The Sunday with June (6.26.20)

To follow the work of Rev. Junia R. Joplin:

Her website

Her YouTube Channel

Her GoFundMe

Introduction of Guest Preacher (Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott) 

It is an honor to introduce you to our guest preacher today, though I suspect she needs no introduction to a full 90% of you joining us by zoom, facebook live, or watching on her youtube channel. The Rev. Junia R. Joplin joins us from Mississauga, Ontario, today, where she has served a local church as senior pastor for the past six years until just a few days ago. But you can read that story in the Advocate or the New York Times or a couple dozen other places.

I’d like to tell you about my friend June. June and I have been friends for about 17 years now since we first met at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. We mostly moved in amicable parallel until she asked me to consider joining her as associate pastor of Westover Baptist Church where she served as senior pastor following the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship giant, Cecil Sherman.

It was a time in my life when I didn’t know my career could look like. I was cobbling together work as a writer and occasional preacher, but mostly I was a stay-at-home mom to an infant and preschooler. I did not think it was possible for me to honor my vocational calling through work in those years, and I could not imagine a different way until June invited me to imagine. Because of those years of shared ministry at Westover, I felt the clear and burning call to the St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church. I would not be here today were it not for June, and I am delighted to be here for her as she invites us all to imagine our way forward as Church.

She is a dynamic preacher, a gifted pastor, a true creative whose artistic flare quite literally once set a kitchen on fire as she set out to make her own candles. She is brave and she is bold, and I have never seen her more fully alive than in the most recent weeks and months of her life. It is an honor and a privilege to hold this sacred space for her today. June, Welcome.

When June traveled to New Orleans for my installation service as senior pastor of St. Charles, she brought with her this mason jar filled with dirt from the community garden we planted together at Westover Baptist Church to support the church’s food pantry. She brought that jar of dirt to speak a blessing over me of what happens when God breathes into dirt, saying once that happens, “It ain’t dirt no more! Life, and growth, and hope, and wonders beyond our description...it all begins in that ordinary dirt.”!

Then, when it was time for her to be installed as senior pastor in Canadianaland, I didn’t travel to be there…but I sent these words: Soon, when you …are balancing the demands of jobs, two kids, household needs, and it all begins to feel quite ordinary and unromantic, take a walk outside and look at where you are. Name out loud what you see and remember how it felt to first be called to some place new. Remember that time you moved North in boldness to discover what God was dreaming for you. Remember that you were brave not just for yourself but for the two boys who are watching you believe in a God who calls us out of our routines to dream bigger dreams for the sake of God’s kingdom. Your story is now theirs. Make it a good one. I am watching eagerly from New Orleans and so grateful for your friendship. Love, Elizabeth.

Here we are again, my friend. Wonders beyond our description begin in the ordinary dirt of our lives. You are bold and brave not just for yourself but for all of us who are watching you believe in a God who calls us to dream bigger dreams. Thank you. I love you. And I am so deeply grateful for your friendship in my life.