The Stewardship of Memory: Nov. 1908 & Nov. 2008

As part of our stewardship for 2009, I prepared a sermon relating the ministry of the Rev. Frank Richard Morris, whose seven year pastorate (1901-1908) drew to a close one hundred years and one day ago on the day this sermon was offered. A copy of Morris' own sermon, from Nov. 15, 1908, can be downloaded by clicking this link.

It is the year ’08, and the First Baptist Church looks back at its few years since the turn of the century. The sanctuary received refurbishment, and other parts of the physical plant had needed attention given due to what might be termed deferred maintenance. The church dealt with many administrative needs and struggled especially to get enough men to serve on the deacon board. And oh yes, there was a thirty-something minister who served as minister.

To which ’08 do we refer? 1908 or 2008?

If you said, “both of them”, you are correct! And we observe, some things change and others are strangely the same. Reading the history of First Baptist, I can see interesting (and perhaps eerily so) parallels between the life of First Baptist in 1908 and 2008. Conversely, a comparison between the two eras is done with care. The Benningtons of 1908 and 2008 are two different Benningtons! As we read of a past era’s glory, we must place things in perspective, celebrating the faith at work in these saints of years ago without enshrining a bygone era as the sole measure of today’s efforts. Like it or not, each generation faces a different context for ministry.

For example, take 2008. This morning, many of us we arrived in our cars. Hopefully some of us hopefully remembered to turn off our cell phones before entering worship, and perhaps a couple of us are using the sermon time to contemplate what sort of holiday gift still needs to be bought online. We also ponder the implications of an uncertain economy, an ongoing war on terror that has divided the country, and await the beginning of a new administration just two months from taking office, led by a young senator from Illinois, son of an African father and a Euro-American mother.

Just going back the space of one hundred years, the world of 1908 strikes us as a strange distant period back when a pound of flour cost $0.0275/lb. The local economy in Bennington was recovering after an economic crisis in the 1890s with long-standing industrial jobs changing with the market demand. (Apparently, no one wanted to wear wool underwear after about 1890.) Earlier in the same decade, the sitting President, Theodore Roosevelt, had endured public backlash in 1901 for inviting Booker T. Washington, a prominent African American scholar and orator, to have dinner at the White House.

Before we go too far into our travels back in time, let us consider another scenario, this time closer to home:

While the church building itself was fairly new (constructed in 1878), by the time the turn of the century arrived, the building was considered overdue for refurbishment. The church celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in grand style in 1902 with a newly renovated sanctuary and other room improvements. For most of the first decade, the Rev. Frank Richard Morris served the church. A graduate of Colgate University and Hamilton Theological Institute, both of Hamilton, NY, Morris was a recently ordained Northern Baptist minister, coming to Bennington after a successful first pastorate in Albany, NY. Seven years later, on November 15, 1908 (one hundred years and one day ago), the congregation gathered for worship to say goodbye to this minister. The congregation had grown under Morris’ pastoral leadership, expanding its membership and its programming. It must have been a bittersweet service as they grieved what Dr. William Towart described in the 1927 centennial church history as the end of “ a period of splendid cooperation and church unity.” After this service, Morris agreed to publish this last sermon as a memento of the special occasion.

So how did this sermon come to light one hundred years later? Thanks to online research tools, I searched for references to our church and came across reference to this sermon at the University of Vermont in Burlington. What I discovered was a fascinating time capsule in sermonic form, as the Rev. Morris remembered his seven years of ministry, sharing notes on the membership of the congregation, its financial support of local ministry and denominational mission, as well as a number of changes that occurred within the congregation’s ministry during his tenure.

You might ask why a congregation ought to remember pastors and church life from so long ago. I suggest we do so out of a sense of stewardship: the stewardship of memory. We review our history so that we recall the work of the saints before us and remind ourselves as the present day congregation that it is our task to “go forward, remembering”, endeavoring to continue the story that they handed down, and in turn, hand it down to the next generation.

