SBCLIFE JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
SUMMER 2019 TWO DOLLARS FIFTY CENTS
Published by the SBC Executive Committee
Encouraging Cooperation . . . for a Great Commission Advance!
My Prayer for the SBC by J. D. Greear
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gain traction over the past year. This is an initiative encouraging college students from every Southern Baptist church to invest the first two years of their post-graduation lives in the work of church planting. Some will join domestic church plants. Some will go overseas. Either way, I am praying that we would flood the North American Mission Board and International Mission Board with young and eager candidates for mission (see sidebar on page 4).
ast year, after accepting the nomination for presidency of the SBC, I laid out my prayers for our Convention. One year in, as we assemble for our annual meeting in Birmingham, I am just as excited to see God moving in every one of these areas:
Gospel Above All
The basis of our unity as Southern Baptists is the Gospel. As a Convention, we should be neither defined nor characterized by a certain church style, method of ministry, political affiliation, or cultural and racial distinctive. We are a Gospel people; the Gospel is, as the apostle Paul said, of first importance (1 Corinthians 15:3). We must avoid the temptation to let smaller doctrinal issues or any personal preferences replace the centrality of the Gospel as our unifying standard. The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message is narrow enough to unite us on the essentials and broad enough to allow freedom in the peripherals. To reinforce this centrality and priority, we have incorporated this essential message in this year’s SBC annual meeting artwork—Gospel Above All!
Ethnic Diversity and Racial Reconciliation
The church is supposed to declare the diversity of the Kingdom and reflect the diversity of the community. We have made significant strides in embracing the leadership gifts of brothers and sisters of color that God has placed in our midst. I am praying that this is just the beginning. (see related story on pages 2–3)
Intentional, Personal Evangelism
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said He came to seek
Engaging the Next Generation in Cooperative Mission
photo by rob laughter courtesy of the summit church
and save the lost (Luke 19:10). Soul-winning was Jesus’s main thing. That means if we are really following Him, it will be ours as well. Our enemy will do anything to distract us from that. He loves nothing more than for us to spend our energy on institutional maintenance, personality conflicts, secondary doctrinal issues, church programs, even mission ventures—so long as they don’t involve actual evangelism. Soul-winning should form the core of our mission strategy for the future. And by “evangelism” I mean not only sharing the truth that Jesus Christ took our place on the cross, but calling hearers to repentance and faith. I have been encouraged beyond measure to see how Who’s Your One? has taken off across the Convention (see related story on page 3). Through Who’s Your One?, thousands of Southern Baptist believers are taking ownership
for evangelism, asking, “Who is the one person God has placed in my life to pray for, invite to church, share the Gospel with, and display the love of God to?”
Church Planting
The recovery of church planting among Southern Baptists in recent years has been amazing. Church planting must remain the organizing principle of our mission strategy. Can you imagine what it would look like if every Southern Baptist church committed to help in the planting of one domestic church next year (see related story on page 4) and got involved reaching one unreached or underserved people group overseas?
College Mobilization through the Go2 Initiative
I have been encouraged to see the Go2 Initiative
Cooperation between churches for the sake of mission is a key component of New Testament evangelistic strategy. Southern Baptists continue to produce more church planters, more missionaries, and more seminary graduates than any other group in America, and we need to do everything we can to get the next generation engaged in cooperative mission (see the current Cooperative Program report on page 6). This is what the annual meeting is all about. It may be a two-day business meeting, but this business meeting is the vehicle that drives our Convention’s action. But if the meeting is the vehicle, the fuel is still the Gospel. Everything we do and everything we say must be saturated in the lifetransforming power of what God has done for us. The Gospel is a well of endless depth. We need not look elsewhere for power or life. We need only look deeper and deeper into this beautiful mystery. J. D. Greear is pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and is president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Creating a Culture of Unity and Love
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Ronnie Floyd was elected the seventh president and CEO of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention on April 2, 2019, and formally began serving in that role on May 20. On May 19, he and Jeana, his bride for the past forty-two years, were honored by Cross Church in Springdale, Arkansas, where he was named pastor emeritus following more than thirty-two years as pastor. photo courtesy of cross church
here is nothing more powerful than the words of Jesus Christ: LOVE ONE ANOTHER. These words set the biblical standard high and holds each of us to immediate accountability in all of our relationships. When these words are disobeyed in any way, the Holy Spirit convicts us instantly. Between the betrayal of Judas Iscariot and the forecast of the denials of Peter, Jesus declared these profound words: I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34–35). Four times in these two verses Jesus calls us to love. One action alone lets everyone know we are Christ-followers: Love One Another. Love, appearing forty-four times from John 13 to John 21, is the key theme in Jesus’s farewell to His disciples. Jesus’s prayer for unity in John 17 for His disciples, and the Church today, was driven by His burden of love for us. When God and people are valued in the highest manner, then we will value all relationships. The more we value our relationship to God, the
by Ronnie Floyd
Love is the perfect tense of live—if you do not love, you do not live, really live! more we will value our relationships with others. More than thirty years ago, I made a decision that has freed me all of these years. Regardless of how others treat me, or what they may say about me, or even write about me, I never let anyone outside of my circle of love. I challenge all Southern Baptists: Never let anyone outside of your circle of love. Treating other people like trash may be vogue in our culture, but it is not Christian. Demeaning the value of someone publicly may light up the social media world or become breaking news across the nation, but it is not Christian and it is just not right. When Jesus said, I give you a new command— new means new and fresh in kind, in experience. He was pointing to His death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Simply put: When you belong to Jesus, you belong to love. Love is the supreme test in all
relationships. Love is the perfect tense of live—if you do not love, you do not live, really live! We mistakenly think we are known by our creeds, songs, doctrine, knowledge, achievements, dress, appearance. Jesus says we are known by our love. When injured by others, we must decide if we will choose Love and forgiveness? Love and restitution? Love and healing? Love and unity? Love and a future that is transformed by the power of unconditional love? When we belong to Jesus, we belong to love. Love one another! Join me in praying for a baptism of Love by the Holy Spirit that will immerse every Southern Baptist church, every Southern Baptist pastor, every Southern Baptist member, impacting every community, and sweeping across America and the world! Ronnie Floyd is president and CEO of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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SBC PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS
Greear Summarizes Demographic M S
outhern Baptist Convention President J. D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced the names of individuals who will serve on the Committee on Committees, Resolutions Committee, and Credentials Committee, and as Tellers for the June 11–12 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. Greear issued a 250-word statement about the committees he appointed: “I am pleased to announce this outstanding group of Southern Baptists. We began last August when I first asked state executives and associational missions strategists for input. These individuals all desire to keep the ‘Gospel Above All’ of our differences and be a unifying group around Jesus’s work and his mission. “This diverse group of Southern Baptists believe completely that we must continue to work to be a Convention that reflects the coming Kingdom, that keeps evangelism as our priority, emphasizes church planting as God’s plan ‘A,’ and engages the next generation in cooperative mission. All of these marks are what I believed the Holy Spirit was leading me to by allowing my name to be nominated by Ken Whitten last year and what this group believes as well. “Many of the members of the Committee on Committees are in churches that were started in the past decade. It’s critical that we engage those new to our processes early in the life of their churches so that they develop a clear understanding of the importance of cooperation toward our common mission as Southern Baptists. This committee represents churches of all sizes, ethnicities, and theological persuasions
involved in the Southern Baptist Convention. “It was my goal to select Southern Baptists who would represent their fellow Southern Baptists well, and while CP giving wasn’t used as a measure for these appointments, the average Cooperative Program giving percentage of this group is higher than the average Southern Baptist church.” In a series of Baptist Press news articles released prior to the naming of each group during February, March, and April, Greear repeatedly pointed to his desire that these groups represent the full breadth of demographics—age, gender, race, church size—found in churches that cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention. Greear appointed a total of 126 individuals to serve on these four groups: sixty-eight members on the Committee on Committees; ten members on the Committee on Resolutions; twenty-six members on the Credentials Committee; and twenty-two Tellers.
