I was one of the many speakers at the 123rd anniversary celebration of New Light Missionary Baptist Church. My 10-minute reflection was a small part of the two and a half hour service filled with wisdom, exhortation, prayers, worship, history, dance, and music. I prepared these thoughts after prayer and reflecting upon my family’s experience here in Deer Park, Alabama. My words below are taken from a hard-to-hear audio recording. My reflection followed Deacon A. C. Bivens’ reflection, “My Attitude,” a remarkable talk explaining his positive attitude toward life.

“I don’t know if I’m too good with the microphone.” Everyone laughs encouragingly. “I’ll just, I’ll try here” (try speaking by the front pews without a microphone). “And I don’t know how to honor everyone here,” and Pastor Taylor and others assure me that that’s alright, “but I want to honor some other people.”

“Today, we’re celebrating 123 years. In doing so, we honor all the people who have been part of this church: people who farmed, people who washed clothes, people who fought fires, people who endured storms. We honor all the parents, grandparents, children, aunts, and uncles, who sacrificed a lot and suffered, but who lived well by faith, who hoped in a wondrous future, and who built this caring, welcoming community.

The promise of the mountaintop is shining for us! We’ve never been closer! – Photograph by Nancy Heise of Raspberry Island, Alaska in July 2009.

“Pastor Taylor talks about difficult times. We live in difficult times. He calls difficult times ‘these last and – ’”

Pastor Taylor and many others join in saying: “’evil days!’”

“In these struggling times, my family needed to move, and about a year ago I remember coming up here and stopping at this church and I stopped a few doors down and a kind man directed me to Earl Wood Road. Soon my family met friends there: Douglas Woods and Edward Jackson. Deer Park is a wondrous place. We were really surprised to come here at the all-around tremendous welcome, even the animals welcomed us: the birds, frogs, deer, even a coyote.

“And we found this church, New Light, a church rich in compassionate love – reaching out to all! A church that’s very like a Scripture that’s dear to me, Luke chapter 1, verse 78, ‘In the compassionate love of God, the new light,’ just like the church’s name, ‘the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on us who dwell in darkness and who live in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace!’”

As I’m continuing to say all this, there’s plenty else being proclaimed by everybody too: “Amen!” “Yes!” “That’s right!” “Alright!” “Yes, Lord!” … sighs of agreement and laughter too.

“Each Sunday the deacons come out and pray a lot of prayers that have touched my family: ‘Thank you, Father, for getting me up this morning!’ ‘Thank you, Father, for getting us ready for this day!’ ‘Thank you, Father, for the plan that you have for us this day!’

“God answers these prayers with love all through our services. We hear the answer to these prayers in our pastor’s words and in his laughter, in caring smiles all around, and we enjoy God’s answers in the spirit-filled music, the singing, the drums, the dancing! What is God saying in all this, over and over, Sunday after Sunday? ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’

At this point, Chastity, our organist, starts playing the organ. She’s amazing in every service with the organ and her voice. There’s clapping too. Most people are probably thinking I’m done, but I keep going.

“For 123 years, this church has been on a journey to God’s mountaintop. We’ve never been closer to that top. There’s still sacrifices to be made, suffering ahead, much to overcome, but who is with us on this journey? Who? Who strengthens us? Who – ?” (I was going to continue, “Who is always with us?”)

Everyone answers: “… God … Jesus …!”

“Jesus who comes down from Heaven to us, Jesus who is in each of us, each sister and brother! When my family, when all of us are in this church, we feel God’s loving presence.

“God’s Chariot, God’s Sweet Chariot is swinging low for us, forgiving us – no matter what we’ve done, healing us – no matter what we’ve been through, and joining us together to find our way to God’s mountaintop! This mountaintop is a dream to be followed and it’s also a blessed assurance, something we can count on! It’s also an invitation! We’re all good people! We’ve all been invited! This, like any other day, is our day, and we can do it! Together, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we can plant seeds, together we can share meals, together we can take care of the sick, together we can conceive new ideas, together we can work in the community, fix roofs, together can see that no one is cold during the winter! We won’t do it in a day, but we can do it!

“With the Holy Spirit and Jesus, they’re helping us to bear one another’s burdens, to forgive seventy times seventy, to comfort the sorrowful, to spread kindness wherever we go, to heal the old wounds, the old divisions, and to create a new world, a wondrous world of light, based on justice, generosity, and love! And this church, this church of New Light is being given all the grace it needs to shine its light so that people [and each of us], no matter what they’ve done, no matter what they’ve been through, can find their way to peace, and also that we can all hear deeply the healing words of God, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’

“Can we say it together?” Everyone proclaims in unison, “‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’” and concludes with simultaneous and spontaneous praise and clapping, “…Thank you, God!…Amen!…Alright!…”

Notes:
Douglas Woods and Edward Jackson are our good neighbors on Earl Wood Road and fellow church members at New Light Missionary Baptist Church.

Related posts:

The Coyote and Our New Home
The Key Story – the first time I experienced “I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!”