SBC Voices

As I mentioned in my last post, I am in Florida working my mom and dad's home. Today, I fixed up a bathroom and did a little puttering around the place. Nothing major. Then, about noon, my sister called. She lives about 45 minutes south of here in northern Palm Beach County and she'd been cavalier about tropical storm Dorian that was headed this way. She's lived here most of her life and has seen hurricanes come and go. Today, when she called, the cavalier attitude was gone. Dorian has strengthened and is now expected to be a Category 4 hurricane when it hits us. For those of you with SEC … [Read more...] about This is NO Way to Welcome a Guest

The preferred solution to any problem in the SBC, our 174 year-old convention of churches, is to create a high-profile national conference, program, or plan. In a way, that is the best solution available, since of the 47,456 SBC churches counted in the latest statistical report, every single one of them is an autonomous, independent actor, free from the least directive from Nashville. Add to that another 3,759 "church-type missions" and we're over fifty thousand. Every single one of these churches hires their own clergy, supervises their staff, fires their staff, decides what to pay their … [Read more...] about Autonomy is still in the driver’s seat re: SBC clergy/church abuse

I remember having a light-hearted discussion with a lady during my first ministry as a youth pastor in Tequesta, Florida. She was chiding me about something and I was pleading my youth and inexperience as an excuse. I remember her words. "Pretty soon, that excuse will no longer fly." I am in a plane right now on my way to meet my wife in Raleigh. The logistics are complicated but she was in Cincinnati helping our youngest daughter and her husband move into their new home. My little baby now owns a house. Wow. From Raleigh, we are heading to Florida to visit my parents. Dad just turned … [Read more...] about On the Downhill Run

Compiled from very high, executive level seminary leaders: "We've agreed to drop the old gold standard ministerial training degree for a host of good reasons. It's a Gospel issue and we wanted to be out in front of the churches and the convention on this." "We've decided to replace the MDiv with a cutting edge, ahead-of-the-curve program of education and training that will give students a degree in consultancy. The market is ripe for all manner of church consultants and we believe we can attract more students to this field than the traditional training for the pastorate. After all, most … [Read more...] about Seminaries agree to drop the MDiv degree

When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is prudent. Proverbs 10:19 probably should be my "life verse." I have not committed a lot of physical sins in my life - no adultery, violence, no bank robberies - but I have not avoided the sins of the tongue. One of my siblings asked me once, half in jest and half in exasperation, "Don't you ever just shut up?" Jenni gets frustrated at my tendency to engage strangers in conversation while waiting in line at the grocery. I am a talker. I haven't always learned the wisdom of not talking (insert your joke … [Read more...] about Donald Trump, Evangelicals, and Blasphemy

The average church percentage of undesignated gifts to the Cooperative Program is well under five percent, headed towards four and a half soon. Averages have limited value and don't measure some important things, like the fact that a good number of churches give very high percentages, above ten, more than double the average. These churches, I think, are a dwindling number. The old standard promo for the CP was that members should tithe to their church and the church should tithe to the SBC in CP percentage. Ten percent from your pocket to the church. Ten percent from the church to the … [Read more...] about Can the Cooperative Program keep very high giving churches on board?

When men, mostly clergy, start opining on sex abuse in churches, almost always the discussion goes in a straight line to false accusations, presumably because we have all had friends or colleagues who were supposedly falsely accused and they suffered because of it. This flips the matter on it's head and presumes the low single digit percentages of those falsely accused should be our concern rather than the 90+ percent of those who were abused. This may not be the intended result but it looks like the actual result. Happens every time there is a discussion of the subject dominated by men, … [Read more...] about Enough posturing and pontificating, take the free online CaringWell training