Committee on Committees
Committee on Resolutions
• Male: 8 of 10 members • Female: 2 of 10 members • White males: 4 of 8, 2 pastors • Non-white males: 4 of 8, 2 pastors • Non-white females: 2 of 2 females
Each president in succession, Wright, Luter, Ronnie Floyd, and Steve Gaines, has followed suit. During Floyd’s two years as president, more than 20 percent of his
SBC LIFE is published by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention 901 Commerce Street Nashville, Tennessee 37203 615-244-2355 E-mail: sbclife@SBC.net Ronnie Floyd
President and CEO
Roger S. (Sing) Oldham
J. D. Greear pastor, The Summit Church Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina president, Southern Baptist Convention
Less than 100: 24 percent More than 250: 49 percent Average baptisms: 26 Average attendance: 597 • Average Cooperative Program percentage: 7.66 • Number of members’ churches started in the last decade: at least 11
• Male: 45 people, 63 percent of the total Female: 23 people, 34 percent • Average age: 43 Youngest: 22 Oldest: 73 • Nationalities/Ethnicities: Non-white males: 46 people, 68 percent White: 34 people, 50 percent African Americans: 16 people, 24 percent Hispanic: 10 people, 15 percent Asian: 5 people, 7 percent Other/multi-ethnic: 3 people, 4 percent • Church size: Less than 250: 51 percent
In 2011, the SBC adopted a report asking the SBC president to report the number of appointees he selects for the committees under his purview that represent the ethnic diversity within Southern Baptist life. In 2012, SBC President Bryant Wright reported that 17 of the 114 men and women he appointed, or 15 percent, represented ethnic minority congregations. In 2013, SBC President Fred Luter reported that 19 of the 123 men and women he appointed, or 15.5 percent, represented ethnic minority congregations.
SBCLIFE
“This diverse group of Southern Baptists believe completely that we must continue to work to be a Convention that reflects the coming Kingdom, that keeps evangelism as our priority, emphasizes church planting as God’s plan ‘A,’ and engages the next generation in cooperative mission. All of these marks are what I believed the Holy Spirit was leading me to by allowing my name to be nominated by Ken Whitten last year and what this group believes as well.”
Credentials Committee
• Male: 14 of 26, 54 percent • Female: 12 of 26, 46 percent • Non-Anglo: 10 of 26, 38 percent
Tellers
• Male: 11 of 22, 50 percent • Female: 11 of 22, 50 percent • Non-Anglo: 10 of 22, 45 percent This Baptist Press news story has been augmented with information from seven other Baptist Press articles about the four groups appointed by SBC President J. D. Greear in preparation for the 2019 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama.
appointees represented ethnic minority congregations. During Gaines’s second term as president, the Resolutions Committee was, for the first time, predominantly nonAnglo, with no majority ethnic group represented (four Anglo American, four African American, one Hispanic, and one Asian), and two other committees included 16 percent each representing ethnic minority congregations. Current SBC President J. D. Greear followed suit with this year’s Resolutions Committee appointment with both men and women and no majority ethnic group represented. Overall, his slate of appointees appears to be the most ethnically and racially diverse in Southern Baptist history.
Office of the President J.D. GREEAR
SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
June 1, 2019 Welcome to the 162nd session of the Southern Baptist Convention. I have always loved these gatherings because they represent cooperation between churches for the sake of mission. When we cooperate together, the results are staggering. More church planters, more missionaries, and more seminary graduates than any other group in America.
Andy Beachum
This is what the annual meeting is all about. It may be a two-day business meeting, but this business meeting is the vehicle that drives our Convention’s action.
Rebecca Manry
But if this meeting is the vehicle, the fuel is still the Gospel. That’s why the theme for this year is “Gospel Above All.”
SBC LIFE is published three times per year: PreConvention, Summer, and Winter. It is distributed to pastors, ministers of education, ministers of music, full-time denominational workers, chaplains, missionaries, and vocational evangelists of the Southern Baptist Convention. Workers retiring from any of these groups may continue to receive the magazine upon request. Subscriptions are free of charge. Bulk subscriptions are available at reduced prices.
This should be nothing new for us. The basis of our unity in the SBC has always been the Gospel. Whatever other distinctives we bring to the table, we are a Gospel people. As Christians, we always have been. After all, the Apostle Paul himself said the Gospel was “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). If we want to go forward in mission, we must turn back to the Gospel of God’s grace in Jesus.
Executive Editor
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For SBC LIFE subscriptions, call 866-722-5433 (toll-free). * All Scripture is from the Christian Standard Bible unless noted otherwise. * Any article without attribution is by SBC LIFE staff.
None of our goals for personal growth will take off without the Gospel. None of our calls for renewal will endure if they are not grounded in the Gospel. The fire “to do” in the Christian life comes only from being soaked in the fuel of what has been done. Would you join me in asking God to bless our time this week? Pray that God would drive the Gospel deeper into our hearts, and that through us, He would spread the Gospel wider into the world!
SBC LIFE (ISSN 1081-8189) Volume 27, Number 3 ©2019 Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee Encouraging Cooperation . . . for a Great Commission Advance!
