This is a picture of the church that I grew up in. The church built a new buidling when I was about 7 or so and sold this building. The history of the buidling alone is really cool and the history of the church is great also. This picture is a great view of what I have journaled here. It is now a place to eat with shopping. Read on and you will see why this picture makes sense with what I have shared.
Recently I moved back to my hometown of Frisco Tx. I grew up there, my whole life attending First Baptist Church of Frisco. The growth of this little town is the fastest in the U.S., really, and for us small town folks this was hard to take. It used to be that going to the store here was so boring because you never saw any one new, but now you go to the store and you run into someone you know and it is like an Oprah moment of long lost family finding each other agian.
One visit back to town in 2000 on a Sunday I noticed as I sat in church how different things were and how much that I wished that they weren't and then I realized how that was holding me back from seeing what God was and is doing in Frisco. My thoughts on this are shared with you here. I hope that you will read it and think about what memories have you stuck in a rut.
To my brothers and sisters in Christ,
Selfishly I scan the congregation to make sure that “all that is within me” is exactly what I want it to be and that it feels good. I look for the comforts of the past to make me feel secure of who I am, realizing that here in my comfort zone I can bask in the glow of my memories. Yes I look around and notice that the peers of my age group are missing, that is another story, but I find comfort as I see the people who have shaped my life.
First there is my cousin, and another cousin, and oh, there is my double cousin, you get the point. I see my first grade teacher Mrs. Boles, my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Tadlock, and then there is my high school typing teaching Mrs. Fisher who also taught my mother. Over there is Mr. Trent my band director and Mr. Justice, and the Holcomb’s and I warm up to the memories of “Coon Mania” and other glorious times in school.
Then I see Calvin Bledsoe and think of the strong hands that built the home that was my shelter for years of good and sad times. I see Bill Cates, Willie Ray Reynolds, Jim Newman, my dad Pete and others that have guided the church so skillfully with prayer and supplication serving as deacons. I look to the left and on the back row I see the beautiful faces of the grandmothers that rocked me and prayed for me and how with the years they have softly wrinkled into beautiful pictures of God’s mercy and grace. I see Jeri Hansel, oh I mean Jeri Newman whom I invited to church one day in high school and marvel at the way she cuddles her son. Over there is Danny Carol, Max Bledsoe, and Dru Newman and I remember when they were youth and how I couldn’t wait to be one too and how I looked up to them and then I see their kids that are youth now.
My mind begins to wander more as I recall every Sunday lunch that I ate Molly Self’s biscuit’s and gravy and all the time I spent wondering if the lights were going to fall from the ceiling and where that long chain would land. I wondered how Brother Self got to the back of the church so quick after the sermon and how the man who prayed the closing prayer got so holy that the sanctuary was filled with light, (I know now, that was Brother Self opening the doors after he walked to the back of the church.)
I remembered the very first service in the new building on Hummingbird Dr., (I was in second grade) and how the McSpedden’s had donated the money for the communion table. One of my spelling words that week was “remember” and as the pastor read the name plate from the table dedicating it to the memory of Rev. McSpadden, I was reading “This do in remembrance of me”. I was so excited that I knew my spelling word. It wasn’t until I was on a return trip from college that I realized that the “This do in remembrance of me” was talking about Jesus and not Rev. McSpedden. I had always wondered why other churches had Rev. McSpedden’s table at their church.
As the hour passed I heard the words of the preacher saying take up your cross and follow me and I certainly thought that my cross that day was not having three songs, the offering, the special and then the sermon. What had happened to the old way of doing things and why don’t they put the choir loft back like it was? I looked up from my thoughts and realized that there was a stranger sitting in John Greenwoods’ seat and Bobbie Helen Carter’s seat, and Mary Helen Williams seat, and Ms. Izetta’s seat and my Grandmother’s seat and that is when it happened. I realized that the cross that I must bear, and as the preacher said, the thing that I must die to, is my memories. I must lay them down, knowing that I can return to them at any moment for comfort, but I must not live in them.
The little things that so often trip us up are not the big evil works of Satan, as Dr. John Pipper stated in “A Hunger for God” it is the gifts of God that cause the problems. I see the sweet sweet memories of my childhood as a gift from God, but it is in the gifts that we often times become so comfortable that we lose our focus of God. I have lost the focus of what God wants to do at First Baptist Frisco because I have enjoyed too much of the gift of the memories of what God has done here at First Baptist Frisco. I have spent too many days longing for the past instead of longing for the future. It is in the past that I have lost myself.
There have been so many times that God reached out and touched my heart and the Holy Spirit tugged at my soul to make it right with God but I just could not respond because if I walked the aisle then everyone would know that I am not all that I have pretended to be. I wonder how many more are here that have ignored God in order to save face?
As I take one more look back at my memories I want to share with you just how dear this place, I mean this building, is to me. I wrote this poem one evening in 1993 as I sat and gorged on my memories. I see now that I can have my memories but I must not depend on them for my future in God’s glory.
The Altar
You are the place where I can go,
I come to you whenever I hear God’s woe.
You are the place where I gave my heart to God,
I came to you to declare before men that I took
Jesus, and after Him I will trod.
You are the place where I received the reward of good attendance,
I came to you time and again to let the Lord
find me in a place of repentance.
You are the place where I answered the call that I heard,
I came to you after the many camps to talk about
good things and the good Word.
You are the place where I sang my first solo,
I came to you to be in a play as an angel with a halo.
You are the place I went to be recognized for that important day,
I came to you to say, “I have graduated, soon I will be going away.”
You are the place where from college I was welcomed back home,
I came to you whenever I felt really alone.
You are the place where missionaries came to tell stories of their work,
I came to you and just sat until I felt the Holy Spirit give me a jerk.
You are the place where I said goodbye to ones
that God called to serve Him alone,
I came to you to say goodbye to ones that God called home.
You are the place where I came to rededicate my life,
I came to you ready to be a wife.
You have been there for me without fail,
You are a very big part of my memory,
without you there would be nothing to tell.
I look back at you now and see how much of me you are,
I look ahead and realize in my eyes you will always be a star.
You are the place that people call the ALTAR,
I come to you in hope to find strength not to falter.
Your were built by hands of men for people to come and see,
You will always be cherished because of the gifts you have given to me.
So I say church, what is it to me? It is not just old worn out tattered memories, it is God’s people, and that is where I lost my focus. I have mistaken God’s church for the walls and the carpet. It is okay to keep my memories, but I must stay focused on what God is doing at First Baptist Frisco in the future. I know that the future can sometimes depend on the past, but so can the demise of the future depend on the past. We are here to do only one thing and that is to bring future Glory to God. I am guilty and I wonder how many will stand with me and say also that the only glorying that we have been doing is comfortably feeding off of our memories.
Amy Hosp
July 2000
