By Tom Jenkins on 5/28/2009 7:00 PM

     I visited with one of our aging members that is no longer able to attend church. He was about as excited to see me as I was to see him. He said, 'I've been sitting here waiting for someone from the church to talk with." I had not planned to make the visit on that day. I had other tasks on the schedule for the day. But sometimes God nudges me in a direction I had not chosen for the day. So I made the visit and received a wonderful blessing. I call visits like that one, "Just in time ministry." God urged me to see someone because he knew the person needed an encouraging word on that day. He's been in a rough place recently and felt like he was struggling by himself. I was able to assure him of God's love for him and the love for him shared by his church family. I'm grateful God gave me a nudge in a different direction on that day.      "Just in time ministry", for me, is suddenly appearing at the right place with the right people doing the right thing. Only God can set that sequence in place. When God "nudges"...

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By Tom Jenkins on 4/26/2009 7:07 PM

   I am preaching in a revival this week at a neighboring church. I've enjoyed these preaching missions ever since I was the preacher for a revival team back in college days. In those days most churches had spring and fall revivals. Often one of the revivals began with Homecoming, a time honored tradition of celebrating the past, perhaps inviting a previous minister and following the service with a meal. At FBCC we still have Homecoming in the fall but we do not follow it with a week of revival services.    In the rural south where I grew up revivals were often held in the summer after the crops were "laid" by, that is, the farmers had completed their work in their fields and were waiting for the harvest to ripen. So there was a short reprieve between the making of the crops and the harvesting of the crops. Some churches held what were called "protracted" revivals which meant that the beginning date was posted but no one knew when it would end because planning an ending date was akin to "quenching the spirit."...

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By Tom Jenkins on 4/20/2009 12:47 PM

    April 19 was Youth Sunday at FBCC. Our youth director, David Richardson preached, the youth choir sang, youth acted as ushers, staffed the welcome center, greeted our guests, offered prayers, read Scripture and even gave the children’s sermon. It was a marvelous experience for us all.

    God has a way of stirring a church through its youth. He often uses them to remind us “older” folk of our need to have youth-like faith, a faith which always includes the elements of journey and unpredictability. Youth are great at showing us that God can use us even when we feel unprepared. Youth ministry has an exciting edge of Divine serendipity about it. What may at times appear to be lack of preparation by youth are actually faith steps trusting God to do what they cannot do. We all need to learn that or our faith walk becomes predictable, routine, ho-hum and a little monotonous. So risk something this week for Christ. Do something for him that you have been reluctant to do. You may discover as many Christians...

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By Tom Jenkins on 3/31/2009 1:17 PM

   Two seasons are like bookends to Christianity. One is Christmas when we celebrate the birth of our Lord, when, as John said, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The other is Easter when we gather as resurrection people to celebrate Jesus’ defeat of death. Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and promised return are foundations of our faith.

     In a skeptical and secularized world the resurrection is too much “hocus-pocus” for some people. After all, none of us has ever witnessed a resurrection. So is the resurrection another point of belief that must be accepted only by faith?

      No. We have verifiable proof of the resurrection of Jesus. There were eye witnesses to his resurrection and we have their reports recorded in Scripture. The Apostle Paul turns historian when in I Corinthians 15 he tells us about the eye witnesses to the resurrection, those who saw Jesus in his resurrected body. The writers of the Gospels make sure that we can believe in the resurrection by substantiating...

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By Tom Jenkins on 3/5/2009 3:54 PM

            David Richardson will fill the pulpit Sunday. I am “off” for a few days. Cheryl and I will spend the weekend together without church responsibilities thanks to David’s preaching and the graciousness of the FBCC family in allowing me time away.

            I am in the reassessing “mode”. Every few months I find it helpful to review my journals and see if my work is aligned with my mission. Does the record of my activities reveal “True North” in following my mission? Without that sort of reflection I find that I wander and my productivity level goes down. I’ve tried for years to follow some of Stephen Covey’s principles such as “First Things First” and “See the End from the Beginning.” I discovered with my review yesterday that I have not been completely focused on “First Things First”. That simply means I have not faithfully followed the priorities I established, with God’s leadership, for my mission and ministry. I’ve allowed other “drivers” to influence my actions. I hope to correct that by...

