South Main Baptist Church - Houston, Texas

South Main Baptist Church - Houston, Texas South Main: A family of Grace, discovering Jesus Christ and sharing His Love with the world.

We are a vibrant, multigenerational family of faith that comes together for traditional worship every Sunday, and then seeks to carry the Grace we’ve experienced out into the world in all aspects of our lives. Located in the heart of Midtown Houston, we invite you to be a part of worship or a small group community.

Song of SongsThink back to the first time you were in love. What was it like? Do you remember? Of course you do because ...
08/24/2026

Song of Songs

Think back to the first time you were in love. What was it like? Do you remember? Of course you do because being in love is a big part of being human. As such, it would be unfortunate if the Bible, God’s instructions for us on how to live, included nothing about what being in love is like. Fortunately, one book does this, and it’s unlike any other book in the Bible.

The Song of Songs never mentions God by name, but in an eight-chapter-long sensual dialogue back and forth between two lovers, it mentions a good deal of other things. While indeed it would be odd if our Scriptures included nothing about human love at all, a lyrical book full of pretty explicit erotic poetry might not be what we were expecting either. Yet, here it is.

First, there’s an alluringly romantic courtship, then a magnificent royal wedding procession followed by some serious pillow talk between the two lovers on their wedding night. It all has the feel of a dream. There are numerous metaphors. And then, there’s a lot of this:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—your love is more delightful than wine...No wonder the maidens love you! Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.

That was the woman. Here’s the man’s reply a few chapters later:

How beautiful you are, my darling!...Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead......Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon.

Some say this evocatively suggestive poetry made it into our Bible only because those making the decisions interpreted it as an allegory for God's love of Israel. Reportedly one famous rabbi defended the book’s inclusion at a crucial point in the canonical process, saying, "All the writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

The truth is, though, we don’t have to decide whether Song of Songs is about God’s divine love or about human s*xual love between two lovers. Though very different, both carry something of the otherworldly, the mystical, and the sublime in their own way.

Duke Divinity School’s Ellen Davis, in her tremendous book Getting Involved with God, writes that “fundamental to both is a desire to transcend the confines of the self for the sake of intimacy with the other.” Further she argues, “we need a style of interpretation that allows the text to mean more than one thing at the same time.” Reading Song of Songs, Davis points out, slyly connects something familiar to human beings—s*xual attraction—to something spiritual in nature. “Love and attraction,” Davis writes, “provides many people with their first experience with ecstasy, which literally means ‘standing outside one’s self.’” Song of Songs helps us not only “imagine what it might mean to love God truly,” but shows us also that s*xual love can, in the right circumstances, become “an arena for the formation of the soul.”

Similar provocative notions are set out in St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, a monumental papal teaching developed from 130 weekly public addresses the pope gave on Wednesdays in St. Peter’s Square from 1979 and 1984. If anyone says to you that the Church hasn’t had anything positive or profound to say about s*x during its long and storied history, point them to the Theology of the Body.

Early on, John Paul points to Adam’s enthusiastic reaction when introduced to Eve in Genesis 2:

This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

John Paul then makes a connection between this first brief exclamation of attraction in Genesis to the beautiful extended poetry of Song of Songs. “What was barely expressed in the second chapter of Genesis in just a few simple and essential words,” the pope said, “is developed here in full dialogue, or rather in a duet, in which the bridegroom’s words are interwoven with the bride’s, and they complete each other.”

Consider this remarkable idea of completing another person, of truly being loved and in love in its highest form. The Song of Songs calls this kind of human love “as strong as death,” and it's one that points us to a divine form of love that never ends.

God—May our souls be shaped in every arena of human life. Amen.

— Greg Funderburk

08/23/2026

Sunday Worship – August 23, 2026

We continue more deeply into our new sermon series on the Psalms, this week looking at Psalm 33 which encourages us to t...
08/23/2026

We continue more deeply into our new sermon series on the Psalms, this week looking at Psalm 33 which encourages us to trust in God not in the ephemera things of the world. “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength” this lyrical passage tells us. “The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him,” we are assured. Again, as in the case in a number of these poetic texts, this Psalm is one that ends in rejoicing. “In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. Join us this Sunday as we continue to return from summer in glad reunion with one another in worship.

Fall Kickoff for our Wednesday night programming, Midtown Midweek, is fast approaching on August 26! Add it to your cale...
08/20/2026

Fall Kickoff for our Wednesday night programming, Midtown Midweek, is fast approaching on August 26! Add it to your calendar and make it a priority to get into the rhythm of a weekly time to reset and fellowship with your church family. Fellowship Supper around the tables in Turner Fellowship Hall begins at 5:00 PM. Family Ministry heads to all of their music ensembles at 5:50 PM and adults head to their Discipleship Offerings at 6:30 PM.

