A Heck of a First Impression – Part One
I met with Pastor Jay at First Hattiesburg about 2:00, in the cafe on the back side of their new property on Lincoln road. As I waited for him to meet with another staff member briefly, I sat in that Starbucks-like room among other staff who seemed to be at the end of a lunch break or what have you. I recognized members of the worship team. They almost all introduced themselves cheerfully and asked if Jay knew I was there, making sure I was being cared for. “This is a good sign,” I thought.
Pastor Jay emerged from the office and we sat at one of the small cafe tables. I didn’t want to waste the man’s time, so I had some specific questions to ask, and a phrase or two I wanted to work in to get a reaction (people’s reactions are often the best indicator of their real beliefs). Please note that his responses here are my paraphrase, what I gleaned from the conversation and not direct quotes. If anything they are a faithful rendering of my impression of the man.
“So what can I do for you today, I’m sorry I don’t have much time, I’m afraid you caught us on a busy day,” he apologised.
“Definitely not a problem, man, I understand how busy planting a church can be, especially in the early stages. My wife and I are looking for a new church home.” I briefly explained the situation at Mainstreet and its affect on us, which answers the question WHY we’re looking. “What can you tell me about the Genesis of this place, is it a brand new church PLANT by First Baptist Hattiesburg, or a move?”
“It’s a move. Pastor Jeff felt a calling over the last two years to build or plant a church here in Hattiesburg that reaches out to the truly lost, those who have never been interested in church or Jesus. We were dying, had a primarily elderly congregation at the old location and were unable to grow in the ways we needed to in order to survive. Pastor Jeff’s vision combined with the opportunity to come out here resulted in us basically planting a brand new church here, with a starting congregation of about 1000,” he explained.
“So…” I responded, “would you consider First Hattiesburg a ‘seeker church’?”
Pastor Jay visibly recoiled at the question, “No, and I gotta tell you, I really dislike that phrase. We’re not the type of church whose mission is to simply attract as large a crowd as possible, and if they get a little of Jesus thrown in, so much the better. That’s not who we are. The vision here is to preach Jesus with no reservations and let the attractive power of the Gospel build the church. We’re using contemporary music and worship, but otherwise our theology is very conservative. Even the music itself is theologically centered, always with a message in mind.”
I grinned at his reaction (I hope he didn’t think I was laughing at him!), “Pastor Jay, I gotta tell you, I used that phrase specifically to see your reaction to it. It’s good to hear that you’re staying centered on Jesus and preaching him unashamedly. About the theology, though, how deep are you really able to get here? Is there something for those of us who have already sunk the well of discipleship fairly deeply to engage and encourage us here? My wife will be able to find kindred spirits without ANY trouble, I’m sure.”
Jay sat back, “Well, because of the people we are focused on bringing into the church, the lost who have never really been inside a church before, we have to limit the depth of our worship services and a lot of the small group studies we do, by necessity. I mean, you don’t present a deep expository 12-week study of Romans to a crowd full of new believers and seekers. It would blow them away, and you’d lose a lot of them to frustration.”
“Right, you’re not going to use C.S. Lewis or John Calvin in a sermon here, because that stuff is pretty dense in terms of the depth of material presented, and requires a lot of critical thinking skills,” I agreed.
“Exactly. However, I think you’ll be able to find something for you here. Pastor Jeff is teaching a class tonight (Wednesdays) and I’m doing a class on Ecclesiastes as well. Sundays you’re just going to have to look around and see what fits you and your wife. We have a lot of small group bible studies going on, and we should be starting a ‘preparing to reach out’ series of three-on-one or four-on-one groups at some point where we will be able to dive much deeper.” Jay said, leaning forward.
“Sounds great! Well, I have one or two last questions, mostly about doctrine. First, and this is a little blunt, but where do you guys stand on te atonement? Are you more Calvinist or lean towards the usual Southern Baptist stronghold of Free Will?”
