Each January the President of the United States stands before a joint session of Congress and delivers a State of the Union message. President Bush did that two nights ago.
There is no comparable occasion at River Road Church, Baptist, nor does there need to be. If the state of our union is fragile, and it is not, then most any public occasion would be an appropriate time to address it. It occurs to me that our church’s Annual Report summarizes the accomplishments and shortcomings of our church in detail. I commend it to you. It does not take long to read, and I believe you will be gratified at the work that has taken place for good and for God during 2007.
Tonight I want to take a few minutes to tell you what I told a small gathering last Friday evening over in the Reception Room. About 20 of us, half of whom wanted to learn more about RRCB, gathered for a couple hours of introduction. It was good food and good company, and they paid for both by having to listen to me for a few minutes.
I spoke with them about the core values of this congregation, who we are at our essential best. I identify these core values based on documents from the 62-year history of this church, what the Strategy Planning Team learned during our almost two years studying this church’s past, present and future, and on my observations across three and one-half years as pastor.
Christ-centered
We do not require persons to subscribe to a theological statement in order to be members of this congregation. I am comfortable with this. This conforms to my understanding of what it means to be Baptist.
We do, however, give assent to a central affirmation of faith—Jesus Christ is Lord. This was the conviction and confession of the earliest Christians and the Church throughout 20 centuries. This confession of faith is the primary source of our unity and mission. It grounds us and empowers us. It is our roots and wings.
Worship-focused
The hour between 11 a.m. and noon each Sunday is the most important hour of the week at RRCB. Other hours are important, but we treat no other hour with as much care and reverence as our primary worship hour. This has been true at RRCB since the church’s founding.
Our form of worship is an essential ingredient to this church’s identity. The form incorporates the transcendence and imminence of God—God high and lifted up and God near and dear. Both are ways God is revealed to humanity, and we are the poorer if we sacrifice one to accomplish the other.
Mission-driven
Mission can be singular or plural and still be correct. We have a mission that is shared by other churches. It is to proclaim the good news that God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. We also have a mission unique to RRCB. It is given to us by God and only we can fulfill it.
We carry out mission (singular) by many missions (plural) activities and efforts. I know of no other church that has a Board of Missions as active in missions giving, going, learning and praying as this one. This year one-quarter of a million dollars will be given and expended by this congregation for missions. That is very important to many of our members.
Lay-led
RRCB has an excellent professional staff. They are well-trained, task-oriented and they believe in the future of this congregation.
As capable and willing as they are, however, the work of this church is carried out by you, the laity. Elton Trueblood used an apt phrase for laity. He called them “the essential Christian unit.”
I know of no church, Baptist or otherwise, which invites as many laity to participate in the month-to-month direction of its ministries. Most churches, especially larger ones, centralize increasing amounts of decisions. They are becoming oligarchies, if not dictatorships, instead of democracies.
Whatever RRCB has become, and will be, is a result of the wisdom, loyalty, sacrifices and faithfulness of this congregation.
Historically-Baptist
RRCB began, and continues to be, a Baptist church. For some of our members this is difficult to believe; for others it is difficult to tolerate.
For better, and sometimes for worse, Baptist is part of our identity. I am not always proud of every member of my family. On occasions they do dumb things, and embarrass me in the process. But they are, by blood or marriage, my family. That is how I view being a Baptist.
Baptist does explain some of the way we do things around here. We honor the beliefs of others in our fellowship, which comes from that principle called soul competency. Every human being is competent and responsible before God. No one else pays for or directs the work of this church—we do. That’s called local church autonomy. We decide the people, Baptist and otherwise, with whom we share our missions dollars and deeds. That’s called voluntary connectionalism. All of this is because we are Baptist. I’m not ready to abandon these because some of our extended family does goofy stuff. They think we do goofy stuff. Maybe the source of our unity is that we are mutually goofy.
Ecumenically-open
One of our most appealing core values is that we are open to Christians of a myriad of faith expressions. We must never become so Baptist that we exclude other Christians from our fellowship and non-Christian faith groups from our friendship.
Other Christians are our teachers. They expand our perspective, increase our ways of worship and discipleship, goad us into doing worthy ministries in fresh ways. They lure us away from parochialism and tunnel-vision, sins that are on the ascent in the 21st century rather than on the descent.
Excellence-sensitive
RRCB has always stood for excellence in every aspect of our ministry. We strive to believe the best, work for the best, be the best, dream the best, not out of pride or desire for human acclaim, but because God expects our best. Nothing is too good for God, and nothing is so poor as when we accept mediocrity.
So this is my list of our core values. These are the threads woven into the fabric of our fellowship and ministry. RRCB is a Christ-centered, worship-focused, mission(s)-driven, lay-led, historically-Baptist, ecumenically-open, excellence-sensitive church.
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.