EcclesiastesAs the calendar turns, turns, turns, and school is about to begin, you’ve become intrigued by a new class of...
08/17/2026

Ecclesiastes

As the calendar turns, turns, turns, and school is about to begin, you’ve become intrigued by a new class offered at your school.

“This course,” the catalogue says, “will expose the absurdity of some of your most common behaviors. While there will be more questions than answers as you make your way through the course’s twelve chapter textbook, you’ll take up a series of profound questions such as, What’s the purpose of life?, What makes life worth living?, and Why work?

You see also that the class is taught by a world-renowned professor. The story around campus is that he’s wise, fabulously rich, from a royal family even. He’s seen it all, done it all, experienced it all. A riveting lecturer, like the course he teaches, it’s said that he is constantly in motion in class, turning, weighing antithetical propositions, speaking in poetic prose.

However, as you’re about to sign up, you see the course does come with a trigger warning.

Beware: The curriculum to be covered is not intended to give you confidence. Any superficial and false confidence you’ve managed to cobble together for yourself so far in life will be stripped away. The course will expose every arrogant and ignorant expectation you have that you can live life on your own terms.

The rollicking seminar is entitled Ecclesiastes and your teacher, should you decide to register, will be the captivating professor, Qoheleth, which means, more captivatingly still, The One Who Assembles. You read that you can always drop the class if it’s boring, so you proceed to sign up.

Then, on the first day of class before you’ve even found your seat, it crosses your mind that you may have made a mistake as the wisdom Professor Qoheleth has assembled for you and your new classmates begins strangely like this.

“Havel havelim.”

“Havel havelim to you too,” someone in the front responds.

“No. Not a greeting. Havel havelim,” he says again.

“I didn’t get that?” someone from the back says.

“Let me be clear,” the professor says.

Everyone sits up straighter at their desks.

“Vanity of vanities,” he says. “All is vanity.”

He’s met with quizzical looks not unlike last semester’s class or the one before that.

“Fleeting, v***rous, merest breath,” he goes on. “All is mere breath. V***r. Havel havelim.”

“When’s the drop deadline for this?” the person next to you whispers.

“The word ‘hevel’ sounds like havel,” the professor goes on. “Hevel is the Hebrew spelling for ‘Abel’. He was the first human to die. My invoking Abel here at the beginning should remind you that your death is, at any moment, a possibility. Don’t live foolishly. Don’t live unprepared. Havel havilem. All is v***r. Vanity. Vanity. All is vanity. I’ll take questions next week. Class dismissed.”

You leave class baffled, but the “vanity, vanity” bit, though pretty grim, sticks with you. In fact, turning it over all week in your mind has produced a kind of an epiphany. While struggling to become happy, fulfilling one desire after the next, you’ve managed only to avoid being happy.

You decide not to drop. In fact, you’re now looking forward to next week’s class.

When it arrives, the first question in class for the enigmatic professor comes from the back.

“So, is there anything that does yield meaning?”

“All is Vanity,” the professor says again. “Nothing really matters.”

Everyone’s shoulders sag.

“Yet,” he says.

You and the rest of the class lean forward as one.

“Life is windfall.”

The professor goes on to say a person can do nothing better than to eat, drink, and find satisfaction in their own toil. There’s a nobility, a satisfaction, in work and marriage and in being present to one’s friends.

“All of this,” he concludes, “is from the hand of God.”

As the semester proceeds, each of the twelve chapters of the professor’s book prove fascinating.

“Rain,” he says, “falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.”

“There’s nothing new,” he says. “Nothing new under the sun.”

“God,” he says, “has implanted eternity inside every human heart.”

“Two are better than one,” he says. “How can one keep warm alone?”

“To everything,” he insists finally, “there is a season.”

By the time the last day of class arrives, just as you were warned, you’ve been humbled. He’s held
up a mirror to you, and what you saw is that you’re restless for meaning. You’ve tried in vain to find fulfillment by your own devices. Ecclesiastes has fully exposed your incapacity to find meaning in life on your own.

“Go forth,” the professor said at the end of the final class. “Of books there is no end. Much chatter is weariness to the flesh. Fear God. Keep His commands. That is your whole duty.”

God—Thank you for schooling us. Amen.

— Greg Funderburk

We will begin a new sermon series focused on a selection of the Psalms each of which present a kind of song for our soul...
08/15/2026

We will begin a new sermon series focused on a selection of the Psalms each of which present a kind of song for our souls. We begin with Psalm 32 which concerns the powerful idea of Forgiveness, one of the strongest transformative forces in the world. Psalm 32 begins like this, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven...” Then it concludes like this, “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad…sing, all you who are upright in heart!” Confession and repentance from us precede mercy and forgiveness from God, then celebration follows as we embrace God’s grace and leave our sin and the corrosion it causes in our lives behind. Join us this Sunday in worship as we begin to look at this wonderfully comforting Psalm.

