Balling for Jesus-or Seabrook Baptist Church pt 2

A softball. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So now, back to how I got to this point.

After I stopped riding the bus with my two brothers to go to Sunday School at Seabrook Baptist Church, I didn't attend church on a regular basis until I got into college.  During that interim period, I did attempt to read the Bible on my own, but let's face it, it's a hard book to read.

I got back into attending church in a different way.  One of my old high school friends and I were talking on campus.  He was telling me about his church softball team and wanted to know if I would be interested in playing.  I was always athletic and loved playing ball.  The only stipulation was that I would have to attend church on a fairly regular basis.  I don't think it was every Sunday, but at least most Sundays.  I decided to give it a shot.

When I started attending the church, and the softball practices, I discovered several of my old high school friends were attending the church and playing softball.  It was fairly easy to assimilate myself into the group.  With so many old friends in the group, and a few other people that I somewhat knew, it was no hardship to meet the minimum requirements to play softball.  In fact, I found myself easily attending much more than required.  In addition to Sunday school and Sunday morning worship, I found myself attending Sunday nights and Wednesday prayer meeting.

It didn't take too long for me to decide to rededicate myself to Christ.  Technically, I had always been on the church membership rolls, but now, rather than being an inactive member, I was now very active.  Outside of softball, our college career group did a lot of things together.  We used to get together on Saturday nights for an evening of Bible study and prayer.  One time, a group of us camped out at an event in Pennsylvania called Creation, or as I liked to call it "Woodstock for Christians."  It was two days of performances by various contemporary Christian musical acts.

I also became very active in the music ministry of the church.  I became a member of the church choir.  The church had a ministry with a nearby nursing home.  On occasion, a few of us would go to the nursing home with our guitars and provide music for the service.  Another time, we took our guitars down to DC on the 4th of July and played songs while a minister preached on the street.  At that time in my life, I also wrote songs.  I wrote a couple of songs that I performed in front of the congregation.

For the next few years, I was very happy at Seabrook Baptist Church.  Not only did I find myself wanting to be at church and involved in all of the activities.  My friends at the church were no longer just my friends, but part of a larger family.  We truly loved each other.  Still, as they say, all good things come to an end and sadly, so did my time at Seabrook Baptist.  In my next post, I will talk about how it all ended.

A New Experience

KJV Bible (Photo credit: knowhimonline)

It has been about 22 years since I attended a church on a regular basis.  In the past year, I have been spending a lot of time on my own, reading the Bible and books with Christian subject matter, listening to the various teaching ministries on Family Talk Radio on Sirius. I have attended a few churches, but not on a consistent basis, as a search for a new church home.

There have been two churches that I have attended on a regular basis and been a member.  Both have been Baptist churches.  The first one was Seabrook Baptist Church which I mentioned in previous posts.  The other was Grace Baptist Church here in Bowie, Maryland.  In future posts, I will talk a little bit about my experiences at both of those churches.

In my search for a new church, I have visited a few different denominations.  One of the things that I have been looking for is a church that has an early worship service on Sunday mornings.  An earlier service works better for me because I tend to wake up fairly early, even on the weekends.  This morning, I was out of bed around 6 am.

So far in my search, I have not found a place that I could say definitively that I wanted to make my new church home.  Similarly, there has not been any place that I have outright decided to eliminate, though I am pretty close to eliminating one church.  It is tough because that church lines up more closely with my theological beliefs, however the worship service doesn't quite give me what I am looking for.

Up to now, I have stayed away from Baptist churches even though that is what my primary church background has been.  The reason I have stayed away from Baptist churches is because of some of my past experiences with them which I will relate in some later posts.  Today, however, I decided to try the Baptist church that is closest to my home because they have an 8:30 am worship churches.

It was at this church that I experienced something that I had never experienced in my previous associations with Baptist churches.  The associate pastor of the church came over to introduce themselves to me.  Nothing unusual about that, but was unusual is that this associate pastor was a woman.  The Baptist churches that I have been a part of in the past held steadfastly to the belief that a woman could not hold that position within the church.

Another thing that I noticed was in the church bulletin for the day's worship activities.  The bulletin listed the names of all the deacons of the church.  Once again, I noticed that several of the deacons (actually, I should say the vast majority) were women.  Again, the two previous churches that I belonged to only had men in the role of deacons.

I will say that one of the things that I did like about the church was that it was very racially diverse.  I have heard it said that Sunday morning worship hour is often still the most segregated hour in the country.  The attendees of this particular service were split almost equally between white and black worshipers.  In fact, the female associate pastor is African American, while the lead pastor is a white man.