While the challenges and circumstances differ, we soon realize that our predecessors were just as challenged in the task of sharing, embodying, and passing down the faith as we are today. If we look carefully enough, we will see that there were never any “good ole days” where people had it somehow magically easier. Nonetheless, the same great commission calls us to share the gospel and make disciples. The main task of the Church remains as it did in the first century. As Frank Morris said one hundred years and one day ago, “The chief business of the Church is to make disciples for the Master and to lead them into fellowship one with another for mutual uplift and for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.”

In 1908, the Rev. Morris completed seven years of ministry, celebrating a congregation that changed dramatically in this period of time. During his tenure, one hundred fifty-five persons joined the church. Of that remarkable number, one hundred fifteen joined by baptism, seventy-four alone in the years between 1905-1907. These figures were of great joy to Morris, who remembered that he arrived in Bennington to a place of some indifference to religious matters. He reflects, “For a year and three months no one moved forward to unite with the church.”

Over the seven-year period, $30,500 was spent on “local ministry”, approximately $695,648 in 2007 dollars, adjusted for inflation. The congregation gave faithfully to benevolence work. Over the same period, the church sent out $9268 for Northern Baptist mission support (about $211,385 in 2007 dollars). Together, in today’s dollars, the First Baptist of 1908 spent $99,378.33 for local ministry per annum and gave $30,197.98 per annum in mission support. Today, most of our local ministry expenses are paid by the endowment fund, created by the generosity of previous generations alongside growing support from the annual pledges (i.e. the offering plate) and building rental use. Of our mission support, we give above the average American Baptist congregation and rank among the top five churches in the ABC Vermont/New Hampshire region for mission giving, remarkable considering we are far fewer in number today than in Morris’ era.

One of the key contributions of Frank Morris’ ministry was his leadership in reorganizing its educational ministries, bringing the “Sunday School” in line with the latest methods in religious education. In the latter part of the 19th century, First Baptist’s Sunday school grew, and the 1902 church renovation created classroom space to address these needs. Morris argued that religious education figures strongly at the forefront of the church’s endeavors, yet he encountered resistance to such a change. During the seven years of Frank Morris’ pastorate, the congregation moved out of a more pietistic model of church life, which had placed much emphasis on Sunday morning worship and weekly prayer services witha modest, yetless developedemphasis on religious education. Some persons were reticent to change the focus away from weekly prayer meetings.

By 1906, eighty percent of the new members were coming because of the Sunday school programming; however, only a small amount of money was budgeted for the Sunday school, including the salary for the church’s first ever paid staff member in religious education. Essentially, the congregation had reaped great benefits from a program that they were not adequately financing. Rev. Morris points out that they spent much of the local ministry expense on physical plant refurbishment, multi-staff payroll, utilities, office operations, and fuel, but very little for the work of religious education. During the Morris pastorate, the congregation carried out religious education classes across the town, going out into the community with religious education opportunities rather than keeping all ministries under one roof.  Instead of people coming to them, the 1900s congregation was going out to the people with remarkable success.

Again, the echoes of the past resound in our current congregational conversations as we seek to build up the ministry of the church while lessening the financial costs of “doing business”. Reading Morris’ century-old remarks reminded me of the lingering question before the 2008 congregation. How do we properly draft a budget that reflects a passion to be in the midst of the community and sharing the faith broadly and effectively? (Or as we have heard in our conversations last year, what does it mean to be “a Missional church”)? How do we increase our ministry and outreach while not being overwhelmed with the realities of being a smaller congregation than Morris’ day with an even bigger physical plant than the congregation of 1908 knew? One suggestion from 1908 is to consider the congregation’s ministries. Are we limited to ministry within the four walls of 601 Main Street to carry out the ministry of the church?

