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Is Your Church a Friendly Church?

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Various researchers in church growth estimate that 80-90% of the Protestant churches in North America are plateaued or declining. A plateaued church is just maintaining the status quo. One essential factor in growing a church is attracting and welcoming visitors to your church. It is hard enough to persuade folks to visit; if they do visit, you want them to have a positive experience. One aspect of welcoming is greeting the visitors in a warm, friendly way.  Personally, I’ve had varied experiences with welcomes. When my wife and I moved back to Texas in 2015, we began looking for a church … [Read more...] about Is Your Church a Friendly Church?

Include Small Churches in Your Training Events and Conferences

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“A larger church up the road is hoping to serve other area churches by helping them to organize their security teams,” a denomination leader told me once. When I was a kid, our church had a team of men (and sometimes their sons) driving around on golf carts as part of the security team. I loved the doughnuts in the shed. In my current small church, all the men are the security team every Sunday morning. That's not a separate ministry. Most church training events and conferences don’t include the average church. The average church is 65-75 people and has one pastor. Most training events are … [Read more...] about Include Small Churches in Your Training Events and Conferences

Obituaries, JMac, and speaking ill of the dead

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Everyone's mother used to say, "Don't speak ill of the dead," but it sounds so quaint these days. If you want nice, sanitized, and gauzy words about someone who had died, family obituaries rarely disappoint. Obituaries are like those histories that all churches have written and printed: you get history but not truth. If it's a lie to fail to tell all of the truth, then all church histories and all obituaries are printed lies. But there's a time and place for everything. I rather liked John MacArthur's commentaries and owned a few. They were fairly reliable, occasionally insightful and … [Read more...] about Obituaries, JMac, and speaking ill of the dead

Praying for Friends and Their Families

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I suspect I’m not the only person or pastor who wishes for better friendship. I haven’t made the friends that I should have or kept up with the good ones that I had. Pastors often have temporary work friendships until life and ministry take them in different directions. Here is what is helping me: Pray for your friends and their families. I’m gearing this for pastors, but this applies to everyone. I started praying for a couple of friends 1-2 years ago. I just wrote down two names and prayed for them once a week or so. One is a friend that I see once per month. The other is a friend that … [Read more...] about Praying for Friends and Their Families

The Illusion of Control in the SBC (by Jonathan Raffini)

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I am keen on several things, and history is topping the list. Baptist history, military history—you name it. But nothing compares to living through history, and if you’ve ever attended a Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, you’ve experienced just that. Sometimes the history is remembered for decades. Other times, you look back and think, “Wow,” and I don’t mean that in the same way Dr. Chuck Kelley (former president of NOBTS) meant when he referenced that “ancient Hebrew expression.” I mean “wow” as in, “I can’t believe that happened,” or “What were we thinking?” No matter the moment, … [Read more...] about The Illusion of Control in the SBC (by Jonathan Raffini)

Headed to Senegal and a Welcome to Joe Radosevic

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I am sitting at JFK waiting to board a Delta jet for 10 days in the Casamance.  I've lost count - it's either my 17th or 18th trip. Pray for spiritual fruit...and no pulmonary embolisms this time! I am posting this to welcome Joe Radosevich to the Voices team. He has posted several guest posts and has gotten his official Voices drivers license.  Welcome aboard.   … [Read more...] about Headed to Senegal and a Welcome to Joe Radosevic

Jeff Iorg Is “God’s Man” “For Such a Time As This”

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Sorry guys. The title is an inside joke to the Voices team. We laugh at the frequency at which people use these two phrases when nominating people for positions in the SBC. I don't drink, but if I were hardcore Reformed enough to imbibe, this would make a great drinking game at the SBC (smile folks, I'm joking!). I am not at the SBC, and to be honest, I haven't paid attention to what is happening until this afternoon, when I tuned in while the elections were taking place (strange format, not sure what I think about that!). Then, there was a report from the EC and Dr. Iorg's presentation. I … [Read more...] about Jeff Iorg Is “God’s Man” “For Such a Time As This”

Second VP Report

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Second VP Election 10,541 registered messengers, 6668 voting Christopher Rhodes   806 votes (12.09%) Tommy Mann  2057 votes (30.85%) Craig Carlisle  3765 (56.46%)   Craig Carlisle is elected   Anyone have opinions on this new election process? Seems to me it works well in this year with no highly contested elections. Might get more messy if there were a lot of tight elections...like next year. … [Read more...] about Second VP Report

First Vice President Election

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Reporting from my office here in Tekamah, Nebraska, I have an observation. This may be the first time in convention history that more people voted in the First Vice President election than in the President election. First Vice President Election  10,511 messengers registered, 6158 voting (6009 voted for president) Daniel Richie  5409 votes (87.84%) Larry Helms 722 votes (11.72%) … [Read more...] about First Vice President Election