This is Post 6 in Don Dent’s “Finding Direction” Series Jesus told the disciples they were to proclaim Him to the whole world, including all the nations (Matt 24:14).  Paul took up that task and affirmed that Jesus died for all so that we would not live for ourselves but for Him who died and ..read more

Next year is the centennial of our venerable flagship giving scheme, the Cooperative Program. One hundred years of, well, caring and sharing and all that. What a great idea! Churches pool their giving in a single fund, the Cooperative Program. State conventions collect it, take a portion, and forward all the rest to the SBC ..read more

I will admit that I watched not a single minute of last night’s presidential debate. Still, to the moment I am writing this, I have not watched a single clip from the debate. So, as many of you have often suspected, I write from a place of complete ignorance. (Your joke here…) What I have ..read more

SBC Voices exists, in part, to provide a forum for folks to share their opinions. I thought it would be interesting to learn our readers’ opinions about preaching. I’m 75 years old, and I’ve been a Southern Baptist all my life. My father pastored SBC churches. So, I heard his sermons for many years. For ..read more

I read about the cicada tsunami all winter and heard and saw my first of the red-eyed, hard shell devils back in April. Apparently, they have gone back underground. We can expect them again in 2037. I think my noisy friends will emerge after I’m dead, my life expectancy being a few years short of ..read more

This is Part 5 of Don Dent’s “Finding Direction” series on key issues in missions. Discussions about money often raise emotional responses. Take, for example. the case of a leader promising some citizens that they did not have to pay a large debt they chose to incur and contracted to pay back.  Because money was ..read more

I teach the Legacy Builders Bible Fellowship Group (think old folks Sunday school class) at our church. Because we never sing a hymn in the worship service, we sing a hymn each week in class. Recently, we sang “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” and that opened floodgates of church memories for me. My earliest memory ..read more

Does your church have a discipleship pathway? If you’re wondering, “What is that?” then you might not, and you would have plenty of company. Thom Rainer of Church Answers estimates that only 5% of churches in the United States have a discipleship pathway. According to research by Rainer and Eric Geiger in their book Simple ..read more

There’s a preacher joke you might have heard before: Two young fish are swimming along when they pass an older fish. “How’s the water?” the older fish asks as he swims by. A few moments pass and then one young fish says to the other, “What’s water?” The point of this fishy parable is that ..read more

At the SBC Annual Meeting, the messengers elected Clint Pressley as the new president. I’m embarrassed to say that I had never heard of him. In fact, six candidates vied for the office, and I only knew two—David Allen and Michael Keahbone. I don’t know if that says more about me (my ignorance) or about the candidates. Last week, I wrote Bart Barber to thank him for serving as our SBC president. He did a good job in a difficult period, and he demonstrated that the pastor of a mid-sized church can serve as president. The common wisdom before was that only a candidate with a big church or instit ..read more