Broadway Baptist Church - Fort Worth

Join us for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

The Chancel Choir will sing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” by J.S. Bach. Jane Andrews will play “Create in Me” by Terre Johnson. Pastor Ryon Price’s sermon is titled “We Must Grow Up” with the gospel reading coming from Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16. We will gather and share in The Lord’s Supper. Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Pastor Ryon's Friday letter:

Beloved Broadway,

As many of you know, I spent the early part of this week at Passport summer camp with our children, grades 3-6. The weather wasn’t too bad for late July in lovely Brownwood, Texas at the Heart of Texas Baptist Camp and Conference Center whose acronym I always joke can and should be abbreviated as HOT.

Last Sunday before I left for camp, the boy with the five loaves of bread and two fish who shared his lunch came up in the lectionary. I was looking for that little boy on Monday when the breakfast placed onto my tray was a bunch of stewed apples and what looked and tasted to me a whole lot like a corndog. Yes, for breakfast! Turns out that morning the cooks were serving pancakes on a stick, which is apparently a real hit with the kids in lunchrooms across the country. Except, the kitchen folks played a little joke on me, actually giving me a real, live (dead) corndog rather than a pancake that only looked like a corndog. I grimaced while all the children licked their lips. “Welcome to camp,” I thought, and ended up eating fruit and yogurt from the breakfast bar and lived to tell about it.

Camp was camp. We sang silly songs, did silly dances, and heard some solid, not-too-silly yet still age-appropriate sermons. The theme was “Come to the Water”. Talks about diving in to follow Jesus were right in key given the ongoing summer Olympics in Paris and the great blob at Lake Brownwood. If you don’t know what a blob is, let me encourage you to Google it, and then consider coming as a chaperone with us next summer. I hear the food will be great.

All week long, I particularly enjoyed getting to know some of these younger children from our church, their preferred dietary and hygiene habits, and their various ideas on things like God and mammon.

One of these children is quite the entrepreneur. At the bathroom break on the bus ride over he bought a 24 pack of Dr. Peppers for a $1 a can from the convenience store. Then at camp, he marked up the price and re-sold them at $3 apiece to his desperate peers. Not quite the loaves and fish story; but I did tell him I would like him to consider serving on our Finance and Stewardship Committee.

Late in the week, there was a typical little playground scuffle between one of our children and another child from another church. All reports say our kid was standing up to the bully who was saying some really cruel and racist things about some of the other kids at camp. David (not his real name) took on Goliath (probably not his real name), but did so without throwing even one single, smooth stone. He decided to stand his ground in the Jesus fashion – speaking the truth to power without resorting to violence. This child is all heart, and I’m telling you, you can mark my words he will end up fighting the good fight with his whole life. I couldn’t be prouder.

After the dust on the playground settled, the pastor from the other church wanted to meet with our child and apologize for what happened. How in the world Broadway ended up at the same camp with the Cowboy Church of Erath County must be a story in itself. But their pastor, Brother Werth Mayes bent down to our boy, put his hands softly upon each of his shoulders, looked him straight in both eyes, and said in the kindest, gentlest voice, “I am so sorry for what happened. We believe everybody is made in the image of God. Every single boy, and girl, and person. You were right to stick up for that.”

I didn’t know Brother Werth before this week, but I did some Googling myself when I got home. The internet says he was an elementary education major at Tarleton State before his call to the ministry came. He’s been pastoring for several decades, and I’ve now since watched a few of his sermons online. He does not preach before stained glass on Sundays. In fact, as you might guess, the cowboys and cowgirls of Erath County meet in a barn! But let me tell you, that is a church, and Brother Werth is a pastor, and I hope to drive over to Erath County and have coffee with him before the summer is out.

I’m sure Brother Werth was firm and gentle with the other boy, just as the spirit would have it when dealing with someone also made in the very image of God.

On the last day of camp, the adults were invited to share with one another where we saw God this week.

