Dan and Kathy Romano live & worship downtown.Watch this story of faith as @downtownknoxville neighbors @fbcknox

Over 2700 residents moved to downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, in the last 10 years. Two new residents are First Baptist's own Dan and Kathy Romano. Listen to their story of faith and life as neighbors in the downtown community. Consider whether you would like to relocate to First Baptist's neighborhood.

Dan and Cathy Romano Downtown Knoxville Living from First Baptist Church, Knoxville on Vimeo.

Downtown ecumenical Lenten lunches announced @fbcknox

Join us each week as we celebrate the unity of our faith and the diversity of our congregations. Hosted by the downtown cooperative churches, we welcome you to join us for worship each Wednesday during lent at 12:05 followed by a light lunch at 12:30.

March 16: First Presbyterian Church

March 23: Immaculate Conception

March 30 St. John’s Cathedral

April 6: Church Street United Methodist

April 13: First Baptist Church

An open Sunday night on the calendar during Advent? Perfect time for partnership and mission @fbcknox #missional @downtownknox

Finding an open Sunday night for a program-based church during the Christmas season is like finding an empty parking spot at the mall. It rarely happens. But for churches on mission, Sunday nights no longer need to be filled with another event for the sake of the calendar. Many groups celebrate the season and carry out the church's mission even better than we can on campus. With no reason to reinvent the proverbial worship wheel, churches can partner with these groups and extend the mission of the kingdom of God.

Consider what happened yesterday at First Baptist. The Fellowship Council and Worship Council provided lunch and worship. Neither happened on our campus, but both were "First Baptist events." During the lunch hour, several families participated in "Advent out to Lunch." Nine downtown restaurants offered "discounts" for eating out. I like what Courtney Evans said. She called it the "GOJESUS discount." But these families went a step further. They re-gifted the savings to the restaurant servers. They shared their percentage off their meal as an additional gratuity for the work the food service workers provide year-round.

Following the meal, many others attended the Knoxville Nativity Pageant. For 42 years, the First Baptist family and extended family have provided a living re-enactment of the prophecies and announcements of the birth of Christ as well as the arrival of the shepherds and magi. At 3:00 p.m. we worshiped together along with hundreds of others and joined (officially) what this fine organization as been doing in our community.

Our strategic plan for 2010-2014 calls us not only to work together but think creatively about these kinds of partnerships we can form with groups already on mission. Sunday was just one example of the way this is happening. There is no better season than to share the season with people who know the kingdom of God is "at hand." Now we can join hands.

(Pictured above Jonathan Higdon, Reese Higdon, and Drake Shiell check out the sheep stars of the Nativity Pageant.)

For more information on other churches who are engaged in partnerships, check out these great examples:

Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.

First Baptist Church, Wilmington, North Carolina, Harrelson Center
Hopeful Imagination Resources

Resources for Loving Knoxville through our Vocations

The Bridge returns tomorrow, and I'll be referring to a number of resources. I hope you will check out some of these ways to integrate your faith into your work.

Be sure to pick a copy of the Salt and Light Guidebook from Compassion Coalition. Copies are available at First Baptist Knoxville. I will be using this book as our primary resource in the study, and the guide is full of ideas for businesses, churches, and neighborhoods to love Knoxville.

Check out these websites and other resources.

Mastering Monday by John Beckett.


Doing God's Business by Paul Stevens

The High Calling Blog from Howard E. Butt and Laity Lodge

Duke University's Faith and Leadership website on Vocation

Christianity Today's Faith in the Workplace Website.

Christian Reflection's series on Vocation and faith @ work.

Video from the Ecumenical Stations of the Cross on Market Square

6 Ways to Change a Life This Season

Before you make your shopping list, compose a serving list. Need ideas? Here are six of my favorites.

1.) Drop a coin in the kettle. Salavation Army's goal is $400,000. That just about $1 from every person in East Tennessee. We can do this.

2.) Serve at the Christmas Brunch. First Baptist sponsors an annual Christmas brunch for the working poor, homeless, Latinos, South Knox families, and many more on Dec. 12 from 9-12 noon. Each person gets a free family portrait from Lisle Newlon studios, blanket, sweatshirt, a hot meal, and lots of love. Sign up here.

3.) Adopt a family at South Knoxville elementary. We work directly with the social worker at South knox to identify needy families at Christmas time. What better way to help than with gifts of clothes, love, and food. Contact our community ministry office today.

