I am Southern Baptist because of the faithful witness of Christian believers. It was a neighbor who first took my mom and us young children to church. My mom received Christ and was baptized in a Southern Baptist church. We moved to the city, where again Southern Baptists visited and kept encouraging my family, in spite of my dad’s unwelcoming actions and comments. The move to the next community showed my dad he couldn’t get away from Southern Baptists’ love and concern. He saw Christ and believed, and he was baptized.
I witnessed the impact Southern Baptist churches had on my parents and my sisters. I attended a Southern Baptist college. I met my husband at a Southern Baptist church camp, and we grew in Christ – attending Southern Baptist churches in nine states from New Jersey to California, from Iowa to Texas. We always searched out and joined a Southern Baptist church.
I am thankful for the debt I owe to Southern Baptists. I will always be Southern Baptist. Would I change the name? Yes. A thousand times, yes, if the Southern Baptist name hinders only one from being open to hearing the good news.
We are followers of Christ. Southern Baptists follow the words Jesus spoke in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed.”
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