I miss being Baptist

There are some things in life that certain people see as irrelevant and some things that other folks would be willing to die for. I honestly believe that denominations is one of them. Most of us who have had any part in life within the Baptist church have heard the old "Baptist born, Baptist bred, Baptist dead" jingle at some point and now I am even hearing people replace the word Baptist with COGIC. For me it is not necessary to categorize yourself SO stringently that you practically shun and ostracize others for not being a part of your group. Now don't get me wrong; I fully believe in knowing what doctrine is vital to the establishment of your church. However, I don't feel like one should avoid fellowshipping with others over minute principles. I actually have relatives who will not talk to or worship with their kin due to denominational differences! How sad! Such rich interaction lost because of revelation, interpretation, and translation. Being one who has been a part of three different denominations (Baptist, COGIC, and Church of the Living God), I can honestly say that our similarities far outweigh our differences. With that being stated, I really miss being Baptist (or at least a part of the Baptist church)!

I was born into the Mt. Elam Baptist Church in Oklahoma City where Rev. Scottie Hudson was the pastor. Some time after that our church was graced with the placement of the Rev. Dr. T.L. Turner as pastor. According to many accounts, Dr. Turner was quite the preacher, but not so in tune with administration which led to the folding and disbanding of our church. It was at my home church that I actually realized my call to preach at the age of 7, but I had no one to talk to reaffirm the feelings that I was having. I am quite certain that I would be in a different sphere of preaching had our church remained intact, but God knows what His time and will are. Nevertheless, I miss being Baptist. I was in another family church that was Baptist in doctrine after Mt. Elam and when my family stopped attending church while I was in the 7th grade, I started attending COGIC congregations with my friends. All I knew is that I wanted to go to church and my friends were going. Eventually I was led to the Church of the Living God congregation where I have been for the last 17 years. It was here that I actually confessed my call to the ministry, preached my first sermon, received my license, received my ordination, and eventually became the Assistant Pastor, a role I have served in for the last 8 years. Despite all of these occurrences, I miss being Baptist. I did not realize how much until I came back around the brethren after I started preaching. There may be riffs and disputes that take place in various circles, but for the most part, Baptist pastors support one another. Not that they don't support others from other denominations, but they really try to support like mind, like character. Many people have talked about my lack of loyalty to my church because I spent so many years going to The Greater Mt. Olive Baptist Church of Oklahoma City for the early morning worship. They often said that I should start a service at our own church if I wanted to be in an early service. However, what they failed to understand is that I needed to go heard Dr. Woodberry to remember who I am. I love being able to tell people that my cousin, Rev. Dr. Eric A. Mayes Jr., served as the original pastor of Unity Baptist Church in Oklahoma City for over 40 years and that I hope to one day be able to be so fortunate to serve my congregation for prayerfully a long time. I love being able to tell people that my maternal and paternal great grandfathers were both Baptist pastors. I love being able to go to the BMA meetings and being able to sit and glean from the great minds of Dr. John Reed, Dr. James Tucker, Dr. Major Jemison, Dr. John Peoples, and so many other great pastors who can share the triumphs/trials, pleasures/pains, and satisfaction/sadness of preaching and pastoring God's people. I miss being Baptist, but I enjoy myself when the brethren welcome me back even for just a little while.

Impressed with blogging pastors

Where do you pastors find the time and material to post blog threads so often? I am known in many circles, both sacred and secular, as a writer and I just do not possess the capabilities to blog to the capacity that some of these wonderful pastors do. Maybe I need a more exciting life. Curious minds want to know. That is all.

Life is as life does

Life is as life does.... This was a statement that I recently gave to my brother when he exclaimed to me how busy life is and why he has no time to attend a local house of worship. He absolutely insists that he communes with God, but he doesn't need the fellowship of the saints. You live life and participate in those things which brings you joy. Many ask the question why I feel as if I need to support every church function that goes on in my local area and my response is always centered around the fact that this is one of life's pleasures for me. I do it because it brings fullness of joy to my life. In other words, LIFE IS AS LIFE DOES.

The Window of Opportunity

There was recently a discussion in sports talk radio here in Oklahoma regarding the window of opportunity for Assistant Coaches being hired for a Head Coach position. The conventional wisdom as the analysts put it, is that there is a window of opportunity for Assistant Coaches that will not always stay open. There was also the discussion of coaches having the opportunity to move to a "better" job. If the window of opportunity closes, then you may be subjected to toil in an area that is substandard for your talent and you may always have the tag that you could have done so much, but....

