An Introduction to Get Started

It is with some fear and trembling that I say welcome to my first experience at blogging. A Simple View from the Back Pew will take a look at a variety of theological and other musings that will relate to both the church, the Christian faith and life in general from a lifetime of experience gathered from books read, people met, places traveled and other odds and ends so far. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I write, but I do hope that it will stimulate our thinking and that we can learn together. So we shall forget about the trembling.

I want to give you a glimpse of who I am as we begin this journey together. I am 56 years old and have been a Southern Baptist two months longer than I’ve been born. We’ll talk more about that later. I grew up in a home that was both Christian and dysfunctional to the core. Life was not always easy growing up.

My living extended family includes my father, a step-mother, step-sister, step-brother, half-brother, and a real brother. The immediate family includes my wife of nearly 34 years, a daughter living on the West Coast, and a son living on the East Coast. My son is married to a nurse and they have our only two grandchildren. Since so much of our life revolves around family, we shall return to various family issues to discuss relationships that have brought both my greatest joy and my deepest sorrow.

My current church is the 17th Southern Baptist church in which I’ve been a member and I live in my 12th state. During the past 35 years, I have held four full-time ministry positions and a handful that were only part-time. I have been employed by local churches, two Baptist associations, a Baptist state convention, and both of our national convention mission agencies. As a Southern Baptist, there are days I am embarrassed to admit it and others where I am very proud of who we are. With so much of our identity tied up in what we do, we will return to vocational topics in the future to wrestle with who we are and why.

Some of the jobs for which I have never been paid have included teaching 9th graders in Sunday morning Bible study for fourteen consecutive years, working with inmates with life sentences for some of the most heinous crimes on the planet and serving a state convention as an executive board member. Volunteerism is one of those rewarding vocations and we will have many opportunities to talk about why people choose to serve each other or not.

Beyond high school, my educational pursuits have resulted in an associate, bachelor, masters and doctoral degree. However, life is our real university and each day holds a new pop quiz, laboratory experiment, research paper or sometimes a final exam. As we develop a mindset of life-long learning, we maintain a healthy and robust pursuit of humanity itself. We will return to formal and informal educational opportunities that keep us on the cutting edge.

Specific vocational endeavors have included collegiate ministry at a Pac-10 (now Pac-12) university; coaching in a Christian high school; youth ministry in a Bible Belt church; associate pastor in a Naval base city church; missionary enlistment and assessment with candidates preparing for world-wide service; overseeing an association of urban and small town churches; and teaching theological education. These experiences will open up a wealth of discussions that will assist in exploring more of why we do what we do.

I hope this gives you a better idea into who I am. However, before we depart this installment, let me explore one of the most important relationships I have: the relationship with my wife over the past 34 years. We live in a culture of disposable relationships and it is never truer than with the institution of marriage. Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle. There have been many ups and downs over our three and a half decades together, but a couple of things remain. We are best friends and take seriously the commitment that we made to one another all those years ago.

Marriage was created by God and first recorded in the book of Genesis. It is intended for a lifetime between one woman and one man. This is not a popular opinion in today’s culture nor is it politically correct, but Scripture is quite clear on this point. There are a couple of important issues at play regarding this subject.

First is the inequity that exists in this argument. It requires that both sides agree upon a single standard of authority, without which the argument is moot. Christians who hold the Bible as God’s final authoritative Word will not be moved. Those who do not accept this standard will likely never come to this conclusion. And the argument rages on.

The second issue deals with the idea of disposable relationships. God has given us the ability to choose. Holding fast to the Bible as God’s final authoritative Word, I choose to maintain this relationship with my wife. There are many days that our relationship is tested. That goes without saying. But we have chosen each other and often remind ourselves about the for better or worse part of our vows. As we choose to grow old together, we also choose to love each other.

Until next time . . . . .