I had the privilege to attend a baptismal service this AM, and it was a delight to witness. There were four new converts to Christianity that were baptized: my female (professional) friend who's around 35 years of age, a preadolescent boy, a late 20s female and early 30s male. Both of the women were relatively new moms, each married (their husbands were present, one of which was baptized). All four were baptized out of doors in a "horse trough" adjacent to the modest churchhouse.
And speaking of the churchhouse, it was a dump. Picture a prefabricated metal building with an outdated (color) brick veneer front facade. If I had to guess, it was erected / constructed sometime in the '70s or '80s perhaps as a small flooring showroom or somesuch. The Jackson Metro area this church resides in is zoned industrial, but as is often the case in Mississippi, when a building sits vacant within these enclaves for any length of time, owners will do just about anything to sell (in order to avoid the continual burden of property taxes). But, in order to make a sale palatable to church bodies, zoning laws must either be "updated" or exemptions granted.
The parishioners present were 98% white, and there were around fifty overall in attendance. And yes, you're correct to assume that the pastor was bi-vocational, and what a sweet, kindhearted white man this was!
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One of my daughters is slated to be baptized prior to the end of '25. The church that she's a member of is part of a denomination that's well represented in Mississippi, and the church itself (member count) is likely 15-20 times larger than the church I attended this AM.
If you were to chronicle all of the churches in Mississippi today, 90% of them would fall in between these two extremes, and the remaining few would consist of a very small quantity of multi-site mega churches and the ever fluid collection of house churches.
Churches, churches, churches. They're everywhere in Mississippi, but the vast majority, I believe, are best represented via the one I spent two hours in this AM. Why?
Shame.
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Mississippi is a state overflowing with shame-filled folks. Some of that shame is rooted in simply being Mississippians, but the vast majority of it finds its origins in individuals' histories.
A local friend of mine has parents who both divorced (from their first spouses) prior to marrying each other / reproducing. These folks are highly educated / intelligent Christians who're VERY WELL ESTABLISHED / INFLUENTIAL within their (my) community (well loved by all who come in fortunate contact with them). Their modus operandi for dealing with the shame from those initial (obviously very short-lived) divorces was to bury it, therefore they never divulged it to their children (& somehow they strong-armed their families to do the same).
Isn't that weird? Perhaps. But, in many ways, I kinda think they were wise. For their children / grandchildren have excelled.
Nonetheless, if you were to meet these wonderful Christian people, you'd NO IDEA they had any shame surrounding that portion of their individual histories whatsoever.
But they're the exception.
Almost everyone else in the Magnolia State gets seriously mired down in the deep seated collateral damage that coincides with regrettable portions of their lives. It's simply baked into our humanity.
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My wife and I have worked hard to teach our kidlets about the permanency / weight of stupidity (stupid is a verb) and how it can seemingly forever undermine one's sense of self worth. And mostly this teaching has been via our commitment to each other / them through their impressionable childhoods.
For we wouldn't mind them getting baptized in the church I attended this AM, but only if they're choosing to do so is well justified.
Tiny, dumpy churches mostly exist for deeply ashamed Mississippians. These folks will forgo (for themselves & their dependents) the bountiful resources available to them within larger, more established (denominatory) churches simply due to the fact that they're convinced that they're too dirty to belong / feel comfortable there.
Let me repeat that:
Tiny, dumpy churches mostly exist for deeply ashamed Mississippians. These folks will forgo (for themselves & their dependents) the bountiful resources available to them within larger, more established (denominatory) churches simply due to the fact that they're convinced that they're too dirty to belong / feel comfortable there.
Think of it this way. It's like white people thinking like black people when it comes to their church home.
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In conclusion, I wonder if this same negative, shame-filled outlook is what motivates pastors (like the one who officiated this morning's baptismal service) to forgo attending seminary (or at times, any form of higher education for that matter) in light of simply "winging it" from their homely pulpits. I mean, it's not like these men are dumbasses. If you're going to do any form of preaching / pastoring, you certainly can't be low intelligence. Therefore, seminary / higher ed is certainly an option for them, yet they choose to not move in that direction.
Therefore, absolutely, these pastors can absolutely be collaterally damaged. Seriously damaged. I've seen it (some of these men are involved in Samson Society).
Shame is the second most powerful force on planet Earth. Masculinity is the first. How different Mississippi would look if we could simply get a grip on our shame.
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