Category: Home

Oh, how I have enjoyed watching the Olympics. It has been a joy to hear and read the testimonies of many athletes concerning their faith in, dependence on, and thankfulness to God. Perhaps you too heard the three women who had just won the medals in the 100 meter hurdles tell about how they had spent the day at a prayer group preparing for a race where they would be competing with one another. If I do not meet her here, I know that one day I will be able to say thank you to Brianna Holling and her friends. How wonderful to pray, worship, and testify. How wonderful to share the Good News.

School is open. Football is here. It is time for us to be praying for important events coming in October.

One is the countywide revival October 24, 25, and 26. You will find a prayer list, the names of the preachers and more to help you prepare for this event.

Another is the annual meeting of the association on October 10^th and 11^th at Flatwoods and Mineral Springs. Featured will be the son of Ernie and Renay Carroll, former associational missionaries here. We will be kicking off the celebration of the bicentennial of the Gospel Light to Pickens. How it was kindled here, burned brightly, was taken to other places, and what we need to do to pass the light on to the next generation.

At the recent Community Relations Board meeting at the prison, the Warden shared pictures of the tornado damage. How grateful we should be that no one was injured and no prisoner escaped.

Third, our communities of Carrollton, Panola, and Aliceville will be having festival events. In each location Christians will be giving testimonies and sharing the Good News. Pray for effectiveness. Wonderful opportunities await us.

The Executive Board voted last month to invite the Louis Johnson family to live in the Missionary house in Carrollton for the coming year. Louis will serve as worship leader at Carrollton Baptist Church and will assist missionary Farley with developing an associational strategy plan. He and Dr. Farley will be interviewing the pastors and key leaders of our churches concerning how the association can be helpful to them and to the churches. Louis will be paid by Gordo First thru mid-June 2017. The hospitality ministry of the PBA will be moved to the Ammons house.

State Missions Director, Rick Barnhart, will be the featured speaker at the next Executive Committee meeting on Monday, August 15.  He will launch the associational strategy planning process at that time. Our association structure and process date from about 1980. Since then Pickens County is much changed and so are our churches.  The focus of the plan will be on what we need to be doing in 2021.

*Since 1980 the county has been de-industrialized, losing about 2,500 jobs. Others have come, but the net loss has been more than 1,500. Most of our workers now commute daily to either Tuscaloosa or the Golden Triangle.  The life rhythms of many of us have changed. Churches struggle to handle this change.

*Our population has aged. Many in our churches draw retirement income. So, our churches have low, but stable income.

*The prison has brought more residences, but most of the staff does not live in the county. It offers great opportunities for mission and ministry efforts.

*The four-laneing of US 82 across the county, seems to be bringing more new settlers. So, many of the churches in North Pickens can grow.

*The business sections in our towns are diminished and our churches have fewer business and professional persons in them.

*Ministries in the jail and hospital have prospered.

*The Baptist Center has become a major ministry.

*Weekly radio Sunday School lessons have been added.

*The state convention is providing more training for the basic programs in our churches.

*The association is helping to fund church starts and other ministries beyond our bounds.

*Mission teams are being sent out by the association.

*2017 will mark the 200th anniversary of the Gospel Light coming to our area.

*I will need to retire soon.

All of this and more suggests that we need to make a good plan, one that is in accord with God’s general will for churches and one that is specific to our setting. My hope is that each of our pastors and the leaders of our churches will actively participate in the process. The plan will guide our structuring of the association and our search for new leadership.

I worked with a VBS in the Sapps community for one week in July.  It was a joy. Along with Mrs. Janet Estis I taught the students how to play the harmonica. Work on the rebuilding of Sapps community is moving forward. Recently, a team from Habitat for Humanity was there.  They were hosted by West End Baptist church. Incidentally, Bro. Jim Robinson is the new pastor there. Good man with good skills. He also serves as a hospice chaplain.

 

The 4th of July has always been special to me. Freedom is precious. During my life the freedom of my nation has been threatened time and time again. Now is no exception.

Baptists played a central role in securing freedom for us. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in order to gain the support of the Baptist Christians. Our Baptist forefathers should be credited for not only freedom of religion, but also the right to own guns, to speak our minds, to have privacy and all of the rights protected by the first ten amendments to the Constitution. I wish that the Baptist Bashers knew that their very right to attack us is guaranteed by our early Baptist leaders such as Roger Williams, Isaac Baccus, and John Leland.

