Well, one hopes that anything like the current COVID-19 crisis is to be encountered only once in a lifetime. Never has so much happened so soon that affects churches. The World Trade Center attack, Shuttle disasters, JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations, Pearl Harbor, and other singular events didn't impact the Sunday-to-Sunday existence of churches as has the virus. I don't recall what churches did during the flu epidemic a century ago. I'm immune in a number of ways. Not being an active pastor there are no church decisions to be made or leadership to be asserted. I don't have to be concerned … [Read more...] about A once in a lifetime opportunity for churches?
No church services means revenues will be lower
There was a state convention staff guy who liked to tell churches that they could count on a certain percentage offering loss per inch of snow. The only reason churches I pastored ever cancelled services was because of snow and here in the south it only takes a little snow to create considerable chaos. Once in South Carolina we had two snow Sundays consecutively, no services for three weeks. State convention guys like to throw out figures because it helps them convince pastors and churches that they are doing useful things. Here in Georgia the governor has declared an emergency and has … [Read more...] about No church services means revenues will be lower
The rise of cremations and the demise of funerals with caskets and bodies.
Presiding at a funeral last week, I followed the usual protocol of leading a short procession from the hearse to the gravesite. The hearse parked close to a tent that had been erected. The body had been cremated and there was no stand for a casket nor a big pile of dirt thoughtfully covered by a dignified piece of funeral home carpet. "That's the spot," I thought to myself. I headed in that direction leading the lone urn-bearing funeral home employee. There were no pall bearers. Fortunately, I glanced behind after a few steps. I was headed to the tent. The urn was headed in another … [Read more...] about The rise of cremations and the demise of funerals with caskets and bodies.
Bob Allen, top reporter on abuse in Baptist churches leaves Baptist New Global
Before the Houston Chronicle did their series on sex abuse, long before the metoo movement, before Christa Brown, Dee Parsons, or any of the others started writing on the subject, and way back when neither Baptist Press nor any of the state Southern Baptist newspapers and news would report on abuse in SBC churches, reporter Bob Allen was reporting early and often on sex abuse in Baptist churches. I first saw his stories on Associated Baptist Press and then on Baptist News Global. He has hundreds, hundreds of stories of abuse of children and women in Baptist and other churches. He is leaving … [Read more...] about Bob Allen, top reporter on abuse in Baptist churches leaves Baptist New Global
I’m at the point of dropping out, I’m afraid.
Sometimes you get fed up. Sometimes you get bored. Sometimes you just feel that it's time to move on. Sometimes you recognize that this just isn't the place for you. I'm not talking about the SBC, about blogging, about Voices, or about my current church but I'd guess that there are many parallels in the experiences with all these. When I retired a few years ago, I expected to take interim jobs, maybe fill in a modest number of Sundays but not be as tied to the church as I had been as pastor. For all the decades that I served fulltime churches I could count on being tied up on Sundays and … [Read more...] about I’m at the point of dropping out, I’m afraid.
One good thing about Randy Adams’ SBC presidential candidacy: No use of Non-disclosure agreements
We are less than one hundred days out from the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando and from a contested presidential election between Al Mohler and Randy Adams. Mohler is ubiquitous in SBC life from his position as president of our oldest seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Adams is CEO of the Northwest Baptist Convention which covers Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho and was listed as having 417 churches in 2018. Adams has been active in writing and tweeting about SBC matters and his personal positions. I'd say that I haven't seen a candidate as actively campaigning for SBC … [Read more...] about One good thing about Randy Adams’ SBC presidential candidacy: No use of Non-disclosure agreements
The bad idea that keeps coming back: remote voting for the SBC Annual Meeting
Attendance at the SBC Annual Meeting in my active SBC lifetime has ranged from under five thousand to over forty-five thousand. We can expect less then the convention is outside of the traditional southern cities that regularly host the meeting (Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Antonio; more recently Louisville, Birmingham, Greensboro and others). We Baptists like to travel and it's a boost for SBC work outside of the traditional south for the meeting to be held in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland, and other cities. The farther from where the … [Read more...] about The bad idea that keeps coming back: remote voting for the SBC Annual Meeting
Baptisms are down. Woe is us. Can this be explained?
Doesn't really need an explanation. The numbers of baptisms by churches affiliated with the SBC is a decent measure of what's going on in evangelism in our churches and the number of dunks is in a long term, persistent, consistent slide downward. The last reporting year, 2018, showed 246,442 baptisms. Reporters who are fond of comparisons harken readers back to the 1940s for such baptism numbers as we see today, lowest since 1944 ("since Roosevelt was president! "since D-Day" "since sunscreen was invented"). So, J. D. Greear explains why baptisms are down and in his view "the primary … [Read more...] about Baptisms are down. Woe is us. Can this be explained?
The Southern Baptist Convention is in a pretty sorry state…
...or is it? Depends on whose describing it and what they look at. I have grave reservations about these parts of SBC life: The long running decline in baptisms. This is a trend that precedes any current controversy, wasn't caused by Cals, Trads, Cons, the secret CBN, NAMB, the ERLC, or anything else along these lines. Decades old demographic trends, aging churches and leadership, greater secularization of our society, loss of respect for churches and clergy, lower birthrates, declining percentages of WASP populations in the South all contribute. Every party in the SBC can point … [Read more...] about The Southern Baptist Convention is in a pretty sorry state…
The Executive Committee’s investigation of the ERLC should be scrutinized
The Pastor's Conference has been a slow-motion train wreck from the start. One would expect the Executive Committee to exert control over what happens at the venue identified as the Southern Baptist Convention in annual session. I still have gripes about who gets display space in the exhibit hall for the SBCAM even though the EC has guidelines for that. If the EC establishes guidelines for the PC if they want to meet in the same space that is to be expected. But, I'm not all that heavily invested in the SBCPC, so I yield to Dave Miller and those who are. But the investigation of the ERLC is … [Read more...] about The Executive Committee’s investigation of the ERLC should be scrutinized