SBC Voices

I love a small church - the building, the people, the setting, the history. The photo is of a small church near me. I've been there, done a funeral there, know or used to know some of the people and pastors there. But, never mind thinking about the future of this church, what, exactly, is going on in the present? This is the church sign (I blocked out the name). The message "come join us" is not exactly a game changer but letting it run down and have letters scattered all over signals that this isn't a church that cares a thing about what people think or say about them. Somebody … [Read more...] about Can (or should) this church be saved?

Every year Amy Whitfield and Jonathan Howe of the excellent SBC This Week podcast post some questions for the coming year as it relates to the Southern Baptist convention. Find their questions for this year here. And then at the end of the year they go back and answer those questions. Sometimes they are right on the money, and sometimes they miss the big stories entirely. In honor of there questions I want to pose a few questions of my own that I have been thinking about. 1. Will someone run against Ed Litton for SBC President? During the Conservative Resurgence it was not … [Read more...] about 5 Questions for the SBC in 2022

[Note: please read through to the end for an important addendum.] It's 2022 and our flagship giving plan, The Cooperative Program, will be one hundred years old in three years, 2025. In my decades as an active and involved Southern Baptist - SBC church member, seminary student, pastor, and now retired - the CP has been variously termed a miracle, an act of God, the envy of other denominations, the fuel for mission work and others. My favorite is that the CP isn't a "sacred cow" but "the sacred how." Notice how proponents acknowledge that a significant proportion of SBCers label the CP as a … [Read more...] about The venerable Cooperative Program, delicate flower that it is, is UP significantly after fiscal Q1

Over the past week since Christmas Day, I’ve been thinking about the church's celebration of Epiphany on January 6th, the Wise Men, Herod, the Flight to Egypt, and how we can either worship Jesus as the Messiah ... or reject him and even put him away through defending a way of life that has no place for him because we find him to not be useful for our larger ends. I recognize that the celebration of Epiphany doesn't necessarily encompass the Slaughter of the Innocents or the Flight to Egypt, but the Biblical story in Matthew 2 flows quickly from the Wise Men presenting gifts to Jesus to the … [Read more...] about Jesus, Epiphany-January 6th, and a Ruler Bent on Protecting His Kingdom At All Costs

The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma was only a year old when Alonzo Nunnery came to pastor in Oklahoma. The young convention had formed as a merger in 1906 from the conventions in Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory and Nunnery came to the state to pastor in Granite, Oklahoma, from Tennessee. Nunnery spent from 1907-1939 as a pastor in southern Oklahoma, and undoubtedly left a mark on the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO). His contribution, though less than desirable, helped the fledgling convention cement its beliefs and firm stand in their convictions. Born in … [Read more...] about The man who was no longer Baptist

You can say you read about it first here. The declaration was made about an hour ago by your humble hacker and plodder retired pastor. Here's to the Real Pastors among us! The guy who looks out on Sunday morning and sees the SBC median and average and below attendance, or no more than a couple hundred souls. That's about as many as the Senior/Lead/Top Dawg Pastor can actually pastor. The guy whose membership and community, when someone asks who the pastor is of his church, replies with his name only. God bless all the associates, assistants, age-category sub-pastors but THE pastor … [Read more...] about 2022 declared “The Year of the Real Pastor”