MILFORD BAPTIST CHURCH
Small-town lighthouse
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___MILFORD--It's "fellowship time" during Sunday morning worship at First Baptist Church of Milford, and the 50 or so people gathered this morning are enthusiastically greeting each other.
___Worshippers move from one side of the sanctuary to the other--hugging, laughing,
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PASTOR John Wheatley, a recent graduate of Truett Seminary, sits in the sanctuary, built in 1917.
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visiting, greeting--as the pianist plays "I'm So Glad I'm a Part of the Family of God."
___When the song is over, the greetings are not.
___The music director attempts in vain to regain control. Finally, smiling, he leads the pianist to begin the next hymn. No one can hear his announcement over the happy chatter, but by the end of the first stanza everyone has returned to his or her seat and picked up the song.
___Ask any member what makes this church special and they'll reply, "The people."
___First Baptist Church of Milford is a people-focused church, a participatory church, a community church.
___Many consider the small church to be the center of community life in this rural town situated 14 miles north of Hillsboro. Geographically, Milford lies about a mile off I-35. But traveling that mile takes a visitor back 20 or 30 years to a community where children run freely and safely all over town, where everybody knows everybody and where tractors are more common than tract housing.
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A MEMBER of First Baptist Church receives a carnation from a young boy during a recent Sunday morning service, which the church designated "Sweetheart Sunday."
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___It's also a town with more storefronts boarded up than in use. There's a grocery store and a school. But for gasoline or the Dairy Queen, residents must drive 4 miles north to Italy.
___Like hundreds of other small Texas towns, Milford is the kind of place where no one would be surprised to see a church closed for lack of business. In fact, some churches in Milford have closed or are barely keeping the doors open.
___But First Baptist Church is thriving--even working to raise $75,000 for building renovations and to construct a new parsonage.
___What makes the difference? Determination, faith and a can-do attitude, according to Pastor John Wheatley.
___Things haven't always looked so rosy, though. Five years ago, the church had been without a pastor for more than a year, had dwindled to about 25 people in worship attendance and couldn't find anyone to preach on Easter Sunday.
___About the same time, Wheatley was sensing God might be calling him to leave his job with a Dallas-area drywall supplier and enter the ministry. Rick Davis, his pastor at First Baptist Church of Midlothian, gave him a couple of opportunities to preach. With that encouragement, Wheatley began to affirm this was indeed God's calling.
___Though living 50 miles away, Wheatley was no stranger to the Milford church. As a child, he often had visited his grandparents there and had spent summers there. Now, his own parents were living part-time on the home place, and they were attending First Baptist Church.
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AT THE CONCLUSION of Sunday morning worship, parishioners at First Baptist Church of Milford join hands and sing a song of unity.
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___When leaders of the Milford church heard about Wheatley's call to ministry, they asked him to preach for them one Sunday. After a second supply sermon, they asked the Dallas Baptist University graduate to become their pastor.
___One of the questions the search committee asked him was how much experience he had in preaching. He told them he had preached exactly four sermons in his life--and half of those at their church.
___That short track record apparently was satisfactory, and the church called him as pastor. Soon after, he left his secular job and enrolled in seminary.
___In those early months, Wheatley noticed people around the church seemed to be taking an interest in his studies, frequently asking him, "When do you finish?"
___It took him a while, but he finally realized what they really were asking was, "When are you going to leave?" This church had been a seminary pastorate for decades, with a revolving door of pastors serving two- or three-year terms before graduating and moving someplace bigger.
___Wheatley determined to break that mold. He did not intend to leave them just because he graduated from seminary, he announced. And he has been true to his word, having graduated last May from Truett Seminary at Baylor University.
___As a result, the church that once considered itself a stepping stone has begun to make long-term plans. "It has given us the ability to do more long-range thinking," the pastor said.
___The current capital campaign is one evidence of that. The church building was erected in 1917 and has received only minor modifications since then. The adjacent parsonage was built the same year and has been lived in by dozens of families.
___With the $75,000 from the capital campaign, a new parsonage will be built and the sanctuary interior will get a facelift--new pews, paint and lighting.
___This is sending a significant message to the Milford community about the stability and future of the church, said member Gary Wimbish, who moved back to Milford in 1996 after 30 years away.
___"People are watching us right now. We know that," he said. "The community needs to see physical changes taking place."
___Wimbish believes others in the town of about 700 are not all that different from him and his wife. After moving back to his family's property in Milford, the couple visited a number of churches in the area, looking for where God was working.
___"We found it was here," he said.
___And he is certain others will find the same thing as the excitement and ministry of First Baptist members spreads. "There is fire here," he explained.
___There has been a steady stream of baptisms at the church in recent years--mainly of adults who have become Christians. And attendance has increased, even amid the loss of faithful members to death.
___The small church now draws about 40 area children to its Wednesday night "Team Kid" program to learn Bible verses, eat dinner and play in a wholesome atmosphere. Though only a few of these children's families attend First Baptist regularly, most consider it to be their church, Wheatley said.
___The pastor also is a highly visible presence in the community and school. One of his goals is to encourage more graduates of Milford High School to enter college.
___"I make a deal with every senior at the school," he explained. "I tell them if they'll pick the school, I'll take a full day and drive them to see the campus and meet with an admissions officer."
___The pastor also offers to help any student fill out financial aid forms. "After 21 years in the business world, one thing I know how to do is push paper," he reasoned. "I can do that."
___As a result, the percentage of Milford seniors going to college has increased in recent years, Wheatley said. "This church has had an impact on that."
___First Baptist Church's budget today is nearly 50 percent larger than it was five years ago, and most of the additional money is being used for direct ministry. A budget line item for local ministry has been used to provide long-term assistance to those in the community with medical needs. The church recently "adopted" a single mother who is working on her nursing degree at Navarro College.
___This is a wise investment, Wheatley said, explaining the difference between paying tuition and fees for one year of school that will result in economic empowerment for the family versus helping the mother find a minimum wage job immediately.
___As a result of the new long-term vision at the church, "you never hear this question asked around here: 'Are they a member of our church?'" Wheatley said. "If there is a ministry need, we meet the need regardless.
___"This is a church for the community," he said. "That's what really makes this church work."
___Several years ago, the church bulletin carried a simple prayer every Sunday that implored God to let the church be a lighthouse to the community. That prayer has been removed from the weekly bulletin, Wheatley said.
___"We quit praying the lighthouse prayer, and we lit the lighthouse."
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