Pan Dulce

Texas Baptist Week

This week is full of opportunities to connect with our Texas Baptist Family. One of my assignments as President of Buckner Children and Family Services, Inc. is to represent Buckner to the Baptist General Convention of Texas. With only five days in this week, four of them will be spent at meetings of the BGCT.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week I will attend the meetings of the Executive Board, the Human Welfare Committee and the Institutional Relations Committee. We will be discussing the Non-Solicitation Agreement that relates to all 23 BGCT-related institutions.

I believe it is critical that we continue to avoid solicitation of Texas Baptist Cooperative Program Funds. However, we have entered a new era of missional work where churches are at the leading edge of redemptive activity and prefer to engage mission projects independent of denominational structures. Many churches continue to look to our Texas Baptist denomination for guidance and support regarding missions but many also find their own way. As independent and autonomous Baptist churches, the freedom to innovate and express congregational identity and passion has always been there but seems to be manifesting itself in greater creativity and expedient response to the ever changing mission field.

I could blog everyday (400 words usually) this week and tell you about specific examples of churches that are engaging missions directly in magnificent ways through Buckner. Other churches are doing fabulous work on their own without Buckner, BGCT or anyone else. One example of this is Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler that has launched a campaign to adopt 100 children into families from within the church. Wow! I hope that vision catches like wild-fire in the Texas Baptist family.

The beauty of our BGCT Family is that our churches are free! They are free to express themselves and pursue their God-given Kingdom assignment and they are doing just that. One approach would be to harness all that energy into one way of doing missions. Another approach would be to provide ways to create new alternatives beyond the Mary Hill Davis Offering for State Missions and the Cooperative Program to channel the passion of the churches through human welfare and educational ministries affiliated with the BGCT beyond the regular BGCT budget. I am not talking about diminishing other offerings but creating new avenues for giving. I am not convinced we have scratched the surface of the giving capacity of our Texas Baptist family. We may not have stewardship opportunities in place that match the giving creativity of our churches.

On Thursday and Friday of this week I will be meeting with the CEO’s of 23 affiliated ministries of the BGCT. We will talk about the same issues. Pray that we might find pathways to the kind of future that intersects with God’s redemptive work.

Family Life and The Christian Alliance for Orphans: Summit V

This past weekend I surprised my wife, Belinda, with “A Weekend to Remember,” a Family Life Ministry Conference affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ. This was our second conference in our 27 years of marriage and worth every penny and every minute we spent there.

We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Grapevine reflecting on our marriage, listening to gifted speakers, and reconnecting with longtime friends. The conference impressed upon us the importance of marriage, our life-long commitment to each other, and the legacy we are developing through our three sons. We picked up several good books that spoke to issues we need to work on to improve our marriage.

There were several outstanding, truly life changing moments at the conference. One of those moments was when Dan Jarrell, teaching pastor at ChangePoint shared his story of adoption. He shared how uncertain he was about the financial responsibility and the commitment required. He shared how his wife asked him to pray about it and the he told how an anonymous gift was provided for their first adoption. He went on to share how he and his wife adopted two little girls with mixed-race culture. What an awesome story. Kyle and Sharon Dodd also did an outstanding job of presenting topics to couples there. We made history with 4,200 in attendance. This is the highest attendance at any conference Family Life has ever hosted.

Another highlight of the conference was the opportunity to visit with Dennis Rainey, President and Founder of Family Life Ministry. After some small talk, we spent most of our time talking about the upcoming Summit V hosted by The Christian Alliance for Orphans. Summit V will be held on April 30th and May 1st at Irving Bible Church in Irving, Texas. Speakers include Dennis Rainey, Dr. Tony Evans, and others. I hope you will consider attending this conference. Dr. Ken Hall and I will be leading break-outs and there will be a host of other agencies and organizations present that will rally around serving children who don’t have families.

In our 27 years as a couple, I cannot think of a single investment, other than regular church attendance, that has brought higher returns to the success of our marriage than The Family Life Conference. I commend this to you even if you are engaged to be married. Whether you have been married for a few years or lots of years, you will be glad you spent a weekend focusing on how to nurture your marriage. We re-stated our vows at the end of the three-day conference. It was a life-changing experience.

Celebrating the Life of Dr. Rudy Sánchez: Pastor, Father, and Denominational Leader

On Saturday, I learned that my former pastor, Dr. Rudy Sanchez passed away in Dallas, Texas. He served as pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista (First Mexican Baptist Church) of Corpus Christi, Dallas, Bryan, and Trinity Baptist Church of Houston. He is survived by his wife Ruth, two daughters: Rhoda (Rev. Vincent Gonzales) and Rebekah (Chris Layne) and three sons: Reggie Sánchez, Scottie Sánchez, and Herman Splatt.

