George Mason and Wilshire Baptist Church . . . a personal reflection (Part 2)
by Bill Jones

In August 2014, in recognition of George Mason’s 25th anniversary as senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, I wrote a personal reflection about the influence of Wilshire and George Mason in our lives – Joanna’s and mine – since we joined 10 years earlier. I encourage you to go back and read what I wrote in August 2014: George Mason, 25 years . . . Thanks be to God.

On May 1, George preached his final sermon as Wilshire’s senior pastor; he will officially retire at the end of August, as he observes his 33rd anniversary.

In the eight years since that 2014 post, Wilshire, George Mason, and Bill & Joanna Jones (and family) have experienced much of great significance, so consider this post a “sequel,” Part 2 if you will.

This is a very personal reflection of what George and Wilshire have meant to the lives of one couple, Joanna and me, and our family. Many tributes have been written to George’s ministry, more reflective of his overall impact. There are many who are closer to George. But the impact of his and Wilshire’s ministry has been both deep and wide (as the old song goes) in our family’s lives, and that’s what I’m sharing here.

Because there is such depth and breadth to the influence of George and Wilshire in our lives, there is much ground to cover in this post. To make the length a little more palatable, I’ve organized it in what I hope are “bite-size” chunks, with headings, subheadings, bullet points, etc.

There are four main sections:

• Character, citing examples showing the character traits – of both George and Wilshire – that have made an impression on us through the years
• Growing Our Theology, citing examples of ways in which our (Joanna’s and my) theology expanded and grew through their influence
• Special to Our Family, involving ways in which they have given special care to our family, as they have for countless families through the years
• The Bottom Line, tying a nice little bow around this “package”

Character

For 18 years, I’ve observed a consistency of character in George Mason that has continued to inspire me. A few words, in no particular order, come to mind: courage, grace, honesty, humility, conviction, and love. I want to share examples of each of these, while recognizing that there is overlap between these traits in each of these examples.

Courage

• Wilshire’s reevaluation of our policy regarding members identifying as LGBTQ (2015-2016)

Very few Baptist pastors would muster the courage to even entertain questions about a welcoming – much less affirming – approach to those identifying as LGBTQ, knowing that it would invite harsh criticism from many, including even some of the church’s closest partners and friends. To undergo such an evaluation and study required a combination of conviction and courage by both George Mason and the Wilshire church family.

After spending over a year in intensive study – including science, theology, and other aspects – a 61% majority of Wilshire members voted to end our restrictive policy and treat ALL members (“Every Body,” as we like to say at Wilshire) equally, including with respect to leadership, ordination, baby dedications, and marriage.

George and I met for lunch in December 2014, several months before this process began.

At the time, I was executive director of Texas Baptists Committed (TBC). Historically, TBC had supported the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) and defended it against unwarranted attacks by the fundamentalist Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC), including the lie that the BGCT was accepting of “homosexual behavior.” In defending the BGCT, TBC had also given at least tacit – and often overt – support to the BGCT’s hard-line policy against churches accepting LGBTQ people as equal members.

I had long been personally uncomfortable with the BGCT’s policy. I was no longer certain about the scriptural interpretation that led to such a stance; but scriptural interpretation & theology were not in TBC’s purview. Our role was to promote and defend Baptist principles. In that light, my concern was that this issue should not be used to define a church’s affiliation with the BGCT. It was a ‘nonessential’ about which Baptists should be able to disagree while continuing to cooperate on matters and ministries on which we agreed. We should recognize the autonomy of each local church to determine its own theology and policy regarding those identifying as LGBTQ.

However, I had been reluctant to touch this “hot potato,” recognizing that such a departure from BGCT dogma would mark a significant change in TBC’s relationship with the BGCT. Frankly, I had been timid about challenging the BGCT’s stance on this issue.

Over lunch, George shared with me that David Hardage, BGCT executive director, had recently sent a letter to all BGCT pastors, warning them that any move toward greater LGBTQ inclusion would jeopardize their church’s status with the convention. George was concerned that the BGCT was “seeking theological purity and excluding on the basis of scriptural interpretation by one faction.” He asked, “Where does this stop? What is the next issue? And how is this Baptist?”

