2026 September news-letter article

Brothers and sisters,

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “home” as a noun, meaning “the fixed dwelling place or abode of a person, family, household, or animal”.  It can also imply “where someone was brought up, with reference to the feelings of belonging and comfort associated with it”.  An additional O.E.D. definition is “a refuge, a sanctuary; a place to which one naturally belongs or feels at ease”.  Is your “home town” the place you live, or the place where you were raised?  If it’s the former, my father’s “home town” is Greensboro.  If it’s the latter, my father never really had a “home town” (military brat).  I generally think of “home town” as the place where I grew up, and the idea of it being a “fixed dwelling” resonates with me because I think of “home” as a place of permanence, furthering the idea of it being a place of stability.

From time to time, some of you may hear me refer to “my home church”.  Sharpe Road Baptist Church in Greensboro is the church in which I was raised, from the time I was about one-and-a-half until I was 22, when I came to work here at First Baptist Church.  If I subtract my college years, when I was only attending my home church fifteen times per year, I was really only part of that church family for about seventeen-and-a-half years.  This just so happens to be pretty close to the length of time I have been a part of this church family!  In fact, I don’t even know a majority of the people who attend my “home church”.  So it is clear to me that “my home church” is certainly not “my church home”.  Though it absolutely remains a place of “comfort”, because I feel “at ease”, I can’t say that it is a place of “belonging” because I don’t naturally fit in the way I once did.

A few of you have made comments to me appreciating my use of “church family”.  I prefer to think of our body in that way, because there are members on our roll that aren’t really part of our church family anymore.  There are also active participants who may not yet be covenant members of our church that are absolutely part of our “family”.  I like this idea of family; it most certainly is a biblical idea.  When we think about what “home” is, it seems very difficult to define if we alienate it from the idea of the family.  Indeed if the First Baptist Church is your church home, you surely appreciate the idea of it being a refuge or a sanctuary, a “place” of belonging and comfort, acceptance and love (I am talking about the family of believers as a “place”, not a building).

So then, what does it mean to “go home” or “come home”?  Could I “go home” to Sharpe Road on occasion?  Sure.  Do we want former members of First Baptist, or members that we haven’t seen in a while, to “come home” to worship and celebrate with us?  Absolutely.  In September each year, we have a home-coming celebration.  This year, our former pastor, W. Robert Glasgow, will return to worship with us, preaching 55 years after he became our pastor.  I very much hope many others come back to worship with us too.  It should be a great day of reunion, when we reflect and give thanks for what God has done in and through our church over 135 years!

Annually, on our home-coming Sunday, we actively lean into the idea of “home” being permanent, where we were raised (as little ones or not).  The other fifty-one Sundays, my hope is that we actively lean into the other idea of what makes “home”.  I want us to actively cultivate the spirit of a dwelling place where someone naturally belongs and feels at ease, right here, right now.  I hope our guests quickly experience feelings of belonging and comfort, whether brought up in our church or not.  May we indeed be a sanctuary for anyone and everyone.  May we, as a church family, be a refuge.

In so doing, our church family will be a place of genuine New Testament fellowship.  We will bear one another’s burdens; we will encourage one another, pray for one another, and love one another, just as God’s Word instructs.  My hope is that we continue to cultivate a sense of comfort and belonging such that more and more and more people will become part of our church family.  Fifty-five more years from now, I want many, many more people to want to “come home” to First Baptist Church, and I don’t want them to return to worship with us.  Rather, I want them to be fixtures within our church family that reinforce the idea of “home” being an abode of permanence.

Additionally, if some of our friends and loved ones are able to worship with us for the first time in a while, and haven’t been attending another church, let’s do our part to draw them back into our church family.  Obviously, we don’t shame them or try to guilt them into returning to the fold.  Instead, we love them, and remind them of how much we have missed them, and we highlight the value in being a part of this church family as a home.  Hopefully, folks will come back home in the months ahead.  Hopefully, others will become part of our church family for the first time!  Either way, may we all work together to actively strengthen our culture and atmosphere such that more and more feel “at home” amongst us!  I want others to experience the sense of home that I experience, especially you!  May God continue to bless us as we continue to faithfully serve one another and our neighbors, for another 135 years … or until He calls us to our eternal home!

God the Father of Your people, You have called us to be one;
grant us grace to walk together in the joy of Christ, Your Son.
Challenged by Your Word and Spirit, blessed with gifts from heaven above,
as one body we will serve You, and bear witness to Your love!
--A.J.