We Must NOT Surrender Funerals and Take Back Weddings

Marrying and burying, these two rituals of the Christian religion used to be an experience of faith and the Christian hope.  This is not true anymore.

Needless to say, in a culture that values “deciding for ourselves right and wrong” over divine revelation (which much of our culture considers archaic) the idea that a marriage ceremony or a funeral service should focus the relationship between God and humanity is often ignored.  Far to often, these symbolic rituals of human life and fate are turned into attempts to entertain or project individual preferences over the divine/human relationships that they were intended emphasize.

Weddings have become an attempt to live out a perceived fantasy with little attention paid to vows said before God.  Funerals are becoming more a “what about me-they are dead” event filled with technological toys, personal platform for egos, and very little reflection on our mortality and its meaning.

Those of us who are called are perhaps the last line of defense in this aspect of the cultural war.  Yes, the interests of the family are important, but in the case of weddings they can be overwhelmed by infatuation and cultural pressures and need someone to remind them they will be asking for God’s blessing.  In the case of funerals, the family is often numbed with grief and issues long suppressed thus easy prey for others who would  try to gain the attention or dominate the family’s emotions.  Funerals should be a time for facing our mortality, dealing with issues of grief, renewing focus on the Blessed Hope, and finding support in the Word of God and rituals of our faith.

I know the CEO mindset really doesn’t have time for death.  The entertainment orientation would just as soon exploit it or push it out of the way.  The market ministry does not know how to use it effectively in a culture that denies its reality.  God is counting on those called to step up and seize the moment.

Paige Patterson, A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

UPDATE:  Perhaps it would be fun for the readers of this blog to write their own captions for this picture.  

Mine would be, “If only they would make this game for hunting Calvinists!”

 

Ash Wednesday, A Time to Remember What is Important

As I wrote my confession during the early morning service I remembered other times I had reflected on my own sinfulness.  As I put the paper in the bowl to burn, the 2 Corinthians 4:7 passage of a treasure in clay pots.  I was not putting a treasure but my trash.  My confession, the trash of my own sinfulness, offered to God and in its place Jesus gives the treasure of forgiveness.  As the smoke incence and burning confession rose in the air, I am remind of the reality of a funeral pyre of my own in the future.  ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  However, because of Jesus being the vessel which became sin for me, I will rise to be with Him.

This is what is really important.

Kenneth’s Comments (We need more Kenneth-type folks)

As the SBC is considering changing its name perhaps DBU needs to change its “servant-leadership” slogan to “Cash for Cook and Poorhouse for Professors” from the information Kenneth has provided.

It is a shame how greedy Baptists have become!

Kenneth writes:

DBU President Gary Cook makes MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH as the median of other university presidents according to the table in the article on this page. http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation/129979/

“The Chronicle”  table states that among private colleges with expenditures over $50 million in 2009, DBU President Gary Cook receives more than double the median total compensation of $385,909 for university presidents. From the Form 990 information I just read on Dallas Baptist University’s highest paid employees, it appears that no DBU professor makes even the median total compensation of $118,150. (DBU people reading this – correct me if I am wrong since I could not find anything on Gregory Rick or Suzanne Kavli.)

So to answer the poster’s question about how DBU’s faculty salaries compare to other universities, not very well.

However, several members of the administrative staff have total compensation over $150,000, but it is only the President and Executive Vice President who are doing VERY well making over $800,000 and $300,000 respectively.

Executive Pay Continues to Rise

We surveyed presidential pay at 482 private colleges with expenditures more than $50-million in 2009, using federal tax returns.

Category                         Median                  1-year change

Total compensation      $385,909        +2.2%
Base pay                                $294,489        +2.8%
Professor compensation  $118,150        –0.3%
College expenditures    $103.5-million  +2.6%

Expenditures and professors’ compensation, which includes full professors only, are for the 2010 fiscal year.

And then Kenneth posted:

Or put another way, the guy who gets to handpick trustees to serve on his board and set his salary, and who are probably his friends or who he probably gives lavish favors to (honorary doctorates, university awards, etc.), makes more than double the median salary for his job.

Most everybody else at DBU gets considerably less than the median.

Oh, and Guidestar puts DBU’s expenditures of $94 million slightly below the median on this table of $103.5 million.  So it would appear that the President’s salary should be where the professor’s salaries are — slightly BELOW the median, not well over TWICE AS MUCH as the median.

It will take more than name changes and slogans to undo the damage these CEO minded Baptists have done!

The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the opinions of any individuals or entities I am affiliated with.

An Occupier?

I took a little while to think about them most recent to this blog.  The comment referred to another comment as being made by someone who must be an “occupier-type”.

I guess this is the new put down from establishment-types (and yes, I understand I am playing into the polarity mindset with this comment).  There really is a polarity.  There are those who have manipulated the system (i.e. friends, family networking, and ignorance) to get paid far more than they deserve and then there are those who wonder how in the world could Baptists allow this to happen.  And then there are the blissfully uninformed masses in the middle.