I left our lunch that day realizing that I had allowed my fear of losing support for TBC to keep me from doing what I knew was right. Ever since David Hardage had become BGCT ED, I had met with him in his office three to four times a year to discuss convention issues, particularly as they pertained to TBC’s mission. But I had avoided raising the LGBTQ issue.

Following my lunch with George, I realized that I could lead TBC to be either a BGCT lapdog or a watchdog. I could lead TBC to be blindly supportive of the BGCT, or I could lead it to speak prophetically to the BGCT as I believed God was leading me to do. With the support of the TBC Board, I began using my meetings with David to urge him to back off of his hard-line stance on the LGBTQ issue and to give pastors and churches the space they needed to minister to those identifying as LGBTQ in their church and community. I had, I hoped, given him some things to think about. Ultimately, though, I was unpersuasive.

In November 2016, at our TBC Breakfast at the BGCT annual meeting, held – coincidentally – just one day after George’s announcement of the result of Wilshire’s vote on this issue, and only hours before BGCT messengers would vote to oust Wilshire and other churches that had taken similar action, I used my remarks to declare that BGCT leadership (followed only hours later by a slim majority of messengers) had violated the autonomy of local churches – a bedrock Baptist principle since the beginnings of the Baptist movement 400 years earlier.

In essence, my conversation with George freed me to do what I believe is right. I had seen the example of a pastor who was ready to risk his position . . . risk criticism . . . risk the wrath of David Hardage & the BGCT . . . to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, to follow in the steps of the Christ who fully loved and embraced those whom the religious leaders had shunned.

If I had remained timid and failed to confront the BGCT on this issue, I would have always regretted it. I later discovered that my remarks had given encouragement and comfort to several who needed it.

• Racial justice and understanding

George has been consistent in advocating for racial justice and denouncing racial discrimination and racial profiling.

George and Wilshire have met – on several occasions – with Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, an African-American congregation, and its pastor, Freddy Haynes, for racial “teach-ins” in which the role of Wilshire members is largely to listen and learn about the harm suffered by African-Americans because of racist actions and policies.

• Advocacy

Several years ago, Wilshire added a new staff position to promote advocacy and opportunities for service, and a committee to support this position. This has led to a wide variety of service and advocacy efforts on the part of Wilshire members.

One example again involves Friendship West Baptist Church, as Wilshire has collaborated with that congregation in advocating against the exploitation of the poor by payday loan outfits, as well as helping their victims get out from under their debt and teaching them financial practices that can keep them out of the clutches of unscrupulous lenders.

Grace

On a Sunday in November 2016, as we prepared for the final vote on welcoming LGBTQ people into full membership, George spoke briefly to the Wilshire congregation. He acknowledged that this would likely be the last time that we would all be gathered together, that there would be some – disappointed in the outcome of the vote – who would leave Wilshire, including some longtime faithful members. George said that, for those who would decide to leave, he had only one thing to say to them: “Thank you.” He assured them that their contributions to Wilshire would always be treasured and that they would always be welcome, that they would always be considered as family.

That one gesture may very well sum up George Mason’s character as well as any of the hundreds of sermons he preached over the years.

Honesty and humility

Our son, Travis, is a questioner when it comes to matters of faith. He accepted Christ and was baptized when he was 10 years old, but – as many do (including his own father, during my college years and even beyond) – came to rethink all of that as he grew older. However, Travis has always respected the way his mom and I have lived our faith, and he has occasionally visited Wilshire with us and has come to appreciate George’s preaching on the rare occasions he has heard him.

In February 2017, Travis was in the hospital following a series of seizures related to his 2013 stroke. George came to visit Travis and told him that I had mentioned his questions and concerns related to matters of faith. George assured him that he would be glad to sit down and discuss them anytime Travis wanted. But he also said that he wasn’t guaranteeing any answers, that he doesn’t have all the answers. After George left, Travis told his mom and me that he was extremely impressed by a Baptist pastor who admitted that he doesn’t have all the answers, that he doesn’t know everything. When George preached his last sermon as Wilshire’s pastor on May 1, Travis went with me . . . he wanted to be there to hear George preach one more time and to show his respect for George.

