Starting with a Fury

by Barry Howard

Four years ago today, I made my first appearance on campus as pastor of First Baptist Church, a few days earlier than originally planned.

Amanda and I returned from a 24-day visit to China in late June of 2005. We made a few final visits with friends and family in Alabama and hit the road to Pensacola where I had been invited to serve as pastor at First Baptist Church. Our plan was to unpack and arrange our things in the missionary house on Lemmington Road during the week prior to my first Sunday. The church had planned for me to preach my first sermon on Sunday, July 10 and to spend my first day in the office on Monday, July 11.

The fireworks of Monday July 4 quickly gave way to the stormy winds of July 5. After the first day of unpacking, we awoke on July 6 to the howling of Hurricane Cindy, originally forecast to remain a tropical storm. To the amazement of local meteorologists, Cindy arrived as a category one hurricane.

As we were picking up limbs and sweeping the sidewalk awaiting the return of electrical power that was temporarily suspended by Cindy, all eyes turned to the rapidly forming storm cluster in the gulf that was bee-lining for the coast. On Thursday morning July 7, Governor Bush declared a mandatory evacuation of our new hometown. Hurricane Dennis was forecast to hit downtown Pensacola head on some time during Sunday morning.

After hearing the news on Thursday afternoon, I went to my new, yet unfurnished office and study at First Baptist Church and met with staff for the first time as pastor. After conferring with staff ministers and deacon leadership, my first official act, regrettably, was to cancel Sunday services, which to my knowledge was a first in the history of FBCP.

Because the repairs from Hurricane Ivan were not yet completed, there was a lot of work to be done to prepare the church campus for the approaching storm. The sanctuary and part of the music suite was still under a temporary roof and numerous leaks had yet to be addressed. We assembled an ad hoc work crew composed of staff and volunteers and began covering musical instruments, re-enforcing windows and doors, and assembling buckets, mops, and towels.

On Friday, the roadways were bumper to bumper as residents were leaving town. As our work force continued to fortify the campus, I met with officers from the Pensacola Police Department and learned of our church's tradition of housing officers and their families at the Christian Activities Center during storms. Because of its concrete structural integrity and its "higher ground" location, the CAC was utilized as a safe haven and temporary residence, allowing the officers to rest and refresh just a couple of blocks from the police department.

On Saturday, Pensacola was like a ghost town. Stores, businesses, and homes were boarded up but the sky was blue. Strong gusts and a high surf were the only signs that a significant storm was on the way.

After Amanda and I locked down the mission house, we took our air mattress, our sleeping bags, our flash lights, a stash of food, our short-wave radio, and a couple of changes of clothes, and we set up camp in the floor of the unfurnished pastor’s study on the church campus. Throughout the day and into the evening we were joined by 46 volunteers and staff members who were going to ride out the storm with us while trying to minimize further damage to the building.

I awoke around three o’clock on Sunday morning and went to room 220, a large adult classroom where we had set up a television and a few snack items. At that time I discovered that Dennis had intensified and could possibly hit downtown around noon on Sunday as a category four storm, much stronger than the category three previously forecast.

My imagination began to run wild. Having grown up in a tornado prone region of Alabama, I do not suffer from storm phobia. But as I listened to the forecast I was imagining the devastation a category four could inflict on the beautiful beaches of the Emerald Coast. I found myself wondering if the mission house, which was to be our temporary home, would still be standing and if any of our belongings would be found. I thought about the thousands of families who had evacuated the Panhandle and I wondered how many would return to be homeless. And then I thought about the stubborn and the foolish who were riding out the storm in wood frame waterfront homes, structures that would certainly not withstand a category four blast.

I don’t remember ever fearing for the safety of those riding out the storm on our campus. We are well above the flood zone. And the steel and concrete construction of our office space and lower education levels provides bunker-like security. However, I do specifically remember wondering whether the beautiful sanctuary, located atop the highest elevation in town, would survive the impact.

Around eight o’clock on Sunday morning, as our “storm troopers” were finishing breakfast, we began to spread the word that we would have a “come as you are” worship service in the chapel at nine. Six more local residents joined us on Sunday morning bringing our total attendance on campus to 56.

