FIRST-PERSON: ‘All you need is love’ & the Lord 20 years after John Lennon’s death
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Twenty years ago I was watching a Monday night football game when Howard Cosell interrupted the play-by-play with an announcement that John Lennon, of the Beatles, had been shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. In a eerily, ironic moment, ABC Sports respectfully cut the sound from the game just as […]
Former B&H exec Bucky Rosenbaum to lead Rick Warren’s Pastors.com
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)–Thanks to Bucky Rosenbaum’s innovative view of publishing, books by Broadman & Holman started showing up on The New York Times best-seller list and Oprah. So it should come as no surprise that he’s joined with innovative Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren to develop the Internet site, Pastors.com (www.pastors.com). Launched by Warren […]
Saddleback, over 20 years, joined by thousands committed to tithing, missions
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)–Exactly 205 people attended the first worship service of Saddleback Valley Community Church when the congregation started in 1980. So, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, God led exactly that same amount — 205 people — to make commitments to Christ in the first of Saddleback’s 20th anniversary worship services. With […]
Reaching The World Through East LA
Nobody told Aquiles Acosta that you can't reach the world from a remote church in an economically depressed area of Los Angeles. Nobody told him that you can't do it without a big budget, a swollen staff, or fat facilities. He just looked at the Word and believed that it really meant "go into all […]
Living is Not Based on Circumstances
Dan Stone would not want to be remembered for his circumstances. Forget that he has cancer. Forget that just a few years ago his wife died of cancer. Stone would have you remember, instead, the God who lifts him above this temporal life to his true life in Christ. "God has shown me that nothing […]
In the Beginning …
Ken Mathews recognizes that Genesis has been interpreted in different ways by scholars over the centuries, so when he sat down to write his commentary on the first book of the Bible, he wanted to move beyond modern critical observations. "There is a sense that proper interpretation began after the Reformation, which feeds a great […]
Can’t You Straighten Out My Church?
Nearly every week we get calls in the office of convention relations from people disgruntled by something that is happening in their church. It may be they're mad at their pastor, upset with the deacons, frustrated with a group they perceive as dominating the membership, or just alarmed at a particular decision approved at last […]
The Mythical Line Between Indoctrination and Education
Over the past few years, editorials in state papers across the SBC have lamented the arrival of conservative leadership on our seminary campuses. The latest round of commentaries have included a call by one editor for churches to actually boycott graduates from Southeastern, another called for the creation of a seminary to compete with Southern […]
God’s Wrecking Ball
It's been said that everything God uses, he must first reduce to nothing. Prayer is God's wrecking ball. Through diligent and consistent communion, God strips away the pride we have in our abilities and talents, the pride we have even in our own spirituality. He takes our complicated facades of faith and reduces them to […]
