Available now on amazon.com
Jesus was a Baptist? Well, not really. But Baptists would like to think so.
I have been a Baptist all my life. I was in a Baptist church in Alabama nine months before I was born. I was raised in a Baptist church, baptized in a Baptist church, married in a Baptist church, called into ministry in a Baptist church and attended a Baptist seminary. I came of age in a Baptist campus ministry during college.
I have served as an intern, missionary, youth pastor and senior pastor in Baptist churches since 1989.
In the last five years or so, however, I’ve tried to leave the Baptist church. Like most any denomination, politics can be ugly and I got tired of seeing all that play out. I have to say that for a while, I may have even been a bit embarrassed to call myself a Baptist.
But God would never let me leave. He kept pulling me back in.
I’m so glad he did.
This book has a story behind it. It was conceived by an Episcopal priest who originally wrote a book called Jesus was an Episcopal and was published by an Episcopal publishing company. The author wanted to try to re-introduce Americans to the Episcopal Church. He then conceived a series to re-introduce Americans to many different denominations, including Baptists. I submitted a proposal and was granted the opportunity to write the Baptist book in the series.
I’m so glad that happened. I’ve fallen in love all over again with the substance of historic Baptist thought. I still don’t like how it is practiced sometimes, because often it is political. But that is fine. Why do I like it? There is an entrepreneurial and missional passion that can be found in the Baptist way of thinking and doing ministry. It’s freeing if you want it to be.
In addition, Baptist thought provides a healthy framework for meeting Jesus and developing an experiential relationship with Him, and the Father, and the Spirit. It also allows you uncover how you can serve in God’s Kingdom and then provides you with the freedom to serve however God leads you.
As a Baptist you can develop your gifts and talents and even create opportunities to serve God. You can be innovative or you can follow a denominational plan. It’s up to how the Spirit leads you.
In terms of our age, we Baptists are young. We are only about 400 years old. But it has been a diverse four centuries of thought and ministry. Baptists over these four centuries have been loved and hated. We have been persecuted by other denominations and applauded by them. We have stuck our foot in our proverbial mouth and been leaders in ministry during natural disasters.
What I found interesting in putting this book together is that the growth of Baptists mirror the growth of the United States. Baptists’ belief in individual freedom and religious liberty greatly influenced American history, even as America’s embrace of these values influenced Baptists. As a result, today we are the largest protestant Christian denomination in the U.S. We have the third largest privately funded disaster relief group in the U.S. There are more Baptist missionaries in the U.S. and overseas than any other protestant Christian denomination.
In this book, I hope to introduce you to all of this: the good, the bad, and the ugly of Baptist life. We are not perfect people. But we try to be faithful to our Lord.
I want to introduce you to what makes us Baptists distinct from other Christian denominations and also give you insight into how we think. And why we do what we do.
Diversity
Baptists are a very diverse group. Even within Baptist denominations, you will have churches believing and acting differently than other churches. As a result, I will often say, “Some Baptists believe…” When you see that, you will know that I am not talking about one specific Baptist group. What I am trying to say is that there are some Baptists who believe in a way that is different than the majority of Baptists. It isn’t that one specific Baptist denomination believes differently than others. In fact, I try to specifically make it clear when one denomination believes differently than another. The diversity in Baptist thought allows individual persons or churches to believe and practice something different than general Baptist thought.
Why? Because each church and each person is autonomous. We can establish our framework of beliefs at the local church level and we can practice our beliefs through our understanding of the Bible. It’s the uniqueness of being a Baptist. It’s just who we are.
And example of that is the fact this book is even being published. You will see in the text of this book that I refer to God in a masculine form, using the pronouns “he”, “his” and “him” in reference to God. Jesus called God “Father,” and while one could argue that is a title, it also establishes God as relational and personal. Paul also used those pronouns to refer to God as well. And of course the Old Testament pictures God in a masculine way.
However, when the series editor for the publisher began to provide feedback on my writing, he wanted me to remove the masculine references to God. His contention, and one that I can agree with, was that God does not have a gender. In the Old Testament, God is referred to in a masculine way, but there are also references to God with feminine and motherly qualities.
The biblical writers, however, always referred to God with masculine pronouns, not feminine. And God is not an “it.” So I felt that I was being asked to do what few evangelical writers now do, which was to create a gender-neutral, non-person God. I felt I was being asked to de-personalize God for the sake of political correctness. I couldn’t fathom saying, “Our spiritual being with both maternal and paternal qualities, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
I wouldn’t make the changes. So I was invited not to continue the project with that series editor or the publisher.
So being a good Baptist, I decided to publish it anyway!
I hope that whatever you think about Baptists, through this book you can begin to see them as they are: broken people, sinners, who are passionate about Jesus and passionate about telling others about Him. Sometimes our passion gets in the way. We can be over zealous. But we really do mean well despite how we may come across in the media overall.
This has been a great journey for me. I have been able to reconnect with my roots, and re-learn the history of my denomination. I have also seen the freedom to do ministry and to love God how he wired me. The entrepreneurial bent that I have has been affirmed. It’s the perfect group for me to affiliate with.
I hope you see all this as well.
The book is available at CreateSpace. It will soon be available at amazon and I will provide the link there. It sales for $10.99.