I find some comfort in the realization that Frank Morris and the early 1900s First Baptist congregants did not have it magically easier. Churches in the rural Northeast were suffering the effects of rural depopulation and economic challenge that began in the 1890s. One study relates that Windsor County Vermont churches reported a thirty percent drop in attendance in the twenty years between 1890 and 1910. As Frank Morris stood in the pulpit a century ago, Baptists and other Protestant groups were on the cusp of an era of change, as denominational identities and loyalties began to shift, the fundamentalist movement was soon to rock Northern Baptists and other denominations, and theological progressives like Walter Rauschenbuschpressed questions about the church and its role in social change. Rauschenbusch's Christianity the andSocial Crisis was published the year before this sermon was preached.

I believe Frank Morris ably stood in the midst of these sea changes. He was a seminary student of one of the leading Northern Baptist progressives, the Rev. Dr. William Newton Clarke, a Baptist theologian whose textbook An Outline of Christian Theology became the leading textbook between the late 19th century and the First World War. Like many scholars of his day, Clarke used his classroom lecture notes to form much of the book, hence, Morris would have learned Clarke's influential theology firsthand. (The book was published the year after Morris graduated.) Reading Frank Morris’ sermon, I imagine Clarke’s formative hand on Morris’ shoulder, urging him to keep the church moving forward with the times. It was not an easy time, but somehow the faith persevered. I take a cue from Emily Clarke, widow of William Newton Clarke’s work, who summarized the context and challenge of the era. Of her husband she observed that he was able “to make Christian faith possible in a time of doubt and transition”. For First Baptist, the success of Frank Morris’ tenure was in part due to the skill and dedication of a pastor and congregation and in part to the era in question. This is the time of Frank Morris and his congregation: a time of challenge and change met by their dedicated faithfulness to the gospel, faithful even as they refined what it meant to keep the faith and struggled with how to realign the church to meet the needs of the day at hand.

While time precludes me from going further (and I intend to expand this sermon into essay form as there is so much more to consider), let me close with a few words about November 15, 1908 and November 16, 2008. Throughout Morris’ pastorate, he battled significantly with his health, somehow carrying on the ministry of the church even when near incapacitated and taking two leaves of medical absence. Finally, in 1908, his health concerns became inescapable, and he resigned as minister in 1908. You will note in the record of ministers, Frank Morris is listed as pastor until 1909, not 1908. The reason behind this is touching and remarkable. Upon his resignation, the congregation graciously carried him on salary for much of the next year. (A sobering reality of the early 20th century: Our denominational pension board would not start its ministry until the late 1910s, and even then, there were no great denominational funds available for clergy needing disability assistance.) Morris’ health declined over the next few years, subsequently dying in 1912, two weeks short of his forty-first birthday, leaving his widow and two children.

Indeed, it is bittersweet on this side of history, as I worked from a small collection of photos, news clippings, and very little else to remember a talented minister and the sadness of a much too short life. Remarkably, we have these words of a sermon, where a century and one day ago a minister could give thanks to God for a congregation and the opportunity to serve, looking back joyfully at his seven years of ministry. While challenged by faltering health and wrestling with how to bring a congregation firmly into the 20th century, Frank Richard Morris and his flock persevered.

As I look around the congregation present in 2008, I see the spiritual DNA of the 1908 congregation has passed down. Here before me are a group of people who have worked hard, despite many odds being against them. We are not that far apart from our 1908 forebears, a congregation struggling in an era of general disinterest to “church”, a congregation endeavoring to bring its ministry and mission closer to a hurting community in need. Like Morris, I stand here knowing that congregations have to work hard to flourish, and I hope I am as steadfast in helping you understand this as he did with his congregation. Likewise I give thanks for the desire among you to a congregation willing to change and grow in new and different directions.

On this day we celebrate 2009 stewardship and the dedication of the new lift to make our physical plant more accessible to all persons. We are seeking new ways of creating strong ties to our community and learning new ways of being “church” as well. It is gratifying to know that we are continuing a very good story, including the era of Frank Morris and his remarkable congregants of a century ago. And, I give thanks to God that we are writing a pretty good chapter in the story called First Baptist, Bennington. May someone find this sermon (even the video footage!) in 2108 and marvel at our 2008 witness in that quaint time called the turn of the 21st century!

Thanks be to God. AMEN!