J. D. Greear President, Southern Baptist Convention
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Make-Up of Committees He Appointed
screen captures from baptist press
“It was my goal to select Southern Baptists who would represent their fellow Southern Baptists well, and while CP giving wasn’t used as a measure for these appointments, the average Cooperative Program giving percentage of this group is higher than the average Southern Baptist church.” J. D. Greear
Committee on Resolutions
Curtis Woods chairman
Keith Whitfield vice chair
Watson Memorial Baptist Church Louisville, Kentucky
Faith Baptist Church Youngsville, North Carolina
Credentials Committee
Betsy Gomez chairperson First Baptist Church Irving, Texas
Muche Ukegbu vice chair The Brook Church Miami, Florida
Committee on Committees
Sky Pratt chairman Prince Avenue Baptist Church Athens, Georgia
Tellers
Ashlyn Portero vice chair
Stephanie Orr chairperson
Ray Carr vice chair
City Church Tallahassee, Florida
First Baptist Church Chipley, Florida
Baptist Center Church Clayton, North Carolina
EVANGELISM INITIATIVE
‘Who’s Your One?’ Emphasis Launched by Brandon Elrod
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he North American Mission Board (NAMB) launched the Who’s Your One? evangelism initiative on February 26 as part of an effort to encourage Southern Baptists to engage people with Gospel conversations throughout the year. This evangelism emphasis asks believers to pray for and focus on one individual in the hope that the person may come to Christ. Southern Baptist Convention President J. D. Greear has worked in coordination with NAMB to develop a special resource for pastors that will help them personally embrace the effort and also lead their congregations to engage in sharing their faith. “As a pastor, it’s easy to live as a ‘professional Christian’ who urges others to bring people to faith in Christ without actually doing it myself,” Greear said. “There’s a saying, ‘Evangelism is caught as much as it is taught.’ When our people see us praying for lost friends, inviting them to church, and sharing the Gospel, they’ll join us! These Who’s Your One? resources give us pastors simple tools to call our people to join us in personal evangelism.”
As part of the emphasis, pastors can order a free kit from NAMB that includes several items to help their church practice evangelism. The package includes an implementation guide, a thirty-day prayer guide, a prayer journal, prayer bookmarks, and a poster. A USB drive includes digital resources including promotional graphics, slides, sermon outlines and transcripts, sample sermons, and a bulletin insert. In a May 23 “NAMB News” email release, NAMB reported that more than twenty thousand kits have been mailed to thousands of churches and pastors, with more than one hundred thousand prayer guides and 1.3 million prayer bookmarks distributed. Churches can order resources at NAMB’s online store, nambstore. com, or through whosyourone.com. Pastors can also receive assistance by calling 800-634-2462. “My favorite thing about the Who’s Your One? kit is that it provides pastors with resources to help kick start a wave of personal evangelism in their churches,” said Johnny Hunt, NAMB’s senior vice president of evangelism and leadership. “I pray that the Who’s Your One? movement encourages Southern Baptists to get
back to our roots as a Gospel-focused people.” Who’s Your One? is one part of Greear’s “Gospel Above All” theme for his presidency, which is designed to help Southern Baptists focus on the unifying mission of sharing the Gospel. Other areas Greear is emphasizing include: Go2, which is a challenge for college students to strategically spend their first two years after graduation on the mission field; multiplying churches, which emphasizes church planting in North America and around the globe; and undivided churches, which helps congregations reflect the unity of God’s Kingdom to a divided world. More information can be found at gospelaboveall.com. Who’s Your One? is one of several ways NAMB is elevating the importance of evangelism among Southern Baptists. Hunt officially joined the team at NAMB at the start of 2019 because of his passion to see Southern Baptists heighten their efforts to reach the lost in their communities.
As a part of that effort, NAMB launched a podcast—Evangelism with Johnny Hunt— that provides tips and interviews with pastors, began producing weekly evangelism videos, and continues hosting evangelism conferences such as Engage 24 across the nation. “At NAMB, it’s all about the Gospel,” NAMB president Kevin Ezell said. “We want to do everything we possibly can to equip pastors and churches to reach their communities with the saving message of Jesus Christ.” Learn more about NAMB’s evangelism resources at namb.net/evangelism or by following Who’s Your One? on social media. In its first ninety days, the initiative has already drawn 15,800 followers on Facebook, 2,000 followers on Twitter, and 1,100 followers on Instagram. Brandon Elrod writes for the North American Mission Board and is a member of First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia. This article was previously published in Baptist Press.
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GOSPEL ABOVE ALL “Over the years, we have continued to hone our church planting pathway so that our missionaries are able to start with a strong foundation. That enables these churches to be a lasting presence in communities for years to come.” Dhati Lewis, lead pastor, Blueprint Church Atlanta, Georgia Dhati Lewis, vice president of NAMB’s Send Network, leads Send North America’s Rebuild Initiative and is pastor of Blueprint, an inner-city church sharing the Gospel in the urban environment he calls home. photo by susan whitley
vice president, Send Network North American Mission Board
| namb
‘Class of 2018’ Church Plants Seeing Life Change C by Brandon Elrod
hris and Mindy Flora responded to God’s stirring in their hearts and moved to Canada in January of 2017 to reach a city whose population desperately needed the Gospel. “When we heard that the city of Calgary was 95 percent lost and one of the fastest growing cities in North America,” Chris said, “God broke our hearts for the city.” After inviting people to Bible studies, hosting block parties and summer camps, and carefully cultivating relationships, the Floras launched Multiply Church in February 2018 with a core group of twenty-eight people. “It’s now about 130 people who call us home,” Chris said, “and we average between sixty and seventy people every week. We saw eleven accept Christ and seven baptized in our first year.” Throughout the US and Canada, similar stories can be told of how God is blessing new
congregations that are making a significant Gospel impact on individual lives and communities. In Atlanta, an under-reached area in the South, Mike McKee and his team launched Image Church in January 2018. They average 191 in worship attendance, have baptized twentyone people, and have built strong relationships within the community, especially a local elementary school they serve. Grace Church in Boston has a plan to multiply across the city. And in September 2018, they launched a third campus—Grace Church West Bridgewater, led by pastor Stephen Sargent. The new congregation has baptized twenty-seven since its launch, and on Easter Sunday 2019 they welcomed 667 people. Last year, Southern Baptists planted 624 new churches in North America. An additional 254 churches began cooperating with the
Southern Baptist Convention, bringing the total number of new churches added to 878. Of those new church plants, 62 percent were either nonAnglo or multiethnic. The North American Mission Board comes alongside churches, associations, and state Baptist convention partners to plant new churches in North America. “We plant churches everywhere for everyone,” said NAMB president Kevin Ezell. “We are incredibly grateful for each of these new churches and the missionaries who lead them, but we need so many more. We could plant a hundred more tomorrow if we had the qualified church planting missionaries to do it.” NAMB has developed its strategy to help churches plant healthy congregations that can thrive in cities and neighborhoods where their Gospel witness is desperately needed.
