Calvary Church Podcast
Welcome to the weekly audio podcast for Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida. The episodes in this podcast include the messages and sermon series from our Sunday worship services. Listen to Pastor Willy Rice and other guest speakers as they share spiritual truths from the Bible on how to grow in your relationship with God and find real meaning in life. For more information about Calvary Church, please visit us online at Calvary.us.
Calvary Church Podcast
What is the Southern Baptist Convention and why does it matter? // Ricecast
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One week before Pastor Willy delivers the Convention Sermon at this year's annual meeting, we discuss the history, the controversy, and the importance of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Watch Pastor Willy's Convention Sermon at sbc.net
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Well , hello again, podcast listeners, rice cast , family. We're back with another episode of the rice cast . This is a very special episode. It feels like it's gonna be a special episode today. Pastor, do you have that feeling
Speaker 2A feeling of a special episode? It's it's
Speaker 1Uh , there's something in the air.
Speaker 2All right . Yeah.
Speaker 1There's something in the warm humid summer air, Florida
Speaker 2Air a lot going on. There really is. So , uh , it is fun to sit down in , uh, talk today and , uh , have this opportunity to kind of share some things happening.
Speaker 1It's yeah, we , we've got a lot to talk about. We've got a lot , a lot of ground to cover. Um, and of course we have to start with, I didn't know if we'd get to this, but I'm just sort of thinking now off the time about the Tampa bay lightning you're have one
Speaker 2Sports report.
Speaker 1They are onto the, the finals. I think it's still the Eastern conference finals.
Speaker 2I think it is it the semifinals? Isn't it like ? Well,
Speaker 1It's the Eastern conference finals, not the Stanley cup
Speaker 2Finals. Gotcha . So you have to
Speaker 1Semifinals. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2Okay . So you're right . So you win this one and then you go to the, and then big
Speaker 1One. You go back to the big
Speaker 2One, the big one, we were just there. This will be in Tampa with fans this year . That's
Speaker 1Right. That's right. We ,
Speaker 2Yeah ,
Speaker 1I've loved watching. This was fun for me. The first round, they were still kind of dipping their toes at like 50% or something. And then it all went out the window game
Speaker 2Six, it's all out the window. We're all yelling, breathing on one another and screaming,
Speaker 1Screaming. It's so
Speaker 2Fun as it's supposed to be,
Speaker 1As it's supposed to be. That's exactly right. Excited about the Tampa bay lightning, man, they look looked great. This last series they , they took on. I feel like there , I don't know if we have anybody that works at the Tampa bay times that's listening, but we played the hurricanes this round. Yes . Yeah . So I thought, boy, you know, Tampa bay, weather's another hurricane. Is there , doesn't it feel like there's a headline in there?
Speaker 2Yeah. That , it seems like that would've been a , you've been a good sports writer . That would've been a good one. Oh,
Speaker 1That's very kind. I don't think I would've been
Speaker 2And the rays are doing good. I mean, they're winning , uh , like on a big winning thing. And then the bucks are having a mini camp , you know? So they're kind of shaking off the dust
Speaker 1Last they checked. They still have Tom Brady,
Speaker 2Tom. Brady's still out there. So it's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 1Oh, it's a beautiful time to live in
Speaker 2Tampa bay.
Speaker 1It beautiful time to live in Tampa bay. Uh, yeah, lots of fun stuff going on. We are here at Calvary. I , I mean , I always mean to say this to me. We are at Calvary church here in Clearwater, Florida is where we record this. I don't even think I said our names. I'm Anthony Russo . I'm here with Dr. Pastor Willie Rice. Uh, and we have lots to talk about today, but going around here at Calvary, we are in our summer, which I still say has just been so fun. Yeah . Uh , everybody meeting at one time, you were at Eastlake this morning .
Speaker 2I was at east lake and , uh , you're right. It has been fun and a little more crowded, but that's kind of the fun. Everybody's seeing one another and being back together. And so each of our campuses , Seminole Clearwater in east lake one service at 10 and last Sunday, I was able to preach from east lake to all the other campuses. It was great to be with east lake congregation. Uh , we love being up there so much energy and enthusiasm. Uh , Danny , uh , Bennett at camps , pastor , and then you got Matt Lauder , leading worship and you know, so many great people up there, too many a name. And it's just , uh , it was a lot of fun. I look forward to going there and, and , uh , hopefully with the technology every so often we can go up there and , uh , and look forward also preaching from Seminole later this summer. Yeah . I think back sometime, a couple weeks from now , uh , we'll be able to be there preaching and, and , um , uh , that's a blessing to be able to do that.
Speaker 1Yeah. Gonna be, it's just, we're just looking ahead at a fun summer, you know, we got , uh , father's day coming up, got July 4th, coming up
Speaker 2Vacation, Bible school, coming back DBS.
Speaker 1That's
Speaker 2Right this year of July. Um , but it'll still be a great, great thing.
Speaker 1Yep . Uh , maybe a bittersweet announcement we can make now we couldn't make on Sunday is that we announced the news about pastor Jeremy. Right . Uh , as most of us firmly believed he was officially voted on and, and confirmed by Ohio .
Speaker 2Yep . The executive director of the , um , yeah . I always get to name wrong. It's the convention of Ohio Baptist. It's the Southern Baptist of Ohio. Okay. And , um , but I think it's the convention Baptist of Ohio and , uh , he is , uh , was elected Y day unanimous vote. I , I think it was unanimous. Um, uh, it should have been if it wasn't , uh , we're just gonna make it unanimous. Yeah, yeah. Yeah . I think it was by their governing board. And uh, so he's accepted that position. We , our congratulations to him, he and I were texting some , uh , yesterday and it's kind of in the news, if you, you know, so subscribe to Baptist press or online, you might saw that , see something like that. And so we're real proud of Jeremy, obviously, as we said, Sunday, it's bittersweet for us , uh , because we have grown to love him and his family. And I think it's bittersweet for him. He'll, he'll tell you how much he loves being here. And we absolutely intend to ridicule him in January, February when it's , uh , bitterly cold. We're gonna just say something to him, send him greetings from the podcast here. That's right. When it's 72 degrees in Tampa.
