Some years ago, I heard Johnny Bisagno preach in the Southern Baptist Seminary chapel. He had announced his retirement from FBC Houston, and he was making a “farewell tour” of the SBC seminaries. He titled his message “Finishing Well.” In the sermon, he recounted how he studied at Oklahoma Baptist University with 24 other “preacher […]
Is Anyone Else Tired of Complementarian Food Fights?
I have to say this at the very beginning of a post like this. I am an inerrantist and about as conservative as a person can be. In my church, the primary offices are reserved for men. I am not sure of the terminology but I believe the Bible teaches a complementarian relationship between men […]
Virginia Pastors Zoom Call with Ed Litton, Wednesday, 1PM Eastern
If you’re a pastor in Virginia or planning to attend the SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville, I’d like to invite you to join a Zoom call on Wednesday at 1pm to hear from Ed Litton about his vision for leading as SBC President. Fred Luter plans to nominate Ed at the upcoming annual meeting. If […]
NOW Is the Time to Lead! (Food Fight comment section CLOSED)
NOTE: we are nearing 300 comments and the food fight has gotten ridiculous. It has been days since anyone has come CLOSE to commenting on what I wrote so I am exercising author’s prerogative to shut this food fight down. Please do not take it to another comment stream and force me to shut THAT […]
A Powerful Point from Katie McCoy
As a convinctional complementarian, how should it make me feel that a woman, albeit a scholar and professor at SWBTS, made a point that taught me, challenged me, and convicted me. Katie McCoy (er…Dr. McCoy) made a simple point that I found insightful. The angry Twitter bros make a LOT of 1 Timothy 2 and […]
Saturday
Saturday is silent. Scary. Isolated. And familiar. Saturday is where we live. In the tension. In the in-between. Waiting. Saturday is where we live. Past the darkness of Friday. But often still stumbling in the dark. Free from guilt and shame. But often still struggling against the chains weighing down every step. Victorious in the […]
Lost in the clamor of clergy abuse, CRT/I, and any other controversy: the SBC is and always has been a convention of small churches
The average attendance at the main weekly worship service for a cooperating Southern Baptist church is around 100. LifeWay gave me a figure of 70 a few years ago along with a median size of 125. There are different ways to calculate it but, regardless of the method, the Southern Baptist Convention is a convention […]
Is This How We Might Make Use of an Analytical Tool?
I keep hearing folks asking to give benefits of CRT/I that you couldn’t get from the Bible. I’m not sure if this will satisfy as an answer, but I want to share a couple of stories and explain why I think we are where we are in this whole conversation. First, the story.. I was […]
A red brick church, a piano, an organ, hymns, pews, and an old guy preaching behind a real pulpit: Hallelujah!
I’m at a place where I am free to worship where I wish and I wished yesterday to worship at the church of a friend who is in a new pastorate nearby. The church is quite old and has quite a history, mostly not so good in recent decades. The building is new, courtesy of […]
Thoughts on Ed Litton Via a Zoom Call
Recently, I joined several other pastors in a Zoom call with Ed Litton about his campaign for President of the SBC. Ed shared about his life and background and how he became involved in the Southern Baptist Church. His father experienced a dramatic conversion and was set free from alcohol addiction by the powerful […]
NAAF Statement Responds to Council of Seminary Presidents
The National African American Fellowship, led by SBC First Vice President Marshall Ausberry, yesterday released a response to the January 6th meeting with the Council of Seminary Presidents (CSP). The January 6th meeting was a result of the CSP Statement from Nov. 30 and the subsequent NAAF response on December 6, 2020. Background available at […]
“Tell me about your pastor.” “Well, he’s an old guy…”
And, he’s getting older. The Barna research on the aging of American pastors is getting a little old itself. The most recent was 2017. It was a typical state-of-the-church handwringer. Pastors are aging, as in the average age of a senior pastor is increasing (54 in that study). Really old pastors are increasing, 6% in […]