In the meantime

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

I have written several times here about my father-in-law, Rev. Asa Dorsey, who over the last 76 years has become a legendary figure in North Georgia. (See links to articles below). On December 23, as we were preparing to spend Christmas Day at his home with the family, Asa suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. Over the course of the next several days it became apparent things would not go back to normal as he became weaker and weaker. He suffered at least two more small heart attacks in the hospital, further weakening his already frail heart.  

Those days visiting him in the hospital were precious times that we will treasure for the rest of our lives. It was an incredible gift from God that despite the weakness of his body, his keen mind and phenomenal memory were with him until his final breath. Just hours before he passed, he related to his nurse how in the late 1950s he named his mill after his newborn daughter, Fonda. He even remembered the name of the clerk of court he filed the papers with. 

On Friday morning, January 2 at about 10:30 am, Asa slipped away from this life and stepped into the presence of the Lord. 

It is hard to imagine life without him here. It is indeed true that you are never ever ready to let them go, even when they are 93 years old. We have caught ourselves on numerous occasions over the last two weeks picking up the phone to call, or briefly wondering whose weekend it is to be with him, before quickly being hit with the reality and the finality of the fact that he is gone. 

For the last 26 years, we have celebrated Asa's ministry on the first Sunday in January, the anniversary of the first sermon he preached in January 1933. When we began doing that it was on the occasion of his 50th anniversary, and we assumed we were honoring him at the end of his ministry and his life. Little did we know he still had one-third of his ministry still ahead of him. 

On the first Sunday in January, 2009, we gathered once again to celebrate Asa's life and ministry, but this time he was not in attendance. As in the years before, there were stories to be told, songs to be sung, and tributes to be given. There was love, laughter and tears. But this year was different because he is home. 

The first time I ever heard Asa preach, I remember he joked about how some people didn't think it was proper or dignified to shout. "Well, if you don't believe in shouting," he said in that booming, joyful voice of his, "when we get to heaven together, you might want to stay off of my cloud!" I thought of that story as I sat in the pew at the memorial service. The mental image of Asa shouting for joy in heaven brought a wide grin to my face and warmth to my heart. 

It has been said that God's gift to us is life, and what we do with it is our gift to him and to the world. God gave Asa Dorsey the gift of life in large measure - 93 years of it. The gift he gave back to God and to us was faithfulness. 

Have a great time in heaven, Asa. We'll see you there in the morning.

Related Posts: 

Happy 92nd, Asa Dorsey 
Honoring a Life Well Lived

Another Heartbreak for Bell Shoals

For the second time in just over three months, the congregation of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Tampa is dealing with the loss of a beloved pastoral staff member. Simeon Nix, Bell Shoal's worship pastor for the last thirteen years, suffered a heart attack late Saturday night and passed away early Sunday morning at Brandon Regional Hospital. 

Simeon Nix was a big man physically and spiritually.  Over the last three months, he guided the heartbroken church through the grieving process following the death of Senior Pastor Forrest Pollock and his son in a plane crash.  Both in his public ministry from the platform and in countless formal and informal counseling sessions, Nix helped the hurting church realize that God was still in control and that He still had a plan.

It was a familiar role for Simeon.  Earlier in his ministry at Bell Shoals he had to comfort and guide the church through the loss of Pollock's predecessor, Ken Alford, who resigned in 2002 because of a moral failure.

Gary Payne, a friend and staff colleague of Simeon's was quoted as saying, "He was never afraid to give you a big hug and tell you that he loved you."

Last Tuesday, Nix was hospitalized after experiencing significant chest pain.  Doctors cleared the blockage by inserting a stent.  His prognosis was good for a full recovery.  He was released from the hospital Friday and told friends and fellow staff members how good he felt. He even took a short walk around the neighborhood Saturday night with his wife and some friends.

Late Saturday night, Nix suffered another heart attack and passed away a few hours later.  He was 47 years old.

Simeon leaves his wife, Beth, and the two children they adopted as toddlers from Russia: Bre'Ana, 7, and Sterling, 7. His extended family was the Bell Shoals congregation, which numbers about 7,000.

Funeral arrangements are pending as of this writing.

