NASHVILLE (BP) – Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee members addressed referrals from messengers to the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting, heard reports and celebrated the highest Lifeway summer camps’ missions offering in eight years at their fall meeting, Sept. 22-23. One messenger suggestion adopted by the EC was the formation of a task force to study resources for special needs ministry available to Southern Baptist churches. A related motion to add a Disability Sunday to the SBC … [Read more...]
Ten biblical reasons not to gamble
by Mike Griffin/Baptist Press We are living in a day when societal acceptance of gambling is beyond anything we would have thought possible in our times. I have seen statistics that reveal there are as many as 48 states in the U.S. that have some form of legalized gambling. Of those states, 38 have some form of legal sports betting. It has been reported that nearly 9 in 10 Americans have gambled at some point in their lifetime, and that more than 6 in 10 have gambled in the last year, … [Read more...]
Central Asian missionaries see God work through Bible stories, dreams
by Lindsey Williams CENTRAL ASIA – Twenty years ago, Judd and Debbie McKinnon* packed 26 suitcases – two of which were filled with LEGO bricks – and brought their 12- and 10-year-old children to make themselves at home in Central Asia. Missionaries with the International Mission Board, the McKinnons have lived in the same city their entire career, a rare blessing for missionaries. At the time of sharing their story, they were waiting to see if God would open the door for them to return … [Read more...]
FIRST-PERSON: Liberty for all – a Baptist distinctive
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sunday, July 6 is Religious Liberty Sunday in the Southern Baptist Convention. As the echoes of Fourth of July fireworks fade and we turn our attention to the week ahead, Southern Baptists also will take a moment to celebrate a key freedom that Americans have long enjoyed and that Baptists have continually sought to defend. The Southern Baptist Convention’s 2025 calendar commemorates July 6 as Religious Liberty Sunday, a day on which we can celebrate religious liberty … [Read more...]
Religious liberty ‘the best blessing’ America has, Baptist immigrants say
NASHVILLE (BP) – For distributing the Bible and sharing the Gospel in the Soviet Union, Aleksei Kharlamov’s great-grandfather was sent to Siberia and never heard from again. His grandfather and father both were persecuted for being Baptist pastors. Growing up in post-Soviet Moscow, Kharlamov was called a cult member for being a Baptist. That family history enhances his love of America’s religious liberty. “This freedom makes this place so unique,” said Kharlamov, pastor of … [Read more...]
FIRST-PERSON: The truth about refugees
by Jalil Dawood I work with refugees – people with backgrounds like mine – all the time. So, I know what it’s like to be misunderstood. I know what it’s like to go through extra security at the airport just because of my Arab heritage. And I can imagine how Hispanics who are American citizens just like me might feel if they encounter tougher scrutiny when entering our country through the southern border. I don’t mind extra precautions, because it means our government is doing its … [Read more...]
Messengers celebrate 100 years of Cooperative Program giving
by Shannon Baker DALLAS (BP) – During the June 10 afternoon session of the SBC annual meeting in Dallas, SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg led messengers in celebrating 100 years of Cooperative Program giving. Referencing Joshua 4, he shared the story of God instructing His people to gather 12 commemorative stones from the Jordan River and to create a memorial to the miracle of God, who stopped the river so the Israelites could cross on dry ground. The memorial had two … [Read more...]
Pastors’ Conf. opening session urges ministers to follow God’s plan
DALLAS (BP) – “Worth Following” was the theme around which pastors gathered June 8 for the opening session of the SBC Pastors’ Conference in Dallas. Convening at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Pastors’ Conference attendees heard the first two expositions in a two-day series of sermons through the book of 2 Timothy. Caleb Turner and John Mark Harrison described why God’s plan for pastors’ lives is worth following. Caleb Turner The magnitude of a pastor’s ministry … [Read more...]
WMU Missions Celebration seeks to ‘Let the Nations Be Glad’
by Shannon Baker DALLAS (BP) – “Let the nations be glad,” urged WMU Missions Celebration speakers as they celebrated the anniversaries of the IMB Journeyman Program, the North American Mission Board’s Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the WMU Foundation. This year’s WMU celebration at the Omni Dallas Hotel June 8 featured the theme “Let the Nations Be Glad,” based on Psalm 67:4: “May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the people with equity and guide the nations of … [Read more...]
BF&M 100: The overlooked legacy of a fallen soldier
"His going cast the shadow over my life which will never be lifted ..." – Sanford M. Brown, Sr. KANSAS CITY – Sanford Miller Brown Jr. was a Baptist preacher’s son from Kansas City and a recent graduate of Missouri State University. He was beginning a career in business. Undoubtedly like other PKs of their day, as a boy he and his brother walked to church each week wearing their best knickers. They attended Sunday School and worship and, in all likelihood, sat on the pew on either side of … [Read more...]
Memorial Day Flag Relay brings healing, encouragement and Gospel connections
By Marilyn Stewart MOBILE, Ala. (BP) – First in Fallujah, Iraq, then in Djibouti, Africa, and finally Mobile, Alabama, the Memorial Day Flag Relay (MDFR) has been bringing encouragement and healing to active-duty servicemen, veterans and their families for 20 years. It has also pointed the way to Christ. Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Endel Lee, Southern Baptist Navy chaplain, highly decorated naval officer, pastor, and former New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary faculty … [Read more...]
Southwestern alumnus Adam Groza marks first year as Gateway Seminary president
by Karen Garcia/SWBTS FORT WORTH (BP) — Adam Groza didn’t grow up Southern Baptist, so when a friend suggested he check out Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he said, “I had never heard of Southwestern Seminary. I didn’t know about Southern Baptist seminaries, quite frankly.” Now he is approaching his first anniversary as president of Gateway Seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention’s only seminary in the western United States. Groza began as the eighth president of … [Read more...]
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