What is Stephen Ministry? Watch this video from PBS. First Baptist Knoxville is a Stephen Ministry congregation. If you are interested in receiving care from a trained Stephen Minister, click here.
How do you celebrate generosity? With greater generosity. On Sunday, the First Baptist family committed to giving; and we shared what had been given.
Yesterday, we combined worship with our 3 services in one unified service. We committed to tithing and generosity financially. In preparation for this day, we also baked goods and delivered them to the church. Over 160 households brought breads, cookies, cakes, brownies, muffins, pies and other sweet treats to the church Sunday morning. We brought them not for ourselves, but to share. Like the widow in Zarephath (1 Kings 17), we baked a "cake of faith" to deliver to our neighbors
Following another great Herman Weaver meal, dozens fanned out all over Knox County delivering baked goods to the homebound, the women's jail, South Knoxville elementary, Next Door Ministry, and our neighbors. Some even made it to the bus stop this morning. As one child who helped bake the bread said, "I thought my bus driver needed it the most."
The stories of these deliveries are being shared via phone, email, and face-to-face. Recipients of the treats have called the church office to offer a thank-you for this simple act of sharing.
We give thanks for the many, many people that made April 25 a day to remember. Because you have been given much, you have given!
What happens when you realize your Starbucks receipts total more than your offerings? Enjoy this great personal story about the Generosity Effect from Daniel Headrick.
Generosity Testimony by Daniel Headrick from First Baptist Church, Knoxville on Vimeo.
Some call it the Ripple Effect, others the Butterfly Effect. We know
it as the Generosity Effect. It's the sense that the smallest of
actions affect others. One small act of kindness leads to another.
Sometimes we have the privilege and reward of seeing how our actions
touch others. In most ways, however, we use the eyes of faith to
recognize that "we'll never know" how one gift can make a difference.
Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. Small acts of hoarding,
greed, and fear lead to even greater challenges. Selfishness is just
as contagious as love, and we only need to read the newspaper or watch
the news to see its tangled web of suffering across the globe.
The early Christians and the 21st century church have known this to be
true. Whether a little boy with 5 loaves and two fish, or 1 child
sharing $1 from a $10 allowance, little things mean a great deal to a
very generous God. Church has always been the place where we
counteract greed, corruption, and financial hardship with generosity.
We share with the world demonstrate to one another what this obedience
to Christ looks like. In the month of April, we as a First Baptist
family chart a new course through the Generosity Effect. We will not
arrive there overnight, but it will take all of us doing our parts to
effect others.
Here is how our plan works. Over the next 10 years, we are seeking to
become a more generous congregation. By 2020, we want to be 10% more
generous than we are today by living obediently to the command of
Christ that "whomever much is given, much is required." I don't know
what your plan for generosity is for 2020, but I am asking you to
commit to taking one step this year of giving 1% more than you did
last year; in 2011, another 1%, until by 2020 all of us can claim
lifestyles of generous living.
To do this requires leaving behind a couple of other things. As a
church, we leave behind special capital campaigns for now. For the
last 10 years, we have asked you to dig deeper "over and above the
budget," to help us pay off debt, repair organs, renovate buildings,
and do ministry. These campaigns have been a financial lifeline, but a
new commitment requires new discipline. Because of your commitments
over the years, we want to honor your past gifts by not asking for
another special fund drive this year. We want to unite together around
our unified giving to the budgeted resources of the church. By doing
so, we can accomplish together what we've been doing separately for 10
years. We can complete our indebtedness, extend the ministry of the
church, maintain our staff, continue television uninterrupted, and
reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ. We can do as our
strategic plan calls us to do: to improve our church, increase our
ministries, and invite others into Christ's life.
To accomplish the generosity effect requires heart work on your part
as well. Just as the church leaves behind old practices, so each one
of us must reexamine what holds us back from generosity. Each one of
us takes inventory so we can give back to God what is already His.
Join me as we take step one. On April 25, we will have a public
display of our commitment through our combined service and our mission
trip to the border. While we worship gathered and scattered, together
we will show each other that we're in this together, no matter how
large or small our wallets and investments, For 2,000 years, Christ
has been taking our offerings and multiplying. I trust that once
again, he will be faithful to do the same for First Baptist.
--
William D. Shiell, Ph.D.
