EDITOR’S NOTE: October is Cooperative Program Emphasis Month in the Southern Baptist Convention. BATON ROUGE (BP) – Longtime Baptist collegiate minister Steve Masters received a call from an international student at the start of the COVID-19 economic shutdown. The Louisiana State University student’s job was no longer available. “He wanted to know if we could provide him with some money or some food. So I gave him some personal money and I provided him with some direct food,” Masters … [Read more...]
Franklin Graham announces national prayer march in Washington
WASHINGTON (BP) — Evangelist Franklin Graham is asking Americans to join him in a Washington prayer march Sept. 26 to plead for God to save the nation from its present distress. “Our communities are hurting. Our people are divided, and there’s fear and uncertainty all around us,” Graham said in a video announcing the event. “So let’s join together and do the most important thing, and that is to pray.” Amid a global COVID-19 pandemic and an international uprising decrying injustice and … [Read more...]
Racial healing, Great Commission, Cooperative Program headline SBC Advance event, June 2
NASHVILLE (BP) – Amid unprecedented challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as racial unrest and tumult after the recent death of an African American man in police custody, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee offered a healing balm June 2 with SBC Advance. The two-hour online event was not intended to replace the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting (originally scheduled June 9-10 in Orlando, but canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic), but instead to … [Read more...]
Paycheck Protection Plan draws feedback from pastors, ethicists
SEATTLE (BP) – As pastor of Epic Life Church in Seattle with only five employees, Keith Carpenter sees the Paycheck Protection Plan loan as a godsend during a devastating economic downturn prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. So does pastor A.B. Vines, whose multisite New Seasons Church in Spring Valley, Calif., employs about 50. But some pastors have theological and ethical concerns with the loan, which is administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration. "The purpose behind the loan … [Read more...]
SBC EC grants Uth extension for Pastors’ Conference response
ORLANDO, Fla. (BP) – SBC Pastors' Conference president David Uth has been granted an extended time for fasting and prayer before responding to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee's stipulation that program adjustments be made before space is allocated at the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting venue. Responding to dissension over the 2020 SBC Pastors' Conference (SBCPC) speaker roster, the SBC EC originally voted Feb. 18 to give the SBCPC until Feb. 24 to make suitable changes to its … [Read more...]
Love story spotlights Jeremy Camp’s creative muse
NASHVILLE (BP) – Jeremy Camp was driving down California’s Big Bear Mountain, fasting and praying for a breakthrough from pain and grief. Melissa had died only three months after their wedding. Camp sought solace in the mountains, he recalled in an interview with Baptist Jan. 21, nearly 20 years later. It was his song “Walk by Faith,” still on a demo that day in 2001, that helped him heal. “I remember saying, ‘I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see, because this broken road prepares … [Read more...]
One Christian killed, 12 kidnapped in Nigeria
KADUNA, Nigeria (BP) – A Baptist woman is dead and 12 Christians including church members, school students and teachers remain kidnapped in two successive incidents in Kaduna, Nigeria, widely attributed to militant Fulani herdsmen. In the latest incident, herdsmen killed Ezra Haruna of Godiya Baptist Church in Ungwan Barau village and kidnapped four of her fellow church members, Morning Star News reported Thursday (Oct. 10). Many residents fled into nearby bushes, Morning Star … [Read more...]
School year spurs religious liberty battles
CHICAGO (BP) – The 2019 school year has brought religious liberty challenges for college and high school students in the U.S., including action in Illinois, Tennessee and North Carolina. In Illinois, four Wheaton College students have sued the city of Chicago for the right to distribute religious flyers and preach in a public park after the city set new rules against such action. In Tennessee, two high schools faced backlash from the Freedom from Religion Foundation when a coach led … [Read more...]
Church models low-cost, replicable homeless ministry
EL CAJON, Calif. (BP) – Any church can do this, pastor Rolland Slade told Baptist Press. On a vacant lot at Slade's senior pastorate Meridian Baptist Church in El Cajon, Calif., a tiny cabin is being built as an emergency, secure shelter for homeless women and children. "All that we were doing before was growing tumbleweeds," Slade told BP Aug. 7, regarding the land. "Where now, if we're able to build this little village of emergency sleeping cabins, we're able to minister to people. … [Read more...]
Adrian Rogers’ widow to SBC: ‘Keep the Word of God’
NASHVILLE (BP) – Forty years after her husband began leading the Southern Baptist Convention in the Conservative Resurgence promoting a doctrine of biblical inerrancy, Joyce Rogers still hopes the best for the SBC. "I would hope that they would keep the Word of God in the center of their belief (and continue) in the inerrancy of the Word of God," she told Baptist Press during a telephone interview, June 28 from her doctor's waiting room. "My husband really was the one that fought for that, … [Read more...]
Chitwood on border thanks Baptists for Venezuela aid
VENEZUELA (BP) – International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood ends today (May 13) a weeklong trip that included the Venezuelan border where he encouraged Baptists and area convention leaders ministering to refugees amid the nation's collapsed economy and political strife. "We're thankful that Southern Baptists are here ministering to the needs of people who really are in a desperate situation," Chitwood said in a video during his visit to Colombia. Chitwood witnessed scores of … [Read more...]
Removal of stained-glass windows from SWBTS chapel draws mixed reactions from donors
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) – Forty years after the birth of the Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is relocating from the J.W. MacGorman Chapel more than 40 stained glass windows commemorating the era. Two Missouri Baptist leaders were depicted in the windows, including: Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Director John Yeats, who also serves as the Southern Baptist Convention Recording Secretary; and the late Jim Wells, a former Missouri … [Read more...]
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