 You are invited to Sunday School at the Waterford, starting March 15 and continuing on periodic Sundays thereafter.
Over the next few months, I plan to rent the clubhouse and cabana area of my neighborhood, the Waterford, in order to host periodic studies of Christian Doctrine, also known as Systematic Theology. Study will begin at 8:30 AM and conclude at 10:30 AM so that attendees are able to attend Sunday Morning worship services their local churches. A cookout and fellowship time will commence at 12:30 PM, after church worship services have concluded. What will the format be like? The format will be lecture-style and outlines will be provided. There will be a time for questions and answers. The format will be noticeably different than a typical church Sunday School class. Often, Sunday School classes provide canned denominational literature (ex: the LifeWay quarterly) that is presented by a “teacher” who is little more than facilitator of discussion. The purpose of Sunday School at the Waterford is to point attendees toward Jesus Christ, teach them the tenets of the Christian faith, and prepare them to defend it. Topics such as the Nature of God, Salvation, and Ecclesiology will be presented. At Sunday School at the Waterford, no one will read a Sunday School quarterly at you. Is it okay to come late or leave early? Yes. I realized 8:30 is early and I realize some people may want to get away earlier than 10:30 for church. Is there a cost? There is no cost for participants for food or Bible study. Bible can be provided at no cost with advance notice. Are Children welcome? Yes. This event is “family integrated.” While childcare will not be provided, parents are welcome to bring their children and learn with them. Often church Sunday Schools classes break individuals into groups by age, sex, or marital status. There is no biblical mandate for breaking into demographic groups for Sunday morning Bible study. People of all ages and states of life are welcome and there is no need for families to separate in order to learn about God. This event will be especially good for teenagers who are at risk of being offered watered-down Bible study curricula in youth groups. Is this a Church Service or a Church No. Sunday School at the Waterford is not a church or church plant. In no way is it intended to interfere with church attendance on Sunday morning. Attendees are encouraged to attend local churches after study is over. Sunday School at the Waterford is intended to provide sound, helpful Bible teaching to those who want to learn in a format that may not be available at local churches. Do I need to dress up? No. Some attendees may be dressed in their “Sunday best” to attend church later but you may dress in way that suits you. Clothing that can be worn for a neighborhood walk is appropriate. Can non-Christians attend? Non-Christians are encouraged to attend. It is my hope that Christians who don’t normally go to Sunday School or are seeking more substantial teaching will attend. However, it also my hope that non-Christians from the neighborhood who do not attend church will also find it convenient to walk over from their house without having to worry about “getting ready” for church or feeling out of place in a strange crowd. Again, Sunday School at the Waterford is in no way intended as a replacement for local church attendance or membership. Who is behind this event? There is no shortage of strange cults and aberrant Bible teachers out there. People are rightly suspicious of Bible study events held outside of local churches. Sunday School at the Waterford is a ministry of the Fellowship Baptist Church of Sidney, Montana. FBC is an orthodox protestant church and does not hold to any strange teachings or novel doctrines. I was trained for the gospel ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where I earned a Masters of Divinity in Christian Apologetics. I have a Christian podcast which can be found in iTunes or at ChristianCommute.com. Inquiries should be directed to Geoffrey_dunn@yahoo.com. If you plan to attend on a given day, please contact me so that I will know how many outlines to prepare and how much food to buy. Thanks, Seth Dunn
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 Hayes Wicker was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Naples (Florida) for 27 years. Wicker, a former President of the Florida Baptist Convention and the SBC Pastors’ Conference, was such a high-profile leader and fundraiser for Baptist causes that his retirement was covered by Baptist Press, which reported the following on February 4th: “In mid-January, Wicker, 68, announced his intention to transition gradually out of the church's pastorate and make way for younger leadership to carry the ministry forward. He hopes this approach to transition can become a helpful model for other churches.” Wicker’s hopes for a smooth transition have been dashed. Today, a former FBC Naples insider who is close to Wicker, contacted Pulpit & Pen with disturbing details about the pastoral transition process at the church, a process which has descended into an embarrassing public debacle. Last weekend the congregation failed to affirm of Wicker’s intended replacement, Marcs Hayes. Hayes, a black man married to a white woman, fell short of the 85% vote required to install him as a pastor. The church’s pastoral staff has publicly accused church members who did not approve of Marcus’ Hayes pastoral appointment of doing so out of racial prejudice and announced that action has been taken to enact church discipline on the dissenters because of their sin. However, leaked emails from the accused church members reveal that dissenters were concerned with factors other than racism, such as Marcus Hayes’ political and theological statements and his lack of experience leading a church as large as FBC Naples. Sadly, friction in the pastoral transition at FBC Naples has been present from the outset. Hayes Wicker announced his retirement in January with the intention of reaching a mutually agreed upon exit date with church leadership. Instead, Wicker was quickly forced out. The separation was hardly amicable. According