4.) Shop Candy Cane Cottage. The PTO at Rocky Hill elementary sponsors this week of shopping for kids to be a "secret santa" to their parents. But this year, there is a twist. Monday night, 5-8 p.m. is the Holiday Market. Ellenburg's, Kohl's, Lisle Newlon studio, and many more will be there for people to shop. Proceeds from all these vendors go directly to needy families in Rocky Hill. For more information go to the Candy Cane Cottage Site.

5.) Visit a home bound person or resident in a nursing home. Drop by, say hello, take a church bulletin or devotional guide. A simple touch of presence goes a long way.

6.) Attend the Knoxville Nativity Pageant. Now in its 41st season, the Nativity Pageant presents the simply message of Christmas with no hype, no gore, but the greatest story ever told with live animals, a great choir, and beautiful scenery. It will take 1 hour of your time, but will be a meaningful part of your season. You can pick from three performances December 13-15. For more info:

Those are my 6-- How will you serve this season?

First Baptist and the Next Door Launch Women's Prison Ministry

Starting December 2009, First Baptist welcomes The Next Door to begin using office space in our building. The Next Door is a ministry with women coming out of prison that was was started by First Baptist Nashville in 2004.

In Nashville, the program is a six month residential transitional living program for women coming out of prison. The program offers case management, job placement, and recovery support services to help these women get on their feet. Since 2004, over 450 women have had the opportunity to go through the six-month curriculum designed to prepare them for living independently and establishing stable families.

The program has been so successful that it has gained national attention. President George W. Bush highlighted The Next Door as a top national model of a faith-based nonprofit providing recovery support services in his remarks during the national "Innovations in Effective Compassion Conference" hosted in June 2008 by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Statewide, it is estimated that at least 65% of women return to incarceration. The recidivism rate for women completing The Next Door’s six month program is 10%; for women staying at least 90 days in the program, the rate is 21%. Because of their success, The Next Door is expanding to Knoxville and to Chattanooga.

First Baptist Church of Knoxville is going to help launch this ministry in Knoxville by providing office space. Until a more permanent location in our building can be found, the Next Door offices will be housed in one of the small classrooms off of the pastoral class on the 3rd floor of the education building. In addition, since the jail is in our back yard, it makes sense for us to help reach out to this population. This is a wonderful opportunity for First Baptist to help a new ministry get started in our city.

Read more:

Moving in 65 Directions Simultaneously

Is it possible for a group of people to move in 65 directions at once? First Baptist does it every day, and we're quite good at it. We're organized about it, but we have no plan for it. We know it happens, and this scattering actually makes us who we are.

Before I explain how and why, you might recall that Jesus assumed that the church would act like salt and light. We would go everywhere spilling and sparking ourselves into the dull and dark places of the world. The church, just by virtue of its service in the world, and its need to move out from closeted spaces, simply adds zest and color to God's space.

The First Baptist version of salt and light cranks up the engines, waits at the bus stop, and opens car doors every day to do precisely that. Our church moves simultaneously in over 65 directions each morning just to go to school. Michael McEntyre and Susan Tatum have recently updated their information about the students who attend church here on Sunday morning. What we do on Monday, however, is quite fascinating. With no plan from headquarters, we move out in an organized orderly fashion to over 65 campuses as students and educators. We attend 20 high schools, 20 middle schools, and 25 preschool and elementary schools throughout East Tennessee. We are Smoky Bears and Bulldogs, Rebels (both kinds) and Spartans, Private-, Home-, Public-, and Pre-Schoolers of all stripes.

Educators and students scatter across this corner of the world, and we do one thing. We live the church. And that's exactly how Jesus planned it.

Partnering, Collaborating, and other Ways of Doing Church Across the Street

The ecumenical impulse has never been stronger. The mechanisms, however, have never been more frail. The moment a person joins a church, particularity breeds togetherness. We want to say, "We are not alone," and yet we have programs and benchmarks for our fellowship. With multiple churches, ministries, associations, networks, fellowships, and conclaves competing for theological airspace, how do churches work together to demonstrate how Psalm 133 works: for people to dwell together in unity.

Three sprouts of partnership have blossomed over the last few months here at First Baptist. Most of you saw the first. We loved reuniting in September with our daughter church Mt. Zion Baptist. After the concert was finished, some people had enough freedom and humility to admit, "I didn't know they were once part of us." Togetherness does more than make you feel good; it offers an education in heritage.

