This week, August 12, was my 88th birthday. If I were not prone to reflection, the state of our nation and the situation is our United Methodist Church would force it on me.
As an ordained minister, my life is “buried with Christ” in the Church, in the world. I received a “local preachers license” when I was 17. For 71 years I have been formally, but also personally, related to the Church.
In my early teens, I was converted under the powerful preaching of a Fifth-Grade educated, Baptist preacher, Brother Wiley Grissom. Though clear and convicting in his preaching, I did not experience it in a stereotypical “guilt-producing, judgmental” sort of way. His love shone through and caught my attention. I responded to “the invitation” one Sunday morning, and the next Sunday afternoon, I was baptized by immersion in Thompson Creek.
This little Eastside Baptist Church was about 200 yards up the road from our home, but there were no young people in the church, and no youth ministry. I don’t quite remember how it happened, but after a few weeks of attending a Sunday evening youth program at the Baptist Church “in town”, I began attending the Methodist Youth Fellowship.
The pastor, Brother David McKeithen, was interested in and involved with the youth. He was young and educated, a seminary graduate. He and Brother Grisson were vastly different, but both were “called” and motivated to serve by “the same Spirit.” Both were passionate about “the Book” and were faithful in preaching “the Gospel.’ The congregations they led expressed “the faith” differently in their worship, especially their singing.
The ”impact” of those two communities on my life came vividly alive a couple of weeks ago. My last living sibling, Lois, died. Some years ago, she and her husband had built and lived in a home on a portion of the small property Daddy owned and where we “grew up,” down the road from Eastside Baptist Church. Along the way, in their religious pilgrimage, they had become Methodist, and were members of the Richton Methodist Church.
Their pastor, a young woman, conducted Lois’ funeral service, which was outdoors at the grave side, in the cemetery behind Eastside Baptist Church. Her husband and a son are buried there. My mother and father are buried there, and one day that’s where Jerry and I will be buried.
When I arrived at the church, I was greeted by women I knew were in the Methodist Church and others I knew were in the Eastside Church. I also learned that the Methodist women had prepared a lunch for Lois’ family, but it was going to be served there in Eastside Church.
Since that expression of unity, and the “mixed” group of persons sharing together, I have not ceased thanking God for two vastly different congregations and ministers who have impacted my life. These last weeks, in the wake of my Lois’ death I find myself singing to myself—and even sometimes aloud, some of the songs I heard often in the Eastside congregation.
“Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, Sing his mercy and his grace;
In the mansion bright and blessed, He’ll prepare for us a place.”
When we all get to heaven, What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus, We’ll sing and shout the victory!
And I usually get around to a Wesley hymn, which will be sung at my funeral, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. The last verse goes,
Finish, then, thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee;
Changed from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder love
and praise.
As I noted in my introduction, for 71 years I have been related to the United Methodist Church. My journey could not have been richer and more rewarding. Yet, though it is painful, from my past reflections I trust you see how I have come to believe that the separation that has come in the United Methodist Church and the emerging Global Methodist Church is going to be fruitful.