For many centuries the national governments required all of their citizens to belong to the denomination supported by the king. In England it was the Episcopalian, in Spain the Roman Catholic, in much of Germany the Lutheran, in Scotland the Presbyterian and so forth. Those who did not want to conform were punished. Many were even killed.

In the Sixteenth Century men and women all across Europe questioned this arrangement. Their argument ran like this. Beyond this life awaits Judgment by God. We will be accountable to God for what we believe and how we behave. Consequently, individuals should be given freedom of conscience. Accountability presupposes freedom. For the Baptists salvation came by a person personally responding to the invitation of the Holy Spirit to believe in faith that God would forgive one for his or her sins.

Apparently, the rulers of nations and of religious denominations believed that for the society to work properly everyone should share the same religious beliefs. So, Baptists were persecuted. For example John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, spent many years in jail. The colony of Rhode Island, established by Baptists Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke, was the first colony to offer freedom of religious beliefs to its citizens. This was true not only for Christians, but for Jews and Muslims as well.

About 1750 a great revival swept through the American colonies. Many responded to the invitation of the Holy Spirit, experienced forgiveness and the new birth. Many joined the ranks of the Baptists. When the colonies, having won their freedom from England sought to form the United States, the support of the Baptist was needed. So, while some states in New England had established Congregationalism and some in the South Episcopalianism, the nation as a whole supported the Baptist position and allowed freedom of religion.

So, this Independence Day please recall your Baptist heritage. And when some express the desire to suppress the free exercise of a faith which is clearly in error or are critical of you for wanting to evangelize Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Mormons and others, just remember the Baptist way. It is not easy. But the Baptist way is to both affirm freedom of religion and to share the truth with those whose beliefs or behavior are in error.

 

A busy summer of ministry and missions beckons many of us. Homecomings have begun in our churches. VBS season will launch is a few days. Mission trips including those directly related to the PBA, Brazil in June and Kentucky in July. Revivals. Help with the recovery of the Sapps community, materially and spiritually. Add in – Weddings. Graduations. Singings. Vacations. Gardens. Putting up food. Fishing. Some will look for new jobs. Others will be preparing to move away to college.

Pray about all of these matters, and others. Pray particularly for our mission teams in Brazil June 17-26 and in Kentucky, July 18-24. May the harvest be plentiful. The income from our Baptist Center Thrift Store will benefit these missions. A chapel will be built in a small town in Brazil. About a fourth of the cost will be covered by a $5,000 grant from the income at the store. This is the sixth such building supported by income at our thrift store. The items sold and given away at the store come from donations of the people of our county. The operation of the store, for more than 25 years, is made possible by about 50 volunteers who work a day or more in the store each month. Prayerfully consider volunteering one day a month, Wednesday through Saturday. Call Joyce Ferguson, 205-375-2642, for more information. And continue to donate good used stuff to the thrift store. Not only is a new church built and dedicated, but several hundred new believers are harvested.

Funds from the income of the thrift store will also help with a day camp at Galilee in Panola, camp for children and youth at Unity Grove Campground, Sapps spiritual renewal, and many other ministries during the summer.

Our other mission team will be returning to Princeton, Kentucky for the third time. It was there we learned about Rubies for Life which has been so effective at the Aliceville FCI. The team will be working with a Job Corps camp. We are seeking to plant a Christian Woman’s Job Corp at the Aliceville FCI camp this summer. Pray for these endeavors too.

We want to invite our churches to consider having a block party this summer or fall and use the resources of the association. Call me and let us discuss the process. My cell is 205-463-8833. The office is 367-8632.

The Diabetes Support Group after more than 10 years has concluded its monthly meetings here at the office. Diabetes continues to be a major issue in our area. We served well and that service is now ended.

A retreat for bi-vocational pastors is planned for Saturday, July 16th at Alabama Lake in the Benevola community. It begins at 7:30 am.

Our work at the prison is getting back in place. Charlie Wilson, Glenn Sandifer and I are again offering Samford Extension classes both in the FCI and in the camp. Rubies for Life and the quilting classes will start soon.

There will be opportunities to help and to contribute to the restoration of the Sapps community. The Serving Aliceville Together team has done some great work. Contact Kenny Gibson, the EMA director, to volunteer.

Rev. Bob Little, the pastor of Galilee in Panola, has signed a recording contract with a major label. He will be doing some concerts. You can access tracks at Amazon.com and at the other download sites like googleplay and itunes.

So, here comes a busy, blessed summer of service.