I thought of our boy, Brother Werth, and also all our chaperones who gave up vacation time to come and step on Cheez-Its and try to dodge bees in the sweltering dorms. God comes to us in so many ways. And in so many people. Sometimes so surprisingly. Always so gentle, and loving, and kind, and sometimes a little silly. I was thankful for every single glimpse of God I had seen.

Then a minister and good friend from one of the other churches shared where she had seen God. It was in the little boy from her church who was there on scholarship and had needed help with lunch money on the bus ride over and snacks all throughout the week. But then, on the last night of camp, she said, he emptied out every coin in his pockets for the offering taken up to send money to the impoverished children in Togo.

The little boy with the loaves and the fish did show up after all.

So too did God.

And I got to see it all with my own eyes, right there in the HOT Heart of Texas Baptist Camp in Brownwood, Texas.

It was a good, good week.

See you Sunday.

Ryon

New Young Adult Sunday School beginning Sunday, August 11 at 9:30 a.m. in Fleming Chapel

Led by Senior Pastor Ryon Price, Young Adults Intern De’Evin Johnson, and Margo and Paul Allen, the Young
Adults class offers a joyous, encouraging, and centered space for exploring the Christian faith and finding
community with other young adults mostly in their 20s.

Contact De’Evin Johnson with questions at [email protected]

Join us for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Chancel Choir will sing “Zion’s Walls” arranged by Aaron Copland. We will hear about Fellowship Southwest Missions from Executive Director, Stephen Reeves. Pastor Ryon Price will preach a sermon titled “Every Family” from John 6:1-14. Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Pastor Ryon's Friday letter:

Beloved Broadway,

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend about life and the future and all the unknowns facing us, our families, our country, and our world right now.

As we talked, I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier this month with a woman in our congregation who expressed concern over many things including her husband, her children, her grandchildren, and her church. She and her husband are wealthy enough to live comfortably in their latter age; yet she is honest enough with herself and her world to know that money can only go so far in alleviating anxiety and buying peace.

Thinking on these things, my mind went to all that is uncertain in my own life, my anxieties and fears, and what is mostly beyond my control but could have great impact upon me and/or those I love.

In times like these, I turn again and again to a poem by Wendell Berry called “The Peace of Wild Things” which has over the years been a great source of comfort and serenity:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Jesus said, “Consider the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

“And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

There is much that we can worry and fret over in our world. There is much we can obsess over.

But the birds are sent to our feeder early each morning to remind us of our daily bread; and the flowers in the garden lift their drooping heads after just one gentle, mid-summer rain.

This is enough, beloved. It is enough to remind us of just how beautiful and resilient life can be.

See you Sunday,

Ryon

Join us for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The Chancel Choir will sing “God is our Refuge” by Allen Pote and after returning from their trip to New York City, the Chapel Choir will sing “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” by Mark Miller. Pastor Ryon Price will preach “He Has Broken Down the Dividing Wall” from Mark 6:30-34, 53-56. Remember to join us at 1:30 for the Chapel Choirs Homecoming Concert.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Chapel Choir Homecoming Concert

This Sunday at 1:30 PM our Chapel Choir youth and leaders will share about their mission and choir tour through song, testimony, and pictures of the experience.

Join us and support our youth.

Pastor Ryon's Friday letter:

Beloved Broadway,

Tomorrow, we will ordain Emily Maples to the Gospel Ministry. I am honored to officiate such a momentous occasion for such a gifted and valued friend.

Emily grew up at Broadway. She returned in 2018, serving first as Children and Youth Music Coordinator and Chapel Choir Director, then later Youth Ministry Coordinator. Over these years, Emily has shown all the graces and dedication of the call to ministry, even while also pursuing her Master of Divinity course of study at Brite Divinity School. She is an extraordinarily gifted person whose love for God, the church, and the world is so evident. She also, of course, really loves and is deeply gifted at music.

Ministry has been called an “odd and wondrous calling”. It certainly is so. The stole never quite sits right on our shoulders. Yet we wear it, nonetheless. Somehow – and it is a wonder how this happens – we, the earthen vessels of this world, are still able to pour out so much grace. This is the call, to come near enough to others to pour out grace.

