Is Heritage Really Important?
Dr. Tony Hopkins; Pastor FBC Greenwood, SC; CBF of SC Coordinating Council Member
October 22, 2006
Is Heritage Really Important?
Psalm 47:1-4
One of the things we have been saying throughout our Renewing Hearts and Heritage emphasis is that the work we are doing will allow us to hand down our heritage to those who come after us. But that begs a question: is that so important? Is heritage really such a big deal? For that matter, what do we mean when we speak of our heritage? What exactly is it that we intend to hand down?
The first thing we should say is that it is a Christian heritage, a heritage built on what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. If we asked people who entered our sanctuary what they noticed first, I think most would say either, “The cross” or, “The windows.” The cross is the symbol of Jesus’ death, and the windows are filled with symbols of Jesus’ life– because it is a Christian heritage we have in this place.
It is also a Baptist heritage. You may have heard me say, “I’m so Baptist that if a mosquito bites me, it flies away humming ‘There’s Power in the Blood.’” “Baptist” is not as important as “Christian,” but it does have some value and some distinctiveness. Baptists are known for missions. Baptists are known for the autonomy of the local church: there is no person or group outside of our church which governs us; the decisions which affect us are made by the members of our church. Baptists are known for the priesthood of all believers, our insistence that you do not need a human intermediary to approach God on your behalf; through Christ, each person has direct access to God. Baptists are known for fellowship and food. I read about an elementary school class which was having show and tell, and each student had been asked to bring something to represent their family’s faith. A little girl got up and said, “We’re Catholic, and this is a rosary.” A little boy said, “We’re Jewish, and this is a Star of David.” The next child said, “We’re Baptist, and this is a casserole.”
Ours is a Christian heritage; it is a Baptist heritage. But even within those broader contexts, there is a particular heritage here, at First Baptist Greenwood, which is in some ways unique, or distinct. One unique feature is our commitment to local missions. A lot of churches support missions overseas, but they are really not very involved or very invested in their own communities– this church is clearly an exception to that trend. Another unique feature is our architecture. In the vast majority of Baptist churches especially, the focal point of the sanctuary is the pulpit. It is much better theology to worship here, where the focal point is the cross.
I hope you have watched the DVD we prepared in conjunction with Renewing Hearts and Heritage. Among other things, Mary Hamrick does a wonderful job of talking about what I’m talking about, the uniqueness of our church. She rightly begins with worship. Worship here is unapologetically Christ-centered. We value tradition and reverence. We gather here not to be entertained, not to see who else is here and what they are wearing, or not for any other reason than to worship the God who has shown us such great love in Jesus Christ. And again, this is becoming more and more unique. Especially in Baptist life, the clearly dominant trend is toward a more upbeat, contemporary, celebrative style of worship. I want to be very clear that I am not criticizing that; and I recognize that those churches will reach some people whom we would never reach. But it does mean that we have here is sort of an increasingly rare jewel, especially in Baptist life.
In fact, months ago our campaign consultant asked me to write for our steering committee a piece which described our church’s identity and heritage. And I said that there are four pillars, or columns, on which our identity and heritage rest; and the first was worship. Jim Firmin, the Executive Director of the campaign, said, “Tony, when I read that piece, as I read each of your four major points, certain people and events from our church immediately came to my mind.” If you folks who are very new to the church will bear with us for a minute, I think all of us who have been around a while will have the same experience Jim had. When you think of worship here, whom do you think about? Dr. Bowers? Dr. Harris? Elbert Adams? Edgar Davis? I think of Ron Davis, who helps me worship each week. Some of you will think about the wonderful choirs and soloists and instrumentalists here– music has been such an important part of our heritage. Some of you will think about our church being kicked out of association in 1970, and you came back here, and Bill Treadwell led you in a communion service which was a very meaningful worship experience. Some of you will think about coming to the chancel steps on Christmas Eve and individually receiving the elements of the Lords’ supper from our ministers.
I said that a second pillar of our heritage and identity is missions. I think anybody who was here at the time will think about Carole Mauldin and the other people who helped birth the Bowers-Rodgers Children’s Home. Many of our youth and college students will think about Chris Fox, who introduced them to doing missions. Others will think of other projects and trips. You get the idea.
Now, do you remember the question we started with? The folks who come to Wednesday night Bible study laugh at me– justifiably– because someone will ask a question, and the answer is so long that by the time I stop talking, it’s hard to remember what the question was. The question we started with this morning was: is heritage really important? I think a brief stroll down memory lane will answer the question. Did you or someone you love come to know Jesus here? Were you or someone you love baptized here? Ordained here? Have you found a way to serve Christ here? Have you built meaningful Christian relationships here? Has your faith grown here? Have you discovered spiritual gifts here?
I think the writer of Psalm 47 would laugh at my question, even if he understood it to be rhetorical. He would say: of course your heritage is important. In our text, the psalmist says: don’t you realize that your heritage is a gift to you from God, and it was given with great love? I think about Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you, say the Lord; plans for your good, to give you a future with hope.” I sounded this theme for six months during our Futuring process last year, saying that God recognizes that we are unique congregation, and therefore God has a unique plan and a unique mission for our church. Just as we are unique when we look forward, to our future, so we are unique when we look back, at our heritage. As a friend of mine says, “How can we fully understand and appreciate where we are if we don’t know where we’ve come from?”
