Baptisms may be in freefall, the Cooperative Program may be half of what it used to be, membership may be declining, and we might be in the grips of nasty controversies and extremely bad behavior by prominent SBCers…but Southern Baptists can always brag. Here are a few bragging points for some of the state conventions: […]
Don Currence: A Picture of Grace (CJ Adkins)
It was a perfect storm and Don Currence got caught right in the middle of it last week at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. The large deliberative body meeting in that historic city took important measures to deal with the heartbreaking issue of sexual abuse which tragically exist in some of […]
Ben Mandrell Announced as Presidential Candidate for LifeWay
LifeWay’s Facts and Trends magazine has just released that Ben Mandrell, pastor of Storyline Fellowship in Arvada, Colorado, will be the search committee’s candidate to be the next president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. I heard him speak for the first time at the Pastors’ Conference this year and thought he was great, but […]
Prayers for IMB June 21, 2019
Would you please begin today by thanking God for answered prayer. A partner/friend of the IMB Hungary team was waiting on results from medical tests. Those results came back and the news was better than expected. Here are snippets of a couple more requests that I have up at Prayers for IMB China: Mr. Young* has been […]
Trevin Wax explains #SBC19 Resolution Committee’s reasoning on Resolution 9
Trevin Wax, who served on this year’s Resolutions Committee, gave some thoughts yesterday on Resolution 9. There’s been some criticism of that resolution, which speaks to the issues of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. You can find the thread on Twitter here. I thought it would be helpful to compile the material here for ease […]
Misogyny in Baptist Higher Education (by Russell L. Meek)
May 4 was my last day at Louisiana College, where I had taught Old Testament and Hebrew for the past four years. I left because of how the school handled what seemed to me to be a clear example of the type of theological system that undergirds the current sexual abuse crisis in the Southern […]
Malevolence, incompetence, and ignorance in the SBC concerning abuse
The SBC meeting in Birmingham is one week past. In this short time three horrific cases of sexual abuse of children involving the SBC at various levels have come to light. All of these are malevolent and deplorable. The nationally-known reporter for the Houston Chronicle and co-author of the long and depressing series on abuse […]
Prayers for IMB June 19, 2019
I get a lot of prayer requests and prayer calendars every week. I’ve divided my daily post on Prayers for IMB into two posts, one covering Europe and one covering the rest of the world. If you’d like to pray more for our European missionaries, the second post on Prayers for IMB is always published at noon. […]
LifeWay Video Explaining the Store Closings
LifeWay shared this video at the SBC Annual Meeting which explained why they had to close the brick and mortar stores. I know there are people who are upset about that decision, but this video makes a compelling case. This is the way all such decisions can and should be handled. LifeWay gave the straight […]
Predictions for SBC 2020 in Orlando
I am still having trouble recovering from this year’s annual meeting. Wears this old codger out. I was born on Friday the 13th, and tried to wear 13 in athletic competition when possible. So, here are 13 prophetic utterances about 2020. Of course, if this were OT Israel my track record on predictions would have […]
Your housing allowance is safe for the forseeable future
The group that brought the federal lawsuit against the cash version of the clergy housing allowance has decided not to appeal the unanimous Federal Appeals Court ruling that upheld the thing. They have a clever title to this news: Appeals Court Blesses Housing Allowance. Now’s the time to start thinking about next year, brethren and […]
Prayers for IMB June 17, 2019
I often get newsletter updates from our missionaries. This request comes from one of those newsletters. All names have been changed for security purposes. There are many more requests over at Prayers for IMB. Take some extra time today and pray for our missionaries. We would like to ask you to please pray for one of […]