The Memorial Service will be held on Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 7pm at Northway Baptist Church in Dallas and an Interment Service will be held at 10 am on Friday, February 13th at Rest Land Cemetery in Dallas.

I would not normally write about a personal friend on this blog. However, Bro. Rudy was my pastor when I answered a call to vocational ministry in 1974. I walked forward in the service during a revival to respond to an invitation to vocational ministry. I felt the Lord moving my heart in that service. Bro. Rudy took me under his wing and put me to work, immediately. He affirmed my fragile sense of calling and put me to work taking me at my word and heart. He gave me a responsibility in the children’s ministry, youth ministry and within one year provided an opportunity to preach my first sermon in a public congregational service. If you have heard me preach lately, you have heard me recount that experience. About 34 years have passed by and I am still preaching the same gospel. I am one of many of his sons in the ministry to include Frank Palos, Dr. Gus Reyes, Dr. Delfino Aleman, Joe Rojo, Charlie Diaz, Dr. Ellis Orozco, and the list goes on. There are many who will read this blog and will also add their names to the list of those who were formed for vocational ministry under Dr. Sánchez’ leadership or influenced by his life and ministry.

I have been asked to participate in the funeral services as one of the ministers to remember his life and ministry. Bro. Rudy taught several lessons through his example. He taught me to see the community as his parish rather than merely the congregation that met on Sunday. He demonstrated the value of engaging pastors and priests of other denominations while fiercely advancing the Baptist vision of Kingdom work. He never forgot his life journey as an orphan and found ways to serve the least of these: the orphan, the widow, the poor, the sick, the prisoner, and the oppressed. He taught me how to love the larger Baptist family and demonstrated that you enact change by personal involvement rather than critiquing from a distance. He taught me to expect much from the Texas Baptist Family and to dream for better days to advance the Kingdom. Most of all, he taught me how to be a pastor by taking the time to attend an awards ceremony at my high school Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps. He made time for me. To this day, I remain amazed but remembered how important it was for me to have my pastor there. I tried to replicate that value in my pastoral ministry but I am sure I missed of few of those divine appointments. Please take time to pray for Bro. Rudy’s family: Ruth, Rhoda, Vincent, Rebekah, Reggie, Scottie, Herman and their grandchildren as they remember their dad and grandpa.

Carson Newman College, Jefferson City and FBC Knoxville

I arrived list night for the first time in Knoxville, Tennessee for our first Go Be Do Missions Conference at the historic First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Our host pastor is Dr. Bill Shiell, Truett Seminary Grad and former pastor of FBC San Angelo. Bill is a great friend to Buckner and is a leading pastor in innovative approaches to impacting the community of a city-center church.

This morning I had the privilege of speaking at the Chapel Service of Carson Newman College in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church Jefferson City, Tn. Dr. Randall O’Brien, President of Carson Newman was my host. He is the former Executive Vice President and Provost of Baylor University. My wife Belinda introduced me to Dr. O’Brien in her service as a Baylor Regent and Dr. Obrien was also our pastor for a brief time while we were members at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio. It was good to see Dr. O’Brien again and to see him in his new leadership post. The students in chapel seemed very attentive and focused on the worship experience. The music team was lead by Cary Steward and New Nation, a multicultural student lead team. Cary is a dynamic worship leader. I was impressed at the dedication of these students to prepare to lead their peers in worship. Carson Newman is a liberal arts Baptist college in East Tennessee. What a powerful resource for Redemption.

I spoke on Pursing the Jesus Agenda out of Luke 4:14 and challenged the students to Go, Be, and Do with Buckner to serve 133 million orphans in the world and invited them to our missions conference at FBC Knoxville on Friday for a Global Missions Concert featuring Geoff Moore at 7pm and Saturday morning for the missions conference. Dr. Ken Hall, president and CEO of Buckner International and I will share the platform and we have several Buckner staff and other mission agencies who will host breakouts. We are praying and expecting several hundred attendees.

Bill Shiell is quite a pastoral leader with the gumption to get things done expecting God to provide. His vision for missions and community ministry is an inspiration to me. I am finding that more and more pastors are way down the road leading their churches to global impact and hands on missions. Buckner is challenged to catch up to what the Spirit is doing in the churches, for the church is the cutting edge of redemptive reality in the world. We are privileged to have caught up to the Spirit this week in Knoxville and Jefferson City. Pray that the Lord ignite a fire that will bloom into a movement in Tennessee to the ends of the earth.