Texas Baptists Committed - A Rancher's Rumblings, May 6, 2008

My Mother's Love
The past two weeks have been an emotional time for me personally, and I want to share my feelings with you – my extended family – about this special time in my life.

On Monday, April 21, Mother fell in her kitchen. She has been clinging to living alone in Paint Rock, at age 91, in the house that my father’s parents built in 1935. Well, not completely alone – she still enjoys the company of her precious cat, “Pretty Face,” who replaced “Little One,” who lived to be 18 years old.

My sister was away when Mother fell, so I got the call to come to Paint Rock and check on her. She claimed to be fine, refused to go to the doctor, and had plans to come to San Angelo on Tuesday to get her nails done before attending the Currie-Strickland Lectures at Howard Payne on April 28.

However, on Tuesday evening, April 22, Mother fell again. This time, she slid off the couch and could not find her emergency button, so she laid on the floor from 7 p.m. until 6 the next morning, when she rolled over and set off the emergency button, which was on her back. She was taken to the hospital and stayed there until the following Monday, when she moved to a nursing home in Ballinger. It appears that she suffered a mild stroke, which, of course, kept her from going to Brownwood for the Currie-Strickland Lectures.

I realize that most of you reading this are not likely to have had a parent live to be 91 years old. I jokingly tell Mother, from time to time, that she has to keep on living, because she has not finished raising me yet. Even though I say it teasingly, it may well be true. I think God realizes I still need a Mother.

But back to how I felt as I looked at Mother in the hospital. She couldn’t walk and was obviously very weak. It seemed that I finally, for the first time, realized that I will not have her with me much longer. Sure, in my mind, I’ve always known that day would come and have frequently commented that I hoped she could die in her home, because I know she doesn’t want to leave it. I also know that I’ve heard her say, for as long as I can remember, “I don’t want to live too long.”

But she’s still my Momma, and none of us likes to think about losing someone who loves us like Momma loves me. I have been very blessed to know so many people who have loved me and believed in me and supported my work through difficult times and many mistakes – especially friends such as Phil Strickland, Gary Elliston, David Sapp, Doug Ezell, Ira Peak, Jim Heerwald, John Crow, John Petty, Ron Cook, Bill Tillman, Sam McCutchen, and many others. But, to be honest, there’s no comparison between their love for me and Mother’s love for me. If it were possible for a Mother to love her son too much, my Mother would stand convicted of that charge.

So Mother missed the inaugural Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics at Howard Payne University in Brownwood on April 28.

Lectures Given by Legends
I must tell you that this event affected me emotionally more than I ever dreamed it would. I have been used to working behind the scenes and being joked about publicly as a “lightning rod.” But I never really expected to receive this kind of recognition for the work I have done at TBC for 21 years and, to be honest, I didn’t really think I cared much about such recognition.

But then Gary and Molli Elliston established these lectures to honor Phil Strickland and me. Friends, this is, without question, the greatest honor I have ever received and probably ever will receive.

Three close friends of mine – David Sapp, Richard Jackson, and Jimmy Allen – delivered these inaugural lectures. As I heard them speak, I heard the words of a popular song – “what a lucky man I am” – running through my mind.

David, Richard, and Jimmy are legends in Baptist life. Against all odds, against all concern for their professional and financial futures, these three men stood proud and strong for Christ, biblical ethics, and Baptist principles as few others have – with no regard for the cost. They did it simply because they knew in their hearts and souls what it means to be committed to Jesus.

As I heard them speak, I could not help but reflect on the way that God has put the right people in my life at the right time, over and over again.

(continued)

Friends, Teachers, and the Grace of God
When I was 15 years old, Mike Chancellor – who now serves on the Howard Payne Board with me – came to Paint Rock to preach a youth revival as I was struggling with a call to ministry.

I received a track scholarship to Howard Payne. It was the only scholarship I was offered, so I grabbed it. On my first Sunday after checking into the dorm, I met Gary Elliston, who would become a lifelong friend.

Gary and I sat together all through our freshman year, as Nat Tracy taught us Old and New Testament. Jimmy and Richard often referred to Nat Tracy as they spoke in Brownwood last month. It was Nat Tracy and James Shields who changed my entire understanding of Christianity while I attended Howard Payne.

In my freshman year, I met James Dunn. I met Phil Strickland in my senior year. Then I went to Southwestern Seminary, where there were then incredible “teachers from God,” like Boo Heflin, Yandell Woodfin, Bob Adams, Leon McBeth, William Estep, Huber Drumwright, C. W. Brister, Tommy Briscoe, Doug Ezell, and Bill Pinson. I knew that Bill Pinson was getting ready to leave, so I made sure to take a course under him before he left. I treasure the memory of studying under such special teachers.

In January 1988, as I was beginning my work at TBC, I traveled the country with Richard Jackson. Hear me, readers – NO ONE could ever have more integrity than Richard Jackson. He was deeply conservative theologically, but he knew that Pressler and Patterson were lying every time they opened their mouths, and he refused to be a part of what they were doing. I love and admire Richard Jackson.

The next two years, I traveled and spoke with Daniel Vestal. What an incredible man of God is Daniel Vestal! He is perhaps the finest Christian I have ever known – pure love and grace and evangelism and ethics all in one committed person. If you know Daniel Vestal at all, you can’t help but love and admire him. He is truly a man of God if I have ever known one.

