News from Northside Drive Baptist Church

By James Lamkin

"Preaching in Ephesus"

            Two months ago, I led a Christian worship service on the steps of the Great Theater in Ephesus, Turkey; and I discovered that I had lived my whole life preparing for that moment.
            I was anxious about it. The outdoor setting was a very public place. Noisy tour groups and cruise ship outings came in waves through the amphitheater that once sat 25,000. Plus, it was as hot as heck!
            I was a leader in our Jewish, Christian, Muslim pilgrimage group. Inter-faith worship can be awkward at best. Either everything is so watered-down that it is tamed and bland; or, it is so narrow and myopic, that only one faith group knows what is going on. Thus, to be singularly Christian, while being inviting and instructive and respectful can be a challenge. "Inter-faith" is a long way from the provincial world in which I grew-up.
            My rabbinical colleague, Brad Levenberg, pastored me. I road-tested my anxiety on him, asking, "As a Jew, how would you hear this?"
            Brad is quite the guitarist. He volunteered to accompany our singing of Amazing Grace.
            And sing, we did! As Brad played between the stanzas, I explained the lyrics. The Jews and Muslims did not know that the song's writer had wrung-out the words from his own burdened slave-trader's heart.
            Ephesus is a place I had traced many a time on the map in the back of my Bible as I grew-up in Sunday School. The Apostle Paul travelled (in dots and dashes) all about Asia Minor and his trek had led him here. Paul was hauled right where we sat, because his preaching cost the idol salesmen business.
            It was in Ephesus that seven guys had seen Paul casting out demons in Jesus' name. They tried their hands at it. The text says that this demon-possessed man accosts them, "Jesus, I know! Paul, I know! But who are you?" Then, the guy jumps them, beats them up, and they run from the house bruised and naked!
            I preached about that.
            And, oh yes, there were the Koreans. As I explained the ways of Christian worship---from praise to confession to assurance to intercession, etc.---a choir of Korean women came out of nowhere and began to sing. Though I didn't understand the words, I knew the song. Our Jewish and Muslim friends asked us to sing it in English. So we did...allowing the hymn's last line to suspend in mid-air like Cliff Barrows at a Billy Graham Revival Meeting. How Great...THOU...Art...!
            It was a holy, chill bump moment.
            For the Benediction, I told a Jewish story. "Indeed," said I, "the great treasure we seek is often at home all along...but the knowledge of the treasure can only be had by leaving home."
            As worship ended, we cried and hugged and laughed and loved and said, "Surely God was in this place!"
            That night in my journal, I wrote, "I feel as if I have lived my whole life preparing for this moment."