A message from the pastor…

Overnight and today we are watching the horrific video footage following the devastating storms that trampled many communities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia yesterday.  Many of us have been busy contacting friends and family members to check on their safety. Others of us have already learned of friends who lost homes, businesses, and loved ones.

At our house, in addition to thinking about our many friends who were affected in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Cullman, Amanda and I are grieving over the destruction inflicted on the Williams Community, our former place of service, where at least two lives were taken and multiple homes were destroyed when one storm followed a similar path to the Palm Sunday tornado of 1994.

Our First Baptist Family is no stranger to storms.  As veteran survivors of successive storms in recent years, we can identify with the grief, the loss, and the monumental challenges facing our neighboring states in the days ahead.  Today I am calling on our First Baptist Family to respond in the following ways:

PRAY!  Pray for those who are hurting and grieving.  Homes can be rebuilt, but loved ones cannot be replaced.  We serve a God who is "our refuge and strength, a very present help in our time of trouble."  Pray for those whose lives were turned upside down to discover renewed hope in the aftermath of the storm, and pray for  relief and recovery workers to labor with cooperation and perseverance.

GIVE! Consider giving a generous financial gift to assist with rebuilding following this disaster.  Make your check to FBC Pensacola and designate it Disaster Relief.  All gifts given through FBCP will be channeled through our existing mission partners in Alabama.

GO!  In the days ahead, we will be assembling teams to assist with the relief work in Alabama.  Today we are working with leaders in Alabama to assess the needs.  We know that this will be a lengthy clean-up and rebuilding effort, much like the aftermath of Katrina.  Our hope is to target a specific area for partnership.  Stay tuned for opportunities to participate on a Disaster Relief Team in the weeks ahead.

I am honored to serve a loving, praying, and caring church family. 

With continuing prayers for our neighbors,

Barry

Celebrating Our Heritage

This Sunday is Heritage Day at First Baptist.  During each worship service, we will recognize members of our Heritage Club, individuals who have been members of First Baptist Church for 50 years or more.  We are the beneficiaries of a potent heritage of mission and ministry because of the investment of these veteran Christians who have served the Lord faithfully across the generations, serving as our living examples of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

As we approach Heritage Day, we are reminded that our history and our future are birthed from the same Spirit, but they are not identical twins.  At First Baptist we celebrate our heritage by appreciating our senior saints and giving thanks to God for the effective ministries of yesteryear.  We can embrace our future by listening to the Spirit’s creative leadership for our day and by following God’s commission for us to be faithful servants in our community, faithful managers of all our resources, and faithful witnesses in our world.

In May as we continue learning to be doers of the word, we start our new series, Real Religion: Exploring the Book of James.  This week we are looking at the definition of “real religion” in James 1:26-27.  On Sunday evening we will meet in Chipley Hall at six o’clock for Hymns, Spirituals, and Apple Cobbler featuring the A Cappella Singers and Sanctuary Bells.

As we celebrate our heritage and embrace our future, I look forward to seeing you in worship and Bible study this Sunday.

Make the Spirit of Resurrection Contagious Among Us

T’was Easter Sunday, the full-blossomed trees filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

                                     Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This Sunday is Easter…the day designated to celebrate the greatest news in the world…” He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”

On Easter Sunday morning, I typically arise early to begin my prayer and devotional time.  In addition to wording my own prayers, I often find that prayers written by others deepen my conversation with God.  One of my favorite Easter prayers is “A Pastoral Prayer for Easter” penned by Dr. John Killinger who was a guest with us here at FBC Pensacola just a few months ago:

O God, whose love was revealed at a cross and whose power was shown at an empty tomb, our hearts swell within us at the thought of your presence.  We know that we live too often on the wrong side of Easter, worrying about things that are trivial in the light of the Resurrection of Christ. Forgive us for our lack of faith, and teach us to live more daringly, more expectantly, more joyfully. Let the discovery of the first Christians, that evil is doomed in the world, take hold of our minds and transform them into vessels of hope and excitement. Show us how to submerge our self-interests, which are small and unworthy, into confidence in your eternal kingdom, which will come despite wars and injustice, ignorance and prejudice, illness and death.  Grant that we may become your agents of conversion and commitment in the world, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for the sick, and teaching the illiterate.  Make the spirit of resurrection contagious among us, that we may honor our Lord in active discipleship.  And grant that his name may ring out in every nation, like the gladness of bells, calling men and women everywhere to the mystery of redemption in the community of faith.  For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Dr. Pleitz said it very well:  “Easter is a blessed reminder that ALL is well…we are victorious even in death.”

