…of the man from Plains.

Yup today it happened.  I got to have a few words with number 39.  Mr. Carter and I exchanged pleasantries and I expressed my gratefulness for his vision, and he thanked me.  We shook hands and the angels sang.  Over these last few days I have begun to truly see this plain spoken, humble man as a prophet of the Lord.  He is saying and doing the work of the Lord without regard to what people say.  He is willing to be rejected in his homeland if it means the word is touching those who need it.

Today we heard much great preaching.  I will not be posting notes tonight, as I am exhausted and it is pushing 11:30.  I will post notes sometime in the near future.

Today’s sermons were given by Joel Gregory and Charles Adams.  Both of these men preach with a prophetic voice, and have a wisdom I can only dream of.   It is a shame I am so tired, as these 2 were quite dynamic.

Messages were delivered by Sen. Chuck Grasley of Iowa and Pres. Bill Clinton.  Grasley talked mainly about the farm bill and how it will impact our farmers and those around the world.  Pres. Clinton gave a dynamic talk.  He put aside his prepared notes and spoke from the heart.  He began by giving his baptist story, and how he became dis-enchanted.  But his focus was on reconciliation with his Southern Baptist tradition.  That reconciliation has to be based in love, and no matter what they may say about us, we must respond in love.  He brought us the section in 2 Corinth. about faith hope and love and the greatest is love…but why?  Because we see through the glass darkly.  We do not know the fullness of God, and the only way to respond is in love, because, heck, we may be wrong.  It was great.

Testimonies came from David Satcher the former Surgeon General and Hanna Massad, pastor of the only protestant church in the Gaza Strip.  Both me have compelling stories.

The special sessions I went to were Welcoming the Stranger and Public Policy and Faith.  Notes to follow.

We are going to the ABC-USA Breakfast tomorrow morning and then heading to Louisville to spend the night with my brother before heading back on sunday.

I will see you all later.  Thanks for reading and check back soon for more notes on today’s session.

This morning began with our drive to the center with a coffee and diet coke breakfast.

I am going to say upfront that today’s post will not be as detailed as yesterday’s. It took almost 1,000 words to describe yesterday’s one session — taken from 3 pages of notes. Today we had 3 session yielding 8 pages of notes, and that does not include the Al Gore luncheon where I did not take any notes. So this post will be much more condensed if I want to make it to bed before midnight. If you have any questions or want more details, just leave comments and I will try to respond.

Let’s start, shall we?

The first speaker today was Tony Campolo (Professor Emeritus, Eastern University and Founder of the Evangelical Association for Promotion of Education). Anyone who has heard Tony preach knows the man has fire, and today was no exception. He says the things we do not want to here. He preaches the gospel with the voice of the prophets … the voice of God.

- We are called to preach Christ, but which Christ do we preach?

- We have created a cultural diety. We want a WASP Jesus.

- Christ comes to challenge. Christ of scripture calls us to live radical lives.

- Christ said come follow me. Do you want to be a disciple? Then DO IT! Take up that cross. Don’t half do it. Don’t do the comfortable parts. You need to DO IT if your are going to DO IT.

- Ain’t nothing wrong with makin’ lots of money…just don’t keep it. Don’t be the rich man. Give to Lazarus.

- Commit to radical obedience.

- Do we think that Christ was just kidding?

- We need a sacrificial church. To live out the calling of God that the kingdom is at hand.

- Christ is waiting for us in those who want/need to be confronted.

- Christ is in us. Earthly Christ was just one man, but Risen Christ is in all believers.

- We are losing this generation because we have made Christianity too easy. This generation wants to do something.

- Go serve the poor. There will be poor always, so be with the poor always.

- Go and be the church. The church of the resurrection. Go preach the gospel news.

Naw Blooming Night Zan (Joint Secretary, Karen Women’s Organization). She is a Karen woman who still lives in Thailand in the camps. She gave a testimony about the plight of the Karen. Some of the stats were just heart-wrentching. If I understood correctly nearly 50% of Karen women have been raped by the Burmese army. The army is under direct orders to rape any women, and shoot to kill any man. Through all that horror, she still sees God present. In the children helping the parents. In the seed ministry scholarship that supports many students.

Her organization has 2 reports out, Shattering Silences and State of Terror. These are reports on the conditions of the Karen people. She charged us to go and tell of the Karen plight. Praying is not sufficient. We must do something. Be a voice. I want to try to get the reports.

Marian Wright Edleman (Founder, Children’s Defense Fund)

- Opened with Bonhoffer quote: “The test of a society is how it treats its children.”

- Gave a litany of stats on the plight of children in the US.

