That which happens inside a cocoon is miraculous. A caterpillar weaves itself a sleeping bag, but what happens next is nothing like hibernation. The caterpillar liquefies and reconstitutes itself into a new kind of creature. Then it writhes and fights to break free from the cocoon. In doing so, it builds up its strength and is able to fly! 
 
Likewise, we at First Baptist and Misión Bautista have not been hibernating during these past six months of pandemic and social isolation. This has been a time of thoughtful conversations and meaningful relationship building. We are adapting to the changing world we find around us and providing online services, Zoom Bible studies, continuing to disperse food, and worshiping outside during the summer and now in the sanctuary through socially distanced safety measures. 
 
Just like becoming a new Christian, life doesn't suddenly become easy and carefree once you decide to follow Jesus. This pandemic has affected many of us in different and difficult ways, but even in a pandemic (perhaps I should say "especially in a pandemic") God still calls upon us to grow deeper in our faith and in sharing that love with others. I believe that it is most essential that we hear the desperate cries in the night of this long pandemic where people are facing health scares, social upheaval, economic uncertainty, and deep political divisions. It is in the midst of this crisis that we are called to live out an evidence of faith, hope, and love. I believe in God and I believe that God is making us stronger for this moment and for a future where resilient disciples of Christ are forged.
 
I officially shared a few weeks ago that we are undergoing a Visioning process with Misión Bautista to "join forces" and become one unified, multicultural church. Pastor Abner and I have been praying and talking about this for a couple of years now and when we started the process of telling the church leadership, the pandemic hit. Yet, this does not deter us in this endeavor because through all these challenges, it is becoming clearer that we need each other now more than ever. We live in one of the most diverse counties in America. Reflecting that diversity is reality of the church that was birthed at Pentecost in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit gave the gathered community the gift of speaking different languages in order to equip them to take the message of Jesus to the world. Different cultures were not something to fear, but to embrace. These earliest Christians broke out of their cocoon on that day and were stronger than ever, equipped to share the Gospel in authentic and relevant ways. It's exciting. It's scary. It's the life of Christ in us, challenging us to become who he had in mind for us to become at the beginning of the age. Join us in the emergence from our cocoon.
 
Pastor Tim

Welcome to our first totally digital Tall Spire! In this edition, you will hear about a lot of the things going on here at First Baptist, despite the pandemic. First, we have some big news to share here. We also have an update on our new in-person worship experience here. Our Fall Meeting will be on Sunday, October 25th, so check out the details here. Please take a closer look at the work that our Vice-Chair of the Church Board, Peter Morgan, is doing in Haiti here. Updates on our Beekeeping and Margret’s Garden can be found here and here. The pandemic sadly closed a local company who reached out to us and asked if we wanted any of their supplies; read the story here. Kate Wiswell, our lead singer, has also written an encouraging article. Finally, we were honored to host the Eagle Scout ceremony for a young man with a long connection to our location. Check it out here!

Several weeks ago, we formally announced that we are prayerfully considering joining forces with our sister congregation, Iglesia: Misión Bautista de Westchester. We have been united in mission and location for nearly 40 years and they grew out of a Spanish Bible study started by the First Baptist. Last March, both Pastor Abner and I spoke with our respective Boards and formed a common Vision Team, comprised of three members from each church and the Pastor’s to start looking at a renewed mission/vision, governance, and finances.

Things are going well and we hope to be able to make formal presentations on the details to the congregations by early next year. Please join me in prayer over this important decision. It is a leap of faith and trust in God that both congregations can be a better reflection of our multicultural community and thereby a fuller expression of the body of Christ! Better able to respond with the love of Christ in our community and the world. The question for each generation of the faithful has always been: Will we be a movement into the future or a monument to the past? That question remains open for us as well.

Pastor Tim

We are planning to have a Fall Meeting on Sunday, October 25th after our worship service. If you cannot attend the service/meeting in person, we will have a Zoom link sent out. At the meeting, we will discuss the preliminary budget for 2021, elect a new Board member and talk in more detail about the possibility of joining forces with Misión Bautista. We hope you can be a part of this important meeting!

