Thursday Evening Worship at CBF

I just returned from the Thursday night Worship session here at the General Assembly of the CooperativeBaptist Fellowship.

I missed the first few songs but arrived in time for the mini-sermon (theme interpretation) by Taylor Sandlin.

The focal Scripture was Luke 10:25-37.

Julie Merritt preached what sure did sound like an excellent mini-sermon on Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Honestly, I couldn’t hear much of that sermon because two noisy gentlemen talked throughout the whole thing. Thanks fellas.

She did, however, call on congregations to take one U.N. Millennium Development Goal and work towards achieving that goal. That seems like a solid idea.

I’d like to see more Baptist churches take up the issue of environmental sustainability. Lots of talk in the last couple of years about the environment but most Baptists, most moderate/mainstream Baptists have still not gone green in any meaningful way.

The place was packed tonight.  Almost all of the 2,000 seats were filled.

I’ll update this post with a more concise summary of tonight’s worship when that becomes available.

Here’s a concise summary of the two mini-sermons from tonight courtesy of CBF Communications:

Two Baptist pastors offered reflections and speakers addressed the theme of “Go and do likewise,” including biblical, theological and practical aspects of being a neighbor.

“The question ‘Who is my neighbor?’ is really the question of who they’re not,” said Taylor Sandlin, pastor of Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas. “The young man [in the biblical story] basically wanted to know ‘Where does my neighborhood end? Where is that line that separates us from them? That distinguishes those for whom I am responsible from those for whom I am not?’ For if someone isn’t my neighbor then they’re pretty much a stranger. And we all know that strangers aren’t that far removed from being enemies. And no one would be expected to love their enemies, would they?”

The second speaker, Julie Merritt, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Hendersonville, N.C., described love as an action. She urged the audience to move from what they know to do to actually doing it.

“What Jesus is calling us to is living with and among people that are different from us, actually getting to know them – meeting their needs but not seeing them as a need, but one of us,” said Merritt. “In short, we are to love in particular not in general. Loving in general is easy and cheap. But loving in particular requires more of us. We don’t just feed the hungry. We sit down with those who are hungry, and recognize our own hunger. We sit down and share a meal together, share a conversation and thus share a holy space.”

See video of Julie Merritt here and of Taylor Sandlin here.

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