On Sunday afternoon, while I was enjoying the food from the 30th anniversary of Trinity Baptist in Conyers, Georgia, I began receiving news that Jim Shoopman had preached an excellent sermon here at Central. I asked him to send me a manuscript of what he said, and I must agree: it was indeed an excellent sermon. (The full text is posted in the sermon archive. To see it, click here).
Many of you will remember that when I first started here at Central, I had Trinity “on the brain.” When I would give the invitation, instead of talking about people joining Central Baptist Church, I would say, “You might want to plan your roots down here at Trinity.” And then of course I would catch myself, and everyone would laugh.
Even though I was fully engaged here at Central, I still had Trinity down in my heart. It might be of interest for you to know that when I gave my reflection at Trinity last week, I replaced the word “Trinity” at a critical part of my reflection with the word “Central.” In other words, I have Central “on the brain.” But so do you.
We have a challenging summer ahead of us. We will be watching BJ move on to answer a call to another place of service. And we will be making a decision, about which you will learn today, about whether or not to let go of something very dear to many of us.
It will be important to remember how important Central is in our lives, and how deep our roots are in this church. But even more so, it will be important for us to remember that the future of our church is in God’s hands.
And so I agree with Jim’s words from Sunday: “You can believe, and I think you should believe in the future of this ministry, not because of the fallible people who lead it, but because of the eternal God who watches over it, despite our many failures and faults.”
Thank you God, that you have faithfully watched over this church for years, and may your watchful eye be over us for years to come.
Blessings, Sonny