First Baptist Arlington

Victoria woke up this morning eager to play with the pipe cleaner pretzel she had made yesterday afternoon. For some reason it had captured her imagination and she had even dreamed about it during the night. She reached to the dresser top where she had safely hidden her precious creation, only to find it broken, destroyed. The child was absolutely heartbroken -- end of the world heartbroken.

Apparently the prized pipe cleaners had been discovered by her younger sister, who determinedly claimed them as her own art materials. She quickly turned the pretzel into a butterfly. The masterpiece was then left for Victoria to discover and treasure.

Unfortunately, midst the tears of a five-year-old's grief, the promise of the new creation was not seen or appreciated.

How similar that is for so many of God’s children who find themselves consumed with loss. We want to hold on so desperately to what we know, and that desperation keeps us from seeing the beauty of what lies ahead.

I wrote these words about a month ago and put them aside when I developed writer’s block. I did not know then why I was unable to continue, nor did I know how bittersweet they would be to share with you today.

The days between then and now have brought two losses into my life, both involving individuals who have deeply touched my life. Those lost have been as different from one another as possible. One was Clark Pinnock, a man significant to me as a mentor, a friend, and an inspiration. The other, a child of God not yet named, with no accomplishments, no status in the eyes of the world, no opportunity even to be born. Both were deeply loved, and both their deaths have brought heartbreak.

But we need not be limited to the grief a five year old has over a pipe cleaner pretzel. God has a far greater vision of what beauty and completion is all about. Being a human on earth is significant, but for the Christian believer it is only the beginning of the story. Butterflies are of far greater value than crushed pretzels, a fact most of us soon discover and treasure.

Through drying tears we can affirm with the Apostle Paul, who penned “My aim is to raise hopes by pointing the way to life without end. This is the life God promised long ago—and he doesn't break promises! (Titus 1:2, The Message)

Can it be that it is Back-to-School time again? As with any school year there are plans that must be made and challenges to face. When it was time for my own four children to start back to school, there were new shoes and jeans to buy. School fees and lunch money added up. Later, they needed cars and planes tickets as college took them far from home. It was a time that we needed to have some extra money. But extra money was as hard to come by then as it is now now. Fortunately for us, there were grandparents to help. Many families need a little help to get their students off for the new school year.

First Baptist Church of Arlington has tried to help some in our community. For the third year we are filling back packs provided by The Salvation Army and giving them out to Arlington students. This is an outreach to let people know that we want to help them. We have met many new people and a question they often ask is,” Why would your church do this?” Our answer comes quickly as we explain that we do it to show Christ’s love for them. Sometimes they look confused, but often their eyes fill with tears as they realize the church gives out the back packs, but they are really a gift from God. I think about the scripture about offering a cup of water in Jesus’ name. Here we are offering back packs in His name.

Our plan for this year was to fill 40 back packs, but when they were delivered there were 60 instead of 40. Did someone make a mistake or did God know how many were needed in Arlington? We accepted the challenge of the extra back packs and will have them ready to distribute next week. We praise God for this opportunity to serve others in His name.

What in the world is an evangelical?

It is a label that has been worn proudly by followers of Jesus Christ to describe their faith. It is also a label that has been used by others to pejoratively taunt Christians who do not measure up to their own religious standards -- whether those criticisms be of a liberal or fundamentalist bent. And finally it is a label whose meaning has shifted over the years to include a big tent of people who don’t necessarily agree with one another over many things secondary to the core of the gospel. And people thought being “Baptist” was hard to explain!

When I was a young man living in New Orleans Vieux Carre attending a Presbyterian church and studying at a Baptist seminary people would sometimes ask about my beliefs, since I didn’t seem to fit any commonly accepted stereotype. I would reply, “First, I am a Christian, second, I am an evangelical, and third, I am a Baptist.” That order still holds true for me today, more than a few years later.

An evangelical basically believes the good news of Jesus Christ and follows him.

The term has been around since at least the Protestant Reformation, when the church embraced the “gospel truth.” It took on a life of its own in the early 20th century, when it was used by Christians who wanted to separate themselves from the deadening liberal German theology that was causing American churches to die. Evangelicals in contrast had a core emphasis on four fundamentals of the faith: belief in the necessity of personal conversion, high regard for the truth of the Bible, and emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and evangelism, or sharing the good news with others.

Over the years evangelicalism has continually redefined itself, but has held on to the core beliefs. One of the first directions the movement took was to embrace engagement with the world or culture in which people live, rather than retreating to the isolation and separation of fundamentalists. Led by people such as Harold John Ockenga of Boston’s Park Street Church and Billy Graham, evangelicals were well on their way to becoming the thriving, positive faith that is best representative of the good news of Christ.

There have been detours along the way. Most recently, the identification of evangelical Christianity with the political Religious Right has sabotaged the message of the gospel, replacing it with the core belief in one or two hot button issues. That captivity is being corrected today, as young evangelicals in various emerging and postmodern movements abandon a narrow political agenda and return to the four vital cores of faith. In a way, that is keeping the vision of William Tyndale, who in 1531 published the first English use of the word by writing “He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth.”

May we always follow that vision, proceeding constantly in calling people to a personal relationship with God, upholding the truth of scripture, being centered in Christ’s death and resurrection, and telling everybody we know the good news. Everything else comes in second place!

Jon Dale Hevelone