Speaker 1That's exactly
Speaker 2Right. But anyway, we are proud of you, Jeremy. And , um, and we, he will be preaching the end of this month, June 27th, he's scheduled a preach and , uh , uh, it'll be a great farewell address from Jeremy to our Calv family. And , uh , it'll be one of those. You don't wanna miss that moment.
Speaker 1Yeah. It's it's so we just keep saying, it's the best way to say it. You know, stuff like this is bittersweet. I think we all are excited about the opportunities in front of him. And this seems like such a good fit for him as a , his personality, his calling and ministry. Uh , but absolutely I'm mean, as we talked around the top of the podcast to leave, to leave the Tampa bay area, right in the midst of a sports Run, you know, and to go to Ohio, You gotta go to Ohio and we love
Speaker 2Ohio.
Speaker 1We do love Ohio from here. I love Ohio from here.
Speaker 2We, we wish him well, but you're right. It's , uh , bittersweet all the way around
Speaker 1Bittersweet, bittersweet. We love pastor Jeremy. Uh, and it's some good, I would say that's some good news , uh , in the Baptist world, which if you follow it particularly closely, there's , there's been some bad news , uh, going around as well. So this is a nice thing to have here, the news of pastor Jeremy. Um, but I , I know a lot of people have asked, we've talked about it some on the podcast here that you are leaving at the end of this week, right. To go up to the Southern Baptist convention,
Speaker 2Right. Uh , it starts a Sunday night in Nashville. And , um , so we'll be , uh , getting into town and , um , looking forward to being a part of the meeting next week, which is our annual convention,
Speaker 1Our annual convention. So this is , uh , let's talk , let's do some groundwork here, cuz I know we're gonna , we have listeners with varying degrees of familiarity in this area. Uh, as far as the, what is Southern Baptist, what is Southern Baptist convention? So the Southern Baptist convention at, at LAR is a , is our group of churches that we are , we are a part of here at Calvary. Uh , and then the Southern Baptist convention yeah . Is a once a year meeting where interrupt me if I say any of this wrong, where , where , uh , representatives yeah . From those churches come together.
Speaker 2Yeah. It's kind of our ecclesiology, you know, every group is a little different, our ecclesiology or the way in which we structure our churches is a little different. And the Southern Baptist convention technically is what meets for three days in the summer. It's the messengers of the churches. And we don't call them delegates. We call them messengers, messengers of the churches , uh, uh , that are affiliated with the Southern Baptist convention , uh , are, are able together in one spot and to talk about the budgets, the structures, the entities of the Southern Baptist convention, other than that, what exists are the entities that are accountable to the Southern Baptist convention, these organizations that , uh , uh , are part of it. Oh , okay. And , um, so, but I, I understand that nuance is kind of very, very, you know, detailed. So essentially what you described is correct. We , we , we think of it as this large network that we are a part of.
Speaker 1Yeah. And it , and it does, it is worth saying though. So when you talk about entities, you're meaning like seminaries that are affiliated with
Speaker 2Correct. The Southern Baptists convention has a couple of entities and these entities then operate, you know, ongoing for the rest of the year. They have, they're governed by trustee boards that are elected by the Southern Baptist convention. And those entities are the biggest. And the reason we have such a thing is we have an international mission board. Okay. And a north American mission board, two different boards. I happen to serve on the north American mission board as a trustee. So the trustees govern those organizations, you know, throughout the year. And they have staff that, that actually lead them day to day . So those are the biggest ones. And it's the international mission board that gets the lion share of our budget because that's the reason Southern Baptist organize themselves way back when they did. So in the middle part of the 19th century, you Baptist churches organize themselves in order to do missions together. And so today we have an international mission board, a north American mission board. Then we have six seminaries that train church leaders and , uh, and they're scattered across the country. And , uh , we also have an entity known as Lifeway, which is kind of our publishing house. Yeah, that's right. So you get a lot of curriculum and Bibles and things that come out of Lifeway. And then some others that are lesser known are , uh , the Guidestone entity, which is , uh , basically the retirement financial arm . Right , right. Uh , of the church. So churches, you know, they help their, their staff members have retirement through that. And then , uh, the ethics and religious Liberty commission, which is a smaller entity, but sometimes the most controversial one, which is involved in lobbying for religious Liberty and speaking out about ethical values that , uh , reflects Southern Baptist. So those are the entities of the Southern Baptist commission.
Speaker 1And so , so all of these piece , all the entities and the churches that are a part of this all come together once a year. Uh , and that , and that's what we talk about is a couple things. Again, I just wanna keep everyone up to speed. So sometimes you might hear us refer to, or someone around the church refer to NA, and that is short for the north American mission board or IM B . And that is short for the international mission board . I just don't know . Sometimes you get used to the vernacular and people don't, people
Speaker 2Don't know . And , and again, I love covering this today, although I'm sure there are some P people , like if you have zero interest in discussing this, this would be a good time to, you know, tune in , in another podcast of true crime or something, you know, cuz we , we do want to just chat about it today. Yeah . Yeah . But we do know we got a lot of people, you know, the majority people that join Calvary do not come from a Baptist background. That's just the nature of our area. And so, you know, they're usually part of some denominational network or whatever. And uh , so, but it is helpful to learn, this is our network. This is kind of how we do our missions. And um, and so that's why it's good to , to , to dive in and maybe talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 1Yeah. Because we've talked uh , several weeks ago now, but we talked about our kind of unique per positioning in that our , our little tribe here in the Southern Baptist convention. Um , because you have some, you have people that other practices of faith, you have like Catholics who they are Catholic and then they, and then they below that, we'll talk about the, the, the
Speaker 2Church here on the corner.
