by Keith Bassham
I admit it. I do some cheerleading for our Fellowship and the institutions within. I am a firm believer in the maxim expressed by one of Louis L’Amour’s characters, “I take the man’s money; I ride for the brand.”
To reassure, I know something about journalism, and I know something about the purpose of the Tribune. I do not confuse the two. The Tribune is not objective journalism. We are pro-Fellowship. We have an agenda. This is a must, because no other magazine in the world will report about our pastors, and our churches, and our missionaries, and our work around the world.
This has sometimes caused angst, because regardless of the brand, the Tribune is going to be honest. And not all elements of Fellowship life can be approached with the same enthusiasm, and not all news is good. Shadows fall, and no amount of cheerleading can make the dark go away. Even in my own meeting with the directors this past week, I reported a shortfall in Tribune revenues, and I had to ask them to approve a deficit budget for the coming year. We have some surpluses to tide us over for a while, and the Tribune is not in imminent danger of collapse, but reality is what it is. Facts, as Mr. John Adams has told us, are stubborn things.
But there is a reason for cheering this season. While there is something to praise and/or censure in any meeting designed and implemented by redeemed sinners, the overall effect of this year’s May Graduation Fellowship was decidedly, well, hopeful, to borrow a political theme.
That is not an easy place to get to these days in our Fellowship, but with the set theme, It’s All About the Gospel, there was bound to be unity as we concentrated on a common purpose. And then, as the week progressed, and as we saw the elder and younger Slaydens (did anyone miss that metaphor?) take the pulpit Monday, and as we heard new BBC President Milioni give eloquent voice to our aspirations, and even in the last-minute Leland Kennedy sermon Wednesday evening when he had to step in for Elmer Towns, I heard a new sub-theme emerge — A New Day.
I was not alone. One leader in our Fellowship wrote to friends on an Internet discussion list, saying that for the first time in a long time he had reason to be hopeful about our future. Another wrote in a more humorous vein, after Mark Milioni spoke, “Some have said that BBC is on life support and has flatlined, and maybe it’s time to pull the plug. Well tonight the guy with the toe tag just had to stop his work because the toe wiggled, the flat line started spiking with renewed life …”
Well, a good speech, and a good night, or even a good week, as not hopeful as they are, cannot substitute for continued faith and work and persistence and clarity. May we push off from this Fellowship Week, and make a new day the new reality.