Dear Members and Friends of the First Baptist Church of White Plains and Mission Baptista:

This is Peter Morgan, DC writing to you about the amazing mission work that Jesus Christ has put in our hearts. I just returned from my latest mission trip to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. God truly blessed my 99th mission trip. We went because it was necessary to serve our brothers and sisters who live in the most impoverished area of the western hemisphere. We brought jobs, chiropractors and many donations to the orphanage.
We also bring hope to the children and the workers at the Mission life International village. We call it our village of hope. In our village we have 4 buildings. We have one building which serves as housing for the children. Another building that houses our employees. Our third building is our kitchen building which has a large attached gazebo. We can sit well over 100 people in this gazebo. Our fourth building has just been completed. It's purpose is to serve as a free health and birthing center.

Mission Life International believes no woman or baby should die during childbirth. Haiti has the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in the western hemisphere. Nearly all maternal and infant deaths in Haiti are preventable with access to a skilled birth Attendant. 
We want to make childbirth safer in Haiti.

Our mission is to increase access to skilled maternal care followed by skilled chiropractic care. Our programs will be designed to educate and empower women.

We are asking for support and prayers for our non-profit birthing center that will be attached to our non profit Chiropráctic health center. This is located in Northern Haiti 5 minutes from the border of Dajabon, Dominican Republic. We are planning to provide a safe place for Haitian women to receive compassionate and respectful care at the hands of skilled midwives and chiropractors. No one will be turned away. We anticipate that every morning 50 women will start their day waiting to be seen by the midwives. Women will be entering (in labor) to our sanctuary and safety of the MLI-League of Chiropráctic Women birthing center to have their babies.

Our plan is to have a fully operational birthing center in Northern Haiti. We will provide FREE prenatal, postpartum and newborn midwifery care including labs, a nutrition program for severely malnourished pregnant and nursing women. This model has been proven to reduce the maternal and neonatal mortality rates. We will also provide chiropractic care.

Why free? Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. 60% of Haitians live on less than $2.49 a day. Where there is severe poverty such as this, mothers sometimes have chosen between food for their family or having a skilled attendant at their birth. One out 250 women who have a live birth die in childbirth or the immediate postpartum period. One out of 14 Haitian children die before the age of 5. 98% of these deaths are preventable.

We have also met several times with Dr. Manigat, Medical Director of Univers Hospital, Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Dr. Manigat was instrumental in our donation of Dr. Terry Yochum’s X-ray machine to Univers Hospital. One of the few x-ray machines in this part of Haiti. Dr. Manigat also has his own private hospital. We have arranged to refer all complications to Dr. Manigat.

We will teach mothers about prenatal health, nutrition, hygiene, childbirth education, breastfeeding education with the goal of exclusive breastfeeding for a minimum of one year and family planning. We will teach mothers about the benefits of Chiropráctic.

Mission Life International's track record and accomplishments:
During the period of January 2010 to January 2013 our chiropractic orphanage placed over 1,000 Haitian children who became orphaned in the January 2010 earthquake with Haitian families who lost their own children. 
Our organization has led 99 mission trips. Mission Life International presently clothes, feeds and houses 29 children in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Our education arm educated our 29 children at our Mission Life Orphanage and 39 children at Pastor Prospers school. Mission Life International has built wells, installed water filtration systems and built desks and blackboards since the devastating earthquake of 2010. In January 2013, we moved our children into better housing with a security guard and employed a nun to help provide structure in their daily routine and assist in their daily activities. We have finished construction of new housing for our children. We have brought approximately 3,500 Doctors to Haiti since 2002. We have purchased land for Pastor Prosper who was about to lose his church and school. We have built a church and christian school for Pastor Prospers congregation. We have begun the construction of the village of hope. The village will house many children. We have begun the construction of our mission house for housing of all chiromissionaries. We have completed the construction of the health and birthing center. Our outdoor restaurant is almost complete. All our orphaned children will have jobs. Currently our mission employs 20 people from Haiti.

Peter Morgan, DC

2020 was a year of Beekeeping challenges. Our Blue hive struggled and in the Spring was less than thriving, but both hives had bees that made it through the Winter! That alone is a blessing!

Carl and I decided to try something new. We took frames of brood from the better thriving Yellow hive and added them to the Blue hive to see if we could get it up and running. Soon in, we discovered we were missing the Blue hive queen bee so Lucia purchased a new one. The hive did not like her and soon she also disappeared. Lucia then purchased a 2nd queen, this time being told it was a great brood producer, which happened to be true! We were off and running!

