Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, Alabama

06/08/2026

Fly Me To The Moon
Michael J. Brooks

I met a certain politician years ago. I observed that he studied name tags in the room and immediately called people by name. He made it to lieutenant governor in his state, so I’m sure this helped. Since then, I’ve tried to do this, too. It’s been said the sweetest words we can speak to other people are their names.

But I suggest among the sweetest phrases we can speak to others is a simple question, “What do you think about this?”

I was a graduate teaching assistant for several quarters while a student at Auburn University, and we were tasked with leading group discussion classes in the communication division.

A colleague gave me a copy of what was called “The Moon Walk” exercise that I began to use, and then resurrected for the 15 years I taught at Judson College. The exercise supposes a lunar exploration vehicle crashes and must return to the mother ship. The survivors choose the most important items to carry with them on their trek since they couldn’t carry everything. Participants in the exercise then numbered the 15 items in priority rank (hint: the oxygen tanks were number one).

Then I sent class members to groups of five or six to re-do the exercise together.

While they completed this task, I graded individual submissions by subtracting the correct number from their numbers whether positive or negative (“absolute value” in mathematical terms). So, as in golf, lower scores were better.

What we found is that the group decisions far outscored the individual decisions—almost invariably, since I remember only one time a group really stumbled and did more poorly.

This exercise demonstrated that group decisions are more accurate than individual decisions.

Or as the old motto states, “Two heads are better than one.”

One of my mentors in younger days was the late W.A. Criswell of Dallas. He taught pastors were the ultimate authority in decision-making. He called himself a “benevolent dictator.” I tried this as a young pastor with disastrous results. As George W. Bush used to say, “When I was young and foolish, I was young and foolish.”

Let me add that pastors must stand on moral issues without equivocation and take their hits, if need be. But on ancillary issues they will find involving others yields wiser courses of action and also yields group ownership. It becomes “our” idea, not “his” idea.

Thus, one of the sweetest phrases we speak is a question: “What do you think about this?” Other people may have better ideas to sharpen our own thinking and realize that we value their opinions.

Pastors and other church leaders cannot be autocratic, but must lead by conviction, example and love.

06/07/2026

Guarding the Truth in a World of Greed

06/03/2026

Wed. Jun 3rd. 2026

06/03/2026

06/01/2026

Remember The Ladies
Michael J. Brooks

Abigail Adams famously wrote to her husband, John, at the Second Continental Congress in 1776, “Remember the ladies.”

Southern Baptists currently are remembering and debating the ladies.

I met a female associate pastor while visiting a Presbyterian church on recent travels. This practice is common in some American denominations.

Alabama Baptists have women in ministry since we’re told about 60 percent of the music ministers in our churches are female. And there are countless female youth, children’s and other ministers.

But the SBC debate centers on the word “pastor”-- a word, interestingly, used only once in the New Testament. Other descriptors include elder and overseer, or bishop. The discussion is about whether a female can have the title “pastor” and the church remain in “friendly cooperation” with the Southern Baptist Convention.

The polar arguments are based on different passages in the New Testament.

The apostle Paul is clear in 1 Timothy 2: 12 that a woman must not “exercise authority” over a man by teaching. And in the next chapter he explained that the “overseer” must be the “husband of but one wife,” so obviously a male pastor. And in 1 Corinthians 14 he wrote that it is forbidden for a woman to speak in church.

The belief called “complementarianism” asserts men and women have different roles in the church, and women cannot assume the role of pastor.

The opposite argument cites 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul permitted women to pray and “prophesy” in public worship as long as their heads were covered. The New Testament prophet received and shared the word of God in the day before the biblical canon was complete. So, if the Corinthian women followed the commonly accepted practice of modesty, they could pray and speak.

So why would Paul two chapters later tell the women to keep silence?

It seems in context he forbade women using glossolalia in worship. Some believe this was because the temple to Aphrodite was nearby with prostitute-priestesses, and seekers in the Christian service might misunderstand if they saw ecstatic women in leadership.

We hosted a Nigerian Baptist pastor a few summers ago when the Baptist World Alliance met at nearby Samford University. The pastor told me more than half of their pastors are female. Nigerian Baptists believe Paul spoke in a first-century culture where women had few rights, and the modern church can commission females if they believe God is leading them.

Nobody can say Nigerian Baptists aren’t steadfast in faith, since they and other believers face martyrdom.

Historically Southern Baptists have promoted the autonomy of the local church, believing the calling of ministers is a congregational decision.

How this affects denominational partnership in coming years will be interesting, indeed.

05/31/2026

Truth and Training for a Godly Life

05/27/2026

Wed. 27th. 2026