An Example of Transformational Ministry

I have begun to make friends with and have great respect for Mike Queen, the long-time pastor of First Baptist Church, Wilmington, North Carolina.  Recently, FBC Wilmington went through the process of purchasing the old jail from the city.  They have turned the old jail into a ministry center.  Apparently, the church received some criticism for their plans, but went through with courage and conviction.  The result is that the center has been transformed.  And surely many lives will be as well. 

 

Here’s a story on the local news about their project: http://wect.com/Global/story.asp?s=6844768.  It’s text and a video of the newscast. 

 

I think that this is the kind of thing that churches should be about and I’m proud to know Mike.  At the end of August, I’ll be traveling down to Wilmington to visit with Mike and his staff and get a sense for what FBC does and is all about.  This is a CBF church that seems to ‘get it’ when it comes to ministry and being missional in their own backyard.

 

One well-known Christian leader wrote this to Mike:

 

 

Mike,

You and the folks at First Baptist are certainly to be commended for your foresight, insight, and faith-sight to acquire this facility and make such good use of it. You well deserve the affirmation of this opinion piece. It is another affirmation of the response of you and your congregation to God’s calling on your ministry. I am glad to count you as friend and a fellow Baptist Christian!

 

Another wrote this:

 

Mike,

In these days when many of us in the Wake Forest community, including you, are reeling from the tragic death, but always resurrection, of our basketball Coach Skip Prosser, it is so very good to get resurrection news about the transformation ministry in the old jail in Wilmington..... and the courageous ministry and leadership of you and Jim and your board and congregation of First Baptist Church, Wilmington...... this is a well written, well deserved news article. Let's always take risks, for Christ sake! Stay strong in hard places! May God's peace be within you!

 

 

Blessings,

 

Eric

How Rich Are You?

When we read the biblical accounts of the Rich Young Ruler, we feel better that Jesus is not talking about us. When we read any of Jesus' many scathing condemnations of the rich, we think about people today who are much richer than we are. That's just human nature I suppose. Most of us don't think of ourselves as 'rich'. That's a designation that belongs to people who have much, much more. Of course all of us can find someone who has much, much more. So, by that train of logic, no one is 'rich'.

How do you know who is really rich? According to Donald Kraybill in his piercing The Upside-Down Kingdom, about 10% of people in Jesus' day were in the wealthy class. The other 90% were poor. There was no middle class. Jesus, as the son of a carpenter, would have been at the top of the poor heap. So would most of his disciples: fishermen. But there was a significant and impenetrable gap between the poor and the rich. When Jesus talks about the rich, everyone would have known who he was talking about: the chief priests, tax collectors, government officials, and others who benefitted from an unbalanced economic system in which all the resources flowed upstream.

So, given that today, we have a pretty large middle class (upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, etc. notwithstanding), who is really rich? For whom will it be harder to enter heaven than thread a camel through the eye of a needle? According to the folks at www.globalrichlist.com, you might be surprised. It might be you. According to them, I am in the upper 1% of household incomes in the world. Where are you?

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 55,146,441 richest person on earth!

Good Morning!

I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's marvelous Life Together with a small group of people this summer.  In his chapter on "The Day with Others" Bonhoeffer wonders what we should be like every morning when we wake up and face another new day in the light of the resurrection.  He writes:

 

If we were to learn again something of the praise and adoration that is due the triune God at break of day, God the Father and Creator, who has preserved our life through the dark night and wakened us to a new day, God the Son and Savior, who conquered death and hell for us and dwells in our midst as Victor, God the Holy Spirit, who pours the bright gleam of God's Word into our hearts at the dawn of day, driving away all darkness and sin and teaching us to pray aright--then we would also begin to sense something of the joy that comes when night is past and brethren who dwell together in unity come together early in the morning for common praise of their God, common hearing of the Word, and common prayer.

 

Do you feel like that in the morning?  My wife says that she's thankful that I'm generally in a good mood in the morning--and most of the time without coffee.  For this I am thankful.  But I'm not sure I share Bonhoeffer's resounding praise of the glory of the dawn.  But I'm willing to have my attitude changed.

 

I've always been impressed with friends in the African-American church who share their prayer requests together and often (and sometimes repeatedly) thank God for "waking me up this morning."  You just never hear that in the 'white' church.  We take waking up this morning for granted, as much as we do cereal left in the box, a little fresh cold milk and a cup of coffee.  It's sort of our birthright I suppose.  I might be in a good mood, but I don't really ever feel thankful to have awakened this or any morning in particular. 

 

Bonhoeffer was living in a different context of course.  He was leading an underground seminary during the pre WW II Nazi Germany.  He was suspected by the German authorities for being a traitor.  So, I suppose he would be thankful for waking up after another long dark night of avoiding the SS.  But I don't think this is all that Bonhoeffer has in mind.  He is convinced that a Chrisitian should not only be thankful but feel praise and adoration in the morning because of all that it represents.  The arrival of morning is not just evidence that you have survived a night, but is the promise of another day, it's an echo of resurrection morning.  "It is the time of fulfillment, the resurrection of the Lord.  At night Christ was born, a light in the darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the Cross.  But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave. (Life, 40)" 

 

Good morning to you . . .whatever time of day it is in your life.

The mortal blogging sin

I know I've committed the mortal sin of blogging by not posting for over a month. No excuse, just got a bit out of the habit and spend much of the month of June out of town--on family vacation to the Outer Banks, on a Sunday School camping trip, to DC for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Assembly. Anyway, it's been a big month. It's good to be home for a little while.

Broadus News:
/ Saturday is the groundbreaking for our Habitat House we are building with the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club. I shared a nice breakfast meeting with them last week and met many folks with whom I'm looking forward to working. One thing they have in common with us. Both of our names are mouthfulls. Can you imagine the sign Habitat has to post at the job site, "This house brought to you by the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club and Broadus Memorial Baptist Church." Yikes.

/ The visioning process continues to proceed. Hopefully by early Fall, we will be ready to have more congregational wide conversation and participation.

/ We had our firstr Crave Experience last Wednesday. It's new to us, even those of us involved in the planning of it. So it was a learning experience, but an experience that God was in and used in the lives of at least several people in powerful ways. Always much to be thankful for.

/ Vacation Bible School is in a couple of weeks. Broadus VBS has grown every year for 4 straight years. I suspect this year will be the largest yet. Cool. But the neat thing is that every child gets personal attention and love. That's really cool.

Hope to see you soon.

Peace, Eric