When I look back at my personal history, I think I knew at an early age in some way I would be serving the church. I thought music perhaps, maybe even teaching, but being a deacon never crossed my mind. And, until I got married and found Central Baptist Church, I wasn’t even sure what denomination I was. Let me give you a little background history of my religious upbringing.
I was born in Arizona, where my parents worked with the Presbyterian Church on the Navajo Indian reservation. We moved back east when I was still very young, and when we settled in Albany, Georgia, we became involved in the Christian Missionary Alliance Church, after a few years there, we moved our membership to Byne Memorial Baptist Church and my brothers and I attended school there, as well as church, until we moved to Kentucky when I was 13. By the time we left Georgia I was so discontented by bigotry and hypocrisy in that church, I vowed I would never again go to another Baptist Church.
In Harlan, we attended a small Grace Fellowship Church, but most of my religious education during those years came from my involvement with the youth of the local Mennonite congregation. By the time I graduated from high school, I was contemplating joining the Mennonite faith – the people I encountered, and the lessons I learned in those years were probably the most shaping ones. That was the first time I ever understood that being religious didn’t have to mean being stuffy. We could talk openly about our faith, we could debate with each other about our beliefs, we could ask questions, no matter how strange they seemed, and we could explore different points of view. Up until then, my religious training involved rigid beliefs, memorization of Bible verses and Bible stories, and very literal biblical translations, it was all about being spoon fed the answers without ever being taught how to ask questions.
Now for those of you who are thinking to yourself right now, “Isn’t being Mennonite like being Amish?” Let me clarify that these Mennonite were a very distant branch of that Anabaptist tree, and until Central Baptist, they were some of the most liberal people I had ever encountered.
However, I went off to college, and did what so many college students did – slept late on Sunday mornings. While I was working at Ramsey’s Diner, I even requested to not work on Sundays so I could attend church, although I rarely did, I knew I would go back some day.
For a few years I struggled with my religion – I didn’t struggle with my faith, that has always been strong, but I just wasn’t sure what kind of church I wanted to be a part of, and what kind of role that faith was going to play in my life. I was terrified I was going to have to choose between being religious and being me.
In the late 1990’s I started dating a very handsome young man, who also happened to have been one of my manager’s at Ramsey’s. The first Thanksgiving we were together I went to my parents for a few days; but he told me his parents had invited us to church then lunch that Sunday after I got back to town. “Sure, that sounds nice”, I said, “Where do they go to church?”
“Central Baptist”, Jamie replied
“Oh great”, I thought, “just me like to get caught up in a big ol’ Baptist family. Oh well, its just one visit.”
After Jamie and I were engaged, his parents again invited us to church, this time to witness Mary Ida being ordained as a deacon. Now that was new – I had never seen a woman be ordained to be a deacon, I had to double check this was a Baptist church. My only recollections of deacons were stuffy old men, and I thought their role was just to take up the offering. I was intrigued. At her ordination, we were all invited to lay our hands on her – her family, and I was part of that family. That was the day I started to think differently about this little church, and about the role religion could play in my life.
After Jamie and I married we started visiting more regularly. By that fall I joined the choir (I couldn’t believe they let me join the choir without having joined the church – they must have been desperate), but they did, and my passion for music was revived.
You know, I don’t know if I was a little slow, or if they just didn’t make a big deal of it, but it took a while for me to realize what made this church so different. I always knew that these people were open and accepting, yet their faith was still very strong and their love for God great. I had never seen the two co-exist before. It was when I started to hear the talks of Central leaving the Southern Baptist Convention that I told Jamie, “I think we should join this church.” So in November of 2000, 8-months pregnant with our first child, we joined Central Baptist Church – it was the first time in my life I had joined a church because it was the church I wanted to be a part of – and it was a Baptist church.
I immediately got very involved, I joined a couple of committees, continued singing in the choir, and started teaching Sunday School – I think I was trying to catch up for all I had missed through my college years. Gerard talked a lot at that time about using our gifts; I was desperately trying to figure out what my gifts were and how I could use them.
However, there was one area I still struggled with. The role of the Deacon. I had no problem with women being deacons; that was part of what drew me to this church. But in my background, I could only remember deacons as leaders of the church. Those men who set the pace and pointed the church in the right direction. They made all the major decisions, and in some cases, were responsible for the success of the church – good or bad. The first time I was nominated I turned it down because I didn’t feel I had that leadership quality, at least not yet. And I even struggled with other people who were being nominated, I remember a few years ago we were encouraged to nominate young people; from the choir loft, I looked out at the kids in the youth group and couldn’t find one I thought was ready to be a leader of this church. To me it all seemed to be an act of desperation from a struggling church.
Last year, after Mark became our minister, I sat down with him to talk about my concerns about this church and how it chooses its Deacons. He found a way to make it clear to me that here, the deacons are not leaders, they are servants.
It is that spirit of servant hood that not only makes this church different, but that draws me to it. And, it is that spirit of servant hood that has helped me grow as a person and as a Christian over the past 7 years. I have learned that my personal relationship with Christ is not based on wrote memory and rigid doctrines, but on His grace and my willingness to accept it.
A perfect person I am not, and a perfect Christian I am not, but I am willing to be a servant to God and His people, and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve in this way.
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