Transcript
Jim came up to me and said, Lynn, I had an epiphany last night, you need to preach next Sunday. And Alan Cumbia told me I should have said, but epiphany’s not here yet. But I said, hmm, a little bit of notice might have been helpful, but let me think about it.
And then he comes over and sits beside me as we’re waiting for the prelude and says, you know, there’s some things that you could share. You could share about all the things that you loved about being a minister here at First Baptist Church, maybe some of the difficulties that you’ve had along the way. And so I thought about it through throughout that time that we were in the in the chapel, and I came up to him at the end and I said, okay, you’ve given me a few things to think about.
Yes, I’ll do it. So I’m here. And he said, and after all, it’s Low Sunday and we’re not on TV.
Great. I’m so glad. You know, I’ve been thinking about my ministry here.
I’ve been in ministry for 42 years. I served under three pastors, one in Fort Worth, Texas, and two here at Richmond’s First Baptist Church, Dr. Peter James Flamming for 23 years, and then Dr. James Green Somerville for the past 17 years. I was thinking this past week of when I first came to First Baptist Church, November the 6th, 1988.
Keep in mind that I had met with Dr. Flamming and Shirley in the DFW airport about nine months prior to that date, and that Dr. Flamming has said to me, now Lynn, it may be some time before we even put together a search team, but can you be patient? And I said, sure. Well, I do remember getting that call from Nancy Dilday saying that I had been voted in by the congregation, and my anticipated date to be introduced to the church was November the 6th, 1988. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that you will be in charge of the Christmas pageant the third Sunday in December? I had no idea that this was such a big deal, and it was led by none other than Virginia Saunders, as she would say.
God rest her sweet soul, who quickly became a great friend and mentor to me. So I went to a great friend who was in the drama department at Southwestern, and I said, do you think you can write me a Christmas pageant for my brand-new church in Richmond, Virginia, and have it ready by November the 6th? She said, I will try. I said, that would be wonderful.
So she did, and I took it with me, and little did I know that I was not to include lighting candles in my pageant. That was only done on Christmas Eve at Richmond’s First Baptist Church, so that was written out of the script. Thus began my ministry as youth and discipleship at First Baptist Church here in Richmond.
You see, most of the ministers at that time had a dual role, with the exception of the minister of music and the pastor and the communications director at the time, but fortunately they gave me a full year to get the youth ministry part under my belt. This church welcomed me with arms wide open. We started with a team of adult parents and volunteers planning youth events.
I remember in one of my youth ministry classes learning that the goal of youth ministry was trust, and trust goes both ways. The kids trusting me, as well as me trusting the kids. Can I share one more story with you? It was 1990.
Terry Goolsbee had just been called to serve as our music minister, and one of his jobs was working with me and planning our youth mission trips and choir performances. The same was true of Phil Mitchell, who followed Terry in 2001, and we all got along great. And on one of our trips to Charleston, South Carolina, if my memory serves me correctly, we stopped at South of the Border.
How many of you know where South of the Border is? You cannot miss it as you’re driving down 95 and every three miles you see a sign that says come to South of the Border. And so we got to South of the Border, which was replaced by Buc-ee’s about 20 years later. Well the last thing Terry and I said to the kids as they were getting off the bus, do not, do you hear me, do not buy any fireworks here.
They are illegal in South Carolina. So we get back on the bus and we started heading toward Charleston. About three minutes down the road, Louis Brock, a middle schooler at the time, and his accomplice, whom I cannot remember, set off two smoke bombs on the back of the bus.
Immediately we pulled off on the side of the road to defume the bus. Now this was in the day before cell phones, and so we told the bus driver the next time he saw a place that had a cell phone to please stop. So Terry and I were talking about how we were going to handle this, remembering that parents had been told that if kids did anything against the rules that we had set, and they were not many, they would be responsible to come and pick up their child.
And we were five hours away. So Terry and I got off the bus and we went to the telephone and we picked it up as if we were talking to Louis’s parents. Sure enough they thought that we were sending him home.
