William

Been a while since I've been to a drive-in theatre and I've never been to one in the daytime but we had drive-in worship this morning. It was novel. Pretty good. I commend my pastor and staff for setting up this addition to live streaming a sermon. The design of our building is such that several rows of parking spaces face the elevated front entrance to the church. We had music and preaching on an FM station. I don't know how this works. The fire marshall was present to be sure no one rolled down their windows. I guess this was a precondition. I may get churched for rolling mine down. I … [Read more...] about My drive-in church this morning

I gather that some people are hoarding items. My stash of frozen Mrs. Callendar's Chicken Pot Pies is down to just a couple (my wife says they are inedible anyway, so they are mine! All mine! I like the KFC chicken pie, heavy on bread, fat, and salt but I'm not all that keen on their food handling.). Looks to me like the supply chain is working well where I am. It's all anecdotal but I'm seeing churches and others be incredibly generous in these times. To wit: I've heard of at least one megachurch that has recalibrated their budget so that they can help smaller churches that cannot … [Read more...] about In times like these…folks get generous.

My simple opinion: "No." Seems like just last year we were agonizing over the fact that no one wanted to attend the annual meeting any more. Attendance was down. Interest was flagging. God has a sense of humor and the SBC provides plenty of occasions for a good laugh. We've had this covered for 175 years. Everything moves along as needed. Budgets and funding may be approved by other bodies. We still have officers and trustees. The Cooperative Program rocks along as it has. Our system is deliberately designed to preserve the status quo. It's a good and wise system. Absent absolute, … [Read more...] about Does it really matter that the Annual Meeting is put off until 2021?

I know one guy who has an actual survival bunker - underground with a year's supply of food and water. I don't think he has made the transition yet. I know a couple of people who have been big on accumulating guns and ammo, like dozens of guns and thousands of rounds of ammo. If it comes to that, I don't think one old dude and his wife will be able to stave off the Visigoths. Yeah, it's those reckless, licentious, insouciant, and senseless spring breakers partying in big groups at beaches that will move this thing along. Come to think of it, if I could have afforded it, I would have done … [Read more...] about BREAKING USELESS INFO: Hunkered down in my survival domicile…watching stuff.

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?

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

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.

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

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.