my baum shelter

I can’t believe I haven’t talked about this before on the blog, especially since it is a part of my life that I love so much! One of the things that fills some of my days each week is a ministry in our church called the May Street Market. I volunteer as the Volunteer Coordinator of the Market, but I think that title makes my role sound much more important than it actually is. The truth is, the church staff of our Baptist Center, Dan Freemyer and Judi Glover, do all the hard work for this ministry and all the other Baptist Center ministries.

One of the reasons Fred and I fell quickly in love with our church was its commitment to people PERIOD. No conditions at all. They love people – all people, no matter what. Our church is located near downtown Fort Worth and there is a large homeless population as well as a large population of families on welfare or fixed incomes in our church’s neighborhood. As our new pastor, Brent Beasley, said in a sermon not too long ago ~ before coming to Broadway Baptist Church, he would see a homeless man walking the streets downtown and think, “oh, there’s a homeless man,” but after coming to Broadway, he sees a homeless man walking the streets downtown and thinks, “oh, there’s Jerry.” Our church membership is made up of a diverse group of families and I love that sitting next to a homeless person is not an unusual occurrence for us in our church.

Anyway, the May Street Market is one of the many ways our church serves our community. It’s a small grocery store (about 10 aisles) where families from our community can come “shop” for groceries once a month. I say “shop” because there is no charge for any of the items. They are allowed to take a certain number of items from each aisle based on the size of their family. We have upwards of 150 families that come through our Market each month and due to the economy, that number just seems to be growing and growing. What is remarkable to me, though, is the number of people who donate food and money keeps growing and growing, too.

There’s just something about serving others that allows me to see how interconnected we all are, why Love matters, and how real God is.

Dan preached about one of my favorite stories regarding the May Street Market a few months back. The whole sermon is terrific, but the part about the Market starts at the 11:40 mark. You can hear it here (it’s just under 7 minutes long).

Tonight my heart is so full.  I really love Christmas time and it has such great meaning for me. Our church celebrates Christmas better than any other church I’ve ever attended. Not that it’s a competition – because you know, I’m sure there are rules against churches competing against one another. That just seems like something God would probably disapprove of.

But, if God did allow competitions, I don’t know how he couldn’t award first place to Broadway Baptist. Though it’s a Baptist church, the worship style is much more liturgical than most Baptist churches I’m familiar with, at least those here in the South/Southwest. Fred and I instantly fell in love with the church the first time we visited – the huge vaulted sanctuary, the stained glass windows – it is a building made to invoke sacred, thoughtful worship. Very few churches are made that way anymore and frankly very few ones that were made this way are still standing or full on Sunday mornings. I never realized how a sanctuary specifically designed for sacred worship could really impact your church experience. There are no praise bands; instead, we have a 10,000+ pipe organ and we sing centuries-old hymns. Worshipping here has completely changed my Sunday morning experience.

Broadway’s services focus on the sacredness of God – a focused intention that I didn’t quite pick up on the first Sunday we visited. After the sermon, the church participates in what is called a Discipline of Silence. It’s stated quite clearly in the bulletin – which I had not read. So, our first Sunday, after an excellent sermon by Brett Younger who sadly is no longer at the church, he took his seat and . . . nothing. After about 20? 30? seconds, I leaned over and whispered to Fred, “I think whoever is supposed to speak next forgot.” He just gave me that annoyed, “be quiet” look that I sometimes (okay, oftentimes) get from him. I waited for what must have been another 60 seconds – which really is quite a long time if you’re just sitting there in absolute silence. “Seriously, you would think the pastor would get back up once it’s clear the other guy forgot it’s his turn.” Exasperated, Fred flipped through his bulletin and pointed to the bolded heading, “Discipline of Silence” and gave me a sterner look that said, “now, would you please be quiet?” For those of you who know me well, you know it’s really no wonder that this practice was a hard one for me to embrace.

