The finish line is the starting line is a short article that I wrote in the fall of 2022 that detailed the many layers involved in our leaving the United Methodist Church for the Global Methodist Church. Four months later, we are perched on the edge of making this denominational shift. What happens now?
We keep going.
Back in 1906 a Methodist named Barnabas Gaston Cashwell made history when he traveled from North Carolina to California in search of spiritual revival. Born in Sampson County, near Dunn, NC, Cashwell learned about the Azusa Street Revival taking place in Los Angeles, CA, – considered by some to be the birthplace of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in America. Cashwell was determined to see if the Lord was behind this movement. What he found was a free mix of worshippers, black and white, filling the tent meetings to hear the preaching of the Azusa Mission preacher, William J. Seymour. Cashwell was convicted by the Spirit of God regarding his own bigotry and would kneel before Pastor Seymour for prayer while surrounded by other Christians, all of whom happened to be black. As they laid their hands upon him, Cashwell, a lifelong racist, was delivered from his sin and found himself transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit’s baptism. Cashwell returned home, and on December 31, 1906, he delivered a call to repentance in eastern NC that led to the founding of, among others, the Pentecostal Free Will Baptist Church. Until the time of his death in 1916, Barnabas Cashwell was a leading figure in the east coast’s, early 20th Century revival movement. [Source: Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, pg. 109-110 Zondervan, 1988]
What changed Barnabas Cashwell was his longing for the things of God and a willingness to submit his life to Jesus Christ. In Cashwell’s case, the finish line – Azusa Street – was the starting line for a decade-long, Spirit-led, kingdom-expansion ministry that changed the spiritual landscape of eastern NC and beyond.
One hundred and seventeen years later, in 2023, the Holy Spirit who was alive on Azusa Street in California, is still making his advance on Church Street in Benson, North Carolina. In many ways, January 1, 2023, is both a finishing and a starting line for us as a faith community. As a new congregation of the Global Methodist Church, we cannot look into the future and measure our highlights, but we can consider how God would have us to live faith-forward—the substance of things not yet seen but deeply believed on the front side of pilgrimage. Our church will begin our 125th year like it did its first year – with faith and hope for the days ahead.
We will meet. We will worship. We will serve and give and do the things the people of God have been doing for 2,000+ years. What matters most about 2023 will be the choices that we make both as individuals and as a congregation; our faith doesn’t live in isolation from one another.
As your pastor, my hope for you is not unlike the hope that Brother Cashwell carried back to North Carolina from California over a hundred years ago. May the strength and certainty of the Holy Spirit, who kindled the hearts on Azusa Street a century ago, be pleased to light His flame within our hearts as well. He who has begun this good work in us will, indeed, be faithful to carry it on to completion.
I look forward to running the race alongside you.
Love always,
