I looked 200 years into the future last week.
State Southern Baptist paper editors met in Charleston, South Carolina. First
Baptist Church was the first Baptist church in the South and we gathered there
with the state convention executive directors for worship on Thursday evening.
The worship in music was truly that – worship.
I looked 200 years into the future last week.
State Southern Baptist paper editors met in Charleston, South Carolina. First
Baptist Church was the first Baptist church in the South and we gathered there
with the state convention executive directors for worship on Thursday evening.
The worship in music was truly that – worship.
Then, Richard Furman walks slowly into the room and to a lectern.
Deliberately and forcefully, Furman begins delivering the message he had preached
earlier to the Triennial Convention as its first president. Richard Furman,
a Harvard-educated lawyer before becoming a minister, exhorts his fellow Baptists
to unite so they can further their biblically-mandated missionary, educational
and charitable causes. One may not agree with the brilliant Richard Furman,
but one cannot deny the power of his message and his conviction of its purpose.
To those of us who listen to his message, Richard Furman is either a visionary
or a daydreamer.
He has begun taking an offering to support foreign missions. He urges the children
of the church to bring their coins each Sunday to support the ministry of a
little- known missionary working in India. I have to admit that I wonder how
much good those coins will actually do.
Furman also has a vision for beginning a state Baptist convention here in South
Carolina, but how much will come of that is highly questionable. He has worked
for ten years toward such an organization, yet only nine people showed up at
his organizational meeting. He will need more than faith and determination for
that to amount to anything.
On this night, Richard Furman, dressed in period clothing of the early 1800s,
is portrayed by an actor. Furman lived from 1755 to 1825, but the impact of
his ministry is felt today, some 200 years later.
He does, indeed, stand in Charlestons First Baptist Churchs worship
center. The building is authentic and history hangs on every piece of the beautiful
worship center. The more one knows about Baptist history in the South, the more
one becomes awestruck by what God originated in this room.
Sitting in this room, listening to this timeless message, I realize I have
the privilege to look some 200 hundred years into the future from Furmans
message and ministry to see what grew in part from what I was hearing.
Richard Furman was more than a daydreamer. His vision for coins collected by
children to send to William Carey began growing when the adults of his congregation
caught their vision. That offering of coins has grown into the largest missionary
offering in the world, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions.
The Triennial Convention was the first national organization of Baptists and
from that has grown the American Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist
Convention. His vision for a state convention eventually grew to become the
first state Baptist convention and was later the model for the formation of
the Southern Baptist Convention.
Richard Furmans oratory was fired by his belief in religious freedom.
He believed that religious freedom was vital to individual faith in the New
Land that was still under the control of the British. He was, therefore, a fervent
patriot supporting independence from the British crown. The British thought
him so effective in this cause, they placed a 1000-pound bounty on his head.
His conviction of the separation of church and state was part of what most historians
credit as being the one truly unique contribution of the United States to government.
God has given Baptists in this land visionaries who not only had the visions,
but the commitment and the faith and the selflessness to be used to bring the
visions to an incarnation of reality.
There was certainly no way even a man as brilliant as Richard Furman could
have envisioned everything that would grow out of what God used him to birth.
But we can see how God used him and other believers blessed with a clear vision
of His will.
During the same meeting, we had the opportunity to meet Don and Terri Caswell
and hear their testimony. They were serving in Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen
when three IMB missionaries were killed by a radical Moslem extremist. Pharmacist
Don Caswell and his wife Terri were serving as International Mission Boards
International Service Corps.
Don Caswell was shot twice by the gunman. We found just about impossible disagreeing
with himthat it was a “miracle of God” that he was not killed.
The gunman who shot the other three with deadly accuracy hit Don twice, but
did not kill him, and missed once from only five feet away.
Certainly Richard Furman would be thankful and amazed that thousands upon thousands
of volunteers like Don and Terri Caswell have been supported by the offering
that he began with the children of his congregation. And, in larger part, his
determination for Baptists to work together has flowered in to thousands of
other ministries.
We can look 300 years into the future from when Richard Furman took his deliberate
steps following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We can see how faith and
cooperation can be used by God.
We follow in the legacy of wonderful people of faith. When we work together
in this legacy, we accomplish so much more.
One wonders: What will people see when they look 300 years into our future?
History hangs on every piece of the beautiful worship center. The more one knows
about Baptist history in the South, the more one becomes awestruck by what originated
in this room.