But the Summer was slipping away and by bee hive standards our bees were not producing as much honey as we had hoped. It is important for the hive to have honey to feed off of during the Winter months.

We decided to hold off this year and only take out one frame to harvest. Carl worked so hard that I gave the 2½ jars it produced to Carl to keep. We did receive Honeycomb from Patricia Adams to sell on Sunday’s and Carl was able to use her honey from her hives to make the Elderberry Syrup.

Let’s pray our bees do well over the Winter and 2021 is a better year for bees and for all humans too!

The Blessed Beekeepers, Carl Hamby and Lucia Gold

First Baptist Church has recently been blessed with a generous donation from Rail Europe for office supplies. Barbara Murphy, who knew about our church and the schools on our property, called the church to see if we were interested in accepting a donation. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and said yes, knowing that in these times many are setting up offices at home and the UCP and FSW are teaching virtually and could put all of the items to good use!

It ended up being about a $2000 donation including bulletin boards, white boards and markers, hanging file folders, regular file folders, paper, envelopes, sheet protectors, electric staplers, regular staplers and staples, staple removers, pencil sharpeners, pens, black clips, paperclips, tape dispensers with tape and framed posters that had been on their walls.

Jay and Lucia Gold went to Rail Europe one day and packed up the donations. Ken Shorlidge, Rev Dalton and Jay and Lucia came to load up the items in their cars and we put them in the Sunroom of the Wilson House. Lucia spent a day organizing everything to look like a store so people could shop.

Lucia invited Misión Bautista, UCP and FSW to come and collect anything they needed and we also took items we could use in our office! I wish you could have seen the smiles and disbelief on the faces of the teachers and their assistants as they came to collect the free merchandise. It was heartwarming and rewarding to witness!

A special thank you also goes out to Peter Morgan, Founder and President of Mission Life International, who has offered to take everything that is leftover and will put it in a warehouse where they keep donations for his organization, Mission Life International, in Haiti.

A special thanks to Rail Europe and all of those who assisted in making sure this donation of office supplies went to the people who needed it the most.

Lucia Gold | Office Manager | First Baptist Church of White Plains

What a time we’ve had. I hardly know where to begin, staring at this blank document.
This year certainly hasn’t delivered the bright hopes of Spring that I was anticipating
in my last article for the Tall Spire.

​However, we remain united in faith, hopeful, and vigilant in working towards a
brighter future through the quagmire of difficulties set before us. I know that this
body of believers at First Baptist seeks to support their fellow congregants and the
community at large through the varying degrees of pain and uncertainty that we are
experiencing. Thank you for being lights in the darkness. I urge you to continue
helping each other, as Romans 15:5-6 says, “May the God who gives endurance and
encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus
had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.”

In the spirit of sharing an encouraging word, I’d like to reference a hymn that has
been on my mind a lot lately. We have sung it together in the past, when gathering in
the sanctuary was something we could all take for granted. “Abide with Me” has some
of the most poignant and comforting verses in my hymnbook. I hope that they remind
you how loved and sustained you are in the presence of your Heavenly Father.

For a particularly nice rendition of this hymn, I suggest listening to Sara Groves’ version on Youtube or
wherever you download your music. Or give me a call! I’ll sing it for you :-)

​Kate Wiswell, Lead Singer

One of the last large events that our church hosted, before the pandemic shut everything down, was an Eagle Scout Ceremony on March 1st for Henry Valencia. It is the culmination of a great story. Years ago, Henry was a pre-k student at Davidson Hall at Family Services of Westchester’s child care center. He wanted to give back to a place that held such good memories for him, so for his Eagle Scout project, he designed and managed the construction of new sandboxes and other items on their playground. He did an amazing job and it was an honor to host his Eagle Scout ceremony, where both the County Executive, George Latimer, and White Plains Mayor, Tom Roach, were in attendance.

​Congratulations, Henry!

Wonder (n): surprise mingled with admiration.

WONDER. When we open our eyes, it’s there. It’s there in the delight of curiosity and learning. Wonder is ever present in the mysteries of revelation, beauty, and creativity. It revels in service, humility and joy. Wonder reveals the possibility of encountering greatness and the sacred. It whispers of eternity. It insists on a love greater than we can imagine and invites us to collaborate in loving God, neighbor, self, and even our enemy. Wonder strengthens faith, reason, justice and ultimately fosters transformation. Wonder tells us that there is more to this universe than just a mindless, loveless physical substance. Wonder tells the story of faith.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”
 – Hebrews 11:1-3

Centuries ago, Charles Wesley composed these wonderful lines: “Changes from glory into glory, Till in Heav’n we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love and praise.” 