Pastor Jay paused, “…I think you’ll find that most of the staff here lean towards the reformed side of things. I mean, Total Depravity is definitely there, Unconditional Election, Perseverence of the Saints, both here, but some of us are a little unsure about Irresistible Grace and most of us do not hold to Limited Atonement. You’re definitely not going to hear Free Will preached here, but you’re not going to hear its opposite extreme either. Pastor Jeff, I don’t know, I don’t think you’re going to hear him spouting off about any of it in a service. Same problem as above.”
I nodded, “Right, but it’s something important to me, to know where you all stand on these issues, because they will necessarily color your ministry. Look, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time today, I think for the rest of my questions I’ll need to actually come in and experience it and get to know you and your congregation.”
Jay smiled and stood, “Sounds good, we’ll see you tonight or sunday then?”
“I will likely be here tonight, but I won’t make promises for my wife. We’ll see,” I replied as we walked to the door.
“Okay, well, sorry I didn’t have the time to really sit down and dig into these things with you today. Wednesdays are really nuts, yanno.”
“Not a problem, man, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Alright, later!”
Well, this has been a fun mental workout for me. I’m Catholic, always been so. Never even looked at other Christian denominations much to see what they believed. Mostly I’ve just researched enough to counter the occasional Protestant who has come up to me on the street. So I’ve spent since you posted this looking up 5-point Calvinism and Baptist beliefs and such trying to wrap my head around the concepts listed here. It’s been really fun, so thanks for getting me to look outside my own little box.
I’m curious though, when you tried to pin Pastor Jay down on Free Will vs Predestination he seemed reluctant to answer. I can understand why they wouldn’t want to preach heavily on these topics, first of all they are kind of heady and complex, secondly it’s sort of irrelevant: either you are predestined and you’re at church because of that or you have free will and you’re at church because you have chosen to be there (I know there are some subtleties here that I’m skipping over for brevity’s sake). Regardless you are at the church and are looking for more, and that’s what they want to offer. For which I heartily applaud them.
Anyway, I know it’s a deep topic, but again, I’m curious why he wouldn’t answer either way.
Oh I also wanted to say one other thing. I know this is about your previous post but since I’m already here and too lazy to go back to the last post I wanted to point out that at the very central core of ANY ministry (particularly that of Pastor) is Love (cf 1 Cor 13). Just something to keep in mind as you think about your future and what God has called you to.
God Bless
Well, like he said, the staff hold different beliefs on the atonement, so it would be hard to nail down a specific, “this is what the church teaches” doctrine. And, that’s ok. Secondary though it may be, it colors the way people talk about salvation and the way we behave when we approach the subject of bringing the Gospel to the world.
To briefly explain the two extremes, hyper-Calvinists tend to focus on the sovereignty of God, believing that we human beings have nothing to do with our salvation. We’re either elect or we’re not, and there’s nothing we can do to affect that state. The other side of that argument, Arminians or Free Will Baptists, hold that our free will on earth is an inviolable gift of God and that He depends on us to find our way to the Gospel and to make the decision to turn to Christ.
I think the truth is somewhere in between these things. I’m also happy that he didn’t focus on that question too hard, because that means they’re not obsessed with the whole atonement question. That leaves room for focus where it belongs: on living day to day with Jesus and for Jesus and as a result of Jesus and in the saving, persevering, unmerited Grace of Jesus. I like where their focus is.
Last thing: The Christian life, as noted in the last sentence above, is focused entirely around and for Jesus. That is, after all, the fount from whence real Love flows.
Gotcha, yeah, that’s pretty much what I had read.
Yeah, it’s a complicated issue and the only thing that the Catholic Church teaches on the matter is that God doesn’t reprobate people (or however you want to phrase it): He doesn’t create people that He damns to Hell.
As I’m sure you’re aware, we believe in a form of predestination, but we aren’t really sure how it works. We are also big into free will, but not like the Arminians. Catholics teach that man can neither choose, nor do good unaided by Grace as the Bible says. We believe that man can choose evil by himself though. Now, how Grace works in the soul so that man is able to do good is still up for debate. So far the explanation that I personally like the most is that we have two choices: choose evil or choose passivity to the Spirit who then works in us to the good. At the end of the day we believe that God wills all men to be saved, some simply choose to serve themselves rather than God.