Category: Newsletter

I still miss Ginny Franklin. I still hear her feisty, playful voice in my memory sometimes. I’ll say, “Well, I’m trying.” … and I’ll hear her say, “Yes; you’re very trying!” Or I’ll say, “I’m going to go.” …and I’ll hear her say, “Go-right-ahead…gourd-head!” Virginia Franklin was the first person to make my wife and I feel at home in the First Baptist Church of Linton. She was a corker!

One Sunday after church, she took my wife and me out to lunch (again!). This time, we were joined by Max and Katie Slough. Max was the long-time pastor of the Glenburn United Methodist Church; I’d known him before, and we became reacquainted when we moved to Linton.

Sitting there over what was left of our lunch, I breathed a huge sigh and commented how tired I was after the morning’s services. Max responded, “Of course you are! You preached this morning; virtue has gone out of you, just like when Jesus healed.” He was referring to three references in the King James Bible: Mark 5:30, Luke 6:19 and Luke 8:46.

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Recently I read again an article that described how our church began. I keep a file on the history of our church, and it contains various bulletins, newspaper articles and records from our church’s past. This particular article was written in 1963 by one of my predecessors, Reverend Dale T. Heinbaugh, for the 75^th anniversary of our church’s founding. Reverend Heinbaugh was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Linton from 1960 to 1969. I shared this with our Sunday night crowd recently, but I thought it needed a wider circulation.

I had been told, and had told others, that our church was started in 1888 by the Olive Branch Baptist Church, which is just west of the Linton city limits. That is both true and not precisely true. What actually happened is told in the following excerpts from Pastor Heinbaugh’s article.

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I had a “Leave It to Beaver” childhood. We had a nuclear family in the best sense of that word. It was a wonderful, stable, happy family setting. It wasn’t perfect, but it was very, very good. I will always be grateful to God for my parents.
My Dad didn’t talk all that much while I was growing up. If you wanted to talk out a problem, you went to Mom. Dad was an engineer. He’d tell you a joke and buy you an ice cream cone, and he’d carry you to bed when you fell asleep in the back of the car. But you had your long conversations with Mom.
That changed after Mom went to Heaven. We had a lot more in-depth conversations with Dad in the ten years after Mom died. It was good. Up until that time, Dad would talk to you, and you could talk to him, but the conversations tended to be of the “here’s the problem, here’s the solution” variety. Beyond that, he didn’t say a lot.
But Dad modeled some wonderful things for us. Here are a few things I learned from my Dad:

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As I write this, Christmas 2018 is hurtling at us at high speed. But aside from all the scheduling conflicts and budgetary juggling, I still anticipate it keenly. The little boy in me still delights in the lights and the presents. The grown-up part of me looks forward to family gathered and young ones all excitedabout the festivities.

Someone wrote an article once in which they stated, “Christmas time is to churches what Black Friday is to retail stores.” Honestly, that is true more often than not. That’s why a few years ago our leadership decided to purposely steer our church away from show business-like extravaganzas and toward simpler, more scaled-back ways of celebrating Christmas. If we have to act in an un-Christ-like manner in order to prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth, I’m not sure that really honors Jesus. So we’ve tried in recent years to celebrate Christmas as a church in ways that don’t add more hurry and stress to people’s lives.

But I do love Christmas. And I love Christmas at our church.

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   One of my all-time favorite guitar heroes is Phil Keaggy. He is a phenomenal player who has literally moved me to tears with his artistry and the sheer joy and abandon with which he plays. He was on the rise back in the early 1970s, making a name for himself in secular rock music. But he became a Christian, and to the dismay of many, he walked away from the threshold of rock stardom and devoted himself to Christian music. He has played and sung original Christian music ever since, eventually recording and distributing his albums independently of any record label. He lives in Nashville, TN with his wife Bernadette, still tours, and I have had the privilege of seeing and hearing him play live twice.

   Keaggy has released over 50 albums in his career. On one of his albums released back in the 1990s, at the end of the liner notes thanking various people, Phil Keaggy wrote these words: “After all this time, I still believe.” I think I knew immediately what he meant.

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I have a confession to make. I hesitate to say it. I really don’t want it to be misunderstood. But here it is:

I dread Pastor Appreciation Month.

Ever since Dr. James Dobson’s Focus On the Family organization started promoting October as “Pastor Appreciation Month” back in the early 1990s, it has become more and more of an annual event on church calendars. Hallmark prints greeting cards just for the occasion (of course). Christian bookstores have big displays promoting it. You can even buy T-shirts that say things like “World’s Greatest Pastor”. (And they look an awful lot like the ones that say “World’s Greatest Dad” and “World’s Greatest Mom.”)

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate being appreciated. I was brought up to honor pastors, and I have expressed my appreciation to my own pastor, and others who have mentored me over the years, more times than I can count.

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This month we have a guest columnist. My wife, Rae Anne, has been promoting her “What’s Your Story?” project, to encourage us all to remember and tell our own personal testimonies. She wanted to start it off by telling about how she came to Christ. Here’s her story:

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Many of you have heard me talk about how I came to Christ.  It is really important to me that you know my experience with God for three reasons.  First, my story ties me to you in a way that nothing else does. In 1966, Rev. Heinbaugh said it very well in the introduction to the church pictorial directory, “We hope you will find this publication to be more than a way to become better acquainted with your church family.  The book of Proverbs 27:19 says, ‘As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.’  We who have been born anew (John 3:3) into the family of God are ‘bound in the bundle of life’ (1 Samuel 25:29) with the Lord and each other! Rejoice with me because of it.”

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This month we have a guest columnist. I had an article in mind, but when I read this letter from Kim Collins, I thought it was too important to bury in the inside pages. So, to quote the Lord Jesus, “He [or she] who has ears to hear…”

Dear Church Family,
I have a story and a confession to make to you. The story is about the 23 kids we served last year during the school year… every day of the week for the whole 37 weeks they were in session. These kids ranged from kindergarten through 8th grade, they come from all types of backgrounds and with a wide variety of needs but they all have one thing in common. They all need attention and love. Some days they didn’t have much homework so they just needed an adult to play a game with, some days they needed encouragement to get through tough homework assignments that just didn’t seem like much fun. We taught them everything from cooking, painting, pottery, to how to build a fire, build a wood bench, or plant flowers. It was loud, and a little chaotic but we there one place they knew they were safe and loved. We have even gone to play board games at the nursing homes on a regular basis. They’ve grown over the past three years while we’ve been doing this and it’s been a privilege to watch.

Now for the confession…we’ve decided to cut back to just two days a week this year. We have a faithful group of volunteers that can cover easily two days and be able to help the kids well… each day needs a “in charge person”, a cook, and three helpers. So, for two days we are good… and honestly, I’m OK with that but the kids are not. They will come the two days (everyone’s coming back even for the two days) but the comments I get are we so want to be here every day. So, I’ve been arguing with God. I truly believe there are some of you also having those thoughts pop into your mind… I should get involved… I could make a difference…that sounds like fun…you know those God nudges. I am still open to having the club at least 4 days a week if we have the volunteers step up that can cover the other two days. This is a once a week commitment, to cook or help with homework or to lead a workshop, play games, just hang out with the kids. So, if you’re ready to stop arguing with God then give me a call, text, email… you won’t regret it. I’ve had each of the volunteers make comments on how much they love those kids… and I know you will too.

Thank you for your love and support,
Sincerely,
Kim Collins