"As long as I am alive, you will be too."

If anyone loved their church it was my father.  For someone who waited a couple of decades into his life to join his local Baptist church he made up for lost time.  His 65 year membership in the First Baptist Church in Richlands NC was one of increasing devotion and desire to improve the relationships of fellow members and outreach of the ministry.   Considering my mother, Wilma Jones, is the one who pushed him from being a believing Christian to being a practicing Christian I have some huge shoes to fill.

But this Sunday I found myself in that role.  I dearly love this church and the congregation and have a long history of association since it was the church in which I was raised, found repentance, and grew to love my Lord.  There is also the little matter that I was "tasked" by my father during his last year to help do his part to make sure a certain item on his check list got completed.  Fortunately for me the current pastor and leadership at RFBC are doing the heavy lifting and getting the last check mark on that list closer and closer to being fully checked off.  My only contribution has been to verbally push the idea and to financially contribute what my father would have if he had been here. 

During his last year of life his love for the his church that was literally across the street from his home had us discussing the church's future regularly.  The church at the time had a intentional interim pastor who in my opinion was God sent in his calling to slowly point the church towards the future. "Pastor Larry" as he asked to be known was a fine a Christian man as I have ever known.  On the Sunday following the Friday passing of my father he dismissed regular Sunday services for a hour or so of remembering "Mr. Bonner Hugh", as my father was known to the membership.  As my wife and I sat there listening it became clear to us through the tears and pride that we needed to do whatever my father would have wanted in getting the Family Life Center built.  

So now some over five years since my father passed on this Sunday we got the pleasure of being invited to witness the groundbreaking of the Richlands First Baptist Church Family Life Center.  The present pastor Gary McAbee, also in my opinion God sent, has slowly lead the church towards this moment from almost the first day he stepped foot in Richlands.  His leadership became obvious to me when three years ago I asked him to help me get an annual youth scholarship started in my father's name to a worthy young person who was a member of the church and needed some financial help with starting post high school study.  That first scholarship was handed out last year after Pastor McAbee never tired of this task.  This man was a Chrstian leader as well  and I was convinced he would get the RFBC moving again towards the Family Life Center my father so wanted to see built. 

Just before Sunday services today I ran into one of my father's oldest friends and long time music director there.  His comment of "good to see you here today" was quickly followed by " actually I would have been surprised if you had not been here today" spoke directly to how I felt at the moment. I would have walked from my home 85 miles away if it had been needed.  The service was uplifting with wonderful music on this joyous occasion and the pastor gave an inspiring message.  Maybe it was just luck, but I tend to think it was another God inspired act, that the church choir sung a outstanding version of "How great thou art".  That was my mother's favorite hymn.  

As the ground was broken in the ceremony as the church membership stood by watching my wife and I were there watching as well.  During the ceremony I took a second to look over the street to the house that was once my childhood home and my father's residence for right at 40 years and knew he was looking on as well. His generation had lead the charge some 44 years earlier by buying land the current church sits on and building the buildings adjacent to the new Family Life Center.  I expect it was at some moment some half a century earlier they too had someone task them with getting the church to move forward and exit it's Hargett Street home and find the land and financial resources to grow the church and increase the ministry at the now Rand Street home.  We all build on the shoulders of the generations past and the land we now build on was bought with the foresight that in the future when new church buildings were needed there would be land to build on, so it will be for those who are young and looking on today we pray. 

As this new building takes form and is occupied hopefully early next year I will get the moment to realize that the task has been accomplished via the current generations efforts and as my father was accustomed to say that we have "passed it on".   During his last year as he became more concerned about his declining health and the church's future regarding the Family Life Center I told him to "pass on" that concern to me as when he was gone and I was still here I would do as he would have done.  My comment was simple  "as long as I am alive, you will be too."  " Mr. Bonner Hugh" the building is in construction and I expect there are several others in his generation looking on pleased with the current generation's efforts as well.