One of the true joys of faithful churches is found in the opportunity to plant new churches. Our church has been blessed to help organize three strong churches: Belview, Southwood, and Monte Los Olivos. Each of these congregations was born out of a committed group of lay leaders who saw a greater vision for God’s kingdom. I highlighted in 2022 the remarkable vision of our church to send nearly 100 members, in concert with our local association of churches, to plant the Belview Baptist Church on north Yale Ave.

Tulsa’s Southwood Baptist Church is a story of faith, adversity, and victory. In 1975, our church, under the leadership of J. Ray Smith, one of our deacons, outlined a vision for a new congregation in southeast Tulsa. Mr. Smith had located a piece of property on 41^st Street south near where Highway 169 would one day be extended south. I was on the Missions Committee of our Association at the time. One of our tasks was to locate and purchase future property for new church starts. The association soon purchased the property. In August of 1976, I received a phone call concerning a possible new mission start. I met with the fledgling church group and subsequently our church voted to help them become a new church. Our church led the organizing council in September 1976. They met for a while at the former Mayo Elementary School, but later we invited them to share our facilities while they raised the funds to build on the 41^st streetproperty.

In the late 1980’s, Southwood found themselves in a financial crisis due to a balloon payment due on their church bonds, and the savings and loans banking crisis across the country. Our church stepped up to help them weather that stormby endorsing a plan for refinancing their debt. It never cost our church any money, just faith and much prayer. Southwood has always been known for its community outreach with the nearby Roy Clark Elementary school, providing hospitality with food and clothes, English as a second language classes, and as a lighthouse of wise counsel for those needing salvation and renewal. Sunday, September 27th, Southwood Baptist Church will celebrate its 50^th Anniversary. What a fellowship!

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Share the joy. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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​This week marks the 25th anniversary observance of the 9/11 attack on the United States. I am always surprised by the emotions I feel about a story from long ago that I thought I knew so well. We reflected on the on-going impact of that day duringlast Sunday’s service. Dorothy and I, along with our daughters,visited the Memorial site in 2018. While we were in New York City, Dorothy and I attended the Broadway show, Come From Away. It is a musical play based on a true story of the days following the attack. 

​Come From Away is about the little community of Ganger, Newfoundland, the home to a little-used international airline refueling station. On September 11, 2001, every airplane going or coming to the U.S. was required to land immediately. The Ganger runway was big enough to land some of the international flights. In fact, 7,000 passengers, including infants and crew members from 38 airplanes, found themselves stranded in Ganger with nowhere to go and nothing to do. This story tells of the generous and heroic efforts of the townspeople to open their homes to these strangers in distress. And no one knew for how long they would be stranded there. Or the fact that nearly all the planes had animals on board! And of course, manyinternationals did not speak English or French Canadian. “Come from aways” are what Newfoundlanders call visitors. You can watch some clips of the production on the internet. 

​This is the story of people rising to meet a dramatic and uncertain situation. It brings to life the power of hospitality to transform times of distress to the good. Hospitality is the power to bless others. In the play, there are themes centered around fear and grief, neighborly love for strangers, with a kind of loaves and fishes quality about it all. The passengers were sheltered for5 or 6 days. At the end of the performance we attended, during the standing ovation, a small group of young people in front of us clapped vigorously. One young lady exclaimed for all to hear, “I have never been so proud to be a Canadian!”  

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Bless the come from aways you encounter. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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Several have been asking how I have been doing these days. I have nothing to hide —transparency is always best — but I also don’t want to generate pity. No matter what, we keep looking to Jesus with gratitude, but these past several months for me have been really challenging.

Since March, I have had to be bedbound more than not. In fact, I typically only have a few hours a day when I can be on the wheelchair to work on my computer. It is getting harder and harder for me to be on Facebook or Zoom. Even using WhatsApp on my phone has become challenging.