What a beautiful image of being wrapped in wonder, love, and praise. As we continue our “Road Trips of the Bible” sermon series, my hope is to convey the possibilities of wonder of this unusual metaphor during our strange and difficult times of pandemic. Becoming creatures of this new socially distanced reality is in some ways similar to when Jesus purposefully scattered out his followers. They were sent out on the road for an unexpected journey, traveling alone. In bible times, roads were often not safe places to be. They were desolate, wilderness-like regions where bandits lied in wait for travelers. But remember, a road always has a direction: between our old life and the possibility of a new one. 

The more we dive into the sacred text, the more we see how these road trips are taking people into situations of great uncertainty, much like we are experiencing now. 
Although their destinations were clear, their immediate futures were not. Yet along the way they encountered something unexpected, something filled with potential, something wonderful: the astounding existence of a living, holy God. What could be more wonderful than that? 

Join us as we get (as Willie Nelson famously sings) On the Road Again!

On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

Pastor Tim

LIGHT IS POWERFUL.

It guides our paths, brightens our spirits, and causes new life to grow. Hearing Jesus call his followers to “be light” is both humbling and invigorating. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can each bring the light of hope to dark places, nurture creativity in difficult circumstances, and radiate contagious joy.

Bring hope. Nurture creativity. Radiate joy.

We have just traveled through the longest daylight hours in a day in the northern hemisphere; it still seems that our days have lost their illumination through the difficult pandemics of the Corona Virus and Systemic Racism. One is new to us all, thankfully the last worldwide pandemic occurring with the Spanish Flu a hundred years ago. But, the other “pandemic” of institutional racism has been embedded in our society since the first slaves were brought to these shores in 1619.

In the midst of these twin radical reckonings, we have a genuine opportunity for awakening and reconciliation. Our current socially distanced reality has brought into focus for me the need we have for each other, but in this moment, we can be an example of light of being a good neighbor through our care to wear masks and stay physically apart. We grieve this loss. We learn to cherish one another. The heart wrenching video of a police officer killing a black man, George Floyd, has shined a spotlight on the terrible injustices inflicted upon Black lives in America. People of all ages, races, ethnicities, socio-economic background have joined together to protest such systemic and pervasive abuses.

Will everything just go back to normal? I hope not, because normal wasn’t all that good to begin with. Jesus came to this world to vanquish normal. Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God upon the earth! Jesus came and shined a light to all the nations and demonstrated, once and for all, God’s intention for how humans are to live in relationship with God and each other. Salvation means wholeness. Jesus is offering the light of salvation, the light of being made whole. The powerful reality is that we don’t have to wait till we die to experience this wholeness – we are called to live out this wholeness now. That means that we do the hard work now, especially in hard times, to be light.

For me, this means that I am called to be light by:

• Love and respect for a stranger by wearing a face mask in public.
• Being willing to listen to the experiences of black people and other persons of color and support them in their quest to live in a just society.
• Being willing to get uncomfortable and speak to other white people about issues of privilege and race.
• Seeking opportunities to push out of the walls of the church building and be the church as it was always meant to be.

My prayer is that we all finally realize that each of us is a unique creation of God and that our lives reflect the beautiful kaleidoscope of colors that shine all the more brightly from the source of God’s light.

“You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine!” (Matthew 5:14-16 – The Message)

Pastor Tim

The past three months living in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for us all, to say the least. Can you believe it’s been three whole months??? Anyway, I came across this linked article that I wanted to share with you: “Quarantine has changed us — and it’s not all bad.” In our rush to get back to “normal” – let’s pause and take a moment to reflect on how we’ve been changed and what we want to keep about this new daily normal after quarantine. The author (Sigal Samuel) points to eight changes that her readers made and wish to continue after the time of quarantine ends. All eight of these changes resonated with me.

