Lots of you are visiting from Steve McCoy’s Reformissionary site; welcome!
Two thoughts: (1) Finally!  Baptists who write comments! Keep up them up!  (2) The lawyer in me would protest, but even from a cameraphone picture, it’s obvious that “way above [my] head” is an understatement.

I post a little of everything, but mostly about churches (or groups of churches) and their rules for living together — a topic long hidden behind the dusty name “polity” (*snore*)  and long hated because it usually comes up in a crisis.  My goal is to help pastors and (especially) church planters think about their rules before there’s trouble.

Your comments, concerns, and questions are always welcome; my e-mail is “jon” at this domain name.

The Pacific Northwest region of the American Baptist Convention has broken away from the national convention, because the denomination appointed homosexuals to denominational posts.  The Chicago Tribune reports…

For many years, the SBC avoided being involved in undergraduate education; it was left to state conventions to fund colleges. After the loss of Baylor, SBC Seminaries have significantly enlarged the size of their undergraduate schools — to the point that state colleges are beginning to feel the squeeze.

Missouri’s Hannibal La Grange College is bringing the issue to the forefront; according to the MBC Pathway, HLG’s trustees are asking for the Missouri Convention to consider the implications of state convention gifts to Midwestern Seminary’s undergraduate program.

Is there a good reason to keep undergraduate education in the states? Or should undergraduate education be a ‘cooperative’ effort among all Baptists?

A friend forwarded me a link to bringbackpete.com, which was created after the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Denver, resigned. According to this article in Christianity Today, the board of Calvary was controlled by a former pastor of Calvary. Members allege that the Board remained loyal to the former pastor, and that Church funds were being siphoned to the former pastor’s new ministry in California.

As I’ve said before, I think ‘elders’ are biblical, and can be a good idea — but unaccountable elders can be just as bad as an unaccountable pastor, or an unaccountable deacon body.

Aryn and I are in Chicago for my sister’s graduation from Wheaton College, and are having a great time.

This morning, we had some Caribou coffee with Steve McCoy (yes, that one), who is much, much cooler in person than his blog would make him appear. But he’s only half as cool as Molly and the kids, who graciously put off their travels by a couple of hours to accomodate some random Texans Missourians.

This afternoon, we scrounged the car for spare change to throw into baskets on the Northwest Tollway, the North-South Tollway, and the East-West Tollway. And after watching my sister, Holly, conduct two fabulous songs at Wheaton tonight, we all went to Ethel’s ‘chocolate lounge’ in Naperville.
Blogging will be light (which is to say, like normal), until we return to Kansas City, but there’s a lot going on in the next few weeks, so I plan for things to pick up!