Let’s see, average clergy guy. You buy a $375k house, borrow, say, $300k on that. Mortgage and escrow maybe $2,500/mo or $30k annually. And, yeah, we’re probably talking a two income family. Add to that utility costs, home improvements, furnishings you buy, maintenance and you’re up to maybe $40k per year in housing expenses. ALL […]
Can (or should) this church be saved?
I love a small church – the building, the people, the setting, the history. The photo is of a small church near me. I’ve been there, done a funeral there, know or used to know some of the people and pastors there. But, never mind thinking about the future of this church, what, exactly, is […]
Ha-Le-Lu-UGA
33-18 and way past my bed time. —————- Last SEC post. Will promise to skip basketball season. Go Dawgs.
5 Questions for the SBC in 2022
Every year Amy Whitfield and Jonathan Howe of the excellent SBC This Week podcast post some questions for the coming year as it relates to the Southern Baptist convention. Find their questions for this year here. And then at the end of the year they go back and answer those questions. Sometimes they are right […]
The venerable Cooperative Program, delicate flower that it is, is UP significantly after fiscal Q1
[Note: please read through to the end for an important addendum.] It’s 2022 and our flagship giving plan, The Cooperative Program, will be one hundred years old in three years, 2025. In my decades as an active and involved Southern Baptist – SBC church member, seminary student, pastor, and now retired – the CP has […]
Jesus, Epiphany-January 6th, and a Ruler Bent on Protecting His Kingdom At All Costs
Over the past week since Christmas Day, I’ve been thinking about the church’s celebration of Epiphany on January 6th, the Wise Men, Herod, the Flight to Egypt, and how we can either worship Jesus as the Messiah … or reject him and even put him away through defending a way of life that has no […]
The man who was no longer Baptist
The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma was only a year old when Alonzo Nunnery came to pastor in Oklahoma. The young convention had formed as a merger in 1906 from the conventions in Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory and Nunnery came to the state to pastor in Granite, Oklahoma, from Tennessee. Nunnery spent from 1907-1939 […]
Things you didn’t know about the SEC
Vanderbilt, currently the league doormat, was formerly an SEC powerhouse. Tulane used to be in the SEC, dropped out in 1966. Tulane has more SEC football titles than Mississippi State and Kentucky, as well as Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas A&M, which have never won the conference. Georgia Tech was another SEC powerhouse but […]
There are a few million reasons why two SEC teams are playing for the championship
If Alabama played Cincinnati a dozen times they would beat them a dozen times. If Georgia played Michigan a dozen times they would beat them a dozen times. The players are that much better. It doesn’t hurt that both Saban and Smart are paid more than other coaches. It doesn’t hurt that both schools have […]
2022 declared “The Year of the Real Pastor”
You can say you read about it first here. The declaration was made about an hour ago by your humble hacker and plodder retired pastor. Here’s to the Real Pastors among us! The guy who looks out on Sunday morning and sees the SBC median and average and below attendance, or no more than a […]
Top SBC events of 2021
1. Creation of the Sex Abuse Task Force. To be cussed and discussed for a generation. 2. Ed Litton elected SBC president. A surprise that Mohler didn’t make a runoff. Litton’s sermon practices later became top news. 3. SBC Executive Committee CEO, Ronnie Floyd, resigns. Vision takes a back seat to perceived leadership failure. 4. Mass resignations of […]
The SBC, the EC, and Waiving Attorney-Client Privilege (by Jon Canler)
Over late summer and early fall 2021, the Executive Committee (EC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) deliberated whether or not to waive attorney-client privilege (ACP) as part of a sexual abuse investigation into the actions of the EC over the past two decades, an investigation overwhelmingly demanded by the messengers to the 2021 SBC […]