FEELING AT HOME IN CHURCH

President Barack Obama, wife and daughters, are seeking the right church home for them. According to the Boston Globe, they was a church that matches their faith and that has a youth ministry suitable for their two girls. As would be expected, they want a church that is active in helping the needy. The president has a problem the rest of us don't. Security is a factor, for his family and for the membership to not feel services would become a circus or show affair.

Finding the place one is comfortable in worship and fellowship is the secret to spiritual growth. I have a weird idea that Baptist spend far too much time on enlisting "prospects" and setting baptism records, than growing disciples. Just a thought. There are more Baptists in other denominations than most Baptists would like to admit. And with more attention given in Sunday school Baptists might not lose so many kids when they leave home.

From the time I was ordained to the Defense of the Gospel (that is what the certificate says), March 21, 1951, my intention was never to build any part of a denomination. I did work for one as a home and foreign missionary, but it mattered little to me, then and even more today, who baptizes the most or if we did what the state or national leadership pushed in the way of programs.

I might be a tad stubborn. I have heard such rumors, but I didn't intend any harm. That is probably why John Mark left his cousin Barnabas and Paul when they were missionarying (a new word). I've been told years ago there were over 25 distinct Baptist denominations in USA. By now there must be a hundred. So many now, that the name Baptist is left off a bunch of them. Wonder why that is?

How sweet it is, to no longer have that guilt feeling if I miss BYPU or don't get to church three or four times a week. My health is good, but I am just not up to being a Baptist anymore. My Methodist mother would be pleased and my Presbyterian cousin would too to know that in retirement we enjoy Sunday morning worship in downtown San Angelo's First Presbyterian Church.- - - - - Mosaic photo at top is part of a wall mural two stories high on side of one of the buildings of the Catholic LaSalle school on Boundary Steet, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The artist is Francisco "Pablo" Borbora, now living in Mexico. When he lived in Hong Kong he did many outstanding mosaics there and in Macao.
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