Pastor FBC Farmersville TX; Lake City, AR; Baylor Univ; SWBTS. SBC Messenger. Cooperating joyfully.
Farmersville, TX 75442
- Tweets 56,597
- Following 2,596
- Followers 36,074
- Likes 43,698
I remember it like yesterday. Forty-eight years ago, I knelt by my mother’s bed and held her hand while she led me to the Lord.
Four days ago, I again knelt by her bed and held her hand while she was slowly dying.
A few hours ago, she fell into the arms of her Savior.
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A Statement on Johnny Hunt's "Restoration"
praisegodbarebones.blogspot.…
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Egypt Tunisia Lybia Morocco Algeria Mali Senegal The Gambia Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Conakry Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Cape Verde Ghana Burkina Faso Niger Nigeria DRC Sudan South Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Kenya Tanzania Uganda Rwanda Zambia Zimbabwe Lesotho Namibia Chad SAfr
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If, Heaven forbid, you should experience a disaster, your odds of getting the help you need in a timely fashion is directly proportional to the number of Evangelical Christians who live in proximity to you.
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I am tired.
I am grieving.
Apart from posting a link to the livestream from Mom’s service (2:00 PM tomorrow), I am going to step away from social media for a few weeks. Thank you.
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I’ve stopped posting pictures of her, because she’s so much not herself, but enough of that rubbish.
This is my beautiful mother, and I spent the whole day with her today. Alzheimer’s hasn’t taken away her beauty, her faith, or the joy she gives me whenever I see her.
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People who think I have the power to sway tens of millions of votes ought to see me try to get one teenager out of the house on time.
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I just watched the #AhmaudArbery video. Wow. I don't want to live in a society in which private citizens can think you might match the description of a criminal, attempt to detain you on a public thoroughfare, shoot you when you resist, and claim self-defense.
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Here's what I think to myself when something like that happens: "I'm caught up in this mess because our Convention bestowed a great honor upon me. Someone else is caught up in it because someone abused her. Suck it up, Barber."
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I’ve got four days left to lose 24 pounds and read the Hebrew Old Testament through twice.
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Can I share with you nine principles for success with social media that will work for any Christian?
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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I’m enjoying Anaheim, but I miss my cows. Going home tomorrow. Ready to scratch the neck of Lottie Mooooooon.
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Hey, @freedomsbride, I'm praying for you tonight. You deserve to be loved and comforted by God's people. This much is 100% certain: Ain't nothing bad that's happening in the SBC your fault.
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I love that God sometimes brings 8-year-olds to salvation and sometimes brings 80-year-olds to salvation. Some conversions tell us "this is how much you can sin and yet still be saved." Other conversions tell us "this is how little you can sin and yet still need saving."
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I’m thankful for @RickWarren’s courageous advocacy for full religious liberty for Muslims, our different opinions over pastoral complementarianism notwithstanding. It was a pleasure to meet him this week. #SBC22
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Tonight a process server is planning to show up at our Prayer Meeting to notify me officially that I am being sued for speaking out about another abuse case.
At Prayer Meeting.
I make this statement knowing full well what it may cost. But every word of this statement is true.
A Statement on Johnny Hunt's "Restoration"
praisegodbarebones.blogspot.…
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Dear #SBC21, if at any point today you find yourself in a room where they are telling you how wicked everyone is who is not in that room, get up and walk out.
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I'm deleting my Twitter app off of my phone and seeking some quiet time for a while. No grievances with y'all. I'm just tired!
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Most pastors aren't abusing anyone, aren't raising money for a Gulfstream jet, aren't advancing cockamamie theories about stolen elections, and aren't vain despots. Most pastors will humbly enter their pulpits tomorrow and preach Christ crucified.
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If you ask an abortion abolitionist to protect a woman from being prosecuted for having her life saved from an ectopic pregnancy, he'll be glad to put that sentiment into a tweet.
He just won't put it into his proposed law.
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Live in such a way as to avoid being featured in an episode of "The Rise and Fall of the Southern Baptist Convention." @SBCExecComm
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I told a deacon today that I worry about having surgery at a Methodist hospital—I want a Baptist anesthesiologist who puts people all the way under.
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Dear @ChickfilA, I don’t know if you’ve been following current events in the Southern Baptist Convention, but I’m going to need you to roll out the peach milkshake sometime in the next 7 days. Thank you.
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Whatever else you see from her abusers, y'all know that @freedomsbride had siblings who corroborated that she was abused, right?
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145 years ago today the ship carrying a young Lottie Moon landed in China. What’s to stop God from starting today in your life something that will make an everlasting difference for the Gospel?
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The adjective is always necessary for clarity, because the distance between a biblical conservative and a political conservative is as vast as the difference between “Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth” and “Let’s go Brandon.”
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I’ve watched footage from the @firstdallas rally yesterday, and it is as bad as everyone says it is. Such behavior deserves rebuke.
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Any church the @HoustonChron has identified as employing a pastor with a history of sexual misconduct, if still employing that pastor in June and haven’t already left the SBC by then, should be disfellowshipped at that meeting. I’m willing to stand up and make that motion.