Michael McEntyre has forged a partnership called Merge. Here 20 churches (Baptists and otherwise) work together to offer a youth retreat called DiscipleNow in the Spring. It seems that 1,500 or youth worshiping together work better than 50. But they also brought us Parent Merge, where newbies like me could prepare for the adolescent years ahead. At my table were experts like Ron Holcomb and Jim Decker to assure me that they were still learning as well. Parents across churches share the same concerns.

Throughout the summer, the Methodists invaded our building. While our Church Street neighbors renovated their kitchen, their homeless ministry worked with Herman Weaver and his staff to offer a lunch here. They did not want to let improvements shut down ministry during the hot summer. Church Street's minister Andy Ferguson gave us high praise for our hospitality on their television broadcast. We were happy to work with them and pleased to share the space and grace.

Last, six new churches have begun KidsHope programs at area elementary schools. With the work of Carol McEntyre and our Buckner partnership, more students will have mentors through Christ's love.

We might not see this kind of togetherness around a hymnal, baptismal, or communion table. But we surely sense this growth in the places that matter most: united around human needs.

Giving a Ride and Other Small Parts of Church Work

Church can be described as lots of big events. We run from retreats, to Advent, to Easter, from Sunday to Sunday. You can plot the movement of God on a calendar if you want.

Church, however, is really plenty of litle moments. Small, behind the scenes gestures of intetionality that make the big events possible, feasible, and do-able. Because church is about people caring for others in relationships as a community of love, the buildings and events are just signposts pointing to people working or collection points where people work.

For example, look at the process of getting two people to church. These two have driven themselves for years. They love the church; they would do anything for the church. Because of physical and mental limitations they can't make it as frequently as they want. Neither asked for help; both gladly received the help when offered.

A team of intentional church people with eyes to see the need took care of the problem. Behind the scenes, Bob and Lorain Child, Bill and Betty Coley, Jo Cochran, Ed and Christine Dexter, Andy and Wanda Edmondson, Bill and Susan Higdon, Gerry Jack, Ray and Arleen Malcolm, and Jeff Sharp, work to get these two church members to church. They noticed that they were struggling. They made space in their schedules. They rearranged family lunches and post-church plans. They coordinated with family members, and they did the legwork of making sure bases were covered so that just two people could share fellowship with the gathered church. My guess is that there are many others doing this for other people each Sunday.

Little things do mean a lot; and lots of little things require intentionality and follow through in ways that a church rarely sees on the platform.

Keeping the Big Picture in Mind

Today marks the end of what I refer to as the "Silly Season." The two weeks when school begins are filled with more churchwide events than Advent. Excitement abounds, and the "Fall" begins with a flurry. From the big picture perspective, we've caught a glimpse of First Baptist life, what church people are doing to transform and engage the city, and marked celebration points along the journey here.

Here are some of the groups FBC people connected with over the last two weeks.

College students
August 18- Progressive dinner with college students
August 27- Maplehurst Park Block party
August 29- Dedication of Baptist Collegiate Ministry

Downtown Business Community
August 19, 26- Bridge Luncheon @ noon

African-American Community
August 22- History Walk
August 23- Joint Concert with Mt. Zion Baptist

Each Other in the 1B Family
August 20- Deacon and Spouse Picnic
August 27- Golden Notes Picnic and Dave Ward's 80th Birthday Party
August 30- Church Picnic

Parents of Teenagers from Area Churches
August 22- Merge Parent Conference

Families
August 26- Fall Kickoff for Music and Missions
August 28- Movie Night

What does this mean? We've had a busy couple of weeks. We also have a great group of staff and volunteers. Behind the scenes on all these projects are two guys that seem to show up at more events than the staff: Herman Weaver and Jim Snell. They cook, set up, tear down, rearrange, and coordinate schedules for kitchen and building staff. They keep the 3-ring circus of events flowing smoothly. We have not had the kind of compatiblity between kitchen and building crews in a long time. One of the other is usually great. But rarely doe we have two who complement one another so well.

First Impressions- Summer Reading in the City

Nehemiah challenges us to take an infrastructure project (a wall) and think how God could use the tangible to renew the intangible- the lives of those in our neighborhood. In our case, we have a new platform that gives us the chance to dive into the lives in our community. But as you jump into the pool of need this summer, grab a book along the way. Several resources have educated me for this series, and I hope you will learn from one of these.

Robert Lupton wrote the little exposition of Nehemiah entitled Renewing the City. The first half is narrative explanation of the book. The second contains theological themes. Scattered throughout are fascinating stories from his work renewing the city of Atlanta and his work with his urban renewal group, FCS Urban Ministries.

