SBC Voices

There are a few places to go and find good solid wisdom.  The first of course is scripture.  We then have wise individuals in our midst, we have some wisdom in books and then there is the Jedi Master.  For being a little green guy, he is very wise in some of the things he instructs, and we would be wise to take them to heart.  At the end of his muppet life (In Return of the Jedi, there was no CGI), he told his young student Luke Skywalker to "pass on what you have learned".  Luke couldn't just keep the information to himself, he needed to train a new generation of Jedi. I'm not a Jedi, I'm … [Read more...] about Lessons from Master Yoda

NOTE: I have just released a book which compiles (and edits and expands) these posts. It is called "Disqualified? What the Bible Says about Divorce, Remarriage and Ministry."   It is available on Amazon.com. The Kindle version will be released in the next couple of days - not sure what the hold-up is there. This book reviews the biblical evidence on divorce and remarriage, beginning with the cornerstone in the Old Testament - the twin principles of God's intent of marriage as a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman and the understanding of the brokenness caused by sin. It then lays the … [Read more...] about Divorce and Ministry: Blanket Policies Don’t Work

He makes some really good points. Everyone knows the keyboard worship leader is passe.  And he is right, of course.  No one wants to incur Piper's wrath. My problem is that I'm not sure they make "True Religion" jeans in my size. … [Read more...] about How to Plant Churches – Guaranteed!

Watch this video: It occurs to me that the difference between an “attractional” church and a “missional” church is the same as the difference between an Old Testament view of mission and a New Testament view of mission.  This is not to say that one is wrong and the other is correct.  It is simply to say that one is past and the other is present. Before Christ the place to find the presence of God was found almost exclusively in the temple.  If you desired an experience with God then you had to “come and see”.  The primary mission of Israel was to draw people to Zion.  Micah 4:2 is a … [Read more...] about Is Your Church Old Testament?

Watch it tomorrow at 2 PM (CDT) at edstetzer.com.   … [Read more...] about The Exchange, with Ed Stetzer (and Eric Geiger): Transformational Discipleship

Chris Roberts blogs at "Seek the Holy" and is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Panama City, Fl.   Or: how we get from the glory of God to the gratifying of man. One thought frequently burdens me as I seek to pastor faithfully and raise my children biblically: how is it that we have seen a generation of young people who have been raised in solid, conservative Christian churches either plug into ministries and methods that take a decidedly postmodern, pragmatic turn or abandon the church outright? How is it that 21st century young people, and often their parents, have pursued the … [Read more...] about The evolution of the church’s focus (by Chris Roberts)

Job felt it. Habakkuk had fleeting moments when the thought crossed his mind. Jeremiah wondered as well. They all had crises when they asked the question... Is God cruel? I know in my head that God is good, a God of love, of mercy,and of grace.  He is far better to me than I deserve. I was born in sin and I embraced my nature willingly.  My heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. On the outside, I have been a "good boy." But I know the darkness of my heart - the self-centeredness and pride, the anger and vindictiveness, the lust and greed and...well, you get the … [Read more...] about When Life Makes You Wonder if God is Good…

I have become convinced that we have focused on the wrong thing too much today in the Christian faith. We have put so much effort into the things that we DO and not enough focus on NOT doing. Stay with me here, I'm not talking about a list of things not to do. I'm talking about not working so hard to justify ourselves. I am talking about surrender and I think that is one of our biggest struggles. Our flesh seems to be alive and well and we haven't put our flesh to death. We have instead found more acceptable ways of gratifying our pride and ego. We have Pharisee religiousness and it feeds our … [Read more...] about The Flesh and the Franchised Church

I've been involved in blogging for a long time - I'm the blogging equivalent of Noah.  Marty Duren, of course, is Methuselah.  But as a blogger I've been involved in a lot of discussions about a lot of things.  And I'm also a part of the workings of the Baptist Convention of Iowa. And I think, in all of this denominational involvement, strategic discussion and methodological argument, I have come to realize what the biggest problem is that we face in steering the SBC away from the iceberg. I spent 5 hours in the offices of the BCI Saturday in a major strategical meeting as we tried to … [Read more...] about The Biggest Problem We Face as Southern Baptists

Back in my seminary days, when I was young and idealistic, I took great comfort in the knowledge that men like Peter Wagner, Donald McGavran, Win Arn and Lyle Schaller had authored books containing all the wisdom necessary to bring numerical growth to any church I ever served. A comfortably warm feeling came over me when I read the lists of bullet points and action plans which seemingly guaranteed that I would baptize more saints than I buried and that more people would be discipled than would depart. More than twenty years later, almost 90% of our churches are not growing through healthy … [Read more...] about Questioning the Church Growth Gurus