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By Tom Jenkins on 2/21/2009 12:09 PM

   I lost a good friend this week. Ben Johnson and I had been friends for 48 years. He was a deacon in a church that I served when I was a college student. He was a good role model for a young preacher. He affirmed me in many ways and every criticism of his came with love. He was one of three very close friends I had in that small rural community in Georgia. I have now buried all three of them. Their loss takes away a part of my life. Though memories are ever there, presence is what's missed most.    John Donne was a preacher in London in the seventeenth century. A third of the city was destroyed by the dreaded plague during his ministry. Though people were afraid to gather in large numbers for fear of catching the plague, Donne preached to a packed house every Sunday because his words offered them hope. Donne caught the plague and as he fought death he wrote some of his most memorable words.    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed...

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By Tom Jenkins on 2/2/2009 7:25 PM

  Our third annual service of "Remembrance" will be held February 22 at 6:30. We started holding these annual services as a way for us to express our grief and share our memories of church members who died during the preceding year. The service is a worshipful way to say "Thank You" to  God for those we've lost in death and to enliven our hope for life everlasting. Last year we started including the names of extended family members, such as parents, who may have died years earlier as a way to celebrate their lives. We will do that again this year.
  Charles Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said "Our people die well."  I believe he meant by that Christians die with hope. Surely, we grieve at the loss of anyone, but the death of the Christian is more about hope than loss. Our hope is in an everlasting life, promised by our Lord and verified by his resurrection. Amen.
 

By Tom Jenkins on 1/24/2009 4:03 PM

    Upward Basketball is in full swing at FBCC. We have over 200 boys and girls playing on 9 teams and 65 cheerleaders. With the teams and family members that come to watch the games, over 800 people come through the Family Life Center each Saturday. Upward teaches basketball skills but it also teaches life skills. Bible verses are memorized, prayers are offered, and spiritual counsel is provided for the teams. The players learn that it’s not all about winning. Developing character is more important than winning.

    A devotional is delivered at halftime each Saturday. Ralph Seagrove, one of our active deacons, gave the devotionals today. He said that in learning to play basketball we have to listen to our coaches, practice faithfully and learn from our past mistakes. Those are good lessons for life, too. We have a coach, Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to work with him and thus “practice” this matter that we call Christianity and through his grace we learn from our mistakes and grow in our faith....

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By Tom Jenkins on 1/7/2009 9:17 AM

     I’ve allowed too much time to pass since last coming to these pages. I hope that grace is extended if I promise to be more faithful to my writing tasks.      Cheryl and I enjoyed time with our family over the Christmas holidays. We spent Christmas eve and Christmas day with our son and then we flew to Key West to visit our daughter, son-in-law and their three children. For many years the entire family was at our house for Christmas. As children get older, move away and marry, and cultivate relationships among peers and move in their own circles beyond family, scheduling the holidays together as a family is difficult.         Our church family, FBCC, gave us many gifts, too. I’ve been writing notes of thanks and am overwhelmed as I am reminded of the generosity of so many people. The church surprised me in 2008 with a special luncheon and money to buy a new clerical robe. I wore it for the first time at our Christmas Eve service. I don’t wear a clerical robe often, but each time I use it will replay for me the mental tape of that celebration.

...

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By Tom Jenkins on 12/15/2008 6:59 PM

   Communion, often reffered to as the Lord's Supper, is a special event for the Christian church. We Baptists refer to this as an "ordinance", along with Baptism. Bread and juice are the elements of communion. Both are symbols of Christ, his body and his blood. We Baptists generally use grape juice rather than actual wine as the beverage and the bread is small squares of unleavened bread. The service is filled with the symboism of Christ's love for us that was profoundly demonstrated through his sacrificial death on the cross. The service is patterened after the supper that Jesus had with his disciples the night he was arrested.    Christmas is about Christ's birth. Yet, the shadow of the cross was cast upon the manger for his birth began the journey to the cross. The joy we sing about at Christmas is climaxed with our shouts of joy at Easter as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.    We will celebrate communion at our sevice on Christmas eve at 11:00 p.m. We will gather around the table of the Lord and...

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