I was very impressed by the lead pastor.  Instead of standing behind the pulpit, he stood on the floor and delivered his message.  What was most impressive, is that he delivered his sermon without the use of any notes.  His delivery was smooth and very structured.  The associate pastor told me after the service that during the early service, he usually does not speak from behind the pulpit as it is a more relaxed service, but he does preach the 11 am service from behind the pulpit as it is a more formal service.

Another thing about the church that was different, at least to me, is that it seemed that they were a bunch of huggers.  After the service, the associate pastor gave me a hug and we chatted for a while.  She seems very nice.  Then after we finished our conversation, as I went to leave the church, another woman came up to me and gave me a big hug and thanked me for attending the service.

I have not decided whether or not I will go back to the church I went to today.  Part of me wants to, but another part of me isn't sure.  The church is conveniently located, and I like that they have an early service.  Still, another part of me wonders about them having so many women in positions of leadership within the church.  There is no doubt that the Bible teaches that women play an important role in the gospel. Still there are those verses that say that women should not be a teacher or in authority over men in the church, not to mention that is what I have experienced in my previous church lives.  What are your thoughts on women in a leadership position within the church today versus what is taught in the Bible?

Riding the Bus

First Baptist Church of Seabrook (but not my Seabrook Baptist Church) (Photo credit: Houstonian)

My first regular exposure to church came when I was in the seventh grade and just starting junior high school.  We had just moved to Seabrook, Maryland.  One of the local churches, Seabrook Baptist Church, had a bus ministry.  My parents decided it was time for me and my two younger brothers to get religion.  They signed us up to be picked up each Sunday morning to attend Sunday School and worship services.  For some reason, they did not include our sister.  Since she was six years younger than I was, perhaps they thought she was too young.

So, every Sunday morning, my two brothers and I would get up early, put on nice clothes and wait for the bus to pick us up, just like it was a school day.  We didn't really have a choice in the matter.  I think there were also times when we wondered why we were being punished with going to Sunday school and church services while everybody else stayed at home. If we wanted to ride the bus home, we had to wait until after the worship service as the bus only ran before Sunday school and after service.

The man who was our deacon and picked us up in the bus was a very nice man by the name of Darwin Spinks.  He truly was a gentle man in every aspect.  He was very soft spoken and kind.  A few years later, during what would be my second tenure at Seabrook Baptist, I came to understand that more fully, but that will come in a later post.

Since Sunday School was divided up by different grade levels, I was in a separate class from my two younger brothers.  After Sunday School, we would find each other and sit together during the worship service.  During one worship service, one of my brothers made a decision to go forward and profess faith in Jesus.  He would be scheduled to be baptized a few weeks later during a Sunday evening service.

During the morning worship service of the Sunday that my brother was to be baptized, I made a decision to go forward as well.  Normally, they waited a few weeks between your profession of faith and your baptism, but since my brother was already scheduled to be baptized the night, the church agreed to let me get baptized on the same night.

After my brother and I were baptized, we attended church for a few more weeks.  Then, we just stopped getting on the bus on Sunday mornings.  I wouldn't attend church on a regular basis until I was in my college years.  I didn't completely abandon wanting to learn about Jesus.  I would still read my Bible on occasion, but it wasn't a regular thing.  So the search would continue.  

My New Blog

English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I did not grow up in a Christian home.  If you had asked any of us growing up, we would have told you that we were.  I guess you could say we were nominally Christian.  We considered ourselves Christian and we celebrated the Christian holidays, however, we rarely attended church when we were growing up.  Looking back, I am not sure we even attended church during the two major holidays of Christmas and Easter.

That is not to say that my parents didn't want us to learn about Jesus.  At Christmas, we always had a Nativity Scene to set up.  As a kid, it was one of my favorite things to do.  I always tried to find different ways to arrange all the different figurines.

Somewhere down the line, I did learn more about Christmas and Easter than Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  I learned about the Nativity, Jesus' death on the cross, and his subsequent resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The purpose of this blog is to talk about my journey and the on again, off again relationship with Jesus Christ, who I believe is the Son of God who came to live among man in order that we can be forgiven our sins and reconciled to God the Father.  I will talk about the things that drew me to him, the things that have driven me away, and the things that help draw me back again. Unlike my other blog, Dickster's Random Thoughts, I will not dwell on politics unless it has something to do with the Christian world view.