Speaker 1Right . Uh , but above that, they would say they are Catholic. Well, the Baptist , uh , community, this is not, we don't all often anymore , at least lead with, I am Baptist. We lead with, I go to this, this is the
Speaker 2Church I it's almost completely flipped there. And then there's a lot of people in the middle where, you know , uh , in our , our Methodist friends or Presbyterian for , they do have an outside governing body that, that has some degree of governance over a local church Baptist , uh, are whatever kind of Baptist you are. Baptist kind of , uh , one of our , um, you know, hallmarks, one of our values is the belief in the autonomy of the local church. Uh , as we read the new Testament, the church is not this one organization ruled from some far away city, it's local gatherings of believers. They are autonomous. They are self-governing, they own their own buildings. They determine their own programs and , uh, their Baptists , uh , by conviction, a lot of people don't even know what that means, but they have Baptist qualities and that, that kind of developed through history. And there were some key peculiarities of that. And , um, uh, so , uh , Baptists, whatever they are are people who believe in the autonomy of the local church, Southern Baptists, and most, a lot of Baptists are this way. They find ways to organize themselves in order to promote missions and all the things we just talked about that get promoted and , uh , Southern Baptists were the Baptists in south after the civil war. So, you know, it's a , there's some good and bad in the history. But when the , when the , when you had the civil war, there was a break between Baptist and the north Baptist and the south Southern Baptist organize themselves. But grew in the 20th century, particularly to become the largest denomination in America, the largest non Catholic religious organization in America is the Southern Baptist convention grew to be, you know, depends on how, you know, the numbers, but somewhere around 16 million members, I think , uh, you know, over 45,000 churches and now of course, churches in every state and , uh, uh, and, and missionaries across the world. So the Southern Baptist convention became in the 20th century, a very large, very noticeable , um, religious network in America.
Speaker 1Hmm . And I , and I , I don't want spend too much more time here, but again, just to reiterate, when we talk about churches working together to do something like missions, if you're only familiarity is with a church like Calvary , uh, we're, we're a church of our size. We're a pretty big church. You would think, well, Calvary can do quite a bit in missions just on their own. And that's, that's true. But when you think about a lot of, particularly a lot of little churches that , that couldn't probably full time fund a missionary ever, but you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 of them coming together could, could start to see, well, then that idea is ex expanded. And now when everybody works together, you're able to do more , uh , in the area.
Speaker 2Most churches in America are smaller churches, less than 200. And that was certainly true of Baptist churches as, as the Baptist movement grew in the south. We now think of some of these big mega churches and Calvary . Some people would think of in that way, there are certainly some bigger it's all relative, of course, but still most Baptist churches were smaller churches and yes, any individual church can do great things, but there are things just somewhere along the way people said, there are things we could do to be together that are better than if we did by ourselves. Yeah . And, and the idea of sending missionaries around the world, which is one of the reasons Baptist organize themselves together, maybe the primary reason , uh, obviously if we pool our resources, then we can do more together. Then we can do alone. And that historically was proven true, particularly during that period of great growth. So you had all these churches saying we are going to net what didn't mean they couldn't do other things on their own. Of course they can. They can everybody search free to send a missionary on their own if they want, but it meant we are going to pool some of our resources , uh, to, and it became known as the cooperative program. I sometimes just call the cooperative mission strategy cuz that communicates to our people what it means. Yeah . Yeah . It's the way in which we cooperate with other like-minded churches to fund inter primarily international missionaries and church planning our missionaries in north America. Those were the bulk of where the money goes to that we send to our cooperative program. Hmm .
Speaker 1And I'll say this too, just cuz it just hit me what we were talking. I think the there's also a Baptist disaster relief , uh , team. Isn't that something that's done
Speaker 2This gets organized and it gets kind of complex . It's not a separate entity, but our north American mission board works with the Baptist disaster relief and each state convention then organizes itself. So within this Southern Baptist network, you have the Florida Baptist convention, the Georgia Baptist convention. So these are Baptist within the state and, and we work with other Baptists within Florida. So we have a network in Florida and then we have a national network and a lot of the disaster relief ministries grew in those state networks. And now it's kind of coordinated with our NA our north American mission board. But that's a very good, I'm glad you brought that up because it's like the third large disaster relief. Yeah . Uh , in the world. It , it , it is behind only the red cross and salvation army. Mm . Did you know that? I didn't know that. It's amazing. Yeah. Uh , in fact , uh , in the previous administration or president Trump, there was a some crisis and they honored the three largest relief , uh , agencies in the world and they brought in red cross salvation army. I believe it was salvation army in Southern Baptist. There were three in the OV office. You can't recognize 20. They brought in three. Wow. And um , so that's, that's an example of our cooperative work. That's an example of what people can do. If you work together, you can build children's homes. Uh , we have, you know, Florida Baptist children's home's. Yep . Uh , so you build colleges and Southern Baptist built all kinds of colleges across the country. So there are things that you can do if you say, Hey, let's work together. And one of the things I like to say, Anthony, because there are people who will go, well , you know, we , we don't need that. Maybe a church like Howard , you think we don't need that? Well, here's what I would say. First of all, I think you're wrong. I think you do. You can always do more together when you're cooperating. And the second thing I would say is even churches that say, well, we're independent. We're not part of any network. Yep . You know what? They still are a part of a network. I promise you, if you go in there, you will find them saying, wow, there's this disaster in Myanmar. What are we gonna do about it? Well, we gotta give our resources to somebody. Right ? We've got a network with somebody there's a hurricane in, you know, Texas, how are we gonna help? We've gotta , in fact, I've had churches outside our network, good churches send us money. I've had this happen recently where there was a big disaster somewhere and a local pastor called me and said, Hey, our church took up a collection. It was like 25,000 or something. And we wanna send it to the, we don't know where to send it, but we know you guys do. So we'll just send it to Calvary. And would you send it to your network? And I thought it was pretty cool because he recognized, Hey, you guys do the network. Yeah. The point is, everybody's gonna network when it comes to those global issues. And this is just the way we do it on a consistent regular basis.
