Top Ten Ways You Can Know You Are Baptist

The church I pastor is an amazing family of people who are trying their best to follow Christ and believe that we can do it better together than alone. We are not perfect (not even close, really), and do not pretend to be so. But we sincerely believe that the biggest need of the human heart can be found in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We unabashedly invite others to be a part of our faith family, not because we want to be a bigger church, but because we truly believe that we can help them find answers to the big questions of life.

Because of this desire to connect others with God, we made the decision to break down any barriers which might prevent someone from taking that first step of visiting our church. We discovered that one of those barriers can be denominational structure. There is a generation today that has, with good reason, become quite cynical toward religious organizations. They've seen the news and they've read about the scandals, and so many of them have completely written off organized religion. With that in mind, we intentionally made the decision to not emphasize our particular denomination. This was not a "right" or "wrong" decision; just one that we strongly believed was right for our family of faith.

Having said that, our church is Baptist, both in our teaching and in our practice. We have many in our church who come from a variety of denominations - Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist - and are quite proud of their heritage, but now have found this to be a place where they are able to grow closer to God. In the same way, many in our church grew up Baptist and are proud of their heritage. While I personally was not raised in a Baptist church, it was in a Baptist church that my faith in and understanding of God really began to grow.

All that is just background for you to know that I'm Baptist and I have the great privilege of serving as the pastor of a Baptist church. So the following is not meant to offend anyone, just something that I came up with one day while I was running on a treadmill and my mind began to wander. If this list offends you in any way, then please accept in advance my apologies.

Top Ten Ways You Know You Are A Baptist

10. Your church has 400 members, but the FBI and Post Office together cannot find 100 of them.

9. If hearing the joke, "How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?" makes you respond, "Change?!? My grandmother gave that light bulb to this church 50 years ago! You'd better not change anything!"

8. Your version of the Bible says that instead of locust and honey, John the Baptist “ate fried chicken and drank sweet tea.”

7. At your last business meeting, there were 25 people and 30 opinions.

6. Gossip is not a sin as long as it is preceded with the phrase, "This is a prayer request" or "bless his heart." (i.e., "Pray for Sam, bless his heart, I saw him at... I mean, I heard that he was at a bar last night.")

5. Your church has a smoking porch for the deacons.

4. You have reserved seats in your worship service.

3. You have ever wondered when your church will finally pay off those loans to Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.

2. You have ever sung all 74 verses of "Just As I Am."

1. You believe that Baptists will have their own section in Heaven!