Recently I attended the Cooperative Baptist Church of North Carolina’s General Assembly. I was honored to receive the Randall and Lou Lolley Scholarship for my theological education at Duke Divinity School. But I couldn’t help but feel more than just a scholarship recipient smiling on stage. I felt transformed.
The theme this year was transforming together. In my own life I have gone through a personal transformation denominationally speaking. Had you told me two years ago when I first started working for a Baptist church that I would be ordained by that congregation I would have laughed; I was a die-hard Methodist ready to make his mark on the little Baptist church in the mountains. Little did I know they’d leave their mark on me. Little did I know I would be transformed.
I have wrestled with my calling, with my identity, with what it means to be a Christian and a minister. I have served and failed, I have served and found joy. All in First Baptist Church of West Jefferson’s loving arms. I have found that I have capabilities that can only be God-given, and I have found that I have faults that need to be addressed. That’s what transformation does, it reveals to us our best and our worst, and ultimately God is working in it all.
You see, the idea of transforming together means that we are all changed. I’m reminded of the verse in Malachi: “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” Refining and transforming aren’t the easiest business, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a whole knows this all too well. But one thing we do know is that transformation is worth it, because we maintain our integrity and our faith in the hope that Jesus offers us.
Every church and every denomination has the opportunity to transform. It is through transformation that we are given new life and resurrection. Give it a chance, allow God to work in your life and in the life of your church and there you will find the eternal grace of God. You will find the hope of transformation is intrinsic in the fabric of all that God gives us, that’s the point of our faith and the community we call church. Thanks be to God that we can transform together.