|
Second Baptist Church - A Model For Fellowship
|
Second Baptist Church – A Model For Fellowship
I was blessed to be able to visit Second Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Friendly greeters were at the front and immediately introduced me to a minister. The minister walked me down the aisle and found me someone to sit with.
I had the delightful experience being adopted by Thelma. Thelma is in her 70’s. She became a Christian as a child. She has been married twice. She lost her fist husband to Multiple Sclerosis. She has been married to her current husband for 39 years. She is grateful for both marriages.
Between them, they have several children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Several of her grandchildren have gone into the ministry. All of her family members are Christians.
She and her husband are obviously very much in love. They held hands during the service. When we prayed, they huddled together. Thelma took copious notes during the sermon. Her Bible was well worn and covered with her notes. Throughout the service, she nodded at the preacher and occasionally voiced her agreement aloud. She kept leaning over to me and explaining who each participant was. Her participation in worship was the norm for church members in this service.
As I said goodbye to her, I realized that I might not ever meet her again on earth. Our acquaintance on this earth was probably to be under 2 hours. Yet, we loved each other immediately. We loved each other with the bond that only Christ can give. Agape love is from God and is the highest form of love. It is more satisfying than any other kind of love. What a comfort it is to know that if we are Christians, we can find Agape love in less than 2 hours.
1 Peter 1:22-23
Love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
(from New International Version)
The sermon was on fellowship and was entitled, “Getting Close To God.” The scripture reference was Nehemiah 9. The sermon is outlined in the Daily Journal on September 12. It is entitled “Getting Close To God Again.”
The worship experience engaged the heart, soul, mind, and body. The body was a wonderful combination of the young and old. The music was blend of the old and the new.
We stood in honor of God. We clapped and swayed to the incredible praise music. We enjoyed the outstanding musicians. We kneeled when we prayed. Some people raised their hands and others did not. People felt free to worship in stillness and reverence and others were free to worship in a style that involved all of their senses.
This is a Southern Baptist Church and their doctrine is true to this denomination. Their worship style was very free and very intimate. They believe themselves to be different from other Southern Baptist Churches.
The church body worshipped God with their entire hearts. They sang, praised God, prayed, and listened intently to the sermon. Most of the congregation seemed engaged and eager to be there. They used their Bibles and leaned forward in their seats as they listened.
Psalms 96:9
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
(from New International Version)
The sermon engaged the mind and was intellectually stimulating. The music engaged the heart and the body as we sang praises to God. The prayers engaged the soul as we kneeled before a Holy God.
John 4:24
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
(from New International Version)
There was a “Visitors Welcome Reception” between church and Sunday School. I was able to talk with the pastor, Chuck McAlister.
During Sunday School, I was invited to attend the New Member’s class. The room was full of excited new members who wanted to learn what being a New Member meant. Many of them were new Christians. They had faithfully done their assignments. They were incredibly enthusiastic. There are pictures of this class on the website under Arkansas – Hot Springs - Second Baptist Church.
Matt 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
KJV
I learned about the structure of this church. It is very simple. The simplicity allows the Holy Spirit to work very quickly. If the Holy Spirit leads a church member in a particular direction, it can be implemented very quickly.
They do not have an organization chart. They believe the church is a living organism and structure their church around the organs of the human body. They use 1 Corinthians 12:12 as their reference for this structure.
1 Corinthians 12:12
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.
(from New International Version)
Christ is the head and the pastor is the heart. They believe the Holy Spirit is the nervous system. The staff are the arteries. They have ministry teams that are the muscles.
Unlike most Southern Baptist churches, they do not believe in dozens of committees and multiple layers of organizational hierarchy. They call these layers bureaucratic and believe they slow down the work of the Holy Spirit.
They only have trustees, deacons, staff members, and a budget committee. Their trustees can make business decisions and sign on behalf of the church. The deacons are servants and serve the body.
They desperately want their church to be nimble and to be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of their congregation. They reference Matthew 9:17 for the need to be fresh.
Matthew 9:17
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."
(from New International Version)
They do not vote on membership. They have membership requirements.
A new member must be a baptized Christian. They do not believe baptism is necessary to become a Christian but it is necessary to become a church member of this church. If you accept Christ, you are baptized before you become a church member of Second Baptist Church. Naturally, they will accept baptisms from other Christian churches but they do prefer that these baptisms be through emersion.
Potential new members must attend the four session New Member’s class. The class meets each week and you can take them in any order. They keep attendance and know when someone has completed the four different sessions.
The four sessions are very interesting and include homework assignments. Each member is asked to listen to tapes on spiritual gifts and to identify their gifts. These gifts are registered in the church’s computer so the church can match church needs with spiritual gifts.