But Terry and I decided that they actually did not buy fireworks as we had instructed them to. They just decided that smoke bombs would be equally fun. We did not send them home.
And by the way, do you know what happened to that middle schooler Louis Brock? He is now a Navy SEAL. Trust and respect go both ways. Louis learned that day a lot about trusting us, and we in turn learned what it was to trust in this young man that God was going to get a hold of his life and do something amazing through him.
And he did. There are so many stories that I could share with you today about my first 20 years here as youth minister. Disciple now weekends, fall retreats, mission trips, projects, going to the Baptist World Alliance every five years, first to Africa, and then Hong Kong, and then Houston, and then Slovakia.
All of the youth leader retreats that we did, parenting seminars, the list could go on and on. But there was more to my ministry here than youth ministry. In my role as minister of discipleship, and we call that formation today, I was blessed to be involved with this entire congregation.
I’ve learned there’s more to trust between youth and youth parents and leaders, but there’s a trust of the congregation with the minister. Let me share with you what I learned in that role. First of all, Dr. Fleming taught me most about prayer, about how critical prayer is to the congregation, teaching them to listen to how the Holy Spirit was leading and guiding in all areas of the church.
And he himself led a discipleship class where he spent a lot of time on prayer. I wonder how many of you here today sat in Dr. Fleming’s discipleship class when he taught it. Can you raise your hand if you did that? Several of you have.
One of my favorite times has become his catalyst prayer time on Wednesday nights at 6 o’clock in the Adams room. It was first led by Dr. Fleming, and the goal was to pray for the ministers and the teams of our church. Personal prayers and prayers to assist them in doing their work.
There’s something absolutely special about 10 or 12 people who feel called to come and pray almost every week for the folks who are doing the work in the ministries of this church. It’s a powerful time. We lay hands on these folks and we pray for them and their ministries.
Dr. Fleming believed that this ministry should continue as he could no longer do it. So if you feel a call to pray for people, this group would welcome you with open arms to come and join them on Wednesday nights. And there were other special times of prayer.
We gathered as a church to pray for Dave Fleming, the son of Dr. Fleming and Shirley, with his fight with leukemia. We did a prayer walk from the church up to Church Hill and back, praying for him. And then there have been those special times of prayer with our congregation, times like 9-11, and our chapel was filled with neighbors and our folks who felt the need to come and to pray for our country.
We have gathered to pray for our city, that God would be the guiding force in our city. We have prayed during election times. We’ve asked God for wisdom to guide us in our choices.
The church was meant for prayer. We prayed for our next pastor, Dr. James Green Somerville, who came in 2008. And under his leadership, we shifted our ministries to follow the clear commands of Jesus.
Let me remind you of what those are. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul. We call that the ministry of Christian worship.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. We call that the ministry of Christian compassion. You shall love one another as I have loved you.
We call that the ministry of Christian community. Go therefore and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We call that the ministry of Christian invitation and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
We call that the ministry of Christian formation. It was then that Jim asked me to take on the role as his senior associate pastor in the areas of community and administration. And for the past 17 years, and that was following Billy Burford leaving our church, community, making sure that everyone in the church felt loved and cared for.
What a task that is. Each week, Jim formed a pastoral care team that consisted of Robert Thompson and Becky Payne and himself and Kim Wicks and myself as we reviewed those in our congregation that we needed to pray for or visit during the week. We also talked about those who had died in our congregation and worked on planning their funerals.
This has been very meaningful work for me these past years. And my favorite times were spending time with those in our congregation who could no longer attend church or found it difficult to attend church. And that special time of listening and loving on them and making sure they feel blessed and loved was so special.
What I learned most from working with Jim Somerville was his love for Jesus. Jim loves Jesus. That’s what welcoming anyone who walked through the doors of our church with open arms, that’s what Jesus would do.
KOH to RVA became the mantra of our church over these past 17 years. And then there were my trips to Israel. I was blessed to be gifted a trip to Israel through the Knights of Templar who chose two ministers from each state to meet in New York City and travel together to Israel.
So I did. I got on a plane, I went to New York, I looked for a poster that said Israel trip, and I joined 52 ministers from around the state. It was such an amazing trip for me.
