Sermon from October 18, 2009
"The Story of Brandywine Valley Baptist Church"
Isaiah 40:27-41

Today, I'd like to tell you the story of Brandywine Valley Baptist Church. We will soon gather in a new sanctuary in great joy. In anticipation of this joyous occasion I thought it would be good to ask what this congregation has learned about God in its first 40 years of existence. This reflection tells the story of this congregation.

The Power of Reconciliation
The birth of this church in the late 1960s, like many births, caused great pain. The mother of this church was Immanuel Baptist Church, now called Immanuel Church, at Pennsylvania Avenue and Greenhill Avenue. Several hundred people left Immanuel over theological and church differences. Most of the people who left formed this church and called it Baptist Fellowship Church.

Dorothy Taylor, who is now with the Lord and was a part of this church, spoke for hundreds of people on both sides of that rupture, when she said to me one time, “Leaving Immanuel was more painful than when I buried my husband.” The division separated friend from friend, created anger and conflict in many idealistic teenagers, and became a public scandal, which newspaper stories reported on for years in the 1970s.

The new church met in member homes, started Bible studies, and in 1970 rented space in the Friends School in Alapocas Woods for Sunday and Wednesday meetings. Two missionaries home from overseas served one year each as interim pastors. In 1973 the church called Dan Meiers to be its first pastor. He left less than two years later.

The church approved a search committee that found an outstanding candidate. They agreed to be unanimous in presenting a candidate to the congregation. They voted, and the one woman on the committee, Alice Cochran, voted against the candidate. She was gentle, soft-spoken, very tough, and she did not change her mind.

I learned all that later. The shine of being a start-up church had already worn off. Five years in Friends School was getting old. The failure to call the candidate precipitated a crisis. At a meeting of the Board of Deacons, a motion was made to disband the church, sell this property, and give the proceeds to missionaries. It was a dark moment. The motion was tabled. The board agreed to pray about it and talk about it at the next meeting.

Something unexpected took its place. The board believed their troubles were due to lingering anger and hostility toward people at Immanuel. The only solution, they thought, was reconciliation with Immanuel. It was a humble and humbling decision. In an act of great tenderness, the board at Immanuel agreed to meet. It went well, and the outcome was to propose a meeting of reconciliation between the congregations.

I came into the story at this point on a snowy, January night in Upstate New York. Howard Gerlach, who is still part of this church, visited Carole and me at our home. I was a potential candidate to be the pastor here. He told us about the meeting of reconciliation taking place the very weekend he was with us. We joined others in praying.

By all accounts it was a frank, at times, painfully frank meeting. I can only judge the outcome of the meeting by what I found when we came to Wilmington. The people of BVBC did not have a bad word to say to me about anyone at Immanuel. They acknowledged the heartache (there was plenty to go around), but they said, “We are reconciled with each other, and we are moving on to our future.” We never looked back.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
     and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
     my cause is disregarded by my God?”
Do you not know?
     Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
     the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
     and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
     and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
     and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
     will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
     they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

A Divine Visitation
BVBC entered its own sanctuary and small east wing in 1976 right here on Mt. Lebanon Road. Two years later, the church added its first full-time and first part-time associate staff. Five years later, we added a second morning worship service. In 1984 we added a fourth staff member, and in 1985 we added a fifth staff member.

1985 was a transition year. Two staff resigned to take ministries elsewhere, and in the fall I accepted a call to be the Senior Pastor at Hinson Baptist Church in Portland, OR. Within six months of my leaving the church had called a new Youth Pastor, Grant Hasty, and a new Senior Pastor, Harry Killbride. They brought new energy and ideas. Pastor Killbride had a distinguished pulpit ministry and radio ministry. Four years later, I resigned as Senior Pastor at Hinson, and Pastor Killbride resigned here.

A year-long process ensued, not without controversy and hard feelings, and I returned to BVBC as Senior Pastor. I had changed in the intervening six years. BVBC had changed. The world was changing. The downsizing and outsourcing that now characterize American business affected Wilmington’s chemical companies. I watched many a 50-year-old man, hoping to retire with his company, get a golden parachute, and land in a brave new world of unemployment, consulting and unfulfilled dreams.

