Alabama Baptist State Convention President Jimmy Jackson’s silky smooth “Welcome to Tuesday evening at the state convention” — combined with silent, perfectly positioned horns peering out of the orchestra pit — set the stage for a relaxed evening of enjoyable entertainment.
But entertainment was not the order of the night. Worship was. And worship Alabama Baptists did with the assistance of the worship ministry of Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover, where the state convention annual meeting was held Nov. 16–17.
Typically a time of more elaborate presentations, convention leaders opted for a more traditional worship service this year, sticking with the host church choir and orchestra and hearing from Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions Executive Director Rick Lance.
This set up allowed for simplicity and fiscal responsibility.
But dare not think simple meant snoozing could take place in the pews.
Scott Allred, minister of music at Hunter Street Baptist, ensured that didn’t happen.
The praise team, choir and orchestra led worship, sang hard, played with fury and kept the audience involved for almost an hour and a half.
The worship experience was explosively contemporary and left Allred wiping sweat from his brow, but just when the traditionalists in the crowd felt completely abandoned, out came “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.” And the across-the-board favorite of the night landed with the well-loved hymn of the faith “Victory in Jesus.”
But Lance might have captured the most stirring moment of worship with the conclusion of his sermon.
“So Send I You” takes Lance back to his ordination service. It was the only hymn sung, he said.
But the words remain true today as more than 40 years later, Lance continues working out his calling.
While typically not a publicly emotional man, Lance was obviously moved as Eileen Mitchell’s a cappella version of the song filled the sanctuary. A chilling, piercing spirit penetrated the room. And Lance’s calling was very real to him.
He recalled his transition from executive director-elect to executive director and how he penned the now well-rehearsed and sometimes mocked mantra for Alabama Baptists: One mission, the Great Commission; one program, the Cooperative Program; many ministries, Great Commission ministries.
“Since then, I’ve tried to bring the State Board of Missions and whatever influence I’ve had throughout Alabama Baptist life in line with the Great Commission,” Lance said. “I believe it is our mission. Until the day I die, I want to be a Great Commission Christian. You may have a different view than I, but that does not mean we can’t work together.”
Obviously comfortable and poised in the pulpit, Lance focused on “The Greatest Invitation Ever Given” from Matthew 11:28–30.
“The greatest invitation was given by Jesus Christ Himself,” he said, noting the invitation is for everyone.
But what happens when you come to Christ? Lance asked.
First, “when you come to Christ, you find rest in Him.”
“Only people who have come to Christ understand we have our ultimate rest in Christ,” Lance said. “There is no other source of rest except in the Lord Jesus Christ … but lest you think that rest means we just go to sleep, He says when you come to [Him], you are yoked with Him.”
Illustrating this second point with an oxen’s yoke, held steady by Associate Executive Director Bobby DuBois, Lance said, “When the beast of burden were yoked together, they were yoked solidly together.
“They were not able to pull twice the weight but 10 times the weight,” he said. “When we come to Christ and are yoked with Him, we are yoked as co-laborers with God. When we come together in Christ, our ability to carry the load and do His ministry grows exponentially.
“There is no other yoking we want,” Lance explained. “We don’t want to be yoked with the world, the stock market, a man or a leader. We want to be yoked with Christ, because when we are yoked with Christ, we can pull the load and it’s His load, too.”
Third, “when you come to Christ, you learn from Him.”
“I will be a lifelong apprentice of Jesus Christ,” Lance said. “I bank on Jesus.”
This means learning to love like Jesus Christ and leading like Him.
“Peter says [Jesus] is the One … you trace your life around. He is the pattern,” Lance said.
Fourth, “when you come to Christ, you make disciples for Him,” he said, quoting Matthew 28:19–20.
Lance grew up in a “blue-collar, lower middle class family … on the western side of Birmingham.”
His father had only a sixth-grade education. His mother just slightly better.
But still “somebody took some time to tell this little buck-toothed boy from Birmingham how he could come to Jesus and have eternal life.”
And about a half-century since making that decision to follow Christ, he stands before Alabama Baptists with more than a decade under his belt as their leader. He has spent his life and ministry focused on the Great Commission, and that’s what he plans to do going forward.
“He’s respected … as a real Baptist statesman,” said Charles Carter, pastor emeritus of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills.
“I do not know an executive director who is any more equipped or effective as a pastor, leader and administrator than Rick Lance.”
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