Speaker 1And so we , I , I'm glad we spent some time there doing some foundational work because I think a lot of , uh , members attenders here at Calvary would not even know that they are, you either actively or passively contributing to these type of things. Probably a lot of 'em passively, cuz they just don't know they're they're going on that by being a part of Calvary, by being a faithful giver here at Calvary, that you are supporting all the initiatives of our church, that we talk about a lot. Right . And hopefully you're familiar with , uh , but then also this other, these other things,
Speaker 2Every yeah, every year we, a percentage of our ING 80 gifts offerings , uh , is, is given to this cooperative mission strategy called the cooperative program. And through that you're supporting international missionaries church, planting the disaster. All these things get supported because we are part of that network and we lean into that network
Speaker 1And we , yeah. And we do lean into that network. And, and I mean, again, just to button that being in Florida, you don't have to know us too well to know disaster relief. You're in Florida a little bit particularly, right . We , we have hurricanes , um, uh , et cetera , et cetera . Lots of things that disasters that need relieving. Um, so big , big stuff. There's , there's a lot that goes into all this. Uh, and like you said, we don't have a lot of, there's also, that's all being said, there's all these cool things. There is not a lot of, they don't tell us what to teach on every week. They don't, there's a lot, there's a lot, they don't speak into so things like the annual gathering I would, I would, I would wonder and , and , and maybe suggest, and you can speak into it a little bit more. They take on a , there's almost more pressure packed into, pressure's not , not the right word, but there's a lot packed in because we don't do this a lot. Yeah . We do it once a year
Speaker 2Where we all get together, have state meetings, you have other meetings, but this is the business meeting. Some have called it. I , I , I guess, I can't fact check it, but some have called it the largest business meeting of its kind in the world. Um, and it , it really is somewhat entertaining , um, to watch, you know, what are now more than 15,000 people registered. This is one of the largest in a number of years. Uh , but there is a moment for the introduction of motions and resolutions and any messenger from any Baptist church can go to the microphone in a specified time and make a motion about something and it can become quite painting to see what gets moved. And there's a way to dispose of all those things. But , uh, it's very interesting to see what motivates some people. Yeah . What some people wish the Southern Baptist convention collectively would speak on or speak about. And these things sometimes become newsworthy. Um, and , uh , you know , um, and it it's likely the next week, there'll be some newsworthy things , uh , uh , done, right.
Speaker 1Which, which , which all this leads us to this, this week, this coming week where , uh, let's talk about some undeniable things. This is by attendance going to be the largest of the largest Southern Baptist convention in decades.
Speaker 2Yeah. Since the nineties , uh , since maybe the early nineties , uh , there were record setting years in the eighties, actually that swelled above 40,000. Wow . It went . Um, but uh, this one will be, you know, it's , it's going north of 15,000 and some say it may approached 20 . It will be the largest, probably in three , almost three decades.
Speaker 1Yeah. And , and a couple reasons for that probably didn't get to meet last year cuz of COVID it was like online or something. Is that
Speaker 2Right? Nope . No , we just didn't get to meet. Just didn't do it. We couldn't do it online. So we, we , it was canceled for the first time, like in my lifetime. Okay.
Speaker 1So then you , you would , you would, one would expect then the next time you're able to do it, there would be . Yeah . Yeah . Uh , so you got some of that going on, but also a lot of , uh, controversy heading into this particular, there is , uh , thing. And I don't, I don't know if you wanna say anything about that. It's coming from a lot of places.
Speaker 2Well, it is. And it's, it's , it's , it's rather complicated to, to speak in just a brief moment because there are times , uh, in , uh , in to life when a controversy is around a singular definable issue, it's like saying, Hey, there's conflict over that. Right . And people are on this side or on that side of that. And this one is a lot more complex. Uh , it, it , um , there there's there each these conversations, there are levels of nuance and, and depending on you ask , the controversy is about X, but there's a lot of , um, uh , there's a lot of discord right now, a lot of dissension. And I wish I didn't have to say that. I take no joy in saying that because you know, we're not used to that at Calvary. Uh , we've had all these years of peace and unity. And when you're in a church where people look, they're always problems, right. There's problems in your home, my home . I mean , I have problems with me. Sometimes our problems get along with me much less . You multiply other people. I mean , uh , and so anytime you have people you're gonna have problems. That's right. Okay. So you're in a large church. There will be problem. There'll be things you disagree with. I don't like that, but essentially we have a healthy church where there is not this open . And if you've ever been in a church fight, it's no fun. And I, I don't know that anything will Mar the testimony of a church and harm the reputation of the gospel. More than Christians who can't get along with one another . That's right. And yet it's been a part of our faith. I , I hate to say it, even the disciples argued among themselves. And , uh, even the early churches struggled with unity, it's a big part of the new Testament. The writers, the apostles had to in instruct them to work hard, to keep unity. So unity is important. And so when you, so we don't have a lot of controversy though right now at Calvary. And so a lot of times people are like, that's fine. Why are these other people mad? Right.
Speaker 1What
Speaker 2Are they fighting about? Right. Well, you know, again, it's , it's , it's really hard to get into it without taking two hours in this podcast to go, okay, let's break down issue one, issue, two, issue three, there are some good things written about it. Um, but you know what, it's James four , one James four one says, what are their fighting and wars among you? It's, it's your own lust, it's your own desires at a waging war. Uh, and I wish I could tell you that everyone is behaving in a , in a Christlike in Christ, honoring fashion, and most are, you need to remember most churches are just trying to do their thing, but there are controversies. And , uh , there are , I think , uh , social media exacerbated that I think the lack of meeting last year has exacerbated that, and you have just some tribes that are kind of over here and over there and making this accusation or that accusation. And , um, and it will be a somewhat contentious , um , meeting next week.
