Interview with Pastor Les Puryear
Posted by SBC Today | May 21, 2008
Today we present an interview with Les Puryear, pastor of Lewisville Baptist Church in Lewisville, North Carolina. Les is one of six men who will be nominated to succeed Dr. Frank Page as president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the annual meeting next month in Indianapolis. The other candidates are (in alphabetical order):
- Frank Cox
- Wiley Drake
- Johnny Hunt
- William Wagner
- Avery Willis
Tim Rogers conducted this interview in person in Les’s office in Lewisville. The variations you may notice in the volume are the result of some equalization of volume that was necessary.
Tomorrow we plan to post an interview with Pastor Wiley Drake of California. It is our hope that these interviews have been helpful to our readers as we approach this important decision in the life of our convention.
Les Puryear Interview: Categories: Audio, Interviews, SBC | 1 Comment »
Bart Barber: About the Association of Convictional Baptists
Posted by Robin Foster | May 20, 2008
One great blessing I have received since I began to blog is the friendships I have formed through this electrical medium we call the internet. One such friend, mentor, and adviser is Dr. Bart Barber. Last February Bart came to Immanuel and led our Baptist Distinctives Conference. The church fell in love with him and appreciated his biblical approach to identifying what Baptists have believed. During that time he talked with me about the Association of Convictional Baptists. After hearing his heart, I told Bart to sign me up.
Last Saturday Bart posted a detailed explanation about the Association of Convictional Baptists. He has graciously allowed us to post his article here at SBC Today. Below is the article.
With the launch of the Resolution on Regenerate Church Membership came also the launch of a new website entitled Association of Convictional Baptists. Some speculation has ensued regarding who this group might be, what might be the significance of the name, and what is the nature of the group’s beliefs. Consider this post the answer to those questions, and perhaps to some others as well.
Who Is the Association of Convictional Baptists? At the moment, Bart Barber. That’s right—I reserved the domain name, built the site, and threw open its doors solely as an individual project. I hope that it will grow beyond this weak and meager beginning, but at the moment the membership list is pretty small.
What is the raison d’être for the Association of Convictional Baptists? The front page of the site currently contains (my apologies if you come to this post in the future and find other content there) the text of the Fifth-Century Initiative, a document that I wrote last year. Many other people have looked at that document and have generally affirmed its tenets. I believe that the principles articulated there represent a needed and important course of renewal for Southern Baptists.
I gave thought (and even performed some initial work) toward the possibility of developing and hosting a conference built around the Fifth-Century Initiative, but after lengthy and agonizing soul-searching, I decided not to do so. The idea sounded great at first, but the more I pondered it, the further away from it I journeyed. What did I mean to accomplish with the conference? I could never get away from that question. Too many times, I think that conferences become something akin to youth camp for adults—a time of isolated euphoric concentration upon important things. Youth camp is important (God called me to preach at one), but what makes youth camp important is the daily grind of ministry to youth as an influence to help the lessons learned at youth camp to take root when transplanted from the greenhouse into the common soil of everyday life.
Apply that thought analogically to the Fifth-Century Initiative. My passion is for providing day-to-day help for Southern Baptist churches to seek renewal. The best format for such help, I have come to believe, lies in a community rather than a conference. So that’s what I hope to build. Someday, perhaps, we will have a conference, if it seems to fulfill some genuine need. But for now, what I hope to do is to make of the site a resource center and community gathering place for people orienteering this elusive pathway toward rediscovering who Christ has called us to be.
Where’d the Name Come From? Well, it’s a three-word title. I’ll take them in reverse order just to make things more difficult for you!
Baptist: This is an unashamedly Baptist site, not out of pridefulness but out of a sincere belief that the renewal that we need lies within the historic tenets of Baptist belief. The historic tenets I have in mind you’ll find articulated in the Fifth-Century Initiative document.
Convictional: The ACB seeks to return us all to a convictional understanding of what it means to be a Baptist.
It is a movement pitted against the concept of congenital Baptists. Parentage does not a true Baptist make. There is no such thing as a blue-blooded Baptist. The only blood that matters was shed on Calvary. The congenital Baptist theory is responsible for at least two ills at lethal work among us. First, it has filled our churches with people who attend and worship where they do solely because of generational inertia. It is possible to be dead-set determined to be a member of a Baptist church, simply because of lineage, without even knowing the theological principles that undergird that august name. Second, and related to the first, it has led to the false notion that the “heirs” of Baptist theology can define it to mean anything (or nothing) at all and that the name must follow them wherever they would wander theologically, since it has been passed down to them as a birthright.
