Well, there’s all kind of seriousness going on in Southern Baptist life. As well there should be. A quick run-down for today would include:
- 10 million people as “members,” meaning we acknowledge them as believers, but absent from church.
- A remarkable lack of ethnic diversity in too many churches.
- People who are allegedly “pastors” who see the role of shepherd as the one of “shear the sheep as much as possible until I can eat them.”
- Division within and amongst us about how to accomplish the Great Commission, obey the Great Commandment, and be salt and light in a sin-soaked world.
We have many great minds here, though, and they have (and will continue to) offered various and diverse solutions to these problems and others. I do not post tonight in an attempt to fix any of these, and only raise them to acknowledge that, yes, there are important ways to spend our time and energy.
We cannot, though, keep it together and face these without a healthy spiritual life before God the Father and a good level of community with one another. And so, in the name of building some good-hearted community, we present:
THE SBCVOICES 2017 NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET CHALLENGE.
It’s this simple:
Go to ESPN.com/bracket
Create an ESPN account. (Use your Facebook login. They already know everything about you anyway.)
Create a bracket picking the winners of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament (note: not sponsored, endorsed by, or even noticed by either the NCAA or ESPN),
Add your bracket to the group: SBCVoices2017
The group password is: “gohogsgo” (Without the quotation marks. Just enter the magic words.) Dave wanted the password changed, but I couldn’t remember how many “o”s go in “woopigsooie.” So it stays gohogsgo.
The winner will receive a case of SBCVoices SPAM, generated right here from the blog. Not the comments in moderation, mind you. Barring enough SPAM available here, the various contributors to the blog will be asked to done a SPAM from their own blog or email.
So, go, sign up, and join the long list of people better at sports things than I am.
And, if you or your church wants to partner with a church replant that needs a new roof, drop me a line. One of our partners needs one and I think we can help arrange some labor but materials are going to be stout.