Speaker 1And , and again, maybe some of this years still like, well , I don't really understand, let , so we'll just back up some of this we've talked about on the podcast. Um, and these are just some real top level things, but you maybe have heard of some of what's rolling into this. You had Beth Moore come out very publicly say I'm not, I'm no longer a Southern Baptist. I I'm just, I think her line was I'm just a regular Baptist or something like that. Uh , but it was very, it was a very targeted , uh , language at the Southern Baptist. Yep . Uh , convention. You had , um, what went on at Saddleback with Rick Warren , uh , where he , uh , his church ordained , uh , some women as pastors. Um , there was obviously a lot of fallout from that. A lot of people with a lot of opinions on that, I think here on the podcast, you said there there's a great chance. There's gonna be a , a group that would like to disassociate , uh, potentially one of the largest churches in the convention , uh , from the convention, that's a big deal. Rick, Warren's a name, a lot of people know. And one, one maybe less people know would be Russell Moore , which is one of the newer ones. And he was the ahead of a ,
Speaker 2He was the president of our ethics and religious Liberty commission resigned about two weeks ago. And of course, a couple of , uh , strong letters have been released , uh , in the last two weeks. And so people may be aware of that name. He was somewhat controversial because , uh , and we , Russ has spoken to Calvary . We've had him and I consider him a friend , um , uh , yet, you know, he had some pretty pointed things to say about president Trump. And , uh , so the , that created some angst amongst some , uh , and , uh, you know, and other things. And , um, so yeah, those are some flashpoint issues. And , uh , and you might add to that in the last week. It's like, what's the, what are we fighting about this week? Um, because like Saddleback's old news now, nobody you talking about , it's like, that was two weeks ago. Nobody cares me . Uh, the , um , you know, out of Dr. Moore's letters came, how we have handled some of the sexual abuse allegations yeah . That have taken place in Southern Baptist churches about two years ago. Uh , there was a huge expose in the Houston Chronicle about sexual abuse problems in Southern Baptist churches and how to handle that has been something of a point of controversy. Mm . I think everyone wants to handle it. Every sane, reasonable, moral person wants to handle that obviously, and stop it. But , uh, some feel like not enough is being done. Others feel like , um, things are being done that could have unintended consequences down the road. So, and, and , uh , others feel like, Hey, there's just some deliberate foot dragging and , um, and , uh , covering up. And so there have been some pretty strong allegations leveled about that. Uh, and so you, so all of these controversies women in ministry, they're all women in ministry that just , just the , that's really not the main issue. It's just, these become the side issues that, that the, the dynamics of division that have been happening will latch onto this controversy and, and then, and sometimes blow it out of proportion. Yeah. Um , uh , and , uh , and so it just become is very problematic. And, and so right now we're walking into a convention where, you know, there's a group of Southern Baptists who think that the convention is, is, is drifting to the left and unhealthy direction. There's a group of Southern Baptist who think, you know, you need new leaders. There's some thinking that are entity heads have not been transparent enough , uh, and, and on and on and on and on. And , and sometimes I hate to say it, I hate to say it if you've ever been in a church fight just times it by a hundred. Okay. Cause you know, now you've got 45,000 churches. Yeah. Um, but uh , some people do not act and do not handle the disagreements and the problems in a way that honors Christ. Yeah. And , um, you know, I , there will always be disagreements in life, but how you handle them will speak tons about your character. That's right. And spiritual maturity. And , um, unfortunately , uh , just some things get said and things get done that are just, it , it grieves the heart of God and agrees my heart. My heart's been heavy over the last several weeks, really, really heavy. And I, I know that P people may be even asking, well, is it worth it? Oh yeah. Is it worth it? Yeah. And that's a fair question because especially a lot of , I grew up a Southern Baptist kid, so, you know, I , I got it in, in , uh , in the bottle when I was a kid, you know, it was just that's . That was in , in my mother's milk. Right. You know, she was Southern Baptist. Her mother was Southern Baptist. Yeah . And I, so I, I, that's what I, that's where I learned about the kingdom of God and the gospel. Now I know the kingdom of God is much, much bigger than us. And I'm so grateful. It is. But, but younger generations who, who have not been as , um , indoctrinated in Southern Baptist life are going, is it worth it? I love the church. I love the gospel. Right . But is it worth it put up with this nonsense? Right. It's a fair question. I think it is. I think it is. And I would tell you why number one, because I think institutions have value. I know we are living in a day of an anti-institutional bent. There's this distrust of large institutions. I get it. And many institutions have done things that have warranted that district. That's all of us have been lied to. All of us have been snookered at some point. So I get it. But let me tell you what the value of institutions is. Institutions have staying power. They last , uh , if, if you can have a movement without an, but if you wanna have a movement that transcends a generation and goes and passes from a generation to a generation, to a generation, at some point it will have an institutional expression. So I often talk to people who are very idealistic and say, well, I don't want an institution, or they'll even talk about the local church. They'll look at Calvary as an institution. So we're gonna have a church without a building. We're gonna have a church . We're not gonna have all those programs. Yeah . We're not gonna have a big budget. And then, you know what happens? They start a church and then children start coming up and they go, maybe we should have a children's ministry. Where are we gonna put the children? I don't know where we're gonna put the children. Maybe we need a budget to put , put the , maybe we need a building. You know, because this has worked for five years, but now we , we just got kicked out of a building. Maybe we need a building. Maybe we need building. We can control and build , you know, and before long, 20 years later, you will have some institutional expression or that movement will be gone. Right. I promise you. And , and it may have done some good things, but it will phase out over time. If it doesn't organize itself into an institutional expression, at least in my opinion. So that is the value of institutions that they can have power . The detriment of institutions is they can get stale and they can get focused on their maintenance rather than the mission that created them in the first place. Mm . So there's this balance, there's this tension. So I appreciate institutions and I want to make them better. But I also understand that when you have them, you have problems of keeping them on mission. So do I think it's important that the Southern Baptist convention , uh , be healthy? I do, because it's there's value. We have six, we have thousands of students in seminaries. Yeah. We have the largest church planting network on the face of the earth. There's not a close second last year, our sin north American network planted 500 in 88 churches in north America. There's not a close second. Um, so you wanna be part of planning churches and I've met those church planners. And if you met those church planners, you would go, you know what, it's worth supporting those guys. Um , we have over 3000 international missionaries. These are full-time vocational missionaries. Calvary has two of them right now, overseas. And we have more coming. Um, they are supported, they are taken care of, they have coaching, they have leaders, they have health insurance, you know, all the things that you need to live. Yeah. Yeah. We support over 3000. It may be around 3,500 international missionaries. And that may be the largest force of vocational missionaries in the world. I don't know of one. That's bigger. So I'm grateful for you hear about all kinds of mission organizations and yeah. You send your money over there and yeah, you do that. And that's great. I'm glad for them, but, but I am also grateful that we are part of sending missionaries around the world, planting churches, educating the next generation of pastors and leaders. Yeah . Uh , publishing Christian resources in Lifeway , all those things have value. So it's easy sometimes to look at the problems and go, is it worth it? Is it, it's just a headache. Yeah. But if you see beyond the headaches, you that there is there's value right . In this , these cooperative institutions. And I believe there is, I'm not saying there wouldn't come a day that you look at an institution and say, okay, the payoff isn't worth the problems. Yeah. That may be the case. But I would say at least my own opinion is that's, we're not there to me. The payoff is, is worth the problems and we should tackle the problems and try to solve the problems because these institutions are worth preserving and worth making sure our on mission for the gospel, for our children and our grandchildren and, and for generations to come. I , and, and so it's worth leaning in and it's worth working.
