Beautiful Diversity

What a joy it is to travel throughout the nine counties of Southeastern West Virginia on a weekly basis. I never fail to be amazed at the beauty and diversity of God’s creation—and it seems He was at His best in West Virginia!  The beauty of our creeks and streams, hills and mountains, and the blooming dogwoods and rhododendrons are breathtaking.  But each week I come across something even more breathtaking.  Each week I get to spend time worshipping the Creator of all that beauty with different churches throughout our region.  Nothing is more beautiful than the sight of redeemed sinners gathering together worshipping their Redeemer. 

Each church I am blessed to attend looks different, has different traditions and styles and different personalities.  Some have old wooden pews, some have fancy padded chairs, some have folding metal chairs.  Some have magnificent pulpits, some have small tables or Plexiglas stands, some have nothing at all (which leaves me scrambling for a music stand to hold my notes!).  Some have worship bands, some have choirs—some have both, and some have neither.  Some gather in world-class facilities, some gather in storefronts, some gather in homes. 

Each Southern Baptist church in our region is as different as the people who gather together there for worship.  But they all have one thing in common.  Every time each one of our churches gathers together, they are all proclaiming the same Gospel.  They are all worshipping the same Christ.  They are all preaching, believing, proclaiming and trusting the same inerrant and infallible Word of God. 

Our unity as Southern Baptists does not come in our style, our look or our format.  Our methodology is not what brings us together.  What brings us as Southern Baptists together is our undying commitment to the Bible as God’s inerrant and infallible Word, our belief that Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8 is a command given to us that we must fulfill, and the realization that the only way we can do that is by cooperating together.  West Virginia Southern Baptists are as diverse as creation, but even more beautiful—all for the purpose of glorifying the One who created us, sustains us, and saved us.