Matthew 28:19 — “Go and make disciples…”

I have been looking forward to this moment ever since Randy [Spleth] invited me to be part of this service—partly because I wanted a chance to say, again, thank you. On behalf of the general church, thank you for your witness, and thank you for the gifts that now bless ministries like the one I serve at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society—where your gift represents the largest single contribution in our ministry’s history, helping us build a new library that will bear your congregation’s name: The Bethany Christian Church, Houston, Memorial Library.

But that’s only part of my gratitude.

As a historian, it is not often that I get to speak to the very people whose history I have been researching and writing. Many of you know I’ve been working on the new history of this congregation, which will be available soon—you can sign up in the lobby to preorder it. Usually, the people I write about are long gone. But today, I get to speak directly to the people whose story I have been living with for months, and I’ve thought a great deal about what I might want to say to you.

I drafted a long, academic paragraph that I thought you should hear, but on the plane this morning, I realized that scripture, just three chapters before the appointed scripture for this service, Matthew 25, already contains the words I most needed to say to you:

“Well done, good and faithful servant[s].”

Because what I know about this congregation in 2025—your family spirit, your hospitality, your zeal for mission in Houston and beyond—is true to the very core of this church’s founding vision. And let me tell you why.

⸻

A Church Born from Mission

What surprised me most, as I dug deep into your early records, was how Bethany—then South End Christian Church—did not begin as a church that later discovered a mission. It began because a mission already existed, and the church was created to meet it.

In 1915, Central Christian Church recognized a growing, shifting neighborhood south of downtown—new families, new pressures, new hopes and dreams—and they felt compelled to respond. They didn’t decide to plant a church because they needed an institution. They planted a church because the city and its people needed care.

The Great Commission—“Go and make disciples…”—was not merely a Sunday school text for them. They understood that Christ’s command always begins with go, whether the Spirit sends you halfway around the globe or just a few blocks away.

South End Christian Church was called into being by mission—and then was shaped around it.

⸻

The South End Vision

And then, as I dove deeper into the records, I found something that genuinely startled me—not because it was strange, but because it was so profoundly fitting for the church I’ve come to know.

In 1917, the founding minister, the Rev. W. S. Lockhart, wrote a short description of the church’s purpose, or origins. And not to get too far into the weeds, but as a historian of social Christianity in America, I recognized instantly what I was reading: Lockhart was describing a classic Social Gospel, Institutional Church, the kind of church that saw the gospel as both a force for personal faith as well as for the public good.

He spoke of a “family spirit” so strong that “not a single faction or friction” had appeared. He described a church whose ideal was “service in the community,” a church that saw itself as both evangelistic and social, a church with a constructive program “for the city, the nation, and the world.”

He insisted the church must be a place of education—Bible classes, public lectures, weekly gatherings—and he dreamed of a three-part campus:

• an educational building,
• a beautiful sanctuary devoted to worship,
• and a recreation center with gymnasium and swimming pool.

He believed the gospel must shape the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—and that the church should be a blessing to the entire neighborhood.

And this was 1917.

This church was born for mission— because there was work to do.

⸻

Faithfulness Through the Decades

And what followed over the next decades—your South End years—was a living out of that founding imagination.

You moved from Brazos and McGowen to Main and Travis and built that remarkable educational building with the roof garden. You filled classrooms with students and the Community House with neighbors. You constructed a gymnasium that rang with laughter and with life.

This church weathered the Great Depression with courage and resilience. When the church could not afford a guest preacher, the church secretary and director of education Opal Hill Munz stepped into the pulpit many Sundays, carrying the preaching ministry on her own shoulders when the church had to be careful with its resources.

And when, by the 1940s, the neighborhood changed again, you listened to the Spirit once more and moved toward Westheimer—faithful to your mission, clear about your calling.

⸻

When Jesus says, “Go and make disciples,” he is not issuing a mandate to create institutions that last forever—thanks be to God.

He is announcing a mission—one that existed before any congregation was formed, and one that continues long after any single congregation’s work is complete.

The mission comes first.

The people are gathered in response to it.

And when their particular season of service draws to a close, the mission does not end—it is entrusted onward.

That handing-on is not loss. It is faithfulness to Jesus’s command to “Go and make Disciples.” Faithfulness to the mission that preceded the church and will continue long after it.

There is something holy—something profoundly Christian—about letting go when the calling has been fulfilled and entrusting the work to those who will continue it.

⸻

Conclusion

So what I want to say to you today, as a historian and as a ministry leader, is simply this:

Well done, good and faithful servants.

You were a mission church before you were any other kind of church.

You have been faithful to that mission, begun in the South End Church, for more than a century.

And now you have released that mission into the world to bear fruit in a new season.

So I say,

Thanks be to God for the South End Church.

Thanks be to God for Bethany.

Thanks be to God for you.

Amen.