Speaker 1That's a good word. And I , you shared some with our staff a little bit on retreat, you unpacked this idea even more. And I thought it was really insightful. I hadn't really thought of it this way, but , uh , I certainly can speak as in the, in the millennial generation , uh , which I'm in , uh , there is definitely a romanticizing of the tear it down and restart it. Yep . Um, but in reality and the way you posed it then, and the way you you did just out so well is that's really a move backwards, cuz you're going to get back to this point. And if you can't get past this point going backwards and starting over and building back to this point, you've just, okay, well, here you are again, what are you gonna do now this time? Yeah. Uh , so I thought it was a great word there and I think it's all, it's good. And I want, I think it's cool that our people might get a chance to see some of the , this, what , what we're coming into now is the , you have this institution we've talked about it. It it's doing a lot of good things. It's , it's a very large institution making a , a positive impact in the world. There's a lot of , uh, turmoil going on, both , both below the surface, coming out above the surface, lots of things going on, what's leading into a , uh , pressure packed cattle , a cosmic meeting. And right in the middle of said , meeting is one Dr . Pastor Willie
Speaker 2Writes, well, it, it , I don't know that I'm any way focus of the meeting, but I do have a , a , a role this year in God's Providence and timing , um , uh, which I've wondered about. But , uh , nevertheless , uh , trusted in is , uh , my role to preach the convention sermon every year. There is a, it's kind of a, if you think about other conventions, sometimes it's called a keynote address. So every year, and I don't know where this started, it's just the way we've always done it. Um, they will vote to, you know, the next meeting, the convention sermon will be delivered by blank and you usually choose a pastoral leader. And, and I was honored to two years ago when we met in Birmingham , uh , to be elected the convention future for what was supposed to be Orlando. And I think that's part of the reason I may have gotten in cuz I was a Florida guy. Yeah. Uh , of course we didn't meet last year in Orlando. So here we are. And uh, so on Wednesday morning , um , the convention will begin. Uh, there's a lot of pre-meetings starting Sunday and Monday. And then the business session, the actual meeting of the Southern Baptist conventions, Tuesday and Wednesday. And , uh , Tuesday will be the day with a lot of business, a lot of fireworks and presidential elections and all that sort of thing. And uh , but Wednesday morning , um, immediately after the seminary reports, they all report at , uh , it's scheduled. And I think it's a fixed time. So I don't think they can go beyond that. Uh , but it's scheduled to be 1115 on Wednesday morning , uh , will be the convention sermon. And , uh , obviously it's a big moment. Uh , it's an important moment. I've heard many, you know, great sermons through the years in that slot. And I was honored to be asked and it's something that honestly I've been praying about for two years. Yeah. And you know, you know , when it got canceled last year, that was a downer for a lot of reasons. But , uh , certainly this year as a lot of noise and controversy has increased across the convention , uh , my prayer life has increased and, and my , uh, uh , you know, just focused on what is it the Lord wants me to say. And I do think the Lord's given me a word for our network of churches and , uh , it's, it's I think a bold word. And , um , and I am praying hard and , uh, and asking our church family to pray with me and for me as I stand to preach , um, to the messengers of the Southern Baptists convention next Wednesday, June 16 , one week from today. Absolutely. Yeah . As we're recording this on Wednesday and , um , people are asking, can they watch it? And I , the answer to that is yes, you can live stream it. I think free , uh , the website of the Southern Baptists convention is sbc.net . I'm not actually sure where the convention is streamed. There may , we may find that and put it up, but , uh, you can, I , you , I'm almost a hundred percent confident you can stream that and watch that. So , uh , if you don't know where to go to sbc.net next week , or go on the normal places, be at Calvary, we'll put something out. Yeah. When we get the exact link. Uh , but , uh, you can watch the proceedings of the Southern Baptists convention next week and just don't get disheartened by the bad stuff. Okay. You might see some, you know, might see some people and you go, why are they behaving like that? Look, there are people within the Southern Babs network that I think are behaving badly. I'll just say, I think are behav badly. And, and , uh, whatever their view, they've not expressed it in a way that I think is charitable and Christlike. And, and there are times people will do things in the Southern Baptist convention. We don't agree with , uh , that we go, Hey, that church did that. I don't agree with it. Yeah. And one of the tensions of being a Baptist when you're having autonomous churches, when a church does something, you don't agree with, you go, okay, wait, is that such a, an egregious offense that we can no longer fellowship together? Or is it a difference of, Hey, that church is doing it this way, we're doing it this way, but we still agree on the bigger issues and we can work together. That does become a problem. It does become a problem. So , um, you know, you , you will see some of that tension expressed in the coming days.
Speaker 1Yeah . I'm curious your , your role in it. So in 2019, when they say that , then they say this is gonna be, you're gonna do this. Um, when the 2020 meeting was canceled, was it automat?
Speaker 2It was, you will be speaking all the one . Yeah. All the , uh , elections just kept over because it has to be a convention choice. And the , the last convention that met , had chose . So I actually wondered that myself, I wasn't thousand percent sure on that, but I thought that was the case and sure enough, they let me know you're on , you're on the docket.
