I am always asking myself, ‘What time is it?’ That question ranks right up there with my other self-talk question, ‘What am I going to eat next?’ I wore a wristwatch for many years, except for that brief period during the post-hippie era when three-piece suits and pocket watches were all the rage. I was hard on my wristwatches. They broke or they cracked or clouded up with condensation. I resorted to having a Sunday or special occasion watch, and an everyday one. I have discovered that it is not really about the watch; it is the tyranny of the clock I am wrestling with.

​During my college days I served as song leader with Evangelist Bob Posey. We held revivals in small towns and in rural churches, mostly in Alabama. It is amazing how God puts unlikely experiences in our lives to help equip us for future service. We discovered one church that was dominated by the tyranny of time. It was an old country church near Phenix City, Alabama. (That is the correct spelling of Phenix, founded in 1830 as Girard, but re-named in the 1880’s after the local mill.) To an outsider it can be the most confusing place in America. The town proper is in both Lee and Russell Counties, Alabama, and intersects into Muscogee County, Georgia. Therein lies the time problem. Alabama is in the Central Time Zone; Georgia is Eastern Time. Crossing the street can put a person across the invisible time boundary. Phenix City tends to be on Eastern Time even though it is in Alabama. But many hardcore time purists stay on Central Time for the principle of it. When we announced that revival services started at 7:30 p.m. we had to clarify that meant 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Starting things on the half-hour was sort of a compromise in order to reach the community for Christ.

​I no longer wear a watch since I can always find the time on my cell phone. The drumbeat of time marches onward. Ephesians 5:15-16 teaches us to redeem the time, seize the opportunity, for the days are evil. ‘Hear my voice,’ says the Lord, ‘Now is the day of salvation.’ (see 2 Corinthians 6:2)

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

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Today I am picking up the story of our churches from last week. I am also re-sharing some from my message during last Sunday’s Combined Worship Service. In 2017, GracePoint Church merged with us becoming Braden Park Baptist Church. At that time we also developed a working plan, that in God’s timing, Monte Los Olivos would begin to take on more of the expenses of the facilities, with a goal to be equal partners in ministry, but with their being responsible for the buildings and grounds, which would be a reversing of our current operational system. This also included recognition of The People’s Pantry Ministry as a vital part of our ministries together.

It appears that God is opening the way for us to begin implementing that plan from 2017. A group of us met to discuss our first steps. Present were Francisco Gaona, Rodrigo Urquiza, David Dryer, Donelle Enos, Armondo Urquiza, and both pastors. We outlined a few next steps like verifying that both churches’legal documents are current and in order.

We set a goal for July 1 to begin to phase-in a new bill-sharing plan to see how things would work. We are checking with our utility companies and major vendors to see their preferred ways of receiving payment from of our churches together. When things are clarified, both of our churches will need to review drafts of an Operational Agreement as an official starting point. By intention there are three things that we are not doing:

1) We are not merging churches.

2) We are not combining budgets.

3) We are not changing either, or both, of our church names.

We are working alongside each other to promote our common ministries and mission efforts. We are working to protect our churches from “wolves” who might seek to take over or destroy our churches, especially during a time when pastorsmay change. There needs to be much preparation work behind the scenes to faithfully follow God to use both churches to proclaim a greater witness to our community, together in service

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

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At the beginning of the year 2000, after the Y2K fears had subsided, our church was asked to consider meeting with Rev. Victor Orta, a pastor in our association of churches and leader of the local Baptist Hispanic network. He had a few families that were interested in starting their own church in our neighborhood. Rev. Orta knew that we had had modest Hispanic Bible classes during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. We met a few times for careful discussions and developed a plan for going forward together. With full congregational approval, we invited this group of about 25 or 30 people to begin meeting with us starting on Palm Sunday that spring. They organized themselves as Departmento Salem, with Ariel Benetiz as their pastor/leader.  

Our people volunteered to be certified to teach English as a Second Language and held weekly sessions for about 3 years. We were able to provide some workshops where experts taught the basics of church operations, age-graded classes, and the role of deacons. We also provided how-to sessions on immigration matters, citizenship, tax requirements and keeping documents current. The children, as they felt more comfortable, joined in our Sunday School classes and Vacation Bible Schools. We led in the ordination of Pastor Benetiz and the first set of deacons including their current pastor, Francisco Gaona, who is also an original member. Soon their attendance outgrew their department room. They gathered for worship in our Fellowship Hall during the 11:00 hour. By 2009 they were consistently overflowing their space and began dreaming of forming their own congregation and finding their own church facilities. They secured an older church at Pine and Harvard, debt free from the start. They fully incorporated in 2010 as Iglesia Bautista Monte Los Olivos (Mt. Olive Baptist Church).

