My First Sermon: Reflecting on November 1954

On a Sunday evening in November 1954, I drove the 13 miles from the farm where I lived with my parents and little sister to the Baptist church in the small town of Worth, Missouri. There I preached my first sermon. I was 16 years old and a senior in high school.  

LKS (1954)

Why would a boy be asked to preach? Those of you from many other Christian faith traditions likely think it strange that a boy who had celebrated his 16^th birthday only three months earlier would be asked to preach in a church worship service.  

Although not common, neither were such instances rare in the Baptist tradition. Regardless of age or lack of theological education, those who had felt “called” by God to be preachers/pastors were usually affirmed by their home church as well as by nearby churches with which they were associated.  

Back then, most Baptist churches had worship services every Sunday morning and evening. The attendance on Sunday evening was usually far less for the morning service. Probably only 20~25 people were there for that Nov. ’54 evening service at Worth Baptist Church. 

As a high school senior, of course, I had no formal theological education. But for more than eight years, every week with very few exceptions I had attended Sunday School, Sunday morning & evening worship services, and Wednesday evening prayer meetings. That was beneficial Bible/theological training. 

What would a boy preach about in his first sermon? Joe Wolven, my good friend and “best man” at June’s and my wedding in 1957, also started preaching when he was in high school. His first sermon was based on Genesis 1:1, and he titled it “In the beginning, God.” That seems quite appropriate. 

The biblical text for my first sermon, though, was Matthew 16:24-26. I have no memory as to why I chose that text and have been unable to find the brief notes I typed out to use for my mostly unscripted sermon.  

Here are those words spoken by Jesus as recorded by Matthew: 

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (KJV).

It seems a bit strange to me now, but I titled the sermon based on those words, “Self-Discipline for Growth.”*¹  

Last week, I read these words: “In speaking of self-control, one is easily misunderstood. It should not be associated with a destructive repression, but with a constructive expression.”*² I am quite sure my sermon was about the latter (and I equate “self-control” and “self-discipline”).  for

Even for quite some time before preaching that first sermon, I sought to live a purpose-driven life. Prior to receiving what I felt sure was God’s “call” to be a preacher/pastor (in Aug. 1952), my main purpose in life was to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ—and that purpose necessitated self-discipline. 

Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (2002) was a highly successful and influential book.*³ Recently, I took a look at that book again. For the 23^rd day of his 40-day program, the prominent California pastor wrote, 

Spiritual growth is not automatic. It takes an intentional commitment. You must want to grow, decide to grow, make an effort to grow, and persist in growing. Discipleship—the process of becoming like Christ—always begins with a decision.

Although I was preaching as a high school boy nearly 50 years before Warren’s bestselling book was published, I am quite sure I said something similar in that 1954 sermon. And I still believe that that is true for all who claim to be Christians, regardless of age. 

As I continued to grow through the years, my understanding of what it means to be a disciple deepened and broadened. But the driving force of my life for the past seventy years (and more) has been, and still is, doing my utmost to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

_____ 

*¹ I have the sermon title, Bible passage, and date (Nov. 54) recorded in My Pastoral Record, a splendid gift from June not long after we were married in 1957. That record book also indicates that I preached 17 more times (in my home church and seven others) before starting college in September 1955. The last sermon recorded in that book was number 1,112—and that was in June 1976. I regret that I did not continue keeping the record of sermons preached, which would be far more than double that number. 

*² James Allen, Book of Meditations and Thoughts for the Day: For Every Day of the Year. I know almost nothing about Allen (1864~1912), but this year I have enjoyed reading his helpful book, which was published the year after his death. The words cited above were some of his “thoughts” for November 14.  

*³ The Purpose Driven Life was on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 90 weeks. It is reported (see here) that 50 million copies of it had been sold in more than 85 languages by 2020. 

 

Southern Baptists Then and Now

The Southern Baptist Convention has been in the national news (again) this month, and I am reflecting here upon that denomination with which I was directly connected for sixty years. 

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was formed in 1845 at a gathering in Augusta, Georgia. It was founded by Baptists who disagreed with the antislavery attitudes and activities of Baptists in the North.

In 1967, the SBC became the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., surpassing the Methodist Church. Its peak membership of around 16,300,000 was reached in 2006.

I began attending an SBC church in 1945, exactly 100 years after its founding. I didn’t know anything about the SBC’s beginning for a long time, and I wasn’t happy when I finally learned about the reason it was organized.

Still, I was happy to be a Southern Baptist during the ten years I attended the SBC church in my northwest Missouri hometown. I was happy with the vibrancy of the SBC as I knew it in the 1950s and remember well the nationwide membership drive for “a million more in ’54.”

And I was happy to graduate from two Southern Baptist colleges in my home state (Southwest Baptist and William Jewell)—and then go on to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Kentucky.

During my years as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student at SBTS (1959~66), I was happy to serve as pastor of two small-town Southern Baptist churches in Kentucky, Ekron BC (1959~63) and Clay City BC (1964-65).

Further, June and I were happy to be appointed in 1966 as SBC missionaries to Japan, and during our 38 years there we greatly appreciated the support of SBC churches through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  

A strong shift to the right in the SBC began in 1980. As a result, I increasingly became an embarrassed Southern Baptist,** and in the 1980s and early 1990s many respected SB professors and pastors, including some close friends, left the SBC.

Disgruntled Southern Baptists formed the Alliance of Baptists in 1987 and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991. One of the co-founders of the former was Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, who died on June 7 at the age of 81.

Gaddy and I were graduate students at SBTS at the same time, but I didn’t know him well (he was three years younger than I). But I remember him as a bright, talented young man.

The sub-heading of a June 16 New York Times article about Gaddy states, “He started out in the Southern Baptist Convention, but when that group took a sharp conservative turn he became a voice for tolerance and diversity.”

Gaddy was known nationwide because of serving as president of the prestigious Interfaith Alliance from 1997 to 2014. Had it not been for that “sharp conservative turn” in the SBC, he could have served in that position as a Southern Baptist.

The 2023 annual meeting of the SBC was held earlier this month, and there was much that needed attention, such as last year’s half-million decline in membership. (Unlike “a million more in ’54” they could have talked about “why so few in ’22?”.)

But the action that garnered the most interest in the news media was the SBC’s renewed objection to female pastors. Rick Warren, the retired pastor of Saddleback Church in California, made an appeal for that megachurch to be restored to membership in the SBC.

Not only was Warren’s appeal rejected, opposition to female pastors even intensified. On June 22, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by Warren. It was titled “Expulsion of female pastors will only speed the Southern Baptists’ decline.”

The nationally known SB pastor remarked that the votes at this year’s annual meeting “helped ensure that the once great SBC will be known as the Shrinking Baptist Convention.”

Even though I’m glad not to be a Southern Baptist now, I still am sad because of the recent decline in the SBC and the likelihood that there will be even greater decline in the decade ahead because of its stance on women pastors—as well as because of its being a hotbed for the MAGA Movement.

_____

** In my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism, first published in 2007, I included a short section titled “An Embarrassed Southern Baptist” (see p. 5 in the revised/updated 2020 edition).