Category: Newsletter

On the Sunday before Labor Day, I asked my wife a question. There was no evening service because of the holiday weekend, so we drove up to Franklin that afternoon to see my wife’s family. We were somewhere on Highway 67 and our conversation had lulled into a companionable silence. And then out of the blue I quietly asked my wife this: “Do you have any sense that God is preparing to move us somewhere else?” I looked over at her, and she was slowly shaking her head “no”. I said, “Neither do I.” She just confirmed what I had been thinking, too.

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First, Adult Sunday School at First Baptist Church is really multiple Schools, there are five, plus several for youngsters. Each one is an informal discussion group to help with your understanding of the Bible and for you to get to know other people. Check out these Sunday School classes to find the fit that works best for you! We were not created to go through life alone. Sunday School is a great way to find fellowship, make friends, and feel a deeper, more personal connection to your faith and the Bible. The best part is, you don’t have to sign anything, raise your hand, write a check, stand on one foot or recite the Lord’s Prayer out loud.

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I was born and raised a Baptist. As a boy, I heard things like: “Baptist born & Baptist bred; and when I die I’ll be Baptist dead!”; “If I find one hair of my head that’s not Baptist, I’ll pull it out!”, and other memorable quotes from Baptist preachers. I really like what Evangelist B. R. Lakin once said, though: “I used to be proud of being a Baptist ‘til I found out how many of us were in the penitentiary!”

There are Baptist distinctives, and I do believe them. If I didn’t, then I’d go join up with a group that did teach what I believe. I’m not one who thinks that denominations are necessarily a bad thing. I think genuine Christians can acknowledge each other as real followers of Christ, and still disagree over matters of church government, how baptism should be administered, and exactly what the Holy Spirit does, etc. . When we disagree on things like that, it’s probably best for us to find a group of other like-minded Christians with which to worship and work. It’s like athletes who love baseball, playing on different teams, with different coaches, practicing in different ways, but all for the love of the game. Only, with us, it isn’t a game, and it’s all for the love of Jesus.

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I was born and raised a Baptist. As a boy, I heard things like: “Baptist born & Baptist bred; and when I die I’ll be Baptist dead!”; “If I find one hair of my head that’s not Baptist, I’ll pull it out!”, and other memorable quotes from Baptist preachers. I really like what Evangelist B. R. Lakin once said, though: “I used to be proud of being a Baptist ‘til I found out how many of us were in the penitentiary!”

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Last week a faithful servant of God went to his reward. Glen Lockwood had been a Pastor to my family for almost four decades. Other people called him Glen, but I never could. To me, he was always Pastor Lockwood.

In the late seventies my family left the church I’d grown up in up in because the services had become too political. My parents found their way to Gray Road Baptist Church on the south side of Indianapolis, where Glen Lockwood was Pastor. It wasn’t long until they’d made Gray Road their new church home. And the longer they sat under Pastor Lockwood’s ministry, the more their respect for him deepened.

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I admit that I own several guitars. Some people don’t understand this. I have guitar-playing friends whose wives tell them, “You can only play one at a time!” But they don’t understand that each guitar has its own sound and feel, and they are like different tools in your tool box. I suggest that they respond to their wives in kind: “Honey, why do you have so many pairs of shoes? You can only wear one pair at a time!” So far none of them has taken my advice.

My wife has always been incredibly understanding about my guitars. When we met in high school, my guitar playing was one of the things that attracted her to me. (A guy needs all the help he can get.) My wife is a musician, too, and she loves music as much as I do. And besides, she says it keeps me off the streets.

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My grandfather had a dread of nursing homes. He’d seen too many people he knew who had to go into one…especially his sister Allie. 

Allie was my great-aunt. I’m not sure how it started, but once to make her laugh I stuck out my tongue and blew “raspberries” at her. She got such a kick out of it that I did it every time I saw her or talked to her on the phone. She actually would be disappointed if I didn’t blow “raspberries” at her. 

Aunt Allie developed dementia and had to be put in a nursing home. For a while she still laughed when I blew “raspberries”. But after a while even that didn’t make her laugh anymore.   

My grandfather saw all of that, and he began to say to us, “Don’t ever put me in a nursing home!” And we never wanted to. 

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I recently bought what’s called a “Reader’s Bible”. It’s an edition of the Bible that doesn’t have verse divisions or footnotes of any kind. The chapter divisions are there, but in very light print, out to the side of the Biblical text. The idea is to allow you to read the text free from distraction, much like someone in centuries past might have read the Scriptures from a scroll.

This is a great way to experience God’s Word, and one I would recommend to you. I first did this on vacation last year when I took a copy of The Reader’s Gospels with me, and read all four Gospels in two weeks. You tend to read longer portions at one sitting, and it’s easier to see the flow of the text, especially in the narrative portions of the Bible.

Now let me tell you why I’m going to stop doing this.

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