Dave Miller

No, Mike Leake is not publishing today and this is not a spoof. Joel Rainey, whose posts appear on SBC Voices regularly, is appearing in primetime tomorrow night on Al Jazeera America's television network. Here is the press release information I received. Dr. Joel Rainey, Director of Missions for Mid-Maryland Baptist Association, will be appearing on “The Stream,” a national news program on the Al Jazeera America Network, at 7:30 PM (Eastern) this Wednesday. This edition of the show will occur on the 12th anniversary of September 11, 2001, and will feature Dr. Rainey alongside religious … [Read more...] about Joel Rainey to Appear on Al-Jazeera America Network Wednesday Night

For those of you participating in the Fat Pastor, Fit Pastor Challenge, it is time for our first weigh-in and progress report. You can post your weigh-in numbers here if you are brave, or you can send them to my Voices email (yes, it's real - davemillerisajerk@hotmail.com ).  I am off on a long walk/hike with my lovely wife, so let us know what's happening, guys! By the way, if you've had a bad month and failed - we still want you to be a part of this challenge. Do better next month! God bless you. … [Read more...] about Fat Pastor, Fit Pastor Challenge: It’s Weigh-In Time

A friend took me out to a little tea shop for some “fellowship” one day about 3 years ago – someone I had known in high school and had only recently reconnected with. I was actually doing some ministry where he lived and worked and he was my host. It was great to catch up and renew our friendship. But then, that day, he dropped a bomb on me. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something like this. “Dave, you make a lot of jokes about your weight, but maybe you should start taking this a little more seriously.” He is my age, but a highly conditioned athlete who has remained … [Read more...] about Fat Pastor, Fit Pastor: Speaking the Truth in Love

My wife and I were at the Mall of America on Monday, part of our celebration of our 35th wedding anniversary. We were wandering that behemoth aimlessly when we found the fourth floor cinema. Jenni wanted to see the movie "The Butler." I wasn't excited about seeing that movie, but I went to please my wife. I was wrong. She was right. This is a must-see movie for every American. It is a powerful and moving portrayal of the progress of race relations in America from the despicable era of desegregation to the election of a black president in 2008. I am aware that some of the more strident … [Read more...] about Lee Daniel’s “The Butler” – A Powerful Telling of the Race Story in America

Do you think it is a sense of personal inadequacy that leads young whippersnappers to focus so much of their personal identity on their facial hair?   … [Read more...] about Young Whippersnappers and their Facial Hair

 I didn't have anything to post from my (disappointing - hint,hint) team of contributors, and I simply have not had time to write anything myself. So, I'm pulling out a sermon from a couple of weeks ago (part 1 of 2). I'm in a series on the Beatitudes. Do I even need to prove this assertion? This is a seriously messed up world. It is a world in which lies often seem to overwhelm the truth. The news is filled with stories that take our breath away, recounting acts of depravity that defy imagination. How can people do some of the things that they do? How can they walk into a movie theater or an … [Read more...] about On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Hungering and Thirsting for God’s Righteousness (Matthew 5:6)

I've heard it all my life. "We need to restore America to its former greatness." "We need to take our nation back to what it once was." "We need to get back to being the Christian nation we used to be." I believed it and preached it. But I have come to believe that this is not something we should say. There are Christian brothers and sisters who hear something very different than we do when we talk about "going back" and out of honor to them, we ought to reexamine our thinking and our words.  Before I make you mad.... ...I'd like to make these things absolutely clear! 1) I love this … [Read more...] about We Need to Stop Talking about “Restoring America”

No, I'm not talking here about your content - this is not about whether you are topical or verse-by-verse expositional. This is much more simple. What is going on around you when you stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning (and night, for us old-schoolers)? Do you have a manuscript? Crib notes? An outline? Do you have a monitor? An iPad? Printed notes? Do you project your notes onto a screen with Powerpoint or Proclaim or some other presentation software? Does your church project its notes by WiFi so the congregation can follow along on tablets and smartphones? Do you include … [Read more...] about An SBC Voices Forum: How Do You Preach?

I've cheered for him for nearly a decade, even when a lot of Yankee fans didn't. I heard the petty taunts - "A-Fraud" and such silliness - and I just kept cheering. I heard the sniping about how much he was being paid, but I didn't care - he was worth it and anyway, was he supposed to turn the money down? He's done some weird things, for sure, through the years - knocking a ball out of the pitcher's glove, yelling at the fielder to induce a dropped fly ball, just acting a little nutty. He said things that made you scratch your head and he always seemed to be trying just a little too hard to … [Read more...] about Reflections of a (Former) Fan of Alex Rodriguez

Baptists have a somewhat uneasy relationship to numbers these days. When we were growing and expanding annually, we pointed to our numbers as proof of God's blessing. Our recent realization that our statistical decline is not a mere blip on the screen has been taken as a portent of evil in our midst. Dr. Frank Page's response to the latest report was, "God forgive us and God help us." There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Houston this year. This is not a specifically Southern Baptist problem, of course. In a recent article, "Why Millenials Are Leaving the Church", Rachel Held … [Read more...] about Exodus and Numbers: What We Can Infer from Our Statistical Decline