Scott Carlson

Scott Carlson#25539

By Sly Fox - August 19th, 2006, 11:25 am

- August 19th, 2006, 11:25 am #25539

Here is an update on a former LU wrestler turned pastor:

New pastor is at helm of First Southern Baptist

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/CHRIS McLEAN

First Southern Baptist Church's Pastor Scott Carlson: ‘The world is in shambles, but that's to be expected . . .’

By MARVIN READ
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Scott Carlson, the new and 14th pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, realizes, as he puts it, that "the world is in shambles, but that's to be expected because that's what God said will happen in the End Times."

The "End Times" is the expression used to denote that time of tribulation that some say will precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world as it is now known. Included in that concept is the conviction that the apocalypse is near and that various signs in current events are omens of Armageddon, the last great battle between good and evil.

Carlson, 42, has been in ministry for 18 years, serving congregations in Kansas, Wyoming and Colorado. Before taking the pulpit of First Southern on June 11, he was pastor of a church in Leadville. He will be formally ordained as a minister at 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at the church, located at 301 Cleveland St.

If the End Times are near - and Carlson says "we're living in the last days, maybe even the last minutes, but these are exciting times" - the Colorado native still proceeds as though he's got enough time to do a pastor's work.

That includes taking a year or so "for the congregation and me to get to know each other" and then to begin a process called "Breakthrough for Growth" that will help set the agenda and direction of the 54-year-old congregation.

"I'm of the persuasion that it takes a while to get to know people, and once that happens, we can set a course from there," he said.

And it involves the pastor's practice of "visiting," whereby he stops in to chat with and offer comfort to people who are having any sort of difficulty.

Carlson's congregation is part of the Nashville, Tenn.-based Southern Baptist Convention, and he earned his bachelor's degree in ministry at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

"I guess that makes me one of ‘Jerry's Kids,’ ” he joked.

Carlson, born in Greeley, was raised in Estes Park. His parents still live there.

He has been married for almost two decades to his wife, Leslie. They have five children, ranging in age from 4 to 18.

He is no stranger to Pueblo; his wife's parents live here and her grandparents live in Pueblo West.

The reason that Carlson and others with millennial beliefs get a bit excited about the End Times is that, as he said, "Jesus comes. They want peace in the Mideast, but there won't be peace until Jesus comes. Therefore, I pray for peace in Jerusalem in that context.

"I certainly don't want to say anything that offends the Jewish people, but the Bible indicates that they will be saved, because God chose Israel as his people, these are his covenant people."

In the immediate term, Carlson said his interest is family. He's clearly proud of his own: "I preach a message with my family and my family is my sermon," he said.

That sense of family importance is wider, of course, and the new pastor said he intends to implement an evening family-worship service, where congregation members are not segregated by age, but "are able to break down the generational barriers and walls and learn from each other, and assimilate." Carlson said he hopes to introduce some contemporary hymns to the congregation's singing menu - songs that may be more attractive to younger congregants.

He also aims to explore further an offering he introduced in Leadville, a form of music and even dancing he called "Jewish rock music."

He plans on bringing to Pueblo a Greeley group called the Israeli Celebration Dancers and a group that performed in Leadville, the Raqad Dance Troupe.

The pastor said that somewhere between 100 and 120 people attending the 10:45 a.m. services each Sunday.

Carlson said, "Pueblo is the first large town my wife and I have lived in. One of my churches was in the middle of a field, about 25 miles away from Flagler, and all the churches have been rural and in agricultural communities, which always blended in with my own roots," he said.

Carlson, who, with his family has taken up residence in the nearby parsonage, said there are about 100 to 120 congregants at a typical Sunday-morning service.

The new pastor assesses his greatest personal gifts as "preaching and teaching, leading and shepherding."

Another skill may or may not relate to his pastoral job: wrestling.

"I've coached wrestling and I had a wrestling scholarship at Liberty University," he said.

"There's a relationship among the player and team concept in ministry, and in my relationship to others on the pastoral team," he said.

At First Southern Baptist, Carlson replaces Pastor Lynn Robertson, who moved on a couple of years ago.

Built in phases, the completed church was dedicated March 17, 1966; it was begun in April 1965.

Since its organization in 1845 in Augusta, Ga., the Southern Baptist Convention has grown to about 16 million members who worship in more than 41,500 churches in the United States, including Pueblo's First Southern Baptist Church.

Southern Baptists sponsor about 5,000 home missionaries serving the United States, Canada, Guam and the Caribbean, as well as sponsoring more than 5,000 foreign missionaries in 153 nations of the world.

The term "Southern Baptist Convention" refers to both the denomination and its annual meeting, held last June in Greensboro, N.C.

Working through 1,200 local associations and 41 state conventions and fellowships, Southern Baptists say they share a common bond of basic Biblical beliefs and a commitment to proclaim the Gospel to the world.