A sacred calling like this brings us near to all the fullness of humanity – in its happiness and despair, sin and salvation. We weep with those who weep. We rejoice with those who rejoice. We pronounce the judgments of this world; we proclaim the justification, and reconciliation of God. We embrace the unembraceable. We touch the untouchable. We love the unlovable.

We take on the sin of the world. We receive the sins of our flock.

We fall down – on the job, in our relationships, in our prayers. We rise up – to preach, and to sing, and to profess the mystery of our faith. We forgive. We are forgiven.

We pray for even our enemies. We bless, even those who curse us. We seek the redemption of all in the name of Jesus Christ.

We baptize. We marry. We bury.

We speak hallowed words in ordinary and extraordinary times. Our voices quiver and quake because we know we are so feeble before the times. Yet we speak. And when the words fail us, we sing songs, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and we raise the bread and cup.

We are priests unto others. And in the end, we too go down into the grave, and a priest unto us says the same hallowed words over us, as we say over others:

“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.”

Tomorrow, we come to acknowledge a sheep of our own fold, called to come, and don the spirit of the call to ministry. God is so good. And God has so graced Emily Maples with all the words and all the song she will need proclaim this Gospel of ours.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

See you tomorrow.

Ryon

School Uniform Distribution

Each year Broadway’s Community Center provides free school uniforms to hundreds of FWISD students. This year the event will take place across two dates: Monday, July 22nd and Monday, August 5th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Guests should preregister here: https://bit.ly/UniformPreregistration

A photo ID & proof of student’s enrollment are required for participation.

Join us for the ordination of Emily Maples Davis on Saturday, July 20 at 2:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. All are invited to attend and share words of blessing for Emily.

Reception to follow in the Centrum.

Brite Divinity School

This morning the Chapel
choir sang at St. John the Divine Cathedral and sounded heavenly!

Join us for worship this morning at 10:50 a.m.

Today we have the honor of hearing Peter Nelson, Broadway’s Administrator and Director of Community Ministries and Partnerships, preach while Pastor Ryon is in New York with our Chapel Choir.

Peter will preach from Mark 6:14-29. Josh Lucas and Jeff Newton will sing “Close to Thee, arranged by Ovid Young, and the Chancel Choir will sing “Assurance,” arranged by John Ness Beck.

Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Join us for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

The Chancel Choir will sing “Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven” by Mark Andrews and “Lead me, Lord” by Samuel Sebastian Wesley. Pastor Ryon Price will preach “When You Can’t Fix Your Family” from Mark 6:1-13. We will gather and partake in the Lord’s Supper and pray for our Chapel Choir as they travel to New York City.

Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Pastor Ryon's Friday Letter:

Beloved Broadway,

Recently, a wise, old saint asked of me the question which our mutual hero in the faith, friend, and former Broadway Pastor John Claypool often asked:

“Tell me, what’s saving your life right now?”

One answer I can almost always give to this question is books, especially books of history about churches and clergy. These are a Godsend to my spirit, a connection amongst the saints, past and present, and a great reminder of the eternal faithfulness of our God, even amidst all the struggle, heartache, disappointment, sin, and dogged witness of the church in every age and through every wind of change.

One book that been particularly life giving to me recently is the memoir A Voice in the Village by native-Texan Rev. Howard Moody, who from 1956 to 1992 served as Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, where our Chapel Choir will sing in worship on July 14.

Judson is an historic church just across the street from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Its bold witness for civil, religious, and human rights has had an outsized impact both in New York and around the world. Rev. Moody’s work to protect and assist gay men during the early days of the AIDS crisis was legendary, and at odds with most of the rest of America’s Baptist ministers who either ignored the disease or turned a condemning eye towards those who contracted it. The church’s bold and progressive stands for women’s and LGBTQIA rights, the rights of religious minorities, and the First Amendment right to freedom of expression have made national news time and time again. Its social ministries have for years been a lifeline to the homeless and dispossessed. That a Baptist church well into its third century remains such a community fixture within the heart of the Village is truly amazing.

