I haven’t been writing much. Thanks to William and others for holding down the site during my unscheduled, sort-of sabbatical. It’s been intense at the church and a time of family crisis (both of my parents have rounded the final turn and are headed for the finish line), plus some stuff I can’t talk about, […]
Why Is It Harder to Evangelize?
In recent years our SBC evangelism statistics have declined significantly. Dr. Jeff Iorg, the President of Gateway Seminary (formerly Golden Gate Baptist Seminary) spoke about this in his convocation message in the fall semester of 2019: “Southern Baptists have a declining effectiveness in sharing the Gospel with non-Christians and leading them to profess faith in […]
JD speaks for JD, but he is the SBC President
From the Houston Chronicle: SBC President cautions churches about hosting disgraced leader Paige Patterson “Trustees terminated Paige Patterson for cause, publicly disclosing that his conduct was ‘antithetical to the core values of our faith,’ ” Greear told the Chronicle. “I advise any Southern Baptist church to consider this severe action before having Dr. Patterson preach […]
What’s this inconsistent use of autonomy, anyway?
The complaint was that “the SBC” (scare quotes are essential in the present context; if an explanation is needed, just ask) uses autonomy as an excuse for inaction on abuse in churches and by “SBC” (same for the quotes around “SBC” but I’ll not take the time to do so for the rest of this […]
The Blessing of a Godly Heritage
I am blessed. Not for anything I have done but because of the family into which God ordained I would be placed. I had no choice, I had no input, I was not consulted nor did I earn it in some way. But by the grace of God I was given to a family that […]
He’s baaaaack! Peter Lumpkins and those pesky discernment blogs
Back in the day, The Age of Blogs, there were a handful of sites that were SBC go-to blogs: SBC Today in its first or second iteration, SBC Outpost, SBC Voices, a few personal sites. If you read a dozen you probably had all the SBC news worth reading, and from different points of view. […]
The Pastor’s High Calling
For most of my fifty years in ministry, I’ve served as a foreign missionary or seminary professor. However, in my senior years, I’ve been called to serve as the Teaching Pastor of our church. This new responsibility has prompted me to think about the calling of pastors. For sure, it is a high calling, and […]
Randy Adams’ good idea for the SBC: transparency and openness in all entity matters
Here’s the way he puts it: 5. Operate in the Light – The SBC should be the toughest place to hide corruption, abuse, and poor stewardship, operating at the highest level of integrity and accountability. We must eliminate organizational tools, structures and processes that help hide wrongdoing and abuse. The SBC and its entities should […]
Prayers for IMB Europe January 20, 2020
Good morning. I hope everyone had a wonderful day of worship with their church family yesterday. Here are the prayer requests for this week from our IMB team in Europe. For the rest of the list, please click on Prayers for IMB Wales–A family in Cardiff, Wales asks for prayers for the Lord to open the doors to […]
Randy Adams’ bad idea for the SBC: remote access to SBC annual meeting voting
Randy Adams is the second person to be a declared candidate for SBC president. Baptist Press had a story on him on January 15th. I’m pleased there is more than one candidate (Al Mohler) and there are some things Adams has written that I like. The idea of remote voting for the SBC Annual Meeting […]
So You Want Your Church to Be a New Testament Church?
We often declare that all Southern Baptist churches strive to be true New Testament churches. I don’t disagree with that aspiration, but I wonder if we give sufficient thought to what that means. It seems to me that we often idealize the New Testament church. That is, when we speak of the “New Testament Church,” […]
Prayers for IMB Japan January 15, 2020
Here are the prayer requests for this week from our IMB missionaries in Japan. There are more requests at Prayers for IMB. Thank you for praying. Many Japanese are exposed to the gospel and relationships with Christians for the very first time while spending time abroad in the US for work or student exchange programs. Pray […]