2022: Living & Building On The Legacy

2022 Living & Building On The Legacy
Pastor Aaron Robinson

A new year is upon us, and Mount Welcome Missionary Baptist Church has turned 122 years old, no small accomplishment in the life of an African American institution.  During these 122 years there have been years of lean and years of plenty; moments joy and disappointment; periods of progress and stagnation, but through it all, God has kept us.  We are not where we started and are far from where God is carrying us.

Mount Welcome has stood the test of time because we have always had members that understood the assignment God placed in them.   We have prevailed because our membership saw the bigger picture of building something greater than they could imagine.  
 
Travel with me if you will to 1900, those who decided to take a leap of faith and start this church would be amazed at what it has become.  People in the midst of Jim and Jane Crow - state sanctioned oppression - believed God enough to come together to start this church.  Individuals with limited means trusted God, creating something new.  Each of them was creating a legacy and willing to do the work to build on it.  The road has had many bumps, ditches, dead-ends’ and detours yet we are still here engaged in Kingdom work.  We are here because members understood they had a legacy to live in and to build on.  Each person who put their hands to the plow and refused to let go, made us a better and more effective church.  We are indebted to their labor and sacrifice.

Someone may be asking, what does it mean to live and build on the legacy?  It means you remember the past; you work in the present and seek to better the future of the Church.  Legacy is defined as a thing handed down by a predecessor, as members of Mount Welcome we are beneficiaries of the generosity of those who preceded us.  We are also the carriers of blessing for future generations.
 
How do we live and build on legacy you ask?  There are four areas we can focus on to insure we are carriers of the legacy for Mount Welcome. They are Faith, Finance, Fellowship and Foundation.
 

• Faith is essential. Our trusting in God’s plan for the church helps us invest in it for future generations.  We must increase our faith by bettering our understanding of God’s Word and God’s desire for our lives. 

• Finance is important. God’s grace is free but ministry costs and when we give to the church, we build on its growth potential and larger impact.  Those who came before us had less than us, yet they helped us become all that we are.
  
  
• Fellowship is a cornerstone. The relationships we build with each other have always been a key component to our success, the stronger our relationships the stronger our church.  
  
  
• To build on the legacy we must start with Foundation work, such as personal engagement in ministry and individual evangelism.  If we are not willing to do the work who will? Each of us are called to make disciple of others, have you invited someone to church lately?
  
  

Are you seeking to live and build on the legacy afforded to you by those who came before you?

The names are too numerous to call but each played a part in making Mount Welcome what it is today.  Are you a legacy builder or just sitting by watching others lay the bricks? The Bible reminds us of the legacy we live in and are building on.  We are reminded that Jesus traveled 42 generations to ensure that we have an opportunity to build on the legacy of this church.  In 2022 let’s make our ancestors proud and those yet unborn amazed at what we will accomplish.

Let’s have a Sankofa kind of year, retrieving value from our knowledge of the past so we can build boldly for the future.
 
Let us let God do what God do in 2022!