“Over the years, we have continued to hone our church planting pathway so that our missionaries are able to start with a strong foundation,” said Dhati Lewis, vice president of the Send Network, NAMB’s church planting arm. “That enables these churches to be a lasting presence in communities for years to come.” A key aspect to discovering and developing more of those missionaries has been the creation of the Send Network’s Multiplication Pipeline. The Send Network instituted multiplication as a core value within partner churches in order to encourage and equip church plants and establish churches to train new missionaries. “We have been working to identify churches that we call ‘multiplying churches.’ These are congregations that intentionally disciple and lead their people by preparing them to become workers in the harvest,” Ezell said. “Any church, no matter the size, can multiply if they decide to do so. At NAMB, our goal is to help churches create this sending culture.” To learn more and to involve your church in NAMB’s Multiplication Pipeline, visit namb. net/pipeline. Brandon Elrod writes for the North American Mission Board and is a member of First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia. This article was previously published in Baptist Press.
Go2 Student Mobilization Initiative “A major component of the North American Mission Board’s booth during the SBC annual meeting in Birmingham is dedicated to student mobilization, including the new Go2 Initiative. Go2 is a mobilization strategy in partnership with J. D. Greear, NAMB, and IMB encouraging recent college graduates to spend their first two years after college on mission. In North America, the goal is to make disciples in the marketplace, working in their chosen field, as they serve in a church plant. Internationally, it’s completing IMB’s Journeyman program serving in a city as a fully-funded missionary for two years. More information and ways to sign up can be found at www.Go2Years.net. The site also includes resources for college pastors and ministry leaders to cast the vision for college students to give two years, post-graduation, to serving on mission.” Adam Hollingsworth, chief marketing officer, North American Mission Board
Cooperative Program Stage and Platform Monday, June 10, 3:00p Ronnie Floyd, president and CEO, SBC Executive Committee, will moderate a panel discussion on the Go2 Initiative with the following guests: J. D. Greear, president, SBC Kevin Ezell, president, NAMB Paul Chitwood, president, IMB
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COOPERATION AND THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM
Cooperative Missions: Making a Difference
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he churches that network together to support the mission and ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention voluntarily choose to cooperate with one another. These churches, known as “cooperating churches,” believe that each accomplishes more when they work together in harmony. They believe their combined resources empower them to make a Kingdom impact that touches their own neighborhoods, their surrounding region, their respective states, and even the farthest reaches of our nation and the world. The most important benefits of being part of a ministry organization like the SBC are spiritual and intangible. It is natural and biblical that churches would take the opportunity to identify with like-minded churches. This allows each church to be a part of a larger enterprise, pooling their resources to establish and advance Great Commission work. This loose-knit family structure creates a synergy in which the impact of the
whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts, giving churches a way collectively to express their convictions and realize their vision. Each cooperating church, regardless of size, location, language, worship style, or ethnicity, contributes to this synergy. It is amazing what can happen when thousands of like-minded churches and millions of like-minded followers of Christ band together to accomplish Kingdomsized initiatives. Such cooperation promotes a strong esprit de corps with men and women who share a common missional vision of reaching their neighborhoods and the nations with the life-changing power of the Gospel. Financial contributions through the Cooperative Program and special offerings help underwrite the world’s most effective missionsending agencies in history, the nation’s largest consortium of theological seminaries, and the godly influence the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission brings to the public square.
12
The number of ministry and facilitating entities that serve the missions and ministry initiatives of the Southern Baptist Convention — two mission boards, six seminaries, GuideStone, LifeWay, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and the Executive Committee.
624 The number of new churches planted by Southern Baptists in the United
States and Canada during the past year as reported by the North American Mission Board, bringing to 7,593 the number of churches planted since 2010, according to NAMB’s report in the Book of Reports. These churches accounted for 18 percent of all reported baptisms by Southern Baptist churches and 71 percent of baptisms among Canadian Baptists in 2017, according to a report by NAMB president Kevin Ezell at its May trustee meeting.
3,692 The number of overseas field personnel working overseas through the
ministries of IMB as of April 30. IMB’s Fast Facts were updated on May 31 after this issue went to print (May 28) and will include the 26 newly-appointed missionaries commissioned by IMB on May 23.
22,808
The total number of students receiving training through the ministries of our six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries through residency, extension, and online courses, with a FTE (full-time equivalency) of 8,079 students. 1,669 basic degrees were awarded in 2017–2018—691 MDiv, 121 ThM, and 857 MA and other two-year seminary degrees.
4.82
The average percentage of total undesignated gifts received by cooperating churches that was forwarded through the Cooperative Program to support the mission and ministry causes of 41 state Baptist conventions and the SBC. Last year’s total CP was $463,076,368, with $266,031,540 used for hundreds of ministries through the states and $197,044,828 forwarded for Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries.
Cooperative Program Allocation Budget/Designated Receipts Accumulative Distribution MID-YEAR REPORT, October 1, 2018 through March 31, 2019 CP Allocation Budget International Mission Board North American Mission Board
50,781,207.57 22,957,820.28
Designated 105,971,361.94 9,465,054.35
156,752,569.51 32,422,874.63
Gateway Seminary 2,031,164.16 5,371.47 2,036,535.63 Midwestern Seminary 3,255,641.31 8,431.00 3,264,072.31 New Orleans Seminary 3,658,382.75 7,634.00 3,666,016.75 Southeastern Seminary 3,924,469.08 14,105.30 3,938,574.38 Southern Seminary 5,300,290.68 19,814.15 5,320,104.83 Southwestern Seminary 3,911,465.76 18,500.60 3,929,966.36 Historical Library and Archives 241,767.32 329.64 242,096.96 Ethics & Religious Liberty Comm 1,662,150.24 3,660.45 1,665,810.69 GuideStone Financial Resources 0.00 20,420.81 20,420.81 SBC Operating 3,012,017.66 493,318.15 3,505,335.81 Grand Totals $100,736,376.81 $116,028,001.86 $216,764,378.67
Leaders of cooperating local churches form the talent pool from which leadership and oversight of the Convention’s various cooperative ministries are selected. Members of these same churches are the volunteer base of every Convention ministry effort, whether Disaster Relief or trustee service, foster parenting or Convention committee work. Being informed of SBC initiatives, these volunteers choose to give of their time, talents, and resources to the various ministry initiatives of the Convention and its entities. The credibility and ministry of each local church contributes positively to the public image of the Southern Baptist Convention, while the networking and fellowship of the members of cooperating churches promote a sense of accomplishment that the Convention is making a difference in people’s lives. Not all benefits of cooperation, however, are intangible. Each cooperating church, regardless of size or ability to contribute, qualifies for messengers the churches themselves elect. Each
messenger has a voice and a vote at the SBC annual meeting. These messengers determine the missions and ministry priorities of the Convention and select the trustees that govern each ministry entity. Because of Cooperative Program gifts from thousands of churches, church-endorsed seminary students are given opportunity to prepare for ministry at below-market costs and, upon graduation, are able to serve churches of any size. God-called missionaries can serve overseas without the need to cut short their field assignments to raise money. Church planters across the United States and Canada are part of a network that provides ongoing training and multiple avenues of support and encouragement. Pastors and other church staff members qualify to participate in GuideStone’s retirement, health, disability, and life insurance plans, and to benefit from the numerous ministry tools produced by LifeWay Christian Resources.
