NASHVILLE (BP) – The Southern Baptist Convention ended its fiscal year $9.23 million (4.95 percent) over its 2015–2016 budgeted goal and $6.57 million over the previous year’s Cooperative Program (CP) Allocation Budget gifts, according to Frank S. Page, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee. In Missouri, year-to-date CP giving is roughly on par with giving at this time last year, and is running 3.61 percent behind the budgeted goal. Even so, Missouri Baptists are sending more … [Read more...]
Mo. DR responding to Hurricane
JEFFERSON CITY – More than 30 Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers departed Oct. 11 for the East Coast to bring help, hope and healing to those affected by Hurricane Matthew. Red Cross officials have asked Southern Baptists to prepare up to 300,000 meals each day, a task Missouri Baptist Convention executive director John Yeats called “a huge challenge and a great gospel/missional opportunity.” “Please pray for our volunteers and for the victims of the hurricane, many of whom need … [Read more...]
Abortion & the Election: Five million plus children
There are many voices screaming at the top of their lungs, attempting to sway the vote of adults in this nation for their particular candidate. By this stage of the game, only the uninformed are unaware that both candidates are seriously flawed. It is a good thing when the personality of the leader exudes greatness and virtue, but neither of the candidates’ characters and personality traits rise to a level worthy of enthusiastic support. But this election was never as much about which … [Read more...]
Engaging the culture without losing Christ
We live in a time when fewer and fewer Americans are self-identifying as Christians, and more and more Americans are explicitly rejecting Christian values. Christian understandings of sexuality, marriage, the sanctity of life, gender, and religious liberty are increasingly seen as outdated, if not dangerous. Younger people especially are rejecting religion in general and Christianity in particular as lifestyles of intolerance and even oppression. The idea of America as a Christian nation, … [Read more...]
New report endangers liberty
WASHINGTON (BP) – Religious liberty as Americans have known it throughout their history will suffer a critical setback if a new report by the country’s top civil rights panel is followed, say Southern Baptist and other advocates for the First Amendment freedom. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) declared in its Sept. 7 report protections to ensure nondiscrimination “are of preeminent importance in American jurisprudence” and religious exemptions from safeguards for such … [Read more...]
Church exemptions to SOGI identity laws at risk in Mass.
BOSTON (WNS) – Massachusetts has become the latest state to approve protected class status for transgender persons, and churches should not expect any exemption from the law that goes into effect Oct. 1. According to the Gender Identity Guidance report by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, churches be can considered places of public accommodation and subjected to fines and penalties for not accommodating transgender persons in accordance with their gender identity. The … [Read more...]
N.C. restroom bill doesn’t deter plans for SBC annual meeting in 2023
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BP) – Amid controversy over North Carolina’s controversial transgender restroom law, Southern Baptist Convention leaders estimate they’re less than two weeks away from finalizing contracts to hold the 2023 SBC annual meeting in Charlotte. And they say they’re glad to support the state for its moral stand on gender and sexuality. SBC President Steve Gaines said that “while other organizations such as the NCAA, NBA and NFL are seeking to punish North Carolinians for their … [Read more...]
Southern Baptists to celebrate CP
NASHVILLE (BP) – “Great Commission Advance” shouldn’t be mistaken for a formal program. It’s more personal. It’s a call for “every Southern Baptist and every Southern Baptist church living up to the high calling of disciple-making, evangelism and missions, biblical stewardship and fervent and effective prayer,” as Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, defines the focus of a growing partnership between state conventions and SBC entities. Simply put: “We follow Jesus, we … [Read more...]
Behind closed doors
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.” – Psalms 127:3 (NKJV) What has happened in our country that so many no longer consider children a blessing as God intended? It seems that daily we hear of stories of children being mistreated that rend the heart of those who care. Consider these true stories told to me: • A church youth worker was informed by a student at a Christian camp that her mother was jealous of her because the mother’s boyfriend … [Read more...]
Platt to EC: Seemingly dead man rose among UUPG
NASHVILLE (BP) – What appeared to local believers to be a physical resurrection from the dead among an unengaged, unreached people group in Southeast Asia has opened a door for Gospel witness and highlighted what International Mission Board President David Platt called “God’s power to supernaturally save sinners.” Platt recounted the story – which, though atypical in Western experience, bore similarities to biblical accounts of raising the dead – during his report to the Southern Baptist … [Read more...]
‘Insanity of God’ ticket sales top $1 million
NASHVILLE (BP) – Ticket sales for an encore showing of “The Insanity of God” in theaters Tuesday, Sept. 13, pushed box office receipts to $1.1 million. “Due to the success of the film’s two one-night theater showings,” Trey Reynolds, manager of LifeWay Films, said, “we are planning a church simulcast for the film the first or second week of November, with a consumer DVD and church license DVD to be released Nov. 21.” The feature documentary film produced by the International Mission Board … [Read more...]
Prayer in Charlotte counters ‘hurt, anger’
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BP) – “Hurt” and “anger” have met with prayer in troubled Charlotte, N.C., where Southern Baptist pastors are praying and encouraging peace and reason amid violent protests and a declared state of emergency after the police killing of Keith Lamont Scott. Christians of various denominations held prayer services today (Sept. 22) and yesterday after police shot and killed 43-year-old Scott, a black man, while looking for a suspect in an unrelated incident. Charlotte policeman … [Read more...]
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