African American Fellowship hears plea for ebony and ivory in harmony_111703

Posted: 11/14/03

African American Fellowship hears plea
for ebony and ivory in harmony

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK--If shouting offends you, don't sit too close to Jerry Dailey when it's time to worship. And if you think African-American churches and the Baptist General Convention of Texas aren't a match made for heaven, then stay out of earshot.

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Posted: 11/14/03

African American Fellowship hears plea
for ebony and ivory in harmony

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–If shouting offends you, don't sit too close to Jerry Dailey when it's time to worship. And if you think African-American churches and the Baptist General Convention of Texas aren't a match made for heaven, then stay out of earshot.

Because Dailey, pastor of Greater Macedonia Baptist Church in San Antonio, preaches about a God worthy of enthusiastic praise and advocates a mutually beneficial relationship between black Baptists and the BGCT.

The choir from First Progressive Baptist Church in Lubbock sings during the African American Fellowship rally held in conjunction with the BGCT annual session in Lubbock. (Craig Bird/BGCT Photo)

“You don't get the best music from a keyboard by playing only the white keys or just the black keys,” he said. “The sound that most pleases God is when you play them all together to his glory.”

And on boisterous worship, he said: “We can't be quiet because God has given us so much to shout about.”

Dailey spoke to the African American Fellowship of Texas Nov. 9, the day before the BGCT annual session in Lubbock.

He urged the crowd of 250 to be “visible in your presence” at the annual session, “because what we have to offer they need.”

Dailey preached from Mark 8:22-25, which tells of Jesus healing a blind man who at first could see only “men who looked like trees walking.” Atypically, he noted, Jesus wasn't successful on the first attempt, and he asked a strange question: “Do you see anything?”

“Jesus didn't ask that question for his benefit, but because the man needed to answer. And it's a question we all need to answer as well,” Dailey said. Voicing a wariness for people “who go to bed at night dressed in their pajamas of wickedness but get up the next morning robed in righteousness,” he warned that such “microwave Christians” too easily become judgmental, “not of their sins but of the sins they see in others.”

Rather, the Christian walk is a process, “and there is no graduation ceremony this side of heaven,” he said. “The bottom line on earth is, 'I once was, but I'm not all the way where God wants me to be yet. But I'm headed the right direction.'”

And as a result, “the Jesus in me sees the Jesus in you because God touches me one more time and one more time and one more time,” he said.

Another danger is of choosing to remain “in between” where things are not clearly seen as either trees or people, Dailey said. “It is better not to see anything than to see things that aren't reality. But you know the type–not really bad but not really good either; not really outside the church but not really involved; not really for the BGCT but not really against it. Jesus said something about that. He had something against a church that wasn't really hot but wasn't really cold either.”

African-American Baptists must let Jesus touch them again and again and again so they can see clearly and know best how to be God's people, he urged.

Working in partnership with the BGCT is a part of that, he added. “God can do some great things if we all work together.”

BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, invited to make a few remarks at the end of the two-and-one-half-hour service, celebrated the fact that African-American churches' contributions to the BGCT Cooperative Program “continue to lead the convention in percentage increase each year.”

Texas Baptists of tomorrow “will look much different” from Texas Baptists of today as African-American, Hispanic and other ethnic groups continue to contribute and influence the BGCT, Wade added. “If we are going to be the people of God, then we've got to start looking like the people of God, and I thank you for helping us do that.”

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