Cooperative Program Allocation Budget/Missions Offerings, and Designated Contributions Received from State Baptist Conventions and Other Sources MID-YEAR REPORT, October 1, 2018, through March 31, 2019 Cooperative Program Lottie Moon Allocation Christmas Contribution Sources Budget Offering®
Annie Armstrong Easter Other Offering® Designated
Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Dakota DC Florida Georgia Hawaii Pacific Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas-Nebraska Kentucky Louisiana Maryland-Delaware Michigan Minnesota-Wisconsin Mississippi Missouri Montana Nevada New England New Mexico New York North Carolina Northwest Ohio Oklahoma Pennsylvania-S. Jersey Puerto Rico South Carolina Tennessee Texas (BGCT) Texas (SBTC) Utah-Idaho Virginia (BGAV) Virginia (SBCV) West Virginia Wyoming
9,500,350.54 101,483.39 567,384.51 4,777,850.93 1,125,069.48 394,905.02 48,025.88 0.00 7,580,371.18 8,493,514.72 129,447.27 1,170,037.06 451,075.82 174,737.20 410,449.32 4,918,255.40 3,521,006.86 856,352.16 187,953.92 88,668.74 6,418,073.71 3,026,862.64 91,670.17 320,039.52 101,501.88 535,484.67 122,830.84 5,730,315.25 362,171.77 1,117,955.99 5,114,165.19 164,645.04 4,065.85 5,561,958.15 8,032,603.56 5,289,267.15 7,938,213.30 105,004.14 523,961.27 2,381,317.15 251,290.58 57,109.46
9,794,390.43 95,266.64 821,748.04 4,239,167.91 1,322,365.06 372,312.13 84,021.63 0.00 4,238,711.11 7,489,046.31 0.00 1,120,180.84 512,934.72 136,211.97 487,898.99 4,473,850.21 3,821,356.62 746,469.61 167,096.99 118,773.86 7,235,916.74 3,378,719.64 106,288.93 137,455.20 89,559.14 721,539.91 164,927.24 10,805,288.65 414,976.23 811,336.24 4,538,550.19 147,368.76 524.00 6,617,360.26 8,299,762.97 7,147,007.84 5,862,653.86 137,645.35 1,792,599.86 3,159,419.14 240,881.26 72,393.83
996,301.73 7,536.45 38,261.27 380,347.72 93,352.01 38,650.04 1,420.00 0.00 259,236.36 894,021.54 0.00 91,268.04 46,833.99 44,922.54 71,382.95 233,890.69 310,144.65 82,182.32 16,705.53 2,943.35 425,219.57 345,223.61 11,235.68 27,219.64 2,625.65 91,586.10 13,391.48 637,800.89 15,973.48 107,638.15 398,744.04 19,009.39 5,747.14 429,004.21 578,201.49 713,304.95 814,274.38 4,510.11 107,834.66 115,771.97 20,117.62 627.75
424,082.82 2,473.50 4,770.61 179,990.66 17,210.41 7,095.57 0.00 0.00 317,419.68 645,766.39 176,519.19 53,068.07 12,908.67 728.92 18,275.32 138,055.28 60,020.31 36,404.05 9,566.39 3,705.35 81,521.29 135,772.46 1,728.22 3,596.92 2,814.61 15,877.66 6,638.71 176,856.53 14,660.78 36,324.03 81,794.95 5,993.43 0.00 215,432.09 428,331.45 240,451.62 65,056.55 2,806.00 25,283.56 59,680.58 9,908.23 2,655.86
Subtotal
97,747,446.68
101,923,978.31
8,494,463.14
3,721,246.72
Churches & Individuals 2,988,930.13
653,274.65
52,394.78
1,182,644.26
$102,577,252.96
$8,546,857.92
$4,903,890.98
Grand Totals
$100,736,376.81
SBCLIFE
PAGE 7 SUMMER 2019
FAST FACTS ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
FAST FACTS ABOUT THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION GENERAL INFORMATION The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a fellowship of over 47,000 Baptist churches scattered across the United States and its territories. These congregations, comprised of numerous racial, ethnic, language, and socioeconomic people groups, are called “cooperating churches.” They have organized themselves to accomplish a specific set of missions and ministry initiatives, all for the purpose of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people everywhere.
Cooperating churches Total membership in the SBC network of churches
47,456 14,813,234
Weekly worship attendance in the SBC network Total baptisms (reported by Southern Baptist churches)
5,297,788
Cooperating state conventions
246,442 41
Cooperating local associations
1,126
from 2018 Annual ChurchMay Profile from 2018 Annual Church Profile report released 23,report 2019
The Cooperative Program is Southern Baptists’ unified plan of giving through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their undesignated receipts in support of their respective state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries.
MISSION BOARD REPORTS The International Mission Board (IMB) and North American Mission Board (NAMB) assist churches in evangelizing, discipling, and planting reproducing churches in our nation and around the world in fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Overseas missionaries
3,692
Unengaged Unreached People Groups
3,160
Domestic missionaries
5,097
New churches planted
624
Existing churches joining with the SBC
254
reported by IMB, 4/30/2019 reported by IMB, March 2018
reported by NAMB in the 2019 Book of Reports reported by NAMB in the 2019 Book of Reports reported by NAMB in the 2019 Book of Reports
SEMINARY STUDENTS TRAINED
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH STATE CONVENTIONS DISASTER RELIEF The North American Mission Board and state convention partners organize Southern Baptists’ response to disasters. They contribute manpower, ministry, and financial help during floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and urban disasters.
Volunteer days Hours worked
103,356 817,641
Total contacts Gospel presentations Professions of faith
75,666 3,986 549
Meals served
2,289,315
The Convention operates six seminaries and a Seminary Extension program to train its ministers and Christian workers.
from NAMB ministry report in 2019 Book of Reports
Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
1,801 3,525
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
3,724 4,254 5,497
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary TOTAL
4,007 22,808
Seminary Extension Division, Nashville
CHILDREN’S AND FAMILY MINISTRIES The Baptist Coalition for Children and Families represents twenty-two ministries established by state Baptist conventions to serve at-risk children and their families through residential care, counseling, foster care enlistment, and adoption assistance.
Number of children in residential care Number of others served Spiritual decisions reported
611
from 2017–2018 academic year as reported in 2019 Book of Reports
MISSION:DIGNITY
1,328 from Baptist Coalition for Children and Families 2018 data
BAPTIST COLLEGIATE MINISTRIES LifeWay Christian Resources and state conventions collaborate to make disciples on college campuses across the nation through Baptist Collegiate Ministries (BCM).
Mission:Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Resources, provides financial assistance to retired ministers, denominational workers, their spouses, and widows.
