As I began teaching the Baraca Radio Sunday School Class, I wasn't so sure.
I knew of the Baraca broadcast from First Baptist Church almost from the time I came to live in Anderson the first time in 1959, but I had no direct contact until many years later.
To be honest, I harbored suspicion, based on cautions I had heard about big classes that tended to become “churches within a church.” I came to town directly from seminary as co-minister at a neighborhood church, so I had only indirect knowledge of this radio group.
A few years later, after I became a professor at what is now Anderson University, I joined First Baptist. Still, my awareness of the Baraca Class remained hazy. Pansy and I left Anderson, and I had congregational and writing and editing assignments for more than a decade before returning to the faculty.
Even after coming back to the college and the church, in 1981, Baraca remained on the borders of my awareness. I heard that a probate judge, Ralph King, taught the class for decades, and later, four men took week-about as teachers each month.
Then, in 1991, one of the teachers asked me to fill in for him. I enjoyed the experience — one of the few times I had preached or taught on the radio. Even so, my suspicions remained. The auditorium in the church’s educational wing seats about two hundred people, and with probably half the seats taken, thoughts of “a church within a church” lingered in my mind.
The next day, one of my faculty colleagues greeted me warmly and said, “I heard you on the radio yesterday when I sat with my homebound mother. She listens to Baraca regularly.” Soon after that, I heard a similar story from another friend.
My perspective changed dramatically when I realized people regularly rely on the broadcast for spiritual guidance. Also, I had no evidence for thinking of Baraca as a competitor or a substitute for church services.
Not long after my first lesson, one of regulars dropped out of the lineup, and I filled in again. I soon began teaching once a month, and that pattern continued about a decade, and then the other three teachers asked me to take the assignment every week. Now, I’ve done that for more than fifteen years.
Across the years, we consistently get word from people who listen to the Baraca broadcast, some who can’t go to church and others who simply do not go to church.
Several years ago, after attending a funeral, I stood in the foyer of a church, talking with a friend. I noticed two women across the way looking intently at me. I thought perhaps I had spoken in their church at some time.
Finally, one of the women came over and asked me, “Are you Lawrence Webb?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
She said, “I recognized your voice. I listen to the Baraca Class.”
Others have said similar things. Also, some people who do not attend Sunday school tell me they plan their drive to their churches to coincide with my lesson.
Also, I have done funerals for people who had been unable to go to church. After a homebound aunt died, nieces who had assisted her during her illness told me that she made everyone in her house sit down and be quiet for the broadcast.
So there you have a picture of how my association with this eighty-four-year-old radio broadcast began and has continued. I wonder at the many lives we touch.
P. S. Baraca is a Hebrew word for blessing.
We’re on the air 10:00 to 11:00 a. m. Sundays on 107.7 FM and 1280 AM.
Online 24/7 at the Anderson, South Carolina, First Baptist website: www.andersonfbc.org
You can hear the message or read it.