Baptist polity is based up the idea that people will take responsibility and participate in the theocratic/democratic process.  The reality is we have a consumer culture that now drives the church as well as the other institutions and most consumers could care less what is going on in the board room as long as they get their bang for their buck.  Only those with a vested interest in institutions (i.e. stockholders and those who derive their livelihood from the institution really) care.

What group is the largest percentage of those who attend the convention?  The answer: those who get paid to be there or depend on money from the convention.  Just as Pressler was able to figure out how to take control of the SBC, some university presidents, “benevolence” agency heads, and bureaucrats have learned to make money from the giving by local churches.  They are using the trust and integrity of a previous generation to their advantage.  They talk the talk but pocket the cash.

The greed of Wall Street has become part of Baptist culture.  ”Servant leadership” has come to mean the thing as “ministerial-ly speaking”.  As long as the folks who make up the financial committees of the churches continue to send these folks money, the situation will not change.  It has become institutionalized.

There are folks like Robert who are incensed by this behavior, but they are the remnant.  There are to many like the author of the other comment who have no problem with what is happening.  Many of them are individuals who hope that one day, they too, will be able to get the big bucks.

As many of you have noticed I am not blogging as much on the convention.  I have come to understand that its corruption is so complete that it will not change until it dies.   I am putting my hope elsewhere.  I believe there are other, more accountable systems of polity than serve the cause of Christ much more effectively than Baptists.   I believe the true motivation of the C–k, H–l, R—s, Ev—-ts, Br–ks, Ar—os, and others will be revealed and that the one who judges the hearts of men will deal with them.  It is “their turn” now and perhaps with the harm they have done it is a good thing.

Also, I hope I am an occupier-type.

The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the opinions of any individuals or entities I am affiliated with.

Note:  George  is doing better.  Please keep him in your prayers.

A Reflection on the Baptist Reality

The following is from an online course I recently completed:

The church and the world do not expect absolute purity, but they can expect acknowledged standards of integrity. Otherwise, clergy lose their capacity for leadership, and such failures diminish the role of the church as a whole in providing credible leadership in the society.

It has been ten years almost to the date when I first confronted the individuals involved in the ValleyGate scandal.  Little did I know then just how corrupt the leadership of Baptist life had become.  Just like the fundamentalist leadership was never about the Bible, the moderate leadership was never about “baptist freedoms”.  It has always been about money and power on both sides.

I recently looked at the staff list of the convention I once believed in.  Interestingly enough, much of the same people who stood by and let the ValleyGate scandal happen are still receiving paycheck from funded by people who were kept in the dark about the staff’s complicity in the event.

The Baptist denominational structure fosters scandals like ValleyGate, protecting sexual predators, over compensation through manipulation of the boards and trustees, and a good old boy system more intent upon preserving its questionable lifestyles of those involved.  There will be more scandals and more fleecing of the saints in the name of “missions” and Rich Boy Bicycle Rides.

Oh, by the way, the only thing I received from those who worked for the convention for saving Texas Baptists, the SBC, the CBF, and the Baptist World Alliance millions of dollars in further losses from the actions of those involved in ValleyGate was condemnation and ridicule.  Still, I would do it again in a heartbeat.  Why, because I know it was the right thing to do.

Sadly, many of those still employed did not.

The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the opinions of any individuals or entities I am affiliated with.

Once Again, Baptist, Money Mismanagement, And Pseudo-Trustees

Again, Baptists are going to make the news.  The president of Midwestern Baptist Theological seminary is under a cloud.  A forensic level accounting audit has cast this cloud.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/7128/53/

Silver and gold again prove to be a weakness that Baptist leadership just cannot resist.

And again, where are the trustees?

They are getting out their brooms and looking for a rug.

The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the opinions of any individuals or entities I am affiliated with.

Note:  George, you are still in our prayers.

Looking Forward to Ash Wednesday

I intend to put together an Ash Wednesday service this year for the church I serve.

What I intend to do is begin the service at 7 PM so that those who work can get to their jobs on time.

The service will follow this format:

Prayer

Hymn

Scripture Reading:  Genesis 3:19,  2 Corinthians 4:7

Hymn

Time of silent meditation and written confession (individuals will be given paper to write their know sins or a prayer of confession)

Scripture Reading: Mark 1:15

Invitation of the ashes (those participating then can come to the communion table and mark their own forehead with ashes)

Departure (those participating will then drop their written paper with list of sins or prayer of confession into a pot with that has charcoal and frankincense – the page will be burned up).

I believe this will be a memorable way of beginning the Lent season.   Symbolic services like this can be helpful in spiritual formation and provides an opportunity to use the ashes on one’s forehead to tell others why they are there (thus an opportunity to witness).