By Johnnie Godwin
Contributing Columnist, B&R

After graduating from seminary, I was somewhat like Paul when he cooled his heels in Athens waiting for Timothy and Silas to rejoin him from Berea (Acts 17). We were dead set on finishing up requirements for foreign mission appointment. So Phyllis and I had moved back to my hometown of Midland, Texas, for a year.

I held three jobs to get total indebtedness down to the Foreign Mission Board’s requirement. Phyllis finished up her two years minimum education beyond high school at a local college. My jobs were interim pastoring a struggling church, full-time substituting as a high school P.E. teacher, and delivering dry-cleaning after school. We had three young sons. The church did have a parsonage and some kind members. But they lacked both growth and money. I did what I could, but we knew I was temporary. [Read more…]

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Six years ago, Bob Smietana, then religion editor of The Tennessean in Nashville, wrote an article questioning the future of Baptist state papers and interviewed several editors, including myself. Smietana wrote that “Baptist papers face three major challenges: declining denominational loyalty, soaring print and postage costs, and the rise of online media.”

All three challenges are still valid today. [Read more…]

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

BRENTWOOD — Nearly one year ago Bob Brown was contemplating leaving the pastorate of First Baptist Church, Dandridge, to join the staff of the Tennessee Baptist Convention as church revitalization specialist.

Church revitalization is one of the 5 Objectives adopted by messengers at The Summit held last November at Brentwood Baptist Church. [Read more…]

By Chris Turner
Director of Communications, TBC

Is newspaper dead?

It is a legitimate question. It’s no secret, the newspaper industry in general — and Baptists state newspapers specifically — have fallen on hard times, and both are in a nosedive that at times looks to have reached terminal velocity. But are newspapers really dead?

More importantly for you as a reader of this publication, is the Baptist and Reflector dying, on life support, or hoping for a bright future? Great question, and I’ll answer that in a moment. [Read more…]

By Randy C. Davis
TBC Executive Director

Baptists love baptisms. Baptisms are part of our DNA. We know people are coming to Jesus when the baptismal waters are stirred, and that stokes our engines. We love the stories about large numbers of people coming to Christ during revivals, whether overseas or here in the states. Being present on the Day of Pentecost would have been a Baptist’s dream day.

Two years ago we celebrated Long Hollow Baptist Church (Hendersonville) becoming the first church in Tennessee Baptist Convention history to see 1,000 people in one year won to the Lord, baptized, and set on the road to discipleship. What a great example of effective evangelism and intentional discipleship. May Longhollow’s passion to reach the spiritually lost spread like wildfire! [Read more…]

By Johnnie Godwin
Contributing Columnist, B&R

Three persons gave me three quotes that summarize how I believe God wants us to live all life:

(1) From my birth, Mother taught, “Don’t wish your life away!”

(2) In my 40s and in his 80s, Elton Trueblood counseled, “Johnnie, when you retire, don’t retire from everything at once but from one thing at a time as you have to or want to.”

(3) Paul Tournier wrote: “A single ‘Yes!’ goes through the whole of life. It is successively ‘Yes!’ to childhood, to youth, to adult life, to old age, and finally ‘Yes!’ to death. It is easier to turn over a page of life when we have filled it right up” (Learn to Grow Old, p. 179). [Read more…]

By Joseph Caldwell
Youth Pastor in Philadelphia

Confederate flag. Same sex unions. Abortions. How many more things are plastered all over the news and our Facebook news feeds right now?

I do not write a message to millennials as some older sage dispersing my wisdom onto a younger, more naive generation. I am a millennial myself who is terrified by what I see. And, I’m not talking about the things mentioned above. [Read more…]