Barnabas File

I have been spending an unusual amount of time recently with a female Episcopal priest. Of course, she spends a lot of time with the local police chief. There is no problem, however, since both are fictional and the leading characters in a series of mystery novels by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Clare Fergusson is the thirty-something priest of St. Alban’s church in Millers Kill, New York, a small town nestled in the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York. A Virginian by birth and former Army helicopter pilot, Clare is in her first charge out of seminary. Chief Russ Van Alstyne is 15 years older. A Vietnam vet and former military policeman, Van Alstyne has returned to this home town upon retirement to head up the local police department, accompanied by the wife who helped pull him out of alcoholism. As one might imagine, events conspire to bring Clare and Russ together on several levels. Neither our protagonists nor the people of Millers Kill are saints; they are people who wrestle w...

Few books can be considered truly seminal works in their field. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission by David J. Bosch is one of them. Although Bosch, head of the department of missiology at the University of South Africa, died in an automobile accident in 1992, his work stands as a classic in its field. In a recent issue of Christianity Century, one theologian selected it as one the five books of the last 25 years that he describes as “essential.” As we worked through part of Bosch’s book in our Christian Witness class this past Saturday, I was once again impressed by the scope of his work. Professor Bosch drew on history, theology, sociology, and economics to paint a picture of a gospel that has been continually in dialogue with the culture in which it finds itself. He saw the gospel as dynamic rather than static in relation to its culture. The thesis of Bosch in this book is that “what has unfolded in theological and missionary circles during the last d...

When I was campus minister at a denominational college in east Tennessee, I often attended five or six associational meetings in October. Adding these to already busy schedule was not easy, but there were three good things about the assignment. First, I saw some beautiful fall foliage as I traveled the highways and roads of east Tennessee. Second, I got to meet some nice people and tell them about the students at their denominational school. Third, I heard some good preaching! The person (it was always a man, of course) doing the annual sermon always pulled out his best and delivered it with conviction. Those were good days in many ways. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the district judicatory that we call the Baptist association faces tough times today. If associations are going to survive, they must adopt a new paradigm that more effectively addresses the reality of the churches they serve. The association will become more effective when it becomes a regional rather than...

On Monday evening, I had the opportunity to attend the 200th anniversary meeting of Concord Baptist Association in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I will readily admit that this is the first associational meeting that I have attended in 12 years. I regularly attended such meetings as a Baptist Student Union director, campus minister, state convention employee, and denominational college campus minister. This association has a sentimental attachment for me since I served as BSU director at Middle Tennessee State University from 1970 to 1976. I preached in practically every church in the association and knew all of the pastors and many of the lay leaders by name. We worked to form a partnership among the churches, the association, and the state convention that eventually resulted in the construction of a new Baptist Student Center that was tagged the Centennial Baptist Student Center because it was dedicated the year (1974) that the state convention observed its formation 100 years earlier...

Anyone who knows me well would never mistake me for an athlete. A brisk walk and a leisurely swim are about as athletic as I get. I do watch sports, however, and my children and grandchildren are (or have been) involved in various athletic endeavors. I am around these activities and watch enough sports on TV to have an ongoing concern about priorities in athletics. Two recent things come to mind. As I watch children play sports, I am impressed by their attitudes toward the game. Some really hustle. They love the game and get into it. Others are less enthusiastic and may be living out parental dreams and expectations. In fact, some of the most negative experiences come from overly aggressive coaches and parents who forget (especially for children) that being in the game is the important thing; winning is secondary at that stage of life. Both the kids and adults should be having fun. Another recent event was the televised image of a Titans football coach making an obscene gesture ...

One of the best presentations at the Global Leadership Summit in August was by Andy Stanley. He talked about the “upside” of tension. Most of us see every challenge as a problem to be solved. Stanley suggested that some challenges are problems to be solved, while others are tensions to be managed. We must learn to recognize the difference. There will always be decisions to be made about ministries, use of time and use of resources. When we “resolve” some of these tensions, we often create a new tension. Occasionally, I will come across something that I wrote when I was a young minister with a young family. An ongoing concern during that time was having a healthy balance between time for ministry and time with family. Did I every resolve that tension? Of course not. I deal with it even to this day. This was not a problem to be solved but an ongoing choice to be made. There are some tensions we learn to live with. Although Stanley did not refer to scripture in his presentation, ...

Rev. Dr. Eillen Campbell-Reed  and Rev. Mary Beth Duke On Sunday afternoon, I had the opportunity to be part of a service at Providence Baptist Church in Cookeville, Tennessee, ordaining Mary Beth Dunbar Duke to the Christian ministry. Mary Beth is a graduate of Central Seminary in Murfreesboro and is currently pursuing a Clinical Pastoral Education residency at Vanderbilt Hospital. I reminded those present that although most Christian churches ordain ministers of the gospel, there are differing ordination practices and that they would not be surprised to learn that even among Baptists there are varying practices! This was the first ordination service conducted by the church and the building was filled with church members, friends and family of the candidate, and former classmates at the Central Seminary site. It was day of celebration as well as commitment. I am not a member of Providence Baptist Church, but we share an understanding of the meaning of ordination. There...