By 2013 the Monte Los Olivos congregation had outgrown their church building. In the meantime, we had invited GracePoint Church in 2012, to have a similar relationship with us in our facilities. By 2013, Braden Park and GracePoint began holding all our services and activities together. By early 2014 our churches invited Monte Los Olivos Church to share our facilities once again. Three separate congregations approved a new arrangement where we would start our worship Sundays at 10:00 a.m. with Monte Los Olivos beginning at 11:15. Here we are, ten years later, stronger than ever. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Praise the Lord for growth and unity. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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I do not understand Taylor Swift, but she understands today’s cultural environment. Last week she released The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, a double record album with 31 new songs. An unprecedented 1.4 million albums were sold within the first 24 hours at $15 each. The math on that is too high for me to understand. I am an older gentleman and catching all the words in her music is hard. This is her eleventh album, so there is a great deal of backstory in her music. I can listen to the album free right now. I do understand her sentiments in songs like I Can Do It with a Broken Heart, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? and Guilty as Sin? My novice assessment is that Taylor Swift is in the tradition of the confessional poet and her songs seem like a peek into her private daily journal. That is why they are so relatable to her fans, who come from all age groups. She seems to have a very strong work ethic and business sense. She understands our culture.

Seminarians are taught that for missionaries to reach any foreign people group, it is wise to learn the culture and traditions of the people as well as the language. Missions is hard because it requires work, patience, empathy and understanding. It moves us outside our comfortable ways into unfamiliar places seeking to build healthy relationships. Taylor Swift leads a cultural “church” where people gather by the thousands to sing her songs of pain and suffering, joy and love. All manner of groups gather to discuss her lyrics and piece together the timelines of her life and relationships. Her every move is watched because she has such a profound influence on a world-wide scale.  On a personal note, I believe there are parallels to Christianity which should not be ignored. The American church is in a Post Evangelical shift. The old wineskins of evangelicalism are breaking apart. The tenants of faith are being replaced by the tenants of secular politics. The confessions of faith are being replaced by the greediness of power and money. The good news of the gospel is being corrupted by meanness, cruelty, and exclusion directed towards sinners and outsiders. God loves us all. Jesus died for us all. Christ is Lord of all. Let’s always confess Jesus.

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

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Life does not always give us the chance to learn “the rest of the story.” People come and go through our daily encounters, friendships fade, people move on, we move on. Sometimes I catch myself wondering, whatever happened to some of them. Right now I am reflecting on a life that briefly intersected with mine. I learned this weekend of the passing of one of my family’s pastors at age 97. He was by all measures, a man of grace. He was the minister of the Philadelphia Baptist Church while I was in college in Birmingham, Alabama. He is most famously remembered because of his name, Charles Merry Christmas, Sr. His kind ways encouraged me as a young minister while in college. I attended as often as I could. I preached once as part of a Youth Sunday service. While my parents and sisters attended regularly, across my college years I served on the staff of two churches, supply preached in rural churches, and frequently traveled with a full-time evangelist leading the music in revivals. One of my last occasions at the Philadelphia Baptist Church was the honor of officiating at my sister Denise’s wedding. 

When we first met the Christmas family, their daughter, Joy Carol Christmas, and son, Charles Merry Christmas, Jr., were in high school.  Charles Christmas, Sr. and his wife Louise were married 65 years when she passed away. 

Dr. Christmas was called to preach during World War II at age 18. He graduated from Howard College (now Samford University) and earned his doctorate at New Orleans Theological Seminary. He was widely respected as a Bible teacher who practiced what he preached.  I learned that he pastored several churches through the years and “retired” in 1997 after seven years as a Baptist Associational Director. He served as an interim pastor and guest preacher through his mid-nineties. He wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper called Simple Truth.  Always eager to share a good word with others, he had the idea of giving away baseball caps as a witness. He had caps printed with sayings such as Jesus Christ is Lord, and my favorite, God’s Grace is Sufficient. 

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

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