And so it begins… Indian Springs Baptist Church- Glenwood Campus

This Sunday at 10 a.m., we celebrate the beginning of our new work at our Glenwood campus. Both the Hill Road (our original campus) and the Glenwood folks will combine for one service. You are cordially invited to attend. Come early for coffee and doughnuts under the tent on the lawn. The address is 2601 East Center Street, between Eastman Road and Memorial Boulevard. We will be acknowledging God’s leading as we salute Rev. Charles Roberts, Glenwood Baptist’s outgoing pastor. We will also hear from Bill Northcott, representing the Tennessee Baptist Convention. A combined choir from both campuses and a number of ISBC instrumentalists will be leading in worship led by longtime ISBC Minister of Music, Mike Morgan and the new Interim Minister of Music of our Glenwood campus, Tom Elam.  Our senior pastor, Dr. Roc Collins, will be bringing the message. As the new campus pastor, I will be around too, probably two-fisting doughnuts and praising the Lord! It will be a great day of worship and celebration for all that God has done.

In a sense, however, this will be, as we call it in the retail business, a “soft” opening. Over the next several weeks, work will commence to upgrade and revitalize the facilities in preparation for our late summer / early fall “grand opening” (notice I am not pinning it down…yet.) We will still be conducting regular services at the Glenwood campus on Sundays and Wednesdays over the next couple of months, with a few special days of combined services thrown in. Ultimately, however, we will settle on two morning services. One will be more traditional in nature featuring piano and organ music with our choir and the occasional instrumentalist. I will be preaching in that service. Our second service will be led by a live, contemporary praise band and the message will be a live, simulcast of the preaching of Dr. Collins, life-size on the big screen! It will be something completely different for most and, potentially, life-changing for many.

In the meantime, I will be getting to know my new Glenwood family and gearing up for a Vacation Bible School at the end of July. We will have loads of opportunities for service in the coming weeks. If you want in on it, feel free to shoot me an email at tiger@isbc.org. I am always willing to explain, as best I can, what God is leading us to do to reach Highland, the greater Kingsport community and the uttermost parts of the world with gospel of Jesus Christ.

Stay tuned.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Life’s Seismic Shifts: A Memorial Weekend I Will Remember

There are multiple times in life when we experience major changes. Birth of children, death of loved ones, graduations, and marriage are a few biggies that come to mind. Career or vocational changes also belong somewhere on that list. In 2000, I experienced this in a big way as I stepped away from operations at Tom Brooks Exxon and, after a brief stint as a landman, surrendered to God’s call to ministry.

Yesterday, my church, Indian Springs Baptist, officially voted me in to become the campus pastor of our new Glenwood campus. After 18 years of ministry to children and students (11 full-time and 7 as a part-time volunteer), I will be moving into a new ministerial role. You could say that this qualifies as another seismic shift for the list. Anyone reading this outside of my church and family may be thinking – like Ricky Ricardo used to say – “You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”  I would be delighted to take a few moments and brag on what God has been up to.

In 1955, a thriving Glenwood Baptist Church under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, with then Pastor Freeman Wright and a host of faithful servants, was led to plant a church on the outskirts of Kingsport in the Indian Springs community . The years allowed both congregations to touch thousands of lives. In recent years, however, for reasons too numerous and complex to spell out in this post, Glenwood’s membership numbers began to wane. Over the past couple of years, the faithful leadership of Glenwood sought the Lord for guidance and a path forward. In the fall of 2010, that path led back to the church she had planted 55 years earlier.

Discussions and prayer led both churches to arrive at the proposal which would dissolve Glenwood Baptist and assimilate the membership into Indian Springs Baptist with ISBC becoming one church with two Kingsport campuses – the original Hill Road campus and the Glenwood campus at 2601 East Center Street.  I am humbled when I think of the selfless sacrifice the wonderful members of Glenwood had to make so as to insure the continued ministry outreach to this community and beyond from their tradition-rich location in central Kingsport which has seen ministry ongoing since 1887. I am also proud to be a part of a body of believers less interested in building their own earthly kingdom and keenly interested in stepping out in faith for the Kingdom of God. In a day and age when the notable church news usually consists of moral failure and/or church splits, this is a story worth sharing.

