First Baptist Church Dallas fire: The most loving local church I've been part of

Exactly one week ago, fire engulfed the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Dallas. Constructed in 1890, the beautiful, majestic Victorian edifice had hosted worship services for several generations of devoted church members until the church moved into a new, larger worship center in 2013. In fact, there are scores of families that have been attending First Baptist Church, Dallas for three, four or even five generations.

First Baptist Church, Dallas has been the most influential and prestigious church in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. It has often been referred to as either the Southern Baptist “Notre Dame” or the Southern Baptist “Vatican.”

My instant reaction to the shocking news of the fire was a flood of personal memories of my 13 years of service there (1975-1988) as a professor in their college, associate pastor at the church and Sunday school teacher.

Hundreds of faces and names from my years there immediately started flooding back into my memory. I had the privilege of teaching a 300-member Sunday school class called the Sheafor Bible Class for my entire 13 years there. These class members were vibrant Christians who loved God’s Word and each other. It was a privilege to teach them and fellowship with them every Sunday.

When my wife had a temporary health crisis while coping with three children (5, 2 and 2 months old), the blessed members of this class spontaneously organized and delivered evening meals for our family for approximately six weeks. I have never been part of a more loving and giving local church.

And on top of it all, my family and I had the rare privilege of sitting under the nonpareil pulpit ministry every Sunday of Dr. W.A. Criswell as he expounded God’s Word peerlessly and expositionally every Sunday morning and every Sunday night. He loved his church members and they loved and cherished him. My wife and I had the great blessing of seeing all three of our children come to know Jesus as their personal Savior and subsequently be baptized while we were members at First Dallas.

As I basked in these great memories, I realized once again that however beautiful and majestic the grand old sanctuary was, it did not encapsulate or explain the greatness of First Baptist Dallas. This experience reinforced for me the great spiritual truth that the “church” consists of the Christians who gather to worship and to fellowship in a particular place, not the buildings where they congregate. The church is made up of its members, not its buildings.

I knew nothing as merely temporal as a fire would keep God’s church from continuing to flourish for His kingdom purposes.

The Apostle Peter informed us in his first epistle that Christians “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (I Pet. 2:9)

The New Testament reveals that a local church consists of born-again Christians and the Apostle Paul explains that such Christians are a new kind of human being, having been born-again from above (Eph. 2), having been made the children of God. (John 1:12) In covenanting together to worship and to fellowship, they are simultaneously ministering to each other.

The New Testament teaches Christians that it is only together, as part of a redeemed local fellowship that each of us will fully plumb the depths, scale the heights, and embrace the breadth of all that our Heavenly Father has desired for each of us in His will. (I Cor. 12-14)

Each local church is intended to be a colony of Heaven, a living spiritual organism centered in and sustained by Christ, seeking to fulfill His Great Commission:

“And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt. 28:18-20)

As I was borne along by these pleasing remembrances and heart-stirring reminiscences, I was reminded of my deep (and surprisingly unexpected) spiritual experience upon returning to corporate worship in my local church after COVID restrictions were lifted. As I was overwhelmed by the experience of simultaneously communing vertically with Jesus and horizontally with my fellow church members in collective worship, I realized how much I had taken such a divine blessing for granted before COVID.

If you are in a spiritually alive “colony of heaven,” express your gratitude to God, love and support your fellow church members, and relish the blessing. If you are not in such a church, please ask God to help you find such a fellowship, and join it with alacrity. This life is too short to miss the particular blessing God has intended and planned for each of us.