SBC Voices

I am liberating myself from my redneck pick-up truck

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Here in Georgia there are pick-up trucks and there are redneck pick-up trucks. I have driven one of the latter for a decade or so. You can drive a sparkling new Ford King Ranch, maybe $80-90,000 truck and turn it into a redneck truck if you fly a Confederate Flag. If you spend that much on a truck just to cruise around, you could fly an "I'm an idiot with too much money" flag. If you have a gun rack and a bunch of deer stickers on the back window, you got yourself a redneck truck no matter what kind or how new it is. Your humble hacker and plodder blogger came by his redneck pick-up … [Read more...] about I am liberating myself from my redneck pick-up truck

Substance is Worth It: Creating A Set List that is Above Reproach (by Quint Adkins)

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The year was 2015. I just finished stringing up an old acoustic guitar I found in our church office with the hopes of learning to play so I could be on our church worship team. I had unknowingly ordered the wrong strings, but I put them on anyway. No sooner was the last string installed than I ran to my computer and looked up the chords and a tutorial on how to play “Lead Me to the Cross” by Hillsong. You see, I grew up in the "Passion era" which means that some of the most influential songs in my young Christian life couldn’t have been found in the ’56, ’75 or ’91 Baptist hymnals, but on the … [Read more...] about Substance is Worth It: Creating A Set List that is Above Reproach (by Quint Adkins)

What it was Like to Serve on the Committee on Nominations

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For those who are interested I have written up a walkthrough of my experience on this year’s Committee on Nominations. It’s a little long but there are some things here that you might find interesting. I know I sure learned a lot in this process. I must say this was nothing like I assumed it would be. When I was asked by Robin Purdy and Criseida Gomez (Louisiana’s two members on the Committee on Committees) to serve alongside Larry Johnson as the 2 representatives from Louisiana on the Committee on Nominations (NomCom) I was excited and considered it an honor. I figured it would be a … [Read more...] about What it was Like to Serve on the Committee on Nominations

Are SBC state conventions doomed and just surviving is the goal?

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Well, I suppose I voted for the thing a couple of decades ago. The "thing" is the last remaining monument to the foolhardy faith of SBCers in an endlessly upward trend line; that is, we just expected more churches to give more money to the Cooperative Program year-after-year. Millions of new people were moving to my state, Georgia, and surely our several thousand churches would grow along with the influx of population. Our Georgia Baptist leaders sold our old headquarters building and built this new one:               It's … [Read more...] about Are SBC state conventions doomed and just surviving is the goal?

Musings on the SBC Annual Meeting

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My wife and I enjoyed attending the annual meeting in Anaheim. I’ve attended the SBC annual meetings since 1975, off and on. The off years were the years when we served overseas with the FMB/IMB. The following are my observations and reflections. Good Things The highlight of the convention for me was the Missionary Appointment Service. The IMB appointed 52 new missionaries. Praise the Lord! That’s our main things, folks. The best quote of the convention was spoken by Dr. Paul Chitwood, President of the IMB (and my former student). He declared, “Missions brought Southern Baptists … [Read more...] about Musings on the SBC Annual Meeting

Jay’s Top Ten from Anaheim

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For the last few years, I have offered on this site what I would identify as my top 10 takeaways, favorite things or memorable events from the Annual Meeting. This year there were a few more than 10, but I’d like to try to keep my commentary to that number with this one caveat: Can we all agree that the real number one thing that happened in Anaheim was the passage of the Sexual Abuse Task Force Recommendations? With that surely being the unanimous decision, I will move on with “the rest” of that Top Ten. These are things that I personally witnessed. I will also say that Todd Benkert's … [Read more...] about Jay’s Top Ten from Anaheim

History Made at the 2022 Annual Meeting

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Every week on the SBC This Week Podcast, Amy Whitfield offers a moment of history. And then every year on the recap episode after the annual meeting, her moment of history is the whole meeting itself.  Make sure and check out the episode for an excellent summary of the weeks events.  This years meeting felt particularly eventful, and I want to offer a few moments  of history that occurred during the week. These are in no particular order, and some are definitely more important than others.   Sexual Abuse Reforms -  The recommendations presented by the SATF are good first steps … [Read more...] about History Made at the 2022 Annual Meeting

Trauma-Informed Ministry: A breakout session at the SBC Annual Meeting

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? Tuesday night at the SBC Annual Meeting, SBCvoices sponsored a breakout session introducing trauma-informed care and how it can be used in local church ministry. The session is divided into three sections: Rachael Denhollander began with an overview of what trauma is and how it affects a person mentally, physically, and physiologically. Todd Benkert tackled the question "Is Trauma-informed care biblical?" and encouraged the audience to learn about trauma and its effects, and use the whole counsel of God when addressing trauma so that we have the biblical vocabulary to address the … [Read more...] about Trauma-Informed Ministry: A breakout session at the SBC Annual Meeting

My Reflections from #SBC22 (by Aaron Swain)

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My heart was heavy as I packed up my bags and prepared to fly out to Anaheim for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention last week. Many Southern Baptists have been pushing, in spite of great resistance, towards fixing some of the problems in our Executive Committee and in our convention of churches, especially related to sexual abuse. We have done some good work over the past few years. But the work is not finished. Heading into the annual meeting, I knew we needed to take some decisive action this year if progress is to be made. By God’s grace, we did. A LITTLE CONTEXT For at … [Read more...] about My Reflections from #SBC22 (by Aaron Swain)