Individuals or couples receiving financial assistance Distributed in 2018
7,449 243,195
Number of Baptist Collegiate Ministries
1,699 $7,191,544
778
Total number of students involved Total number of reported salvations through BCM
from GuideStone Financial Resources ministry report in 2019 Book of Reports
74,738 10,576
from National Collegiate Ministries 2017–2018 Annual Statistics
RACIAL/ETHNIC DIVERSITY Dominant Ethnic Composition
Churches
Anglo churches African American churches
Congregations* Dominant Ethnic Composition
38,940 3,341
Hispanic churches Korean churches
2,222 760
Native American churches
40,400 Haitian churches 3,929 Chinese churches 3,506 Filipino churches 907 Multi-ethnic churches
391
435 20+ other ethnic and language groups
REGULAR CHURCH GIVING
Churches
Congregations*
379 210
529 269
142 181
188 299
982
1,460
*Includes churches and church-type missions provided by NAMB Center for Missional Research from 2017 Annual Church Profile data
Total reported undesignated receipts given in Southern Baptist churches in 2017–2018 as reported by the churches on the 2018 Annual Church Profile, May 2019
$9,601,534,950.00
Total Cooperative Program dollars given by Southern Baptist churches in fiscal 2017–2018
$463,076,368.00
Cooperative Program Allocation Budget gifts received for SBC causes
$197,044,828.14
as reported to the Executive Committee by the cooperating state Baptist conventions, April 2019 as reported by the Executive Committee, October 2018
Average percentage of undesignated receipts churches gave through the Cooperative Program in 2018 as reported by the SBC Executive Committee, 2017–2018 fiscal year
4.82 percent
DESIGNATED INDIVIDUAL GIVING Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions—100% goes to support overseas missionaries updated by IMB as of October 2018
Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions—100% goes to support North American missionaries updated by NAMB as of October 2018
Global Hunger Relief—100% goes to fight hunger in North America and around the world
amount received through the SBC Executive Committee, 2017–2018 fiscal year; does not include direct gifts to IMB and NAMB for GHR This information is updated six to eight times a year based on information received from entities and the SBC Executive Committee. Last updated 5/23/19.
$158,890,638.47 $61,185,207.25 $2,647,087.00
SBCLIFE
SUMMER 2019
PAGE 8
MILITARY MINISTRY
“It’s exciting to see the spiritual hunger among these young families. They’re hungry for community. They’re hungry for a relationship. But most importantly, they’re hungry for truth, spiritual truth, and hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many times, they’re hearing it for the first time.” Retired General Doug Carver director of chaplaincy North American Mission Board
The congregation sings during a worship service at Pillar Church of 29 Palms on May 19. photo courtesy of pillar church
New Southern Baptist Church Plant Reaching Marines in California Already Running Out of Space by Tobin Perry
J
acob and Joi Rogers had already tried for four months to find a church home during their first stint in 29 Palms, California, a year earlier. As a newly married couple, the marine and his new bride had to travel an hour away from home to find a good church fit. So when the Rogers returned to 29 Palms in the spring of 2018, Joi already dreaded the search for a new church. “I wondered what in the world we were going to do,” Rogers said. “I knew we definitely needed a church family. We needed the community. I was almost convinced we were going to have to start a home church.” But that’s when new friends told the couple about Pillar Church of 29 Palms, a new Southern Baptist church plant specifically reaching out to Marines in the city. From their very first visit, the church seemed like the fit they had been looking for. Although Jacob and Joi had both grown up in Christian homes and had been Christians before coming to Pillar 29 Palms, Joi has seen herself grow much deeper in her Christian walk during the past year. Since about 80 percent of Pillar 29 Palm’s attendance comes from the nearby Marine base, the church has a deep understanding of the unique challenges of military life. “I’ve known my whole life that my faith was the most important thing to me,” said Joi, who now coordinates the church’s women’s ministry. “But that didn’t really translate to my everyday life. Through Pillar, through the examples around me, it has transformed our vision of the
future—from how we look at the Marine Corps to how we look at finances and how we make decisions. Everything is now measured by what God has for us and nothing that the world says is important anymore.” Roy Garza started Pillar 29 Palms in January of 2018 in part to engage the area’s Marine Corps community. A former Marine himself, Garza had been stationed at the base in 29 Palms years earlier so he and his wife, Cassandra, already had a unique understanding of the needs of Marine Corps families within the community. “Particularly in 29 Palms, the tempo here is so high,” Garza said. “The husbands are always gone. The mom is trying to wear both hats, mom and dad. We’ve had to learn how to adapt to that and had to learn to minister to families where the dad is gone a lot of the time. We’ve had to find unique ways to minister to the father while he’s here and keep in touch with him while he is deployed.” Garza notes church attendance has grown from six families to an average of 120 people in attendance each week with little to no marketing. He believes part of the reason the church has grown so quickly is because of the deep need in the community for a church that understands the unique needs of military families. Small groups have been one of the church’s most effective outreach tools. Garza notes that many new families come to the church through one of its small groups. The church has several small groups on base and others in town. Pillar Church of Dumfries, Virginia, commissioned Roy and Cassandra Garza and two other couples to start Pillar 29 Palms as part of
its Praetorian Project, a family of Southern Baptist churches planting churches in military communities around the world. Clint Clifton, who started Pillar Church Dumfries in 2004, began the Praetorian Project after noting the unique potential (and pitfalls) of starting a church near Quantico, which is nicknamed the “Crossroads of the Marine Corps” because so many Marines spend some time in Quantico. “Every year thousands of service members and their families cycle in and out of Quantico making it both an excellent and awful place to plant a church,” writes Clifton in a free ebook by the North American Mission Board’s Send Network entitled Praetorian Project: Multiplying the Gospel Through Military Church Planting. “Excellent because everyone who comes to Quantico is leaving soon—so the potential for spreading the Gospel is unlimited. Awful because everyone who comes to Quantico is leaving soon—so the potential for never really getting established as a church is high.” Today, the network has eight churches, including Pillar 29 Palms and a church in Okinawa City, Japan. The North American Mission Board (NAMB) has focused attention on planting churches near military bases in recent years. Retired Gen. Doug Carver, NAMB’s director of chaplaincy, noted that many military bases are near NAMB’s Send North America cities, particularly in the West, so planting churches to engage military communities was a natural fit. Military families, he adds, have unique needs, including the fact that they are constantly
deploying. Church plants provide these families with opportunities to network and connect with other military families and engage in a community atmosphere. “It’s exciting to see the spiritual hunger among these young families,” said Carver, who served as the US Army’s chief of chaplains before his 2011 retirement. “They’re hungry for community. They’re hungry for a relationship. But most importantly, they’re hungry for truth, spiritual truth, and hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many times, they’re hearing it for the first time. These military church plants are shedding the light of the Gospel within the context of some of these communities where there’s not a lot of religious activity or even churches in some remote locations, especially Southern Baptist churches.” Carver says NAMB encourages these church planters to reach out to chaplains on base and partner with them as they minister to military families. Garza asks Southern Baptists to pray for the families of Pillar 29 Palms as they transition in and out of deployments. He also adds that the church’s growth is leading them to look for a new building. He asks Southern Baptists to pray they’d find an effective location for ministry. For more information on Pillar Church 29 Palms, visit pillar29palms.com. For more information on the Praetorian Project, visit praetorianproject.org. Tobin Perry is a freelance writer in Evansville, Indiana, and is a member of Center of Hope Church in Evansville.