I would like you to read the article and see if any of you could add anything to this list for yourself? I would like to highlight couple that have been especially meaningful reminders to me to create a new normal for my life. First, being forced to slow down has been humbling, yet good. Being a Pastor can be stressful as many different people place different demands upon me and the church. Laying that down and trusting God in the midst of a pandemic has been restorative as I have been reminded, yet again, that God is with us / with me. It’s not all on our/my shoulders. Letting the pressure to “have it all together” in the midst of something none of us have ever gone through was a real relief that I came to understand early on in this time through listening to God in my prayer time.

Along with this point, I would like to add in that have been very dedicated in exercise during this time. Since my time is used differently, I find that running and other forms of exercise are no longer just good ideas or aspirational, but critical for me everyday. It clears my mind and I feel more energized and in the moment for the rest of the day. Yes, I don’t always feel like exercising, but I have made it a habit and without it, I don’t feel like myself. Just like you are told on an airplane, in the event of an emergency, to fix our own oxygen mask before helping others around us. I feel that if I am to be an effective pastor, I must first take care of myself. How can I be of help to others if I am not taking care of myself and practicing what I preach? So slowing down and exercising up are normal that I desire to continue.

I hope this article sparks your thinking and encourages a lasting resolution to create a new normal in your life. But as the article closes, it is okay if you don’t. Sometimes just surviving difficult times is everything! We scan get through this because God is our Everything!

Pastor Tim

On Pentecost, last Sunday, I talked about two models of ministry: Push and Pull. Congregations have been working steadily at the Pull model for most of its existence. This model is similar to the Field of Dreams – “Build it and they will come” idea. In the distant past, the Catholic Church was the sole arbiter of salvation, so if you wanted to get into heaven, you had better find yourself in church. Now, the notion is to create programs and experiences to attract people and draw them to your church. The pastor sits in their office and works on the sermon and meets with those who come to them. The Pull model of ministry of church has dominated every aspect of what it has meant to be church.

But there is another way and we see it on full display at Pentecost: the Push model. The Push model of ministry is going out. In the midst of this COVID-19 Pandemic, we are getting a needed refresher in this model of ministry. As you recall, the Holy Spirit came upon the gathered followers of Jesus, who could all fit inside a room, and then swept over them, bringing what appeared to be tongues of fire upon each of them. This “breath” of God (for the Greek word for Spirit means breath) empowers them to utter new speech, equipping the faithful with new languages to carry the message of God’s love and deeds into all the corners of the world. God pushes the church outside and into the world around them.

When I was a hospice chaplain, this Pull model of ministry was my model of as well. I went to where the patients and their families were. Whether it was in their homes, a nursing home, a caretaker's home, where the patient was, I went and cared for them on their terms and on their turf. I was embedded with them. There was no reciprocal notion that they had to come to me or my office, or my church. My total care and concern was for them.

Friends, the time of the Pull model of ministry is done. 
Period. 
Full stop. 
Over. 
The End.

No longer will the unaffiliated with Christianity assume that the followers of Jesus (that’s us) have something of value, or that we have something worth getting involved in. They aren’t even sure we care about them or have their best interest at heart! What a shame that is. But what an opportunity we are being shown in the midst of this pandemic – that the church really wasn’t all about the buildings. It’s about the relationships. 

That is what Pentecost reminds us of as well: we are called to be a people who push out across cultures, differences, discomfort in order to learn about the needs of those around us and then do something about it. We can all see the pain of Black America with the horrendous video of the arrest and killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. His words of “I can’t breathe” etched on our souls. If the church is to be trusted and seen as a breath of fresh air instead of an agent of affixation, we must, must, must adopt the Push model of ministry.  It is my fervent prayer that we each individually and as a church take these lessons from Pandemic and Pentecost and go out and listen first and also share in the life giving breath of God with all who long to breathe.

Pastor Tim

​Cultural critic and wise professor, Gerald Early, once famously said, “I think there are only three things America will be known for in 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball.” Three quintessential American creations. We can’t know Jesus’ thoughts on the Constitution and baseball (although I’d like to hope that he would approve, although both are imperfect), but I do think we have some insights into Jesus’ take on jazz. It all comes down to the Hebrew idea of midrash.

​Let me take a step back for a second. Just in case you are not familiar, Jazz is a musical genre born of African Americans in New Orleans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Characterized by dynamic improvisational instrumental expression around many different and changing rhythms. A good jazz musician can hear the beat and the key and improvise in and out with beautiful and inventive ease. Take a moment and watch the video below of Mile Davis stunningly riffing and expanding upon the music around him in such a masterful way.