NEIGHBOURGRAMS

Many years ago, I entered the doctoral track at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I had chosen Church History as my focus, which brought me into the life of Dr. Penrose St. Amant. This professor was a brilliant communicator who taught most of the time without notes, filling the blackboards with dates and places from any century in focus.

A fellow entrant into the program named Chuck sat beside me as he sat on the edge of his desk to welcome us to our journey. He held out his arm and cupped his fingers as though he were holding an imaginary baseball. He said, "You men have come to the highest level of academics this denomination offers. You have a moral obligation as historians to remain objective about the theology and structure of Southern Baptists. You must see the specific segments of church life that are out of touch with Biblical truth and with human society in this period of time. You must speak into it with clarity and courage. That is your greatest challenge: not only to study history, but also to create change in the history of your generation."

Those comments were used by the Holy Spirit to plant something in my spirit that would change the entire direction of my life. As the years passed, I saw at "arm's length" the dry rot of a structure that focused on programs rather than people. Indeed, in the 1970's, Dr. W.O. Howse coined a phrase to describe the structures: "Program Base Design." The biblical concept of community was forgotten, replaced by how to structure baskets to dump church members into: Sunday School baskets, Training Union baskets, Choir baskets, etc. It was a subtle depersonalization of the people of God. The seminaries focused on preparing young men to organize the baskets. Ecclesia as an organism was seldom considered.

The Chinese elderly have a saying when they want to "put down" a brash young person: "I have eaten more salt than you have eaten rice!" Now that I am 79, I could make such a remark--but instead, I would like to say to young pastors and seminary men, "I did what St. Amant said. I have lived on the edge for all these years. Out of my life, God has caused many men around the world to realize P.B.D. structures are human mistakes that smother the Kingdom Communities that contain the Indwelling Christ."

Now, it's your turn! Are you prepared to objectively view the disintegration of traditional churchianity and form true Christ-directed ecclesia? Either you get sucked into the present systems or you must hold what you see at the end of your arm in your hand and ask, "Lord, if the sacred Body of Christ is to become authentic during my lifetime, what would you have me do to bring change to it?"