Milestones and Memories
In the past 3 weeks, CBF/GA has marked employment milestones with members of our staff. Martha Kate Hall and Rachel Greco both celebrated their 5th Anniversaries with CBF/GA. Martha Kate’s anniversary is August 27 and Rachel’s is September 16. Both of these ladies have been good additions to our staff and have worked to continue CBF/GA’s work to support the mission and ministry of our partner congregations.
In college, I was introduced to Stud Terkel’s heavy tome, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. This book, like so many of Terkel’s, is a collection of interviews he had with people around the country. Terkel had this amazing ability to get people to honestly speak about their lives and their sense of person-hood. For me, Working, was a seminal book in my college education because I read for the first time how other people thought about their jobs and even their callings, if they had one.
In Working, Nora Watson, an editor, speaks of the interplay between a job and a calling, saying, “I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.” In talking about her father, a pastor, Watson further explains, “For all that was bad about my father’s vocation, he showed me it was possible to fuse your life to your work. His home was also his work. A parish is no different than an office, because it’s the whole countryside. There’s nothing I would enjoy more than a job that was so meaningful to me that I brought it home.”
For CBF/GA, Martha Kate and Rachel have fused this tension between job and calling well. While they possess different skills and talents, both have embraced their place at CBF/GA as a part of their own vocational calling. Their parish has, indeed, become the whole countryside of Georgia as they have traveled across the state helping run events that CBF/GA sponsors. Martha Kate has helped guide our programmatic work around Georgia for the last 5 years. She also helps our congregations and ministers find vocational matches when church staff openings appear. Rachel has spent a good bit of her time ensuring that our website and social media presence is continually telling the story of moderate Baptists in Georgia. Recently, Rachel has also added office administrator-type functions to her responsibilities and is excelling there, too.
For both Martha Kate and Rachel, we are grateful for their service.
Last week, Charles Massey, husband of Carolyn Bell Massey, our state moderator from 1998-1999, passed away. Charles and Carolyn were both active and staunch supporters of CBF/GA during its infancy; Carolyn was on the Executive Committee when Frank Broome was hired as our first full-time coordinator. Their support, along with so many others during those formative years, set the table for the feast that CBF/GA has been able to provide since. For those who have been around since our earliest beginnings, the last names of CBF/GA pioneers like Smith, Nimmons, DuVall, Appleton, Massey, Withers, and so many others roll off our tongues with a reverence reserved for the saints.
For Charles Massey and so many others, may their lives be a blessed memory.
Milestones and memories often mark the paths of our lives. This is true of CBF/GA, too. Because of the work and sacrifice of so many, we are able to continue the legacy of missional service in the name of Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God.