Barnabas File

Country Courthouse--Daily  News Journal photo Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is a good place to live.   Most Saturdays this time of year, you will find people browsing and purchasing from vendors at the Farmers’ Market around the County Courthouse.   Shops and restaurants on the Square will bustle with business.   The local university will be hosting a high school band competition that brings participants from all over the mid-South.   Children will be getting ready for a visit to a “haunted mansion” to raise money for historic conservation. None of that will happen today, because White Lives Matter is coming to town.  All the activities mentioned above have been cancelled.  The courthouse square will be cordoned off, protestors and counter-protestors will gather, businesses have boarded their windows, and law enforcement will be out in strength. Why Murfreesboro?  The city handled school integration in the 60s with little ...

Daily News Journal photo “ He [Jesus] answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” --Luke 10:27, NIV Once again, a minority have displayed their hatred and ignorance by vandalizing the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee , my hometown. Community response was swift as people of all faiths and none stepped forward to affirm the rights of all people to worship as they wish and to contribute to the common good in our city. At a vigil of support, Noel Schoonmaker, my pastor, said: "As a pastor and as a Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and I look to him and obey him in everything, and he taught me to love my neighbor as myself. So I am here to love my neighbor. We also have friends who worship here at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro and we want to support them." Schoonmaker models the attitude that Christian...

My friend, Tom Brown, passed away on May 14 at the age of 90.   Since he was a Navy veteran of World War Two, remembering him today seems especially appropriate.   Tom was the complete Baptist layman.  He was one of the people who are an asset to a church and an encouragement to a pastor because his only agenda was to serve. His desire was always to encourage, support and inform. Tom knew the Bible but he also knew people and he loved both. Tom was also a great father and husband.  His wife, Helen, was the first woman elected by First Baptist, Murfreesboro, as a deacon.  Tom was not only supportive of Helen’s selection but he felt it was long overdue.  One of my earliest memories of Tom, as you might expect, is connected to Helen.  When I was Baptist Student Union director at Middle Tennessee State University in the early 70’s, we organized a group of married students who met regularly on Friday nights.  We invited Tom ...

“Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him.   He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach   and to have authority to drive out demons. ”—Mark 3:13-15, NIV When my pastor Noel Schoonmaker preached on this passage about Jesus calling the disciples, he pointed out, “This roster did not have a single all-star on it.” They were picked not because of who they were but because of whom they were called to serve.   Despite their limitations, Jesus selected this diverse and sometimes clueless group to be in the vanguard of the Kingdom of God. Noel also emphasized the complementary nature of the relationship to which these men were called.   They were called to be with Christ and to be his disciples, but they were also called to be on mission for Christ and be apostles or “sent ones.”   What they learned from Jesus was not to be kept to themselves but shared with ot...