After examining this conversation with some deep thought, I began to think about a conversation that I had with a senior minister in my community who has preached for over 60 years, but has never served as pastor. He has in fact served as Interim Pastor for several churches, but was never called as the Senior Pastor. During our discussion, he told me that he knew that God had called him to pastoral ministry, but he never seized the opportunities when God opened doors for him. From his perspective, it should not have been those small rural churches with only 15 members extending a call to him, but rather those urban churches that had a vast amount of members and resources and only needed that final piece of the puzzle: A pastor with a good relationship with Lord and the ability to lead his fellow man. Unfortunately for this great Man of God, it does not always work according to his plan. Therefore his advice to me was to better discern the voice of God and move when he says move.

This leads to the original statement regarding the window of opportunity. Although I am only 30 years old, I have been preaching for 10 years and been extended a total of 10 calls, only to not accept any of them. I have always been under the belief that an Associate minister should get a blessing from his or her pastor to leave and I have never received that clearance. Not because he did not feel that I would be successful or that I was not ready or even called into that area of ministry, but more rather because he feels that the need for me to be at our church is greater than the need for someone else to have me at their church. Additionally, he has always had a thought that I would assume the pastorate there upon his retirement. It can get difficult waiting on your opportunities to present themselves with the right circumstances where everything seems to fall into place. Could it be that I'm too loyal? Could it be that I desire too much? Could it be that I am where I need to be? Could it be that others are telling the truth and I am just not listening? Or most importantly, Is God talking and I have somehow unintentionally pressed the mute button? To be honest, I am not sure what the answer is, but I am watching the window while the answer is being revealed.

The discouragement of "church"

I recently had the opportunity to be involved in a church meeting at a local church in our community and I was very disturbed. The meeting initially had a positive direction until there was a discussion about some changes being made to the edifice to make it more attractive to visitors and more functional for the current and future members. One of the things that was absolutely disappointing was that the church needed new pews, but the older members were so attached to the old ones that they had worked hard to purchase that they began to beome intensely angry with the pastor for even mentioning that a change needed to take place. It even got to the point that one of the older couples in the church began to exclaim that maybe they needed a new pastor who would appreciate their old pews. How trivial of a matter! I certainly am not suggesting that we do not honor those who made sacrifices to get us where we are, but I am suggesting that they allow us to honor them by continuing to advance what they have started. It can be discouraging to youth and young adults to feel as if they have no say or part in what happens at their place of worship. This also happens to those who have served long and hard to make the church a beacon of light. The older they get, the less they are heard. A happy medium should be met and we must understand that we will not be excited about everything that takes place, but at least we can appreciate it if it benefits the overall ministry.

I've been away

Life has been treating me in a fair fashion over the last few weeks. So much so that I have been away from my blog for several weeks. Between the music ministry and the preaching ministry, I have been absolutely inundated and just void of free time. Thank God for the opportunity to remain busy! I've even been so busy that I haven't been able to watch my pitiful Dallas Cowboys move from the best in the league and Superbowl favorite to mediocre and on the verge of missing the playoffs. Just my luck, the 'Boys regained a little bit of strentgh by beating my Tampa Bay Bucs. That is so terrible that both of my teams had to play each other. I guess I was destined to win and lose on the same occasion. Nevertheless, I look forward to contributing to our blogging universe with my perspective of the faith. I've been away, but I am back now!

Becoming an ice tray church

In my first book entitled, “Church the way that God intended”, I have a chapter that brings us to the attention of how we should be as a church by focusing on something as simple as an ice tray. Here is an excerpt from “Becoming an ice tray church”:

The dynamics of church as we know it is often so convoluted that we have simply over analyzed worship and the basic part that we play in it. While it is true that we are one body with many parts, the fact of the matter is that we are one body. God never intended for us to develop some splinter cell attitude where we are operating with an ‘us against everybody else attitude’. That is why God wants us to become an ice tray church. When you fill an ice tray with water, each individual compartment is its own entity. It starts out by itself and will become just one lonely ice cube. It, however, does not have to be this way because the ice tray is designed so that each compartment can share with another. As one gets filled with water to the point of overflow, water does not simply stop flowing, but it flows right over to the next compartment until the whole tray is filled. Does this mean that the water has to stop flowing? No! It can continue to flow as long as the person who is filling the tray chooses. It should also be noted that the more ice that is available, the better job it can do collectively rather than independently.

After the tray is completely full, it is then given its next assignment which is to freeze. While the tray is freezing, it is imperative that it is not taken out too early because it will damage the developing ice. The ice must be developed properly because it is such a travesty to look for whole ice only to discover that the ice is partially developed and is not adequate for its intended use. This can also be stated of underdeveloped Christians; Nothing is worse than trying to search and find people who you feel are chasing God only to realize that they aren’t completely what they should be. Does this mean that we are not going to make mistakes? No, but when people look at us they should see ice and not Jello. We should be shaped in the image of our tray, but we should be solid and not wobbly, shaky, or flimsy.