A MOTHER’S DAY AND A BIRTHDAY LIKE NO OTHER
Your first thought after reading the title of this month’s article is “What made this Mother’s Day and my 58th birthday like no other?” Well, it’s a personal thing for my family. It’s a Mother’s Day and a birthday like no other for Wanda and me. A first reason there’s never been another like it is because for the first time as a family, we are not all members of the same church. Melody joined Sevier Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville on Mother’s Day and Mallory joined Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville the same day. Adding to the uniqueness of this Mother’s Day 2009 is that for the first time in 18 years I didn’t preach on Mother’s Day, with the exception of 2005 when we had a guest speaker at the church I was pastoring. It’s also the first time in 18 years that all our immediate family did not attend the same church together on Mother’s Day. As life continues on, it’s all a part of the changes that come, which we can either grieve over and complain about or build upon.
First, I want to say how thankful we are, with two children out of college and one married, that we have been able to be together in the churches I’ve pastored for eighteen years. On Mother’s Days through the years, I have noticed that it seems like one year our attendance was down because that was the year when our members went to be with their mothers who lived out of town or attended another local church. Then the next year, our attendance would be up on Mother’s Day because that was the year the children of the mothers in our church came to their mother’s church. With the emphasis today in the contemporary style churches of keeping the median age of the church as young as possible, they miss out on the wisdom of the elderly members and mothers/grandmothers and the blessing of seeing grandparents with their children and grandchildren worshiping together on the Lord’s Day. It was a blessing to me at the last church I pastored to have four generations some Sundays of church members worshiping together. One great grandmother in that church was instrumental in leading three of her great grandchildren to profess their faith in Christ and follow in believers baptism. What a blessing!
I am thankful that as Brandon and Melody became college students, as Mallory has now become, and we gave them the option of attending church where they desired after they graduated from high school, they drove past several larger churches with scores more of members their age to attend the church their father pastored. Melody will be my guest blogger next month, and I will let her explain why our children chose to attend the church their dad pastored, with fewer members their age, than the bigger churches which certainly had more to offer in some ways as far as what was appealing to younger adults.
Concerning my 58th birthday, I am glad to get my 57th year over! It was not the best year of my life. It has been the greatest time of spiritual testing for me since my late twenties, when the Lord was in the early stages of molding me into a man after His own heart. That’s my ministry life verse, to be a “man after God’s own heart who will do all his will” (Acts 13:22). I have preached more on our family life verse, Proverbs 3:6, than any others through the years since it became our family life verse in 1985: “In all your ways acknowledge him and He shall direct your paths.” But, one of the keys to acknowledging Him in all my ways is in Proverbs 3:5, where it says to completely trust in the Lord, you must “lean not unto your own understanding.”
My own understanding would not have led me to resign as senior pastor of a church where I had every intention of staying as senior pastor until I retired, which I did not plan to do before I was seventy years old at the earliest. A few months before resigning, we had completed the best year yet of my five years, up to that point, regarding the number of additions to the church through baptisms and by letter. When I resigned the third week of October, 2008, about thirty people were on the verge of joining the church, representing families with children, a few couples, and single adults. I felt that this church year (November, 2008-October, 2009) would have been our best yet, and my goal of being in the top fifty in the Tennessee Baptist Convention in baptisms would be attained. In the past year several singles/couples/families had joined the church who had seen the “In Times Like These” TV program and were looking for a church home. Each Sunday we had visitors who had seen the television program and wanted to attend a live worship service. The church was poised for numerical growth. Central Baptist Church, Oak Ridge, had great years behind her but I had no doubt her best years were before her.
But, God had a new assignment for me. I had sensed a couple of months prior to my resignation that God was going to enlarge my sphere of ministry. I did not know exactly what He had in mind, but I felt it was possible this ministry enlargement could be accomplished through my being senior pastor of Central Baptist Church, Oak Ridge. But, God works in, what to us, are mysterious ways because His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isa. 55:9). God has a specific plan for each of our lives, and the Bible says that God has prepared in advance the steps or path that we should follow in accomplishing His will for our lives (Eph. 2:10). It is our choice to walk in those steps that He has prepared for us, and I have always strived to do what God wants me to do, when He wants me to do it, where He wants me to do it, the way He wants me to do it.
