William Thornton

Ronnie Floyd threw a bunch of tables and graphics at us in his relaunch of the Vision 2025 message to the Executive Committee. You can view the message here. I'm picking a single item, the last one, number five from his list of five strategic actions: Increase annual giving through the Cooperative Program to surpass $500 million by 2025. I would put the graphs here but haven't figured out how to do it. A few items from his address that concern the CP: The CP (total CP, state share and national) has declined from $554 million in 2008 to $467 million in 2020, a decline of … [Read more...] about What about the 40% of SBC churches that gave NOTHING through the Cooperative Program?

The NAMB controversy concerns mainly smaller, non-south state conventions but the great consumer of Cooperative Program dollars are the large state conventions. If we are to engage in finger pointing over declining statistics, a popular game in the SBC if not a productive one, the fingers should point to the places where we're spending the most money. But, for now the conflict is between NAMB and non-south states. Again, take the time to read Joe Westbury's long, long article here. One  of the statements made in Westbury's article caught my attention,                       Adams, in … [Read more...] about NAMB and the State Conventions.

A major issue in the SBC 2021 presidential election is the relationship between NAMB and state conventions, especially state conventions outside the south. One candidate, Randy Adams, has made NAMB his main platform as he campaigns for the highest elected SBC office. Charges of mismanagement, secrecy, top-down authority, rejection of historic patterns, partnerships, and principles, heavy handedness, and a lot of other things have been aimed at NAMB. The phrase "forensic audit" is being brayed  incessantly. The whole business of relationships, cooperation, partnerships, agreements, church … [Read more...] about The conflict between NAMB and the State Conventions; take some time for weekend reading

I asked a close acquaintance, ministry colleague, if they liked Ravi Zacharias. "Not any more," was the quick and laconic reply Dave Miller's article of last week lumped the whole sordid matter under "The Ravi Zacharias Problem" and I'll presume that readers are familiar with that squalid and deplorable mess. One aspect of it that has arisen is that the BG Rule, the man of God (pastor, evangelist, or other male Christian figure) will not be alone with any woman not his wife, Billy Graham and his team establishing that practice early on in his evangelistic ministry. The rule has been … [Read more...] about The venerable Billy Graham Rule gets some new looks

If there is a bias in SBC life it is in favor of larger churches. Not that denominational leaders and employees deliberately discriminate against average churches (median attendance, 70; average attendance around 120), or their pastors; it's just that most of the revenue, most of the trustees, all of the leadership, all of the elected presidents come from large or megachurches. The guy soldiering away in the hinterlands as the single staff of a "normal" sized SBC church, a church that is probably rural, probably has a budget no more than $100,000, who's pastor is not likely to be asked to do … [Read more...] about The single staff, single income, paycheck-to-paycheck SBC pastor

There are two main targets in SBC life these days, Russell Moore and the ERLC and Kevin Ezell and the North American Mission Board. In regard to the latter, NAMB is incessantly criticized for their spending policies. A few observations: NAMB designed and manages successful national SBC programs in the area of church planting and relief services. Critics would have Southern Baptists believe these are utter failures. The criticisms are often vicious and self-serving. Data used are often fuzzy or false. Numbers have been manipulated in regard to church planting for decades, particularly … [Read more...] about NAMB and spending God’s money given through Southern Baptist churches and individuals

One man's crusade to clean up the SBC is reporter Julie Roy's podcast with SBC presidential candidate Randy Adams. The interview is a roundup of the usual SBC suspects. Adams is a heavy NAMB critic. Fine, we can disagree about church planting philosophy and spending policies. While NAMB has several recent incidents that have not helped, I still don't favor the suggestion of returning to the good old days where NAMB would fling money at state conventions and the state conventions would do a stellar job of planting churches. Maybe he would address how NAMB could put over eight million … [Read more...] about Randy Adams favors an SBC sex abuser database?

Randy Adams is one of four announced candidates for SBC president. Baptist Press covers his announcement with links to the other three (Al Mohler, Ed Litton, and Mike Stone) in this article. Adams was to be nominated this past year but the virus gave the SBC JD Greear for another year. I doubt I would vote for Adams but his strong stance on SBC openness and transparency tempts me even though I disagree with some of his other views. More on those at another time. Here's what he says about openness and transparency, from his blog, A Path to Reforming the SBC SBC entities must submit to … [Read more...] about Randy Adams and reforming the SBC: Entities should disclose salaries and most everything else

More accurately, both my wife and I are getting the first of the two shots today and it has been a strange journey to get to this spot. The way it has worked here in Georgia, the health departments had the vaccines. You had to go sign up, which, seems to me was a waste of time. I don't know anyone who got a call back. Word of mouth told us that you had to talk to someone which meant holding for hours while the software told you where you were in line ("You are number 54...45...22..." etc.). Several times my wife got down to the single digits ("You are number 6") and then the call was … [Read more...] about I’m getting the COVID vaccine today. Ouch!

The hallmark of our country's governance has always been the peaceful transfer of power. The capitol insurrection was an utter disgrace and the most serious challenge to the transfer of power in our history. (Well, we did have that other insurrection 160 years ago.) Utter disgrace. The more that is know about it the uglier it gets. The profaning of the halls of government. I didn't vote for Joe Biden but I will support him in every way, except in policy decisions where I cannot. He is the legally elected president of our country. It may be considered providential. Deal with it, … [Read more...] about Inauguration this week; prayers for the new administration