What I Learned From the Churches I Served: Part 3

Woodland Baptist Church in Beaumont, Texas is for me a remarkable experience. First in how we came to be there and also to the conviction I had when left and have to this day that I was leaving before God was finished with what He was doing. There is a sense in which that conviction has never left me.

To be sure I left and went to the Fairmont Central Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas at a time when Woodland Baptist Church was experiencing its greatest growth. I believed then and I believe now that leaving when I did (note: it was ultimately my decision to leave) was the biggest mistake of my ministry.  God may have moved me on later but against all my judgment at the time I thought it was the only decision to be made.

What I marvel at, and I shall discuss this in the next blog, is how God honors and uses us when we acknowledge we have failed to follow His clear leadership. But alas that is a story for a later date.

If you read the announcement above you will note that it says that I came from the Southern Hills Baptist Church in Boulder, Colorado. However, I never considered myself as pastor of that church. I felt as though I was a “place holder” filling the pulpit while God prepared someone who could bring to that church what was needed.  That ministry only lasted a few months. The real story was not there but how I went from there to Beaumont, Texas.

I had left La Porte (Lomax) in May 1983 for the work at Colorado and spent several months there; I had left Colorado in August 1983 and was living in Pasadena, Texas when a crumpled letter that had been following me around the country arrived in September 1983. It was from Lucille Nolan the Secretary of the Pastor Search Committee of the Woodland Baptist Church.

When it arrived, I told Susan that was the letter I should have received earlier. You see, God has

It all Began Here

always given me an uncanny awareness when He was going to move me from one ministry station to another. That is why I left Lomax in the beginning to go to the church in Boulder.  God indeed was moving me but I jumped the gun and had I waited just one month I would have been at Woodland a full six months earlier. But everything happens in God’s time and for His purposes.

At any rate, after discussing what to do with a six month old letter with my wife we decided I would answer the letter and just let them know why I had not responded sooner. I truly felt that because of the time lapse they had certainly moved on and the church now had a pastor. I just wanted the committee to know that  had not ignored their letter.  To my surprise I received a call from Nathan Cross, Chairman of the committee wanting to know if I could come to his office on the following Sunday.  I agreed and from then it was a quick process of preaching for the committee a week later at the First Baptist Church of Lumberton and visiting with the committee that day.  A couple of weeks later I was preaching in view of a call to be pastor of the church. My the first of official service as pastor was December 4, 1983.

I admit there is much more to that story and I may tell it at another time. What I want to point out is that I learned a lesson from the Lord in this whole experience. One lesson was it is one thing to know God’s will it is another thing to know His timing. I have a new appreciation for the meaning of “They that wait upon the Lord shall mount upon the wings of eagles.”  Both God’s will and God’s timing are of equal importance. Many a mistake has been made by Pastors and churches alike because they knew the Lord’s will in a decision but failed to wait on the Lord’s timing.

My Favorite Place to Preach

I never sought another church after I arrived at Woodland Baptist Church. I truly
believed and must confess I believe to this day Woodland Baptist Church is where God intended me to stay for the rest of my ministry. I shared that with the Deacon’s once I committed to leaving. I told them that, “In spite of the fact that I am accepting the reality of my departure I am still not  convinced leaving is in God’s purposes for either myself or the church.”  The whole of this story will be told but it will not be told here.

The second thing I learned was that even when we have missed the timing, God’s will in these things still can prevail. In my case it was because the Woodland Baptist Church Pastor Search Committee waited on the Lord’s timing while God was

getting me ready for His call to Beaumont.

When I arrived at Woodland Baptist Church is was a blended family. The membership was the result of a merger between an old historic church (Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church) and one of its mission churches (Woodland Baptist Church) and the pastor I was replacing came with the members of the Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church and had been there about seven years (I think). We were literally two churches meeting under the same roof at the same time. My first goal was to find a way to bring these two bodies of believers into one body.

It was here where the cooperation among members I learned in Kilgore came together with the power of a strong fellowship came into play as I plotted a course that would bring these two groups of people with their own unique histories and cultures together as one body. To accomplish that goal I partnered with the then Chairman of the Deacons, Tim Edgar, to achieve that goal. The truth is every great step forward we had was the result of a partnership of some kind.

I should also point out that the average age of the regularly attending members was the late fifties and up with most in the “and up” group.  I remember clearly the day I went in to the senior adult group (110 people) and asked them to support us with their tithes and offerings, their prayers and not make too many demands on our time for whatever time it is going to take to build the church’s younger membership. I recall telling them, “Some of you may not live to see it come to pass but I promise you the investment you have made in this church will live on after you if you give us this kind of support.”

Myself and Tim Edgar Visualizing a New Worship Center

It didn’t hurt that the sanctuary at that time was relatively small and the feeling of growth was fairly easy to create. And grow we did. With about three years the attendance in Sunday School was in the 200's and the worship service in that small chapel of a sanctuary. Suffice it to say that it quickly became apparent to all but the most stubborn among us that we were in need of a Worship Center. 

One of the things I was ill prepared for in church was the role of the Deacon. If you read my two earlier blogs in this series you know that at all my previous churches they were pastor lead and there was only 5-6 deacons and most of our meetings were informal fellowship style meetings.