It is a movement pitted against the concept of coincidental Baptists. This movement is not for those who attend the Baptist church in town simply because it has the largest ad in the newspaper or the coolest praise band or the most active youth program. This movement is not for those who are staying with the SBC because they’re going whichever way the Annuity Board goes. This movement is not for those whose Baptist beliefs arise out of a paycheck. Those who join a Baptist church merely to see a reduction in seminary tuition costs need not apply (not that there’s an application).
Rather, this site is dedicated to the concept of convictional Baptists—a people who share the sincere, educated, and heartfelt conviction that the major distinctives of Baptist belief are found in the New Testament. For me, it is not about the beliefs of my parents, about the wording on a sign in front of our worship auditorium, or the place I just happen to be at this point in my life. I believe that I must be Baptist or be disobedient to Christ. It is a matter of conviction for me.
In saying so, I know that there are a great many in the world who believe (wrongly) that they must be non-Baptist (or at least a whole lot less Baptist than I am) or be disobedient to Christ. Such folk should be thankful that I am a Baptist, for as such I am firmly committed to their freedom to pursue their own convictions. But I am also committed to my freedom to pursue Baptist convictions, including the freedom of Baptists to associate voluntarily with one another around Baptist principles for mutual encouragement and edification. I do not violate the rights of non-Baptists in my desire for the freedom of Baptist institutions to be unashamedly Baptist.
Association: As I said above, the purpose of this site is to provide resources and community for Convictional Baptists laboring within the context of local churches to heed the instruction of Christ in the ministries that He has assigned to us. A history guy like me cannot conceive of any entity existing for the strengthening and fellowship of churches without gravitating to the word Association. The historic function of Baptist Associations has been precisely to provide resources and community encouragement to strengthen churches in their convictions and ministries.
The danger of employing this word, of course, is the fact that some will conjecture that I am attempting to supplant the geographic associations that have played and do play such an important role in Southern Baptist life. Not at all. As we all ought to know, Baptist Associations should be entirely autonomous creatures. They serve as a handmaiden to the churches, not as a spouse. The relationship between church and association is not a monogamous one, for local churches affiliated with local associations are also affiliated with state conventions and the SBC.
I do think that the work that I hope ACB to be doing in the future is work that local associations ought to be doing but sometimes (too often?) are not—the work of churches strengthening one another and giving one another healthy feedback with regard to our theology. But local associations are doing things that I don’t think ACB will ever do. They are planting churches, they are helping local Baptist churches to find a common voice within a certain patch of geography. They are hosting training and other conferences at a frequency that no online site could ever accomplish. They are facilitating a level of fellowship among churches that mere electrons can never replicate. It is my prayer (and indeed, one of the planks of the Fifth-Century Initiative) that local associations are here to stay and will only grow stronger in their ministries. May the day come when every local association in the SBC has embraced these biblical keys to renewal. They will be far more effective than this little website will ever be, and on that day the ACB will promptly and gladly lock the doors forever due to lack of interest.
Besides, we all know that one preacher with a computer doth not an Association make. This part of the name is proleptic.
So perhaps any mystery vanishes with this post. Some of my readers will not agree with my goals—already have disagreed with some of them in other contexts. I love you in the Lord; I just don’t happen to be building this site with you specifically in mind. But to those of you who feel the tug of the Holy Spirit toward things like Regenerate Church Membership and the other principles articulated in the Fifth-Century Initiative, I pray that together we can see the Head of the Church work great things in our congregations in the coming years.
Categories: Baptist Identity | 7 Comments »
Bill Henard to be Nominated for 1st VP
Posted by SBC Today | May 19, 2008
A Lexington, KY pastor will be nominated for First Vice-President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Bill Henard is Senior Pastor of Porter Memorial Baptist Church.
Dr. Kevin Ezell, Senior Pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, intends to nominate Henard at the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis next month.
Porter Memorial has averaged more than 100 baptisms per year for the last nine years under Dr. Henard’s leadership, setting a new record both in the number of baptisms in one year and in consecutive 100+ baptism years.