In 18 years, I have never seen one sign of arrogance on George’s part. Honesty and humility have been hallmarks of his character.

Conviction

George’s February 2017 hospital visit with Travis occurred just two days after the BGCT Executive Board had met to make official the messengers’ action in November and remove Wilshire and two other churches for our affirming actions toward LGBTQ people. I was at that meeting as an observer, sitting at the back of the room and writing a blog post, When family doesn’t want you anymore.

After George left Travis’s room, I walked downstairs with him and to the door of the hospital. As we walked, I shared with him about being in that Executive Board meeting. George turned toward me, his face brightened, and with arms extended outward, he said, “But you know what this means, Bill? It means we’re free . . . free to be the church that God wants us to be.” I could see that, after all our church had been through, George had a great peace about where we had “landed.” Wilshire’s Web site states, “Our mission is to build a community of faith shaped by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” That’s what all of this had been about; George and Wilshire were at peace, because we had been faithful to that mission.

Love

Through the years, George has responded to our family’s health concerns with love and compassion, encouragement and comfort. When Joanna passed away on February 14 of last year, from complications following her kidney transplant, George called to console me.

That April, a few days before we were to inurn Joanna’s ashes in Wilshire’s Columbarium on Easter Sunday, George called to discuss Joanna’s service with me. Toward the end of our conversation, George told me that he believes Jesus’s death and resurrection freed Jesus to be with anyone anywhere at any time and that Joanna – now being “in Christ’s risenness,” as he so beautifully expressed it – was now similarly free. So, he said, he hoped that when I go to the places Joanna and I went together, places that we both loved, and saw people doing the kinds of things that remind me of Joanna – such as giving of herself sacrificially for others’ sake – that I would be able to sense Joanna’s presence with me. That has continued to give me comfort and peace, and will for the rest of my days.

In his eulogy at Joanna’s service that Easter Sunday, George said that Joanna had “resurrection eyes” . . . what a wonderful way to express Joanna’s vision of life and love and hope. This, too, has given our family deep peace and comfort.

I once told George that, as much as I love his preaching, I think I love his pastoring even more.

Growing Our Theology

In our conversations through the years, Joanna and I had sought a deeper understanding of God and our relationship to God. Our church in Plano didn’t feed that need. In Sunday School class discussions throughout our 17 years there, I “pushed the envelope,” posed questions and possibilities. For 17 years, my comments were met largely with blank stares. They preferred “pat” answers, pat theology.

Arriving at Wilshire in 2004, Joanna and I found a pastor, a church family, and a Sunday School class that welcomed and invited difficult questions. No pat answers here, no stale theology, but a vibrant community of faith led by a pastor who encouraged us to dig deep into scripture, to dig deep into Christ’s life and teachings, to discover a more expansive God than the one who was trapped in the box carefully constructed by our previous church.

In the years since, our theology grew deeper and wider in ways far too numerous to count or adequately describe. But let me cite just a few examples.

Equality of women in the church and the home

Joanna and I had long been committed to equality between women and men both in the home and the church. In September 2003, the pastor at our church in Plano issued an edict from the pulpit that women would no longer be permitted to teach men in Sunday School – and he “fired” three longtime faithful woman Sunday School teachers.

When we arrived at Wilshire in the summer of 2004, Wilshire’s Pathways to Ministry program had barely begun. The first pastoral resident, Jay Hogewood, had “graduated” earlier that year. When we arrived, Ann Bell Worley and Jake Hall were beginning the second year of their residencies. Hearing Ann preach gave us the opportunity to see in action what we had supported in theory, and it was refreshment for our soul. Ann’s preaching was powerful, inspiring, gracious, and challenging, and her call from God to ministry was undeniable.

Through the years, we have continued to hear women preach at Wilshire, whether pastoral residents or guest preachers, as we have at CBF General Assemblies and other such opportunities. We have seen equality – of women and men, of laity and clergy, and in every way imaginable – modeled with the greatest of intentionality, week in and week out, in those seated on the Wilshire chancel and leading us in worship.

