2024 September news-letter article

Greetings First Baptist Church!

September is the final month of our fiscal year.  Several different bodies have been working in recent weeks to pray, and do math, and prepare, and conscript, and draft proposals that will be put before you for consideration this month.  On the third Wednesday evening of this month, we will have the annual Business Conference where we will vote upon a proposed budget and a proposed list of committees/officers among other things.  Our ministry leaders are considering dollars left in current line items that we can invest now as we plan for the coming year.  It’s the time of year where certain committees and work groups, and us here around the Office, work strategically to finish the year well and gear up to begin the new year in October.  In our church’s life cycle, this is a natural time each year to look forward, and to look backward.

Couple this with the fact that it’s the second Sunday of September each year when we hold a home-coming celebration.  This naturally allows us to reflect on days gone by, and ponder what the days ahead might hold.  I may not be as nostalgic as others of you, but as you read a couple of months ago, I can be sentimental, occasionally.  As you read, I have pretty clear understanding of where our church has come from over the past fifteen years, but many of you have much greater clarity than me as to where we have come from over the past two or three generations.

In February 2024, our church became 133 years old (boy, we look fantastic to be that age)!  A [very] few of you may remember the days before the ministry of Rev. J.M. Johnson, Sr., but a majority of our “baby boomers” recall Johnson from their childhood days.  It seems to me [and Jim Cohn, I think] that for two generations now, the plumb-line of pastoral ministry in this church is measured against that of “Preacher Johnson”.  Many of you were baptized by him; several of you had him to officiate your wedding.  What a faithful servant of God he was.  My hope is that fifty years from now, someone views a period of time while I get to be here the same way many of us view the period of time under Pastor Johnson’s leadership.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Rev. Johnson.  I have, however, had the great honor of meeting Robert Glasgow and Roger Dobbins.  Neither of these men served here a terribly long time, but they both had a tremendous impact within our church family, and maintain a lasting legacy from the 1970s through today!  I am thankful for the faithful witness of these two gentlemen, and I know many of you are thankful in a way far greater than me.  Sadly, I never got to meet Sydney Goldfinch, but many of you have told me time and time again of how he brought a missionary heart to our pulpit.  Not only did he preach the Great Commission; he put feet to pavement here in Walnut Cove and lived out the Commission.  Aren’t we thankful for such a standard bearer of missions and evangelism within our church’s history?

I am so thankful that last year’s home-coming got to be a day of great reunion with Rev. William Fryar, Sr.!  I knew Bill’s impact within our church family was wide and deep, but I didn’t appreciate until last year the season of prolonged growth that Bill led may be eclipsed only by the “boom” Rev. Johnson saw through the 1950s and 1960s.  Bill served us for fifteen years; three of those (only 20%), we were blessed by the ministry of William Watson.  Will served in both our music and student ministries.  We could probably debate in which one he did a greater job, but no one would dare argue against his profound talent.  He is unquestionably a gifted musician, and the youth group under his charge was as vibrant as our church has ever seen!  Again, he was only here with us from 2001 to 2004, but we are still feeling the effects of his great work.  I am so excited to have him come back home, twenty years later, to share a sweet day of reunion with us.  I’m not sure who is more excited, him or me!

I needn’t tell you of the deep affection and respect I have for Rev. James Cohn.  By the time you calculate his eleven years of full-time ministry here, and then add the three years and change of previous part-time service, only Preacher Johnson and Bill Fryar have lengthier tenures within our church.  Many of you can tell the story better than I can, but as I attempted to write a couple of months ago, I am so grateful to God for the way He has blessed our church over the past decade-and-a-half.  Knowing what I know about the 50 or 60 or 70 years before that, I believe we as a church have a lot for which to be thankful.  I can’t imagine how our church family looked, or sounded, or felt like 133 years ago, but I know that they were loved and saved by the same Jesus who loves and saves us today.  I know that our spiritual fore-fathers read the same bible we do, they experienced the same grace we experience, they worshiped the same Lord that we do, and they carried the same Good News to their neighbors in the same county in which we carry the Good News to our neighbors today!  Though many things have changed within our church family over 133 years, many things have not.  I dare say, the most important things have not changed at all.  As I wonder what Walnut Cove will look like another 133 years from now, I am convinced that the rapture will have taken place, that First Baptist Church and all the others will have already been snatched away from this world; but, should God see fit to leave us, or our spiritual great-great-grandchildren here, I am confident that they too will be saved by Jesus, experiencing His love and grace, reading the same Word of God, worshiping just as we worship today, and faithfully carrying the same Good News to their neighbors!  As we slow down to look backward and reflect, let’s also close our eyes and imagine the days yet to come.  Aren’t we thankful that we have been saved by a God that is the same: yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Forever He is faithful, forever He is strong,
forever God is with us, forever and ever; His love endures forever,
--A.J.