Another Robert (can there really be too many Bob's in the world?), this time Robert Linthicum, wrote a book about city renewal called Building a People of Power. You might recognize Lithicum; he was the president of World Vision and has done city transformation in Brazil, Chicago, and other places throughout the world. The book is part Bible study, part training manual, and part sermon. Linthicum moves so fast, you're exhausted just reading it. But it's a good tired.

Thirdly, WMU's publishing imprint "New Hope Publishers" has produced a very nice workbook on renewing a city called City Signals. Our staff read this for staff retreat, and we had some very engaging conversations around the themes. Brad Smith is the author, and if you enjoy doing Bible study in a workbook along with your regular reading plan, this is for you. Great for group study as well, and they offer an optional DVD to go with the book. Brad knows about ministry in a city because he lived in a rough neighborhood in Chicago and practiced ministry in the worst kind of conditions.

Fourth, I will do a bit of shameless self-promotion for my little journal that I assist with through Baylor University: Christian Reflection. A few years ago, we published a volume entitled "Cities and Towns." We focused on the changes in cities, the new people moving in, and the role of churches like ours in the cities across the world. Best of all, if you have an internet connection, you can download the entire volume for free from their website. The real credit goes to Robert Kruschwitz (another Bob), Heidi Hornik, and Norman Wirzba who did the bulk of the work. I am just happy to be associated with the group.

Thanks for your responses and questions along the way over the past few weeks. I'm ready to dive in. How about you?

First Impressions-- A Straight Path through the City

Which is more surprising? How wonderfully the new I-40 traffic flow, or how smoothly the transition went?

When I arrived in Knoxville, I thought our state flower was the orange barrel. I-40 was a parking lot from Papermill to Cedar Bluff Road, and rumors were floating around that "they" were going to close the interstate downtown. No sooner had TDOT expanded the interstate from 4 to 8 lanes in West Knoxville than traffic downtown came to a halt. They re-routed all through traffic in a plan called "Smart Fix I-40" to straighten a road through the heart of downtown. We planned and fretted over what impact the closure of downtown would have on traffic Sunday morning and programs Wednesday night for 19 months.

Our worst fears were never realized. In fact, traffic improved during and after construction. So many people detoured around the center city that we downtowners had smooth sailing all the way to 1B. The only time decrease in traffic came from gas prices higher than $3/gallon. There's nothing like paying more for fuel than for milk to make a person flip on the television and catch it live.

What's the lesson?
1.) We could certainly hope for fuel prices to stay under $3 forever (not likely)
2.) We could learn the lesson that most of our fears are never as bad as we imagine. Anticipation of change is much worse than the change.
3.) We should be grateful for people in public service who make our lives easier.

Isaiah prophesied about the road through the wilderness. This Smart-Fix made our paths straight and set our minds at ease.

Nehemiah’s Spiritual Formation of People

Spiritual Formation in Nehemiah

1.) Confess sin.
2.) Organize relationships where God has placed you around serving those in authority over you.
3.) Scout the project and reflect.
4.) Rebuild infrastructure first, study later. Get people moving in a project so that they can see the work, have success, and learn where their strengths and weaknesses are.
5.) Confront the powers. Use the project to expose the powers, and name the issues. There is as much danger in doing good as doing nothing.
6.) Bring justice by taking care of little old ladies and orphans. Follow the iron rule: "Never do for others what they can do for themselves."
7.) Let the Bible read you. Commit with new vows of time (Sabbath), generosity (money), and relationships (marriage). Scripture comes after the hands get dirty. Use the lessons learned from the project to guide thinking as you listen to scripture.
8.) Neighbor the city. Use principles you've practiced before to neighbor (as a verb) the city. The Golden Rule with the Iron Rule. Ministry centers on the assets of the community, not the perceived needs.

First Impressions- Diving In

I attended my first swim meet last Monday ever. I missed out on the joy of this kind of controlled chaos as a child. Now we have an ocean full of meets and mania lined up for the summer for our 8-year-old fish named Parker. For many of these second graders, Monday was obviously their first attempt at diving into a pool from a platform. They stood above the troubled waters at their post and chose whether (or not) to take te leap like the rest of their peers. The platform gave them a place from which to jump. But the swimmer had to take the leap.

Like the summer swimmer taking his first leap from the safety of a poolside platform, we are building a platform this summer to prepare ourselves for the next leap. Our platform and complementary media equipment, organ, and expanded choir loft positions us with all the evidence we need to back up the next test of faith. The question asked of our project is, "What kind of leap will we take as a church family?"

