CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
When this student of ministry was a teenager, he was an active member of a growing Baptist church. The formative
experiences of those days were based, in large part, upon observation of the pastor. It has been said that “vision is
caught, more than taught.” In that church, when the pastor baptized new converts, he always referred to the words of
Jesus. In his final prayerful sentence, after the last of the converts had come from the water, he would say, “Lord, we
have done as you have commanded, and yet there is room.” It was a vision caught by this disciple and hopefully
conveyed through the course of this project. In it is the idea of reaching out to the disenfranchised and disappointed,
inviting them to recline at the Lord’s Table, as well as the awareness that there remains much yet to do.
Those words seem like a fitting way to draw this report to its conclusion. The model of ministry transformation is
working, but the job is not over. The initiatives begun and sustained are producing results that are exciting, yet there
is so much more to do. Outreach through Kid’s Hope has changed both church and community, but the task requires
years of involvement and love. New worship forms offer hope to those uncomfortable with the formal and traditional,
but these must also develop their own stable identities. Establishing structures for evaluating, planning, and doing
ministry are valuable only if they will be practiced for years. Transformation from maintenance to missional will take
time, though it might truly be said, “First Baptist Church of Madison is on the way.”
There is the satisfaction that, as the members of this church have set about to begin that transformation, they have
indeed made the first step of the journey. In the period of one year, the church community has firmly established an
effective ministry to children and young families. It is hoped that the fruits of this step will continue to yield disciples as
the years go by. The church should see greater and greater participation by the youngest persons of the community.
If followed through by the building of effective ministry structures for older youth and young adults, the forecast of
death and decline will be proved invalid. Some of the best days of First Baptist Church lie in her future.
The church’s message from the middle part of the nineteenth century was that God’s grace extends to everyone. The
doors of the church are open and the table is set. It is the return to that simple message of grace that will ultimately
prevail; God’s grace will not be boarded up and regulated to the cold storage of theological artifacts. Instead, it is
grace that burns hot in the hearts of all who catch the vision. It is grace not simply taught but caught from one disciple
to the next. It is grace, described in the weekly benediction from First Baptist Church that changes a person, a family,
a community, and a world:
No matter what you’ve done or become or promised to be, never forget that God made you, knows all about you, and
loves you unconditionally. May his Divine love change you from the inside out and when it does you will know what
grace really is.
Even more, realize that this pervasive, persistent, and powerful force called grace is the best thing you will ever
discover, and when it finds you, your eyes will be opened and you will see there is nothin’ but grace. Amen.