Bill Crews
Executive Director
Northwest Baptist Convention
On the real road to greatness
When the best-selling book Good to Great was published in 2001, I was given a copy autographed by Jim Collins, the author. Although the book was written for the business world, it has had a positive influence beyond the business world, even to the world of church and community life. The one word in the title of the book that attracted many was the word “great.” Assumed by many and desired by a throng, greatness has an attraction to people in every arena of life.
If greatness is popular and desirable, how does one get it? What is the road one travels to be “great?” Both these questions are strategic and the object of thousands of answers, mostly couched in book after book. If this is true, what is the book that really counts and matters in defining the “Real Road to Greatness?”
You should not be surprised that I would suggest the best and most reliable book to read about the “Road to Greatness” is the oldest book available, the most available and the most read -- the Bible. From cover to cover, the Bible will describe and illustrates the best and only “Road to Greatness.” It will also describe and illustrate how one can miss the “Road to Greatness.”
The Great Commission in a Nutshell
Having chosen the word “nutshell” for the title of this article, it was necessary to determine what the word meant. A computer search suggested the word originated with William Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. Summed up briefly, the word “nutshell” means “in essence.”
Christians in general and Southern Baptists specifically have focused attention and actions on what is called “The Great Commission.” As a matter of fact, Southern Baptists considered again “to
change the name of the Southern Baptist Convention.” While this is not the first time consideration was given to this change, it was seen as a serious look at making this change because of the
SBC leaders given the assignment by President Bryant Wright of Georgia.
Cameron Crabtree
Editor
Hoping a nicknamed rose smells sweeter?
By Cameron Crabtree
Born and raised on – and greatly appreciative of – our nation’s left side, I had passing interest in recent discussions among Southern Baptist Convention leaders as they again took up a question about changing the denomination’s name.
After studying the matter for several months, a task force rejected changing the official name of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, but proposed messengers to the annual meeting of Southern Baptists this summer consider adopting a nickname – “Great Commission Baptists.”
In forming the task force, SBC President Bryant Wright indicated his desire that the descriptor assist in areas where the “regional aspect of Southern in our name” hinders efforts to start churches and reach people for Christ. The proposed GCB moniker has its share of advocates and opponents, some claiming the solution to the name conundrum bears “brilliant Solomonic compromise” and others terming it “hokey.”
Standing for marriages, families that last
By Steve Schenewerk
The President of the United States on May 9, 2012, “came out” clearly for the rights of homosexuals to marry one another. That same night my wife commented to me after an hour with some of the young people from our church that none of them grew up in homes where the biological fathers and biological mothers were together. None of them have any significant experience with a set of parents/step-parents who have demonstrated any kind of biblical pattern of love towards one another or them. I realize the President’s remarks are historic and will likely impact the political landscape for generations to come. But what saddened me most about yesterday was the realization that those kids who attended youth group may never fully know what it is to be loved by a mother and a father.
Round pegs and square holes
By Steve Schenewerk
When I became a pastor in my current church -- over 20 years now -- it didn’t take long to meet people in my community who just didn’t seem to fit the culture of our faith community. I am not just referring to young adults, although numerical evidence suggests they don’t fit because they have “dropped out.” I am not referring to the “nones,” that category of people who no longer list any religious preference on surveys.
No, I am talking about the people I’ve met who are small business owners, who are struggling to raise a family (some single parents, some intact families where neither parent can land a job that provides quite enough income to provide), who work two and three jobs to make ends meet.
The longer I serve the Lord in my church-related capacity the more convicted I am of two or three things.
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