Thread by @joelrainey

Aside from introducing me to the Lord Jesus, one thing the #SBC gave me that I'll always be thankful for is a fierce loyalty to the local church.
It is precisely that loyalty that at this moment puts me at odds with the denom I've been part of my entire life. A 🧵 (1)

The church I am privileged to serve as pastor has also been #SBC since it was planted in 1986. But discussions/decisions/declarations in recent years leave me wondering if we are still truly valued by this larger family of churches. (2)

Less than a year ago, I invited my friend @aimeebyrdPYW to address our church in the AM services, and our ladies that evening. This had nothing to do with the controversy she was facing. She was (still is) a neighbor (lives 30 minutes away), and ...(3)

I had just finished her new book on the Song of Songs and believed she had something to say to us in the middle of a culture with so much sexual confusion. She did a phenomenal job, and our people were enriched by her teaching. (4)

Less than a week later, both she and I were excoriated in public. @CBMWorg leadership, without so much as a phone call or text to either of us, dragged us on social media, decrying "women in the pulpit,"etc. (5)

Here's the thing: I've been pastor here 7 years. In that entire time we've had FIVE sisters speak to us on a Sunday morning on SIX total occassions. I respect folks who don't think that's right, but it could hardly be called a "pattern." (6)

Plus, we didn't get attention for it until Aimee, which quickly brought me to this conclusion: This wasn't about a woman in the pulpit. It was about WHICH woman it was, and the questions she raised toward some awfully thin-skinned men. We were both punished for that. (7)

8 months after that, our church hosted Glenn Stanton from Focus on the Family to speak more specifically to parents and teens, as well as our whole church on how to love our LGBT neighbors while continuing to counter harmful LGBT ideology. (8)

We took a number of hits from our own community for that one, as expected. But it was at that point that I began thinking: "I don't think there is a single SBC entity head who would have my church's back right now." (9)

Why wouldn't the #SBC have our backs on an issue we are in lock-step on? Why would a people and pastor suspect that they wouldn't? Because my experience in recent years has taught me to believe that too many are far more concerned with image than reality. (10)

It's because "guilt by association" scares the daylights out of too many denominational leaders more afraid of being labeled "liberal" than actually being found unfaithful to Jesus. (11)

And the one that breaks my heart most is my own alma mater @SBTS. I wouldn't trade anything for the years I spent under those beech trees in Louisville. They made me who I am, though I don't suspect their President is very proud of that fact right now. (12)

But why would I send someone there? I currently have 11 men in a pastoral residency--teaching them how to shepherd God's people. Some of them will be elders at Covenant. Others we may add to the staff. Others still we may send to plant/pastor other churches. (13)

If I send them to a seminary and they return at odds with me over secondary or teriary issues, I'm a big boy and can handle that. Additionally, there are still so many wonderful, godly professors at my alma mater. (14)

But there is also so much invective coming from too many leaders there, and it raises a caution flag in my soul. Would my alma mater actually train someone to return to Shepherdstown, not just to disagree, but to see their church and pastor as an "enemy?" (15)

So when some of us react negatively to the @SBCExecComm decision around @Saddleback yesterday, its not merely because we disagree. In fact, perhaps this IS the right decision in the end. But the process short-cuts needed conversations and moves right to floor-fights. (16)

And it leaves a whole swath of us out here who are more conservative than Rick Warren wondering "are we next?" That's the reality. And I say this because in my conversations with many SBC pastors, I know my church is far from the only congregation with these concerns. (17)

#SBC leadership has some work to do here. And at base, its not even theological. It's relational. And this denomination is failing spectacularly. And given all they have given me--all that I frankly owe them, it makes me very, very sad. (18, end)