SBC Voices

The 2019 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is still 8 months away, but online hotel registration will open on Friday, October 12 at 9am EST. Normally reservations open on October 1, but this year there have been some complications with renovations at the convention center. This led to the date for reservations being pushed back. Here's the info from the annual meeting website: Due to the recently announced renovation of an entire wing at one of our Co-Convention hotels in Birmingham, we have postponed until October 12 the opening of online hotel reservations for the 2019 … [Read more...] about #SBC19 Hotel Reservations Open Friday

I haven't seen an announcement in Baptist Press, but today I stumbled across the website for the 2019 SBC Pastors' Conference in Birmingham, AL. The conference will be held June 9-10 at Legacy Arena just prior to the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The conference president is Danny Wood, pastor of Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham for more than 20 years. The theme for the conference is Kingdom Character. Here's an excerpt from the conference website: The theme for the 2019 Pastors’ Conference is “Kingdom Character” and will focus on the Beatitudes. … [Read more...] about #SBCPC19 Website Is Live

We recently received good news from both the North American Mission Board regarding Annie Armstrong and the International Mission Board regarding Lottie Moon. Both offerings were up. The amount collected for the AAEO was the largest in the offering's history. The amount collected for the LMCO did not quite meet the goal, but it was the second largest amount ever collected. These are encouraging results. I have led both churches I have pastored to give generously to both of these offerings. My first church always gave tremendous amounts to Lottie Moon. We would light a candle and place it on … [Read more...] about How to Increase Your Missions Offerings

As I write this, I am in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal on my seventh mission trip attempting to bring the gospel to the Ehing people, a UUPG, and seeking to establish churches in the region. I came first with Bart Barber in 2015, came back in early 2016 and have done two trips a year for the last three years. In previous years I have done two mission trips to Taiwan, two to Honduras and one to Tanzania. I have interacted with many missionaries through the years as well. Of course, my parents were Foreign Mission Board missionaries for a term back when I was a youngster. All of … [Read more...] about Who Should Be the Next IMB President?

Final total for 2017-2018: $158.9 million. That's not a record. The record is $165.8 million in the year after the missionary personnel drawdown. This year's is second highest. An increase of about $6 million but with a change in counting. IMB aligned their tally with the SBC fiscal year, October 1 to September 30, so churches had a few extra months to give. That should account for some of the increase from last year since some churches give monthly, etc. IMB funds about half of it's budget through the LMCO. This is the best offering one can give. IMB may be leaderless but not … [Read more...] about Lottie Moon up by about $6 million

[This article was written by Mark Terry.] I’ve always been interested in church names. Some churches are named for a place, like Fisherville Baptist Church in Kentucky. Others are named for a road, like Fielder Road Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas. Some are named for people, like Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville, which is named for the Southern Baptist missionary martyr, Bill Wallace. There is a Mabel White Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia. I don’t know how the church got its name. Some churches have spiritual names like Grace Baptist Church or Faith Baptist … [Read more...] about What’s in a Name [Mark Terry]

The national Cooperative Program just ended a fiscal year and Baptist Press reports that the total received by the Executive Committee for distribution to the mission boards, seminaries, ERLC and a couple of other national entities was slightly less than the last fiscal year. National CP ends fiscal year 2.63% over goal  The SBC received $197,044,828.14 in CP allocation gifts for the year. This amount is 0.05 percent less than it received during the last fiscal year, and is 2.63 percent more than its budgeted goal of $192 million. The CP is in many ways the measure of the cooperative … [Read more...] about Let’s call the CP up for the year just ended

As we enter the Fall season, now is the time for Association and State Conventions to hold their annual meetings. While I enjoy engaging in Convention issues and participating on the national level, I find that the local association and state convention have been vitally important to my growth and development as a pastor and in building relationships with other pastors. Our national conversation continues to consider what is the long-term role of state conventions and local associations. The reverberations of GCR have called on us in the Midwest, where the number of SBC churches is fewer … [Read more...] about Choose Cooperation! – Reflection on being SBC on the local/state level