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CLYDE GLAZENER delivers the president's address at the BGCT annual session in Dallas.
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Glazener urges Texas Baptists to 'shine and serve'
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Texas Baptists must "shine and serve," Clyde Glazener told messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas' 116th annual session last week in Dallas.
___Glazener, pastor of Gambrell Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth, referenced the theme of the meeting in his president's address.
___"Our wonderful theme that challenges Texas Baptists to 'be the presence of Christ in the world' speaks to us of the Lordship of Christ Jesus in our lives," said Glazener, who concluded his second one-year term as president in Dallas.
___"It challenges us to be the hands and feet and voice of the Savior to a world in need of his
healing and helping and redeeming presence."
___As followers of Christ, Texas Baptists are challenged to go into the world with "a towel and a light," he said.
___"The towel says we're ready to serve humankind," he noted, referencing Jesus' use of a towel when he humbly washed the feet of his disciples.
___"And the light is from the Spirit living in us," he added. "Our light shines brightest when the darkness is flooding around us, and we are using the towel we have been given to serve, and we're telling the great news of Jesus that can bring light and new life."
___Glazener said he has been assigned a towel with his name on it, and he has the light of God's presence in his heart.
___"As I join hand and heart with hundreds and thousands (of Texas Baptists), I must go look for feet that need washing and darkness that must be conquered by light," he said.
___The former seminary professor indirectly referenced the tension between the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention, which has become increasingly conservative the past two decades.
___"God does not send us out with a creed for folks to sign or a position paper to ostracize the unorthodox," he said. "We have not been given the task of searching out the weeds and tares in God's fields. He hasn't even commissioned us to discover who believes the Bible the most or whose statement of faith is faulty.
___"Of course, we believe the Bible is the word of God and has truth without any mixture of error for its matter. But we are not instructed to go forth armed with a creed to combat brothers and sisters whose belief system is almost the same as ours."
___Instead, God "sends us forth with a towel and the light," he said.
___Ministering to people means BGCT Baptists "support institutions of learning to dispel the darkness of ignorance," Glazener added. "We provide child-care ministries to bless the lives of children exploited by circumstances not of their making. We give bread to the hungry and love to the unloved and the seemingly unlovely. And in dozens of ways, we work to meet the needs of the needy.
___"In many kinds of ways in every corner of Texas and all over the world, we're punching holes in the awful darkness the absence of Christ's light brings. We tell them the Jesus story. He serves through us, and he shines through us as we tell about the cross and resurrection."
___Men and women, boys and girls "from the slums to the silk-stocking lanes grope through life searching for meaning in their darkness," Glazener said. "With all the siren voices of a sensate pleasure-seeking world, the false trumpets of pseudo-religions lying to them about the light, they cry out in anguish: 'Why doesn't God say something? Let God speak so that I can understand!'"
___Texas Baptists are attempting to do that, he reported.
___"We're trying to let the message of God be heard and seen through Texas Baptists. God loves you just as you are, and he loves you way too much to leave you as you are. He wants you to know forgiveness and wholeness and meaning and purpose and joy and fulfillment through Jesus Christ, who died to buy your pardon."
___God "intends to dispel the darkness by shining through us," Glazener added. "He invites every Christian who is a part of the family of Texas Baptists to shine all over Texas with the presence of Christ.
___"God does not judge us by the buildings we build or the number of heretics we've defrocked.
___"But it may be that God will tell every one of his redeemed women and men, 'I gave you a towel with your name on it, and I sent my Holy Spirit to live in you.' ... Then he may ask, 'Whose feet did you wash, and where did you punch holes in the darkness?' ...
___"I don't know what you plan to do. But I plan to join with my fellow Texas Baptists and go look for some feet to wash and some folks living in darkness with whom I can share the light of the gospel."
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