Practicing Goodness

Janice McClendon has been married to John for fifty years.  Interviewing Janice and John separately (John’s story is posted September 7) allowed me to hear two stories that reflect much goodness, kindness, and love and also shows that while “two may become one,” each “one” still is a unique child of God. 

When we started our conversation, Janice went into more detail about the early years of her relationship with John than John did when he spoke with me.   As college students, they would catch the same bus that would pick up students and take them to various churches in Raleigh.  John was attending NC State, and Janice was a freshman at Meredith when John asked her for a date.  “We were a match,” Janice says with a smile; after all, their first date was a tennis match. 

As she talked about fifty years of marriage, Janice described the growth of a couple and a family.  The moves, the jobs, the babies.  Eventually, as John had shared, there was a move to Raleigh and the joining of Hayes Barton Baptist Church.  “What we found in the children’s ministry, the Danielson Class, and T.L. Cashwell was a perfect fit,” says Janice.  “We jumped in with both feet.”

The importance of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in the life of the McClendon family is obvious.  “The children were happy here,” says Janice.  “And what your children experience is so important.”  Given I’d just heard people at a Sunday School social talking about taking care of Scott McClendon in the nursery oh so many years ago, I had a real feel for what Janice was talking about.

The granddaughter of a Baptist preacher and daughter of a father who worked for the Foreign Missions Board, Janice is no stranger to the setting of a Baptist church, but, she, like John, was hesitant when asked to teach a young couples Sunday School Class.  “The Lord was definitely involved in that decision,” says Janice.   Called the Noah’s Ark Class because couples come in pairs just like the animals did onto Noah’s ark, members “receive a good mixture of Scripture, Bible history, and practical application,” says Janice, from John, Chris Moore, and Rob Singleton.  “I leave the teaching to them now,” she says.

With counseling education and experience, Janice is a critically important member of the Stephen Ministry leadership team as she is the referral coordinator.  She handles requests for Stephen Ministers and assigns caregivers to care receivers.  Her interest in the Stephen Ministry goes back many years.  “When I learned about it and thought about it, I said to myself, ‘I am going to listen to God about this.’  I was trusting enough to know that God would let me know about doing it.”

“My hope is that Stephen Ministry will become as important at Hayes Barton Baptist Church as Sunday School,” shares Janice.  “I want it to be familiar; something that people can easily turn to and call on to help them through the tough times in life.”

One of the tough times Janice shared about was when her father died.  “My dad and I were very close, and what I realized when he died was that he was the one who had had the relationship with God.  I had my relationship with my dad and, through him, with God.  But my roots with God had been planted, and God had always been there.  That was when I worked on my direct relationship with God.”

This connection between father and daughter helped teach Janice the importance of family bonds and family.  And for Janice, Hayes Barton Baptist Church is family.  “It has been a second home.  It has been like a family.  I see its heritage as the connections we have as a family to the church.  It is the heritage we leave to our children and our grandchildren.  I can’t think of a greater gift to give a family than a church family.”

“I cannot imagine anything on the corner but Hayes Barton Baptist Church,” says Janice. “It is a beacon.  These days a person doesn’t get much affirmation of actions in the outside world, but at Hayes Barton Baptist Church, there is plenty of affirmation that goodness is still a part of how a person lives as a Christian.”

“Goodness and kindness,” says Janice, “are things that begin at church and can be practiced at church.  Church gives us a way to practice goodness so that we can go out in the world with it as a habit.”

Knowing Janice from Stephen Ministry, I can say with certainty that she “practices what she preaches” and that goodness is a habit of hers.  Whether talking about her father, her family, or her faith, Janice affirms that goodness is part of being a Christian.  And while she is a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, and fills many other roles, she is also a unique child of God, with whom she has a direct relationship.  I think it is must be kind of “a match” as they would say in tennis.