My grandfather Robert Steele Baldwin (Papa) left a series of offbeat jobs, such as driving a Twinkie truck and selling vacuum cleaners at Sears, to become an evangelist and eventually the pastor of Mangum Oaks Baptist Church in Houston. Mangum Oaks was a fledgling congregation with fewer than 10 people in 1966, but the church began to explode in the coming years. My grandfather, a gifted orator, told the story of faith with passion and biblical conviction. In the midst of this steady growth, the church relocated to new facilities in a thriving area just outside Houston’s 610 loop and added staff members. One of the new hires was my father, Edgar Martin Seay, a young college-student-turned-music-minister who quickly began to fancy the 16-year-old daughter of his new boss and who courageously married this teenage girl. In 1971, she gave birth to me, James Christopher Seay.This is my heritage. It is where I come from. And despite the radical difference of my own ministry and lifestyle, I think of this brand of faith, which I’ll call “Revivalist Baptist,” as the epicenter of my faith journey. At times I long for the security and nostalgia of that distant land. I feel like Abraham—all at once loving this new adventure, but missing the tranquility of my homeland. One can often find me wandering the grounds of my grandfather’s old church where he preached his fiery sermons calling all to repentance and baptized dozens each week. I even uncovered the old baptismal robe he wore as he baptized hundreds of men, women, and children, and then gave it to him for Christmas last year as a symbol of my respect for his faithful service to God.Mangum Oaks Baptist Church represents the homeland to me. It is a Mecca to all that it means to be Revivalist. Yet the church no longer exists; it has been swallowed by the emerging post-Christian urban landscape. This formerly thriving church, which my grandfather pastored for 28 years, held its last service in the church’s 75,000-square-foot home in 2002. And for me, it feels like there is no homeland. Instead I make camp somewhere in the remnant of the shift and try to build a church. What happened? Where did the old church go? Did my grandfather’s stories really happen? Why won’t the same methodology work now?Like the Son of Man, we seek a place to lay our heads, theologically speaking. I need my grandfather and I need my father. I need them to tell me I’m doing okay, that I am shepherding people toward Christ, not just entertaining them. I need them in this great shift that is shaking the ground beneath my feet. I need them; I resent them; I love them; I am frustrated by them; I adore them. I want God to give my congregation the stability that was so evident in their ministries. I am convinced God can and wants to. But how?As Doug Pagitt says, “Revivalism is about re-igniting a latent faith that existed within people,” and yet there seems to be no flame there to re-ignite. There seems to be no familiarity with the story of God and what he did in this city only 50 short years ago. All that is left is utter skepticism and a faint, dim-lit picture of a meta-narrative.I am now post-revivalist. Within two generations, the religious landscape of America and my family has experienced a transmutation. Papa is the consummate 1950s evangelist, Dad is a Swindoll-esque pastor, and I thought I would lose my mind if I followed them into ministry. So I charted a new course and had no real idea where I was going. Thankfully, I embarked on this journey with their blessing. So now we come to the table—my father, my grandfather, and I—and I have questions.I am also wondering this: just as they have so much to teach me, do I have something to teach them? I wonder if they would be able to humble themselves before me, just as I humble myself before them, so we can learn from each other. Can I learn the importance of taking a stand against sin and depravity, if they can learn the importance and beauty of an inclusive community? I am wondering if they can learn the power of art and beauty as a necessary means of communicating to a whole human being, and I am wondering if I can learn more about the importance of propositional truth.My father and grandfather and I disagree, often vehemently, but they gave me this faith; and I believe the essentials (for example, the Apostles’ Creed) haven’t changed. I am wondering, though, if almost everything else is up for grabs.Many believe the church in North America is headed toward extinction. But I possess great hope as I sit with these stories and the profound wisdom passed on from my father and grandfather. I don’t always agree with my dad and grandfather, but I trust them more than anyone I could invent. Their collective stories are the well from which I draw wisdom during my periods of confusion. When life, family, or ministry drags me to the limits of my own sanity, their words always deliver hope to the part of my soul that’s ready to give up.In my own home, growing up under Dad, I saw the very best of a pastoring life. I was there in the hospital as we prayed for the sick, and I listened carefully to the counsel given to unnamed people who called our home in the midst of crisis. Love and patience seemed to embody the pastoral tone. I know this is true of most pastors, but I am grateful to be a part of a family where the position has been modeled well. I wonder if Papa or Dad ever stopped to think about the fact that they were modeling my future calling for me, that they were teaching me how to be a pastor, giving me a foundation.When our lives are balanced and in order, love and patience abound. Some leaders in the church refer to me as a prophet—someone constantly challenging the church to change. I may have a prophetic edge, but when I am at my best, I am simply a pastor. And that means I care for people. I actually get in the mess of their lives, hold their hands, and walk them out of the wreckage. I am a teacher, storyteller, spiritual director, friend, mentor, and giver of hope. I am what my father was before me. I love it and I am made for it. Like Papa said, I can’t do anything else. I just can’t.My grandfather was a different kind of pastor from my father, and I am yet a different kind of pastor. We disagree quite passionately, and yet we have no choice but to love and respect each other. We are not strangers who can easily be reduced to enemies and ignored. We are each other’s sons, sharing each other’s blood, needing each other’s affection. And so we stay, and we listen, and we attempt to understand. How I wish for something as beautiful for the church as a whole. Through the blood of Christ, we are each other’s sons and daughters as well.From Faith of My Fathers by Chris SeayZondervan - We’re All in This Together
Blogged with the Flock Browser
