NEWS FLASH!!  It’s 2008 and the world is changing.  Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it, just saying the year 2008 sounds strange.  I know we have already been in the 2000’s for almost 10 years now, but it’s still strange.  If you would have asked me 1998 what living in the year 2008 was like, I think I would have imagined flying cars or something (That’s an allusion to Back to the Future 2 for all of us who grew up in the 1980’s).  In fact, things ARE different; it’s just not in the way I thought.

          Not only is our world changing, though, our church world is changing as well.  There are fewer and fewer of us at The Baptist Church of Beaufort who grew up Baptists.  For some of us, we came to Beaufort and we automatically looked for Baptist church.  We grew up Baptist and we wanted to be in a Baptist church.  Today, when people come to town they look for a specific type of worship style or style of church programming or preaching style.  The denominational title matters less than the how one experiences God in a particular community of faith.

          Because of this many of us do not know what it means to be Baptist anymore.  We call ourselves The Baptist Church of Beaufort, without realizing the power, history and purpose of those words.  In fact, being Baptist is central to who we are as a church. It’s our identity.  It’s how we operate.  It’s our past and our future.

          Over the month of January I will preach a sermon series called “Rediscovering Baptist in The Baptist Church of Beaufort.”  I hope for this series to be an interactive experience for all of us.  Here’s what I mean.  Each Sunday I’ll preach a sermon based on our Baptist heritage and future.  On the Wednesday night afterward, I’ll have a further lecture and question and answer session on the subject of that Sunday’s sermon.  I’ll also be using our website for this as well.  I’ll try to post my written sermon on the web each Monday before our Wednesday session.  Attached to the sermon I hope to include several of the original documents that I’ll be using in the sermon and lectures.  My goal for this experience is that we will all be challenged to live deeper lives of faith in the future because of our understanding of our Baptist heritage and distinctives.

          This will be a challenging opportunity for all of us.  I hope you will take the opportunity to get engaged, grow and be challenged.  I’ll see you Sunday.  Eric