Past, Present, Future


Today I was in the town of Olney, England.  It is the spot on the globe where former slave trader John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace,” and also pastored the Olny Church of St. Peter & St. Paul.  It is also the location of the Sutcliff Baptist Church which is considered the birthplace of the Baptists who first met on that site in a barn around 1650.  We were all very surprised to walk in that historic church in this quaint little village to find dual projection screens, drum set, flat screen rear monitors, sound and light board in the rear.  Coming out of the church and taking a picture of the sign, a little lady was walking by and asked why we would be interested in taking a picture of her church’s sign. 

That’s when I met Connie Page, a 90-year-old member of the Baptist Church.  Telling her we were Baptist Singing Men from SC, we asked her what worship was like in Sutcliff 25 years ago when she came to Olney.   As expected, the worship was very traditional with a pipe organ.  The church removed and sold the organ about 6 years ago which caused quite a stir in the congregation as you can imagine.  But yet, this lady was still at the church and has a love for it.  She has seen a lot of changes in her lifetime in her country, her family and in her church.  So she seemed to be taking the changes in her church in an attitude of mixed emotions—a sadness in losing certain things of the past and yet knowing that the younger generation are making changes for their future.

Before we parted I asked if we could pray for her and if she had any special prayer requests.  She had no specific request, and it struck me that perhaps she had not been asked a question like that in a while.   I asked about her family and it sounded like there were not many of her family left and that she was alone and ready to leave this world.  When I finished my prayer she had a tear running down her check.   Charlie and I gave her a hug and a little bit of God’s love fell down upon us all as we parted, each to our own, yet similar worlds.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persecution of the Church Begins By Teaching That All Church-Goers Are The Church

Image
  I saw this article online and it naturally caught my attention.  It was written by Moises Mendez II who, according to his own profile is "a recent graduate from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He is a freelance journalist based in New York City writing about everything from music to LGBTQ issues." What is your reaction to this statement? "Sunday morning after church is the worst type of customer... you won't change my mind."  My first thought was, "Well, that's one guy's opinion and he has a right to it, but he would have to already have a bias against Christians to make such a blanket conclusion about all people who go to church on Sundays."  Mr. Mendez is not the one pictured here, but he included in his article this video by a Tik-Tok-er named Saint_Hypnos as "exhibit A" for his post: If the video won't play, go to  Servers Say 'Sunday Morning After Church' Are the Worst Customers (dailydot.co
Read more

D.S. al Coda is Back!

Image
After a three-year hiatus from writing this Blog, I have picked up D.S. al Coda once again.  I left off this blog site as I wrote a weekly column for the Lexington Chronicle since January of 2019.  I felt somewhat restricted from being able to write solely about the most important things in life to me--our Heavenly Father and the salvation we can have through Jesus Christ, His Son. I enjoyed the experience of writing for the paper and felt I should do so as my father, Rev. Bert Williams wrote articles for years for the Orangeburg T & D.  And I recently compiled and published a book called, "A Year of Sr. Living--52 articles form the Lexington Chronicle 2019-2021".  I would love for you to have a copy of this book.  It is on sale for $10 at this website: www.RestoringHisTruth.com . Postage is free and I will be happy to mail you a copy or simply sell it to you at Lexington Baptist Church. I enjoy writing.  I had a professor who said 3 words that I never forgot: “Be a write
Read more

Trusting God in a Highly Suspicious World

Image
Do you remember Alfred E. Newman?   He was Mad Magazine's poster child for the perennial adolescent who's motto for life was "What, me worry?"   The only thing wrong with Alfred was that the reason he never worried about anything was because he was in ignorant bliss.   He was his own boss as a cartoon, not answerable to anyone.   He was created with no obligations whatsoever, so what did he have to worry about?   The real challenge for anyone seeking to live a godly life in a world where Satan goes about seeking whom he may devour is to follow the Lord's instructions to die to self and live a life trusting God for everything. Our natural inclination is to not trust anyone but ourselves.   But that's why someone came up with the phrase, "If someone represents himself in court, he has a fool for a lawyer."   The Biblical equivalent of that is Proverbs 28:26, "He that trusts in his own heart is a fool: but whoever walks wisely, he shall be d
Read more