Woodland Baptist Church, when I arrived, was pretty much a Deacon lead church. Everything that was done, and I mean everything, had to be approved by the Deacon. The Deacons set the business meeting agenda and virtually every committee in the church had to have at least one Deacon on it. At our peak we had 22 Deacons.

Most of these men were faithful servants of the Lord. None-the-less they also constituted a formidable collection of personalities with which to try and work.  The only thing I ever really liked about this was that once the Deacons were convinced of something it was essentially a done deal.

About half of this group was ministry oriented. That is, in addition to “running the church’s business” they participated in leading and doing its ministries.  I remember the late Roy Lambert telling a couple of weeks after I arrived in Beaumont, “Your deacon board has enough brains to run IBM but they don’t know diddle about doing church but they think they do.” As much as I loved working with these men I have to admit that he wasn’t too far wrong. However, over time a handful really learned the joy of ministering over ruling.  I shall leave it to each reader to flesh out who was which.

I wish I could say it was a time of learning how it was to be one among equals when it came to working with this group but alas it was not to be. To a large measure they conducted things as though the pastor was another hired worker rather than God’s "under shepherd." 

Shining Light

Now, having said that,  a lot was done during those years, including the building of a new worship center. We were as busy with ministries as any First Baptist Church I know. We had a weekly Meals on Wheels program; there was a Senior Adult Day; FOOD Pantry; Mother’s Day Out Program; 24 Hour Crises Hot Line; Cooperation with State Mission Commission on new church start ups; Youth Ministry; Full Major Music Ministry; Vacation Bible Schools, Special Bible Study Programs featuring internationally acclaimed Bible teachers and Revival Meetings as well as a Domestic and International Missions Program. In addition I served on Numerous Boards and Committees in the Association and Baptist General Convention of Texas. Most importantly there was added weekly to the church those who were being saved and it was happening without an “organized” visitation program.

I could tick off any number of lessons I learned here about working under constant crises. Suffice it to say that God blessed us all and His church grew until we were nearly filling the sanctuary each week. My ministry here took a lot of directions but it was primarily Pulpit Centric. I grew as a preacher and to a major degree the congregation was built around the pulpit. This is still evidenced in the Church’s book of memories where it is noted that the Pulpit was custom built and paid for in my honor.

Perhaps that was one of the benefits of a Deacon lead church . . . .the pastor (namely me) had ample time to devote to Bible study, prayer and sermon preparation.  From the time I arrived in 1983 until the time I left my focus was the preaching of the Gospel. It was at Woodland Baptist Church where I became a complete preacher. I remember one local pastor who was visiting our service saying to me that when he could slip off and get away he came to hear me preach. That was when Dr. Ed Bowles said to me, “Brother, you have no idea how good a preacher you have become. I’d just as soon hear you as anyone else I know.” Then he added, “In my view you need to be in a much bigger place.” I was, as would anyone be,  flattered and I replied, “I thank you for your kind words but I just want to be where God puts me and right now, in my mind, that is right here.”

Another benefit was being given the latitude to engage in other ministries away from the local church.  One for which I will eternally be grateful was the night at the end of a Deacon’s

Preaching at the Hurstville Baptist Church in NSW, Australia

Meeting in 1985, Tim Edgar, the Chairman of the Deacons, asked me if I would be willing to go to Australia if the church paid for it?”  Taken off guard by his question and halfway thinking he was joking I responded by saying, “Is the church going to pay for me to come back.?”  With a momentary look of bewilderment he said, “Well yes.”  With that question and answer I began a ministry journey that would carry over to the next church and last another 20 years.  There is a whole another story as a result of what was started that night with Tim's question and my answer. None of us that night knew or had any idea of  the journey on which God was going to take me.

It was from this experience that my eyes were fully opened to the fact that even at the local church level we are Partners with Christ in a Ministry than takes us to ends of the earth. I don’t know that I can explain all that Jesus meant when he said, “Other sheep have I.”  But I know one thing, it has to include the multitudes of believers around the world. It is those who came before us; those who labor with us, and those who come after us. It matters not how big the place in which God has planted our lives happens to be . . . it a small part of His kingdom and it is the place of His choosing. Furthermore, no matter how small our spot may be it is a part of something God is doing that is so much bigger than any of us.

• I was sad when I left my friends and fellow saints at Highland Park Baptist Church because I knew I would never see many of them again in this life and in a way it was my 'first" love when it came to churches.
• I was wrong when I left First Baptist Church Lomax because I got ahead of what God was doing;
• But, when I left Woodland Baptist Church, like Travis Zimmerman, I cried that night. Travis cried because he didn’t understand and I cried that night because I did. For whatever reason God revealed to me a couple of things he was going to do. One concerned the church the other myself. All I can say is I left with assurance in my heart that God would meet all our needs in His time.

I will not say more about the events but I need to say that in light of what God revealed to me during that parting experience the time is coming when He is going to once again pour out His Spirit upon His people at Woodland Baptist Church and the church will thrive; feeling long buried will revive; the people will feel the blessing and God will get the Glory. "The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the LORD Almighty."  (Haggai 2:9)  "For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people," (Jeremiah 30:3)

I once said to someone in this regard, “From your lips to God’s ears.” Now I repeat it with but one small change, “From my lips to God’s ears.”

Woodland Baptist Church was and is a very special place to me and one I have loved like no other.

Here is a sermon I preached at Woodland Baptist Church