wfn.org | AMERICAN BAPTIST BIENNIAL MEETING OPENS WITH CELEBRATION OF HERITAGE

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

American Baptist News Service
Office of Communication / American Baptist Churches USA
P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851
Phone: (610)768-2077 / Fax: (610)768-2320
Richard W. Schramm, Director (E-mail: RICHARD.SCHRAMM@ABC-USA.ORG)

AMERICAN BAPTIST BIENNIAL MEETING OPENS WITH CELEBRATION OF HERITAGE;
‘CLOUD OF WITNESSES’ LIFTS UP HISTORY AND FOUNDATIONS OF MISSION

PROVIDENCE, RI (ABNS)-In an opening night celebration of Baptist history and
the “cloud of witnesses” who have helped shape the mission
priorities of their denomination, American Baptist Biennial Meeting
delegates and visitors here lifted up the theme of “Providence!”

The evening included a focus on the historical importance of this site,
where Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in America in 1638 and
established an unprecedented haven for religious freedom, and on prominent
past American Baptist pioneers of faith and commitment.

Some of those American Baptist leaders were recalled in a dramatic
presentation depicting their struggles, triumphs and steadfast faith: Roger
Williams (Peter Stine), Adoniram and Ann Judson (Phillip and Carol Austin),
Ioleta Hunt McIlhaney (Susan Nahwooksy), Jitsuo Morikawa (Tedd Szeto), Ruth
Maldonado (Sheila Rivera) and Martin Luther King Jr. (Albert Paul Brinson).

The evening also included “thanksgiving for the witness” of Dr.
Daniel E. Weiss, who retired last year after 12 years as general secretary
of American Baptist Churches USA. Weiss noted in response that his tenure
had been “challenging, stimulating…frequently fulfilling”
and thanked American Baptists “for giving me the privilege of serving
you.” “I can’t wait to see what God has in store for this
denomination in the years that lie ahead,” he said.

In an opening sermon American Baptist Churches USA President Trinette McCray
addressed the legacy of commitment, courage and “exposure” that
American Baptists have received. “We are a people of great
exposure,” she said, noting the biblical figures and pioneering
American Baptists who allowed themselves to be exposed to difficulties and
challenges out of service to God.

“Jesus, the Great Exposure, exposed himself to attacks and hurt so
that those of us who would follow him would know that the risk of exposure
is the way of the Christian life,” McCray said. Drawing from the
familiar passage in Hebrews that serves as the Biennial Meeting Scripture
text, she said that in considering “a great cloud of
witnesses…the witnesses are the heroes and heroines of the
past…not spectators but inspiring examples of the meaning of faith, of
little becomes much when put in the Master’s hand, of the power of God
that is able to defend and deliver, of the living Balm in Gilead.”

“We cannot be a witness if we’re not willing to be made an
example,” she maintained. “We do well at the commencement of
this visitation to this historic place, Providence, to fine tune our
listening, to focus our seeing, to magnify our sensing so that we
don’t come to this place but fail to walk our ancestors’
walk.”

“God is perpetually with us in the midst of life. Isn’t that
Providence? Providence is a present, a gift of God’s gracious care in
Jesus Christ…. This is the testimony of the cloud of witnesses of
American Baptists….”

Also participating in the program was the musical group More Than Conquerors
from Iglesia Bautista Hispanoamericana de Union City, Union City, N.J.