“Reach, Provide, Grow”

Why are we here? What is our purpose? What are we trying to do to people? They are all questions I have heard over the years within the Church, denominational committees, and the academic classroom. Just recently, I was in a meeting with other Original Free Will Baptist ministers and laity, and we did not have an answer. I looked carefully through the bylaws for this group and there are plenty of paragraphs filled with legal jargon explaining the structure, membership make up, and what to do in various scenarios, but there is no indication for “the why” of our existence. I posed my concern to the rest of the group which was met with a mixture of surprise and agreement. After this many years, nothing had been spelled out concerning our place within the denomination. How did such an important detail come to be overlooked? Now, granted, people have some general concepts as to what is supposed to happen when we gather for quarterly meetings (and this ministry is doing some positive things), but why? That is something with which we will need to wrestle as we move into the new year and from those discussions develop a succinct, clear-cut definition of our identity.

A story is told of a young newlywed who was preparing her first Christmas dinner for family. Her husband took notice of something rather unusual in her preparation as she cut the end off of the ham before putting it into the roaster. He inquired as to why she did such a thing and she replied that it was something which her mother did. The husband remained puzzled until later in the day when the rest of the family gathered to eat and during the table conversation posed the question to his mother-in-law concerning her practice. To this she replied that she only did what her own mother had
done. Some time passed and the young couple paid a visit to the wife’s grandmother. Before the end of their time together, the husband just had to know why the grandmother had set a precedent for years by cutting the end off of the ham anytime she cooked one. A smile came upon the grandmother’s face as she leaned back in her chair and appeared to puzzle over it for a moment. It was then that she responded, “I don’t know why my daughter and granddaughter do it, but I only did so because my roaster was too small for the ham.”

That is how many things can be in life when we are not careful. We do this or that because of how our parents or grandparents did them. It may be that we do them just to say we are doing something. I remember someone saying years ago, “If you don’t know what to do, just do something. If it’s wrong, you can work that our later.” Taking a shot in the dark or doing things because everyone else is doing them is hardly a good reason behind any action or behavior. Let me be clear. I am not suggesting we should not take chances in life. But, the best-taken chances have at least been calculated, weighed, and prayed over before acting. This is true not only of everyday life choices, but perhaps even more so for our responsibilities as the Church. The Scriptures remind us in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” That is to suggest a lack of understanding as to where one is going (including businesses, organizations, AND churches), is going to lead to chaos, confusion, and unfulfilled potential. The well-known, motivational speaker Zig Ziglar once said, “If you aim for nothing, you will hit it every time.”

As we begin 2025, I would like to challenge us to think about who we are and what we are about as Little Rock Original Free Will Baptist Church. A few years ago, I wrote a series of newsletter articles which focused upon the three portions of our congregation’s mission: To reach as many people as possible for Christ; To provide a place of Christian nurture, instruction, fellowship, and service for all believers; To grow a local congregation of the Original Free Will Baptist faith tradition. In the coming Sundays, I will be revisiting these themes during worship and encourage you to think
about these questions as they relate to our mission: “Who and how are we reaching?”, “What is it we are trying to do to people?”, and “What kind of growth do we desire?” These questions are difficult, but need answering as we consider who God has called us to be within our world. I am not asking what is so and so doing or what has been done in the past, but what can we do here and now to be a part of God’s glorious future.

Looking Forward Together,
The Reverend Kelley Smart