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Church of Knoxville
510 West Main Street
Knoxville, TN 37902
shiell@fbcknox.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/william.shiell
Blog: www.firsthoughts.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Williamshiell
Church: www.fbcknox.org
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.
Sabbaticals are designed for empty nesters who can travel the world,
study in an exotic place, or relocate their families for months on
end. I am obviously not one. One institution reminded me of that when
I applied for a grant to offset some of the expenses. After they
received my application, they asked me to re-apply because I was
spending "too much time in Knoxville." I asked them why I would
relocate for 4 weeks to another city, and they said, 'So you can
rest.' I told them that sleeping in a hotel room for 4 weeks away from
family was not my idea of rest.
Sabbaticals for dads with families are written differently. I still
wanted to attend as many of Parker's basketball game as possible and
to feel Drake climb into the bed in the middle of the night as often s
possible. You gave me the opportunity to tailor something to fit my
family's needs, my interests and curiosities. Even more importantly,
you surrounded me with great staff and laypeople who have done more
than simply carry on. They have been very busy about the important
work of ministry, covering bases for me as well as keeping up an
incredible pace over 8 weeks. I hope to be able to return the favor to
each one of our ministers.
All of this help means that the phone hardly ever rang; I
disconnected; and the emails have been relatively easy to respond to.
(Email does take awhile, however; I'm still working through them).
Even when you ran into me at the gym or the mall or the grocery store,
you were kind enough not to respond to my question, "So how are things
going at the church?" You nodded and said, "Enjoy your time away."
Thanks for the freedom. Throughout these last weeks, I have enjoyed
time on the UT and Carson-Newman campuses. The Carson-Newman library
staff have assisted me with any needed resources and have functioned
as an "office away from the office" while studying and writing. I have
learned that if you need anything, ask Betty Kelley or Bruce Kocour.
As great as my time was apart from you, it's even better to be home
and to be with you. I missed you, and I really missed worshiping with
my family. Thank you so much for the rest.
--
William D. Shiell, Ph.D.
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Church of Knoxville
510 West Main Street
Knoxville, TN 37902
O: 865-546-9661 x 114
C: 865-363-7087
shiell@fbcknox.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/william.shiell
Blog: www.firsthoughts.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Williamshiell
Church: www.fbcknox.org
The miraculous story of my brother, University Baptist in Coral Gables, and a family in Haiti.
Slide show of pictures here
Images below: The Bethlehem Wall (Bethlehem side)
Rabbi talking on a cell phone at the Western (wailing) Wall
Overlooking Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives
Kelly and I were in Jerusalem and Bethlehem Saturday-Tuesday March 13-16 during the most recent tensions between the Israeli government and Palestinian leadership. We arrived as part of a travel group with a tourist's-eye view of incidents. Keep in mind that tour groups are intentionally sheltered from problems. We would have only known what was going on from reading the hotel newspapers or seeing a sound byte on CNN's international station. I did not see a report on the Fox news hotel channel. We knew that we were following in Joe Biden's footsteps. We were in the same gift shop on Saturday, March 13 in Bethlehem that he visited the day before. We did hear two different perspectives from our Jewish tour guide in Jerusalem and the Orthodox Christian tour guide in Bethlehem.
The contrasts were striking. On Saturday afternoon we were in Bethlehem seeing the Church of the Nativity in Christian Bethlehem the traditional site of the place where Jesus was born. On Sunday morning, we were in the Muslim area of Jerusalem to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, the traditional sites of Golgotha and the Joseph of Arimathea's family tomb. We saw two different worship services in action as well. We had plenty of incense to go around by the end of the day.
The most recent tensions were caused by the announcement of continued Jewish rebuilding efforts in East Jerusalem, and the dedication of the Hurva synagogue in East Jerusalem. We walked right past the synagogue. From the larger perspective, the issues revolve around the Israeli government's and Palestinian authority's continual struggle to deal with its political, spiritual, and religious disagreements. Not all Israelis are Jews; not all Jews want to throw out the Palestinians. 35% of Bethlehem is Christian (mainly Baptists and Orthodox Christian); many Palestinians are not Muslims; most Muslims are not pro-suicide bombers. If you can figure all this out on a grid, let me know.
