Monday Morning Manna: Time-Change Memories

Monday Morning Manna: Time-Change Memories

There are life-changing moments in ministry that come rushing back on time-change Sunday.??Yesterday, as I was reading the call to worship scripture at the church where I am Interim Pastor, I read Ecclesiastes 3, the “there is a time” passage and when I got to verse 4, I read there is “a time to dance.”??I am almost positive that this verse did not exist in the Bibles of my youth.??Being the son of a Southern Baptist Pastor and a member of very conservative Baptist youth groups, I was never aware of this verse,??To the contrary, I was assured that dancing ranked high on the list of unpardonable sins and should be avoided at all costs.??Then I was pastor of a small church in deep-east Texas when the Unified Time Act of 1966 was instituted.? We had two deacons, and they decided that our church ?would not observe the first time-change Sunday. They concluded, “the government (make that “guv-ment” in east Texas language) has no business messin’ with God’s time.”??I was also in a Seminary carpool of want-a-be preachers at that time.??Our ritual was to spend the Friday afternoon return-home drive (of 80 miles) discussing our planned Sunday sermons and our Tuesday morning return to campus drive sharing how those sermons worked (or failed to work).??I remember one of our guys reporting that he began his sermon with a rhetorical question, “What time is it?” And then being shocked when a dear, sweet lady on the second row answered him with, “It’s already 11:25 Bro. Pat and if you don’t get to preaching, we won’t get out of here by noon.”??I hope you had a memorable time-change Sunday.? The “guv-ment” may soon be messin’ with our time-change, and memories is all we’ll have left.

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Dr. Dan R. Crawford, Senior Professor, Chair of Prayer Emeritus; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Former Head of Task Force for the Teaching of Prayer in Theological Education for America’s National Prayer Committee.? Administrative Consultant for the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center. President of Disciple All Nations, Inc.

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