It has been refreshment for two souls who needed reviving when we arrived at Wilshire in 2004. Thanks be to God.

Baptism

Several years after we joined Wilshire, the church undertook a reevaluation of our restrictive policy regarding baptism and church membership. Now I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist, so this study made me uncomfortable. It’s the kind of uncomfortable that I made people at our former church by trying to open their minds to new possibilities. I didn’t want to respond now as they had to me back then – by closing my mind – so I listened and learned as we were presented with scripture and new understandings. For me, baptism by immersion following a profession of faith was the only valid baptism, and anyone who had not experienced such a baptism must present themselves for it before becoming a member of a Baptist church.

But Wilshire and George Mason decided to take another look at that, and by this time Joanna and I trusted Wilshire and George Mason, so we listened and learned. Ultimately, we decided we wanted to recognize the faith people brought with them, and the meaning of their baptism to them – even if it wasn’t of the “historic Baptist” mode. When Wilshire voted to adopt a more expansive baptism/church membership policy, Joanna and I provided two of those “yes” votes and never regretted it. Our theology, our understanding of God and God’s kingdom/kin-dom, had grown a little more.

Full membership for those identifying as LGBTQ

This was not an easy decision reached capriciously, either for Joanna and me or for the many others who voted “yes.” Many of us had wrestled with this issue personally for years – the science, scriptural guidance and admonitions, the interpretation of various scriptures as well as the emphasis of scripture, and so forth. Many of us had gay friends, knew gay couples who were just as faithful in their relationships as we were in ours.

During this period of decision, Epiphany class had at least one member who identified as gay and one who identified as a transgender woman. We learned much from them. The transgender woman wrote a book about her journey and, in preparation for a book tour, met with several of us from Epiphany class one evening at a local restaurant, where she “trialed” her book tour; we were her “guinea pigs.” That evening, we heard the gut-wrenching details of her journey. We learned a lot that night.

Wilshire had again given us an opportunity to grow our theology, our understanding of God and how God works in the lives of those who are very different than us – an opportunity that we would not have received in almost any other Baptist church. We were blessed to be in a church and a Sunday School class that did not consider the Bible the end of God’s revelation but only the beginning.

Interfaith cooperation and respect

I have a heritage of interfaith cooperation and respect. My father, Dr. A. Jase Jones, spent 22 years (1957-1979) as the midwest/southwest area missionary director in the SBC Home Mission Board Interfaith Witness Department. Much of his work involved teaching members of SBC churches the truths about other faiths, knocking down the harmful myths perpetrated about them, and building respect for them. He led the department to foster Jewish-Baptist dialogues in which leaders and adherents of the two faiths sought to understand each other better and find common ground. The fundamentalists who took over the SBC in 1990 put a stop to such dialogues, insisting that Baptists’ only contact with Jews must focus on “converting” them.

Through the years, George and Wilshire have led in promoting interfaith cooperation in the Dallas community and beyond. Just a sampling, as Joanna and I have observed over the years:

• Wilshire’s close friendship with Temple Emanu-El, a Reform Jewish congregation
  • • Shared worship services and meals
    • Candid public dialogues between George and his close friends of over 3 decades, Rabbi David Stern and his wife, Rabbi Nancy Kasten
    • Our joint tour of Israel in 2012, in which about 90 – split almost exactly evenly between the two congregations – traveled together throughout the Holy Land for 10 days
      • Included worship together and group discussions; for my own part, I made it a point to get to know several members of Temple Emanu-El – we wound up sharing our faith journeys with each other, and it was always enlightening to discover the similarities in their journeys as Jews and my own as a Christ-follower. I came away from this trip convinced that, regardless of the difference in our faiths, these folks know and love the same God that I do.

• Wilshire’s hosting of Muslims in the community for dinners during Ramadan

• George’s Ummah Award, recognizing community leaders, which he was presented at a dinner in 2010; the program called George “one of Dallas’ heroes” for “meeting with Muslims on how could they work together to impact Dallas which faced a drug war zone. Mason reached out to other faiths for dialogue at his church, which was unheard of at the time.”

