As a youth minister I have spent countless hours driving our church bus, Big Rhonda. She and I have a love hate relationship that started with a six hour drive back from a mission trip in July with no AC….
The night Dean Smith came to the RA banquet
By Bill Wilson RA — shorthand for Royal Ambassadors. It was a weekly group for grade-school boys that sought to blend scouting-type activities with a call to missions. Lawndale Baptist church in Greensboro, N.C., where I grew up in the…
Spring forward! Are churches talking chronos or kairos?
We did it again. In almost all locations throughout North America we performed our annual spring ritual. We set our clocks forward one hour over this past weekend. We know to spring forward — and eight months from now to fall…
10 ways to increase value of and engagement in church participation, part 2
It seems so sad that church has become a place to go rather than an experience to have each day of life. Too often the routines of our church participation fuels disengagement more than deepening our engagement in the faith…
The day that Alice Cooper came to church
On President’s Day weekend, one of those long weekends when “School’s Out,” Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Damon Furnier, better known as Alice Cooper and his wife Sheryl, joined us for worship at First Baptist Pensacola, unannounced. In fact, there was…
Labeling moderates
A few days ago there was a news piece posted here reporting on an interview with Dr. Roger Olson in which he argued that what he sees as the leftward theological drift of some in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (no…
A progressive Baptist response to Roger Olson (and a word about heresy)
Roger Olson, a professor at Truett Theological Seminary and a blogger at Patheos Evangelical recently wrote a piece titled, A Word from a Founder to All My “Moderate Baptist” Friends. His basic argument is that the founder of the Cooperative…
The multi-church movement
Upon reading the title of this article, you might wonder, “Does he really mean ‘multi-church’ and not ‘multi-site’?” Nope! The multi-church movement is taking hold in England and is serving rural congregations exceptionally well. The Arthur Rank Center (a rural-church…
Elijahs and Elishas
The handoff from one pastor to the next is always tricky. For everyone. I’m basically at the start of my career. Now we pastor-types don’t like to use such crass professional terminology, preferring to say “calling” or “vocation” or “ministry”…
Hope in conflict
Today’s mainline denominations are doing plenty of fighting. Some of the disagreements break into the news and public consciousness, while others only affect the faithful. All of this fighting is deeply unsettling, but it also reflects what one observer calls…
A minister to median adult households trumps a youth minister
Did you get a chance to read my post on having a minister to young adult households trumps having a minister to children? For those of you who thought that was an interesting approach worth considering, how would you feel…
Should a pastor know what church members give?
Every time I teach a stewardship workshop or class, this question invariably comes up: “Should a pastor have access to contribution records?” In some congregations, pastors are prohibited from knowing what people contribute. In others, pastors choose to shield themselves…