Category: Uncategorized

Thank you for all of your prayers and kind comments last week. I just needed a break and y’all were very gracious about it. I never expected such an outpouring of sweet comments and messages. My followers are the best, and you are so much kinder to me than I deserve.

One of the things last week finally gave me the time to do was to sit down and prayerfully think through the daily pressure of maintaining an online presence. It takes a lot of time and work to…

• post blog content five times a week
• study, research, and write original articles and content 3-4 times a week
• write podcast scripts
• maintain a daily presence on seven social media platforms
• create original memes
• prep and travel for conferences
• do guest appearances on other podcasts

…and whatever else I’m forgetting at the moment. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining. I love this ministry and what I do. I just don’t have enough hours in the day to do all of those things with the level of excellence I’d like to. And meeting all of those deadlines – mostly self-imposed – puts a lot of pressure on me (again, mostly self-imposed¹). That’s been nagging at the back of my mind for a while, but I’ve been so busy doing all of those things and meeting all of those deadlines that I haven’t really had time to contemplate it.

It’s no big whoop, I just need a little more time and a little less pressure. So I’m going to make a few changes. Some of them, the vast majority of you probably won’t even notice, but some of them, you will.

Effective immediately:

• I’m tinkering with the blog schedule. We’re going to give this a go and see how it works, and I might change my mind later, but right now, what I’ve decided to do is to cut back from blogging five days a week to three, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
  
  The Mailbag will move from Mondays to Tuesdays (and you don’t know how it’s killing me that Tuesday doesn’t start with an M for the alliteration – we might have to appropriate some Español and make it the Martes Mailbag :0)
  
  Wednesdays (during the non-summer months), we’ll alternate between the next lesson in the current Bible study and either an original feature article (what I used to run on Fridays – articles on false teachers, biblical topics, current events in evanglicalism, etc.) or other original content (movies, upcoming speaking engagement information, etc. – what I used to run on Tuesdays).
  
  Throwback Thursday will remain the same.
  
  If I have some extra content I want to share with you in a given week, I might throw that in on a Monday or Friday. (Like this post you’re reading right now.)
  
  The best way not to miss anything is to subscribe to the blog via email. If you’re using a computer, you’ll find the subscription box in the right sidebar. On your phone or tablet, scroll waaaaaay down. It’s near the bottom, between the “Good News” video and the picture of the piggy bank. (If you have trouble subscribing, click here for some advice.)

• I’m going to stop posting on my MeWe, Parler, and Gab pages. I’ll keep them open in case I ever need them (i.e. if I ever get kicked off the major platforms), but I’m no longer going to post content or interact. If you want to see my content on social media, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, (I’ll also continue to post first-run content on Pinterest) or subscribe to the blog via email (see above).

• I’m going to stop posting to my stories on Facebook (but not on Instagram). It’s the same content I post on my Facebook page, anyway.

• I’m going to cut back on the frequency of original memes I create and post on social media.

• I will most likely not post blog content during the days I’m traveling for speaking engagements.

• I’m going to take days off from posting content more frequently than I do now: when I’m prepping for conferences, when I just need a day off, etc.

That’s pretty much it for now. I’m toying with a few other minor ideas (there’s one thing I actually want to add if I can figure out how to do it), but I’ll give you a heads up on those when I make up my mind.

Thanks again for your understanding, your kindness, and your loyal readership and social media following.

¹I say “mostly self-imposed” because I’m not under financial or contractual obligation for most of my ministry. I don’t earn any income (from advertising or anything else) for blogging, podcasting, etc. The only remuneration I receive is from speaking engagements, and the handful of followers -whom I deeply appreciate- who donate through PayPal and Patreon.

Y’all, I’m sorry. I had every intention of getting back to blogging this week after the Southern Baptist Convention, but I’m afraid I need another week off.

In case you haven’t heard yet, issue-wise, things almost could not have gone worse. Tom Ascol, Voddie Baucham, and Javier Chavez all lost to other candidates. Rick Warren read a 6-minute ode to himself and his “accomplishments,” and the majority of the room gave him a standing ovation. Practically everything those of us on the doctrinally sound side voted for was defeated, and practically everything we voted against passed. Doctrinally sound Christians at the mics proposing biblical changes were interrupted, reprimanded, cut off, and had their microphones turned off by the leadership on the platform. The liberal contingent in the Convention has made it crystal clear that Christians who stand for fidelity to Scripture aren’t welcome in the SBC. (More on all of this later. I think.)

It was very bad, and to be sure, it was genuine spiritual warfare. Well, you don’t just walk off a battlefield without some injuries. The last several days (in addition to some things going on in my personal life) have left me more spiritually wounded and exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life, and, to be honest, I just don’t have anything to give right now.

I don’t mean to sound dire and dramatic. I just need to spend a little extra time by myself with the Lord this week, and I’ll be fine. Pray for me, if you think about it.

I hope all of you have a wonderful week, and I look forward to being back with you soon.

Hello friends:

Just a quick note to let you know that I’m not going to be blogging this week. In the wee hours of tomorrow morning I’ll be on my way from Louisiana to Anaheim, California, where I’ll be serving as a messenger from my church to the Southern Baptist Convention.

If you’re attending the Convention, I’d love to meet you. Please feel free to come up and say hi if you see me. I’m also going to try to do a few pop-up meet and greets when I have a few minutes to spare, so keep an eye on my Facebook and Twitter feeds for spur of the moment announcements about where to meet me.

If you’re staying home and need some good content to keep you busy, we’ve got a new episode of A Word Fitly Spoken dropping this week that I think you and your church will find helpful and encouraging, so be sure to catch that.

You can also go “archive diving” here on the blog, and see what you find that’s of interest. Check out the tabs in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, type something into the search bar, or go to the category cloud (in the right sidebar on your computer, or at the bottom of the blog on your phone or tablet) and start clicking away.

If you think about it this week, please pray for me and for the entire SBC. This year’s Convention will be pivotal in many ways. It is my prayer that all of us who are attending will humble ourselves, uphold and submit to the authority rightly-handled Scripture, and seek to glorify God in all we think, say, and do.

See you soon!

It’s been a bit of a week, and I needed to get some things done around the blog, so I spent yesterday tidying up a few things…

On my Speaking Engagements page…

I added an FAQ link for my conference organizers (and anybody who wants to know what I like for breakfast or what kind of microphone I prefer when I speak, I guess). And if you’d like to be a conference organizer, there’s lots of other great info there as well for scheduling me to speak, how to organize a conference on a small budget, etc.

I also added a new conference for April 2023 in Greenwich, Ohio. Not many details yet, but if you’re in the area, you’ll want to check that one out.

At the Popular False Teachers & Unbiblical Trends tab, I added links for a bunch of teachers and ministries that I (and in a couple of cases, others) have written or podcasted about in the past, but hadn’t yet filed up there in my “filing cabinet” where you can have easy access to them. Go check it out! (And if you know of a teacher / ministry / unbiblical trend I have written/podcasted about that I’ve forgotten to list, comment below and let me know so I can add a link.)

That’s it. No big whoop. :0)