• George’s vision that founded, in 2018, Faith Commons, “a Dallas-based, inclusive-faith organization committed to promoting the common good,” and his ongoing leadership of this organization, in collaboration with Rabbi Nancy Kasten and Imam Omar Suleiman

Special to Our Family

Retirement Dinner – August 2018

On August 17, 2018, at George’s initiative, Wilshire and the TBC Board held a retirement dinner in my honor, in Wilshire’s beautiful Community Hall. George moderated a wonderful discussion with a panel consisting of my friends and colleagues Suzii Paynter, David Currie, and Charlie Johnson; and introduced congratulatory videos from two other dear friends and colleagues – Babs Baugh and Marv Knox.

I used my remarks that evening to thank all of these – and many more whom God had used in my life and work through the years. It was a golden opportunity to remind everyone of what I knew all along – that none of us goes it alone. There were so many people who have been significant throughout my life and have made a difference.

It especially gave me an opportunity to thank my family for their loving support in everything I’ve done. I saved the best for last, and truly she was the best! Now that she’s gone (way too early, as far as I’m concerned), I’m so glad I took the opportunity to express publicly, through my tears, what Joanna meant to me as my wife, the love of my life, my companion, and my support in every way. I’m so thankful that I said that publicly while she was still here to hear it, sitting just a few feet away.

It was a special night in every way, and I have George Mason and Wilshire Baptist Church, and the TBC Board, to thank for it.

Family illnesses – Joanna and Travis

I always loved the tender way George treated Joanna when we would speak with him in the Narthex following a service. There was a special gentleness in his voice and his touch as he greeted Joanna. Truth be told, that was part George and part Joanna, because Joanna seemed to bring out such tenderness in people.

George called me the day Joanna passed away, which was Valentine’s Day 2021; he was devastated as we all were, and was simply “present” with me (on the phone) as I needed him to be.

We had the privilege of inurning Joanna’s ashes in Wilshire’s Columbarium on Easter Sunday. A few days before the service, George and I again spoke by phone to prepare for Joanna’s service. Earlier in this post (under the “Love” heading), I shared George’s comforting expression of hope that I would be able to sense Joanna’s presence with me at our special places. Well, this is a work-in-progress, as am I, but there have already been times when I have sensed her with me. George then asked my permission for him to share our conversation with the congregation in the closing words of his Easter sermon that Sunday. I told him that Joanna loved his preaching – as do I – and that she would be delighted for him to use her as an example in his sermon. And he did, beautifully.

George made Joanna’s inurnment service very personal and beautiful, pointing to the pictures we had brought with us and the little painting Joanna had created of a basket filled with colorful Easter lilies, next to which were four Easter eggs, each bearing the name of one of our grandchildren, beneath a beautiful blue sky in which there was a cloud shaped like a cross. Then, as I shared earlier, George delivered a beautiful eulogy, in which he said that Joanna had “resurrection eyes.” So true. Even as she grew sick and weak, her vision remained of a full life for herself and those she loved, and she lived to give others the love that Christ had given her. George’s description of Joanna having “resurrection eyes” reminds our family of the hope we have in Christ, to be one day be “in Christ’s risenness” ourselves and to be reunited with Joanna.

The Bottom Line

Thanks be to God (and Phil Strickland) for leading us to George Mason, Wilshire Baptist Church, and Epiphany Class. We learned, we grew, we were free to be authentic, encouraged to be honest about our questions, challenged to dig deep for who God is and what God expects from us. I can’t begin to count the times that, as George concluded his sermon, Joanna and I turned to each other, eyes wide, and one of us said, “How does he do it, week after week?”

The waves created in that place have rippled from there to change an untold number of lives far beyond Joanna’s and mine. I have shared only two such stories here. We have been blessed. Thanks be to God for Wilshire Baptist Church and George Mason, and their presence in our lives, and I pray for God’s continued blessings on George, Kim, and their family.