CBF Notes--Vestal address

Dan Vestal, Exec Coordinator Address; CBF, 6/25; Charlotte

Applying test to CBF. There is evidence of renewal in Baptist life. ‘Community’ is term used intentionally.

Nod to late Cecil Sherman, one of the organizers of CBF.

CBF has a task force to ask three questions: 1)what is best model of community to foster collaboration, as opposed to competition, between churches? 2)what is best way to focus and streamline organizational structures for local churches? 3)how can CBF get Baptist churches to be a part of this?

1 Cor 3.9—God’s servants working together. Fellowship defines identity and determines how we do missions—partnership. There mutuality of care for well-being of the other; no control, no institutional self-preservation. How can CBF live this out into the future? 1 Cor 3.9 is who we are. When we work out of who we are, there is natural and supernatural work happening.

notes from cbf--bill leonard sermon notes

Bill Leonard, Sermon; CBF, Charlotte, 6/24; Joel 2.28-29 and 1 John 3.1-2

Early Baptists were outcasts and mocked. Began with audacious faith. Membership grounded on personal experience, not geography. Enforced by Holy Spirit, not by the state. They saw believers church. Then and now Baptists are at odds with culture of the day.

We must make our confession of sins and faith; not just our confession of faith. Grace is a gift, not an entitlement.

Cannot assume people know what we mean when we talk about Jesus. Must keep retelling the old story. Baptism is not an end but a beginning.

Salvation is not a transaction but a conversion that takes place day after day, every day for the rest of our lives. Some of us get saved ‘hard’—like that morning we went to hell and lived to tell about it. Not all come to faith that way.

First great witness by Baptists to the world was to church freedom and conscience freedom.

What compels us now? Worship is witness linking ordinary and sacred time. Communion and social ministry is witness. Where do witness and conscience intersect or collide?

Southern white Baptists trashed their witness with slavery and Jim Crow. How do we trash our witness now?

Highland Baptist in Louisville is part of an alliance that sends clergy and laity to gang murder sites and places memorials at those spots. They hope to stop murders but at the least there is a witness.

Wilshire Baptist in Dallas planted a church in Rockwell. It did its ministry. Now it will close. It is not a failure of witness; not every calling has to last forever.

Does your church have a witness in the world?

Judson and wife left on a boat to India as Episcopalian missionaries. After much bible study on the trip, they became Baptists. They were sent as Congregationalists. Became Baptist because the truth compelled them. There was cost to their family. There was also witness.

We are knit together. Merton called the Church a body of broken bones.

Stop worrying about names and reclaim witness. Turn loose consciences instead of fighting culture wars. We are children of God knit together by grace.

Notes from CBF--economic development and microfinance

I'm at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Charlotte. Thanks to the church for sending me. Having been away from CBF life for 15 years, my time here has served as a good reacclimation.

In the interest of sharing what I've learned, I'll post over the next few days notes from workshops, addresses and sermons. Here's the first:

Economic Development Ministries; Don Durham (President of CBF Foundation); CBF, Charlotte, 6/24

CBF is supporting microenterprises as one option among others within its investment portfolio for their constituents.

Microloans use local relationships to secure loans, not traditional collateral. Most microfinance loans are for 6 months. Group of 5: 2 get loans with others as co-signers. Other three cannot get loan until first 2 are paid back. There is mutual encouragement and accountability. Once paid back, 2 more of 5 get loans. Once these are paid back, final person who originally organized group gets loan. This has 98% repayment rate. Safer to lend to entrepreneurs in underdeveloped world than to those who are listening to him in this workshop.

$1000 loan amount will yield 4 loans of $250. In 1 year, that equals 8 loans, figuring loan timeframe is 6 months. Microfinance is single best chance to escape poverty. Average microloan affects 4 people. $1000 affects 32 people in a year. Money is used but not spent. Interest free loans and non-subsidization lead to self-sufficiency.

Mentioned Phil Smith’s A Billion Bootstraps is a personal testimony from this wealthy man seeking the best return on his giving to charity. The Poor Will Be Glad is his assessment of how microfinance works and why it is effective. Smith is a believer.

Delta Jewels in W Helena AR is an example of microfinance in US. CBF does this.

Chalmers Institute (chalmers.org) helps understand the difference between sustainable ministry and handouts.

Microfinance goes with economy of scale. Some loans are larger and longer. The model is to qualify for small loan and then work up. Mix market (mixmarket.org) rates microfinance loan groups so that givers can do so effectively. Developing World (developing-world.org) also has resources for this.

putting hands together

We began our weekly prayer walks through the neighborhood two days ago. We'll leave the church every Wed at 7pm and pick a street. On that street, we'll knock on doors and ask neighbors if we can lift up a concern they have in prayer. We'll get back to the church by 8pm.

We were set to start last Wed but thunderstorms and rain postponed it. If there is inclement weather, we will not walk and will leave praying to the confines of our respective homes.

So at 7pm on Wed night several Calvary members and I walked down 19th and Colonial Sts. I really hadn't anticipated the reactions we would get--maybe that's a good thing.

Our first four houses didn't seem to have anyone home. I briefly considered that the occupants might have hidden until we left but, with yours truly excepted, we were not a motley looking crew. I don't think we would have scared anyone off. We decided early on to pray for non-responsive homes on porches, knowing that God can fill in the specifics.

Finally we found someone willing to answer the door. When I introduced myself and told her why we had knocked, she was incredulous! I think she did a double take. Her large dog seemed interested in us; he also gave her an excuse to dismiss us without engaging in conversation. We prayed next to her secured door after it was shut upon us.

