We continue with “the greatest” “timeless value” of “love” from yesterday as “love” permeates today’s post. That wasn’t the original intent when I sat down to talk with the person in today’s story, but that is how these stories are playing out. Expect the unexpected. Be open and your heart will hear.
Having spent the first several of the blog stories focusing on heritage and history, I thought it might be good to bring ourselves up to date by writing about the Family Life Center (FLC) given that it is one of the newer parts of Hayes Barton Baptist Church, a highlight of the decade since we celebrated the church’s 75th anniversary. Sitting down to talk with John McClendon is something I’ve done before when we’ve written about the FLC in the church newsletter Faith Points. So I expected our conversation to focus some on the FLC, and it did. But it offered so much more as John shared his thoughts and feelings about Hayes Barton Baptist Church.
John and his wife Janice joined Hayes Barton Baptist Church in 1971, having moved their membership from Winter Park Baptist Church in Wilmington, North Carolina. One might say about their joining, given how John describes it, that it was almost “love at first sight.” “I loved Sunday School first,” recalls John. “Then I fell in love with the church.”
John explains that the relationships developed between members of the church are the key to understanding Hayes Barton Baptist Church. As he described his first years in the Danielson Class and many more years teaching the Noah’s Ark Class with Janice, “I’m not sure how much I’ll teach you, but I sure will love you.”
I suspect John loves AND teaches. He knows the value of a church like Hayes Barton Baptist Church from the perspective of it being a place where he and Janice raised their children and now see their grandchildren learning about the Lord. Of teaching, John says, “I’ve gained the most. My faith has grown tremendously since being here. My walk with the Lord is much stronger. I remember my Bible drills in Pearl, Mississippi, and I now I practice daily Bible study and prepare for Sunday School. My relationship with Jesus has become much stronger, and I tell others about who Jesus is.”
John also knows Hayes Barton Baptist Church as an employee because he is the director of the Family Life Center (FLC). If you think our conversation about FLC turned to basketball and bridge and away from faith, hope, and love, you would only be partially correct. The most poignant story John relayed was about how the basketball teams meet at center court and pray before playing. A little girl was walking from one side of the gym to the other as a prayer was being said by some players, and she stopped mid step and put her hands together and prayed with the players. “Having the FLC here allows for things like this to happen,” shared John as he put his hands together just like the little girl did. “For that little girl to be exposed to the love of Jesus is wonderful.”
Because the FLC is such a tremendous asset and such a large facility, our conversation turned toward talking about the size of Hayes Barton Baptist Church and that it can be intimidating to those who don’t know it and may even suffer from people thinking it is too large to be an intimate place of worship. John begs to differ: “This has been my church home for 38 years. It has been my family’s church home. It is warm, intimate, loving. This is where the most important people in my life are. You develop close-knit personal intimate relationships with people who will wrap their arms around you when you need it.”
Much like G. Wesley Williams described all the people who have professed their faith and who have walked down the aisle of the sanctuary, John talks about “all the lives that have been touched by this church.” To back up his point, he notes he uses a people counter clicker to count folks using the FLC for certain events; it reminds him of how many lives can be touched in a place where he says “You can faith walk.”
Of the theme of the 85th anniversary, “Heritage, Hope, and Home,” “Home” is where it is at for John. The home that is Hayes Barton Baptist Church. “This is my church home,” John says, emphasis noted. “This is where I need to be. This is where the people I love are.”
There are so many clichés a writer can turn to when writing about love. I know I’ve used a few in this post. Yet love is not a cliché for Hayes Barton Baptist Church. Love is not just the last of a list of three timeless values we focus upon. Love is faith put into action. Talking with John McClendon gives one a real understanding of that. Love is lending an ear to hear, an eye to see, and a heart to respond. When you see John at his desk in the FLC or in the gym or in the sanctuary, you are seeing love in action.
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