We can definitely rule out that outgoing president Dr. Bobby Welch wasn’t drunk when he said the following statement last night:
“Maybe if we spent less time blogging we would spend more time baptizing.”
Uh, er, um, hmmm . . .
Maybe if we spent less time going down side streets bloggers wouldn’t have so much to write about. I can remember less than a year ago when Welch wrote that Calvinism was detrimental to the Great Commission. For me, that was when it just got started. Thank you, Dr. Welch, for being a catalyst for the blogging revolution which is making such an impact in the SBC.
What an incredibly irrelevant and untheological thing to say.
Well, uh, maybe if people drank less milk, then they’d drink more Dr. Pepper…uh.
Thanks for calling out these guys when they make statements that are absurd and that could have been overheard at a Jr. high lock-in.
And thatnks to Scott S. for actually posting something in 2006:)
Yeah, Scott was on a roll this week. I have to say that my heart swells in pride for his bountiful blogging. 🙂
Some who may have caught this post may have seen a more lenghty commentary by me. It was hard and reactive, and after listening to his message last night and the context in which he said this quote, I decided to change what I said a little bit.
However, the point remains the same. This statement by Dr. Welch makes absolutely no sense. As Calvinism has become the whipping boy in the SBC posts, bloggers are now responsible for a 4.15% decrease in baptisms in the SBC this year? Yikes. Bloggers are making a bigger impact than I had ever imagined.
To me, this statement just shows us how out of touch our denominational leaders really are. My guess that haven’t heard of a blog until they read what we were saying about them, until they realized that Baptist Press was doing their homework by reading what SBC bloggers were saying, until they Google their name and find link after link to bloggers who are writing about the SBC issues and have the courage to say what others won’t say and the liberty to say what other’s can’t say.
My guess is that in the next couple of months, you will see a bunch of new SBC bloggers as a result of the exposure we have received in the SBC. If that happens, watch out, because baptisms will really be in trouble.
One last thought: Since when was the Great Commission just getting people baptized? What about “making disciples of all nations” and “teaching them to observe all that I ahve commanded you”? With Welch’s push to baptize and pressure to reach some arbitrary number, we are perpetuating the problem that SBC is plagued with, a problem our leaders refuse to face.