked him about the candidating process, my resume (scant as it was) and such, to which he replied, “We heard you preach this morning and will hear you again tonight. The deacons will meet with you this afternoon to ask you some questions. If we like what we hear today, we will ask you back to preach next Sunday. Then we will vote on you after the morning service. That’s our process. No need for a resume.”

The rest is history. It was just like it was yesterday, standing outside of his home. The chairman of deacons and his wife, Mr. & Mrs. Beard, Jeff and Margie, became as much a part of our lives as anyone ever could. When Josh was born, he was considered as the Beard’s first grandchild, having none of their own at that point. Each of our children and our niece, Amy, has been treated as such ever since. Jeff has just a few years ago gone into the Lord’s presence where no doubt he is keeping the Lord in stitches with his dry sense of humor. We see Mrs. Margie every time we make a trip to southwest Georgia. She’s still a treasure to us.

Why am I taking you along with me on this trip down memory lane? There are aspects of what I have shared in the above experiences that are necessary keys to be regained if we are to recover the Evangelical branch of the Church from the pit into which she has fallen. By the term, Evangelical branch of the Church, I mean that group that affirms the Bible as the final authority of all matters of faith and life, the deity of Christ, and the need to share the Gospel of Jesus as the only means of salvation to an unbelieving world, just to name a few of its main beliefs. The Southern Baptist Convention is but one of many denominations that are representative of this group. In any case, Evangelicalism has allowed too much of the world, its culture, its business concepts, its politics, its dress, its music, its attitude, etc. into its midst and now what we have is an ill-defined grasp of what the Church really is. We are more divided than united about the very things that should make us one in Christ (see Ephesians 4:4-6) and so our witness is diminished.

The experiences that I referenced are the very things we as believers need to return to if we are to show the world the reality of what Christ meant His Church to be. We need to go back to the place where we view the Church as a ministry not as a business. There are aspects of the organization of the Church that are financial in nature and must be accomplished by good financial practices, such as accounts payable and receivable. However, the remainder of the Church should be operated as a ministry, set up according to the dictates of Scripture, not according to the latest Business News magazine or the foremost leadership guru. The Church should be run by the leading of God’s Spirit through God’s appointed and Scriptural shepherds and servants, not on the basis of the “best laid plans of mice and men.”

Secondly, the foundation of all the Church’s actions and practices should be unconditional love for one another. Jesus Himself stated, “By this all men (the outside world) will know that you are My disciples, if you have love (Jesus’ love) for one another” (rf. John 13:35). This love should not just be an anaemic “I love you in Christ” as so many do today and yet persist in divisiveness and mean-spiritedness toward another. The true love of Christ is a love borne out of self- and mutual understanding that results in true unity within the body of Christ. It is a love that overlooks each other’s faults and really addresses each other’s needs whether they be spiritual or physical.

Apply the above and the Church will not only be the Church that Christ has called us to be, she will be the Church that changes the world once again. Such a Church will be as “counter-cultural” as the hippies were in the 1960s, grasping attention, refusing to be compromised in message or in goal. This would be the Church against such “the gates of hell shall not prevail” as per Christ’s own prediction (rf. Matthew 16:18). May such a Church arise again today and may it begin with us. May the love of Christ, the commitment to His Word, and the necessary power of His Spirit make it so.