I'm sorry, but when only about 1500 people out of our sixteen million members make pronouncements at the annual meeting about issues, it just isn't worth much. The Executive Committee gets to say that the SBC has spoken on this or that but these things are probably more harmful that helpful so far as the publicity they generate.
Intelligent SBCers might note that a resolution is only a statement of opinion by the folks who happen to be present at the time. Unfortunately, the public doesn't grasp that and imputes the resolution to the entire Southern Baptist Convention.
Dave Miller does a good job of analyzing the immigration resolution of last week, “Immigration and the Gospel” – the SBC’s Real Controversy, and I have to be honest. When I read the resolution I thought that it sounded just like what the CBF would do, if they did resolutions.
So, in addition to immigration we affirm hell. I didn't know hell needed any help from Southern Baptists, although one of the upper levels of hell has to be some sessions of the SBC annual meeting that I have endured.
The resolutions process is one of the more tightly controlled aspects of the meeting, although there has been the occasional runaway convention.
The SBC will always have to endure the phrase "former SBC vice president" in front of Wiley Drake's name. One of these days we will embarrass ourselves with a ridiculous resolution and have to deal with being reminded that the SBC "officially" passed such a thing.
Perhaps we could follow the CBF, they may have this thing right if not much of anything else.
Showing posts with label Wiley Drake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wiley Drake. Show all posts
Friday, June 24, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Remote sensing on the SBC meeting
I missed all the fun in Phoenix, then again, my expenses were quite low, zero.
Observations:
I like the business casual announced by Bryant Wright but from the photos it's obvious that the platform brethren aren't comfortable being comfortable. Come on, Frank...come on Kevin, take the tailored suit jacket off too.
The SBC annual meeting has always been a place where some genuine oddballs can grab a mike and get a little face time. Ordinarily, such is not a problem. We understand the process and procedures. When one of the nutcases gets elected to an official position, uses that position to embarrass us, and whose personal life outside of the office is harmful to the SBC as a whole, then we have a problem. I'm speaking of course of Wiley Drake who was a nutcase before he was elected to a VP position, who is a nutcase now, and, unless he gets a brain transplant, will be a nutcase until he dies. Go away, Wiley. Start your own denomination with the 101 idiots or uninformed people who voted for you.
My friend Peter Lumpkins got sufficient notice for Wade Burleson to blog about him. They have had an acrimonious relationship for years, a factor that should be considered when reading WB's stuff. The matter of the SBC and homosexuality bears scrutiny, although I don't see us going down the welcoming and affirming route that the CBF is going. The CBF is doing a stealth W & A at the moment but they will, I predict, exit the closet later.
I withdraw my label of "Gloom and Doom" on the SBC 2011 and will rechristen it "Ho Hum" which is a decided positive for one of these meetings.
Generally: Ho hum, yawn, and let's get to work.
Observations:
I like the business casual announced by Bryant Wright but from the photos it's obvious that the platform brethren aren't comfortable being comfortable. Come on, Frank...come on Kevin, take the tailored suit jacket off too.
The SBC annual meeting has always been a place where some genuine oddballs can grab a mike and get a little face time. Ordinarily, such is not a problem. We understand the process and procedures. When one of the nutcases gets elected to an official position, uses that position to embarrass us, and whose personal life outside of the office is harmful to the SBC as a whole, then we have a problem. I'm speaking of course of Wiley Drake who was a nutcase before he was elected to a VP position, who is a nutcase now, and, unless he gets a brain transplant, will be a nutcase until he dies. Go away, Wiley. Start your own denomination with the 101 idiots or uninformed people who voted for you.
My friend Peter Lumpkins got sufficient notice for Wade Burleson to blog about him. They have had an acrimonious relationship for years, a factor that should be considered when reading WB's stuff. The matter of the SBC and homosexuality bears scrutiny, although I don't see us going down the welcoming and affirming route that the CBF is going. The CBF is doing a stealth W & A at the moment but they will, I predict, exit the closet later.
I withdraw my label of "Gloom and Doom" on the SBC 2011 and will rechristen it "Ho Hum" which is a decided positive for one of these meetings.
Generally: Ho hum, yawn, and let's get to work.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The unbaptistic Kevin Ezell, Frank Page's new old giving plan, and, sigh, Wiley Drake
It's almost 2,000 miles from me to Phoenix but with herculean effort, I will comment on SBC meeting stuff anyway:
Kevin Ezell on Numbers, almost unbaptistic
What's this? An SBC leader who believes in honesty in numbers? That would be NAMB leader Kevin Ezell who said that "Biblical stewardship demands accuracy..." What's next, transparency in financial matters?
Here's a leader who has cut - cut, mind you - church plants in half with a wave of his hand, just to be honest about them; who has explained that, no, we don't exactly have over 5k NAMB missionaries.
Give the guy another trophy.
Frank Page's new, well, not so new, Giving Challenge
Now, I like Frank Page. I think he will do well but I cannot help but noting that his challenge to Southern Baptists to increase their giving to the Cooperative Program by 1 percent is the same stewardship campaign we have had for all these years that the CP has been declining: You churches just give more.
