Taking A Break!
I am taking a break from blogging for about a week. I just thought I would leave you with a classic cartoon opening from the 70’s.
January 26, 2008
January 24, 2008
Memorial Service for Dr. L. Russ Bush
Southeastern rejoices in the life of Bush, mourns death of godly man
by Lauren Crane
After a two-year battle with cancer, L. Russ Bush III, noted philosopher, apologist, author, professor, pastor and friend of Southern Baptists, went to be with the Lord on Tuesday evening January 22.
Bush, who was born in 1944, spent his life serving the church, the Southern Baptist Convention and the greater evangelical community in a number of capacities. He served most recently at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., as the Director of the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture and as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Religion.
January 23, 2008
Another Possible Future?
In my first church, I was amazed when I studied and found that in it’s first 40 years, it shared a pastor with at least one neighboring Baptist church. There was one point where it shared the pastor with three other churches at the same time. I discovered talking to senior adults in other churches in the association, this was not an uncommon occurrence in the association during it’s early history. Having blogged about an article in the online edition of the Baptist Courier about 3 upstate churches merging, I wonder if another trend for the future will be a return to a past tradition of Baptist churches sharing a pastor. The Methodists have been doing this for years with their rural churches.
January 22, 2008
Top 100 Largest, Fastest-Growing Churches
With the number of megachurches in America growing at an increasingly rapid rate, the largest of them all now have a new label: “gigachurches.”Topping this year’s largest churches in the country is Lakewood Church in Houston, with an attendance of 47,000, according to Outreach Magazine’s annual 100 list of America’s largest and fastest-growing churches. While Lakewood remains on top, 35 of the top 100 draw 10,000-plus people each week (gigachurches). The rest have a weekly attendance of 6,000-plus.
Meanwhile, megachurches (2,000-plus attendees) now number an estimated 1,300. While that’s only 0.4 percent of all U.S. Protestant churches, megachurches are growing rapidly as they pioneer new approaches largely to engage the unchurched population. [...]
[My Commentary]
This is a different list from the earlier 100 largest church list and it is interesting to compare the lists. This article is insightful for the trends that are appearing as the norm now.
January 19, 2008
A Future Trend?
Three churches become one
Three churches in the Spartanburg area have merged to form a new congregation. Hayne, Northview and Saxon Baptist churches voted to come together under the name United Baptist Church. Hayne had the largest sanctuary, so the merged congregation will meet there until it builds on a site. Read more.
[My Commentary]
I wonder if this will be the trend in the future for smaller churches. I remember being in class back in the 1994 when a seminary professor posed this as a possible future for churches in our Convention. Having grown up in a rural church in South Carolina, I thought this couldn’t happen. Now, fourteen years later, I read about it in the Baptist Courier. With current pressures that small churches are facing, I wonder if more churches will be doing the same thing as Hayne, Northview, and Saxon.
(Sign up for Baptist Courier email news alerts!)
January 18, 2008
January 15, 2008
Hans Wunch’s New Blog
Hans Wunch has his new blog up! I look forward to his future posts.
January 14, 2008
SCUBA diving with God
James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; (KJV)
There are some things that I love in the King James Version even if according to Chick.com that there
are over 500 words that have been rendered obsolete, changed their spelling, or have changed their meaning since 1611 but this verse inspired a sermon illustration for me when I studied it in the Greek. The Greek for “ye fall into” gives the idea of being surrounded or engulfed. Now when you add in the KJV phrase “divers temptations” I think you can see where I get this illustration.
SCUBA means Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. With it, a person can be completely surrounded by water and be safe. As we as Christians go into this world, we are surrounded. Rather than water, we are surrounded by sins, temptations,trials, and tribulations but with the presence of God as our scuba gear we can make it through the day even though we may feel there are times we are going to drown.
I would recommend Brother Lawerence’s The Practice of the Presence of God for further research. I would like to thank my friend Tom for inspiring this thought in a conversation we had recently.
January 13, 2008
My book list
Leslie Puryear has tagged me regarding the book list going around the blogosphere.
Please understand that my favorite book is the Bible so with that in mind, I make my selections. Here are my choices.
1. One book that changed your life: Patton: Ordeal and Triumph by Ladislas Farago
2. One book you have read more than once: “Heaven” by Joni Eareckson Tada
3. One book you would want on a desert island: “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan
4. Two books that made you laugh: 1001 Clean Jokes and “Whistling at Snakes” by Horace Sims.
5. One book that made you cry: “Foxes’ Book of Martyrs” by John Foxe
6. One book you wish you’d written: “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis
7. One book that you wish had never been written: Anything by John Spong, John Hagee, Benny Hinn, Marlyn Hickey, Joyce Meyer, or Joel Osteen.
8. Two books you are currently reading: “The Secret of Soul Winning” by Stephen Olford and “Character Makes A Difference” by Mike Huckabee.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu
10. Tag five or so people: Chadwick Ivester, Hans Wunch, Bill Poore, Dino Senesi, Darryl Bridges, Dwight Easler, John Paulk and Kevin Bussey.