- Why are we more worried about getting gold, silver or bronze in the olympics, but do not care that we are in the bottom half of caring for our children?

- Need to name and change the Cradle to Prison Pipeline.

- Church ought to be locomotive not the caboose in leading this change.

- How do we do this?

- Confront and stop adult hyprocisy.

- Stop letting kids raise themselves.

- Parents! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!

- Open the doors of churches and schools as safe places.

- WE are what is wrong with our children.

- We need to find our prophetic voice.

- We do not have a money problem in this country we have a priority problem.

Next up was the Al Gore luncheon. All I can say was AMAZING. If you have seen An Inconvenient Truth much of the data presented was form that, but he tailored it to fit in with his brothers and sisters in Christ. The climate crisis we face is the trumpets from the mountains. We are hearing the cries in the wilderness. We are facing the moral problem of our lifetimes. I recommend you go to climatecrisis.net for more data. I would like to say, and it has been said before, had the man who was on that stage today been the man running for president in 2000, I think the world would be in a totally different place right now. This man had fire, and being in front of baptist, he let it go. He was preaching the word. He was a prophet. God say the world and said it was good. It is our Godly duty to care for it. We are created in God’s image, and the earth was created for us (who are in God’s image). What does it say about how we view God if we destroy God’s gift to us?

Next up was the first Special Interest Session.  I went to one on recovering from natural disasters and Mae went to one on ending the cycles of poverty.  I was most moved by a natural disaster I did not think of.  The cost of grain.  I have been thinking a lot lately on the ethics of the food I eat, so this came at a good time.  Because of higher demand (population, biofuels, etc.) the price of grain has climbed exponentially, and many can not afford it.  We are in the midst of a perfect storm of hunger.  One way to help combat this is via sustainable farming practices.  Support your local CSA (consumer supported agriculture), know where your food comes from and how it was grown.  Try to avoid industrial farms, as they not only destroy local economies, but the environment.  There is no care for the land in these industrial farms.  The nutrients of the food grown on them is diminished because of poor farming practices.

Wow this is getting long.  I will try to be brief.

Tonight’s session was on Diversity and we had guests in the congregation.  The head of the National Council of Churches, A Methodist Bishop, an Iman, a Rabbi, a Monsignor, a Presb. Minister, and the former president of the Baptist World Aliance.

Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell (Pastor of 1st Baptist of Decatur, GA) preached on love.  How we need to find the face of love in all we do.  Zaccheus and the woman at the well were 2 examples of those changed by the face of love, Christ.  (she said a lot more, but it is getting late, and my mind is starting to fade.  Ask questions…you will get answers)

John Grisham (the author) spoke and worked on the question of how did Baptists get such a bad wrap.  (BTW the guy was hilarious.)  One reason is that for so long so many baptists have worked so hard to exclude so many.  They were proudly intolerant.   How do we stop being on the defensive.  3 answers …

1. We must truly respect diversity.  All are one in Christ.  Sexual idendity, race, gender…it does not matter.

2. Stay out of Politics.  Our mission is to preach teaching and service.  We can be good citizens, but treat politics like Saturday college football.

3. Spend as much time on the streets as in the church.  Help the poor, sick and hungry.

- We can not pick and choose our neighbors, so just love them all.

All in all a  good day.  Long. These are 12 hour + days.

Good night.

Today was a pretty light day at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration.

[Update 7am - I forgot to mention, the running joke last night was that Jimmy Carter was the husband of the most famoust deacon in the world.  And during the service Pres. Carter was just a normal guy doing the role of a deacon.  The Mayor of Atlanta was late in arriving, but when she did he just got up and nonchalantly whispered in the speaker's ear and told him she was there.  It was neat to see, no assistants involved.]

Registration began at noon, so Mae and left the hotel about 12:30 and walked to the Georgia World Congress Convention Center. Our hotel is about a mile from the center. It was a nice walk, but we will be driving there more often than not. After registration we hit the exhibition floor. We naturally searched out the ABC-USA (American Baptist Churches-USA) booths. When we got the the ABC Historical Society booth, Betty and Deborah saw we were from North Shore they immediately asked about John Dawson — we found that fun. We then went the MMBB (Minister and Missionary Benefits Board) booth and saw Rev. Reg Mills on the video presentation — he was my pastor when I lived in Springfield.

After spending an hour or so on the floor we decided to go back to the hotel. We would remain there until 5ish and head back to the center for the evening’s plenary session.