My very first exposure to a national SBC stewardship program was in 1982 when Planned Growth in Giving asked churches to increase their CP giving by one-half of one percent annually. Nothing new under the SBC sun. We need substantial change in both spending and funding formulas. Page, to his credit has cut EC spending substantially and certainly has the credibility and track record to ask churches to give more.
Southern Baptists' Village Idiot
Wiley Drake nominates himself for SBC president - gets 102 votes. What are those 101 people thinking? It would be laughable but since he is a past SBC vice president every fruitcake thing he does gets shoved at all of us. Sigh.
Kevin Ezell on Numbers, almost unbaptistic
What's this? An SBC leader who believes in honesty in numbers? That would be NAMB leader Kevin Ezell who said that "Biblical stewardship demands accuracy..." What's next, transparency in financial matters?
Here's a leader who has cut - cut, mind you - church plants in half with a wave of his hand, just to be honest about them; who has explained that, no, we don't exactly have over 5k NAMB missionaries.
Give the guy another trophy.
Frank Page's new, well, not so new, Giving Challenge
Now, I like Frank Page. I think he will do well but I cannot help but noting that his challenge to Southern Baptists to increase their giving to the Cooperative Program by 1 percent is the same stewardship campaign we have had for all these years that the CP has been declining: You churches just give more.
My very first exposure to a national SBC stewardship program was in 1982 when Planned Growth in Giving asked churches to increase their CP giving by one-half of one percent annually. Nothing new under the SBC sun. We need substantial change in both spending and funding formulas. Page, to his credit has cut EC spending substantially and certainly has the credibility and track record to ask churches to give more.
Southern Baptists' Village Idiot
Wiley Drake nominates himself for SBC president - gets 102 votes. What are those 101 people thinking? It would be laughable but since he is a past SBC vice president every fruitcake thing he does gets shoved at all of us. Sigh.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
SBC Annual Meeting in Phoenix Cancelled
Well, not really. But I don’t recall any SBC annual meeting that has such little interest.
One has to be honest about a few things in SBC life one of which is that there is absolutely nothing that will ever cause an SBC annual meeting to be cancelled partly because pastors and denominational employees have expense money budgeted that absolutely must be spent.
What would the Red Lobster do without all those gluttonous, rotund reverends squeezing in their booths?
How could the brethren survive without all that backslapping and lying about how great it is to see each other. The best quote about the SBC annual meeting I’ve ever heard is that the meeting is where folks greet you with a big smile and firm handshake while looking over your shoulder for someone more important than you.
Where would pastors be without this backdoor job fair?
I will make some predictions nonetheless:
The Acts29 network will take some shots somehow, some way. After all, what good is demonizing something or someone if you’re not going to follow through on it?
Bryant Wright will be reelected. He certainly has been quiet.
Kevin Ezell, the man with the SBC’s toughest job, will be praised as a shining knight who is rescuing the moribund and problem-plagued NAMB. But look for him to be vilified in the hallways by some of the brethren who, presumably, like the old NAMB with it regular meltdowns.
Lamentations will be generously but gratuitously ladled upon the messengers about how the SBC is dying.
Phoenix will be ridiculously hot. Plodder recommends not taking an afternoon to see the desert botanical garden nearby, although it is a nice place…unless you are hungering and thirsting for your first heat stroke.
Resolutions will generate some degree of indignation and pontification. I’m not sure but that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship took the better way by eliminating them.
A couple of nutcases will get to a microphone. This is how Wiley Drake, our top generator of deep feelings of buyer’s remorse, got to be known.
A multiplicity of motions will be made – some interesting, some intriguing, some absurd but some that are probably helpful. The Order of Business Committee will try and bury almost all of them.
A mere cursory visual survey of the convention hall will confirm that SBC pastors are the most obese group of folks around.
Plodder regrets that he will not be present but there is a Red Lobster here that I can visit to try and get in the mood.
One has to be honest about a few things in SBC life one of which is that there is absolutely nothing that will ever cause an SBC annual meeting to be cancelled partly because pastors and denominational employees have expense money budgeted that absolutely must be spent.
What would the Red Lobster do without all those gluttonous, rotund reverends squeezing in their booths?
How could the brethren survive without all that backslapping and lying about how great it is to see each other. The best quote about the SBC annual meeting I’ve ever heard is that the meeting is where folks greet you with a big smile and firm handshake while looking over your shoulder for someone more important than you.
Where would pastors be without this backdoor job fair?
I will make some predictions nonetheless:
The Acts29 network will take some shots somehow, some way. After all, what good is demonizing something or someone if you’re not going to follow through on it?
Bryant Wright will be reelected. He certainly has been quiet.
Kevin Ezell, the man with the SBC’s toughest job, will be praised as a shining knight who is rescuing the moribund and problem-plagued NAMB. But look for him to be vilified in the hallways by some of the brethren who, presumably, like the old NAMB with it regular meltdowns.
Lamentations will be generously but gratuitously ladled upon the messengers about how the SBC is dying.
