It’s a busy season for many of us that post around here, and so we’re running on a “write-it, post-it” schedule rather than a “write-it, let-it sit and be scheduled, then post-it” kind of schedule. Well, except for one person that’s not me, who has lots of posts in the queue.
However, since we’re a little short on content this week (How do I know we’re short? When you see more than 1 Doug post in any 7-day time frame, we’re short on good content), I thought I’d peel back the curtain with a few lesser-known facts about SBCVoices and the contributors here:
Little known fact #1: There is basically no coordination of posts. Except the occasional big event, like Easter, we all write what we want to write. Dave or Jeff can put together what looks like a series by scheduling posts at certain times, and there are times that one of us is motivated by another post to write something similar, but any appearance of an SBCVoices “Coordinated Assault” is just an appearance.
Little known fact #2: Except for Dave (or Jeff in his absence) we contributors don’t know what each other is writing. For example, the illustrious Jared Moore has several posts in the queue. I can see their titles, but I can’t read their content. So, one of his may be just like one of mine. Neither of us would know it until the posts are posted. That leads to….
Little known fact #3: I would guess that all of the contributors here affirm the Bible as the Word of God, containing truth without any mixture of error. However, there’s no official “SBCVoices Abstract of Principles” that we all signed. We are a somewhat theologically diverse lot, given that we’re all generally conservative. However, there’s Calvinists and not-Calvinists (I just don’t think “Arminian” is the best label. But then again, neither is “Calvinist,” really), we tend to avoid eschatology posts so I have no idea where we all stand on that, we’ve got pro-elders folks and pro-not-elders folks. In all, while we’d all hold to such foundational doctrines as salvation by grace through faith, truth of Scripture, necessity of fellowship with believers (no anchorites here!), we may not agree on much else. Be careful lumping everyone together. (I say this to defend my brothers here: whatever I may say, they don’t necessarily agree with!)
Little known fact #4: A decent number of us don’t even really know each other. Seriously. I have one fellow contributor’s phone number, everyone’s email address, and am friends with 1 (just 1!) of this bunch on Facebook. I think I may have seen Dave Miller in Orlando last year, I saw everyone at the SBC. If profile pictures are accurate, we could pick each other out of police lineups, but that’s about it. We are, not unlike the council that met in Rivendell to consider the Ring, a group brought together by forces unseen. SBCVoices may have been started by a few guys sitting around a table saying “This is a good idea!” but most of us weren’t there.
Little known fact #5: While we have our days that we can’t stay away, SBCVoices is not top priority for any of us. I think Dave may get paid five times what we get paid, but as we teach in math “nuthin’ times anything is still nuthin’!” Most of us have jobs, ministries, personal blogs, academic pursuits, families, and our general sanity that come before being here. So, while it’s part of what we do, it’s not the be-all and end-all. So, cut us all a little slack if we’re not instantly replying to your critiques of our posts. First of all, we don’t get any notifications of comments. Second, we may be trying to live within our schedule and only be on the site once or twice a day. We’ll be back, but we may not be as timely as we want.
Little known fact #6: It may not seem like it, but all of us here really do want to see the Southern Baptist Convention be the effective, efficient missions force that we know it can be. I think that this is the place a lot of us talk through our opinions on the denomination, rather than anywhere else, so we get pretty wrapped up about it here.
Little known fact #7: Well, seven seemed like a good number to have, but I don’t have seven.
Doug
