Forty-six years and six months after preaching my first ordination sermon, I may have preached my last, and who would have ever thought it would be like it was.
In 1978, I was the preacher for the ordination of George Thomas (G.T.) Moody (1923-2013). My father. He started adult life as a math teacher in northern Kentucky but got pulled into church work at the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church of Lexington (after turning down an invitation from J. Frank Norris to join him in Ft. Worth, Texas). In 1960, he was called to the First Baptist Church of Murray, Kentucky, a much more mainstream Southern Baptist congregation. There, I was licensed to gospel work as a teenager; that was 1965. I returned in 1977, following my seminary education, to be ordained, under the preaching of Walter Price, Dale Moody, and G. T. Moody. I remember to this day what each of them said, especially my dad: love the people, love the Bible, and love Jesus. Not bad advice for a young minister (or anybody, really).
A year later, the church gave G.T. a title change, to Associate Pastor, and authorized his ordination. They invited me to preach, which I was glad to do. All I remember about that sermon was I forgot the hymn lines I was trying to quote. I did, however, recall the page number in the hymnbook–number 99–and that caught somebody’s attention and what they said to me made me feel better about my homiletic failure.
I preached Dad’s funeral service in 2013, years after he had fallen into dementia. He was a great man, and nothing I ever did in my sixty years of ministry (of one sort or another) surpassed in significance the ordination sermon I preached on that Sunday in 1978 in Murray, Kentucky.
Until this week. Maybe.
This past Sunday, I preached the ordination sermon for Francisco Gonzalez. Let me tell you about it.
Francisco came to me three years ago after watching the news on an Asheville television station. They reported on the policy of welcome and inclusion our church had just adopted. The church was Providence Baptist, in Hendersonville. It consisted of some 30 or so people who gathered weekly in a sanctuary once used by the Church of God and then the Lutherans; but I could be wrong about that. For years, the people had operated in ways consistent with the policy we adopted, so its adoption was unanimous and without controversy. But it did this: made me a member for the first time of a church that was welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ people.
Francisco not only wanted to join the church, he wanted to be baptized. “I was baptized as a young adult,” he explained. “But it was in a large Baptist church in Hammond, Indiana, and I had to hide the real me. Now, 30+ years later, I need for my real self to be baptized.” I will pray about that, I said, knowing that I had for years operated on a ministerial philosophy that refused re-baptism for almost any reason.
But this was different, and I knew it. I said yes to the water, and that day of baptism was one of the genuine highlights of my 42-month tenure as the pastor of that little church in the mountains of North Carolina.
But Francisco also confessed to me a calling to me a minister. “I want some education,” he said; and together we identified a half dozen seminaries with ministry leadership programs designed for people like Francisco: lay people with late in life vocations as church leaders. He selected the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary of Elkhart, Indiana, and their 30-month, online program. He signed up, and I accompanied him to the first onsite retreat and was scheduled to do it again last month to conclude his studies, but the snowstorm intervened and the whole three-day event was moved online.
And so, it came to pass on February 15 that I took a text (Gospel of John 3:1-16) and preached a sermon which I titled “Lift up Jesus.” Then I followed the current pastor in laying hands on his good and godly man, then watched as most of the 40 or so attendees did the same. In my sermon, I did not mention his status as a gay man, or a U. S. Marine, or a Latino. None of that mattered at the moment. He was just a person, saved by grace and called to serve, and I was the gospel preacher of the day. I preached about Jesus, as is my habit.
After my sermon and before the ordination, Francisco gave his testimony of call, and later, the benediction. I have grouped all these documents into one and posted them elsewhere on my website. HERE. The church policy, his testimony and prayer, and my sermon. Maybe some of that will do somebody some good, some gospel good. I know this: this whole process of baptism, education, testimony, ordination, and sermon sure did me some good. I give thanks to God for bringing me this far in my walk with Christ.
God bless you, Francisco, in your own walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Forty-six years and six months after preaching my first ordination sermon, I may have preached my last, and who would have ever thought it would be like it was.