Speaker 1And as you've shaped this messy, I mean, how far has it come from your initial thoughts when you say, okay, I'll be teaching in 2020, and this is what
Speaker 2Is , well, I , you know, the , the , if you'll remember the convention was canceled in March , uh , people don't know , but it was in March, everything hit by the end of March, they were canceling , uh , the Southern Baptist convention. And I had been thinking about the message. I had some rough thoughts, but I hadn't written it or put it together. Um, and , uh , that far out, so it just stopped. I just , you know, yeah . I took a nap instead. So , um, and then, you know, I didn't, I didn't worry about 20, 21 at that point. And the summer went and the fall went. I just, I , you know, you want to prepare a message closer to the actual convention. Yeah. Yeah. And , uh, I really started fasting and praying , uh , a lot after the first of the year, this year as I started watching things. And , uh, in April, I went away for a week and , uh, and wrote what is essentially the guts of the message, the outline of it , um , about mid-April I , I took a week, went to the mountains and, and did some work and came home. What , what is essentially the message, but I've been working on it , you know, every week since then. And, and now every day. So it's one of those messages when you are preaching in that context, you know, that many people are watching and listening and it's, it's more than just a shepherd feeding your own people. You're trying to declare something to this broad network of churches at a very, again, difficult time , uh, right . Yet every word matters. Every you , you want to get it right. You wanna say it right. And , um , and pray over every line. So it's one of those things where I have, you know, done that and I'm still praying and it may change between next Wednesday, but yeah. Yeah. But I, I have what I think the Lord has told me to say, and I, I do Cove everyone's prayers.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, I want to , I want talk about that a little bit more too, but I'm, I'm curious cuz I don't want it to be lost in people. The schedule you just kinda walk through. I mean, is there any thoughts from you as to what the climate of the convention might be by the time you even
Speaker 2Get up there? Well, it's very, that's a very interesting point because a lot of the contentious issues will be , uh , will come to the floor Tuesday. Tuesday's where there will be some , uh , and I, you know, I act like I'm talking about a football game or something, but it's, it's, it's where some of the more difficult issues will be voiced and aired and, and uh, and actually we have a good process for it though. I mean, when you come, sometimes it lets some of the steam out, you know, it's like, I think people have gotten this pin up and they've been fighting online and taking shots at one another. And actually when you get in a room it's much better, you know, it's like, okay, now there's still be some things done, but it's like, okay, once you get in the room, you actually have to see who's there. It , it changes a little bit, but a lot of those things will happen Tuesday. So the culture of the Southern Baptist convention, the, the , the , the will have shifted some by Tuesday night. Right. And so I am mindful of that. Um, you know, I've, I've thought, you know, I'll probably be back in my room Tuesday night going, okay, do I change something? Do I say something different? And I've tr I've tried to keep Wednesday morning clear because you know, you're looking at every paragraph going, maybe now in light of what happened yesterday. I shouldn't do that or go there. So I will be, you know, right up to the time I walk up there , probably thinking about some words and some phrases and , you know, might put something in, take something out, you know how that goes.
Speaker 1So as, as a church body here are around you, how can we two questions? First one is how can we be praying for the convention? How can we be praying for what outcomes should we be praying for from this time there ? And I'm, I'm , I'll stop here just for a second and say, I'm glad you brought that up. I think we've all felt something, maybe it's with your family or something leading up to Thanksgiving dinner where you're like, I was gonna be fi and you sit down and it's, it's just so different when you , oh , it's just my sister. And we're just , this is what we do. So I I'm glad you brought that up, but , uh , let's ask that question. What can we be praying for, for the convention, for this group of churches coming together? Uh , what , what outcomes can we be praying for?
Speaker 2And that's a great, great , let me answer that question, but say this at the beginning, cuz something you said there just reminded me of this. One of the things I would say just as a pastor of this church is whenever you read something, I've had people send me articles in the last, you know, few weeks that they get from some other group about Southern Baptist. Mm . And I would just ask you to learn, to read and process those things. Just like you do any internet source or any media source critically. I'm not telling you not to believe even I'm not telling you, there may not be some kernel truth there, but I'm telling you not to believe it automatically. Mm . Because people from the outside of our tribe writing about what's happening, sometimes don't get it. And they're looking for a quick article. Yeah . And sometimes if it's a right wing website or it's a left wing website, they're looking for clicks, understand how the media works. So if you're reading a conservative website, it's, you know, if they can tell you there's a liberal drift in the Southern Baptist, they're gonna get eyes on that article. Yep . And if they're in the left side, if Southern Baptist engine have just said, you know, they hate everybody disagrees with them . You're gonna get eyes on that article. So read those things critically. Please don't just believe them without talking. I I'm not saying I'm the expert. I'm not saying I can answer everybody's question, but get the right information from people and know what's going on. I I'm , I'm pretty involved. We've we ? Dr. Westbrook's pretty involved. We've got our, team's pretty involved. If you wanna know, don't just believe, you know, Dr. Bottle head , you know, wrote a blog out there and I got it on my internet and somebody sent it to me. I , I , I believe me. I've gotten so many of those. Yeah. Yeah. So many of those , um, one comes to mind where a guy sent me one, just slamming a church in central Florida and uh , last year. And did you , but this church is doing this, this and that . And I just said, I know that's not true. I know that pastor. That's not true. Yeah . Um , that's just designed to get you to click on his blog and you know, this , this guy's trying to make a aim for himself. That's it? It's not true. I know that guy. So when you hear people that, you know, talked about you kind of , you know, you just wanna be a little more defensive. Yeah. Yeah. Now having said that, I wanna answer the question. Can we pray for the convention? I just, you know, do pray for, you know, I , I don't know how you can pray better than say God's will, would be done to pray for a sense of gospel, unity, gospel, unity, isn't unity on all things. Cause there are some things we will not see eye to eye on. That's just true in life. Gospel. Unity is unity on the big things and unity. Isn't a unity at all cost it isn't. I will compromise anything so that I can have unity. That's not real unity. That's just selling out. So gospel unity though, is Hey , a unity around the things that matter the most and just pray. I, I , I would say this, that the most strident voices on the edges who are trying really to draw attention to themselves and make a name for themselves and they don't see the big picture. They just see one little piece , um , pray that I don't wanna say this to sound harsh, pray that God would expose that for what it is. I , I'm not asking God to chasing anyone. I far be it from me. God will chasing God needs to, to me most of the time. That's right . So I'm not praying for God to chase anyone else, but I just do pray that the people who don't have a gospel unity in the gospel mission at , at the forefront of their heart, that their voices would be kind of exposed and minimized and that you would see a great group of people that will never be perfect and will never see eye to eye on everything. But will you not around a great gospel mission? Again, the Southern Baptists convention is the largest network of churches non-Catholic in America. That matters. It matters that we should be healthy and on target. Yeah . So pray that there will be that gospel unity and that the more strident, divisive voices that may have other agendas would not , uh , carry the day would be exposed for what they are.
