Earlier this month, my friend Tom Elliff shared at the Baptist Building with our Missouri Baptist missionary staff and a few pastors from across our great state. According to several of our missionary staff, the one-day event was one of the most impactful Team Days of my tenure as executive director. Always one to tell a great personal story to punctuate a principle, Dr. Elliff told about his preacher granddaddy having a carpenter’s workshop. As a young boy and early adolescent, he loved … [Read more...]
Tax exemptions, free speech, manure and mule muffins
With most major newspapers in Missouri criticizing the long-standing, common-sense idea of churches having federal tax-exemptions, I wonder if their reasoning is based on a lust for more taxes or do they just hate faith-based institutions? Are they consumed with socialist ideology, blinding them to the truth? The media clamors for their First Amendment rights, yet argue against pastors having theirs, lest their church lose its tax-exempt status. Now comes Georgetown University Professors … [Read more...]
Preparing for tomorrow
I recently had a wonderful weekend sharing at one of our Association’s Annual meetings. It was a great time of fellowship, encouragement, remembrance and planning for the future. As I was looking over their annual meeting book of reports I was struck by something I found interesting. The “youngest” church in the association was founded in 1985. Now, while I remember 1985, there are a growing number of people who don’t. The next youngest church was 1944, the one before that was 1909, and … [Read more...]
Learn to love your refugee neighbor
A Story The water tastes different in Oak Ridge. The sounds outside are harsh. Shouting matches and profanities are common. These are daily realities in urban, government-subsidized housing developments like Oak Ridge. On most nights, however, a different tune resounds amid the discord. Two men, with large chests and thick mustaches, cheerfully discuss the latest Premier League soccer match...in Arabic. One used to be a police officer in Baghdad, the other a school teacher. Both now live, … [Read more...]
Asking the right leadership questions
This article is an excerpt from Jonathan Hayashi’s book, Ordinary Radicals. How Can We Know If We Are Developing? To answer this, we must ask the right question: Did we build these people, or did we buy these people? If we have bought most of the staff, then we have an issue. Sometimes, it’s necessary to hire staff to start the discipleship process. However, if the church is healthy, it should be reproducing from within, so the people will thrive in that context. (Note: Taking a … [Read more...]
Found in Christ, not Google
Whenever you’re feeling under the weather, take it from me and do not look up your symptoms on the Internet. Because chances are you’ll find out you’ve been dead for two days. I thought I had a cold this morning, but I guess not. The Internet tells me something different. It obviously knows things about me before I do. Our information is very “out there” these days. Our insides, outsides, past and present. People’s checkered pasts are just a few clicks away from catching up with them. … [Read more...]
Steadiness is possible
I once heard a radio Bible teacher say that balance is a vital character quality for men and women of God. While we need to be biblically accurate and courageously convictional, the ditches of life can impede our journey of faith. In response to the warfare, the Lord gives us all we need to “hold up the arms” of a brother or sister engaged in the tough stuff of life—to encourage and to walk beside them. Sharon and I have been recent recipients of your holding us up in intercessory … [Read more...]
It is about free speech, not tax exemptions
They came as no surprise. Several of the state’s largest newspapers recently unleashed a torrent of criticism against Missouri Attorney General Joshua Hawley after he said the unconstitutional Johnson Amendment should be repealed. The Kansas City Star blurted that Hawley was “shilling” for votes, while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch whined that the misappropriated so-called “wall” of separation of church and state was being “breached.” I’ll spare you further examples of their faux … [Read more...]
Christian fellowship
In the New Testament the Greek word koinonia is used to encourage “fellowship and communion” among believers. At its core, it is the coming together in love, faith, and encouragement in Jesus Christ. Faith Baptist Church of Climax Springs found a barrier to their koinonia. Their fellowship hall and education space are located in the lower level of the church building. The only access to these areas was a stairway that some church members found challenging to ambulate. An answer was needed … [Read more...]
‘Whatever’ kids
“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 Have you noticed how often some children use the word “whatever?” Some children seem to have it as a favorite word. Sometimes the word is used because a child may have given up on getting his/her desires. Often, however, it is an indication that the child really has no strong feelings one way or another. It may be an indication that the child is a follower, not a leader. Bossy children often become leaders. … [Read more...]
Don’t ditch your denomination
In September 1986, my life was changed forever when I was elected as pastor of a dying Southern Baptist mission called Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. I grew up in the National Baptist denomination. I was the middle of five kids raised by a single mom who required everyone in her house to attend church on Sunday mornings. At the age of 21, I was radically saved while lying in Charity Hospital in New Orleans not knowing if I was going to live the next 24 hours because of a serious head … [Read more...]
The martyr’s cause: John Foxe and our Gospel embassy
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article first appeared on the website, "Yesterday, Today, and Forever," at HistoricalTheology.org. On Easter 1555, the zealous English evangelical William Flower burst into a rage in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, when he noticed a priest administering the Mass – a rite that Flower saw as the epitome of Roman Catholic idolatry. Immediately, he struck the offending priest with his woodknife, cutting him on the head, arm and hand. Blood from the priest’s wounds, … [Read more...]
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