Within BVBC there was serious staff conflict, serious theological conflict, and serious personal conflict. It came to a head in what some of us call the board meeting from hell in December, 1993. By year’s end 70 or so people, including people I still count as friends, left BVBC. Once again, there was plenty of heartache to go around.

We licked our wounds throughout 1994. I look back at that time, and I am deeply grateful to Paul Chubb, who chaired the board during that low point. He provided a stability that helped us get through the year, which saw two staff members resign by year’s end. His leadership continued for two more years.

None of us thought on January 1, 1995, that it would be a year of Divine visitation to this congregation. It happened Memorial Day weekend, 1995. 130 men from this congregation went to RFK Stadium in Washington, D. C. to a Promise Keepers event. BVBC was reshaped from within by that weekend. We didn’t know it at the time, but we came home with a new heart. There was a new unity in the church that we had not known for years. Men learned to care for each other. Ten Promise Keeper small groups formed, some of which meet to this day. God gave us a future. We haven’t looked back.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
     and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
     my cause is disregarded by my God?”
Do you not know?
     Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
      the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
     and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
     and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
     and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
     will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
     they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Until It Joins Some Larger Way
BVBC called Rew Randolph as its first full-time Pastor of Worship and Music. The congregation voted to build the East Wing in 1998. In 1999 Bill Parsons became the first full-time Church Administrator, we occupied the East Wing, and we began a third morning service in a contemporary style. We occupied the new West Wing in 2001, and Sam Stein replaced Rew Randolph as Pastor of Worship and Music. We added a fourth service in 2002. In 2003 we hired three new, full-time staff members, and we began to look into the construction of a new sanctuary.  Now, six years later, here we are, ready to occupy a new sanctuary of worship and poised for the unknown future together. I see three forces that will shape our experience in the next three years.

First, we face a large financial challenge, especially in the next 12 months. Beginning next month, we add $25,000 a month to the General Fund, as we begin to pay off our mortgage on the new sanctuary. That gives urgency to the new Next Steps capital campaign. The Board of Deacons has directed that the first priority of the campaign is to pay off the $1.2 million debt on the East and West Wings. By doing that, we will reduce the General Fund by $170,000.

You can do two things to help. You can make a pledge to this new capital campaign. If you don’t get to a town hall meeting, we’ll mail you a packet that shows you to make a pledge. If you match or exceed your pledge to the previous capital campaign, it will have great power. If you did not participate in the previous campaign, you can take part in this one and make a big difference in this time of financial challenge.

The other thing some of you can do is to start giving routinely to the Sunday offerings. You may put in a few dollars now and then, and that’s good; but I am asking that you prayerfully consider regular giving every Sunday. Maybe you start at $10 a Sunday. Even that would make more difference than you can imagine.

A second force will shape our experience together in the next three years. When you sit in our new sanctuary on November 1, I hope you savor the moment. Let the sunlight pouring through the skylights lift your head high and cause you to worship with great joy. I hope awe and joy stamp our souls for years to come.

But savoring our achievement does not mean sitting on our hands. The new sanctuary is a safe haven; it also a base of operations. Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, so send I you” – John 20:21. Several hundred of us have read this book, Just Walk Across the Room. It has turned out attention outward. Furthermore, acts of compassion, discerning engagement with difficult moral issues and missions turn us outward to the world around us. We are already thinking about establishing a satellite campus and/or planting a daughter church. We plan to take 5% of our income from this second capital campaign and put it in escrow as seed money for the satellite campus or new church.

A third force will shape our experience together in the next three years. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic recession have shaken our national life. We should expect more. We narrowly averted another terrorist attack on New York last month. If Israel were to bomb Iran nuclear plants with or without U. S. backing, the world would become much more dangerous. Iran with nuclear weapons would make it even more so.

Continued national crises will expose how hollow much of American culture has become. People will discover how empty spiritually it has left them. Whether BVBC will be prepared spiritually to address that emptiness is a question on a par with the crises this church faced in 1974 and 1993. God must once again send His Spirit to breathe life into these dry bones of ours, so that we can fulfill His purposes for Brandywine Valley Baptist Church. Will He do that?

The Pastoral Center of Gravity

Why do you say, O Jacob,
     and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
     my cause is disregarded by my God?”
Do you not know?
     Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
     the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
     and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
     and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
     and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
     will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;  
     they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.