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SBCLIFE
SUMMER 2019
PAGE 10
MILITARY CHAPLAINCY “Chaplains aren’t aviators, they aren’t engineers, and they’re not MPs, they’re chaplains. Each of those branches and MOSs have their uniqueness, their pride, and their legacy. So as Chaplain, when we’re assigned to those types of units, a challenge is to learn what that looks like and learn their heritage in order to connect.” Lieutenant Colonel Bill Draper, chaplain Kentucky Army National Guard Kentucky Army National Guard Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Bill Draper speaks to a group of soldiers during a morning meeting at Cyber Shield 19 held at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, April 13, 2019. Draper is a native of Georgetown, Kentucky, and is assigned as Chaplain for the 12th iteration of Cyber Shield. photos by spc. william phelps
Southern Baptist Chaplain, an Afghanistan Veteran, now ‘Hacking Hearts and Minds’ at Cyber Shield 19 by Spc. William Phelps, 120th Public Affairs Detachment, Indiana Army National Guard
S
oldiers and airmen pound on keyboards. They talk with faces glued to monitors as if they are talking to the computers and cables, their words a staccato of high tech jargon. Chaos monkey. Button masher. Clicktivism. The cloud. Data boomerang. Death by tweakage. Enterprise data. Hamster dance. Huge pipes. Ijack. And in walks Kentucky Army National Guard Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Bill Draper. This kindhearted, soft-spoken native of Georgetown, Kentucky, won his way into the hearts of the highly caffeinated, top-of-the-line information technology soldiers of Cyber Shield 19. Draper has thirty-seven years in the Army, eighteen enlisted. He’s been deployed to Afghanistan multiple times and has ministered to military police, combat engineers, and aviators. Now the Kentucky National Guard Deputy Joint Force Headquarters chaplain, he volunteered to provide chaplain service to the soldiers and airmen of the National Guard’s premier cyber training exercise. Cyber Shield 19, held April 5–19 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, involved about eight hundred personnel from the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, and Army Reserves, and cyber experts from industry as well as local, state, and federal agencies. It also had one grey-haired, easy-going chaplain. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of what is said is over my head, but I realize that as the chaplain, the basic needs are all the same,” Draper, who is endorsed by the North American Mission Board, said. When soldiers leave home for training or deployment, they face similar challenges, he added. And a good chaplain is there to support them. “Chaplains aren’t aviators, they aren’t engineers, and they’re not MPs [military police], they’re chaplains,” Draper said. “Each of those branches and MOSs [military occupational specialties] have their uniqueness, their pride, and their legacy. So as chaplain, when we’re assigned to those types of
units, a challenge is to learn what that looks like and learn their heritage in order to connect.” Draper pulls you in with each word and keeps you engaged with ease. And he wanted to learn all he could about these high-tech troops. “When the chaplain got here, he said ‘I don’t know what they’re doing, but I can tell they’re doing good things.’ Now he’s hacking hearts and minds,” said Colonel Teri Williams, the commander of Cyber Shield 19. Technology has come a long way since Draper first enlisted. Back then, typewriters were in use. Now, he uses his cell phone to care for his flock of cyber warriors. He captures notes on his iPhone. He supplements his visits with follow-up text-messaging. He shows troops how to get a daily dose of scripture through smartphone apps. “I felt honored to be able to interact and help Chaplain Draper as we comforted a soldier whose mother had recently passed. He [Draper] was able to provide a Bible and an .mp3 player to help comfort the solider,” said Sgt. 1st Class Graham Albert of the Florida Army National Guard. However, these tech-savvy methods supplement rather than supplant. There is no substitute for human-to-human contact for chaplains. “We do that through ministry of presence. We go around and talk to soldiers,” said Draper, who entered the Chaplain Corps in 2004. “Ministry of presence is simply being around the training areas, work areas, and recreational areas with soldiers. It is engaging and interacting with them in order to build relationships. “My fundamental approach in providing religious support to soldiers and commanders is getting to know them, their job, family, and faith experiences,” he said. “Once these relationships are made, chaplains have a seat at the table, so to speak, and service members are more inclined to call on them when needed. In addition, I offer worship services, counseling, and crisis intervention as requested and/or as needed.” At Cyber Shield 19, he was always on the move. He hopped around from area to area
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Bill Draper of the Kentucky Joint Force Headquarters shares a quick laugh with Keith Wichmann of the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory after a lecture at Cyber Shield 19 held at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, April 8, 2019. Chaplain Draper was enlisted in the Army for eighteen years before starting his career as a chaplain in 2004; he has thirty-seven years of service.
checking on troops, meeting the instructors and staff, providing a quick laugh—or comfort and support. “It is important to be there for each other emotionally and spiritually in times of need,” Sgt. 1st Class Albert said. “It makes us a stronger force.” Draper believes the hardest part of exercises such as Cyber 19 is not the mission itself. “These men and women are well trained and typically exceed standards,” he said. “[The hardest part] is being away from home and missing events like birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, or unexpected tragedies that have no notice such as illnesses, auto accidents, and other types of emergencies. Often during ministry of presence soldiers will approach me asking for prayers for their family and specific situations. They seldom ask prayer for themselves but always for someone else.”
He describes his ministry as challenging but rewarding. “I would encourage pastors and persons in ministry to explore opportunities to serve as military chaplains or religious affairs specialists because it is a very noble vocation, and the need is great among our troops,” he said. As Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Draper saw his hightech warriors in action at Cyber Shield 19, he had no doubt they would succeed and meet their training objectives. And whenever one of his cyber warriors needed him, he was there faster than a bandwidth hugger can send a megabyte of data across a huge pipe.
Spc. William Phelps is with the 120th Public Affairs Detachment of the Indiana Army National Guard.
SBCLIFE
SUMMER 2019
PAGE 12
SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION INITIATIVES Background Checks Considered
In his February remarks, Greear asked the Executive Committee to “strongly consider requiring background checks, at a minimum, for all SBC standing committees and trustee appointments.” The Executive Committee officers have placed consideration of requiring background checks for members of all boards and committees of the SBC on the agenda for the Committee’s September 2019 meeting. Executive Committee staff amended the nominations form completed by Committee on Nominations’ members. Each person nominated to serve in an elected role on SBC boards and committees will be asked to provide written affirmation of the nominee’s willingness for background checks to be conducted on him or her upon their election to serve.
