William Thornton

This advice is not from Your Humble Hacker and Plodding Semi-retired Pastor but from LifeWay leader Thom Ranier. In a recent podcast (Will the Minister's Housing Allowance Go Away?) he states his belief that " it is going to go away" and advises pastors to rearrange their finances now to prepare for the loss. The part of the tax law that provides for the housing allowance on parsonages is not the issue. So, if you live in the humble parson's domicile on the site of your church then there's no need to worry. If instead you own your home and receive a cash payment from your church as "housing … [Read more...] about Brother, prepare to relinquish thy housing allowance

The most bewailed SBC statistic is the average percentage of undesignated receipts given by churches to the Cooperative Program. The figure stands at 5.16% having declined from over 10% back in the days prior to the Conservative Resurgence. The decline has been incremental, steady, and relentless although during Frank Page's tenure as SBC Executive Committee CEO the percentage has stopped declining and is more or less flat. SBC leaders and others regularly speak of raising the percentage and returning to the earlier times when churches were happy to devote a tenth of their budgets to the … [Read more...] about Magical thinking on Cooperative Program percentages

The long lament of SBC leaders concerns declining baptisms. The weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth was intensified last June when the lowest number of baptisms was reported since 1946, when Georgia's Louie Newton was SBC president. The drop was called a "freefall." Thom Ranier, LifeWay head said that "evangelism and discipleship are waining" in the SBC. Frank Page said that we should all "lament the poor state of our churches, our lack of evangelistic fervor, and our increasingly irrelevant programs." Indeed. We are accustomed to the June swoon of SBC leaders when the baptism figures … [Read more...] about There is clearly soteriological heresy in the SBC

Why wouldn't all of us be in favor of expanding participation for voting for the SBC Annual Meeting by having satellite meetings, perhaps at your local Baptist associational office, where folks who can't make the annual meeting in Dallas or Phoenix or Nashville or Indianapolis could cast their vote? It's tough to address some populist ideas because the presumption of greater participation always puts you on the defensive, having to explain why more people voting is a bad idea. Well, it is a bad idea but I offer a bit more about it. I have speculated about that as a way to increase … [Read more...] about More about satellite SBC annual meetings and remote voting: still a bad idea

The Cooperative Program is our main funding mechanism. It puts more dollars than any other source into SBC state conventions and their assorted ministries as well as the SBC level entities (one proviso on this, though, is that direct giving puts more dollars into SBC level entities than does CP). Perhaps more important than the dollars is that the CP is our method of uniting churches, state conventions, and SBC level entities in cooperative ministry. Almost all of us desire a strong CP and most of us would think an increasing CP dollar flow makes us a healthier convention. While it would be … [Read more...] about A thriving Cooperative Program needs all kinds of churches on board

...and I'm happy to help. Squirrels, those rats of the forest with long fluffy tails, are being brought back from the 'dead'. Rodent CPR. Why? Complaints are being noised that our ERLC leader can't get into the White House. But we do have a few megapastors who seem to get there and end up being photographed standing beside prosperity gospel superstar Paula White. God bless Russell Moore. Don't worry about the world ending a week from Monday, National Geographic sez. Instead, plan for the usual Global Warming catastrophes. Seems that there has long been a conspiracy theory (Nibiru, … [Read more...] about Things you probably need to know…

Seems that "objectify" is the term du jour in our circles. Many of the brethren need help understanding this. I suggest asking the closest female. Steve Gaines says we are at a "pivotal" time. In my best curmudgeonly way, I'd call it the wrong term. We are clearly in the midst of a generation change, and that whether the youthful J. D. Greear or the senior adult Ken Hemphill is elected. But "pivotal," is ridiculously overused these days.  The SBC doesn't pivot. It shifts direction by tiny degrees and fractions of degrees. Regardless of the election outcome, we will change little. The new … [Read more...] about A few stray observations about the Grand Old SBC these days