Speaker 1That's good. Uh , so then the second part, of course , uh , being here part of Calvary church, obviously we all love you. We all, we all have you so, so much on our minds and our hearts in these next couple days and weeks. How can we be praying for you? Uh , as you enter into this? I ,
Speaker 2I , I just, I really, it means the world, you know, there are times your life where people say, they're praying for you . You just, you take it, you take it for grant. I , I hate to say you just, you know, take it for grant. It's nice. It's a nice, and then there are times when you so sense that you need God to show up that when somebody tells you, they're praying for you, it , uh , you know, your eyes fill it with tears. And it's like, if you ever get in the hospital room and somebody says, Hey, I'm praying for you. You're you're like, you're so grateful cuz you know, you need it. Yeah. And you're praying you're and what you're thinking is, man, I hope you mean it. Yeah . Cause I need those prayers. I hope that's just not a nice thing. You're saying, I , I need that prayer right now. And then, and when you're in those situations , you feel it too . You just feel that God is working. So prayer in general, it means the world right now because I just feel this moment that God, I want to be your servant. And I wanna say only what you want me to say. And I read from, in my devotions today about a Mackay , um, uh , who was a , uh , old Testament, prophet and uh , Jafa and the king in Israel were getting together, go to war and they had all these false prophets come in and they were telling the Kings what they wanted to hear. And JJA says, isn't there, isn't there a prophet of God. And the king of Israel says, well , he never says anything good. And , uh , they bring him in and , um , Mackay says, says the Lord lives. I can only say what God has told to say. Mm . And I, and I read that verse this morning and I thought, that's what God is saying to me. Just say what I tell you to say. So I guess, pray for clarity that God would make it clear what I'm supposed to say and not say even up to the last minute. I mean, even if I've written something down and I have a check, don't say that I wanna be sensitive to the Lord. And , um, to the, to say whatever the Lord does want me to say, knowing that if you say something that needs to be said, there are going to be people that aren't happy. Um, and , uh , they may not like it. They might say bad things. And so don't, by the way, don't get freaked out. If you read something on the line, you know , whatever, you know , your pastors are Marxist , your pastors are crazy , whatever. And just, don't worry about it. Uh, you know, us, we know you don't, so don't worry about somebody doesn't know us. Uh, but I just pray for courage. I pray for clarity and just the , the, what sometimes preachers call the anointing, which it is just kind of a nebulous term. But I, for me, it means the Mo in the moment, you can just feel the power of the whole holy spirit sometimes when you're preaching and you just feel a peace, you feel a freedom. And , um, you feel a power that comes from the holy spirit, some of you know, what I'm talking about. And , uh, so just pray for that in that moment that I will sense that and be full of the holy spirit and be able to say what he wants me to say in that moment.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, I know we all will be, we'll all be praying for you, for sure. You and your family, and for all the there's , there's , there's a couple of the team here will be joining you up there, which so, yeah, we'll be praying for everybody that will be out there. Um, and, and next week , uh , we probably won't do a podcast, but you know what you can do, you can tune in on at 11 team ,
Speaker 2That'll be podcast on Wednesday that'll and
Speaker 1I'm certain yeah. Follow Calvary on social media. I'm certain we will, we will track down if there is a way to stream this online , uh , which I can't imagine there
Speaker 2Will be . I'm certain, there it is. And we'll, we'll , we'll put it out there on all our social media platforms. And as I said, I think if you just went to the website, it would probably direct
Speaker 1Youc.netc.net . I can put that in the podcast description for this. Uh , but like I said, we'll share it , um , across all of our platforms , uh, on social media also quick note this Sunday, John ANCI teaching , uh , cuz you'll, you'll be up in Nashville.
Speaker 2I am headed to Nashville early to kind of get in there. And uh, John, you know, last honest , we're just so excited about John and the last times he pre , you know, people are like, man, let him preach more. He's fantastic. That's great. And let me tell you , and we always work as a team on the message , uh , where the guy writes it and we meet with the team that maybe fun to do , uh , podcasts on how that works sometimes. Um , sometimes people like to know what goes on behind the card . Yeah . Yeah. But , uh , read John's message. And let me tell you something, it's a powerful, powerful message. This, it comes from his own experience. It is an incredible comeback story. And I am telling you, I'm not just I'm , this is not just blowing smoke. This is a message. You do not want to miss Callery fam this Sunday across all three of our campuses, man. It is a great, great one of our guys was in tears yesterday. Wow. As we talked about how important this message was, so boy, I cannot wait. I hope I can tune in. I don't know if I'll be tuning in or where I'll be Sunday morning or at another church, but you will, you will absolutely be blessed and pray for John . He gets ready to preach this message.
Speaker 1Absolutely excited to hear from John this weekend. Again, we are in the summer schedule, so it's at 10:00 AM online. Uh , you can join us on the app or on the website or on Facebook or YouTube. You're gonna trip over that stream if you're anywhere on the internet. Uh, but also here at Clearwater Eastlake, Seminole 10:00 AM. Uh , we'd love to have you join us and gonna get there a little early cuz these, these are some packed rooms right now. So get there, get a good seat. So you can say hi to everybody. Uh, it's a fun time here at Calvary and we will all be praying for you pastor for our team as they're up in Nashville. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Thanks for sharing it. And for telling your friends about it, leaving reviews, all those things are so helpful as all we'll be back . Uh , with another episode here very soon.