Pastor's Blog: Heritage Matters
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I have learned over the course of my life that we humans are products of family systems that influence us for better or worse. Our patterns of behavior are formed over a period of time out of interactions that span the entirety of our lives (and also the lives of our ancestors!). Such influence is true not only for my relationship with my biological family; it’s also true for my church family. Consequently, hearing stories and understanding the underlying patterns of the church to which I belong helps me to know how better to respond to both challenges and opportunities we face in congregational life. It also helps me to understand why we tend to react to such challenges and opportunities in ways that are often unconscious and unintentional.
At MBBC, we are also a part of the larger Baptist family, and we are proud of it. However, we don’t talk enough about what that part of identity means, at least not to the point that we are always able to celebrate our victories and avoid repeating our mistakes. Our Baptist heritage explains a lot about what is good about our congregation as well as about what sometimes leaves us scratching our heads.
We’ll have the chance to revisit that story this Sunday morning when we welcome Dr. Walter B. (Buddy) Shurden to our pulpit for a combined worship service at 10 a.m. Dr. Shurden is Minister at Large with Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and an esteemed Baptist historian. During the morning sermon he will call attention to how our MBBC story connects to both our larger Baptist and Christian stories. Then, in the afternoon, he will lead us in a two-hour seminar at 4 p.m. on our Baptist distinctives, which will be followed by a light dinner at 6 p.m. for those who can stay.
Not only will this Sunday’s activities be the launch events for our yearlong “75th Anniversary” celebration, they will also lead to the implementation of one of our Vision 2020 Discipleship strategic objectives: “Offer opportunities for members to learn the…basics of Baptist history.” Dr. Shurden was my Baptist History professor in seminary and served on the committee that approved my Th.M. thesis: “An Analysis of the Hermeneutic of the Southern Baptist Convention Sermon in Selected Periods of Biblical Controversy: 1925, 1963, and 1970”. If you’re interested, the Readers Digest version of my thesis was that the signal theme in each of those sermons was the primacy of evangelism and missions, a theme which always managed to hold the SBC together in contentious times. If only the fundamentalist leaders of the SBC in the 1990’s had followed the same path, perhaps Baptists in the South might still be together today. But that’s another conversation for another day.
Our conversation for this Sunday will instead focus on questions like: “Why don’t we have bishops in the Baptist Church (which assumes there is such a thing as a ‘Baptist Church’ with a capital C)?” “Why can’t we all agree on the same interpretations of Scripture?” “Why can’t students pray in public schools?” “Why don’t I have to go through an ordained minister to know God’s will and experience Christ’s forgiveness?” As you can already see, these sorts of things do matter. They matter a lot.
So, I look forward to seeing you this Sunday for this important kickoff of what I know will be a great year. I am proud to be a Christian, a Baptist, and a member of Mountain Brook Baptist Church. I trust that after our time together Sunday, you will feel the exact same way.
“See that no one is…like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son” (Hebrews 12:16).