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

Tennessee Baptists extend a warm welcome to our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters in Christ who are in Nashville this week for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Many of you may be in Nashville for the first time while this may be a regular place to visit for others. Even without Opryland, a theme park that used to bring thousands of people to the city each summer (the park closed in 1997), there is still a lot to see and do in Music City.

I would daresay that many of our visitors think they have arrived at the “buckle of the Bible belt.” After all, Nashville is the home of the SBC Executive Committee and Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing and distribution arm of the SBC.

No doubt that every other person you pass on the street will be sitting in a pew on Sunday morning, right? Well, not really.

Lewis McMullen, church planting specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, summed it up well when he addressed seminary students who were in town last week to participate in Crossover, an evangelistic event that has been held in the host city of the annual meeting for more than 30 years. 

He told the students, “The belt has broken.” [Read more…]

Oʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟʟʏ ᴘᴏsᴛᴇᴅ Nᴏᴠ. 9, 2016

Editor’s note: The following column, written in 2016, has continued to be one of the most widely read articles ever posted on the B&R website. In 2020, it was the seventh most viewed article of the year. With COVID-19 still with us, it may be time to run the article again to remind us that now, more than ever before, we must not be complacent as Christians and churches.

 

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

The Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary defines “complacency” as “a feeling of calm satisfaction with your own abilities or situation that prevents you from trying harder.”

Complacency can apply to individuals or organizations, including the church.

I found the word “complacency” in the Bible only once in Proverbs 1:32, HCBS: “For the waywardness of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.” There may be other verses that actually use the word itself, but there are many verses throughout Scripture that refer to the meaning of complacency. [Read more…]

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

It’s long been said that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.

After writing checks for my property taxes in 2020 and learning of the deaths of two dear friends and a family member in just the past two weeks, I tend to agree with that statement.

But, there is a third certainty that far outweighs the first two: Jesus Christ is still on His throne. [Read more…]

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

Last year a friend gave me a copy of Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christmas. The book is not new, having been written in 1998. I had heard of the book but this was the first time I actually held it in in my hand and began to read through it.

What makes the book significant for me is that Strobel is a journalist. When he penned the book, he wrote for the Chicago Tribune. He also was an avowed atheist, according to biographical data. [Read more…]

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

The Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary defines “complacency” as “a feeling of calm satisfaction with your own abilities or situation that prevents you from trying harder.”

Complacency can apply to individuals or organizations, including the church.

I found the word “complacency” in the Bible only once in Proverbs 1:32, HCBS: “For the waywardness of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.” There may be other verses that actually use the word itself, but there are many verses throughout Scripture that refer to the meaning of complacency. [Read more…]

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

Psalm 144:4 (HCSB) reminds us, “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”

That verse became real to me this year as I realized that 40 years ago this month, God started me on a journey I never expected. I had my plans, but I soon learned that plans made without God rarely pan out.

When I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1980 with a journalism degree in hand, I knew I would soon be the Gamecocks beat reporter for the Greenville News, but that’s not what God had in mind. [Read more…]

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

COVID-19 has caused a lot of planned activities in 2020 to be canceled or postponed.

One of those planned events that we had to push back was a planned celebration of the 185th anniversary of the Baptist and Reflector. The B&R is the official news journal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and is one of the longest continuously published newspapers (both secular and religious) in the country.

And, that needs to be celebrated in an era where newspapers are ceasing print publications. The New York Times reported in December 2019 that one in five newspapers have shut down over the past 15 years.

Just this year, three papers in our own Southern Baptist family of state publications have foregone print publications for online publications only — The California Southern Baptist, Arkansas Baptist News and, most recently, the Baptist Record in Mississippi. [Read more…]