2007. I had left the regular pastoral ministry to take a job at a funeral home as staff clergy. On the side I was working with churches in crisis. Churches that were facing the end of their ministry time. It is interesting all the different ways a church can destroy itself and blame everyone else, from former pastors to various members to denomination oversight to changes in society. In every case it is satanic influence, but congregations wanted none of that. They wanted to blame anyone else but their own failings.

The first church that reached out to me was a First Baptist Church. One of those places that had a great complex, lots of property, wonderful history and a handful of people who were struggling to keep it going. This church belonged to the American Baptist denomination. We all have a picture in our minds when we talk of Baptists, but there are actually 37 different Baptist groups in the USA, so there is no clear definition of what a Baptist is. The American Baptists were once a part of a national Baptist group. In the years before the Civil War there was conflict between the northern churches and the southern churches, mostly over the subject of slavery. Before the Civil War commenced, the group split. The northern group took on the name Northern Baptist while the southern group became the Southern Baptist. Same core beliefs. In fact, both groups kept the same statement of faith and still do to this day. After the war, the Northern Baptist tried to expand into the South. The southern folks wanted nothing to do with those northern heathens, so the Northern Baptist changed their name to the American Baptist. That didn't help, either, but they remained the American Baptists. As it turned out, the Southern Baptists eventually expanded into the north with various degrees of success. Over the years both groups have drifted away from the Bible to a different degree. It is what denominations do. Just ask the Methodists and the United Church of Christ. The American Baptists became more liberal in their beliefs, but the Southern Baptists are headed that way, as well. However, they still hold to the same core beliefs. Sort of.

So, with that bit of history, let's go back to 2007. First Baptist Church was struggling. I had just left a long term, quite successful, pastorate and First Baptist contacted me for counsel. This was actually my entry into working with churches in crisis, although I didn't yet know it. I filled their pulpit for a couple of Sundays while we met for several meetings during the week. One thing led to another, and I wound up as a six month interim pastor. Meanwhile, in the same town, another Baptist church, a Southern Baptist church, was looking for a pastor. They had a man who was able to preach on Sunday mornings while they were searching, but this church also had a Sunday night service. They contacted me and asked if I could preach on Sunday nights as they went through the search process. Personally, I saw no problem with this since First Baptist had no evening service and I was available. I had pastored two nondenominational churches over the previous 22 years, so an American Baptist and a Southern Baptist combination was nothing to me. I told neither church about the other because it just wasn't important. I wasn't trying to keep anything secret, it just never came up. 

One night after church at the Southern Baptist church, the Deacon chairman took me aside. He said he had been coming home from work a few days before and noticed the sign in front of the First Baptist Church said Dr. Larry Wade, Interim Pastor. He thought that was quite a coincidence that there were two Larry Wades locally in the ministry. No, I told him. It was just little old me. And that ended my time at the Southern Baptist church. The Southern Baptist despised the American, and the feeling went both ways. And yet they had the same core beliefs.

I have seen the same animosity between Wesleyan Methodist and United Methodists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synad, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Presbyterian Church America and many other splits and splinters and divergent groups with the same core beliefs, but different names. This is probably the main reasons attendance is down across the country. There is more conflict about who is right than a belief that only God and His Word is right.

In the ministry I have started in my retirement, we worship. If you came and visited, it would feel like church. But we are not bound by church rules, denominational oversight or what some 'Board' in some far off city tells what we are to do. We pray, we sing, we get into our Bibles and then we leave to go out and serve the Savior. It is....freeing, I guess. 

One of our ladies, an Episcopalian, gave me a poem the other day. Just a few short lines written by an unknown author, but those lines speak to the attitude we should have as we walk in the presence of our Lord.

It is only a tiny rosebud,
A flower of God's design,
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers
Is not known to such as I, 
The flowers God opens so sweetly
In my hands would fade and die.

If I cannot unfold a rosebud, 
This flower of God's design,
Then how can I think I have wisdom
To unfold this life of mine?

So I'll trust Him for His leading

Each moment of everyday,

And I'll look to Him for His guidance

Each step of the pilgrim way.

For the pathway that lies before me

My Heavenly Father knows;

I'll trust Him to unfold the moments

Just as He unfolds the rose.

Now, go out and be a blessing.