By the time you receive this, I will have announced to our church family that I will retire as the pastor of First Baptist Church in Barnesville effective December 31, 2020.   It is with mixed emotions that I shared this news with our congregation on Sunday, September 27^th. Suzanne and I look forward to starting a new and more relaxed phase of our life together, but to step away from leadership in such a wonderful church has made this a bitter/sweet decision for us.

Knowing this decision was coming, I have been meeting with a TRANSITION TEAM since last March. Much like the “church council” of my early days here in Barnesville, this team is made up of eight members who occupy key positions in our church.   They are Denise Cox (Women’s Missions Director),  Kathy Selph (Sunday School Director), Joe Andrews (Mission Action Team Chairman), Steven Bacon (Generations Following Building Chairman), Ken Chambless (Sunday School Class Teacher), Bill Lindsey (Church Treasurer), Stephen Smith (Deacon Chairman 2019-2020) and Scott Turner (Personnel Team Chairman).

We read and discussed together the book Next: Pastoral Succession that Works by two leading church life researchers. My goal has been to prepare a team of leaders who will, in turn, be able to help our church through this transition time between my pastorate and your next pastor. During the three months in which I will continue to be your pastor, I look forward to sharing with you good memories from our years together as well as what I hope is sound, biblical advice for your future.

According to our Constitution and Bylaws, “A pulpit (pastor search) committee will be nominated by the chairman of the deacon body and elected by the church to seek out a prospective pastor…” (page 5). Stephen Smith, our outgoing Deacon Chairman, and Harold Blevins, our incoming Deacon Chairman, have been working on putting together that pastor search team and will be ready to make a presentation soon, first to the Deacon Body and then to the entire congregation. That team will then begin the search for your new pastor. Please be much in prayer for this entire process that it might be done in a “proper and orderly way.” (1 Corinthians 14:40)

Our church has enjoyed almost 200 fruitful years with 34 pastors that were privileged to “shepherd the flock of God.” (1 Peter 5:2) As I think about the future, I am excited about what God is going to do in and through this church family! You blessed me with a wonderful, dedicated and talented church staff. You blessed me with deacons who “deak” and teachers who teach. You were always cooperative in every endeavor we undertook for the advancement of the Gospel of Christ. You made it easy to be your pastor. Thank you!

We are in PHASE 4 of our re-opening and it’s good to see the church filling back up again, even though we must remain in simultaneous services at 9:00 and 11:00 to socially distance ourselves. SUNDAY SCHOOL is going well, too. Our teachers and class members are to be commended for their creativity and faithfulness to their task during this unprecedented time. We began our PARTIAL WEDNESDAY NIGHT reopening on September 16^th. This will continue through the end of the year.    Beginning in 2021, we look forward to bringing back our choir programs on Wednesdays at 5:00 P.M. with our Wednesday Night Supper at 5:45.

My 28 ½ years with you have passed so quickly. Thank you for making First Baptist Church of Barnesville the best church any minister could hope to be blessed to pastor!      And, ALWAYS REMEMBER…

The first thing you’ll notice about our September Witness is that it is different from past newsletters.   Most of our newsletters are long on graphics and short on text.    We hope to keep the eye-appeal in this month’s newsletter, but we have added a great deal more text from our ministerial staff.

Navigating our way through COVID-19 has been the greatest challenge of my 36 years of pastoral ministry.   There have been greater crisises both nationally and locally during those years, but there hasn’t been anything that so dramatically changed the way we do everything, including church!    Thank you for hanging in there with us during this turbulent, confusing time as we have sought to continue to minister to our church and community.    Speaking of ministry, you will read about the ministries and ministry plans that each of our ministerial staff have been involved in or are planning in this Witness.   

We hope that we are seeing “the light at the end of the tunnel.”    Through Sunday, September  6^th, we will maintain our Phase 3 schedule of Classic services (Sanctuary & Gym) at 9:00 A.M. and Contemporary services (Sanctuary & Gym) at 11:00 A.M.    Those will be done with reservations to maintain social distancing, but we are adding childcare for both 11:00 services for birth through Pre-K that will continue on.

We look forward to more fully reopening our church on Sunday, September 13^th.   This will be our PHASE 4 opening and will include the following features: