Friday, January 18

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Psalm 100:4-5

Enter his courts with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Once, when our boys were very young, one of them referred to the senior members of FBCG as “the grandmas and grandpas at church.” He knew his own grandparents, who lived in different states, also had graying hair so he just assumed that the people with gray hair at FBCG were “grandmas and grandpas.”

One of the things Lorene and I have always loved about our church family is that it is growing older and younger at the same time! That is, FBCG is a church of multiple generations. Our church family includes as many people over 75 years old as we have in our 5^th and 6^th grade ministry! And I think that makes FBCG somewhat unique. Many churches tend to grow either older or younger; that is, churches either fail to attract younger families, and therefore grow older over time; or, they attract only younger families and lose contact with the older generation.

I believe that God’s intent for the church, just as it is for a family, is to include both older and younger generations.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

The thing about generations is that they are always coming and going. There is always a generation that has gone before us and there is always a generation coming up behind us. Therefore, it is the responsibility of one generation to both celebrate the next generation as well as pass on to that younger generation the truth of God’s goodness and love.

Just this week, as I was preparing a message called, “The Story of FBCG”, I was looking through some old FBCG archives. I saw a lot of stuff I had seen before; old dog-eared black and white photos, yellowed newspaper articles and a few dated church publications. But I also found a couple of things I did not know existed.

I found a kind of slogan printed on church letterhead from 1947 that read, “First Baptist Church: A church with a purpose.”

I found a second slogan printed on an invitation card from around 1954 that read, “First Baptist Church: A Bible church with a family spirit.”

Then I found a mission statement from a building fund campaign in 1983 that read:

To give that we may grow,

To grow that we may serve,

To serve that others might come to know Christ.

As I read those words my heart leapt to my throat because those words sound so much like the four words we say every week: reach, connect, equip, serve! It hit me that the DNA strand that we now call “Serve the World” has been there all along!

It struck me that the generations that have gone before us – beginning in 1894 - might not recognize or feel comfortable with our music choices, or with our technology, they would absolutely recognize and be comfortable with reach, connect, equip and serve! They would wholeheartedly agree with our focus on the gospel and our deep desire to Serve the World!

It struck me that we aren’t reinventing the church wheel here in 2013 – but it is our job to keep that wheel rolling!

So, as I look back on those grainy black and white images of people who wore funny looking clothes and worshiped in Swedish, I see the faithfulness of God and I see the faithfulness of his people.

And it occurs to me that someday 20, or 40, or 118 years from now, someone will look back through ancient DVDs or flashdrive images from this time when we serve as stewards of a church called FBCG. I hope and pray that as they smile at our funny clothes and hairstyles – they will also see the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of his people!

Brian Coffey