Calvinist Flyswatter

Flounders' 2008 conference

FLOUNDERS SEEKING TO
"RENEW" AND "PLANT"

I received by USPS a fancy printed folder-poster which announces the 2008 National Founders Conference at Bethel Baptist Church in Owasso, Oklahoma, in the Tulsa area. Bill Ascol, brother of Tom, is Pastor.

The "keynote speaker" will be Ed Stetzer, who holds a denominational position at the Southern Baptist Convention's Lifeway Research department. I don't know much about Ed other than what I see, read, and hear on the Internet, but I assume that a good friend of Ed's at SBC headquarters apparently must have known him very well and helped him get this job.

It's often reported by sources on the Internet that Ed has "planted" churches in a few states, but I have not yet seen a reference to exactly where the churches are located or how they are getting along. Ed is only in his early 40s, but I have also read that he somehow has managed to teach in sixteen seminaries, including 3 years at Southern Seminary, according to his website.

I notice from his schedule of speaking engagements that Ed is evidently something on the order of an "equal opportunity" type of speaker, participating with various groups across the spectrum of professing Christianity regardless of some theological "boundaries" that tend to divide. Theologically, he says he is "a Biblicist." (Aren't we all!).

Currently, Ed seems to be "making a good enough living" just speaking at Conferences for "any and all" who can afford his fees. His corpulent body might also suggest that he is prospering enough to "live high on the hog," or perhaps he simply orders from the "super-sized" menus of fastfood restaurants. I hardly see how he would find much time to engage in "church planting" nowadays, for he is so busy fulfilling speaking engagements for the benefit of those who are seeking counsel about "renewing and planting" churches.

It seems that Ed is predominantly advertised as somewhat of an "expert" on church "renewing and planting," so I presume the Flounders are reaching out for whatever help they can get on "renewing and planting," if only from a "Biblicist." This could be a step in the right direction. Up to this point, the only "renewing and planting" which the Flounders seem to have accomplished involves the advocacy of divisive theoretical theological issues, seeking to "reform" Arminians to become "Reformed" Calvinists. I have not discerned that Stetzer himself is given to that sort of "renewing and planting," so it may be that he can inspire the Flounders to at least try a different approach from what they have had for so many years. Let's hope so.

It would be marvelous in our eyes if Ed could inspire some person or persons at the National Flounders Conference to be so "renewed" so as to somehow "recover" the Gospel to the extent that they succeeded in "planting" a church by making converts to Christ in contrast to making proselytes to "Reformed" Calvinism.

Tom Nettles on the program, too.

Another speaker at the conference will be Tom Nettles of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nettles, as we have before noted, reportedly invited Hardshell Baptist, Lasserre Bradley Jr., to the SBTS, but has yet to explan "Why?" Bradley has had some experience in "church planting," for when he left missionary Baptists to join the Hardshells, he proselyted a number of young preachers and others and "reformed" them according to Hardshell doctrine and practice.

Wonder if Tom Nettles was trying to get a few tips from Bradley on "renewing and planting"?

posted by Bob L. Ross @ 6:19 PM