Each member is asked to write their testimony and it is handed in to the pastor. The pastor reads each testimony and keeps them on file.
This church expects everyone to be active in the body and requires them to sign a covenant that commits themselves to the body. They call this the fellowship covenant.
When a baptized believe has completed the four sessions, they are called to the front of the class to recite the memorized eight word statement of purpose and receive their New Member T-Shirts.
Second Baptist Church Purpose Statement:
To Grow in Our Relationship with Jesus Christ, His Family, and the World, Our Neighbor.
Five years ago, Second Baptist Church was a typical Southern Baptist Church. They had a large membership and had around 1,000 people attending every Sunday. Their structure and form of worship was a “cookie cutter copy” of every other Southern Baptist church.
They had dozens of committees and voted on church membership. They sang only from hymnbooks and only worshipped in a very conservative style. There was little to no emotion or personal involvement in the worship service. The church had very long business meetings and voted on everything. Any change had to go through multiple committees and took a lot of time and discussion.
The pastor felt the people were not responding to worship and were bored. He knew the church is the bride of Christ and he believed that brides needed to be creative. He believed his church had lost their creativity. Their baptism numbers indicated that they were not reaching the lost. He was not seeing spiritual growth in his church members. He was deeply burdened. I thought of the scripture in Matthew as I listened to him describe the church.
Matt 15:8
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
(from New International Version)
Like any good Southern Baptist Church, they formed a committee to make a recommendation. After much time and research, the committee came back suggesting radical changes. The pastor supported those changes.
These changes included adding a contemporary style of worship to their worship. They wanted to be flexible and “on the edge” concerning approaches and programs. It involved using technology in the worship service and encouraging more emotion.
The committee suggested a much simpler structure that allowed the church to be nimble. It eliminated all of the committees except the budget committee. It changed the deacons from a leadership body to a service body.
Note that none of these changes affected the basic doctrine of the church. They believed their doctrine was Biblically based and sound. The changes simply allowed them to be more flexible and possibly more attractive to the un-churched.
They made a persuasive video that outlined the changes. I saw the video and it was excellent. Enthusiastically, they began presenting the changes to the church. The pastor was excited and strongly felt the leadership of God. He had faith in God and fully expected the church to be willing to change.
Unfortunately, the dramatic changes created controversy as the church began to take sides. There were bitter arguments. The result was that the changes were implemented and 50% of the membership left the church.
As the pastor talked about that difficult time, you could see the pain in his eyes. I could picture a young and innocent pastor being broken by what was happening to his church. How naive he must have felt to expect things to go smoothly. How he must have questioned his decisions and leadership skills. How hurt he must have been by people leaving. How determined he must have been to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
God obviously used the brokenness. Five years later, this church is back to their original size. That means their size has doubled in five years. The church is obviously alive and growing. The people love their church. They are active worshipers and are engaged throughout the service. They use many types of music in their service. They support and love their pastor’s leadership.
I asked the pastor about the people who had left. I wondered if perhaps the more difficult church members had left the church. Sadly, he shook his head. He was unwilling to blame the past difficulties on the dear members that had left. They had lost good and faithful members from their body and he grieved their loss. The people that fought the changes believed they were doing the right thing for the church.
He said that the changes they made had eliminated the bureaucracy and that had allowed the Holy Spirit the freedom to work in their church. What I was seeing was the work of the Holy Spirit. The pastor stood by the changes but was still sad about the difficulties.
As I talked to him, I wondered if he would do anything differently. Perhaps five years later, he is older and wiser and would have been a little gentler. Pain is a wonderful teacher and he probably learned from this experience. Perhaps there may have been an easier way to go about the changes but the result of the changes is obviously the work of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, if he had known how much pain he would face, he may have even rethought his position. I hope not. The changes were obviously good ones for this church. Satan will always fight any good change in a church. It is to be expected and we are told not to be afraid. Jesus himself was persecuted. Are we to be any different?
Acts 26:15-18
I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'
(from New International Version)
The Holy Spirit is freely at work in this church. Because the Holy Spirit is at work, they have found a balance in worship that leads the church body to love the Lord God with their entire heart, soul, mind, and body.
Mark 12:30
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
(from New International Version)
This church is able to use their heart in worship without wallowing in emotionalism. They engage the mind without becoming legalistic. They worship with their entire bodies without the movements becoming a distraction to the worship itself. Together, they lifted their souls to become one in the bond of love.
They are reaching the lost for Christ. They are leading believers to a closer walk with God. They are worshipping God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is blessing their work. Well done good and faithful servants of God!
Matt 25:23
Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
(from New International Version)
|
|