The Backwoods Baptist: Recent Episodes
Harold Smith
We seek to apply a heaping helping of country fried commonsense to the issues facing Christians today. We praise the Lord for the educated men and the resources that are available to Believers today. Our concern is the absence simple yet sound teaching for the common man. Somewhere between Harvard and a bunch of hillbillies lies the backwoods. It is here that we talk church with an open Bible in the plain language of the people.
Somewhere between antisemitism and Israel idolatry is a healthy view of the nation of Israel. Regardless of your end time beliefs, Christians should hold a charitable view of the jews for a number of reasons. Lets talk about that.
Ronnie Qualls, pastor of FBC Bowlegs, OK joins me on the podcast today to talk about idolizing preachers. In the Information Age it is all to easy to fall in love with a internet preacher and become dissatisfied with your pastor. Pastors also run the risk of imitating their favorite preacher. The risk of making idols out of our favorite preachers is real and it can ruin our relationship with the local church.
Special Guest Wes Brown and Russell Threet join me to discuss the need for fellowship pastors and all Christians in general.
Opposition isn't a bad thing. God often uses opposition the humble and strengthen us at the same time. Sometime the worst thing that can happen to a pastor is the removal of all his opponents. Let's look at some physical and biblical examples of opposition making the believer better.
This podcast was recorded in our new office at the Backwoods Book Co in Van Buren, AR. This building used to be the Crawford County Ghost Hunters/Paranormal Society. In this episode we talk ghost and America's fascination with them.
I used to pray for the Lord to send more preachers but now I realize that more pastors is what we really need. Wether you have a pastor or you're seeking one this episode will help you to appreciate the office of pastor.
The lack grace among those who profess to believe in grace is becoming detrimental to christians today. Social media has became a hotbed of christians espousing pet doctrines and arguing against anyone who offers a different yet orthodox view. Many times these people justify their fierce debates as simply being soldiers of truth. They are declaring truth and fighting for the faith. The problem with this logic is the victims they are slaying are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. In the military these attacks are referred to as friendly fire. In this episode pastor Harold calls for restraint on the grounds of being gracious. Christians should show some grace.
After a 6 week hiatus its time to get back to the podcast. Our first episode of the new year covers a new ministry idea that I hope to implement in the days ahead. Please keep this matter in your prayers as we seek the proper place to cary it out.
The new year is right around the corner and countless Christians are going to begin a yearly Bible reading plan only to ditch by mid February. I have never read the Bible through in a year, but I have a new strategy. Join us as we seek a better more Biblical way to consume the Scriptures.
The desire to fit in and be a part of the crowd is built in to the human heart. When it comes to our faith we often just go along with things we don't agree with just to fit it. This leads to legalism, cronyism, and traditionalism. We need to embrace our own individuality and be comfortable with who God made us to be.
American pulpits are increasingly falling into a ditch on either side of the Bible preaching road. On one side you have the worldly centered pulpit that in lacking in Biblical exposition. On the other side you have the overly educational, dry, dusty, rigid out line style that give the congregation information and very little application. The worldly ditch has been around for years, but this other ditch is gaining ground. In this episode I'll describe examples of both and give advice to avoid them and stay Biblical.
The phrase "Know your audience" has been around for years and is good sound advice. When it comes to the worship of God it is all the more important. Preachers should prepare for an audience with God alone. When we gather for worship God should be our focus. However in today's culture there's a trend of trying to capture everything on our phone to share on social media. If our only audience is God, why do we have this desire to show our worship to another audience? Honestly, the true worship of God cannot be captured on our phones, it requires our personal presence. Join us today as we seek to put the breaks on videoing the worship of the Almighty.
One of the easiest ways to share the gospel is to share a tract. In this episode I cover various kinds of gospel tracts, where to get them, and share some ideas to help you give them away. Don't overlook the lowly gospel tract, it can be an effective tool in every Christian's evangelism.
Finding a church that suits your faith and practice can be harder than you may think. In certain parts of the country it may be nearly impossible. In this episode I'll give some practical advise and few tips to make your search more productive. Who knows, maybe I can be of help to you? You can always reach me a backwoodsbaptistpodcast@gmail.com
There are some obvious reasons to leave a church but there are some lesser reason as well. We will try to discuss them all and how to go about it on this episode.
