Church Report: Challenge and Encouragement
Category: Faith...
Posted Sunday, October 19, 2003 at 10:43 PM [GMT-6]

We've attended two funerals since we last were in our home church for worship and Bible study -- and that was in the space of less than a week. So, we weren't sure how it would feel to be back among our "extended family," emotions still being a little raw, if you know what I mean.

We had a guest speaker in the morning worship services. Dr. Jeff Iorg is the Executive Director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, Vancouver, Washington. The northwest area of the US is one of special emphasis for Southern Baptists, given its rapid population growth and the fact that most of that population is unchurched. Our church partners with several "Pioneer Churches" in that area, and has sent mission teams on many occasions to provide hands-on assistance.

I was operating a TV camera during the service so I didn't catch a lot of the content in Dr. Iorg's message, but one thing he said did slip past the director's instructions and lodge in my mind. "Most people think about being called to the ministry in terms of having to go somewhere else, geographically," he said. "But, that geographic 'call' is really just an echo. We're all called to minister to people...that's our primary call. It's just that some - but not all - of us are called to minister to people who live somewhere else." I like that metaphor: an echo of the primary call.

This message is a challenge to people like me who tend to think of ministry (especially missions-related) as something that takes place somewhere else, by special people who can do and say all the things I can't. (Or, more accurately, the things I've managed to convinced myself that I can't do.)

[On an interesting blogging sidenote, I believe that Coqui, who blogs via Far Too Easily Satisfied works for either the Northwest Baptist Association or one of its sister organizations. I recommend her blog; she's an excellent photographer, and has more than her share of good subject matter within camera reach. I need to email her and see what her relationship might be to the Association.]

Walking down the long hall to our Sunday School department (it's at least 100 yards from the worship center!), I asked my wife if she felt up to what she was about to experience. She said she thought she was. It's a good thing; we were stopped five times going down the hall by people wanting to express condolences. Then, on into the room filled with our fellow Bible study group members where the "love-bombing" became even more intense...and special. Many in that room had been through what we just experienced, some only a few months earlier. There's a special kind of empathy/sadness/joy that Christians share with one another during these times. "We'll meet again" is not just an idle empty expression when referring to a deceased loved one, when we know that person was born again. We were reminded once more that the family of God is every bit as special as our earthly family.

We capped things off with a one-Sunday study of the little New Testament book of Philemon, an oft-overlooked letter from Paul to a friend (Philemon) whose slave (Onesimus) had run away and met up with Paul while he (Paul) was imprisoned in Rome. Paul led the slave to salvation in Jesus Christ, and was now asking his friend to take Onesimus back, both as slave and as a fellow brother in Christ.

Our group had one of the best discussions about this situation that I can recall. The apparent simplicity of the one-chapter book is misleading; there are many undercurrents and sub-plots and themes: forgiveness and redemption are main theological issues, but you can also spend time on the sociological and cultural issue of slavery, as it was practiced in the first century, and the apparent spiritual authority of Paul is ripe for discussion. If you haven't read Philemon in a while, take a few minutes and re-visit it. (And try to put yourself in the sandals of Onesimus as he heads back to his master's house. We aren't told how the situation finally played out.)

In the end, we left church both challenged and encouraged. That's not a bad way to start a new week, is it?