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First Person

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FIRST-PERSON: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered

Forced pastoral exits are crippling thousands of churches every year, as these sobering statistics prove:

FIRST-PERSON: Jesus is our way and our way marker

I recently made a wallpaper image for my phone, computer and external monitor. It reads: “Jesus is Lord. I am not.”

FIRST-PERSON: The Prayer Team

Many years ago, when I stepped out of pastoral ministry into executive leadership, I was overwhelmed and knew I would not survive without spiritual support. I decided to write a column in the Northwest Baptist Witness asking for people who were already praying for me to form a prayer team. Note the careful qualifier – people who were already praying for me.

Prioritizing spiritual growth over ministerial productivity

Remember Martha? She was industrious, illustrating the adage that no one works harder than someone trying to prove she’s the only one doing anything. She was a pioneer of competitive baking, petitioning Jesus to check the scorecard and note her lead over Mary.

FIRST-PERSON: Helping yourself so you can help others

After pastoring in a fog of clinical depression for several months, I came very close to walking away from the church I was pastoring and the ministry altogether. I had been pastoring for 22 years at the time and was burned out and fed up—mostly with myself.

FIRST-PERSON: The preeminence of the Gospel

On Sunday, Feb. 18, Sarah and I traveled to Sioux City, Iowa, to celebrate the retirement of Bob Dillman, my former associate pastor at Southern Hills.

FIRST-PERSON: A faithful example

If there’s ever been a time in Southern Baptist life when we’ve needed an example of how to move forward in cooperation, it’s now.

FIRST-PERSON: You gotta have friends

“Friendship seems as necessary an element of a comfortable existence in this world as fire or water, or even air itself,” Charles Spurgeon wrote.

FIRST-PERSON: Grieving with hope

Grief. I’m not sure that I ever really understood grief until the last few months. It is one of those emotions you can read about, study or discuss but can’t really understand until you personally experience it. After losing my wife to pancreatic cancer seven months ago, I’m still coming to terms with what it means to grieve.

FIRST-PERSON: The Law Amendment is understandable, but unnecessary, unclear and potentially the unraveling of the SBC

At our annual meeting in 2023, SBC messengers passed the first approval of a constitutional amendment (what’s come to be known as the “Law Amendment”), which states that the Convention will only deem a church to be in friendly cooperation with the Convention which: “Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”