Related:
Dr. Forrest Pollock Dies In A Plane Crash 
Heaven Only Knows

Saying We're Sorry

Dr. Richard Mark Lee of The Family Church, FBC Sugar Hill, Georgia - about 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta - is most decidedly my kind of pastor.

(Regular readers of this blog know that I have a semi-irregular series of posts around the "My Kind of Pastor" theme.  Admittedly, most of these posts have been in fun and a little tongue-in-cheek, although I am absolutely sincere in saying every one of these guys are my kind of pastor!)

This past Sunday, The Family Church started a new series called "Confessions."  Over the next few weeks they will be dealing with Insecurity, Loneliness, Criticism, and Sin, encouraging people to confess to each other and to God.

To start the series this past Sunday, Dr. Lee felt it was important to lead by example.  He felt it was important for him to confess and apologize for something that bothered him greatly. 

The sermon was titled "We're Sorry... Really."  In the message, Pastor Lee apologized to those outside of the church who have been hurt because of the judgmental postures and attitudes that the church has adopted toward those who believe or act in ways we disagree with. Lee's apology was both personal and corporate.

His words will no doubt anger many conservatives and fundamentalists who will label Lee as just another postmodern for whom there are no absolutes. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Lee did not back down from his conservative beliefs while asserting that the church's method of relating to those outside the church clearly hasn't worked.

Last Friday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a story about Lee's plans to apologize to the community on Sunday.  As a result of the publicity, attendance for the beginning of the "Confessions" series was up about 25%.  On a normal weekend, about 1,400 people attend one of The Family Church's three services.  There were over 1,700 present on Sunday.

“I never dreamed the media would have picked this up like they did,” Pastor Lee was quoted as saying in the AJC. “All I wanted to do was engage people in a conversation about Jesus and His love for people and avoid the many traditions of church culture which drive people away.”

In the "We're Sorry" message, Pastor Lee apologized to the gay community, people living together outside of marriage, and people who have had an abortion, among others.

Here are some excerpts from Richard Mark Lee's message on Sunday:

Folks, [18-28 year olds] are not leaving the Church, they have already left. What are we doing to bring them back?For me, I cannot stand in front of God and tell Him that I did nothing to reverse that perception. It’s important to know that the 18-28 year-olds are not against Christ; in fact, they tell pollsters that they have fond feelings for Him and believe in God. But the bottom line is that the Church is still perceived as judgmental, homophobic, and irrelevant. 

I am 37 years old and I believe the Bible is 100 percent truth without error. But the Bible tells us we are to judge our own lives and not the lives of those outside the faith.

Today I want to apologize to our community for getting in the way of Jesus. He really is awesome and you’d like Him, even though you may not like those in the Church.

I have picketed abortion clinics, I’ve held the signs and banners and done all those things. I am pro-life but I regret being involved in those things. I am sorry for having a bumper sticker mentality. If you have had an abortion recently or even several years ago, I want you to know that I do not sit in judgment of you today. I am sorry if you have sensed a spirit of judgment in the way I presented myself and the gospel.

We have used trite phrases such as ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’ in these instances but we should really love the sinner and hate our own sin. The Bible teaches that love does not find fault, but the hard truth is that the world has seen that we do not love those who are different from us.

Time and again, Jesus’ words challenged the religious establishment. He taught us to leave the 99 and go after the lost one. But we have not followed that teaching very well and have actually pushed people further away from church.

Addressing how the church has related to the gay community, Lee apologized for those Christians who had “demonstrated prejudice, bigotry, or a hateful attitude."

“We are sorry for acting like the head of the body of Christ rather than like a part of that body. We are sorry for driving you out of church; that is not of God. “I have apologized to God and now I am apologizing to you" Lee said.

Pastor Lee has demonstrated that you can build bridges to the people you are trying to reach without sacrificing sincerely held beliefs. He has also proved the community will respond to such overtures in a positive way. May his tribe increase.  (You can listen to Pastor Lee's "We're Sorry...Really" message here)

One wonders why it is a pastor in Sugar Hill, Georgia, and not our high-profile leaders in the evangelical community who are setting the pace here.

