HOUSTON (ABP) — Following a year of financial hardship, the moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellow-ship urged the group’s general assembly to celebrate the movement’s success and potential for the future.
Jack Glasgow, pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church in Zebulon, N.C., said the right biblical metaphor to describe the movement is the post-exilic world of Ezra and Nehemiah, when both those old enough to remember the days before the Babylonian exile and those who had little historical memory of that time worked together to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, he observed.
“Some have stories to remember,” he said of today’s CBF. “Some have stories to forget. Some come with few stories in their rear-view mirror but with burning passion for the story up ahead that is calling them to faithfulness.”
Stories from the past are “all sacred and respected,” but as the CBF increases its racial, gender and generational diversity they are “increasingly diverse,” he noted.
“Let us celebrate our connections, strengthen our partnerships, step up our encouragement, accelerate our commitment and rejoice in our relationships,” he said.
“Like the post-exilic community in Jerusalem, there is joy that can be found in the work of renewal and rebuilding. … A great work of rebuilding and new building awaits our efforts.”