The church gives an average of 15% to the Cooperative Program and will give over 16% in 2008. Total cumulative giving to the Cooperative Program will reach the 7-million dollar mark this year.
Porter Memorial has a strong commitment to missions, sending about nearly 400 volunteers on short-term mission trips each year. Porter Memorial is a Strategic Coordinator Church with the International Mission Board for church planting in the Acari Valley in Southern Peru. In addition, the church gives 10% of its Capital Stewardship offerings for relocation to missions.
Dr. Henard is serving our convention as the Chairman of Trustees for Lifeway and is currently the President of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is also Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.
Dr. Ezell states, “Bill Henard is a man of with a servant’s heart and visionary leadership. I am excited about the possibility of him serving our convention in this way.”
Categories: Announcements, SBC | 4 Comments »
Interview with Dr. Avery Willis
Posted by SBC Today | May 19, 2008
On Friday, May 16, 2008, Scott Gordon was able to spend some time talking with Dr. Avery T. Willis, who will be one of at least five men nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention when we meet in Indianapolis next month.
Dr. Willis’s personal website can be found here, and a website dedicated to his candidacy can be accessed by clicking here.
The quality of the audio is the result of the interview having been conducted through a VoIP service.
Categories: Audio, Interviews, SBC | 16 Comments »
A Resolution on Doctrine
Posted by SBC Today | May 18, 2008
The series of three posts on Baptists distinctives that John Mann contributed were the product of research he did in the preparation of a resolution on doctrine, which he has submitted to the Resolutions Committee for their consideration in Indianapolis. Here is the text of his resolution:
WHEREAS the Great Commission instructs Christians to make disciples by teaching the commands of Christ; and
WHEREAS Scripture teaches that as the saints are equipped, they will, “no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,” (Ephesians 4:12, 14); and
WHEREAS Scripture commands us to, “instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines,” (1st Timothy 1:3); and
WHEREAS Baptist are historically a people that have been unified around common doctrinal distinctives and convictions; and
WHEREAS the Introduction of the Baptist Faith and Message states, “Baptist are a people of deep beliefs and cherished doctrines,” and
WHEREAS being a witness demands a clear understanding of Whom we witness about, and who we witness to; and
WHEREAS we have observed a compromise of doctrinal distinctives in recent days in various other denominations by sacrificing clear, scriptural principles upon the altar of cultural acceptance for the purpose of a unified ecumenism, which has neither been unifying nor healthy; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, that we, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 10-11, 2008 affirm that our mission of reaching the world for Christ must be defined and determined by our doctrine of Christ; and be it further
RESOLVED, that our understanding of Christ must inform our witness to Christ; and be it further
RESOLVED, that we repudiate any attempt to teach about God that which is contradictory to clear Scriptural revelation; and be it further
RESOLVED, that, although there are various doctrines open to differing interpretations, there are certain doctrines that cannot be compromised for the purpose of establishing a New Testament church and a unified Convention; and be it finally
RESOLVED, that we encourage all pastors, church members, and churches, to pursue proper doctrinal understanding through teaching and preaching for the purpose of continuing to educate believers in an attempt to edify and equip Southern Baptists to engage the world in conversation about Christ in an evangelistic effort.
Categories: Baptist Identity, Guest Author | 94 Comments »
The Goals of the Baptist Identity Movement (Part 3)
Posted by SBC Today | May 15, 2008
This is the third and final installment in a series of posts by guest author Rev. John Mann. These essays are the result of research he has done in the preparation of a resolution he has submitted to the SBC Resolutions Committee for their consideration in Indianapolis. We will publish that resolution here next week.
To teach our distinctive views is not only a duty to ourselves, to our fellow-Christians, and to the unbelieving world, but it is a duty we owe to Christ; it is a matter of simple loyalty to him. Under the most solemn circumstances he uttered the express injunction. He met the eleven disciples by appointment on a mountain in Galilee; probably the more than five hundred of whom Paul speaks were present also: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” The things of which we have been speaking are not, we freely grant, the most important of religious truths and duties, but they are a part of the all things which Jesus commanded; what shall hinder us, what could excuse us, from observing them ourselves and teaching them to others? The Roman soldier who had taken the sacramentum did not then go to picking and choosing among the orders of his general: shall the baptized believer pick and choose which commands of Christ he will obey and which neglect and which alter? And, observe, I did not quote it all: Go, disciple, baptizing them, “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Shall we neglect to teach as he required, and then claim the promise of his presence and help and blessing? -John Broadus.
