I appreciated Aaron’s post about the unity of the church in its worship and in our mutual obligation to encourage one another. I had a wonderful moment of encouragement this past Sunday evening that I would love to share.

The encouraging moment was this: observing a U of L student serving in a part of the church where s/he would not be expected to be seen serving. This member went about doing tasks for others that had nothing to do with furthering college ministry or anything that might benefit him/her. I had no idea that this person was doing these tasks, and the way that it was being done told me that this was a very routine act of service. This typifies a general quality that I have seen in nearly all of the university students that have joined the church. Quite remarkably, they do not come only to be served, but also to serve. This is having the mind of Christ, and it is a reason to be deeply encouraged by what God is doing in our fellowship.

A week or so ago I wrote a post about “Where the other generations” had gone. You can scroll down and read it if you would like. It basically offered an explanation for the fact that we have no middle aged people and very few senior citizens in our church. I wrote that because I had been asked by some visitors about the missing generations. They noted how some other churches they had visited were like us. I must confess that I wrote that post with some bit of defensiveness, as I often answer the question. We also recently had a vistor who said that it was like the youth group was running our church. But I am particularly pained by those who were older members in our church but despite our attempts to love them, left our fellowship.

As gently as I can, I always try to explain the realiites of what our situation has been. We have had a very large physical plant, we had over 1,100 people on the rolls and about 40-50 attending. 3ABC was discussing whether or not to have a bi-vocational pastor in 1999 because they couldn’t afford to pay the pastor and the chior director and the organist and the pianist. The pastor had to be cut according to some. The future was bleak because not even the children and grandchildren of our members were attending or supporting the church. Over 1000 members didn’t show up or send us a dime. As I said, I explained briefly in my other post why this happened.

When I came to 3ABC though, I soon learned of another church about 8 blocks down on 4th street in a similar situation. 4th Ave. Baptist Church had about 50 people, a big building, and probably a very large membership. I learned yesterday that the remaining 36 people at 4th Ave. Bapt. voted to merge with Walnut Street Baptist Church and close. They haven’t determined what to do with their property yet. 4th Ave. was the church home for a good number of SBTS faculty when the seminary was downtown. It is a very historic church in this city. And now it is closing. They were probably still paying the choir director and organist.
So my question is would you rather have the youth group running the church or no church?

I interrupt Keith’s very interesting question about preaching to point our readers to today’s Courier Journal. In the local section former 3ABC member Jim Chambliss is featured in an article about his art and brain injury. You can read it here.

Last week we had some visitors come to one of our services and in talking with them afterward they asked me a question that is frequently asked. They asked, “Where are the other generations?” By that they mean where are the middle-aged and senior citizens. They also observed that this same phenomenon is true in some other Southern Baptist churches that are kindred spirits to us here in Louisville.

There are two primary reasons for the present situation. The first is that most of these churches didn’t have many people when folks like me first came to them. In 1999 when I first came to 3ABC, there were about 50 in attendance and 1,100 on the rolls. The people who were here then have mostly died or are no longer able to attend. Seven years is a long time for those who are in their 80’s.

So then, are there no middle-aged people going to church in Louisville? Yes, there are, but most of the middle-aged people who grew up in churches like 3ABC stopped going to church, or they took their children to churches like Southeast Christian. How do you think Southeast grew to have 20,000 members? Most of the children and grandchildren of those who were coming to 3ABC when I first came either didn’t go to church or went somehwere like Highview, 9th and O or Southeast.
I would love to have it other than it is, but in God’s providence this is the lot that has come to us and other churches like us. As the sands of time sink, we’ll take care of having some older members. My gray hair is coming in nicely. Thanks for asking.

Over the summer Keith Goad has been preaching for us Sunday mornings from James and leading us Wednesday evenings in a Bible study from John 17. Keith preached an excellent sermon today but ends the series without finishing the book. He’s left us at a cliff hanger. The Wednesday evening Bible study will continue in John though, and as Keith said in a recent post on this blog, there are some important questions hanging from last week’s discussion.

The primary question we were wrestling with last Wednesday was how should we engage with the culture even though we were are not to be “of” the world. My response to that question is what should we be doing? If we have been sent as Christ was sent into the world, what does that mean for us? Surely there were things that Christ did that were unique that we are not here to do. What are those things, and what are the things we should be doing? I think that part of the difficulty we have deciding how “missional” or indigenous to be comes from the complexity of deciding what we are to do as “little Christs”, what is for the church, and what was uniquely Christ’s to do? Are we to be feeding the poor, engaging in healing ministries, incarnating as Indie rockers . . . You can only answer these questions it seems by deciding what specifically we are to do as we are sent.

I intentionally chose an article to springboard from because so many people are using missional and no one seems to be using it the same way.  I do recommend the McKnight article on the emergent church for those interested.  What I wrote earlier and will write about now is the “missional” theology of the emergent church.  There is a positive use of the term missional that many are using and we can adopt at Third.  The problem with many terms is how everyone latches on to them and redefines them.  Example:  Evangelical, wow, what a wide variety of folk that claim this one?  I did not want to bring up Niebuhr earlier and sound like a nerd, but since Greg did…I was thinking in those categories when I read emergents are pro-culture.  What does this mean?

According to the article I am working from, pro-culture means looking for what God is doing in the culture and participating in it.  In my perspective and understanding of how McKnight describes culture and Christ, they are place side-by-side because God is acitve in both equivically and so God’s people are active in both equivically.  Is this how the Scriptures really describe God’s activities and how Christians are to act?  In our John 17 study it is clear that a great divide is cast between “the world” and the disciples/church.  Christ does not pray for the world, but only for those the Father had given him.  The work of the Kingdom (salvific grace) has precedence over the creating, sustaining work of the world (common grace).  Believers are in the world, but not of it.  They are to go into the world and transform it.  They are not old creations just seeking to act a new way.  Believers are transformed, receive a new nature and status as children of God, and proclaim the kingdom.

We at Third should be missional in the sense that we are going to order ourselves around the command to go make disciples.  We must recognize that we have a culture to reach and seek to interact with the people of that culture as much as possible.  We do this while not becoming or thinking like them, as if they will complete us in some way.  Instead we hold to the Scriptures and seek to proclaim God’s truth so that those who are lost and dead in their sins will be converted and begin to think like us.  This does not sound generous to many.  But we cannot get around the fact that the world we proclaim Christ in hates the God whom we proclaim.  So, we go to coffee with them, go to lunch with them, play basketball with them, study with them, you get the point…all to proclaim the one they will either receive by faith or hate by rebellion. 

For those of our faithful few readers who were not able to worship with us yesterday, your elders did come back Saturday evening. Our last post might lead you to think that we have been having a good time away from it all. We did have a good time away — even if we were only gone for 24 hours — and we had an excellent Lord’s Day together yesterday.

Last night Greg summarized most of what the elders talked about during our time away. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it over time. One of the most encouraging things to me was having an extended conversation about the church and as part of that an extended time thinking about the church’s future. Talking about the future of the church has not always been the most encouraging thing over the last several years, but for the first time it was. It was encouraging to reflect on what God has done for us over the last year and what we may be able to do in the future.

Also encouraging was Greg’s sermon from Luke 24 on the resurrected Christ. It was the perfect sermon for this weekend. The reality of the resurrection — that God would raise His dead Son to life — is the ultimate source of hope for us as believers. It is also my source of hope for 3ABC. While we cannot presume on God’s will, the fact that He brings that which was dead to life has been and continues to be a great source of encouragement. Greg’s application of bearing witness to the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection to Old Louisville also warmed my heart.
There is much that we need to do, but encouragement like this is certainly welcome.