We sang a few hymns and I shared a message on “Listening for the Music in the Storm” from Isaiah 46. We closed with a prayer time for all of the persons affected by the storms.

As we departed the chapel, we were greeted with the face of Jim Cantori of The Weather Channel, standing underneath the “beachball” on Pensacola Beach, giving an updated forecast now projecting Dennis to hit as a category three storm, still aiming for downtown. Because we did not lose power until the eye was almost over us, we watched the approaching storm on radar, and noted the last minute joggle, which eventually re-directed the path of the storm over Escambia Bay. When the storm reached the more shallow waters near the coast, it actually made landfall as a category two. The news was getting better minute by minute.

Though damage to our community and our campus was minimal, watching the storm firsthand was an incredible experience. The first wave produced a fury of winds that shook the building. Utility poles were swaying like tall southern pine trees. Windows were rattling and sprouting new leaks due to the powerful wind gusts and the horizontal bullets of rain. Debris, including tree limbs, construction cones, roof shingles, displaced signage, and assorted garbage, was flying through the air in a multitude of directions. A portable restroom that had been located on the northwest corner of our campus for construction workers went air born like a missile, zooming toward our glass atrium doors before suddenly shifting direction, and landing harmlessly on its side in the east parking lot.

In contrast to Hurricane Ivan, which sat spinning over the Panhandle for hours, Dennis passed in less than an hour, and amazingly, left blue skies and sunshine in its wake. Our storm troopers left campus immediately following the storm to investigate the damage to their own homes, with most incurring minor afflictions. Because of the minimal damage, one news reporter dubbed the storm, Dennis the Menace.

Utility companies had most of the power restored to homes and businesses by Monday or Tuesday of the following week. Cleanup of the church campus began on Monday. By Wednesday we were ready for our Midweek Service. Evacuees returned home from adjoining states throughout the week.

On Sunday, July 17, as a much larger crowd gathered than on July 10, I became the first pastor in the history of the church to have a second first Sunday. And in retrospect, I can confirm that both first Sundays were memorable and significant in getting personally acquainted with the strengths of my new church family.

A Prayer for Independence Day 2009

Good and gracious God, you have given us the privilege and the responsibility of living in the most resourceful land in the world. From sea to shining sea most of us enjoy unparalleled freedom, comfortable homes, nutritious meals, preferred vocations, and unique religious liberty.

Even as we count the many wonderful blessings we share by living in this great land, we also sense that we live in times of heightened concern and anxiety. Our nation is engaged in a multi-national military conflict. Our economy is slowed by a recession. And in the past year we have elected a new president who needs divine guidance to lead our country.

These concerns remind us of our need to confess our sins, personally and collectively, and to embrace your plan for living life with purpose and integrity.

We confess that we have too often taken our freedom for granted and we have too frequently been negligent in fulfilling the responsibilities of our citizenship.

We confess that at times we are too quick to criticize and we are too slow to intercede prayerfully.

We confess that our self-interests have too often taken priority over your best intentions for our nation and for our world.

We confess that we have been negligent in our stewardship of health and wealth, often consuming compulsively when we should be managing carefully, investing wisely, and sharing generously.

We confess that we have too often trusted in our own initiatives and ingenuity more than we have trusted in you.

We pray with the psalmist, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” (Psalm 51:1-3)

Therefore, as we prepare to celebrate this Independence Day, we ask you to, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

On this day, we pray for the leaders of our nation, our state, and our community that they will lead with moral courage, bipartisan cooperation, and wise discernment.

We pray for the men and women who serve in our nation’s military that they will perform their humanitarian mission with effectiveness and precision, and return home safely and soon.

We pray for our enemies that their swords, as well as ours, will be “turned into plowshares.”

We pray for the churches, cathedrals, and temples of our nation and our community that we will be lighthouses of grace and mercy, living our convictions with consistency, engaging our discourse with hospitality and civility.

Because you are the freedom-loving and grace-giving God, lead us to exercise our freedom responsibly and to pursue “liberty and justice for all” your children around the globe, especially the “least of these.”

We present our petition in the strong name of Jesus, the one who exemplifies the truth that makes us free indeed. Amen.

Did SBC Action Go Far Enough?

