Editorial for June 9, 2005
By Jim White
If I were you, I would want to know something about this new guy who is serving as editor of the Religious Herald. Assuming you are at least as curious as I, allow me to introduce myself.
I grew up the eldest child of parents who were so Baptist that I thought Lottie and Annie were my great-aunts. We attended the Jefferson Heights Baptist Church in Jefferson County, Missouri, a minimum of twice on Sundays and on Wednesday evening. I can still sing the Sunbeam Song from memory. Training Union was so much a part of my life that I never knew how the Wizard of Oz ended until after I was an adult-since it was invariably shown on Sunday evenings.
I was baptized as a child in Glaize Creek after the cows had been shooed out. At 13, I felt called to be a medical missionary and soon thereafter preached my first sermon in a Baptist church near Fredericktown, Mo., where my grandfather was pastor. I was nurtured in the faith by encouraging adults who saw the youth of our church as bona fide ministers; and we responded by forming weekend revival teams that traveled to neighboring churches in our association. How indulgent those dear Christians were!
I attended two Baptist colleges. At Hannibal-LaGrange, God used college chemistry to convince me that he was not calling me into medicine. He used other experiences to refine his call further. The week I turned 18, I accepted the call to be the pastor (actually, “preacher boy”) of the Solid Rock Baptist Church 10 miles west of Hannibal, Mo. During my 18-month tenure we baptized 11, the first of which took place in a farm pond with a slick mud bottom. In my attempt to immerse a big farmboy, I succeeded in baptizing us both.
After two years in the Marines, I resumed studies at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., where I majored in religion. There I met Connie, my wife; and there I joined the Liberty Manor Baptist Church. These remarkable people demonstrated their capacity for longsuffering in that they called me from the ranks of membership to serve in succession as their youth minister, associate pastor, interim pastor and pastor. I sometimes tell people my real ambition was to become the WMU director, but was never quite able to manage it. During the course of a nine-year pastorate, our two children were born and I earned master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.
In 1984, we began our trek eastward-first to Nashville, Tenn., and the Baptist Sunday School Board (as it was called in those days) where I edited The Deacon magazine and served as a deacon ministry consultant. In the fall of that year, while on a week-long tour through the Commonwealth, I fell in love with Virginia. In fact, Connie still has a “Virginia is for Lovers” postcard I sent her. On it I had written, “If God ever leads us back into the pastorate, I hope it's in Virginia!” Three-and-a-half years later, responding to a call from the Lord and the church, my family moved to Newport News where for 15 years I was privileged to serve the First Baptist Church as its pastor.
The advent of Kingdom Advance brought another unanticipated change to my life when, again in response to God's call, I enthusiastically agreed to serve as the team leader for the empowering leaders team of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. From the day Kingdom Advance was unveiled to the BGAV in that special meeting in Charlottesville on May 10, 2002, I have believed that “KA” was God's plan for Virginia Baptists at this point in our history.
But, it seems, that God just won't leave me alone. When I first learned that I had been recommended as a candidate to fill the vacancy left by Mike Clingenpeel's departure, I scoffed at the idea. “Who, in his right mind, would want to be the editor of a state paper these days?” I confess that my first inclination was to avoid the pain of being shot-at from all directions. I still don't like the idea of being in someone's crosshairs, but anyone who has served as a pastor for 25 years has learned to live with a certain measure of criticism!
It was Connie who asked the critical question: “Looking over your past, do you think God may have been preparing you for this?” As I sought direction from the Lord, I had to conclude that, indeed, he had been. When I opened my mind to the possibility, a sense of “call” became clear as I caught a vision of what the Lord may have in mind for the Religious Herald. I am genuinely excited about the wonderful things God is doing among Virginia Baptists, and am awed by the privilege of telling that story to anyone who will read and listen.
I introduce myself in this way not because I want to focus on myself, but because I want to underscore my sense of God's gracious leading in my life and to highlight my debt to and commitment to Baptists. The oft-repeated saying applies to me: “Baptist born and Baptist bred; When I die, I'll be Baptist dead.”
As I begin, I can promise several things. First, I am going to make mistakes. If the past is any indication of what to expect, I am going to get some things wrong despite my best efforts to do otherwise. I ask for your prayers as I begin.
Secondly, I promise I will respect you. All of you. We have made a point of saying that in the Virginia Baptist family there is room at the table for everyone who seeks to be led by the Spirit of Christ. We must continue to adjust our attitudes to make it so. God doesn't have any red-headed step-children. I believe we dishonor him and the Christian family when we treat others as though they are second-class merely because we don't agree with all points of their theology.
I promise that I will seek, in all ways, to be a faithful servant of Christ and to speak from that perspective with a distinctively Baptist voice to issues of our time. I am proud to be a modern member of that long line of men and women whose evangelistic fervor led their contemporaries to the cross; and whose consciences cried out for freedom from oppression, even of the religious kind.
I believe the best days for Virginia Baptists are ahead of us as, inspired by our past, we are led by the Spirit into the future.
Jim White is editor and business manager of the Religious Herald.