Extra Cups on a Sunday Morning
By CHASE SMITH

Sunday morning is a sacred time as a pastor. Most wake up early and get to their church before anyone else does.

If you’re a small church pastor like me, you’re probably turning on all the lights, adjusting the thermostats, making the coffee, making sure the bulletins are printed and in order, and reviewing your sermon one last time before the band comes in to practice. Most pastors have a routine they follow and like to stick to that routine as closely as possible.

One Sunday morning, I got a call from a pastor friend of mine. He pastors a church nearby, and he and I have become friends through the CBA Church Network. Knowing what his obligations are on Sunday mornings, the timing of his call was strange. When I answered the phone, he asked me if I had any cups for the Lord’s Supper, because they were doing it that morning and he was running short.
He came by to get the cups, and all was well with his service. In that moment, it was a simple conversation about small disposable cups, but the relationship leading up to that conversation took months to build.

Pastor, let me ask you a question: when you have a need, who can you turn to? It can be communion cups on a Sunday morning, or it may be wisdom, guidance, and prayer because of infighting in your church.

What the CBA Church Network provides us as pastors is a group of churches that are battling back the same lostness as you are and in the same area you’re in.
We have large and small churches in our network. We have new church plants and churches that have been around for more than a century in our network. We have traditional churches in historic buildings, and we have churches meeting in a shopping center in our network. We are a diverse group that has one goal, to build God’s Kingdom.

I have networked and partnered with pastors from the CBA in serving our town with a clothing and food pantry, a city-wide call to prayer after a tragedy, high school graduating senior ceremonies, as well calling to see if a certain family was attending their church in order to minister to them.

Outside of my town, I’ve partnered with CBA pastors to travel to Washington DC and to be trained at the NAMB headquarters in Georgia.The opportunities for pastors to have a brotherhood network of men serving the same God in the same area is here, all you have to do is get involved.

I’ll end with this challenge: there are pastors in your area, probably within a 10-minute drive of you, who need an encouraging call from you and who need your prayers and compassion. Networking isn’t hard, it starts with a phone call. And who knows, the relationship you start with that phone call may have extra cups for you on a Sunday.

Chase Smith serves as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, and is currently working on his doctorate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can connect with him on Twitter @ChaseMSmith.