Opinion Column Archives - Baptist & Reflector

PRAYER: MAKING A DIFFERENCE

August 13, 2019

By Carolyn Tomlin
Contributing Writer, B&R

It’s that time again when public and private schools start a new year. From preschools up through college level, students will be facing new challenges and opportunities. A thought that runs through the mind of all parents and families is this: will my child or loved one be in a safe environment? Will the teachers and administration create an environment where all children are respected and learning takes place? How can I encourage my church to become involved?

Thom Rainer, retired president of LifeWay, wrote in a blog (Jan. 3, 2015) on “Eight Things I’m Praying Will Happen in Churches in 2015.” The first: A greater emphasis on prayer. Can you imagine the impact this could have on our schools if members would be committed to pray? Pray as individuals and as a congregation. Prayer not only changes things; it changes those who pray. [Read more…]

LIFE IS FILLED WITH MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

August 12, 2019

By Bill Gruenewald
President, Tennessee Baptist Foundation

Have you ever been cleaning out a drawer and found a valuable coupon that expired two days ago and realized you had just been to that store a week ago and purchased something? I have and I am sure this has happened to many of you at one time or another. You just missed an opportunity to save some money.

What many pastors do not realize is that there are missed opportunities in their pews each Sunday. Every week faithful members come to study God’s Word and be encouraged. Many of them have the capacity and the heart to do something great financially for their church, but they have not been asked and do not know how. As church leaders, we need to be more proactive in sharing with our members the ways they can give to impact the next generation of believers. [Read more…]

SOUTHERN BAPTIST MISSIONS AND KINGDOM WORK

August 9, 2019

By Richard E. Bray
Pastor, Rock Hill Baptist Church, Lexington

Southern Baptists are a missions people. In fact, the glue that holds the Southern Baptist Convention together has always been cooperative missions. I grew up attending Southern Baptist churches where I was exposed to missions on a regular basis. My seminary studies added to my understanding of Southern Baptists as a missions people. My Ph.D. studies in the field of missiology further confirmed this truth.

I not only learned about how Southern Baptists cooperated to do missions, but also experienced cooperative missions firsthand. God called my wife, Lesa, and me to serve as missionaries. Southern Baptists through the International Mission Board gave us the opportunity to live out our calling in Chile. We were with the IMB from 1989 to 1997. Since that time, I have had the privilege of participating in and leading several mission trips. [Read more…]

LEGALISM AND ITS PATH TO APOSTASY

August 9, 2019

By Larry Robertson
Pastor, Hilldale Baptist Church, Clarksville

So, in the last few days famed author and pastor Joshua Harris renounced his Christian faith. Not long before that, he announced that he and his wife were getting a divorce. Before that, he abandoned the message of his 1997 best-seller, I Kissed Dating Goodbye (it sold more than a million copies, by the way, and shaped the concept of “purity” for millions of Millennial Christians).

While I never bought into Harris’s ideas about dating and courtship, I was never on a crusade against him or his message either. Such matters are, I believe, best left to one’s own convictions and graciously respected in others, but I am grieved by his apostasy. [Read more…]

ARE WE WISELY USING THE TIME GOD GIVES US?

August 6, 2019

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

It’s hard to believe that summer is nearly over. When I was a kid, we usually did not return to school until later in August or even after Labor Day. Now, most schools across Tennessee already have begun.

It is a reminder that time is fleeting.

We think we have plenty of time, but unfortunately, too many of us waste valuable time that God gives us, myself included. James 4 (HCSB) reminds us, “… For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes.” [Read more…]

‘THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN DEATH’

July 26, 2019

By Joe Sorah
Compassion Ministries Specialist, TBMB

“There are worse things than death.”

I had heard that expression over the years from church members as I walked with families through terminal illnesses. However, the expression became real as we watched my father go through Alzheimer’s. [Read more…]

MOON LANDING DISPLAYED GOD AS CREATOR

July 25, 2019

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

It’s hard to believe, but 50 years ago, on July 20, 1969, two American astronauts (Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin) became the first humans to walk on the moon.

As I reflect on my life, that was the first “landmark” historical event that I truly remember (followed just a few months later by the “Amazing Mets” winning the World Series). I was only 5 years old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I vaguely remember the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the 1960s, and I was a child during most of the Vietnam War. The moon landing was the first significant historical event that I witnessed and really remember. [Read more…]

ANTI-ABORTION TO COMPREHENSIVELY PRO-LIFE

July 22, 2019

By Randy C. Davis
TBMB President & Executive Director

This one has always been clear cut for me. Any person with a moral compass, common sense and even a little knowledge of abortion’s horrors is against the taking of a life in the womb.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that not only demands the right to murder these sweet gifts of God, it celebrates the murderous practice. The image is seared in my mind of celebration that followed New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signing into law late-term abortions up to the point of birth. How perverse is that? I never want to see that celebration in Tennessee, and as Tennessee Baptists we not only have an obligation to our Lord to protect unborn children, we have an opportunity to stand and be counted for life. [Read more…]

RICH, YET POOR

July 12, 2019

By Jerry Drace
Evangelist and senior pastor, Friendship Baptist Church, Friendship

This article is written from two perspectives: one from the experience of having been a vocational evangelist for 38 years and the other from the experience of currently serving as a pastor for the past eight years.

The latest statistics from the Annual Church Profile (ACP) of the Southern Baptist Convention have just been released and were published in the June 12 issue of the B&R. Guess what? The time for rhetoric is over. We have had enough motivational sermons, church growth conferences and restructuring. [Read more…]

LIFE IS PRECIOUS

July 10, 2019

Thirty-five years ago today (July 10), my wife Joyce and I went to the local hospital in Lebanon, expecting that we would give birth to our first child. We did, but not the way we anticipated. David Randall Wilkey was a stillbirth.

My wife and I were devastated, but God carried us through that valley in our lives, as He always has.

As I reflect on the anniversary of David’s birth, I can now see some “good” that came through his death. [Read more…]

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