Evidence of a Creeping Ecumenism
The Ecumenical movement as a proper development had its official start in the early 20th Century on the heels of a social gospel movement that birthed such associations as the YMCA, YWCA, and the Evangelical Alliance. Ecumenism thought it had found a successful culmination beginning with the World Council of Churches and its Americanized version, the National Council of Churches of Christ. Though their stated focus was to unite around a common work in witness and missions, they have largely been nothing more than a social action group that is impotent in biblical evangelism.
Before one reads too far into what I will be arguing for, let it be known at the outset and remembered through the conclusion that in no way am I saying that we have people within our beloved convention advocating another World Council of Churches. My claim is not that the SBC is becoming the classic expression of ecumenism; rather my claim is that there are portions of the SBC that are being affected by ecumenism. By its very definition, an ecumenical movement is an attempt to find the lowest common doctrinal denominator for the purpose of unifying in order to do missions and evangelism. However, one need not look far to see that when we lower our expectations of doctrine, our expectations of evangelism go with it. Allow me to offer a few thoughts that evidence the invasion of an ecumenical attitude into some Southern Baptist circles. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Baptist Identity, Guest Author | 190 Comments »
Ooooooops!
Posted by Robin Foster | May 15, 2008
Dear Readers of SBC Today,
I wish to apologize to Dr. Ergun Caner and all who commented on the post he produced for our site. As Wes and I were working to post the next installment from John Mann, I deleted Dr. Caner’s post.
I had tried to get Bro. John’s post up, but because of formatting issues it was not coming together. Wes told me to delete my post and he would start from scratch. Because this is a new format, I checked what I thought was the Mann post and accidentally deleted the Caner post. As a result, all the comments, as far as we can tell, are gone. Wes, the miracle worker, is trying to repost Dr. Caner’s article. [Wes’s edit: Blogger and commenter johnMark has so helpfully saved our post, and we have it available as a .pdf with the comments. Click here. Thanks, Mark.]
Again, please accept my apologies and I have sworn never to fool with posting again unless it is my own work. Hopefully, Dr. Caner’s piece will be up soon.
Categories: Announcements | 13 Comments »
One Baptist’s Reply to the Evangelical Manifesto
Posted by Robin Foster | May 9, 2008
So as not to bury our interview with SBC presidential candidate Rev. Johnny Hunt, we only offer this post as a PDF link, also accessible on our “Print Resources” page. Upon reading the Evangelical Manifesto, I felt impressed to write a response. Click here to read it.
Categories: Gospel issues, Politics, Print Resources, news | 41 Comments »
Interview with Pastor Johnny Hunt
Posted by SBC Today | May 9, 2008
Today we have the privilege of bringing you this interview with Pastor Johnny Hunt who recently has announced his willingness to be nominated as a candidate for SBC President when our messengers meet in Indianapolis in June. He will be nominated by Dr. Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.
Johnny Hunt is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia. Baptist Press reports that “during his first year as pastor, the church baptized 318 people and had 268 additions by statement and letter. Since he arrived, the church has seen average Sunday school attendance grow from 275 to 4,705, according to the 2007 Annual Church Profile.”
We pray that this interview helps everyone get to know more of the heart of this great man of God.
Within the week we also hope to bring you an interview with another candidate, Dr. Avery Willis. Continue to prayerfully consider whom God would lead you to support to be the next leader of our convention. See you in Indy in June!
Categories: Audio, Interviews, SBC | 9 Comments »
A Report Worthy of our Attention
Posted by Tim Rogers | May 7, 2008
My good friend C.B. Scott
has been on the opposite side of the fence in various debates. Each time he has truly been one that openly looks at the issues and then makes his assessments based on the facts before him. We may not agree with him on everything that comes to light, but we confess that he has wisdom that should warrant our attention.
Brother C.B. has posted his thoughts on Dr. Patterson’s latest article over at Baptist Press. We encourage you to read both the article and Brother C.B.’s thoughts entitled Patterson Speaking Wisely. You can find the article and C.B’s thoughts at the link provided. We must say that we agree with our Brother’s assessment of the article. They are spot on, or as C.B. says, a ten ring at 1000 yards.
Categories: SBC Issues | 81 Comments »
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