From a tourist's viewpoint, all I see are shades of Berlin circa 1989. The Israeli government has erected a wall using Palestinian labor between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. If Mary and Joseph wanted to have a baby there today they would need, "special permission," and clearance through checkpoints. My South African friends would probably say this reminds them of apartheid. Palestinians cannot leave Bethlehem without clearance from Israeli officials.
From the average secular Israeli perspective, the standard argument is, "We've been planning to do this for a long time." And "This" is fill in the blank. Rebuild the synagogue (destroyed in the 1967 6-day war), put more housing in east Jerusalem, you name it.
From the Palestinian Christian perspective, the only thing they asks is, "Pray for us," "Pray for peace," or "Pray for jobs."
Behind the scenes, we know there are ongoing meetings. I talked to one pastor in the airport whose church sponsors a meeting in Bethlehem between Muslims, Jews, and Christians secretly. If South Africa and Germany (throw in Ireland too) are any examples, we need several things like that. We need lots of secret meetings between people who seem to be spiritually the opposite. We need teenagers eating pizza together who do not share the same neighborhoods. And we need churches to become educated about all the dynamics of the problem, not just the ones they can see from the safety of a tour bus. Sounds like a good theme to conclude Passover and Holy Week. We're right on time.
"Bread and circuses," distracted the Romans and their leaders in the 1st century. In Tennessee over the past couple of weeks, the athletic arena has been a circus of distraction. Fans (short for "fanatics") confuse the historical with the hysterical and prefer to spend the public's money firing coaches rather than recruiting them. It's no wonder that when Lane Kiffin takes his dream job, and someone ponies up the $800,000 to make that happen, that this event overshadows the real issue in the world that day. Thousands die in Haiti. An earthquake destroys lives. Pain and suffering are all around. This is not the first time for suffering to collide with sports. But when they occur on the same day, we have a chance to think about priorities, distractions, and the real cost of human life. The gift of sports to our community is a means to an end. It's the great ends of beauty, love, friendship, and sacrifice that call to all of us. It's not the best or the only way to follow those pursuits. Sports just happen to be a popular one that I and so many others enjoy with my family. As people in Knoxville, we view sports as the end rather than the means to that. This is our god, and we love, pay, sacrifice, and give to it so. In this most recent iteration, the means became the NFL, winning at all insults, and competition over a brand or a rival at the expense of decency. If this is how we live our lives, then we need to get a new life. The reason bread and circuses work so easily is because they are not nearly as challenging and complex as what calls out to us from our souls: the deepest longings for relationship and life after death. The immediate gratification of a scoreboard, a contract, a salary, and a career inoculate us to a deeper pain. The Haitian experience, however, invites us into the real world. This is not a place of where lives are so easily replaced with someone else to entertain us. We cannot point fingers at one another in the rubble. This is the place of suffering and anger, hurt and despair, worry and grief, questions and loss. This is a world that is classified as "natural" disaster, but requires supernatural answers. This kind of thing happens around the world all the time. We rarely get to see something like this so close to home. It's also the place where the kingdom of God breaks in with thousands of relief workers, volunteers, missionaries, and people rushing into demonstrate what people do best. In moments of crisis, people at their core naturally help, serve, and love each other. The real story of disaster from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to Hurricane Katrina of 2005 to the Haitian experience to start this decade, is that we solve the greatest sufferings of the world with the greatest service. People go and live like Jesus right there; and if they can't go, they give. They give with public, private, charitable, and religious dollars. And we all work together for the common cause of taking what life has left behind and helping people put the pieces back together. We help people make sense of it all not by answering questions but by living out the questions beside one another, by crying and weeping, and praying when the only words we have are groans. We will welcome a new coach into our arena. And more importantly, we will weep with those who weep and rebuild lives on the journey toward the greatest of these, which is love.