As church attendance across America shrinks more and more professing Christians are skipping church. Even worse is the lack of instruction on the role of the church among this generation of pastor/teachers. The problem goes back for generations, back when evangelism began to out paced education. Many churches today have no criteria for membership at all, virtually anyone can join and they will never remove you. We even have churches with no formal membership at all. Does the Bible speak of church membership? Join me as I lay out 12 Biblical reasons for you to be an active member of a local church.
Just because you meet a Baptist who believes in election doesn't mean they are a reformed baptist. Nor does it mean that you need to keep working on them in order to get them to fully embrace the Reformed tradition. They might simply disagree with several reformed doctrines and they probably even have biblical support for their disagreements. That leads us to address some of the problems with the reformed baptist movement and it's not doctrinal. Many of Reformed apologist on social media are often young, educated, and over confident. This leads many fellow Baptist to hold a low view of these cage stage cowboys, and in turn a low view of Reformed Baptist in general. I'm speaking in generalities because I'm speaking of the movement in general. I have many close friends who consider themselves Reformed Baptist, most if not all of them agree with the assessments I make in this episode. It's not an attack on our Reformed brothers, it a caution to the dangers of the current trajectory.
Christians enjoy a bond that the world doesn't know anything about, we are one in Christ. We love to worship together, eat together, study together, and spend time together. True Christians share fellowship with other Christians everywhere they meet. The evidence of Christ's love for us is demonstrated in our love for fellow Believers. In this episode I discuss the joy I have had by fellowshipping with saints all over the country.
This is a sermon that I recently preached at the 11th annual Preachers of Grace pastor's conference. In this message I seek to get beyond the fruit of America's problems (LBGT, abortion, gender confusion, corrupt politics) and lay the axe at the root. I firmly believe the root cause for the shape we are in can be traced directly to our independence from the person, presence, and plan of God. We as believers need to examine this issue and call our neighbors to a proper understanding of God.
Every church has a story. If we take the time to learn it we will be educated by the past and encouraged about the future. Give me 30 minutes of your time as I exhort you to learn your local church's history.
Will you be ready to speak if called upon without any notice? Impromptu speeches occur without warning and don't offer any time to prepare. These opportunities to "say a few words" often come up at family events, retirement parties, holiday gatherings, or during times of grief. God providentially places His children before an assembly to give a word of encouragement, advice, or comfort but all too often we shy away from them. The fear of not knowing what to say drives us to decline these invitations. I want to discuss the two biggest hindrances to impromptu speaking as well as give three keys to being ready if the opportunity arrises. In the end, I want more Christians to speak up when the world is looking for answers.
Fred and I discuss our concerns and Biblical objections to a loose but growing movement under the banner of Christian Nationalism. The movement has many leaders and varying opinions but all fall under a desire to merge Christianity with the nation. We give a brief recent history of this movement and discuss many of the errors committed by Christian Nations in centuries past. With the lack of clear biblical support and a track record of oppression and persecution we want to make a case for rejecting this ideology.
Should every God called, Spirit filled, Bible preacher go to seminary? Regardless of your personal feelings on the subject of formal education, there are many in academia who push young preachers to enroll in a Bible college or seminary. Many churches have a certain level of education listed as a criteria to even be considered as a pastoral candidate. Much like the business world, some churches have a pay scale that favors higher education. In certain circles you are measured by your level of education and all to often by the school you graduated from. Is there still a place for effective yet uneducated men in the ministry? In a society that pushes college I want to push back.
How big is your church? This question is all too often used to judge the health of a church. We live in a society that says size matters. But does the Bible say church size matters? Is bigger always better? Is attendance the best factor to measure church health? In this episode we will discuss the weaknesses of using attendance as a standard of church heath as well as identifying some better indicators of true church health.
Rejecting the proper role for each gender in the home and in the church is not our downfall, it's the fruit of it. We began this downward spiral when we rejected our Creator. We were created in His image and mankind has sought to dismiss that truth by explaining it away. This is most recently seen through the folly of evolution. The natural out flow of having chaos as your creator is confusion as to order of this creation. While the world falls headlong down this rabbit hole the church should be clear about our God given gender roles. Sadly our silence and even participation is adding to the confusion. Let us go to the Word of God for the answer to this problem.
Somewhere between Gandhi, the movie Full Metal Jacket, and Barney Fife is a proper understanding of church security. Too many church security teams resemble the cartoon character Dale Gribble from King of the Hill. While others take a pacifist approach to their safety. Let me apply some backwoods logic to a sticky situation. But before we get started I want to update you on the events of my personal life and why I've been away for the last few weeks.