By Barry Howard

As much as I was saddened by the Southern Baptist Convention’s continuing efforts to become more “exclusive” and less “inclusive” as they make headlines for disfellowshipping another church, if I perceive their intention correctly, I tend to think their actions did not nearly go far enough.

If the intention of the SBC is to eventually purge the convention (*I conscientiously object to referring to SBC as a denomination, although the SBC began behaving like a denomination rather than a convention somewhere around 1979… but that’s another story for another day) of churches that accept sinners into membership and leadership who practice open sin, their recent decision to disenfranchise a Texas church did not even scratch the surface.

To fulfill this ambitious task of eradicating churches that are inclusive of public sinners will require a few years, but perhaps the SBC should consider breaking ties with a few more churches that unquestionably and regularly include sinners in their membership and on their staff team. During my tenure as a pastor, I have noted numerous churches, and not just the ones I have served, who have included such sinners in active participation. Though the list of actual sins committed by the guilty person is extensive, for illustrative purposes I will name a few, just to establish a framework:

• Consumption of alcoholic beverages.
• Gossip, backbiting, and rumor-mongering.
• Divorce
• Omitting the practice of the Great Commission.
• Failure to tithe.
• Usury
• Pre-marital and extra-marital relationships.
• Greed, jealousy, envy
• Gluttony
• Proselytizing members from other churches

If the SBC will extend their probing into the daily lives of the membership of their autonomous congregations, they will be astonished at how many sins have not yet been extinguished from the lives of so-called Christ followers. And if the SBC will take their actions to the next level, and just disfellowship the churches who have members who regularly commit any of the sins from my “short list,” all of the problems that have plagued the SBC for years will go away, immediately. Gosh! The SBC would finally be thoroughly and completely purged.

Of course the alternative would be to include a variety of autonomous churches whose membership includes diverse kinds of sinners, fully recognizing that the human tendency toward sin is not eradicated at the moment of conversion, and that progressive, at times gradual, transformation of individual lives occurs within local faith communities that are saturated with grace, not at the convention level. Now that alternative could lead to a genuine Great Commission Revolution.

(Barry Howard serves as Senior Minister of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

The Parable of the Lost Checkbook

At some point last week, I lost my checkbook...literally…and the whole saga has become a real life parable. I’m not exactly sure when I lost it. I only know for sure the moment when I became aware that it was lost.

If you are like me, you may not write as many checks as you did a few years ago. I opened my first checking account when I was in junior high school. Immediately following graduation from high school, I moved into a garage apartment and began writing checks for rent, utilities, car payments, groceries, and tuition.

During the past few years, however, check writing has slowed down. At our house we use "the plastic card" for monthly bills and routine purchases, and we pay the balance monthly so as not to accrue interest. Therefore, we write very few checks. The majority of our checks are written to "the plastic card" company and to First Baptist Church.

Although we could make our church contribution online or in the form of an automatic electronic draft, I still enjoy writing a check for our tithes and offerings, stuffing it in the little pink envelope, and placing it in the offering plate on Sunday morning as an act of worship. I could write a monthly check but I choose to write a tithe check each week because giving is a vital part of my commitment to God. Once a month, I write a check in addition to my tithe that goes toward paying off the ROC (the Paul Royal Recreation and Outreach Center).

Because Sunday is such an important day for me, my Saturday evening ritual is pretty rigid. I usually eat an early dinner, review the sermon for the umpteenth time, get my clothes ready, write my tithe check, read a chapter or two in a novel, and then go to bed early. However, last Saturday evening, I reached for my checkbook, which is usually on my nightstand or in my nightstand drawer, and it was nowhere to be found. The missing checkbook seemed to throw my life off balance. I went to bed without writing my check or knowing the whereabouts of my checkbook. I knew that I was in for a rather restless night.

On Sunday morning, I cleaned off the desk in my study, which was no small task, thinking the lost treasure might be underneath a book or periodical or funeral outline. Still, no checkbook. I went home on Sunday afternoon and searched through drawers, between cushions, and underneath the bed with no success.

Early Monday morning, still compulsively anxious over the missing checkbook, I searched every square inch of my car…under the seats, in the glove compartment, in the trunk, inside the console, and in the door pockets. I found two dirty quarters, an ink pen, an expired discount coupon for an oil change, and four shades of moldy M&M’s (on the passenger side, of course), but no checkbook.

