Tony Wolfe

“I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending.” James Halliday, creator and kingpin of the OASIS in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, shaped an entire universe in the digital realm where players could be whoever they wanted to be and do whatever they wanted to do.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) – Last Sunday afternoon and evening, as I read every word of the SBC Sexual Abuse Task Force report slowly and prayerfully, my heart was swollen with pain, anger, frustration and grief. It cannot be denied that our Southern Baptist family has, in many ways and for many years, let down some of our most vulnerable neighbors.

In November 2021 I sat in a private convening of interdenominational church leaders from across the states, brought together by the ERLC’s Elizabeth Graham, among others, for the sole purpose of coming together to end abortion in America in our lifetime.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) – Because we are all real people with real problems, living in a world that is deeply and desperately scarred by sin, conflict is a normal part of the human experience.

More times than I can count over the past several weeks, I’ve heard talk of frustration and disappointment from my SBC brothers and sisters. Pastors, lay leaders, church members, denominational employees. “In all my years, I have never seen it as bad as this,” one seasoned pastor lamented.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) -- Daily Bible reading is life-giving. When you are in a healthy rhythm of communing with God through Bible reading and prayer, there is a prevailing grace that accompanies daily motions. But if you’re like me, honestly, sometimes regular Bible reading can feel more like a daily habit than a daily grace.

Tony Wolfe notes that churches, in partnering with other organizations, should ask "What do they believe about the Bible?" and "How does this partnership extend and enlarge our Great Commission footprint?"

Tony Wolfe envisions something like the day of Pentecost: "I get the feeling that right now in Southern Baptist life we are gathered together in an upstairs room in prayerful expectation that any day God could breathe on us and unleash us on the world anew."

A pastor can fill the pulpit with passion and humility, Tony Wolfe writes, when his message is prepared "from God" and delivered "before God."

Tony Wolfe exhorts young leaders to "pour our lives out" for the Kingdom of God. "If we waste time now, time will waste us later," he writes. "God's Gospel story is passing through our generation right now.