DEEP // WIDE // LIGHT

To my church family at Raymond Road Baptist Church: Be in prayer with me about the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention on June 14-15, 2022, in Anaheim, California. This post is long and a bit complex, but I want you to know what is happening in our beloved Southern Baptist Convention. If you choose not to read through all this, just know that the SBC is currently trying to make reforms to how they handle sexual abuse allegations at the national office in Nashville. There is misinformation out there about the things that have occurred recently, and some news articles misrepresent the situation. Among other things, there will be discussion and voting at the Annual Meeting on June 14-15 about what to do in response to the report from Guidepost Solutions (not affiliated with Guidepost magazine), an independent investigative firm that released a lengthy and detailed report about the SBC Executive Committee and about the Executive Committee staff in Nashville. The report showe...

To my brothers and sisters in Christ at Wynndale Baptist Church : From Aaron Tucker and family: After three months of intense prayer, we as a family all believe that God is calling us to a new ministry, and away from Wynndale. I will be with you for another two weeks, and my last day of ministry with you will be Wednesday, March 30, 2022. I have accepted God’s call to a new ministry. Raymond Road Baptist Church of Jackson has asked me to be their next senior pastor. I am both grateful for the grace of God and humbled by the responsibility for this opportunity to preach and to lead. Please pray for me. Pray that I will honor Christ as I seek to follow Him and as I seek to lead others to Him. I am praying for the continued blessings of the grace of God to help me, because I know that I will need Him. But any excitement we feel about a new ministry is tempered by great sadness as we now have to say goodbye to our Wynndale church family. In fact, to be completely honest, I wrestled quite ...

Here are some lessons that I am learning in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine life. It is often assumed that those like me who minister to younger generations prefer technology - its ability to reach more people, and its convenience, and its ability to enhance the presentation of the good news.  However, at the risk of being the only youth leader in all of youth ministry who feels this way, I wholeheartedly do NOT prefer ministry through technology.  Ministry is personal and spiritual. When you minister through a medium or a screen, you dilute the personal nature of ministry. You dilute the ministry to the soul.  One of the lessons that the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching me is that technology is an insufficient format for ministry. Please don’t misunderstand. Technology is a valuable tool. But it is only a tool, and its value is too often overly exaggerated.  How is student ministry changing during the pandemic and forced isolation? We...

To my brothers and sisters in Christ in Philadelphia, Mississippi , After several months of intense prayer, I and Marion and the kids all believe that God is calling us away from Philadelphia. We believe that we have been called to move from Philadelphia to Clinton, Mississippi. We are staying here through the end of the school year, and through all of the graduation ceremonies, and my last day will be Friday, May 27, 2016. I have accepted God’s call to a new ministry opportunity. The church is Wynndale Baptist Church , just south of Jackson in Terry, MS. The ministry is Associate Pastor of Students and Missions. It is exciting to imagine how God might use me (1)in ministry to students and their families, (2)in ministry to this church as an associate pastor, and (3)in ministry in this congregation’s missions efforts as they seek to fulfill the Great Commission. We are also excited about how God might use Marion in her continued work with the STEM Institute at Mississi...

I shared the following words at the memorial service for Angela Michelle Wilson , at Oak Forest Baptist Church, in Jackson, Mississippi, on February 6, 2016.  Today is a celebration. Do you remember how easily Angela celebrated? Her smile? How easily she could love people? Do you know why? Angela would want you to know why she smiled so often! At the family’s request, I want to share with all of you why she smiled so much… why she loved so easily. As I tell you why, I want you to notice two stories happening at the same time: God’s story of his son Jesus, and God’s story of his daughter Angela. PART 1 – CREATION These stories start in the beginning. As in, the very beginning. The beginning of the Bible describes how our world came into existence. It says, “In the beginning, Godcreated the heavens and the earth.” Some of the things we all love – sunsets, a summer rain, loving animals, majestic mountains, the sound of waves on the beach – God made ...

Sanctification : being made holy, or being set apart It happens every time we attend a Jesus conference or camp! We are reminded of the bad news of sin and the good news of forgiveness and love, and we turn back to God. Time after time, students experience this phenomenon. Praise God for his working! And yet… The next question on their young hearts is always the same:  “What can I do to feel this close to God back home?”  The frequent concern in the older hearts of adults is similar:  “Why do I not always feel close to God?”  There is a single answer to both questions – sanctification. The words of John the Baptizer ( John 3:30 ) fit quite nicely here to explain it succinctly: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The first time we claim that Jesus has become our Master, the first time we ask forgiveness of a holy God, we are set free from sin’s chains; we are saved from sin. Because the perfection of Jesus has been exchanged with our ...

You might have a need that seems entirely too big to fill. You might have a situation that seems positively too impossible to solve. What if God were ALREADY at work setting up just the help you need for just the time you will need it? There is an impossible need right now for the International Mission Board . They are doing a right thing, while doing a heart-wrenching thing. They are required to reduce the number of missionaries and workers in numbers as large as 600 - 800 people in order to be good stewards of God's blessings of financial receipts and of manpower. ( See the story here. ) This situation is in spite of an increase in annual receipts from their annual Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions . I want to tell you an inspiring story. In the tiny town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, a high school senior, who is a leader in his church youth group, wanted to plan a 3 on 3 basketball tournament for his community. The church leadership here at First Baptist Ch...