Bart Barber

I imagine that you have some big milestones in mind, looking in life from the vantage point of a fourteen-year-old. There's a date with the driver's license people coming up early next year. Eventually, there are other dates—you know…DATES—on the horizon. College may seem like it is a long way away for you, but in our minds it is looming large. So much of being a teenager is future oriented, some parts dread, some parts anticipation. I see other milestones ahead that you may not have considered. Among them is this: I know that the day is coming when you are going to meet me through what I … [Read more...] about Dear Jim

It is against the rules just to throw a post up here on SBC Voices without the blessing of the folks who run the place. Guess how much I'm going to let that restrain me? Someone on Twitter has declared this to be #WorldEmojiDay. Dave Miller's LOVE for emoticons is widely known, and although an emoticon isn't technically an emoji, I figure you all know how to show Dave some love in the comments. … [Read more...] about It’s World Emoji Day, and You Know What to Do

My children have been attending the SBC Annual Meeting since they were born. I have a picture (somewhere) of Jim, my oldest, holding up a ballot in Phoenix, AZ, in 2003—just four months after he was born. He has missed one year. This is his fourteenth SBC Annual Meeting to attend. My wife's brother is a Southern Baptist pastor in Southaven, MS. His family attends the Annual Meeting as regularly as we do. With Matt's kids plus our two, we reach the critical mass of grandchildren that brings my in-laws—themselves faithful lifelong Southern Baptists who care very much about our convention—to … [Read more...] about More than a Business Meeting (But Not Less)

Prelude It bothers me when churches adopt job descriptions for jobs already described in the Bible when those job descriptions demonstrate less dependence upon those biblical materials than upon corporate leadership models. That idea was in mind when I led FBC Farmersville several years ago to revise our pastoral job descriptions in a more exegetical direction. The content of this post is my job description. In introduction, I have to say: I apologize. What could be more boring than reading someone else's job description!? I really don't know why they let me keep publishing here. … [Read more...] about How FBC Farmersville Does Pastor Job Descriptions

I spent Mothers Day with my Mom. It was a great chance to spend some time with her, and we're both at the ages to know that those chances are a finite set. Talking with Mom these days involves a lot of reminiscing about the past. We talked about my childhood (none of those stories will be a part of this post), milestone events along the way in our family, people we loved who are no longer with us, and HER childhood. I've loved hearing more and more about when she was younger. The other day in passing she said something, a reflection about her father. Alsia Yancey Carter went by the … [Read more...] about Recovering the Heart of Southern Baptist Church Life

In a few weeks we will convene the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. The year 2017 marks the first time in my life when I have spent far more time thinking about the Pastors' Conference than the Annual Meeting itself. Without bothering to do actual numeric research, I'll offer my impression that the same has been true of this blog: Much more has been written here about the Pastors' Conference than the Annual Meeting, for obvious and understandable reasons. The storyline of the Pastors' Conference this year is one of innovation. Dave Miller and the boys had an amazing, impossible … [Read more...] about The Blessings of Resistance to Change

It seems to me that a great many of our conflicts among Southern Baptists at this moment in time come at the juncture of pragmatism, partnership, and politics. Sometimes we have spiritual convictions that lead us to adopt political goals. I have a spiritual conviction that I should not use coercive force to try to strong-arm anyone into false conversion by persecuting him for his aberrant faith. This spiritual conviction is soundly biblical. Holding that spiritual conviction leads me to adopt a political goal: maintaining First Amendment guarantees of universal religious … [Read more...] about Pragmatism, Partnership, and Politics

Yes. OK. I was just going to leave the body of the post at that one-paragraph, one-word response, but after a few minutes' reflection, I've decided that when nothing more needs to be said, I'm just the guy to say it. Here is the full text of Article XVII of The Baptist Faith & Message (emphasis mine): God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its … [Read more...] about Does Denying Religious Liberty to Muslims Violate the Baptist Faith and Message?

I've now watched the chapel video from the day when Rick Patrick spoke at SWBTS. The topic for his speech dealt broadly with Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. Rick is (famously) not a Calvinist, and his remarks raised the ire of some of my Calvinistic friends in the convention who took umbrage at what Rick had to say. Rick was certainly provocative. Intentionally so, I think. He laid a number of Southern Baptist ills at the feet of neo-Calvinism, or at least seemed to do so. But I didn't think that his critique of Calvinism was the most scandalous thing that Rick had to say that … [Read more...] about The Most Scandalous Thing Rick Patrick Said