SBC Issues

So, you thought your bracket was irreparably busted? Mine blew up in the first round when my selected champion - the Fightin' Izzos, went down in flames to the Middle Tennessee Whoevers. But there's good news. If you thought your bracket was bad, remember that the so-called experts of Sports Illustrated picked 6 of 16 correctly. Most of you did better than the experts! There's a SECOND CHANCE bracket at ESPN. Doug set it up for us and you still have time to get in for a Sweet Sixteen on busted bracket challenge. Here is the link. SBC Voices Second Chance Bracket. The password is the same … [Read more...] about The Bracket of the Second Chance

It has been a long-standing tradition in the SBC that candidates for president of the SBC do not campaign for office. I don't know the history attached to this tradition, but I suspect it comes from a place in which we believed that such campaigning was a sign that we were not being led by the Spirit. We were not like those crass politicians out in the secular world who engage in unseemly campaigns. We just gather and get on our knees until the Lord reveals his will as to who should be our next president. Of course, reality has never met that sort of spiritual standard. Could we dispense … [Read more...] about Campaigning for SBC President: It’s Time to Break with Tradition

[This is not a serious post, something that shouldn't need to be stated. I am so stating for the benefit of my discernment challenged friends.] ...because we've got a JD-for-SBC-prez rap. It's unauthorized and unofficial but rap stars don't need any stinkin' authority or approval. You will find a lot of SBC leaders doing cameos in the two-minute piece.  Ther are already more views of the thing than than SBC annual meeting attendance...and, as we all know, the gray-hairs who go to the SBC annual meetings are all big rap fans. Steve Gaines has (yawn!) a traditional sit-down … [Read more...] about Why JD’s a shoo-in

The site being down for a few days stopped me from instituting the new SBC Voices NCAA Bracket Challenge rules that we had ready to go. It's a shame - the new rules would have really spiced things up. The main rule change: You would have had to declare yourself either a Democrat, an Independent, or a Republican. If you declared yourself a Republican, you could win by picking as few as 40 to 45% of games correctly. Each week, the leader would be allowed a post to insult those who are trailing in the bracket challenge. Those who are trailing badly, after being heartily insulted, would drop … [Read more...] about What a Tragedy!

SBC Voices is back up and running. At this point, we've not been able to figure out for certain exactly what went wrong, but reports that a band of discernment bloggers conspired to bring us down are unconfirmed. Our crack staff off engineers (also known as our owner, Tony) got things fixed. So, here we are. It's probably good this site was offline the last 12 to 15 hours. I've been pretty discouraged and upset about the American electorate's poor decision-making and I might have written something YOU'D regret! … [Read more...] about We’re Ba-ack

In seminary, we learned about a large group of men, the majority who start out in church work. They don't make it, they fall away and drop out. They don't make it. I remember thinking I was never going to be one of those. I was going to stay long term at a church. I was going to be like those men with great ministries because they put in the time. I finished seminary and went to the church I was going to spend decades serving.  This is where I was going to put down roots. My long tenure lasted 4 years and the decision was made I would resign. I wasn't voted out by the congregation, there … [Read more...] about Perspective From One Who Didn’t Make It

It's time to fill out your bracket!  We'd love to have you join our SBC Voices NCAA Tournament bracket challenge. Follow the link. The password is "sbcvoices" and you only get one bracket. Make sure you follow THIS link. Somehow, last year there were two of these out there and we actually had two different groups out there. Not sure how it happened, but this is the ONE AND ONLY SBC VOICES bracket. The prize here is absolutely NOTHING, except the joy of gloating over those whose picks are inferior. Join me in hoping (praying?) that North Carolina, Kentucky, and Duke all are eliminated … [Read more...] about SBC Voices’ NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge: Baptist Bloggers Bluster about Basketball

This was originally published at Joel's blog, themelios. Hopefully the headline didn't chase too many people off. Last week, Andy Stanley, Lead Pastor of Northpoint Church which meets in multiple locations throughout the metro Atlanta area, said something very discouraging to many smaller church pastors. While preaching to his own congregation and praising the way the church had invested in his own life, Stanley apparently went off-script for a bit to berate anyone with children who would keep them in a small church. The rant climaxed with this declaration by the Atlanta mega-church … [Read more...] about What Small Church Pastors and Andy Stanley Can Learn from Each Other (Joel Rainey)