Dan

As I spend time in the SBC, at meetings and conventions and gatherings, I have noticed a trend. We are getting to be a negative, pessimistic and critical group of people. We grumble and gripe and complain and whine and pick and poke. We criticize each other, we criticize churches and pastors and theologies and books and teachers and leaders. We point out where everyone else falls short, where everyone else is wrong and how we are doing it better. Sunday School guys don't like the Small Group guys, Small Group guys don't think Sunday School works anymore. The home church guys don't like … [Read more...] about The Cancer of the SBC

I have been reading a lot of blogs, and I have been reading a lot of opinions on Calvinism, and it seems to me, most people tend to despise what they hear and don't really get.  I don't mean to sound condescending, but I think it's becoming a prejudice, we all band together to despise something we don't understand.  It's sort of human nature.  I have come to the point that I have stopped describing myself as a Calvinist, because people automatically make assumptions about me.  That I don't do evangelism (I wrote a book of evangelism) and that I don't want to do church plants.  I don't share … [Read more...] about Maybe we hate Calvinism because we don’t understand it.

Recently I was in a meeting of sorts with a variety of individuals from different walks of life.  As we tried to talk about the church, the same topic continued to come up.  People talked about how they started going to church and they stopped doing all the stuff they use to do that was bad.  There is a pretty constant list of those behaviors that are not acceptable that we give up in the Christian church, but I wonder as I spend more and more time focusing on discipleship, does behavior modification equate to life transformation?  I am not so sure. Let's look at the list of behaviors that … [Read more...] about Life Transformation vs Behavior Modification

In the last 50 years, we have seen the removal of Christian influence in the public schools. The result of pro-secular idealism has created a moral vacuum in public education. The result of this moral decline has led many believing families to pull their kids out of the public education. This has created an even large moral and ethical voids. The children are suffering and need spiritual life. They need to hear about Jesus, but there is a systematic abandonment of the care of children. The pressing issue for me is how the church has begun to follow suit. We have begun to create children's … [Read more...] about The Abandonment of the Souls of Children

So I have heard the giant debate about Calvinism, how it's the issue in the SBC and how wrong Calvinists are.  Blah blah blah.  I don't want to re-hash all of it, because I really think it's not the issue.  I think the number one issue facing us today is the number of members we have in our church that are not saved, because we have made it too easy. We as Southern Baptists have been so concerned about saying a prayer and getting Baptized that we have created a whole group of pew sitters that have no life change.  They have nothing in their lives that even begins to look like faith in … [Read more...] about Maybe Calvinism isn’t the Problem

It's election time, and all the candidates are talking about leadership.  Leadership in the buzz word in business, organizations and there is no shortage of people talking about leadership in the church.  I have half a dozen books within eye shot that deal exclusively with the issue of leadership.  We talk about leadership a lot, but I want to talk about something a little different.  Followership. I heard from Chris Tomlin once where he was talking about leading worship.  He talked about how often time worship leaders spend a great deal of energy trying to get the congregation to worship, … [Read more...] about What about Followership?

So this time of year is full of joy and slight annoyances. I wanted to share my list of humbugs with you as we are all joyus and grouchy. 1. X-Mas. It drives me crazy when Christians make a big deal about X-Mas (you heard me). X=Greek for Christ. WE STARTED THIS, we wrote x-mas when we understood what it meant. Pagan's don't want to take Christ out of Christmas, they are oblivious, they don't care. We did it, forgot we did it and then got ticked off. 2. Happy Holidays. Holiday means "Holy Days". It's not much different that Christmas, it means days that God set apart as Holy. STOP … [Read more...] about Things That Drive Me Crazy About Christmas

My Lead Pastor shared something with me in his sermon prep, and he spoke about it during his message, and I want to share it with you.  I think it's great, and I want to share what he shared with me. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers.  Ephesians 4:11 In each of these terms, there is an office.  The office of Apostle is no longer in function, one of the requirements to have the office of Apostle was to see Jesus.  Now I suppose that Jesus could appear to someone as He did to the Apostle Paul, who calls himself one "abnormally born", but … [Read more...] about Office and Gifts, are you an Apostle?

When I posted my topic on Lifeway, most of the comments I received was about how the material wasn't deep enough for Sunday School. Let me say first that I believe in Sunday School, I love Sunday School and I think it's important, but it's not the whole shebang. Sunday School is PART of the Discipleship Process. In most churches, people begin with a Worship Service. From there, they should move to Sunday School, and from there to a Discipleship Group. Worship Services explore theological issues, they are broad, they are designed for a giant mixed audience of believers, non-believers. From … [Read more...] about Sunday school, are you doing it wrong? A follow up to the Lifeway Article.

In my current ministry, I do a lot of work with Discipleship, with Sunday School and Small Groups, and I look at a lot of curriculum. Some we do in house, much of it we purchase. In all my shopping for material, I tend to lean towards Lifeway, and I think it's the best choice. Let me tell you why I use it and why I think you should too. 1. Lifeway takes time to understand what we are doing beyond the desire to sell us stuff. Lifeway does research, they are involved in education, mission, support and development. They take time to work with churches, be involved with churches and be in the … [Read more...] about Why I use Lifeway (and I think you should too).