Thinking about Life and the Lord!

I just returned from my 13th Arkansas Baptist Convention annual meeting. This year it was held over 5 hours away from Marion in Rogers, Arkansas at the fantastic facility of Cross Church at Pinnacle Hills. It is different to go to the annual meeting of the ABSC with literally NO responsibility as president of the Executive Board or the Convention. The positive thing about this is I got to sit back and observe our convention from a semi-objective point of view. What did I learn? 1. I am getting older! While I am not by far the oldest among all the messengers, I have noticed over the past few years that I appear to be getting older. This is a great thing! Why? Because this means that unlike other state conventions across the SBC, we have younger pastors and staff members attending our annual meeting. This is a great sign for the future of our convention. 2. I am not cool! I did not show up as a messenger at the state convention wearing skinny jeans, loafers, spike up and/or fro...

Pastoring a Baptist church for many years (12 1/2 in Marion, AR) I have come to hear some of the worst, as well as some of the most creative excuses one could ever imagine come out of the mouths of seemingly good church members as to why they can not possibly serve the Lord. To be quite honest with you I kind of get a kick out of some of the excuses because the church member gives it to me with such enthusiasm and such defensiveness you would think they were on trial for murder, rather than being asked to help serve food at a student event, attend a special program, or do something as simple as go to Sunday School. All the while you know in your heart that the excuse of how they really needed to go and "check the thermostat" at their Lake house this weekend isn't really quite as "urgent" as it was presented. Excuses....why do we make up creative lies called "excuses" and use them as a basis for not serving God or others in and through our local churc...