08/14/2026

In worship this week, we'll begin a 4-week series looking at 4 different Psalms. It is also Fall Kickoff Sunday, so all of our Adult Bible Communities will gather in their rooms and all of our Family Ministry return to a regular schedule after a summer full of fun. If you need a word on how to accept and live into the grace God offers us, there is a word for you this week, AND if you are looking for a community who can give you grace and a place to belong South Main can be that place for you.

08/13/2026

Fall Kickoff is THIS Sunday! Adult Bible Communities will be back together to enjoy fellowship and some food together, and Family Ministry will be in their new classes and small groups! As a new school year begins it gives anyone an opportunity whether you’re in school or haven’t been in school for decades to rest and restart a weekly rhythm. We hope you’ll take this as a sign to do just that and join us for Worship at 10 AM and Bible Study at 11 AM. If you haven’t found a community yet, message us and we’ll find a place for you. See you Sunday!

ProverbsAs a young lawyer I defended a case brought by a husband and wife who owned a business. The wife was an attorney...
08/10/2026

Proverbs

As a young lawyer I defended a case brought by a husband and wife who owned a business. The wife was an attorney serving as the company’s counsel. I represented the management of the building where their offices were located. Another attorney, an older one I admired, represented the other defendant, the building’s owner.

A little research at the outset of the case revealed that the wife had filed many, many lawsuits over the years, some in the name of the business, some in her own name as an individual. In this particular matter, she alleged an employee she’d fired had broken into the company’s offices, and we, the defendants, should’ve stopped him. While she insisted she’d verbally told someone with the building about the firing, she couldn’t identify who the person was or even what they looked like, and we had no record of it. The fired employee in the meantime had disappeared. She said she’d gotten his key back but also testified the firing took place over the phone.

While there was no documented damage to the office, they claimed valuable things had gone missing, and information had vanished from their computers. Even after an analysis seemed to show that most everything had been recovered from their system, they were still claiming over a million dollars in losses.

The older attorney and I took depositions, hired an expert, and worked together steadily strengthening our defense such that just prior to trial, the couple, realizing this, came off their high-flying demands and said they’d settle for a modest sum, a figure far less than it would cost for us to try the case. Now, even if we won, we’d be spending more money than if we settled. Everyone—the couple, our clients, the insurers—now wanted to settle. So we settled.

Though it made sense business-wise, I was left ambivalent. I felt my client had done nothing wrong, and I confess, I also had developed some antipathy toward the plaintiffs. When it was all finalized, I spoke again to the older attorney.

“I can’t believe we paid them anything,” I said.

“We won’t be there for the comeuppance,” he predicted, “but it never turns out well for folks like that.”

I’ll always remember that.

Delivered in a marvelous soundbite, it rang true like a proverb.

Do not fret because of evildoers...for the evildoer has no future hope...

The book of Proverbs is full of wisdom, but it’s more than this. Proverbs offers us a range of practical skills and the ability to apply them meaningfully across the whole spectrum of human life. There’s valuable guidance about families, work, friendship, marriage, finances, handling one’s emotions, and the avoidance of vice. There’s even something about lawsuits.

The book is full of gems: pithy, memorable, and astute.

Look to the ant. Watch it closely. Let it teach you a thing or two.

Mercy to the needy is a loan to God and God pays back those loans in full.

Watch your words and hold your tongue. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief.

When you go out to dinner...mind your manners...Bridle your appetite.

Malice backfires. Spite boomerangs.

Don’t brashly announce what you’re going to do tomorrow. You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow.

Know your sheep by name...Don’t take them for granted.

Earthy. Smart. Witty. Most of all, the Proverbs urge us to take up a mindset of humility, one that recognizes it’s not our prerogative to make up our own mind about how to live. Instead it tells us that right and wrong are embedded into the God-created fabric of the universe.

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was...Now therefore hearken unto me...blessed are they that keep my ways.

I sometimes wonder if that litigious couple ever received the comeuppance my co-counsel prophesied. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. Proverbial wisdom like his, like that in the book itself, is really all about probabilities. The Proverbs aren’t promises. The Proverbs aren’t guarantees. But the text of this remarkable book gives us a sound manual for living our lives, with the first step being always to remain humble and bow down to God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

God, may we heed Your proverbial words. Amen.

— Greg Funderburk

Address

4100 Main Street
Houston, TX
77002

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 1pm

Telephone

+17135294167

Website

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