First Baptist Church of Herndon

Expanded Vocabulary

Linda Soller | Jun 22, 2020

There should be lessons learned relative to our mandated isolation.  I was thinking of the new vocabulary I have picked up over the past 13 plus weeks. 

This morning I thought of the expression “hot spot”. These are places of focus, based on the context. Your friends or children may like to go to particular restaurants or clubs because they are the hot spots of social activity. They are “cool” in my generational terms. A hotspot (one word) can refer to a specific place to stay connected to the internet. As localities ease restrictions we begin to hear of hot spots. In this context these are places with a concentration of coronavirus cases. Most often because of the proximity of people, as in factories or prisons, but also social locations where people let down their “social distancing” guard.

The more I thought, the more I wondered why churches, our church, your church are not referred to as hot spots of faith. Maybe it’s our focus. A Baptist minister in Texas spoke out that not loving and respecting people because of the color of their skin, which by the way none of us gets to choose, was not loving God. His words, not mine, but his point was that God created us in His image, so we are all visions of God. My friend Mike shared a video with me which really hits this point. In the video a young white boy is packing his backpack with his lunch. His mom asks, “Where are you going?”. He replies he is going to find God. He ends up in a park sitting on a bench next to a homeless black woman. He gets out his sandwich, then decides to share it with her. She gives him a big smile and a thank you. Next, he shares his extra drink. Again, a smile and a thank you. They talk and laugh, and he hugs her before he heads home. As he enters the door his mom asks, “Well did you find God?”. He smiles and says he did, and God is a woman, with the most beautiful smile. Next, we see the woman join another homeless woman on a different bench. She smiles and explains, how she has just met God.

Every Sunday at FBC we join our voices together to read Matthew 25:40-45.  Just saying the words does not make it so. In the doing, our churches become hot spots of faith. 

Faith is an action word! :o) Linda