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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There’s the wonder of sunset at evening,

The wonder of sunrise I see;

But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul

Is the wonder that God loves me.

The words from George Beverly Shea’s song came to mind as I gazed at the solar eclipse yesterday. Those of us very near the full path saw, once again, the awe-inspiring handiwork of creation. The precision of the heavenly bodies that surround us. The incredible power of sunlight to warm us, burn us, or permanently scar our vision, blocked by the darkness of the whole moon because the moon is not a source of light on its own. All of us were wearing or sharing the funny little paper and foil glasses that were invented to save the eyes of millions of people looking toward the sun in the middle of the day. O the wonder of it all!

Just as the eclipse was beginning, I stopped in a fast-food place near the church to pick up my to-go lunch and headed to the church. It was time for a picnic. I collected a folding chair, put my lunch on a cart and rolled it out to our new pavilion. I sat in the shade, moving into the light to see the first “bite” of the moon. For the thirty minutes around the peak of the eclipse, I sat facing the sun and meditating on the majesty of God. (Psalm 8 and Hebrews 1-2.) Apparently having a “solar eclipse tan” today earned bragging rights for some. My face just burned lightly. I heard the noisy birds go quiet and noticed the odd coloring of the buildings and trees around me. As the sun grew bright again, I slowly gathered my things and went back inside. What a beautiful day to know that millions of others were sharing this glorious moment together.

There’s the wonder of springtime and harvest,

The sky, the stars, the sun;

But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul

Is a wonder that’s only begun.

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

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There is an endless, unseen battle taking place in our church parking lot. I see the evidence of it at random times during the week. Cars quietly make their way over to our air-conditioning cooling tower, park for a little while, then drive away. An unseen artificial intelligence program has designed that area as a Pokèmon Go Gym. Pokèmon Go is a worldwide game played on hand-held devices such as phones and computer tablets. With your device in the right spot a player can see the other pokèmons—picture a cartooned short-eared rabbit crossed with say a cat, horse or dragon. At a gym, players can battle for control over other pokèmon players, winning power enhancements and points. The longer the winning pokèmon can stay in the gym before being defeated by someone else, the more points and rewards can be achieved. This is not just a children’s game. Adults are driving all over town to win more battles over opposing forces. Pokèmon Go takes a great deal of time and energy. 

When I asked our resident family experts to explain Pokèmon Go to me, they suggested this might not be a very interesting topic for everyone. However, I was also thinking about other unseen forces battling it out in the church parking lot, in neighborhoods and in homes across the land. Forces that cannot be seen with hand-held devices, but only with eyes of discernment and hearts of compassion. Evidence of evil activity is relatively easy to discover. Spiritual battles with victories won may be harder to see. One day an angry king’s army surrounded a town by night, intent on killing the Lord’s prophet. Rising early, a servant saw the strong army preparing for the attack. After praying for God to open his eyes, the prophet told his servant to look again, this time the man could see the angelic army, equipped and ready for action against the foes. (2 Kings 6:8-23)

Pokèmon Go is a fun game with an endless array of characters and teams. It challenges people to enter the quest and win personal rewards. The game stimulates our need to see and feel everyday victories over the forces lined up against us. For more details on Pokèmon Go, feel free to consult with the gaming experts you may know. For spiritual victories, look again through the lens of God’s Word into the world around you.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today, with open eyes. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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