Story #24 in the Covenant series

There are 23 Covenant stories behind us and more still to tell. But I’d like to stop for a moment and write something rather personal. A church is a living organism made up of the lives of the people who are a part of the community. And the life of a church is the sum total of all their experiences over time. Thousands of Sundays, Wednesdays, ceremonies, celebrations, and tragedies make up the story of a church. If someone tries to tell that church’s story, the best he or she can do is select a few moments, like snapshots, and try to communicate a sense of its reality. But you can’t really tell the story of a church. No one can. The only thing you can do is experience a church community by being a part of it.

So I’d like to tell you what Covenant Baptist Church has meant to me. Because I have been a part of this community for 20 years.

Jeanene and I came here fresh out of seminary in 1989, when the Baptist wars over the Bible were at their peak. I wanted to get a Ph.D. in New Testament and teach. I swore publicly that I would never be the pastor of a church – many people heard me say it. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. It’s like double-dog-daring God. I’m not arrogant enough to claim that God would expend any divine energy just to teach me a lesson, but it is kind of funny if you think about it...

READ MORE at the High Calling Blogs website.

Archive of my High Calling Writing.

The High Calling is a site about Work and God.