“Woke” is a dog whistle, a red flag signal; a brainless, thoughtless, mindless, vapid bit of freshman frat boy drivel. If the word is snarled out in a comment it’s a lead pipe cinch that the comment is a flash of drive-by nonsense. There are good arguments for and against renaming SBTS buildings. “Woke” or lack […]
Baptists You Should Know – Robert Earl Beddoe
The history of the SBC includes thousands of missionaries, pastors, workers, and others who often get lost to history. My goal is to highlight a few of those people in order that we can be encouraged and inspired by their lives and sacrifice. Robert Beddoe was born to a prominent Baptist family in Dallas, Texas […]
An Open Letter to Dr. Al Mohler and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Board of Trustees Regarding Honoring the Founding Slaveholders
Dear Dr. Mohler and Board of Trustees, Greetings in the Name of our Triune God, “in whom we live, move and have our very being” (Acts 17:28). The impact you have made on the SBC and the nation will be felt for generations to come (Psalm 145:4). The purpose of this correspondence is to humbly […]
Some of our entities funded by the Paycheck Protection Plan
Retirement plus quarantine may provide too much time. Thus, the huge Small Business Administration database listing some of the recipients of the Paycheck Protection Plan loans. I make no moral judgment about those who chose or declined to choose to apply and receive these government backed loans. Generally, all the SBC leaders gave advice about […]
Have You Met DARVO?
This may come as a shock to most of you, but I am often not up to date on your whippersnapper, hipster lingo. I am thankful for the Google because I can go on the interwebs and look up stuff you guys talk about, appearing as if I was in the know all the time. […]
Humble advice for the passive pastor in the parsonage
I’m retired now but served three churches as pastor. For most of that thirty-year period my family and I lived in homes owned by the church, the parsonage. An article earlier this year on the subject, Behold, the lowly parsonage, covers much of the details on this. Comments were generally positive towards living in a […]
Is the small, single full time clergy staff church a luxury churches can no longer afford?
The adjectives in the title have meaning. I’m referring to the thousands of small churches, somewhere around the SBC median of about 70 in average weekly attendance, that have a single clergy staff, the pastor, who is fulltime and not bivocational. My first church, it was in rural South Carolina, was an example of this: […]
Cooperative Program, under considerable stress these days
I love an optimist and Baptist Press “staff” reports on our beloved Cooperative Program are invariably positive and optimistic. “Staff” should get a raise. Latest CP story headline: Cooperative Program giving highest in three months, down only 1.47% for year This is the Executive Committee portion of the CP, funding mostly for the mission boards […]
God bless America
This is the closest church to my house if you don’t count the bird house church in my backyard, a little box with a steeple that someone gave me. The church pictured isn’t my church but it’s Southern Baptist. I know the pastor who is a good guy. Good church. Good pastor. God bless them. […]
How Do You Preach?
No, this one isn’t about topical sermons vs expositional or that sort of thing. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but during the shutdown, I’ve fallen into a new pattern for preaching that I hope to continue now that the slow march toward normalcy has begun. I used to preach from […]
Loneliness, Isolation, and Ministry in a Pandemic
Our church has recently started up live services and I am glad. Sunday, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper together for the first time since late February, a great moment. Things are not horrible, but something doesn’t feel right either. I had a conversation with several friends last week about ministry during a pandemic and it […]
Your Favorite Bible Verse
Some of our recent posts on Voices have proven controversial. Folks have strong opinions about SBC politics, racial reconciliation, and especially President Trump. I thought I would write a post that would be noncontroversial. In the old days, when William Thornton and I were young, pastors would ask their congregations to recite their favorite Bible […]