I gave up the search temporarily and arrived at my study on Monday at my usual time. Before beginning my preparation for next Sunday, I gave thanks for the great day we had Sunday with six baptisms, four new members, and a dozen or so visitors. Then I received the stewardship report from Sunday’s offering and suddenly came face to face with a harsh reality: "I must not be the only one who lost my checkbook."

If your checkbook is also missing, my inclination is to offer to help you find it and to ask you to help me look for mine, but I realize that checkbooks are extremely personal items…sort of like diaries of our life priorities…so it might be better if we each look for our own.

At our house, our checkbook is an important tool for making purchases, plotting investments, and keeping records. Revelation 20:12 indicates that in the final judgment "the books will be opened." One book opened on Judgment Day will be the Book of Life, a volume perhaps listing the names of all of God’s children. But when I stand in the final judgment I have a notion that one of the other books that will be opened is my checkbook, and that I will be asked to demonstrate how I lived out my faith through financial management.

When I can’t find my checkbook, and can’t write my check to the church, my anxiety increases tremendously. I worry that a missionary might go underfunded, that a student might miss camp, that there may not be enough supplies for Vacation Bible School, that the air conditioning might be cut off in the middle of summer, that Samaritan’s Hands might turn away someone who desperately needs help, that we might lose a valued staff member, that some important ministry project might have to shut down, or that we inexcusably miss an opportunity for ministry that we would have seized had I found my checkbook a little sooner.

I am determined to find my checkbook this week…before Sunday. I want my life…and yours… to be back in balance again. Search diligently…and let’s make it a good summer!

The Value of Remembering

Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday in May. This important holiday is not just another “day off” but a day to remember those who have lost their lives in the military service of our country.

Remembering is a painful but necessary discipline. Remembering the historical facts should help us to remain consciously aware of the harsh realities of national and international conflict. Remembering the stories of battle may enable us to learn from both the successes and the failures of our national heritage. Remembering the fallen keeps alive the individual and corporate legacies of valor and courage that inspire and challenge us to be responsible citizens of the free world.

To fail to remember is to develop a toxic amnesia that robs succeeding generations of acquaintance with their national ancestry. To fail to remember creates a contagious apathy that leads to a neglect of both freedom and citizenship. To fail to remember may result in a false sense of protection and exemption from future warfare. A loss of memory eventually leads to a loss of national identity. Remembering is a painful but necessary discipline.

What are some things we can do to help remember and commemorate the contributions of those who lost their lives in battle?

· Read biographies of world leaders, military generals, POW’s, and holocaust survivors.
· Read historical accounts of crucial battles.
· View a documentary or movie that realistically portrays the stories of war.
· Visit historic sites such as battlefields, monuments, and military cemeteries.
· Visit with a veteran and listen firsthand to stories from the heat of battle.
· Give thanks for those who have fought for freedom and justice.
· Pray for those who are serving in the military service today.
· Pray and work for freedom, justice, and world peace.
· Practice and preserve religious liberty.
· Exercise your rights and fulfill your responsibilities as a citizen.

In The Roadmender Margaret Fairless Barber proposed that “To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.”

Today is Memorial Day…A day to look backward with gratitude and to look forward with determination.

(Barry Howard serves as senior minister at First Baptist Church of Pensacola, Florida.)

Catching on to the Emerging Renaissance

By Barry Howard

Last week our church family was honored to host author, minister, motivational speaker, and leadership coach, Reggie McNeal.  Reggie led a Missional Renaissance workshop on Tuesday for the Pensacola Bay Baptist Association at the ROC and then joined us for our Midweek Gathering in Chipley Hall on Wednesday evening.

During our Midweek Gathering, in an interview format, I had the opportunity to engage Reggie in a conversation about his most recent book, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church.  As much as anyone I know, Reggie is in touch with what it means to be a missional (or mission-driven) church in the 21^st century. He highlights evidence of how the Spirit is orchestrating a renaissance, an energizing movement calling the people of God to get outside the walls of the church and serve others in Jesus’ name.

