If you want to spend time doing armchair adventure travel, enjoying some outstanding fiction, or learning about human nature, try reading obituaries. I have long been among the many who regularly peruse local obituaries. It's great fun. Try it! The Master of the Universe Obituary. If you pay to have an obituary placed in the local news, print and/or digital, you should get what you pay for and there's no reason you cannot sanitize, fictionalize, or aggrandize your dearly beloved departed. It's amazing how I've lived among such distinguished people and did not realize it. And, seriously, … [Read more...] about Obituaries, my friends, are such an adventure these days
Bro. Bubba at Podunk Crossroads Baptist gets a call from the Credentials Committee
Note: There are over 48,000 churches in friendly cooperation with the SBC. These churches relate most closely to a local association of 30-50 other churches and also to their state convention and the national SBC which is represented by the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville. The EC is an 86-person body that acts on behalf of the SBC between times the convention is in session. A small group of EC members are appointed to a standing committee called the Credentials Committee and that group "make[s] inquiries and recommendations for action regarding instances of sexual abuse, racism or other … [Read more...] about Bro. Bubba at Podunk Crossroads Baptist gets a call from the Credentials Committee
The EC tackles the question of ‘What is a pastor?’ The Question breaks the tackle, runs for gain.
Bottom line right here at the top: I don't see the SBC solving this issue. I commend the SBC Executive Committee and Baptist Press for attempting to clarify or at least give some background on a current controversial issue among us: What is a pastor? Praise to Jonathan Howe (EC VP for communications), EC Asso. VP for convention news Brandon Porter, and BP national correspondent Scott Barkley for the latest issue of the slick EC publication SBC Life which is mailed to me three times each year. All of the articles are accessible online at SBCLIFE.NET. [The publication is "slick," my term for … [Read more...] about The EC tackles the question of ‘What is a pastor?’ The Question breaks the tackle, runs for gain.
Jon Whitehead’s six ideas for the SBC Executive Committee
The SBC Executive Committee is looking for a CEO and lawyer Jonathan Whitehead put his name in for the job. He got a call from the EC that he wouldn't be interviewed. I doubt it will assuage his supporters but I will not be considered and I didn't even get a courtesy phone call. I've never met Jon but we have swapped a few tweets and comments. I'd call him laconic in his interactions with me, but then so is everyone else on Twitter who doesn't want to write a book in a gazillion tweet thread. I rather like Jon, partly because I have an affection for solid Baptists who are disrupters, who … [Read more...] about Jon Whitehead’s six ideas for the SBC Executive Committee
Lottie Moon over $200 million
I wrote an article back in 2016, Before We Get Sidetracked, Let's Celebrate Lottie Moon's Big Year. The year was 2016 and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering reached $165 million and was up for the year by almost $13 million. That was pretty impressive. I referenced (on my old blog SBCPlodder) in that article Lottie Moon's Phenomenal Year. That year was 2003 and the offering was over $136 million. What was astonishing about that year was that Lottie was up over $21 million from the previous year, an impressive 18 percent increase. Those were the days of old when bold Southern Baptists … [Read more...] about Lottie Moon over $200 million
Destined for repeated disasters?
For the record: I'm solidly, consistently, permanently SBC with zero interest in departing our beloved convention of churches nor being a part of any church that is not SBC. I'd make an exception if I lived in some remote place in Nebraska, Maine, or Nevada that didn't have an SBC church (I'd have a house church but my wonderful wife might get tired of hearing my sermons). I'll be "SBC dead" in 14 years and 5 months although I recognize that the Almighty doesn't consult actuarial tables. In September of 2022 I like some things about the SBC: IMB, our true crown jewel and flagship … [Read more...] about Destined for repeated disasters?
Would this pastor be on the Ministry Check database?
Credit to the Tennessean and to the survivor for making this known. Tullahoma pastor resigns after abuse survivor shares story This may be behind a paywall. The salient facts are familiar, and depressing: a youth guy has sex with a teen in his group, 16 years old. The Tennessean quotes the former youth pastor as confessing to the act but the act was determined by law enforcement people in Kentucky where the abuse occurred to not be illegal. Would this non-illegal act have landed the guy on the SBC's database that is being put together? I'm not sure and will have to reread some of … [Read more...] about Would this pastor be on the Ministry Check database?
Average SBC Senior Pastor pay package approaches $100,000 or how inflation is the real pastor killer
LifeWay, Guidestone, and the state conventions do a compensation study of SBC pastors and staff. The numbers in it come from self-reporting by churches and church staff. Here's the way Baptist Press reported the 2022 results: SBC pastor pay stuck at same level since 2018 It's a good article. Read it. Here's another way to look at the pay of SBC Senior Pastors who are the largest respondents to the survey: Average SBC Senior Pastor pay package approaches $100,000 That's right, brethren (and there are no sistren who are SBC senior pastors) - The average pay for Senior Pastors is … [Read more...] about Average SBC Senior Pastor pay package approaches $100,000 or how inflation is the real pastor killer
Local church autonomy still the realty in the SBC, says EC counsel
[The headline is not a direct quote, lest anyone not read what is written beside the headline.] There are more than an dozen articles on this site that deal with our practice of local church autonomy. May I link just one of these by a distinguished member of the SBCV team: Autonomy is a reality, not an excuse. In that article are some quotes that might summarize the attitude of many in regard to this principle and practice that individual churches make their own decisions, Stop making autonomy an excuse for doing nothing about clergy sex abuse… The SBC needs to deal with the issue and … [Read more...] about Local church autonomy still the realty in the SBC, says EC counsel
The death of the church choir
There he or she stands, waving their arms at a bunch of people holding books and singing. Maybe they are all dressed alike. Maybe there's a solo part. Maybe there are musicians. Maybe the music is piped in. The congregation watches. Maybe they are thrilled. Maybe they are bored. Question for the ecclesiastical expoits: Is not having a choir a thing these days? The churches I pastored all had choirs. If I had attempted to replace the choir with any kind of alternative band, praise team, permanent ensemble, barbershop quartet or whatever, that would have gotten me a quick ticket to … [Read more...] about The death of the church choir