As I heard these men speak at these lectures honoring Phil (yes, I realize that I was being honored, too, but, at the moment, I cannot accept that emotionally), I found myself thinking, “what a lucky man I am” . . . born in a San Angelo hospital (there were no hospitals in Paint Rock – Mother had been born at home) . . . then raised in a very small town with a very small Baptist church. Growing up in that church, I often found that I was THE “youth group” – I was the only youth in Sunday School. So I’ve often wondered, “how could God find me?”

But then I reflect on this pattern of God placing the right people in my life at the right time. Wonderful, loving Christian parents . . . good pastors like Chester Sylvester and James Golden . . . friends and teachers like Mike Chancellor, Nat Tracy, Gary Elliston, James Dunn, James Shields, and Jim Heerwald . . . followed by those great Southwestern professors I mentioned earlier . . . plus Ira and Sam, whom I met in Seminary . . . plus Gene Wilkes and Ken Huggins, who were great friends to me in seminary . . . and, later on, Herbert Reynolds and John Baugh, who were like no men I had ever met before . . . and now men like Ken Hall and Ron Cook, who are valued advisors to me now that I do not have Phil anymore.

In short, as I reflect on these two emotional weeks, I find myself relating to the feelings expressed by the legendary baseball player Lou Gehrig, who stood in Yankee Stadium on that long-ago day, looked into the faces of thousands of people who had loved, encouraged, and supported him, and said, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest person on the face of the earth.”

Only, as you well know, it really has nothing to do with luck. It has everything to do with God’s grace. God has been gracious to me. Many thanks to all of you for your friendship and support over the years.

In closing, I want to share with you the Baptist Standard article about the Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures, written by Ken Camp. After he read Ken’s article, David Sapp said to me, “He got it.” By the way, in David’s address at the Lectures, he presented an incredibly insightful discussion of how fear affects our relationship with God. I’ll write more about his presentation in a future Rumblings.

As I share Ken Camp’s article with you, I want to thank Ken for writing such a great summary of our lectures.

Ethics and evangelism focus of inaugural lectures at Howard Payne
by Ken Camp
Managing Editor, Baptist Standard

BROWNWOOD—Evangelism and ethics both grow out of a vibrant relationship with the God who is love, speakers told participants at the inaugural Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics at Howard Payne University.

People cannot fully come to know God apart from the Bible, but they cannot really know the Bible apart from God, said David Sapp, pastor of Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga.

“If God breathed it, how can we possibly understand it apart from knowing him?” Sapp asked.

Proper understanding of Scripture and application of its teachings in daily life require disciples to seek the mind of God, he said. Sapp suggested three themes that help Christians interpret Scripture—love, covenant and conquest of fear.

Love is the key
“Love is key to understanding the mind and heart of God,” he said.

But determining the most loving thing to do in the midst of any circumstance proves difficult, he acknowledged. Consequently, many Christians retreat to a rule-based ethic and treat the Bible as a “moral and ethical encyclopedia” from which they pluck isolated verses—usually ones that reinforce their own opinions and prejudices, he added.

God demonstrated his love through covenant relationships, and covenant serves as an interpretive key for reading Scripture, Sapp noted.
“Without commitment, there is no covenant,” he said. “Covenant commitment is an obligation not just of contract but of relationship.”

Covenant finds its expression in community, Sapp noted. In the Old Testament, God established covenant with Israel as a people, not strictly with individuals. While the New Covenant has more individual expression, he observed, it still offers invitation to enter into a larger community as part of the kingdom of God.

“Sin is social and not just personal,” he said.

The defeat of fear
Much sin grows out of fear, and “defeat of fear is part of the agenda of God,” Sapp said. “Much of our sin has its genesis in fear. Fear is fertile soil for evil.”

Both ethics and evangelism express God’s love, said Richard Jackson, director of the Jackson Center for Evangelism and Encouragement and pastor emeritus of North Phoenix Baptist Church in Phoenix, Ariz.

“Evangelism is born in the heart of a God of love,” Jackson said. From the earliest passage in Genesis and throughout the Bible, Scriptures testify to God’s loving pursuit of spiritually lost men and women.

“Jesus Christ didn’t come to heal the sick, or he would have healed them all. He didn’t come to feed the hungry, or he would have fed them all,” Jackson said. “He came to seek and save the lost. He healed the sick and fed the hungry because of who he is.”

Likewise, Christians today evangelize because Christ gave them that assignment, he said. Christians meet needs and seek justice because of who they are.

“Because Jesus lives in me, I will reach out to help those who are hurting,” he said.

Evangelism and ethics
Evangelism and ethics—“winning people to Jesus and wanting people to act like it”—bring Baptists together, noted Jimmy Allen, former denominational executive and recent coordinator of the New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta.

Allen recalled his experiences as pastor of First Baptist Church in San Antonio, leading a church with a historic commitment to missions and evangelism to recognize ethical challenges and injustices in their own community.

At the downtown San Antonio church, Allen noted, people already possessed the necessary desire. They just needed to be challenged.

“A church will follow the vision of its pastor if the pastor has a passion for it,” he said.

But in some churches, he added, members must be shaken from their complacency and challenged to look beyond the four walls of the church building to see community needs.

“The moribund church never looks outside its windows except to see if the grass is mowed,” he said.

Gary and Molli Elliston of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas established the Currie-Strickland lectures in honor of David Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, and in memory of Phil Strickland, longtime director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission.