First Baptist Church Of Memphis

I don’t know what your task around the house is.  Mine is the laundry.  Leigh Ann and I share most other jobs.   But I do the laundry and she does the check book and bills.  It’s been this way for some time.  I chose the laundry because even my non-multi-tasking self can manage folding clothes while watching a ballgame.  Leigh Ann can manage doing the books while watching the ballgame.  Not me.  I’d write down somebody’s rushing yard total for the water bill, and we’d be in trouble in no time.  When this first started, when there were just three of us, one very small, I thought it was a pretty good deal.  Now that there are five of us including two teenagers and a child who has more sports uniforms than I have suits. ..I’m not so sure.  Laundry day is every day that ends in “y.”
 Regardless, it’s what I do.  It’s not what I want to do.  It’s not what I dream of doing even with my family.  I dream of Disney.  I dream of camping in Yellowstone, of floating the Grand Canyon.  Not laundry.  But, if I’m ever to achieve any of those dreams for myself and my family—a lot of other things have to be done first, and one of them is the laundry.
I have dreams for our church.  I bet you do to.  I dream of our church being a missional outreach center with sports and arts and tutoring programs rooted in discpleship.  I dream of having an artist in residence, someone like a Kyle Matthews or a dramatist, who could be with us for a period of time and teach and augment our already excellent worship and programming.  I dream of our church being a leader in the area of racial reconciliation in our divided city.  I could go on and on.  You know me by now.  Dreaming is my game.
 But first we have some laundry to do.  That’s not to say that we cannot dream now.  Nor is it to say that we cannot strive for and achieve some “small victories” as we like to call it on the Vision Team.   We have done that, and will continue to do that.  But if we are to truly dream big, we’ve got some laundry to do.
 What’s our laundry?  Well, we’ve already named part of it.  It has to do with outreach and growth, with that snap shot of a vision that I’ve already offered of 500 in worship with a younger demographic.  You simply cannot support dreams like those named above without a critical mass of that nature.  Secondly, you can look at facility.  We can’t strive to use our facility as a base if it’s in disrepair.  We’ve made significant progress on that this year, but that progress has not been cheap or easy.  This brings us to the third piece of our laundry which is finances.  This is a piece of laundry that is in everyone’s basket right now—families, businesses, the city, the state, universities, etc.   Indeed, to be dealing with finances is nothing to be ashamed of.  In fact, we have done better than most.  But still, if we are to pursue our dreams and have some “small victories” along the way, we must find reliable ways of financing them.
 That’s the purpose of our town hall meetings.  By now, one will have already happened on November 22.  If by chance you missed that one, please come to the one following worship on December 6.  If you miss both, we still want to hear from you.  We want to hear what you’re excited about.  We want to hear your dreams.  But we also want to hear your suggestions on how we can generate more revenue as well as creatively save.
Yes, our pile of laundry is tall—not unlike the pile that awaits me on top of our laundry table, I mean, pool table.  (At least I think that’s what lies underneath that pile???)  But we can tackle it together.  Remember church is a “we” thing.  Alone, we can do little, but together with God’s help. . .well, that’s the stuff of which dreams are made.  
Well, gotta run.  Besides, all of this had given me an idea.  “Hannah, Seth, Micah. . .I’ve got something I need your help with. . . .”

Grace, David