My Kind of Pastor, Part 2

Ray Bentley is pastor of Maranatha Chapel in San Diego.  He's either not a morning person, or he is someone who has pity of those of us who are not.

When the time changes each Spring, Pastor Ray moves the church's morning worship services forward one hour that Sunday to offset the initial pain of the whole "Spring Forward" thing. 

Pastor Ray even has a name for this program at Maranatha Chapel: Raylight Savings Time.

I love it.

(Check out the previous winner of the In The Meantime My Kind of Pastor Award, Chris Elrod.)

Rev. John Cross, 1925 - 2007

In 1962, 38 year old Rev. John Cross accepted the pastorate of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.  The historic church was at that time a center of activity and organization of the civil rights movement.  It also was a symbol for those who would stop at nothing - including murder - to stop the movement, much the same way the World Trade Center was a symbol of America to Al-Qaeda.

On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, just a little over a year into Rev. Cross' pastorate, he was at the church helping to prepare for Sunday School and Worship Service.  At 10:22 am, the unthinkable happened. A massive explosion rocked the church building. It was a bomb intended to deliver a message to the church and its pastor. 

Minutes after the bomb blast, John Cross was found frantically digging through the rubble.  "I've got to go in. I have to make sure the children are OK," his daughter Barbara, who was 13 at the time, remembers him saying.

All the children were not OK.  Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair were all dead. Twenty-two others were injured.

The bombing was no isolated incident.  Between 1947 and 1965, there were over fifty racially motivated bombings in the city that was derisively called "Bombingham" across the country. But the blast at Sixteenth Street was different, both in terms of its severity and its cruelty.  Three members of the Ku Klux Klan planted 19 sticks of dynamite in the church's basement.  They timed it to go off when people would be there for Sunday worship. This wasn't a message, it was cold blooded murder.

The fact that the victims of the blast were four little girls who were indisputably innocent shocked the city and the nation.  The Birmingham World published the following commentary three days after the murders:

Lethal dynamite has made Sunday, September 15, 1963, a Day of Sorrow and Shame in Birmingham, Alabama, the world's chief city of unsolved racial bombings.

Four or more who were attending Sunday School at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on the day of Sorrow and Shame were killed. Their bodies were stacked up on top of each other like bales of hay from the crumbling ruins left by the dynamiting. They were girls. They were children. They were members of the Negro group. They were victims of cruel madness, the vile bigotry and the deadly hate of unknown persons.

Is Birmingham a sick city? We cannot answer for sure. There are tensions because there is fear...there is a feeling of diminishing faith in City Hall to measure up to the responsibility of the kind of municipal leadership needed in his City of Sorrow and Shame. The killers of the innocents have challenged the conscience of decent persons everywhere.

Faced with such inhumanity, such evil against the innocent, it would have been so easy to hate.  It would have been so easy to live the rest of your life seeking revenge and retribution. But Rev. John Cross didn't take the easy way out.  The bombing left Cross with a passion for racial reconciliation.  That would be the singular focus of his life and ministry for the next four decades. 

"He realized after the bombing, there was work to be done," Barbara Cross said. "That was his calling."

The four little girls whose lives were senselessly taken from them that September Sunday in 1963 became martyrs for the cause of civil rights.  Largely because of the public shock and horror of their deaths, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.  Rev. Cross presided at the massive funeral of three of the four victims.  Martin Luther King gave the eulogy. Over eight thousand people attended.

Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair gave their lives for justice, freedom and equality. John Cross lived his life for it, tirelessly seeking to bring us all together.

Rev. John Cross passed away last week at 82 after several years of declining health. His funeral will be held today at Greenforest Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia.

He will be remembered at the service today as a towering, historic figure in the struggle for change in this country, a hero who dedicated his life to racial reconciliation and understanding.

As well he should be.

Chris Likes The Night Life, Baby...

This is my kind of pastor! If I lived in Lakeland, Florida, I would so go to Chris Elrod's Church, Compass Point.

If I weren't such a good Baptist, I'd be willing to bet that at least half of all pastors (and 98% of all worship leaders) rock out like this when they are in the car by themselves.  The difference is Chris is secure enough (and goofy enough) to record it and have it wind up online.

Rock, on, Reverend Elrod...

HT: Charlie Wear