Archives for 2013

I have written quite a bit about Sunday School and how Sunday School can help your church and grow your church.  It can, it can increase your church attendance, make disciples, help your children's ministry, your youth ministry, your young adult, median and senior adult ministries.  Sunday School can do awesome things, but do you have a plan?  You can do great things if you have a plan, an intentional plan that you can not only share, but communicate, execute and make work. Let me give you an example.  FAITH by Lifeway.  I love the visitation that comes with FAITH.  I am not too keen on the … [Read more...] about Do You Have Any Idea What You Are Doing?

Identity Crisis This post does not take the multisite church approach to task. Skilled craftsmen in church planting can hash that out. This post does not seek to bash a single location containing multiple congregations, pending a differentiation between those congregations. Along with the differentiation, there are separate pastoral leaders. Many churches have multiple ethnic congregations within the same facility. I strongly encourage this approach. As pastors, we should allow like-minded linguistic groups to reach each other. As the “main” or “mother” congregation, we should seek to … [Read more...] about Identity Crisis

It is a trite saying, but also true - we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is precisely what a lot of Bible-believing, Christ-loving Christians have done on the topic of the subjective voice of God. There can be little doubt that "God told me" or "God spoke to me" are some of the most abused words in the church. People claim that God has told them things that I am quite sure did not come from God. But, does the fact that God's subjective voice - speaking to the human mind and heart directly by His Spirit - is abused mean that it is invalid? For many, the abuses of the … [Read more...] about The Macedonian Call and the Voice of God: An Examination of Acts 16:6-10

Our Fat Pastor, Fit Pastor challenge has only two months left. A group of pastors and other readers of SBC Voices joined together to challenge and encourage one another in this weight loss challenge. At the end of every month, we check-in and give progress reports. So, how are you guys doing? Making progress? Having struggles? There are still almost 2 months to make progress. Of course, it is the toughest time to make a change - the dreaded holiday season. Halloween Candy. Thanksgiving feasts (and leftovers). Christmas (no more need be said). But with the self-control built into us by … [Read more...] about Fat Pastor, Fit Pastor: Down the Backstretch!

I will admit it; I'm obsessed. I've been home from Israel for nearly three weeks now and I can't stop thinking about it. I've wasted time in my office looking through pictures and maps, reading about Israel and planning my next couple of trips back! I continue to recommend that every pastor who has not yet done so go over for a week or ten days to walk where Jesus (and David and...well, you get it) walked. I have a tendency to analyse things and categorize them. As you plan your trip, there are some recommendations that I would make, based on those categories. We went a lot of places and … [Read more...] about When You Visit Israel…

I am going to be in Des Moines on Friday and Saturday for the the Baptist Convention of Iowa 2013 annual meeting. It doesn't look like ours will be particularly eventful this year. Last year was an anomalous and tumultuous year for the BCI, but this year looks to be a return to the norm. I will mention if anything significant happens here over the weekend, but the trip got me to thinking and wondering - what is happening in State Conventions? Are they trending up or down in attendance? Are there a lot of issues? Do some of the issues at the national level find their way down to the state … [Read more...] about An SBC Voices Forum: What Happened at Your State Convention?

I wrote about the danger of theological bubbles last week. Here are some reflections and ruminations on the topic. Bubbles can be Baptist or any other denominational variety. They can be Calvinist, Traditionalist, Arminian or any other place on the soteriological perspective. They can be cessationist or charismatic. They can be eschatological. Pretty much any passionately held theological perspective runs the risk of becoming a bubble, when we isolate ourselves from other positions and those who hold them. It is noble to study the Bible and arrive at dearly held theological positions. It is … [Read more...] about You Might Be in a Theological Bubble If…

The SBC Plodder, William Thornton, provides the answers to his previous quiz.  1, The CP funding program was adopted at the SBC annual meeting in Memphis in 1925. Todd Starnes has a pretty good summary article on the event here. One notes that the matter was heartily adopted. Guess they didn't have the mics stacked with people who were after  a few moments of notoriety. 2. CP promotion is done mostly by state conventions. I'm a gracious grader, so give yourself a correct answer if you said either "a" or "c". The CP is promoted pretty much everywhere in the SBC at every level, by … [Read more...] about Answers to the Simple Cooperative Program Quiz (by William Thornton)

Joel Rainey is the Director of Missions at Mid-Maryland Baptist Association, an adjunct professor at Capital Bible Seminary and blogs at Themelios (Twitter - @joelrainey). This post was originally published at his site. Tonight, I will gather my kids--who will be dressed as Dr. Who, Captain America, and a Disney Princess respectively--and visit a downtown area near our central Maryland home on the only night of the year in which it is culturally appropriate to allow your kids to beg strangers for unhealthy food.  For most in our culture, October 31 is merely that: a fun holiday that … [Read more...] about The Legacy of Truth: Lessons from the Protestant Reformation (by Joel Rainey)