“New Baptist Covenant – Window of Opportunity”

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

It seems to me that one of the most dangerous Christian assumptions we can make is that with God it is never too late.  Now I believe that God is always there, always available to hear and help us, that there will never be a time when we want God that God won’t be there for us.  I believe with all my heart that no matter how badly we fail or how many times we make the same mistake, no matter how deep the rut we’re living in or how long we’ve been stuck there or no matter how totally out of hope we have become, it is never too late for a new kind of life.  It is never too late for God.

I believe all this to be truth.  And yet, beside this very hopeful truth lies another ominous truth.  May I say it again?  A most dangerous Christian assumption is that with God it is never too late.  Isaiah speaks of this ominous truth when he says, “Seek the Lord WHILE he may be found, Call upon him WHILE he is near.”  My hunch is that this limit of God’s availability may be less about God and more about us, but that doesn’t change a thing, this ominous truth still holds.

Aren’t there moments in a human life of great opportunity that if not acted upon can harm us?  Is it possible to have good impulses and good inclinations over and over again and to ignore them for so long that they simply stop coming?  Mulling this thing over, I’ve been struck by how many familiar old sayings speak to the urgency of acting at the opportune time: “Strike while the iron is hot;” “Time and tide wait for no man;” “It’s now or never;” “Get while the getting’s good.”  Apparently common wisdom knows all about this.  Isn’t it strange that on the level of the spiritual, the moral, and the relational we are so strangely relaxed about what’s at stake in the passing of time?

This brings me to the New Baptist Covenant gathering in Atlanta, January 30 – February 1, 2008.  Baptists are in a state of grief over the divisions that have happened in Baptist life all over this country in the past 25 years.  Many are at the point of verbal hostility and open rejection of the other.  We have certainly focused on what divides us rather than on the “ties that bind.”  Over the years there have been attempts to reconcile the differences in more constructive ways.  After one attempt would fail, we would later be stirred to try again with slight differences in the language and approach to bring some kind of reconciliation to the family, for ours is a ministry of reconciliation after all.  And these would fail as well.  We have repeated this pattern until we have found ourselves cold, cynical, and numb to the needs of the very ones that once we loved and served alongside.  

It doesn’t take long before the urge to be bothered doesn’t happen anymore and the old stirrings are gone.  It is so easy to become so arrogant, so self-serving, and so blind to oneself that our talk of God to those outside the church appears absurd, counterfeit, and empty of God.

That’s why when President Carter called Baptist conventions from across North America to come together to model to our world that Baptists will actually work together and at the same time maintain their distinctiveness, I went.  I want you to know the spirit and heart of this is right.  Every Baptist convention is invited to participate.  It is exciting to see black Baptists, white Baptists, Canadian Baptists, Baptists on the West Coast and East Coast and everywhere in-between be a part of this gathering.  This gathering is a stirring from God.  It asks that we be open to the possibility that God awaits us with pardon and with power to guide us into a whole new day.

I have learned that when you feel the slightest urge or have the smallest stirring of some new compassion or a longing for something to be changed– pay attention to that.  Let that be a sign that God is very near and that there is yet time for God to do a new thing among us.

Here is how you can be a part of this historic meeting this coming January in Atlanta.  Check out the website www.newbaptistcovenant.org.  Also, you can contact Marilee White at marilee.White@vbmb.org for information about the block of hotel rooms reserved for Virginia Baptists.