When this proposal began to take shape, God began to move my heart. There we were, my family and I, blissfully content with where we were and unction of the Holy Spirit starts in on us. I love being a student minister, discipling and developing the church one life at a time. My wife and child love the programs in which they are involved and are happy with the friends they have made.  But I would find myself driving through Highland thinking about all the possibilities and what it would take to reach the unreached.  After a few prayer drives, it began to make sense to me that God would bring this Kingsport kid back into town – to the church where his parents were once members, a mile from the house in which he was born and three blocks away from his beloved high school. It was a call that I could not get away from regardless of how uncomfortable it might be. It seemed to also make sense to the leadership and congregation of ISBC. The rest, as they say, is history.

Next weekend, Sunday, June 5, all of ISBC will converge on Glenwood campus for one, combined service at 10am. Our senior pastor, Dr. Roc Collins, will be preaching as we ALL embark on God’s great new adventure. Though my pastorate begins immediately and I will be preaching at Glenwood in the weeks to come, we will be starting some upgrades and revitalization of the Glenwood campus in short order and we will be shooting for an August date (subject to change) to “officially” launch two services – one traditional and one contemporary. Please stay tuned for more news updates.

In the meantime, if you are a Kingsport resident looking for a church home or if you would like to know more about the God I serve and the adventuresome life to which He calls us, I would love to chat with you.

Yes. Memorial Day will forever have a deeper meaning for us.

Grace and Peace!

The Church: Producers versus Consumers

I was pretty sure I had seen the car earlier in the day. It was a Chevy Monte Carlo that was blue and Bondo. They pulled into the last pump at Tom Brooks Exxon, closest to the road in such a way as to conceal the car using the pump island. When they walked in with their gas voucher and saw that I was still on duty behind the cash register, I could tell their heart sank a bit. After handing me the voucher, from yet another church, I told them to wait just a moment. I called the secretary of the church and informed her that this was the second time that day these particular individuals had been by to get gas. It would be the last. This scene played out quite a few times over the years.

This happened during my previous career in 1995 when a $5 gas voucher would still get you nearly five gallons of gas. I had made arrangements with many churches in close proximity to the station to handle their benevolent gas vouchers. Ideally, a church would encounter someone who needed some gas to make it to the store for food or get to work and we would take care of it, billing the church at the end of the month. However, some folks would inevitably abuse the benevolence of the churches by calling every church in the area and giving them the same sob story, racking up $30-$50 worth of vouchers. The churches would be none the wiser. That’s where we came in. Since this cooperative of churches would use us alone, we could quickly put a stop to it after the first fill-up. Once the abusers got another voucher to the same station, they knew the gig was up.

Please don’t misunderstand the point I am trying to make. Sometimes hard times befall us and the church should absolutely be willing and able to help. I am addressing how people perceive the church and NOT how the church perceives people.

Many who are on the outside looking in, view the church as an entity that exists to meet their needs. The real horror is that many on the inside feel the same way. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “I am just not being ‘fed.’” The “Nomadic Church Hoppers” migrate from one body to the next based on their own needs, desires and expectations. It is the classic consumer mentality and, sadly, some are gluttonous in their consumerism.

The truth is the church does not exist for us. WE ARE THE CHURCH AND WE EXIST FOR CHRIST! We are the body of Christ and we have the mission of God to fulfill. We are to be producers first and foremost. John 15 addresses this very thing. We are the branches which have been grafted into the Vine (Jesus) and we are to bear (produce) fruit. The branches that produce fruit are pruned so they can produce even more fruit. Those branches that do not bear fruit are cutoff and thrown into the fire. Near the end of the chapter, Jesus says, “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last…” Our chief motivation is to do the work to which we have been gifted and called, loving God and loving each other, bearing fruit. Much fruit. Good fruit. In God’s amazing economy, the producers receive blessing in the process. We exist in and have our needs met in the overflow of blessing that comes back to us from the fruit we produce.

The prodigal son’s consumerism got the best of him. He sold himself short for an earthly inheritance that would not last. Squandering everything by fulfilling his own desires, he found himself destitute.  Then it happened. He recalled the love of his father, swallowed his pride and returned to the place where he belonged. When he put the love of his father and the desire to serve him first, he was fully restored and had all that he ever needed.

If you struggle with church consumerism, take heart. It is never too late. As Matthew 6:33 reminds us, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”