I plan to watch as much as the Pastors' Conference and the Southern Baptist Convention as possible and reflect on what I've seen and heard here at Grace and Truth to You. Due to the accessibility of the Internet and the live feeds from Orlando, I may be posting one or two times a day, depending on the issues that will be addressed in the business meetings. I am posting this particularly blog as I watch (live) the Greater Things Pastors' Conference in Orlando, Florida.
My first thought is the corporate worship at the Pastors' Conference is tremendous. The truth is, we Southern Baptists do many things very, very well. My hope and desire is that we don't so bogged down in the tertiery doctrinal issues that we lose sight of the primacy of Jesus Christ. The modern rendition of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," with choir, orchestra and ensemble sent chills of delight up my spine -- even as I watched on a computer screen.
Good stuff. Really good stuff.
4 comments:
Have you ever wondered whether that very quality that makes the churches and worship approach in the SBC so awesome also contains the seeds of their greatest weakness? Corporate worship, dynamic public proclamation of the Word, big choirs, big orchestras, big church assemblies, and big youth groups, big seminaries, big colleges, big mission agencies, big conventions, big ideas, big altar calls, etc. All glorious, moving, amazing to behold, and, as you say, done well … at least on the level of putting on a public display.
But when it comes to small, intimate, personal issues, the corporate attitude that thrives on conformity and uniformity rarely handles the subtleties and nuances required. Thus delicate, flea-like questions such as private tongues, how to deal on a macro level with homosexuality, adultery, or divorce, or tolerance for secondary and tertiary points of view or theological opinions that cut against the corporate grain, are smashed with the big hammers of a corporate mentality. I wonder whether it is these big hammers that are smashing individuals away from the bigness and gloriousness of the corporately oriented SBC.
Just a thought. Thanks for watching and blogging.
Brent Thompson
Try Twittering, Wade. Would love to hear your comments real time as the convention unfolds.
I thought Johnny Hunt's GCR speech received a cold reaction from the crowd. I know he Looked disappointed when there was only a smattering of applause. The people I was sitting next to did not seem too pleased.
Ravi Z and Tony E were excellent!
I watched part of the Pastor's conference and really enjoyed the worship. It's certainly the right way to get this Convention started.
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