In the epilogue to his book Rev. Moody concluded with three “lifetime” lessons for the church:

1. Bigger is not always better.
2. Serving the community – works of justice and charity – are the church’s raison d’etre and the people of faith’s voluntary obligation.
3. In the community of faith, people are bonded together not by beliefs but by love and caring for one another and the world they inhabit.

In summary he wrote:

During my thirty-five years, the church membership was never more than 125, not even as large as the staff of today’s mega-churches. Yet, the number of lives this little Village church touched and ministered to are beyond counting, and I believe those numbers were what mattered most to this congregation. If you are interested in embodying that kind of Christian expression, wrap your mind around this fundamental theological principle: that the Church exists for the world.

I am looking forward to visiting this small, yet gutsy church on our Chapel Choir Tour and Mission Trip next week. We learn courage and the ethics of care by watching and witnessing others. We read books. We watch films. We visit holy and alive places. We learn what living in the spirit and existing for the world is all about.

This is what saves our lives!

I’m eager to see and share it.

See you Sunday,

Ryon

PS – As I will be on the choir tour and mission trip next week, a Friday letter will not be delivered. Please plan to come and commission our group at the end of this Sunday’s service.

Camp Broadway is open to all Broadway members and their friends and family to enjoy the 4th of July holiday. Camp opens at 5:00 p.m. closes at 10:00 p.m. Enjoy the spectacular fireworks display over Eagle Mountain Lake put on by our neighbors at the Fort Worth Boat Club. This 20-30- minute fireworks show will begin after sundown and is viewable from Camp Broadway.

Today we welcomed two young adults seeking membership at Broadway.

Audrey Burchfield came to Broadway as a TCU Choral Scholar and has continued singing with the Chancel Choir. Her parents, Michael & Karen Burchfield, are members of Broadway. Audrey is a Choir Director at Wedgewood Middle School in Fort Worth ISD.

Deanna Rupp, who also seeks to be baptized, came to Broadway as a TCU Choral Scholar and has continued singing with the Chancel Choir. Deanna recently graduated with her MBA from Texas A&M- Corpus Christi. She and her fiancé Zack will wed in October.

Join us in welcoming Audrey and Deanna to Broadway!

Join us as we Celebrate Pride Month on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The Chancel Choir will sing “Prayer of St. Francis” by Allen Pote. There will be a special offertory performance of “Even When He is Silent” by Kim André Arnesen. Pastor Ryon Price will preach “On Transgenderism” from Matthew 22:23-33.

Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway. Celebrate Pride Month with us!

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

Pastor Ryon's Friday Letter:

“History teaches and contemporary geo-politics reveals that nations that abjure a healthy separation of church and state wind up with tepid, attenuated, majoritarian religion, at best, or a theocracy, at worst.”

That is a direct quote from the homepage of BJC, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and should be taken as a warning to us about the encroachment of civil, or perhaps uncivil, religion into our public schools.

Last week, the governor of Louisiana mandated that the Ten Commandments be hung in every public classroom in the state. Yesterday, the state superintendent of Oklahoma announced the requirement that the Bible be taught in every Oklahoma public school.

Meanwhile, Louisiana and Oklahoma each rank near the very top of the list of states with the highest child poverty rates.

The words of Jesus come to mind: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Let’s tell the truth. This is demagoguery plain and simple. As one preacher friend says, “It’s red meat for the eatin’.” It’s meant to gin up the base and get many to thoughtlessly ask, “Who but the godless and the infidel would ever be against the teaching of the Bible?”

I for one. I am not godless. Nor am I an infidel. I’m a Baptist. And we Baptists are supposed to believe in the separation of and uphold the hedge between church and state. The leaders in Louisiana and Oklahoma would like to let their religion climb the fence. Yet something tells me their understanding and interpretation of the Commandments which refer to the keeping of slaves will be significantly different if not directly opposed to mine own.

Such things are not minor matters to me.

We need to keep the Bible in Sunday school. We also need to keep politicians from adding to the “Three R’s” of the curriculum – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic – a fourth, their own bad Religion.