We got back to the center and decided to sit at the food court and figure out which special sessions we wanted to go to. On our way to the “sanctuary” for the plenary session we saw some people with camera (tv and photo) walking by us. I looked into the gaggle and there was the former POTUS, Jimmy Carter 10 feet from me. It was kind of exciting, we were going to get a picture of the scene, but realized we accidentally left the camera at the hotel — that will not happen again!

The plenary sessions are basically a 2.5 hour worship service. It moved pretty quickly. At this point in the daily blog, I will try to decipher my notes and post things that happened in the service. Please note these will be short blurbs and may not be the easies things to understand…

The first words spoken tonight were from William D. Underwood (President of Mercer University and Co-Chair of New Baptist Covenant), and they — i think — aptly stated our purpose for being here. “Some 40 years ago a Baptist minister said that one day, in the red hills of Georgia, sons and daughters of slaves would worship side by side with the sons and daughters of slave owners. Well, here, on the red hills of Georgia, we are here together to unify his dream.”

David Goatley (President, North American Baptist Fellowship): We are seeking to cross boundaries we choose to live behind.

Dr. William Shaw (Pastor White Rock Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA and President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.): Used Luke (the section where Jesus reads and the temple and then gets chased out of town) and John 8.

- Jesus was on a mission of reversal

- He did not come to give relief to the sick, but to heal. Not to comfort the blind, but make them see.

- Christ’s mission was concrete. Radical. Work of reversal not just relief.

- Justice is rooted in reality of the incarnation.

- We are created in God’s image. To do injustice is to to it to God.

- Justice is changing the structures of victimhood.

- Change is reversal. Calm is not peace. Calm is the illusion of peace. There is no peace without justice. Kenya for example. There was calm, but the structures of victimhood were not addressed and violence and war broke out. Middle east may have calm, but no peace until we change the structures of victimhood.

- No morality without justice.

- We tend to use a partial morality as a tool for punishing morality.

- Injustice is a distorted claim to divinity.

- We tend to spiritulize Christ’s mission when we don’t want to change.

- We reject Christ when we put our selfhood above him (baptist, race, nationalism)

- When we reject Christ we become like those who wanted to kill him in the above scripture.

- I AM. Ultimate claim of divinity.

- I AMness makes all efforts to kill Christ futile.

- We are like Peter who denied, but still loved Christ. We, like Peter, are given a charge to love and serve.

- We are called to the work of CHANGE.

This was an amazing sermon. My notes are fuzzy because as soon as i wrote something down, i would have to begin again.

Jimmy Carter: Quoting Dr. Shaw (glad he did this, because i remember Dr. Shaw saying it, but did not get to write it down) “How do we disagree with Christians in the name of Christ?”

- 1st time in over 160 years this many baptists have gotten together.

- Looked at Christ’s mission with emphasis on the oft over looked poor, broken hearted, prisoners, sick, blind and brusied.

- Helping those is true liberty, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us.

- We can not be inspired here and then let it fade.

- The attributes of Christ that attract are those of mercy, love and justice.

- Images of Christians by those non-Christians around the world is that of a divided body a cancer matastsising in the body of Christ.

- Looked at 1 Corinthians (the lectionary from last week) about Paul’s admonition that we be of like mind.

- To redefine the Gospel has been the temptaion.

- We are dealing with the same man-made barriers to Christ (homosexuality, race, women in the pulpit) -paul’s day it was circumcision, eating meat from idols.

- We are called to set aside those barriers and work for the Gospel.

- Quoted Galatians: we are all children of God — no longer women, men, slave or free

- We all share at least one common thread the Gospel message of we are all saved by the Grace of God through Christ.

- With that we can stand united.

- We all stand for peace, love, and forgiveness.

Wow, for being an easy day, I sure wrote a lot. The rest might not be this in depth. As we will be having 5 hours of worship plus 2-3 of breakout sessions.

See you tomorrow!

Photos and video of tonights session can be found here: http://www.newbaptistcelebration.org/

Well, 12 hours to the nose after we left Chicago, Mae and I arrived at our hotel in Atlanta, Ga.  We are here for the New Baptist Covenant Celebration.

When we left Chicago this morning it was cloudy and 45 degrees and expected to drop.  Atlanta when we arrived was 65 and overcast.  It is supposed to rain most of the time we are to be here, but nothing will make us leave.  Dixie threw her best at us yankees as soon as we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.  As soon as we hit Louisville, KY it started pouring and did not let up until well after Nashville.  Many parts of the drive I could see no further than 3-4 lines in the road ahead of me.  But, alas, we Yankees persevered and made it.

Tomorrow begins at noon with registration and the exhibit hall.  The first session is at 7 p.m.   I hope to update daily.

We are now off to get some pizza for supper.