By Amy Butler The leadership art of “thinking outside the box” sounds progressive and cutting-edge. Everybody is talking these days about thinking outside the box, but the reality of the practice is not all that glamorous. I prefer the leadership…
Fixing v. ‘fixing to’
My grandfather had a little phrase, a real “southernism,” that he constantly used whenever somebody asked if he intended to do something. “I’m aiming to,” he would respond. I was never quite sure if he meant by it that he…
CBF Task Force Report: A new way to Collaborate
Sharing. Collaborating. Networking. If I were to summarize the CBF Task Force Report to the General Assembly, specifically about the Ministries Council, then those would be some of the buzzwords that keep rising to the surface. The idea is this:…
What kind of church?
By Molly T. Marshall Making my way up I-35 from Fort Worth to Kansas City after the CBF gathering, I saw the following sign: “Going to hell? Ask Jesus into your heart. Be Saved. Contact a Christian-based church.” Any of…
Reflections on CBF General Assembly
It’s no secret that I’ve been a friendly critic of the apparent lack of clear direction afflicting the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in recent years. A challenging column of mine published in another Baptist news journal last year elicited everything from…
Thank you, Mrs. Duerksen
I’ve been reading through Calvin Miller’s memoir “Life is Mostly Edges.” Reading his experiences have given me a greater appreciation for the things I had to go through as a child and the way people have helped me through the…
CBF a candle in search of darkness
By Alan Bean I was a graduate student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville when the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was founded in 1991. I left Southern Baptist life to become an American Baptist minister in 1994, and last…
CBF General Assembly…
I am in Ft. Worth at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s annual General Assembly, sitting on the second floor lobby of the Omni Hotel looking out at the Convention Center, where most of the activity is taking place. This is my…
Embracing the inner artist
Embracing the inner artist I am not an artist, or at least I have never considered myself to be one. I have always admired the creative energy that artists possess, and their ability to turn a blank canvas, stage or…