We next had a young woman answer. She seemed mystified that someone would knock on the door and offer to pray for her too. Her husband/boyfriend/roommate poked his head out too. She did say that they were both BU students taking summer classes and asked us to lift that up in prayer, though once we left--not with her present. We did.

The next responsive house had an older man. He came out and talked with us at length, at least by comparison. But, as he said, his life seemed to be going well and he didn't have any concerns worthy of God's attention. We prayed for him too, after he retired inside.

Finally, and this was probably a God-thing to relieve our discouragement, we found a group of bicyclists at a house and they were very receptive to offer of prayer and joined in. That was very affirming.

All this to say that, even in the bible belt, folks are suspicious and wary. What could be more innocuous than to offer to pray with and for someone. And yet, this doesn't seem to fit the normal idea of discipleship. That being the case, maybe we need to remake and redefine discipleship.

time to Celebrate

It has been a while since I posted. A vacation, sick kids and the like will do that. I promise to increase my frequency.

Some exciting things are beginning tomorrow. Music camp commences in the morning, running from Mon through Friday. In addition to this, Mary Alice Birdwhistell, our Children’s Minister has planned some regular activities. Calvary Bible Club will kick off at the end of the month too. Keep these things in prayer—asking God to touch the lives of our young people.

Tomorrow night (Monday, June 14), Celebrate Recovery will hold an open house from 6:30-8:00pm. CR is a 12 step Christian recovery program for anyone with hurts, habits and hang-ups. I think that covers just about everyone. If it doesn’t cover you personally, I can almost guarantee that you know a family member, friend or co-worker who would benefit from this program.

There is some stigma to walking into CR that first time. Making that walk into the Welcome Center amounts to an admission that you need help. As believers in Jesus Christ, haven’t we already confessed that?!

Tomorrow night will amount to an overview of CR including testimony from folks that are in the midst of the program or have gone through it. It will be a time to rejoice in Christian transformation. Please join us.

Recent Reading:

Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Assurance of Immortality

Terry York & C. David Blein, The Voice of Our Congregation

Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Manhood of the Master

Ed DeBono, Lateral Thinking

Stephen King, Just Before Sunset

Christianity and Social Work, edited by Scales and Hugen

loving mercy

Our Wednesday evening bible study just finished Micah. We obviously spent some time on Micah 6.8. One attendee sent me the following:

More thinking about Micah 6: I think loving mercy means an affective disposition that begins and is cultivated by showing mercy but extends far beyond that toward the character of one's basic constitution. I was thinking, I can do mercy but can do so in a way that begrudges mercy (especially since mercy is often thought of in forensic or economic terms). When Micah calls us to love mercy, I think he calls us to a much more profound thing, and much more difficult thing, but also much more wonderful thing, that is a disposition to God and God's creation that emplaces itself within the dialectic of the prophesy itself (call to unfaithfulness, unfaithfulness, judgment, mercy, call to faithfulness, unfaithfulness...). God calls us to love that, to find our place within it, and to love that in a way that helps us situate our lives within it as the narratival structure of our lives, but also relates us to the world in way that makes us increasingly vulnerable to its suffering (on so many levels, as Micah seems to enjoin mainly through the curse of the rich) and responses to to that vulnerability. Again, this can only be done by specific acts of mercy, practices the cultivate this love, and in turn make these practices more regular parts of who we are as persons. I've been thinking a lot about stuff like this as of late (political ecology, political theology, ordinary language philosophy, etc), and so I was grateful for this word on loving mercy as a way to encapsulate this disposition.

Election...

It was 4 years ago that I raced around the South Ward of Trenton, spent some time in a makeshift campaign headquarters in a room above a neighborhood pub (poor campaigns take free space where they can get free space), met with an election board about improper ballots and celebrated a first place finish, but not an outright victory, in a funeral home (see previous parenthetical note). Yes, I’m talking about the 2006 Trenton City Municipal Election and my race for the South Ward City Council seat.

Today is the 2010 Trenton City Municipal Election. I’m told there are 39 entrants for 7 council seats and 1 mayoral position.

I am waxing nostalgic, though not lamenting my distance from the show taking place today [in dripping irony, I understand that Ringling Brothers will make its way to Trenton tomorrow—they probably feared that the political circus would trump their own business!].

I had spent from late January until the second Tuesday in May knocking on doors almost every afternoon and meeting residents. Additional activity included five debates, two commercials (one in Spanish), several radio spots, almost daily print ads, purchasing and putting up signage, formatting and printing fliers, building a website and attending city council meetings. Those months are a blur.

I remember vividly Election Day though. From a lengthy and trying period of frenetic activity, doing all I could do including canvassing the night before until 9pm, the day of reckoning arrived. It was out of my hands. I could not affect the outcome. As citizens entered the voting booth and made a decision, I was no longer a participant but a spectator. The “will of the people” and all that.

I remember feeling some resignation, a sense of helplessness, and like I had gotten strapped into a roller coaster that was now on its chain-driven incline getting ready to approach that first gut wrenching drop. I also remember having the pressure of working to win slide off my back.

This got me reflecting on how our paths to salvation mirror that day. No matter what we do, our eternal security is in God’s hands. We don’t earn grace or work for it or knock on enough doors for it. We can’t promise our way to redemption or win a debate to secure eternal purpose. In the end, it is a gift. God makes the decision, or more accurately made the decision 2000 years ago. The Good News is that Jesus has voted for you and that is the only election you need win.