Although I was not certain what God’s ministry enlargement was for me, I sensed that the steps He had laid out for me to follow were beyond being the senior pastor of Central Baptist Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. For only the second time in my 28 years of ministry, I resigned without being called to another church. How did I sense that God was leading me away from a pastorate where I was blessed to be and desired to be more than any other place and from the security of a salary that was better than I ever thought I would receive. That will be for another blog down the road, but the events that God allowed to happen that helped to orchestrate my departure from Central were not the way I would have preferred, but God knew what it would take to get me to make such a drastic decision at such an unusual time of my life. At a time when life should have been getting less stressful and I should have been increasing my 401K at a faster pace as I was getting closer each year to the normal retirement age rather than depleting it, God said, “Do you still trust me enough after all these years to trust me to take care of your needs beyond the timetable of what you have in hand.” Ouch! But, I did answer, “Yes, Lord.”
Well, I have learned when God says “Go” my response should be “Let’s Go.” You only need to look at the story of Jonah to see what happens when God says “Go” and you say “No.” The only way to go is down. But, when you say “Let’s Go,” especially to an unusual request by God, you just might see the greatest wonder-working power of God manifested through your life that you have ever experienced. God used Jonah to bring about one of the greatest revivals ever in a city where the people hated those who came from where Jonah came from! So, as we are waiting to find exactly where God wants us to go, we to need to find a church home. For the first time our family has had the option of more than one option for joining a church. Mother’s Day was a first step in what I look at as an exciting time for our family as we have visited several different churches between us searching for the one that is right for each of us. Of course, Wanda and I are going to join a church together as will Brandon and Megan. Wanda and I are leaning toward joining a church that one of our daughters joined, but Brandon and Megan are visiting a church the most that is not where the girls joined or where Wanda and I probably will join. All three churches, though, are wonderful churches with strong preaching pastors and dynamic music worship. One blessing of our children being in three different churches is that they have not compromised concerning the preaching of the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God and being a part of exciting worship services at a church that is Bible-based, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled, and Prayer-empowered.
Well, that’s what made Mother’s Day 2009 and my 58th birthday like no other. And, it actually made Wanda’s __nd birthday, which is four days before mine, like no other for her over the 29 years that we have been married, because it was her first birthday, too, without us all being members of the same church. So, life goes on. And the longer we live the more we are going to experience changes from the way things have been. The way to deal with changes in life, if you don’t have to compromise moral and spiritual principles in the process, is to make the best of the changes. Of the major changes that Wanda and I experienced in 2008, and one in particular that occurred, I mentioned earlier that it made for my 57th year of my life as not being the best I have had. As I think back over my life, I can think of some other years especially which were ones that would be among my difficult years of life. I have mentioned several times over the years in the pulpit that we ministers tend to measure different years in the ministry by the problems encountered in a particular year. It is because even in the best of years the nature of our work causes us to deal with problems others cause us or that others are facing that we help them to deal with. But, some years are simply going to be better than others or stand out more to us than others. Any married man with more than the IQ of a water buffalo knows that he should consider the year he got married as among the best if not the best year of his life!
I want to close using an unusual plant to help us put into perspective that even though some years were better than others they have all been necessary to get us to our present age in life. The century aloe only blooms once every one hundred years. Not one of those years, though, prior to its blooming is any more important or any less significant than the rest. It takes every one of those ninety-nine years to get to the one-hundreth year in which the century aloe blossoms. It has taken the previous 57 years to get me to year 58. This is such a simple statement but had one of those previous years not been I would not be! If you have read all this blog up to this point, I know you can identify with some years of your life being better or worse than others. I can’t promise you what I have been able to experience, that I have been blessed many years of my life to see the fruit of what God has produced through my life as a minister. But, I still will never know on this earth if I had any positive influence or effect on some who were part of the flocks I pastored. The years you and I serve in a place and position of service to our Lord may not result in our seeing outstanding visible accomplishments. The time of “bloomimg” may come during the tenure of one who replaces us in an area of service. But in our having been faithful, year after year, it will have helped to make possible their harvest. You may not live to see the evidence and effects of the new “plants” that will result from a spiritual harvest, but your life will have helped to produce them. That’s all the Lord asks of us. In the ever changing world around us our never changing responsibility is to serve the Lord faithfully in the way He has gifted each of us, live everyday in a manner that glorifies the Lord, and leave the results up to Him.
I look forward to seeing what lies in store between now and next Mother’s Day and my next birthday. I don’t know all that tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know that as I completely trust Him, He will do what is best for me and my family.