Not that I’m saying that we should worship the past. Blind resistance to change is in the end a stubborn refusal to grow; and clearly God wants us to grow. As somebody said, “The seven last words of the church are, ‘We’ve never done it that way before.’” But having said that, I truly believe that the heritage of this place is too special and too wonderful to let it end with us; and that’s why we are having our Renewing Hearts and Heritage campaign.
I’ll tell you another thing which I think makes this church special: the value we put on reverence in worship is balanced by, complemented by, the value we put on joy– joy in living and in Christian fellowship. Joy is the other thing the psalmist talks about in our text. The danger always for liturgical, traditional churches is that we will be cold and stiff and stodgy. Everyone in this room has known some dear saint whom we loved, but when they said, “Yes, as a Christian, I have great joy in the Lord,” we wanted to say, “Please tell your face! It’s okay to smile. It’s okay to share in the laughter of grace.” God wants us to have joy.
As much as in any moment I can remember in my tenure here, there was great joy in the laughter one Sunday morning when Kenny Standley was doing the children’s sermon. (Kenny is suddenly very attentive– and a little nervous.) He was talking with the children about the church as a place of handing on traditions, learning, Christian education. Kenny said, “For instance, if I wanted to learn more about the Bible, we have some wonderful Sunday School teachers here. And if I wanted learn more about youth ministry, I could go to Chris Fox, who is a fine youth minister. And if I wanted to learn more about church music, I could go to Dr. Ken Lister, who knows a lot about that. And if I wanted to learn about good preaching, I’m sure there’s a good preacher out there somewhere.” His timing and delivery were perfect– sometimes people hit the punch line too hard, but it was perfectly understated, no change in inflection. The congregation roared; the children were just a little puzzled about what was so funny. The next Wednesday evening, I decided to practice what I call Christian retaliation, revenge in the name of Jesus; and I facetiously said during the announcements, “This weekend, Kenny Standley will be teaching a seminar about good preaching.” And somebody sitting right up front in the fellowship hall looked at me and said, “Are you going to attend?” How wonderful to be part of family which shares in joy and laughter together; and to know that when we do so, we are strengthening our connection to God and our connection to each other.
Another very special feature of this church was articulated very well during the Futuring process last year by Sally Baggett. She talked about growing up in this church and (particularly as a teenager) working through all of those hard questions you have to work through if you are going to arrive at mature faith. Why do bad things happen to good people? Does that mean that God is not in control? Does it mean that God doesn’t care about us? Is Jesus’ death on the cross really sufficient for the forgiveness of all of my sin? She said, “As we worked through those tough questions, nobody judged us, or told us that we were bad for having doubts, or questions. This was a safe place for us to work through our faith, with a church that loved us and gave us the space we needed to do that.” Sally didn’t say this, but the truth is: the church family which loves the person working through the hard issues of the faith– that church’s love is a reflection of God’s love. That’s the heritage we have here.
I was talking with some of our leaders last week about the Bela family. The Belas settled in Greenwood as refugees from Kosovo in 1999. This family literally had a tank pull up in front of their home. The military personnel said, “Tomorrow we will destroy this village; if you don’t want to be killed, you’d better get out today.” Somehow the Belas landed in Greenwood, and this church under the leadership of Kenny Standley sprang into action. They provided them with a home, furnished that home, provided their basic necessities, taught them how to adapt to this culture, helped them learn English and find jobs– whatever they needed. Today the Belas live in a beautiful Habitat home. They are happy, productive members of this community. In a conversation one day, Ruhan, the father, said to me, “You know, the people who took everything from my family and all of the families in our village would have identified themselves as Christians– that was their faith background. [He said,] I would have lived my whole life thinking that that’s what all Christians were like if not for the FirstBaptistChurch in Greenwood.” Now you tell me: is our heritage important?
Clearly, the answer is, “Yes.” But as soon as we answer that question, it immediately leads us to another question: how important is it to me and my family? Is it important enough for me to give generously to the Renewing Hearts and Heritage campaign? Is it important enough for me to search my heart and ask if God would want me to reorder some of my priorities? Is it important enough that I would be willing to make sacrifices?
While I was pastoring in Edgefield, our church there did a renovation project– it was much smaller in scope than what we are doing right now, but it was a challenge to that church with their resources. They met their campaign goal; and by they way, they also met their budget every year during their campaign. They understood that campaign gifts are over and above gifts, in addition to regular offerings– if we redirect our regular tithes and offerings into the capital campaign, we undercut all of the ongoing ministries of the church. But we were in this stage of the campaign: we were trying to educate the church about what we were doing and why we were doing it. Nita Tompkins, a widow in the church called me and asked me to come by her home. I did, of course. (This was in 1996). She said, “Our church last had a capital campaign in 1978, when we built our educational building. My children were in college at that time– it was the time when we had the greatest financial demands on our family, so I couldn’t really give to that campaign as much as I wanted. [She said,] For almost twenty years now, I have been praying that God would let me live long enough to see another campaign in our church so that I could give much more generously than I was able to last time.” The she smiled and said, “I am so thankful that God has answered my prayer and given me this opportunity.” Not “this challenge,” not “this burden,” but “this opportunity.”
We regularly pray in our church for God’s will. We regularly pray for God to use us to fulfill the mission God has for our church. Don’t you see? God has answered our prayer and given us this opportunity. Don’t be left out.