My top books for the year. Shaye D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Second edition. 2006 Eddie Hammett, Making Shifts without Making Waves. Columbia Partnership, 2009. David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies. New Haven: Yale University Press Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: the Alternative Gospel of the American Church. Baker Books, 2008. Leander E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus: the place of Jesus in Preaching and Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. -Keck's critique of the 2nd quest for the historical Jesus is still applicable to today's quests. Salt and Light: a Guide to Loving Knoxville. Edited by Andy Rittenhouse and Heidi Unruh. 2009. -This is a new improved version of the Salt and Light Guidebook for ministries. Anyone doing ministry in Knox County needs to see the big picture. This book captures it. Robert Lithicum, Building a People of Power: Equipping Churches to Transform their Community Robert D. Lupton, Renewing the City: Reflections on Community Development and Urban Renewal. Intervarsity Press, 2005. -Lupton operates a faith based community development corporation in Atlanta. This book is a Bible study of Nehemiah with modern application to churches trying to be on mission in the city. William Gilmore Simms, Sabbath Lyrics: A Christmas Gift of Love. Charleston: Walker and James, 1849. -Simms and his wife had 14 children. Five of them survived him. This book is a collection of his poetic paraphrases of the prophecy of Christ's birth in Isaiah intermingled with his reflections on the death of children. Complete version available at Google books. Rebecca Solnit, Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Viking Press, 2009. Janet Soskice, The Sisters of Sinai: How to Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels. Knopf Publishers, 2009. Albert L. Winesman, et al. Living Your Strengths: Discover Your God-Given Talents and Inspire Your Community. -This book is the Christian edition of Gallup's "Strengths Finder" approach. Winesman uses spiritual gifts language to discuss strengths. Great for team building and individual reflection.
This is Lithicum's manual on the church as the Christian community organizers. Helpful reflections on Nehemiah as well as first-hand suggestions on the real gritty work of taking care of a neighborhood.
Join us in the Fred Brown Chapel for Bible Study at 6:00 p.m. each Wednesday
Led by Dr. Shiell
January 6
Jesus the Whippersnapper?
John 2:15
A discussion of John's unique account of Jesus' cleansing of the temple
January 13
Knowing the Times: Trends Affecting First Baptist in 2010
1 Chronicles 12:32
How do our lives in Knoxville impact church life today at First Baptist? We will think strategically about 2010 by paying attention to the times in which we live.
The mid-19th century Southern writer William Gilmore Simms offered
personal reflections on the wonder of Christmas in the midst of the
loss of his children. He and his wife Chevillette had 14 children.
Only 5 outlived him. Read his reflections on the birth of the Good
Shepherd.
Where among the pasturing rocks
The glad shepherds kept their flocks
Came an angel to the fold
And with voice of rapture told
That the Saviour Christ was born
Born in Bethlehem sacred place
Of a virgin full of grace
In a manger lowly spot
Symbol of his mortal lot
Lo the Saviour Christ is born
Dread and glorious was the bright
Of that sudden shining light
Which around the angel then
Token'd to the simple men
That the Saviour Christ was born
But the voice that filled the blaze
Cheer'd them in their deep amaze
Tidings of great joy I bring
In the coming of your King
The true Shepherd Christ is born
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Ann Henderson is a faithful member; we just don't see her at church.
She watches us by television and lives at Shannondale retirement off
Middlebrook Pike. A couple of weeks ago, I dropped by to say hello to
Ann. She get a lot of frequent contact from Matthew and Amy Evans as
part of our Deacon homebound team, but I also enjoy catching up with
folks I don't always see in the pew. Like so many at Christmas time,
Ann had a surprise for me.
During our visit we chatted a bit. I shared a few nuggets of church
life; she asked about my family. Then she reached down and said,
"Pastor, my sister wanted to know if there were some people that I
wanted to remember this Christmas season; and you're one of them. Here
are some homemade peach preserves." I went by to give Ann the gift of
presence, and she surprised me with an unexpected gift.
This season is the time for the unplanned gifts. We plan, we shop, we
wrap, and the calendar turns to a new year and a new decade. We look
forward to what we're going to accomplish, look back at last year's
memories, and worry about the unknowns that lie ahead. Along the way
in January though, after the presents are unwrapped, the real gifts
arrive. These are the venues for the bright ideas and epiphanies that
give you a spiritual "a-ha" moment. They happen when strangers wander
into life, your body gives you an extra hour of sleep, the dreaded
activity becomes a memory, or a moment of service becomes a time of
celebration.
I am not sure what will spark, but I do know that they come when we
are around the kind of people we find in the epiphany season:
foreigners, shepherds, mothers, fathers, babies, and worshipers. Wise
men and television viewers seem to know that best. So, Ann, here is a
very large scale thank you note for the peach preserves. And to all
who stand at the corridor of a new decade, I hope you've left some
time for an unplanned gift.
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