First Baptist Church of Austin

It isn't often that one gets to attend a liturgical Baptist church. Although Baptists are known for a very wide range of worship styles, I have never been to a church that had a formal liturgy, followed the liturgical calendar, etc. So, having someone hand me a program that had "First Sunday of Lent" on the cover and a very structured worship service inside was intriguing, to say the least. Unfortunately for me, that was about as good as it got. Let me back up a little, however, to give some context for my foul mood walking out of the First Baptist Church of Austin on Sunday.

I had to be at the airport at 12:30 on Sunday. Now, I'm smart enough to know that you never want to go to church worrying about the rest of the day. However, I really wasn't that worried since I consulted the church's website before deciding where to go. You'll find right here, it says, Our Sunday morning worship services are held each week at 11:00 a.m. Our services generally last one hour, but occasionally last until 12:15 p.m. Given this, I really wasn't that concerned about getting out late. I knew that if church ended at 12:15, I would have no problem making it to the airport. So, I didn't enter thinking there would be a problem.

When I arrived at the church, I followed the sign that directed me to the visitor's parking lot. Unfortunately, it was full. I wasn't able to find a place to park and ended up having to drive nearly a block away and park on the street. The church is a large, cavernous sanctuary. The choir was standing in the back at the beginning and some quiet music was playing a traditional hymn. After the choir sang a hymn (they were quite good), there was a congregational song. This was followed by a prayer, reading from the Book of Matthew, a brief singing of "Glory Be to the Father" and a greeting by the pastor. According to the program, we had passed through "Preparation for Worship" and "Praise and Adoration of God" and were entering the "God in our Midst" portion of the liturgy. This is where things started to turn a bit odd.

In the program, the next portion was entitled, "The Moment for the FBC Foundation." An elderly lady (who I later looked up online and discovered is a wealthy and well-known Austinite) got up and spoke for a lengthy time about how we should be preparing our estates by leaving money in our wills and trusts to the First Baptist Church Foundation. She spoke for a long time. I didn't time her, but I would guess she spoke at least 20 minutes and that, in fact, her presentation was longer than the sermon given that morning. She talked about how she was leaving her entire estate to various charities and that the Foundation was one of them. She went on about how to set up a will and what a trust is. The longer this apparent commercial for the FBC Foundation went, the more astounded I was that they would put aside such a lengthy period of time in the middle of this very formal, high-church liturgy. I found it to be very inappropriate. Just looking around the room, it appeared others were either bored or not listening as well. She spoke past 11:30. When she was through, it was quite obvious she is leaving quite a bit of money to First Baptist Church. The minute she stopped speaking, the next Scripture reading occurred.

In some sort of bizarre, ironic twist, the very next thing read (I kid you not), the very next words heard after she walked down were from Matthew 6...“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly." I nearly fell out of the pew! I'm sorry for laughing at the irony, but you can't make up something that good!

Unfortunately, I found the church to be a bit cold and aloof. There were a few other hymns, a children's sermon and also a song by the children (which was very cute), but the people just didn't seem to be all there. I found it exhausting to sit among them. In his sermon, Dr. Paynter talked about Lent and how the church would be examining the Sermon on the Mount for that period. I never really felt the people connecting to him. He was very sincere in his presentation and I really appreciated some comments he made about reading from the heart, not just intellectually, but it seemed the air had been let out of the tires and no one really was stirred by his words. Let me throw in here that, by this time, my attitude was probably getting pretty negative. The pastor didn't get up to preach until about 11:55 and I was suddenly realizing I was not going to be able to stay for the entire service. So, I had my head about halfway out the door and this may have affected the way I was viewing the rest of the service. This is the reason I wanted to give you the context of this service early on. It may not be completely fair.

Looking down at the program, I realized, as Dr. Paynter wrapped up his brief sermon, that I was going to have to leave before communion, as it was already past 12:15 and there were 5 hymns set aside for communion alone. During the passing of the peace, there was little movement among the people, other than turning to their immediate neighbors. It was at this point, I left. I regretted doing so as I feel it's rude to just get up and walk out, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) Southwest Airlines is not as flexible with their schedule as First Baptist was this Sunday.

I don't know if they have a "Moment for the FBC Foundation" every Sunday there or if that was a special occasion. I hope they don't. It is something that would be fine for a special night to promote or for a Sunday School class to take the time one Sunday to learn about. In my opinion, it had no place in the worship service. Certainly, to put it in a section entitled, "God in our Midst" is misleading at best.

This is a good church. I'm convinced of that. You can tell by the many things they are doing in the Austin community. You can tell by the public stands they have taken over the years. Unfortunately, there was something missing this past Sunday. If part of the problem is with the church, I hope my experience helps them find what it is they've lost. Most likely, I bear as much of the blame as anyone as I tried to "squeeze church" into a busy day. That most certainly never works. In the end, I found myself wishing I had slept in a little later last Sunday rather than getting up and going to church.