William

The average attendance at the main weekly worship service for a cooperating Southern Baptist church is around 100. LifeWay gave me a figure of 70 a few years ago along with a median size of 125. There are different ways to calculate it but, regardless of the method, the Southern Baptist Convention is a convention of small churches.  But only a fraction of churches get the attention, provide the high-profile leadership positions and, for better or worse, provide the public with what an SBC church looks like. Sometimes this is positive. Sometimes it is negative. Average sized SBC … [Read more...] about Lost in the clamor of clergy abuse, CRT/I, and any other controversy: the SBC is and always has been a convention of small churches

I'm at a place where I am free to worship where I wish and I wished yesterday to worship at the church of a friend who is in a new pastorate nearby. The church is quite old and has quite a history, mostly not so good in recent decades. The building is new, courtesy of the Almighty (a lightning strike to the steeple) and the insurance company. It's a traditional looking Southern Baptist church. I make no criticism of the church where I have been a member for a few years and in which I have had modest staff responsibilities. It is new and non-traditional in every way. The pastor is an … [Read more...] about A red brick church, a piano, an organ, hymns, pews, and an old guy preaching behind a real pulpit: Hallelujah!

And, he's getting older. The Barna research on the aging of American pastors is getting a little old itself. The most recent was 2017. It was a typical state-of-the-church handwringer. Pastors are aging, as in the average age of a senior pastor is increasing (54 in that study). Really old pastors are increasing, 6% in 1992, nearly tripled by 2017. Probably significantly higher in 2021. Only one in seven pastors was under 40 in 2017. Half of pastors are over 55. More pastors over 65 than are under 40. (The research is about senior pastors.) So, what about the only … [Read more...] about “Tell me about your pastor.” “Well, he’s an old guy…”

Voices readers sometimes complain about the articles here, generally along the lines of who Voices is for and against. Reader griped about Randy Adams not receiving positive print here. Dude, get educated, then gripe. Adams is one of the four SBC presidential candidates and I've written eight articles that feature Randy Adams in the title and several others where he is prominent in the body of the piece. May I say that Adams give boatloads of fodder for bloggers; thus, the quantity of articles on him. Most of these are linked below. ______________________ Abuser … [Read more...] about So I watched an hour of Randy Adams live last night

Some of the SBC alphabet is under constant internal attack. The ERLC always has critics that are loud, dedicated, tireless, and often senseless. Witness the recent  Executive Committee ERLC Task Force report, generally characterized as a throwaway item, as in 'no action needed,' 'no action taken.' NAMB is a big, red bullseye target. Church planters may feel more valued than ever before in the SBC and church planting may have crossed over from a temp job sought by pastors of limited skills to a cool job that has become increasingly popular among highly motivated, skilled, and bearded … [Read more...] about Our oldest and most important entity, IMB, is doing OK

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