to the inside source, soon after his employment at FBC Naples ended, Wicker was banned from the church campus. This ban prevented him from seeing his granddaughter perform in a play being put on at the church’s school, First Baptist Academy. Now, church members who have been removed from membership over their opposition to the appointment of Marcus Hayes are in fear that they may be unable to witness their children graduate. Church leadership has told excommunicated church members that public response to their situation will result in a restraining order banning them from First Baptist Academy related activities. To make matters worse, FBC Naples is implementing church discipline procedures which are in direct violation to those set forth by Jesus in Matthew 18. Rather than bringing members who are accused of sin before the church body for examination, members are being removed from the church rolls through actions taken directly by deacons and pastoral staff without a vote of the church body. In addition to this ungodly action, a criminal investigation was instigated by church leadership over email addresses that were allegedly “stolen” from the church by an anonymous group calling itself “concerned FBCN members”. This group was engaged in an email campaign to inform church members about various concerns with Marcus Hayes. The situation at FBC Naples should serve as a solemn reminder to church members everywhere to ensure that their by-laws provide church members biblical protections from rogue staff members who would seek to dominate their church. *Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use. **Statements about the actions taken by FBC Naples leadership assume the fidelity of Pulpit & Pen's inside source. I spoke at length with this individual and how no reason to doubt the veracity of the individual's accounts. Multiple sources claiming to be from FBC Naples have reached out to Pulpit & Pen and Reformation Charlotte and we are currently assessing the accounts of these individual. 
The Southern Baptist Convention is broken. It's broken, and it's not because of theology; it's because of culture. The culture of the Southern Baptist Convention is absolutely untenable and nothing demonstrates this better than the careers and commentary of the Caner brothers: Ergun and Emir. Recently, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) removed portraits of Paige and Dorothy Patterson from Patterson Hall, a building named after the former President of SEBTS and venerable hero of the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence. Patterson's long-time friend Ergun Caner provided a public and pointed a reaction to SEBTS's action. 
SEBTS is in the throes of a woke, social justice takeover. The progressive turn of SEBTS and the SBC as a whole is being documented by the filmmakers behind the website that Ergun Caner cited, enemieswithinthechurch.com. It is in the course of this leftward turn that SEBTS removed the portrait of Patterson, who was controversially fired from the presidency of its sister seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theologically Seminary, last year. Ergun Caner wouldn't stand for it and let the world know what a "Godlesss" move he thought it was for SEBTS to remove the portraits. He also went on to say that those who don't speak to it are "spineless". No such critical commentary was to be found on the Twitter feed of his brother, Emir. Emir Caner's recent Twitter feed documents the goings on the Georgia Baptist school he presides over, Truett-McConnell University. Herein lies the problem of SBC culture.
There is a 0% percent chance that Emir Caner agrees with the leftward shift of SEBTS and its treatment of Patterson. There is 100% chance he agrees, to some degree, with his brother Ergun. Along with his brother, Emir's friend and Fox News pundit Todd Starnes has been openly critical of the SBC's leftward drift. From Emir, an insider from a conservative Baptist state, there is little more than promotion of his school. Why? Emir, a former professor at SEBTS, can't break the 11th Commandment of the SBC: "Thou Shalt not criticize the Southern Baptist Convention, its employees, or its entities" and keep his career on track. Insiders like Emir Caner, who see the problems of the SBC as clearly as anyone, are hamstrung by the incestuous, good-ole-boy culture of the SBC. Southern Baptist insiders are expected to only promote each other, never openly rebuke. Problems are swept under the rug, hidden from the public view. If Emir were to publicly criticize SEBTS and general SBC progressivism in front of his many constituents, he would have no more professional potential in the SBC. So why is Ergun Caner free to say something? Ergun was formerly the Dean of the School of Theology and Liberty University. He lost that job after being exposed for charlatanry. Ergun Caner was formerly the president of Georgia Baptist school Brewton-Parker college. He resigned from that job after being accused of using racist language and engaging in sexual misconduct. His wife divorced him. His was once promising Southern Baptist Career is essentially over. He's now free to tell the truth. In this case he has. There are surely professors at SEBTS and SWBTS who feel the same was as Ergun. They put their livelihood on the line if they speak out. How sad. A convention that employs men who put salary and career before a biblical witness simply cannot stand, not within the center of God's perfect will. If you are a part of this culture, you are a part of the problem. It's a culture that largely allowed Ergun Caner to attain a position of prominence in SBC life after being exposed as a charlatan. It's a culture that keeps men like his brother from speaking out against obvious leftward drift. It's a culture that simply isn't tenable. *Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
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Seth DunnI am accountant and theologian living in Georgia. I have a Masters of Divinity in Christian Apologetics from NOBTS and am a certified public accountant. Archives
January 2020
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