And so I went up to Ezra, our guide, and I said, if I brought a group back, would you be our leader? He said, of course. Check in with our agency and see if I’m available. So I did.
And I started taking groups to Israel in 2010, about every two years, to take our folks to see the sights and the sounds and the flavors of Israel, to walk the Via Della Rosa together, and experience walking in the footsteps of Jesus. That has been special. What has been difficult for you? I think for me, saying goodbye to folks that you love, for whatever reason they may have left our church.
For you see, when you’ve lived life in and through this congregation, you experience everything. You experience the tears and the joys, the laughter, the honesty, forgiveness, truth, caring, sharing, living life together. That is what has been my blessing from you, this congregation.
One of my favorite authors, and I have many, is Henry Nouwen. I love his passion for others. He often talks about the prayer of the heart, and he calls it the prayer of truth.
The prayer of truth, he says, unmasks the many illusions about ourselves and about God, and leads us into a true relationship. Jesus said, happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And think about that.
When you see God for who he is, and Henry says, only then will we become real in our prayers. And now the gift that I want to leave you this Christmas, which is the title of my sermon today, is from the book of Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 14 through 19. And pastor, would you allow me to do a little preaching as I read this? For this reason, and I want to get a good look at everybody in the room for a minute, I’m gonna look at the balcony, I’m gonna look at the choir, I’m gonna look at all of you here.
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. Preaching point, for all followers of Jesus are a part of God’s family. There is no us, and there is no them.
And then he offers this prayer. I pray, according to the riches of his glory, that he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith as you are being rooted and grounded in love. As you are being rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled, get this, you may be filled with all the fullness of God. What does it mean to be filled with the fullness of God? I think it means is that we allow God to change us. I don’t know what that looks like for you, but for me.
Paul’s prayer is full of hope for something different. I think this prayer is calling each one of us to be a blessing in someone’s life each and every day. We all need each other’s blessings.
To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. It’s more than just a word of praise or appreciation. It’s more than pointing out someone’s talents or good deeds.
It’s more than putting someone in the light. According to Nowan, to give a blessing is to affirm and to say to a person and say yes to a person’s belovedness. To give a blessing creates the reality of which it speaks.
A blessing touches the goodness of the other and calls forth his or her belovedness because we are all loved by God. It’s affirming the goodness in someone. I want to ask you this question.
Who needs your blessing today? Who can you affirm today? Who can you call out someone’s belovedness in Jesus Christ today? Paul writes, may God’s power and love help you to comprehend the depth and breadth of Christ’s love so that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Being filled to the fullness of God means that your entire being is saturated with God’s presence and character and love. Does that seem impossible to you? No, and it’s not with God.
We have this incredible opportunity to look around us and to see who we might bless. My goodness, I know that you have prayed for me when I was not even aware of it. Somebody came up to me today and said, you got a pack of people praying for you today, and I know that.
Thank you, Nancy, for sharing that. A blessing is a form of grace. It is invisible.
Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness. You see these bracelets all the time, be kind. You see it everywhere you go.
I wish we would learn how to do that, to actually be kind. Blessing has no compartments or corners or breakage in its flow for the one who believes in it. A blessing can signal the start of a journey of transformation.
Did you get that? My goodness, look around you. We are all on a journey of transformation, aren’t we, in some way or another. And for me, I’m getting ready to start that journey on January 17th.
It’s going to be a transforming time for me. I want you to hear this, wherever you are in life, wherever you are in life, you are being transformed. After all, that’s what the Christian life is all about.
So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for allowing me in many, many small ways to be blessed by you. I want to ask you if you would pray with me.
Let us pray. God, I thank you for this church family. I thank you that for some who are here today, who are looking for a blessing in their life.
God, may they find it here today. I thank you for this church and how they have trusted me all these years and for their unconditional blessing in my life. God, I’m the blessed one.
So send us out now to share your grace that in Christ we are all beloved children of God. And that’s something to celebrate. And it’s in your holy name that I pray.
Amen.