In 1978, I was the preacher for the ordination of George Thomas (G.T.) Moody (1923-2013). My father. He started adult life as a math teacher in northern Kentucky but got pulled into church work at the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church of Lexington (after turning down an invitation from J. Frank Norris to join him in Ft. Worth, Texas). In 1960, he was called to the First Baptist Church of Murray, Kentucky, a much more mainstream Southern Baptist congregation. There, I was licensed to gospel work as a teenager; that was 1965. I returned in 1977, following my seminary education, to be ordained, under the preaching of Walter Price, Dale Moody, and G. T. Moody. I remember to this day what each of them said, especially my dad: love the people, love the Bible, and love Jesus. Not bad advice for a young minister (or anybody, really).
A year later, the church gave G.T. a title change, to Associate Pastor, and authorized his ordination. They invited me to preach, which I was glad to do. All I remember about that sermon was I forgot the hymn lines I was trying to quote. I did, however, recall the page number in the hymnbook–number 99–and that caught somebody’s attention and what they said to me made me feel better about my homiletic failure.
I preached Dad’s funeral service in 2013, years after he had fallen into dementia. He was a great man, and nothing I ever did in my sixty years of ministry (of one sort or another) surpassed in significance the ordination sermon I preached on that Sunday in 1978 in Murray, Kentucky.
Until this week. Maybe.
This past Sunday, I preached the ordination sermon for Francisco Gonzalez. Let me tell you about it.
Francisco came to me three years ago after watching the news on an Asheville television station. They reported on the policy of welcome and inclusion our church had just adopted. The church was Providence Baptist, in Hendersonville. It consisted of some 30 or so people who gathered weekly in a sanctuary once used by the Church of God and then the Lutherans; but I could be wrong about that. For years, the people had operated in ways consistent with the policy we adopted, so its adoption was unanimous and without controversy. But it did this: made me a member for the first time of a church that was welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ people.
Francisco not only wanted to join the church, he wanted to be baptized. “I was baptized as a young adult,” he explained. “But it was in a large Baptist church in Hammond, Indiana, and I had to hide the real me. Now, 30+ years later, I need for my real self to be baptized.” I will pray about that, I said, knowing that I had for years operated on a ministerial philosophy that refused re-baptism for almost any reason.
But this was different, and I knew it. I said yes to the water, and that day of baptism was one of the genuine highlights of my 42-month tenure as the pastor of that little church in the mountains of North Carolina.
But Francisco also confessed to me a calling to me a minister. “I want some education,” he said; and together we identified a half dozen seminaries with ministry leadership programs designed for people like Francisco: lay people with late in life vocations as church leaders. He selected the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary of Elkhart, Indiana, and their 30-month, online program. He signed up, and I accompanied him to the first onsite retreat and was scheduled to do it again last month to conclude his studies, but the snowstorm intervened and the whole three-day event was moved online.
And so, it came to pass on February 15 that I took a text (Gospel of John 3:1-16) and preached a sermon which I titled “Lift up Jesus.” Then I followed the current pastor in laying hands on his good and godly man, then watched as most of the 40 or so attendees did the same. In my sermon, I did not mention his status as a gay man, or a U. S. Marine, or a Latino. None of that mattered at the moment. He was just a person, saved by grace and called to serve, and I was the gospel preacher of the day. I preached about Jesus, as is my habit.
After my sermon and before the ordination, Francisco gave his testimony of call, and later, the benediction. I have grouped all these documents into one and posted them elsewhere on my website. HERE. The church policy, his testimony and prayer, and my sermon. Maybe some of that will do somebody some good, some gospel good. I know this: this whole process of baptism, education, testimony, ordination, and sermon sure did me some good. I give thanks to God for bringing me this far in my walk with Christ.
God bless you, Francisco, in your own walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Recent Posts
Related Posts
I Went for a Walk
Total Depravity
Preaching: What a Quaint Idea!
Music from the Margins