In our Reaching Beyond moment, we are expanding our capacity and vision to minister in the center city. We'll always be located downtown; the question for us now is how involved will we be in the assets of our center city community.

Throughout our region we can find all kinds of spiritual pain. Most people (over 30%) who have no faith involvement or significantly decreased their faith involvement in the last year live within a 1 mile radius of our church. Knoxville rates 15% higher than the national average for households touched by divorce or death of a spouse. Most children in our community live in either single-parent households or live in multiple homes. The Knox County school system has 350 homeless children registered for school each day.

Is this the kind of pain we are positioned to respond to? God doesn't ask us to fix every problem or even to address every problem. But could this moment give us the chance to minister to people who are going through these kinds of transitions? The waters indeed are stirring.

Renewing a City with Nehemiah

The book of Nehemiah is a memoir of a construction effort on the walls
of Jerusalem. The story opens with a clever refugee trapped in ancient
Susa who leverages his influence to be appointed as a governor in
his family's homeland. Nehemiah supervises a process that leads to
spiritual renewal in the land. Because the people were reformed, they
read the law (not the other way around.) He was about doing justice
for people who were being mistreated by opponents of change in the
city. He was about setting appropriate boundaries for people. Nehemiah
was about reestablishing identity for a community ruled by outsiders.

This sermon series will guide our thinking as we watch the
reconstruction of our platform. As we replace the platform, we will
get organized with Nehemiah to reorder our lives. We will see our city
as the place that God wants us to do justice. We will look to reform
our lives so we can listen again to God's law. We will establish and
shape our identity rooted in the tradition of ancient Israel.

Because after all, it was never about building a wall. It was about
building a community of people.

Created for Each Other

We were made for each other. This place we called First Baptist is the
fulfillment locally of the dream announced in Genesis 1, a community
living out God's creative work together. Our church completes the
mission announced to the Israelites: to be a light for the nations. The
folks at 1B demonstrate through our lives what Jesus commissioned: "Go
ye therefore and disciple." According to 1 John, by the way we conduct
ourselves with each other, we show what Christ's sacrifice looks like.

As Stanley Hauerwas suggests, the most important thing the world needs
from us right now politically, socially, spiritually, economically,
and relationally is to be this kind of church. In modern terms, that
means more than becoming a member of a church. Culturally, the word
"member" sounds more like a fraternity rush or a civic obligation
renewable because the group provides a service to us or is a good
cause to join. The Christian notion of membership, however, suggests a
lifestyle change. I am using this term as Wendell Berry does when
referring to the Port William community's membership. We are the kind
of people who "member (as a verb) one another, that when we're
together or apart, we take a piece of each other with us. The
difference is not between who is a member who and who isn't but who
knows it and who doesn't."

This month, through the lens of 1 John, I'm asking us to renew our
membership vows we made to God and to one another. Community life in
Christ is so different than the paths we were on that we need the
review occasionally. Baptists are good at backsliding into the old
habits of life before joining a community. We fall back into the
patterns of individualism, family life, club membership, self-help
books, friendliness, and random acts of kindness. All of these are
important, but none of them represent the church.

First Baptist Church is a Christ-formed community of shepherds who
move from saved individuals into a community of the forgiven. We take
all of our family ties and learn to grandparent one another in the
faith. We shirk off the self-help advice of bestsellers and engage the
culture with the mind of Christ. We move past friendliness into a
radical hospitality that shapes us as apprentices in love. We allow
the spirit to take our random acts of kindness and form us into a
vibrant community together.

None of this sounds very easy to do, but that's precisely why these
times ask us to thing differently about the commitments we have made
to each other. We were made for such a time as this.

Loving the Church

Christians can't understand the life of Jesus without the church. The church can't understand Jesus without living out the Christ life to and for one another.

As people of First Baptist, Knoxville, I am asking each person to commit to a new kind of membership in the church. You won't find these commitments on the "new member" card when you join. These are the steps members take to and for one another as they grow in their understanding of Christ and their commitments to First Baptist. These commitments are an expression of love that we have for one another as reflected in the book of 1 John. Each step comes with a place where we are now to a place where we are going.

1.) From saved individuals to a community of the forgiven
1 John 1:9-2:2

2.) From multiple generations to grandparents and grandchildren in love.
1 John 2:7-17

3.) From members in a group to owners of a community
1 John 3:16-20

4.) From good advice to engaging the culture
1 John 4:1-6

5.) From friendliness to apprenticeship
1 John 4:7-21

6.) From random acts of kindness to the spirit-formed community
1 John 5:1-12