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Funeral services for my mother, Carolyn Barber, will be held Friday, 2:00 PM, at First Baptist Church, Lake City, AR.
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I'm praying tonight for Paul Pelosi, and I invite Southern Baptists to join me in doing so. What happened to him is reprehensible.
foxnews.com/politics/nancy-p…
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OK, for everyone who reacted negatively to this, a few quick observations:
1. It’s no shocker to discover that the President of the Southern Baptist Convention is a [gasp] BAPTIST! Advocating for religious liberty is a core Baptist belief.
I’m thankful for @RickWarren’s courageous advocacy for full religious liberty for Muslims, our different opinions over pastoral complementarianism notwithstanding. It was a pleasure to meet him this week. #SBC22
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I’m adding a male to the herd this week—a consort for Lottie Mooooooon.
I’ve decided to name him Bully Graham.
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I don't carry a weapon, concealed or otherwise. I'm about to explain why.
I also own a large number of guns, including an AR-15. I'm about to explain why.
As a bonus, I'm also going to suggest an underappreciated reason for why this topic is so divisive.
🧵
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My COVID-19 test results are back. I have tested positive. I have some lingering symptoms, but I'm doing OK.
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My seminary experience changed my life. Sharpened my theology. Gave me relationships with professors that bless me to this day.
That’s what Jen Lyell deserved. That’s what Southern Baptists sacrificially gave to provide for her. That’s not what she got.
Last night she died.
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Contrary to what you may have heard or read, the Christian sexual ethic is (a) pretty clear in the Bible, (b) emphasized as important there, (c) inseparable from Christianity, and (d) for our good.
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While I was busy at #SBC23, my siblings made a decision: Gifts in memory of my mom can be made to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.
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I will be off Twitter (for most purposes) for a while. Prayers appreciated for my mother.
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Hey SBC missionaries, professors, strategists, and denominational workers: Every month @fbcfarmersville gleefully gives 10% of what we receive to support you. You’re not a problem I’m trying to solve; you’re a solution I’m trying to promote. Thankful for you.
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Your church is not an event you attend; it’s a body to which you belong.
The Southern Baptist Convention is not a body to which you belong; it is an event you attend.
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When you’re mad because someone who was thinking about getting an abortion freely chose not to get an abortion…again…bloodthirsty is an appropriate adjective to describe that.
Warren: “Crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber abortion clinics by 3-1. We need to shut them down all around the country.”
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I spent several hours a few weeks ago with @andersoncooper talking about the Southern Baptist Convention.
As the Southern Baptist Convention finds itself at the center of a sexual abuse scandal under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, @andersoncooper speaks with the convention’s newly-elected president, Bart Barber. Sunday, on 60 Minutes. cbsn.ws/3rCsnaI
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May the Lord let me die some year during VBS, and may the church not take down even one decoration when they have my funeral in the meeting room.
May those who mourn me be reminded by paper toucans that my generation existed to preach the gospel to the generations below us.
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All of my life, my mother has worked hard to show me that she loves me. Today it was hard work for her to tell me that she loves me, but she clawed her way through the debris of Alzheimer’s and did it, just like she always has.
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Satan has a plan for your life, and it's got a lot less to do with microchips and globalism than with getting you to indulge your own anger, lust, and greed.
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My father-in-law Dale Brady is in COVID ICU in Springfield, MO, and is not doing well at all. Prayers for him and for his family are appreciated.
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Abortion pills kill somebody on purpose. That’s a good reason for the FDA not to approve them.
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The angels in Heaven rejoice over the salvation of one sinner more than the girls at VBS rejoice when their offering goes ahead of the boys’.
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On behalf of millions of Southern Baptists, I send condolences to President Jimmy Carter, to the Carter family, and to the people of the Plains Baptist Church upon the death of First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
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Twelve years ago today, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association removed Mormonism from its list of cults (Christianity-related non-Christian religions). Why? Because Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee.
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When schools, governments, and business close to combat the spread of a disease, a church's decision to gather anyway is not merely a choice not to join the other institutions of a society, but a choice to work to undo what the entire community is united to try to accomplish.
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Hey @baptist_news. Victims get to decide when, how, and what to share about abuse. Period.
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Somewhere right at this moment a Southern Baptist is pulling a yellow windbreaker and a yellow cap out of a closet.
#Ian
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"In Christ Alone" is an amazing hymn for the ages, but "He Will Hold Me Fast" also deserves a whole lot more than 15 minutes of fame.
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I never use obscene gestures. For those in my category, someone needs to develop a simple, clean gesture that communicates “I have valid concerns about your competency to operate a motor vehicle on a public thoroughfare.”
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Republican primaries are upcoming around here. I’ve taken note of candidates who last week tweeted rationalizations, justifications, or minimizations of the January 6 riots, and I’ll not cast a vote for a single one of them.
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Shout out to all of those who've never in 20 years realized they were wrong about anything and who think somehow that's a good thing.
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Willie McLaurin: "Please forgive me for the harm or hurt that this has caused."
Biblical Christianity offers you one and only one response to that plea, fellow Southern Baptists. Yes, Willie, I forgive you.
