A little bit of background first. I am a member of a Southern Baptist Church, which also happens to be the church that I grew up in. We are a pretty traditional SBC at First Baptist Blairsville. Our pastor, however, has such a vision for reaching the lost and he understands that we have to think outside the box in order to reach today’s men, women, and children. Slowly, kind of like pouring molasses, the church is beginning to offer programs and think in ways that are creative and necessary if we want to reach those in our community who would be intimidated by a “First Baptist Church”. For example, we are beginning to incorporate a few praise and worship choruses into our very traditional music portion of the worship service. We offer programs like Divorce Care & Divorce Care 4 Kids, Celebrate Recovery and MOPS–all of which seek to reach out into the community and touch those who are hurting and perhaps without Christ.
Our pastor, Dr. Fred Lodge, who has been at FBC for 3 years has a heart for the lost and a vision for reaching them. He understands that we must think outside the box and push the envelope in order to engage the lost. No longer does simply preaching the Word draw lost people into a church. I’m not saying that is how it should be, but that is just the world in which we live. There are too many things that vie for the attention of people in our world and the church must be attractive and interesting or you will never get the majority of lost folks in the door.
So, over the past several months Dr. Lodge and I have been talking about the possibility of doing a Sunday evening message where he and I co-teach. The Lord gave us the go-ahead in late October and November 16th was the night!! Now, that may not sound like a big deal to you, but to have a woman teaching in a Southern Baptist pulpit…well, that could have produced some very negative and legalistic repercussions. I am happy to announce that everything went very well. We prayed, prepared, positioned ourselves under the authority of the Holy Spirit, and truly had a blast! We taught from Luke 1: 39-45 where Mary runs to Elizabeth’s home after Gabriel drops the bomb on her that she will be the mother of the Messiah and we did it in a conversational style of teaching.
It was such an honor for me to be able to do this. I was humbled beyond words that the Lord would allow me to come full circle and teach in the church where I grew up. I begged the Lord to just hide me/us behind the cross so that the audience saw only Jesus and I believe that is exactly what He did. Perhaps I am making a bigger deal out of this than is necessary but the fact that Dr. Lodge would allow me to share the stage with him spoke a blessing over the speaking ministry to which the Lord has called me.
If you want to hear the message, click here or go to http://www.fbcvision.com/ and click on the Multimedia icon in the middle of the page.
You can find the message in one of several ways. The title of the message was Two Generations of Cousins and it will be listed under the speaker tab and under the date/month tab and under the “I Love To Tell the Story” series tab. When you click on “Two Generations of Cousins” a new box will pop up to the right and you will need to click on the little blue TV next to the title of our message in order to start the message.
Thank you for allowing me to share this exciting event in my life with you!!
