On Sunday, Jimmy Scroggins became the pastor of First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach. He will return for awhile to his previous position to wrap things up there before beginning his ministry here. His previous position happens to be in Louisville, Kentucky. There he has been the Teaching Pastor of Highview Baptist Church and the Dean of the Boyce Bible College at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Suzie and I moved to West Palm Beach from Louisville with a short run through Daytona Beach. I also attended Southern Seminary during the time that Jimmy was studying there.
So there I was in the middle of a full worship center thinking about this guy “following” me from Louisville to West Palm. Soon, I felt the tears in the corner of my eyes as I thought about God pursuing me all of these years. Let me try and put some of the thought and emotional pieces together that made such an impact on me Sunday.
Years ago, I came very close to moving to Miami to start a new church. One of the men that we were working with made a comment about people who move to South Florida. (If you haven’t been here, most people are not from here.) He told me that most South Floridians have come in escape something somewhere else. Snowbirds have escaped the cold, northern weather. Cubans have escaped Castro and communism. Retirees have escaped work. Third world citizens have escaped poverty and oppression. Party people have escaped family and/or cultural norms.
So here I am in West Palm Beach. Escaped from cold weather and a checkered past in Louisville. A past that included Baptist church life and Southern Seminary. I finally mustered the courage to begin attending a Baptist church a few months ago. I had avoided First Baptist during my first year or so in the city. The church had been through a struggle over a pastor that didn’t live up to his calling. They had been without a pastor for a good while. I didn’t want to be reminded of my failures any more than I already am.
We went to First Baptist and I was pleased to find a church that seemed eager for God even though times have been hard. I was pleased to find an interim pastor in Dr. Bob Barnes that clearly loves the church and that was willing for God to speak through him. Then comes Jimmy Scroggins. It finally dawned on me this Sunday, that I can’t escape what I have been through in the past. I also can’t ignore that God is showing himself in the present. My wife, Suzie has recently come to faith and has been baptized (see pictures in blog entry below). I must admit that God must have something in mind for the future.
So, Jimmy is a representation of much that I have tried to escape. Yet there I was moved by his affirmation that “I want to be a Jesus man.” There I was sitting there listening to him challenge sin and listing bitterness as a sin. I surely have let bitterness repeatedly rear it’s ugly head in my life. Then I was standing in a line of people for nearly an hour after the service to greet and welcome him.
I am no longer looking for escape. Instead I am looking to “be a Jesus man.”