I loved every single thing about the worship service at Broadway except that Discipline of Silence. First, it is really long – I mean like 2-3 minutes long. And, second, there is no introduction – no, “now please bow your heads” or anything. The pastor just ends his sermon and sits down. Some people bow their heads, most just stare ahead or above or at the windows. I prefer more direction than that. Third, you can hear people fidgeting, coughing, all the sounds you would hear if there was suddenly no other sound in a church sanctuary. Fourth, me and silence have always had what you would call a rocky relationship. I’m a do-er and talker to the core. Being still is something that always sounded good but not something I’ve ever really practiced. I remember for the first several weeks telling Fred that while I loved everything else about their services, I wasn’t too sure I would ever embrace the whole silence thing. He just smiled and nodded – he doesn’t have the same issues with silence that I do. And, much to my surprise, after about six weeks, I found myself really embracing those minutes of silence and solitude and reflection. And after a few more weeks, it actually felt like only 2 minutes of silence instead of 20 minutes of silence. And after a few more weeks, I really started looking forward to those moments. They are now one of my favorite parts of the service. If you’re reading this, that’s in no way a commentary on the sermon portion of the service, Brent!

And all this really thoughtful, intentional focus on the sacredness of God is really evident during Christmas. We celebrate the Advent and each week all the lights were turned off as the Advent candles were lit. Members of our congregation wrote devotionals and put them all together so that we had an Advent Devotional each of the 28 days of Advent (which was conveniently also disseminated daily on facebook). Our gifted pastor, amazing musicians, and tremendous choir backed up by the aforementioned organ all came together - each verse recited, prayer offered, and song sung picked intentionally to create an atmosphere of preparation and expectant waiting of Christ’s birth with the rhythm of the worship service slowly picking up pace each week as we approach Christmas day. So, this week, the last Advent Sunday of this Christmas season was such a joyful experience with just a hint of restraint. Such meaning in the style and art of our worship. Such joy in things like silence and rhythm and intentional worship. These are things I never really experienced/noticed before attending this church and who knows? Maybe practicing that whole Discipline of Silence has made me more receptive to noticing and celebrating in such simple, yet powerful ways.

To all of you, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you a holiday season filled with love, hope, and joy!

I’m Dionna and this is my blog. It’s primarily a product of boredom but it’s also my way of trying to stay in touch with people. Oh, and be heard by the whole entire world! I’m not very good at Facebook and can’t ever imagine Twittering? Tweeting? because I believe there should never be limits put on how many words I can use at any given time. So, I created my own blog – with no word limits.

I am married to a pathologist named Fred. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. Well, maybe on the days when he comes home and I start to hand him our baby and he responds with, “Oh – wait, let me go wash my hands and change my clothes real quick. I grossed in a placenta today and may still have some bits of it on me.” Yeah, that’s a little creepy. But, you get used to it.

We currently live in Fort Worth, Texas. We have one child, a baby boy born in February 2009, whom shall forever be referred to in this blog as babyBaum. Not original, I know; however, the Baum part as in BOMB(n): an explosive device fused to detonate under specified conditions could not be a more accurate description of my little bundle of joy.

I’m currently a quasi-SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) who is desperate to go back to the land of the working. I was an attorney not so long ago and hope to get back to it soon. In the meantime, I delicately handle babyBaum so as to avoid detonation and volunteer as a Coordinator for a food pantry which operates through my church, the fabulous Broadway Baptist Church. It fills some of my days and a lot of my heart and soul - unlike babyBaum, who fills up all of my days, including the nights, and all of my heart and soul.

So, welcome to my blog. It remains to be seen whether this will be at all entertaining or interesting. Or how many times I embarrass or tick off Fred for over-sharing. Not that me over-sharing is an issue in our marriage. Because if I confirmed that, then I would clearly be over-sharing.

One last note – though my words will not be limited, yours may be. Comments will be moderated primarily to avoid the posting of spam, inflammatory insults towards other commenters, and unnecessary profanity (though all necessary profanity will be retained).