Happy 4th of July

From "John Adams"




By Jeff Daniels

Jon Stewart and the RIPpy's

This is Funny... There is one bleeped out comment at the end.

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A Different SBC Convention

This was a different Convention for me. Like I mentioned before, I was not at the convention, but followed it online (except for Wednesday night). I also followed it by the twitter method. I have a hard time even saying that because in my experience calling someone a "twit" was not exactly a compliment. I also read the various blogs about the convention through SBC Voices.

You will be able to read other places for more incisive commentary but allow me the privilege of mentioning some thoughts.

• President Johnny Hunt is an able leader and visionary for our convention. He did an amazing job moving the convention towards the GCR resolution. But it is very obvious that he had not moderated a church business meeting in the recent past. That's not a bad thing.


• The young pastors of the SBC were a larger group than in the past. I think it was mainly because of the possibility of the Great Commission Resurgence Resolution although that it was held in Louisville where the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is, added to a younger looking convention. But it was apparent that they had no real clue that any nut job willing to stand up to a microphone and make a motion or try to get a resolution passed, has the right to make an idiot of himself by asking for motion such as making the Christian flag the flag for our convention or condemning a non-SBC pastor or asking for an investigation of a seminary President, seminary professor and an employee of Lifeway. All of us who have business meetings in our church know that sooner or later crazy "Brother Hiram" (and I use that name because there are no Hiram's in FBC, Osprey) will ask the church to put up a confederate flag in front of the church. The tweets (see how with it I am) would erupt about how nothing ever changes in the SBC and that they were leaving and never coming back. Every family and church has their nut cases, the SBC just gives ours a national forum. It also gives the liberals who left the convention to talk about how much better it was when they held control.


• David Platt can preach!


• I am tired of Calvinists being the whipping boy. I am not one. I don't think the Bible teaches the 5 points. But the SBC has had 5 pointers and non-5 pointers since we have been in existence. For heaven's sake, the enemy is Satan and sin, not the Founders.


• Maybe instead of firing at Mark Driscoll, we should have introduced a resolution to sew up the mouth of Wiley Drake. Driscoll is not SBC. Drake is. Let's clean up our own people.


• The GCR Task force is made up of a cross section of Southern Baptists. Well, at least a cross section of male, mega church pastors and Dr. Hunt's friends. 5 men from Florida and none from west of Texas are on the group. The lone woman is the wife of a mega church pastor. Am I sounding critical? I don't mean to be. I think the task force has a huge job to do and I don't want its' work to be questioned because of the make up.

Okay, that's it for now.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,
It's been almost 17 years since the last time you squeezed my hand for the last time in the hospital room. So much has changed. I've gotten married to a wonderful woman and one of my deepest regrets is that you never met or gotten to know her. I became a step-dad to 2 amazing girls. I've pastored 2 churches that I wish you could have fallen asleep in while I preached. :-)

Your gentle kindness has been a not so gentle reminder when I begin to fly off the handle. Of course, I also remember when you used to threaten that you'd break my arm off and beat me over the head with the bloody end. Your unselfish spirit has been my example when I am tempted to think only of myself.

I remember when you became a little league coach even though you never really liked baseball, but you did it so we could spend time together. I remember going to Constitution Hall for the National Geographic lecture series. I didn't understand a thing, but I was with my dad. I look back and think about how stupid I sounded during the late 60's.

There has not been a day that you have not been with me. But this Father's Day weekend, the memories of thousands of moments crowd in around me. Because even more than anything you were a living, breathing example of who our heavenly Father is. I learned by your life that I have a spiritual Father who can be trusted, who is forgiving, who will confront me when I am wrong and who loves me in spite of my sin.

Thank you, dad. I miss you.

I am not going to Louisville

For the first time in 5 years, I am not attending the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville. Our church budget won't allow it. I thought about going but it was a choice between feeding Scott, Faith and Jesse and me feeding my face with some good southern cooking, my better angels won the day. Seriously, our budget issue was the primary reason.