The short answer is that I am a missionary sent out of Lee Creek Baptist Church in Van Buren, AR who works with pastorless churches and churchless pastors. The long answer and biblical support for this kind on ministry are found in today's podcast.
If you're a member of a Baptist church you've been in a business meeting. There's a good chance you've had a bad experience in a business meeting. The bad business meeting is really the result of a bad church or bad leadership in the church. These bad experiences have led a few churches to quit these meetings all together. I don't think this is the answer. I believe you should address the church issues and conduct business to the glory of God. In this episode I'll give some practical advise on business meeting and rebuke those who refuse to hold them. I even make a biblical case for the use of committees, give it a listen.
We are clearly in the age of the Christian mega conference. Many of the national conferences host thousands of attenders each year. These events have grown to the point that they teeter on celebrity culture drawing from an all-star line up of famous preachers. During these events social media fills with pictures of average Christians posing with the favorite teacher/preacher/author. Exhibit halls fill with every sort of Christian vender under the sun. Shame on you if you wait to long to buy your ticket and miss out. I'm asking you to unplug from the culture for 30 minutes and hear me out, is this the way to do a conference? Is bigger better? Where does this lead us into the future?
What should we wear to church? The answers range from a legalistic uniform to nearly nothing at all. In this episode I lay out four different common categories of church attire and recommend an approach that glorifies God without offending man.
So what do we do with all these opinions? Who's right? Who's wrong? One thing we know for certain, everybody can't be right. In this episode I lay the ground work for holding Scripture as our standard of right and wrong. Our views must be Biblically consistent or they are simply our views. We don't need opinions nearly as much as we need bed rock truth. Let's go to the Scriptures and cut through all these opinions.
Social media is shaping the way we think about situations as well as making it easier to share our own opinions. This modern way of consuming and publishing information can have both positive and negative impacts on our day to day lives. This episode seeks to present the best and worst of both sides of the social media coin. I also offer a challenge to limit your consumption of social media and return to some of the healthy practices that you enjoyed before the Information Age.
The Southern Baptist Convention has been in a downward spiral for a few years now. Why do so many churches and pastors stay in this broken system. Why does the Convention stay in a constant state of turmoil going from scandal to scandal? Will it ever end? I'll give three reasons for the current state of the SBC. These are more practical reasons than historic reasons but I think will shed some much needed light on this saga.
A short drive anywhere in our country will invariably lead you to cross paths with an odd church name or two. It seems to be a contest as to who can come up with the newest most absurd church name. There's one in our area called "Beyond Church." Lets talk about this trend and offer some practical options to curb these downward trends.
When we equate time in the outdoors as highly as attending church we do church a disservice. The same goes for blending our hobbies with the worship of almighty God. While creation clearly points us to a Creator, it falls drastically short of communing with our Creator.
The debate between expositional and topical preaching has drug on for years. On both sides we have those who say their method is the only way or the best way to preach. I seek to give the pros and cons to each approach as well as great preaching examples of each. In the end I offer my opinion for a healthy way forward.
A healthy view of rest walks a fine line between laborious and lazy. Wether you burn or rust out, either way, you are out. The world around has their own ideas about what rest looks like and how much each of us need. I find no hard and fast rule in Scripture about how and how often we should rest but I will give you some practice insights about gauging your own work load and rest cycle. I also poke at golfers little. Ok, I poke at them a lot.
This is a plea to speak and preach in the common language of the people. Using big words or your knowledge of other languages might impress your friends and family but it doesn't advance the gospel.
It seems revival are becoming a thing of the past. As Baptist we shouldn't let revival meetings fall by the wayside. Yes they can be misused and abused, but they can also be a tool to encourage the church and stir out hearts to evangelism. Let's revive the revival meeting.
Christians are recipients of God's generosity in Christ and He has withheld no good gift from us. Shouldn't we be the most generous people on the planet? Yes, we should but all too often we are not. The cares and patterns of this world cloud our judgement and we can find our naturally generous spirit to be waning. Let pray for a revival of generosity in 2023 among the household of faith. Here are some practical areas in our lives where we can refocus our generosity in the coming year.
Baptist need to return to the practice of baptizing converts in public bodies of water. This is a great way to publicly proclaim the death burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go to the boat ramp, city park, swimming hole, or any body of water where people gather and sing a few hymns, explain the ordinance, lower the repentant believer into the water and lift them out to walk in newness of life. Do it all to the glory of God in obedience to His commandment and for a public declaration that our God is still saving sinners through the proclamation of His gospel.