As Reggie articulated with wit and unmistakable clarity perspectives that I have been trying to shape into words for the past few years, I took numerous notes on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I continue to reflect and digest what I heard, I have extracted some one-liners that I want to remember, relevant and applicable observations that I will call Reggie-isms:

Ø      The church doesn’t have a mission; the mission has a church.

Ø      The Spirit is running wild in the streets again.

Ø      The fastest growing spiritual group in America is “unaffiliated.”

Ø      Anyone who wants to move into the future by going back to something in the past, I would consider suspect.

Ø      The Spirit doesn’t wait for everybody to get on board to move forward.

Ø      Only church people think a service is service.

Ø      The Spirit is running wild in the streets again and having a different conversation with many people than the conversation that pre-occupies you at church.

Ø      The church is not a what but a who.

Ø      Most of you grew up seeing the kingdom of God through church lenses.  The missional renaissance sees the church through kingdom lenses.

Ø      Redemption means that everything sin has broken, God is fixing.

Ø      Let the Spirit have the joy stick to your brain and show you God’s plan.

Ø      Learn to minister to those who aren’t church-broken.

Ø      The enemy of your soul whispers fear to you all the time and if you listen to that roar you cannot hear the Spirit speak.

Ø      Much like an airport, the church is not the destination but a connector to help people get to where they need to be.

Ø      We are not called to simply go to church.  We are called to be the church.

Reggie contends that “disinterest in institutional cultural Christianity will accelerate.” That makes the old scorecard which seemed to rank churches based on budgets, buildings, and baptisms, completely invalid. 

What should be on the new scorecard?  That may differ as each church customizes its scorecard and its ministry, giving greater attention to people development, life coaching, and a more “external” ministry agenda.  As a result, missional communities will emerge from inside and outside the institutional church, “communities that order their lives around communion, caring, and celebration.”

Some of us have some catching up to do. I’m convinced that the Spirit doesn’t want the church to be left behind.

(Barry Howard serves as senior minister at the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.)

Faithful Financial Management Leads To Stability

The market is up one day and down the next. Some analysts believe that the recession is nearing an end and others caution that the recession could linger for another year or two. How do you find personal and emotional stability in an unstable economy?  The only way I know is by practicing the principles of Christian stewardship, and there are no shortcuts.

Christian stewardship is a pragmatic spiritual discipline…a management responsibility which applies to every facet of life.  As believers and worshippers, we are accountable to God for how we exercise that managerial responsibility over all of our resources, especially our time, our spiritual gifts, our opportunities, and our finances.

Although Florida’s economy began to spiral downward in the aftermath of the sequential hurricanes in 2004-2005, the negative trends in Florida have been compounded by national growth in unemployment, a depressed housing market, a depreciating market, and global economic anxiety. Although we do not know how long these recession conditions will last, we do know that God’s economic guidelines bring stability during all of the seasons of life.

God’s plan for economics begins by calling us to a positive and proactive attitude toward managing. A primary step toward managing all of your God-given resources is to present the firstfruits, or the first tenth of your increase, as a tithe unto the Lord.  The prophet Malachi probably has the most emphatic words to say about giving:  Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.  Malachi 3:8-10 NIV

In his book, Full Disclosure: Everything the Bible Says about Financial Giving, Dave Bell writes, Stewardship is not just an opportunity to enter into God's service but an opportunity for God to enter into you.  I believe that for those who dare to practice biblical stewardship, giving becomes a fun part of our management responsibility. Paul gives us a vivid description of a believer’s attitude toward God’s economic plan when he writes, Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver ( II Corinthians 9:7  NIV).

Herb Mather, author of Don’t Shoot the Horse (Until You Know How to Drive the Tractor), proposes that "The vertical relationship to God and the horizontal relationship to neighbor come together in the act of giving.” In other words, that cheerful spirit of managing and appropriating our resources for kingdom purposes cultivates within us a passion for mission and ministry.

How do you begin, or continue, the practice of Christian stewardship?

• Understand that all resources are a trust from God.
• Prioritize your tithes and offerings.  
• Provide for your family through careful management.
• Adopt a lifestyle of enjoying simple gifts.
• Be ethical and honest in all transactions.
• Limit credit liability and strive to eliminate debt.
• Invest in the future through a savings plan.

During these tough economic times God’s principles of stewardship can bring stability to our homes and our businesses, as well as the ministries of our church.