But I still follow the blog world as they chat about the upcoming convention, read the news articles and even signed a document. But I follow it from afar. I realize that unless we as a church choose to listen to and accept, nothing of what they do there will affect us. Each level of the SBC is autonomous with the church being the final arbiter of what will be done in the local church.

But I am still interested.

My friend, Pastor Mike Landry is preaching at the Pastor's Conference. If they are streaming at 8:55 am, I'll be listening. Pastor Mike and his wife, Cindy, have been great friends to Sara and I. He is a godly man and a great preacher. The convention needs to hear from men like Pastor Mike.

The Great Commission Resurgence is sure to make headlines and waves. I hope they will start making strides towards making that a reality. There are lots of issues to deal with concerning the document. But it is a starting point. For the last 6 years or so, the SBC has been in flux concerning the direction that we will take. There are a few competing visions. Unfortunately, the people involved in the competing visions major on the few areas of disagreement rather than building from what all of us and them hold dear.

Other than that, I am thankful that our budget couldn't afford me to go. I might have gone, seen some friends, raised my ballots and generally been bored like any good baptist gets when he goes to a business meeting, which the SBC convention really is.

I will listen over the net, but I'll do so as I fulfill my real calling: pastoring the best people in the world.

The GCR and Inevitability

I was afraid this would happen when the GCR started being talked about. It was almost inevitable. Here's the progression:

• The Document is introduced amidst great fanfare.
• There is a groundswell of positive response from the more forward thinking folks involved in the SBC.
• There are questions being asked about it especially about the restructuring of the SBC by people who ask "What are we going to change to?" and "Who are we going to fire so that we can downsize the bloated bureaucracy?"
• Some respond by trying to answer the concerns. Others respond by acting as if the best reason for implementing the plan is the people who are asking questions.
• When those who had brought up questions have them answered and sign on, there is a sense of inevitability to the vote in Louisville in a less than 2 weeks.
• But then some of the original signers begin to ask, "If those people who initially wouldn't sign it have now signed it, can the GCR be that good?"
• On all sides people are looking for ways to make the GCR what they want it to be.
• Then President Hunt tells everyone that money will once again flow into the coffers of the CP if we will just implement the GCR. Thus trying to ramp up the excitement and the votes for a foregone conclusion. When everyone knows that the motion for a task force will be passed. (Maybe if it is passed the churches who are so spearheading this movement will give more than a token percentage to the CP. But that's another issue.)

I signed it. I didn't even sign it with caveats. I don't want to rescind my signature. But I bet that the task force that will be appointed and hailed as our last best hope will include lots of current SBC biggies, some big church pastors, and maybe one curmudgeon who will be the critics representative who is destined to see himself as a voice crying in the wilderness against "the destruction of all we hold dear as Southern Baptists".

It will pass. The sad part is that with the way things go in the SBC, 5 years from now, we will have forgotten all about the GCR just the way we forgot about the "Blueprint for a New Century" or whatever they called our last restructuring.

As Sonny and Cher sang, "And the Beat Goes On..."

I Signed It

Maybe it was pressure. Maybe it was resignation. Maybe it was conviction. But I recently signed on to the Great Commission Resurgence document. It is the beginning steps of what could be some good steps in Southern Baptist Life.

If that sounds like less than a ringing endorsement of this document, it is not because I do not appreciate the effort of moving the SBC into a more effective tool of helping people throughout the world so they can hear a clear presentation of the gospel with the purpose of discipling them and establishing churches which will disciple more people.

I took a long time to think through this. I have tried to read and speak to people on both sides of signing the document. At first, I had decided not to sign on. My reason was that talk and documents are cheap. In the last half of the 1990's, the SBC passed some resolution which would organize us into an effective tool of evangelism and education. It was so effective that we have forgotten the name.

But I signed it. I signed it because it is a starting point to move the SBC past the squabbling of the last few years and into a real commitment to actually doing the Great Commission locally and globally.

The next step will be taken at the SBC National Convention in Louisville in June. There will probably be a great push for it. A Study Committee will be appointed and approved. The report will come back with some changes and talked about at the 2010 Convention. State conventions will start to put their imprint on it. Bureaucracies will defend their turf...

Oh no, I am almost talking myself into rescinding my signature.