Phoenix will be ridiculously hot. Plodder recommends not taking an afternoon to see the desert botanical garden nearby, although it is a nice place…unless you are hungering and thirsting for your first heat stroke.
Resolutions will generate some degree of indignation and pontification. I’m not sure but that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship took the better way by eliminating them.
A couple of nutcases will get to a microphone. This is how Wiley Drake, our top generator of deep feelings of buyer’s remorse, got to be known.
A multiplicity of motions will be made – some interesting, some intriguing, some absurd but some that are probably helpful. The Order of Business Committee will try and bury almost all of them.
A mere cursory visual survey of the convention hall will confirm that SBC pastors are the most obese group of folks around.
Plodder regrets that he will not be present but there is a Red Lobster here that I can visit to try and get in the mood.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Old dogs, Richard Land, Wiley Drake, and things to drool over
Pick a Friday topic to pontificate about:
A Christian school girls team beat an opponent 108-3. The winning coach said he had little choice in the matter. Right, coach. You’re an idiot. Comments to the article reporting the game seem to be of the opinion that it’s just tough for the losers. Appalling.
A group says that the Air Force Academy’s speaker for a February prayer luncheon is “too evangelical.” Granted, Clebe McClary has been on the evangelical speaking circuit for years but isn’t the free exercise of religion supposed to prevent our wonderful gummit from making such judgments?
And thinking about religious freedom and our treasured First Amendment, Richard Land has withdrawn from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League’s Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, a group that monitors “Mosque discrimination” in America. Land said, "While many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship, they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is 'a bridge too far'.” Translation: 'I hear the SBC critics who favor restricting religious liberty and will bow to their pressure,' although he added the appropriate boilerplate religious liberty statements. Not your best moment, Richard.
Locally, a church has had a youth worker arrested for child molestation with the crime alleged to have occurred when the 33 year old worker and a 15 year old boy shared the same bed on an overnight church outing. When the policy that allowed such sleeping arrangements was questioned, a church spokesman responded by asking if the church should be expected to abandon their “long history of…male adults sharing beds with boys on retreats?” Huh? Lawyers are said to be drooling uncontrollably over this.
Wiley Drake is a former SBC VP. He was elected, literally, on a joke platform a few years ago and is considering a run for SBC president this year. He'd like to hear from the SBC family about this possibility. Sure, Wiley. Here's mine: ‘Go away and don’t come back.’ The guy is a nut, one of many in SBC life but since he has held an official elected position, his fruitcake actions that embarrass us are widely reported by the media. The religious media, all but Baptist Press that is, are said to be drooling uncontrollably over Wiley running.
We might remind ourselves that an offering that will surely put over $50,000,000 in the bank for our North American Mission Board is not too shabby, whatever their recent history. Other denominations are said to reflexively drool over how Southern Baptists put so many millions into their organizations, and do it year after year.
The oldest domestic dog in North America has been discovered in Texas, a 9400 year old canine. Plodder confidently asserts that that Texas dog won’t hunt.
ave a nice weekend.
A Christian school girls team beat an opponent 108-3. The winning coach said he had little choice in the matter. Right, coach. You’re an idiot. Comments to the article reporting the game seem to be of the opinion that it’s just tough for the losers. Appalling.
A group says that the Air Force Academy’s speaker for a February prayer luncheon is “too evangelical.” Granted, Clebe McClary has been on the evangelical speaking circuit for years but isn’t the free exercise of religion supposed to prevent our wonderful gummit from making such judgments?
And thinking about religious freedom and our treasured First Amendment, Richard Land has withdrawn from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League’s Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, a group that monitors “Mosque discrimination” in America. Land said, "While many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship, they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is 'a bridge too far'.” Translation: 'I hear the SBC critics who favor restricting religious liberty and will bow to their pressure,' although he added the appropriate boilerplate religious liberty statements. Not your best moment, Richard.
Locally, a church has had a youth worker arrested for child molestation with the crime alleged to have occurred when the 33 year old worker and a 15 year old boy shared the same bed on an overnight church outing. When the policy that allowed such sleeping arrangements was questioned, a church spokesman responded by asking if the church should be expected to abandon their “long history of…male adults sharing beds with boys on retreats?” Huh? Lawyers are said to be drooling uncontrollably over this.
Wiley Drake is a former SBC VP. He was elected, literally, on a joke platform a few years ago and is considering a run for SBC president this year. He'd like to hear from the SBC family about this possibility. Sure, Wiley. Here's mine: ‘Go away and don’t come back.’ The guy is a nut, one of many in SBC life but since he has held an official elected position, his fruitcake actions that embarrass us are widely reported by the media. The religious media, all but Baptist Press that is, are said to be drooling uncontrollably over Wiley running.
We might remind ourselves that an offering that will surely put over $50,000,000 in the bank for our North American Mission Board is not too shabby, whatever their recent history. Other denominations are said to reflexively drool over how Southern Baptists put so many millions into their organizations, and do it year after year.
The oldest domestic dog in North America has been discovered in Texas, a 9400 year old canine. Plodder confidently asserts that that Texas dog won’t hunt.
ave a nice weekend.
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