There’s a somewhat cynical, though funny, and also to my experience at least, anecdotally true, joke about the substance of some of our teaching of history here in the Lone Star State. “What do you call a history teacher in Texas?” The answer: “Coach.”

I’m having a hard time seeing all those old coaches I had for history class suddenly become Bible scholars. And as a Baptist minister especially, I’m having really hard time seeing superintendents act as bishops and governors as popes.

Let’s keep religion out of our public schools, lest we “wind up with tepid, attenuated, majoritarian religion, at best, or a theocracy, at worst.”

See you Sunday,

Ryon

Join us for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Toi Mack will lead the Children’s Sermon. The Chancel Choir will sing “O Clap Your Hands” by John Rutter and Handel’s “Hallelujah, Amen” from Judas Maccabaeus. Pastor Jennifer Davis will preach “Zoom Out” from Mark 4:35-41.

Whether attending in person or online, you are welcome at Broadway.

Livestream: https://broadwaybc.org/live-stream/

Order of Worship:https://broadwaybc.org/b-n-link/amoow.pdf

The next quarterly business meeting of the church is scheduled this Sunday, June 23. As per our bylaws, a quorum of 100 members is required to conduct the business of the church.

Mark your calendars and please make every effort to attend! The meeting will be held in Fellowship Hall immediately following worship.

Contact [email protected] with questions.

Pastor Ryon's Friday letter:

Beloved Broadway,

Greetings from North Carolina!

I’m here in the “Tar Heel State” for the 2024 General Assembly of one of our denomination and ecumenical bodies, the Cooperative Baptists (not an oxymoron).

It’s been a great week of seeing old friends, learning of new opportunities, and particularly rejoicing in belonging to a body of Baptists who affirm women in ministry and welcome persons from the LGBTQ community. I’m exceedingly grateful for this community of friends and co-laborers in God’s gospel.

One experience here I wish to share was my participation as a facilitator in an event titled The People’s Dinner and the Narratives of America Project. This was a lunch and guided set of conversations I shared with a small group of participants at which we talked about our personal experiences with community and our hopes for America. It was a beautiful conversation, as tears were shed in talking about our own lives and dreams. It was amazing to me how quickly a sense of intimacy and care was created as soon as we established the expectation that we would make space for every voice and honoring each story as sacred.

Though the people I shared the table with were from various places and of differing races, we each spoke of the place which in our hearts we call home. This is the place we each agreed we felt safe, secure, and deeply affirmed. It is the place where we agreed everyone should be blessed to belong.

A particularly poignant meditation on scripture was given by my colleague and friend Rev. Kasey Jones, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinator for Outreach and Growth, and a pastor whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for three decades.

Pastor Jones read the well-known words from the 29th chapter of the prophet Jeremiah’s book:

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Pastor Jones talked about these being words written to a people living in exile, what Pastor Jones called “an unexpected, uncertain place”. The words of Jeremiah tell his people that they will have to live in this place. They are to plant gardens there. They are to build houses there. They are to seek to build community there. They are to try to make a home there.

This is a word, Pastor Jones said, for all of us living in America right now. For many of us, America in 2024 is a place of exile, perhaps literal, physical, and political, or metaphorically spiritual. It is unexpected and it is uncertain. Yet, it is our reality – something we must accept. And though we may be exiled, we must not be despairing. For there is still hope here even in this place. And there is possibility. And we are to work to build houses here. We are to seek the peace and the prosperity of the city here. We are to do what we can to make a safe and prosperous home here – for ourselves, and for everyone.

“I know the plans I have for you,” Jeremiah says as he speaks in the voice of the Lord. “Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you; plans for hope and a future.”

There is hope to be had, even in unexpected and uncertain places. There is a future, even in exile. There are gardens to be planted, houses to be built, and a beloved community to be created, right wherever it is that we are.

Let us not despair, whatever exile we may find ourselves in, beloved. For the Lord is here. And peace and prosperity are possible. And we can build a place our hearts call home.

See you Sunday,

Ryon