This Sunday is Easter. Arrive early.  Bring the whole family. Place your flowers on the flowering cross.  Be prepared to worship.  And ask God to “make the spirit of resurrection contagious among us.”

Holy Week: A Time to Re-Visit the Passion of Christ

Next week is Holy Week…a time to re-visit the passion of Christ. Around the globe, Christians and other inquirers will be reflecting on the events leading up to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  What is the significance of Holy Week and how can I probe its deeper meaning?

The tradition of observing Holy Week seems to have originated in the East, emerging out of the practice of pilgrimages to Jerusalem.  Each day of Holy Week is significant.  For those of us whose faith was shaped in a Baptist tradition, at least four days call for guided reflection. Palm Sunday is a day to revisit the royal welcome extended to Jesus by the curious crowd as he entered Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday believers recall the occasion when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as he gave them a new mandate to love and serve.  On Maundy Thursday evening, many faith communities re-enact “the last supper” when Jesus broke bread and shared the cup with his disciples by receiving the elements of communion.  Good Friday is an occasion to feel the passion of Christ and to think on the enormity of his suffering. And Resurrection Sunday, or Easter, is a festive day to celebrate and proclaim that “Christ is risen; He is risen indeed.”  

Because of the sequential significance of these events, Holy Week is best approached slowly, with a disposition of holy exploration, an attitude of sacred awe.  In Weldon Gaddy’s book, The Gift of Worship, he describes our opportunity to engage in a more meaningful experience of the passion of Christ: “Holy Week services bring into focus dimensions of discipleship that are missed completely by a simple leap from Palm Sunday to Easter. Worship services which take seriously the truths of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday please God because they challenge a greater commitment and a more effective ministry among the people of God.”

This year as you begin your spiritual journey through Holy Week open your senses and your imagination to both the tragedy and the triumph of this pivotal week in history. Take time to listen to the voices of the crowd as Jesus enters the city.  Hear again the teachings of Jesus and contemplate his days in Jerusalem.  Feel the water touch your feet, taste the morsel of bread on your tongue and the sip of wine rolling over your lips. Sense the disgust of his betrayal by a friend. Smell the stench of the scourge and hear the mocking sarcasm of the trial. Grieve over the cruel injustice of his execution and experience the passion of his incomprehensible suffering.  And ultimately…consider the mysterious power of the resurrection and the hope generated by the notion that life invested in Christ cannot be extinguished, even by the reality of death.  

The events of Holy Week invite and motivate us to follow Jesus, not out of religious obligation or fear of eternal damnation, but because we identify with his teaching and his vision, and we discover a sense of belonging in his cause and his kingdom.  A slow and deliberate journey through Holy Week may re-energize your faith and inspire you to live and serve with passion.

Our Holy Week experience begins this Sunday.  Dr. Ross Lankford will be preaching on Palm Sunday.  I will be preaching on Holy Wednesday and Resurrection Sunday. I look forward to seeing you as we re-visit the passion of Christ.

Dem Dry Bones

In both elementary school and Sunday School I remember singing the words to the popular spiritual, “Dem Bones,” written by author, activist, poet, and songwriter, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938).  The lyrics were based on Ezekiel 37:1-14 and were used to teach children about the human anatomy.  Although the song isn’t 100% anatomically correct, the lyrics are memorable and catchy:

.

Ezekiel cried, "Dem dry bones!"

Oh, hear the word of the Lord.

The foot bone connected to the leg bone,

The leg bone connected to the knee bone,

The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone connected to the back bone,

The back bone connected to the neck bone,

The neck bone connected to the head bone,

Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun'

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun'

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun'

Oh, hear the word of the Lord.

As we continue our April sermon series entitled Living Proof,  we are taking a deeper look at the themes of resurrection and renewal in Ezekiel 37:1-14 and the “Dance of the Dry Bones.”

This key story in Ezekiel is obviously more about our spiritual anatomy than our physical anatomy.  It is about the restoration of hope and the importance of re-connecting to the spiritual community. 

This is a great week to ask God to refresh and revitalize us individually and collectively as the body of Christ.  It is also an opportune week to invite someone who has become disconnected to join us for Bible study and worship, and hopefully become re-connected to our spiritual family.

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday. Based on the words of Ezekiel, I firmly believe these bones can live!