Worse, physical decline from multiple sclerosis keeps happening. Weakness increases; dexterity decreases. Muscle spasms keep getting worse. As I begin to adapt to a new normal, the bar keeps lowering. It is not uncommon now during times of great weakness to have to be spoon fed. Such needs show me that I deal with some arrogance because I just don’t like it at all. “Dear Lord, I am 51. Not 101.”

The greatest difficulty is not being able to serve others like I want. Certainly not in person and less and less virtually. But I cannot stay here — in this place of self-pity — because there is still much to do. Much for which to be thankful. After focusing on Scripture passages, I have many hours a day to pray. I have several hours a day to listen to audio books from the library.

I have greatly enjoyed hearing autobiographies and biographies from those serving in Kenya like Charles Mulli, China like Charlotte (Lottie) Moon, and India like Sundar Singh. I have heard memoirs from those like Pope Francis, Beth Moore, and even those like the Dalai Lama. I have heard memoirs from Muslims, both from those who have begun following Jesus and from those who never have. We pray that they encounter Him soon!

There are billions across the nations who need to know that they have been lovingly created. Come, Lord Jesus! Come and deliver and save!

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I last shared a reflection on The Lord’s Prayer from an unknown author for the May 23, 2025 edition of The Evangel. You can find it at our church website, www.BradenPark.org. This week I want to write about the requests made in this prayer Jesus taught His disciples. All true prayers begin at a place of personal humility and continue in that spirit through to the end. Jesus’ prayer is no exception. His very first request, or ask of God, is Hallowed be Thy name. This echoes the commandment not to take the Lord God’s name in vain—to misuse it or profane it. Rather it’s a request to recognize that invoking the Lord God’s name is a holy and sacred privilege. 

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, is both an invitation for the Lord’s immediate presence in our daily living, but also for the earthly governing structures of our times to be overthrown. This is a treasonous prayer in the eyes of those who would lord over the kingdoms, people, land and resources of our world. Replacing the structures of our world with the heavenly order of justice and peace is a revolutionary request.

Give us this day our daily bread reflects the gift of manna in our wilderness journeys in this world. It reminds us that we are not as self-sufficient as we pretend to be. We are not the source of life or sustenance. It teaches us the provision of God. Forgive us our sins (debts/trespasses) is the confession of our sinfulness, and the ways we have not only fallen short of God’s standards, but an opportunity to name our sins, recognizing the hold our sins have on our lives. As we forgive those who sin against us points out our unresolved conflicts, stored-up hurts and bitterness, and the release that comes only with forgiveness. How long can you hold a grudge? How willing are you to forgive like God does?

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil is the asking for God-directed steps as we map out our day. It recognizes the habitual opportunities that take us off the pathway, as well as the overwhelming calls and urges to walk away from the Lord completely and surrender to evil. Deliverance comes by surrendering to God’s Holy Spirit.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Ask humbly. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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When did you last experience a time of serenity? Serenity is defined as a state of utter calm and unruffled repose or quietude. (Miriam-Webster) It is unhurried peacefulness. The familiar Serenity Prayer was first written for a sermon by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) in the early 1930’s. Niebuhr was a Reformed Protestant pastor who came to notice in Detroit as he advocated for the causes of the working man and opposed the forces of bigotry in all its forms. He became a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York for more than 30 years. His writings have influenced many prominent leaders of our time. But it is this prayer for Serenity that has influenced most directly millions of people. Popularized as a key element in the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, it is also known as the AA Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life

 and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen

Like the simple prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, this prayer also begins at a place of personal humility. In the more generic terminology of AA, recognizing a Higher Power and that we are not that power. This is a prayer to slow down emotionally and not get too far ahead of ourselves. To look for the light even in the darkest struggles. It is a call for insight, mindfulness and a clearer perspective of the beauty, goodness and strength within and around us. Niebuhr wrote this prayer reflecting on Christ’s way of the cross and the need to accept suffering as a path to inner peace; the embrace of faith to see us through and the hope that a better life is before us.

 Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Seek serenity. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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