Learning American History in Boston

When we toured Boston last week I learned some things about the history of our nation that I should have learned in school, had I been paying attention. Fortunately, Fleda and I had our granddaughter Madison with us as we walked the “Freedom Trail”. Madison has been paying attention to her history lessons. In addition, we had our daughter-in-law Tamara leading the way to some good restaurants when she was finished with the training she was taking at Lesley University. The lobster roll at the Union Oyster House was good but even better was the pasta we ate at Mother Anna’s in “The North End,” Boston’s neighborhood of more than 90 Italian restaurants.

On the Freedom Trail we saw Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, Park Street Church, and the USS Constitution. The enduring fame of the Old North Church “began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.”

Park Street Church, right across the street from the Boston Common, is known as the Evangelical Church of "firsts.” It is the location of the first Sunday school in 1818 and the first prison ministry in 1824. On July 4, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison gave his first public anti-slavery speech there. "My Country 'Tis of Thee,” was sung for the first time by the church children's choir on July 4, 1831, thanks to the leadership of Lowell Mason, Park Street’s Minister of Music. Among Mason’s more popular hymns were “Joy to the World”, “Nearer my God to Thee”, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”.

What Do You Want People to Say about Your Church?

I’ve been thinking about our church’s reputation: what do you want people to say about your church: It is a friendly church? It is a church where they have exciting worship services? You can hear good music there? You can hear good Bible preaching and teaching there? They have good food there on Wednesday nights? They have nice buildings and property? All of those are important. But I haven’t gotten to what I want people to say about us yet. Here is what I want people to say about New Hope Baptist Church: “People are being changed for the better in that church.”

Now, I know that in order for people to say that about us, they are going to have to spend time with us. We don’t change and become like Jesus overnight, so it is not something that people can see if they only visit us a time or two. But the Bible says in Galatians 5:19-23, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

What if someone stayed around New Hope and really got to know us for say three months? Would they see some members or regular attenders giving up such things as lustful pleasures, hatred, selfishness, and outbursts of anger and finding and sharing love, joy, and peace? I think that if they had eyes to see, they would see such change in some people’s lives here. I see it in some New Hope people. I pray to see more of it among us and believe that I will.

That is what I want people to say about New Hope. We see people becoming more like Jesus in that church, more filled with his Spirit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”