SBC Voices

Over the history of the Southern Baptist Convention there have been many gifted preachers. Those men have been used by God to provide timely and prophetic sermons that have guided, shaped, and corrected the course of individuals, churches, and the SBC. In this series we will look at some of those sermons. Even though most of these men will be dead, the message that they preached lives on because of the truth of the ever living Word of God.   When RG Lee was a young pastor in SC, a deacon came up to him after a prayer meeting where he had given a devotion.  The deacon told the young … [Read more...] about Famous Baptist Sermons: Payday Someday by RG Lee

Here's what ya do: Get the checkbook out. Sit down. Write a big check for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The 2020 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® goal is $175 million. That number is significant because 2020 marks the 175 th anniversary of Southern Baptists sending workers to the nations. The annual offering makes up almost 60% of the International Mission Board’s revenue and helps to support 3,535 missionaries and their families. I'm not a shoebox kind of guy, even though the church I attend does the boxes. Cold cash, or whatever cyber equivalent you choose, is the way to go. It's … [Read more...] about Lottie Moon! Eschew the shoeboxes. Money puts people on the mission fields.

My granddaughter is inconsolable today, crying her 7-year-old eyes out. She came out to check on her bunny and found that it had gone to bunny glory. She'd had it for less than a year and to be honest, since she moved to the country recently and got a couple of cats, she'd spent less and less time with the bunny. When she found it lifeless, though, she was absolutely crushed. It would be easy to tell her to get some perspective, to recognize the suffering all around her and to see that in the grand scope of things, one little bunny doesn't matter all that much. I was crying a few moments … [Read more...] about Perspectives in a Pandemic

Seventy-one percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water and I have gone swimming, diving, or snorkeling in as much of it as I have been able. I spent a lot of time in the Atlantic, a little in the Pacific, and have dipped my toe in the Indian Ocean. Never made it to the Arctic. Growing up in Taiwan, I pretty much lived in the Morrison Academy swimming pool in the summer and in college, I took a SCUBA class which took us diving off Palm Beach. We explored “the Wrecks” in about 60 feet of water and did a drift dive 90 feet down in the Gulf Stream. Jenni and I have gone snorkeling in … [Read more...] about “Christ-Active” Thanksgiving

There is a lot of room under the banner of Great Commission Baptists for people who do not see eye to eye on many issues. Some among us seek to narrow the fellowship of Southern Baptists, or Great Commission Baptists, according to their own preferences. If you do not do as they do, prefer what they prefer, vote as they vote, think as they think, you are not a true Southern Baptist. We are an odd and ill-defined fellowship with an ill-defined identity, and so this kind of claim to Southern Baptist identity becomes possible. Boiled down, though, there are three basic aspects that identify … [Read more...] about “Great Commission Baptists” Have a Big Tent

The news on this is that the state convention for which Randy Adams is CEO, Northwest Baptist Convention (Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho - around 500 churches) had a "virtual participation Annual Meeting" last week. As he describes it in his blog (Virtual participation at the 2020 Northwest Baptist Annual Meeting) Messengers voted remotely on six items "in real-time through an on-line polling system" and the results were announced during the meeting. Participants could "chat" and ask questions that were read and answered. I gather this was like many FaceBook meetings. Adams has … [Read more...] about Why Randy Adams is still wrong about virtual SBC annual meetings and remote voting

...and I’ll raise a toast to that. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. ALASKA chose the worst possible way by trashing the entire concept of the Cooperative Program. How Alaska Baptists would destroy the Cooperative Program and blame it on NAMB, was my article of a month ago. The somber Alaska Baptists actually voted to excise NAMB from the CP. They will keep that money in-state. Bad leadership. Bad decision. Deplorable reaction to NAMB which has spent more per capita in Alaska than any other state. Maybe brains will thaw and that action will be reversed. Until then, Alaska … [Read more...] about State conventions are making opportunity cost decisions about the Cooperative Program…

It is the election that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends. Some people started counting it not knowing what it was, and they’ll just keep on counting it forever just because it is the election that never ends… I stuck that annoying song in your brain, so, you are welcome. That may be the least annoying thing I do in this post. Let me share my theme. It is time for Christians, and for Southern Baptists, to honor God by accepting the results of this election with grace. We must stop acting silly and spouting nonsensical conspiracy theories about “stealing elections.” See, the … [Read more...] about Thoughts and Observations about Our Election

I have had discussions with friends recently who asked that question. Many younger Southern Baptists wonder if fighting the fight against the established powers who resist progress on racial issues, who protect sex abusers instead of exposing them, who think our solutions lie in the 1950s and 60s, more than in the NT, is worth it. Why not cut bait and move on? I have seen discussions among minorities who, seeing the way Southern Baptists fawned over a man like Donald Trump, wonder if the SBC has any  real passion to correct its racist past. At times, I wonder too. Of course, those … [Read more...] about Why Should I Remain Southern Baptist?