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This tweet represents the lowest point of dishonesty to which we can descend when we sell out to the crass tone of secular politics instead of following the way of Christ.
In Louisiana this spring and at SBC annual meeting this summer, Brent Leatherwood sided against the innocent preborn now he leads the ethics and policy arm of the SBC. We glory in our shame.
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Eighteen years ago tomorrow, Sarah was born. Eighteen years ago Sunday, we brought her home from the hospital.
Eighteen years ago tonight, we had no idea any of that was going to happen. #Adoption
What a ride! What a blessing!
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Long have I believed that the @SBCExecComm reports are too long, filled with filibuster and self-promotion. Now that they’re voting not to listen to us messengers, who’d support me in amending the #sbc22 agenda to cut their time to 30 minutes and not listen to them as much?
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The Republican President is caught on the phone harassing a Republican official in Georgia to throw an election in his favor; meanwhile, a Democratic representative is slaughtering both the nature of prayer and the Hebrew language on the altar of political correctness.
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One last thing before @60Minutes airs their segment tomorrow night. I want to be sure to say this before I know what appears in the segment after their edits.
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Well, THAT was unfortunate! (I posted a picture of my ballot, including my cell phone number)
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People do not come to faith in Christ by way of our finding an approach that convinces them.
People come to faith in Christ by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.
No, I am not a Calvinist, but I don't have to be—even the Wesley brothers agreed with what I just wrote.
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Does anybody else find themselves, no matter what translation lies before their eyes, reverting involuntarily into the KJV of their childhood when reading aloud passages like Psalm 23?
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God is in control no matter what, but a lot of my ideological kinsmen are going to face a reckoning soon. When we do, we may find that we let a man who isn’t evangelical represent evangelicalism and a man who isn’t conservative represent conservatism, and the outcome wasn’t good.
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Dear @AmericanFamAssc, as a homeschooling dad, as a pro-life pastor, and as a believer who reserves sex to one man and one woman united in lifelong marriage, I’m wondering how it strengthens families for you to lie about people like @jdgreear who share all of those beliefs?
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I believe that God hears the cries of sex abuse victims. That’s good news for us if we are on the side of justice for them. If we are not, that’s something that should terrify us. It’s not about money or PR; it’s about that.
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If you want an authentic understanding of evangelical Christianity, turn off the TV, drive down to where Hurricane Laura made landfall, and find the people wearing these yellow shirts.
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Dear pastor-friend, be careful about your aversion to the political, whether it be pragmatic (to avoid offense) or idealistic (to avoid nationalism that veers into idolatry). The data suggest that your congregation needs discipleship about how to live as citizens.
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My daughter made this dress that she is wearing. Made it from scratch! Just scurried from the farm to watch her compete in a design competition.
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Today all the tweeting will be drowned out by the silent sound of yellow ballots waving atop outstretched arms. I love our process and am thankful for our messengers. I’ll see you in the hall. #sbc22
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Once I told @drmoore privately that I was about to disagree publicly with him about something. His reply: “We don’t dissolve friendships over SBC politics.”
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Maybe my greatness is not, in the end, the point at all. Maybe there is a power inherent to the living and active word of God. Maybe a base hit every week (i.e. a sound, expository sermon) is faithfulness in and of itself without my swinging for the fences.
If I’m honest, I don’t think anyone can deliver a powerful message in today’s context 48 times a year.
As my friend Jeff Henderson hauntingly asks leaders, “How many truly great messages do you have in you per year?” The first time he asked that question, I thought, “Um, zero.” But the real answer isn’t 0 or 48. It’s probably under 30, though. Maybe it’s closer to 20.
Which is why team teaching is such a great idea. Not only do you not have the pressure of preaching 48 times a year, but the congregation gets exposed to different voices and different styles.
When I was a younger preacher, I was too insecure to want to have other preachers who might be better than me stand up to preach. These days, I crave it.
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One last election-related thought: I will accept the outcome of the elections conducted today whether I like those outcomes or not.
Why? Again, because of Christian discipleship.
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I will vote today as an act of Christian discipleship, not as a strategy to fix the world.
In other words, I will vote in the way that seems to me is submissive to the will of Christ (contra voting in a way that protects my pocketbook, serves my special-interest group, etc).
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If the churches give you a job and you use it to prey upon the sisters of the church, you don’t get a job from the churches any more. This seems simple to me, and there’s nothing about it that prevents repentance and forgiveness.
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But here's the thing, folks: If an abortion abolitionist succeeds at the legislature, your state won't be governed by his tweets; you'll be governed by his laws.
He knows that full well.
You deserve to know it, too.
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4:00AM-ish: Born. Severe uterine prolapse.
5:30AM: Discovered wandering alone, trying to nurse other cows.
7:30AM: I found his mother.
9:00AM: after 8lbs of sugar and many failed attempts to reduce the prolapse, mother’s arterial bleeding was discovered.
10:00AM: mother died. I milked her out to collect colostrum for him.
11:00AM: we took him to the house.
11:01:00.003AM: He’s on Sarah’s instagram.
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