Where We Need Reform

Today I journeyed to hear Dr. Russ Moore speak about contemporary issues in the SBC. He spoke passionately for nearly three hours. Other than in direct responses to direct questions, he said almost nothing about national issues in the SBC. And yet everything he said was directly connected to every national issue in the SBC. It was a masterful presentation. Dr. Moore realizes, as I myself believe, that the most pressing issues facing us today have to do with the local church. The institutional local congregation was founded by Jesus Christ, and it must adhere to the New Testament pattern to realize the divine genius in its nature. In the process of restoring my older posts, I actually paused to read most of my older posts. In doing so, I realized how much I have allowed other people's agendas to shape my blogging in more recent days. I hope to be more intentional and less reactionary in the coming year. Dr. Moore's lecture reminded me of my sentiments expressed in this post from the early dawning of my blogging enterprise. My agenda is expressed in the Fifth Century Initiative, which I will be posting at the beginning of August. As a postscript, please allow me the personal privilege of expressing how much I dislike Dr. Moore:

1. I don't mind when people are a little bit smarter than I am, but it really bothers me to encounter people who are a whole order of magnitude smarter than I am.
2. On top of all that, Dr. Moore is younger than I am. For a man who is only thirty-five years old to have read so much, written so much, spoken so much, and learned so much is obscene. To think that, at his age, he holds such high position at the second-greatest seminary in the SBC is astounding.
3. Finally, and worst of all, for an Arkansan to be forced to concede such things about a Mississippian is quite nearly a violation of my Eighth-Amendment rights.

At least I can take some consolation in being so much better looking than he is.