Ordination Practices Reviewed Amy Whitfield of Southeastern Seminary, at podium, voiced a prayer for victims of sexual abuse at the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee meeting in Nashville on February 18, 2019. photo by morris abernathy
Sex Abuse Prevention
Greear’s Action Steps Gain Traction
D
uring his remarks at the SBC Executive Committee winter meeting, J. D. Greear told EC members and guests, “I think we recognize, with brokenness, that our culture needs to change when it comes to our response to sexual abuse.” Noting that the SBC has passed numerous resolutions “making clear how we feel about abuse,” the SBC president said it is time for Southern Baptists to “back up our words with actions that demonstrate our commitment to this.” “We serve a God who laid down his life to protect the vulnerable,” Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, said in his February 18 remarks. “How dare we proclaim that Gospel with our mouths and turn a blind eye when the vulnerable in our midst cry out for help?” Following his June 2018 election as SBC president, Greear formed a presidential initiative, working in partnership with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), to consider ways to combat the evil of sexual abuse in a church setting. At its Fall 2018 meeting, the Executive Committee, acting on behalf of the Convention ad interim, approved up to $250,000 in Cooperative Program gifts to fund the initiative. At the Winter 2019 meeting, Greear called on Southern Baptists to ten action steps in response to sexual abuse in a church or ministry setting.
Season of Sorrow and Lament
Greear called on Southern Baptists to enter a season of repentance of allowing a culture “that has made abuse, cover-ups, and evading accountability far too easy.” He called for a “season of sorrow” to “culminate at the 2019 SBC annual meeting as we have a time for prayer and lament on the subject of abuse.” In “Five Updates on the Sexual Abuse Advisory Group,” an ERLC update posted on May 14, Phillip Bethancourt, the Commission’s executive vice president, said that the Sexual Abuse Advisory Group will “lead a time of prayer and lament as well as present a report on its work” during the ERLC’s presentation on Wednesday afternoon at 2:45 p.m.
Rollout of New Church Resource
In the same post, Bethancourt announced that
Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused will be ready by the SBC annual meeting. The resource, introduced by Greear in his February 18 EC report, has been developed by a team of survivors, advocates, and experts and is designed to prepare pastors and other leaders to respond well to any reports of sexual abuse within the church setting. Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused is “a free video-based curriculum to equip churches to provide holistic care for abuse,” according to Bethancourt. The twelve-part video series will include a companion written curriculum and will be available in both English and Spanish, he wrote. A handbook by the same title has been published by B&H Publishing and became available for individual purchase for $4.99 on June 4 at LifeWay.com. Discounts are available for bulk orders in increments of 10–49, 50–99, and 100 or more The B&H website states, “Though the most comprehensive training is experienced by using this handbook and the videos together, readers who may be unable to access the videos can use this handbook as a stand-alone resource.”
Statement of Principles Affirmed
During his February remarks, Greear announced that “all six seminaries, the officers of the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders (SBCAL), and state convention executive directors” had already agreed to three statements of principles on abuse. The seminaries pledged to “share, care, and prepare” students, faculty, and staff “as standard preparation for ministry.” The latter two groups pledged to educate and equip their respective churches with training on sexual abuse prevention and care. He made copies of the three documents available to those in attendance.
Cooperating Baptist Bodies Respond
In the months since his presidential presentation, SBCAL leaders and state executives have continued to refine appropriate strategies to assist their cooperating churches and church leaders. Working in partnership, the groups have developed ten “encouragements” for cooperating churches in regard to the evil of sexual abuse. The document is titled, “Encouragements to
Associations, State Conventions, and Churches Regarding Abuse of Minors.” Tennessee’s Baptist and Reflector reported in its May 15 edition that the document is “authored by The Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders (SBCAL) and the Officers of the SBC Fellowship of State Executives.” The organizations’ stated intent “is to support associations, state conventions, and churches in the prevention of sexual abuse and to encourage the protection of minors.” The statement is not intended as a mandate, leaders from both organizations said. “We recognize we have no authority over any Baptist entity,” Ray Gentry, SBCAL’s executive director, told the Baptist and Reflector. “But we also recognize our responsibility to serve churches. We want every church to be a safe place for everyone, especially children.” The statement was initiated when Southern Baptist Convention President J. D. Greear asked SBCAL if the organization would form a task force to explore ways associations could assist churches with prevention, protection, awareness, education, ministry care, and healing in support of the prevention of sexual abuse and for the protection of minors. “We gladly agreed to do so,” Gentry said. “Upon completion of our report, led by Kevin Carrothers of Illinois, we shared it with the state executive directors. They asked if we would work together and make the statement a joint report, which we were happy to do.” Randy C. Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and current president of the SBC Fellowship of State Executives, said the intention of the two groups coming together “is to continue reminding those who are on the front lines of training workers and caring for children to be diligent.” “These encouragements are elements many associations, state conventions, and churches have employed for years,” he added. “However, we offer them as reminders that we must be diligent and eradicate abuse completely. Even one instance is one too many.” The document is on the agenda for the SBCAL annual meeting held this week (June 9–10) prior to the SBC annual meeting and will be considered by state conventions at their board and/or annual meetings throughout the summer and fall.
While ministerial calling and ordination continue to be a function of each local church, associational leaders are beginning to review ways to strengthen the process through their local network of churches. Jason A. Lowe, an associational mission strategist in Kentucky, began polling pastors and other Baptist leaders across the Southern Baptist Convention on ways to enhance the ordination screening process, according to a May 10 Baptist Press news story about the survey. In the resultant report, “Above Reproach: A Study of the Ordination Practices of SBC Churches,” Lowe noted that “very little study” has been done on this topic and that no one has a good snapshot of what is actually happening across the SBC when it comes to ordination practices. “No one knows how thoroughly candidates for ordination are being examined,” wrote Lowe, who serves as associational mission strategist for the Pike Association of Southern Baptists in southeastern Kentucky as well as executive pastor for First Baptist Church in Pikeville. “No one knows how many ordination councils require candidates to complete a background check,” he wrote. “No one knows how many ordination councils examine a candidate’s sexual purity.” The 555 survey responses Lowe collated included pastors (60 percent), associational and denominational leaders (17 percent), deacons (9 percent), retired or former pastors (5 percent), and others (9 percent) from thirty-four states, Baptist Press reported. He released his findings in a 42-page report and noted five significant points of interest: 1. SBC ordination practices have significant room for improvement. 2. Discussions regarding a candidate’s sexual purity are sparse, but on the rise. 3. Ordination practices are changing in both positive and negative ways. For instance, more churches are requiring theological training, and more are conducting background checks and asking candidates about sexual purity. But on the other hand, the role of the ordination council seems to be decreasing in importance. Screening periods have gotten shorter as a whole, and councils involve fewer ordained pastors. 4. Ordaining churches in more populated areas set higher standards for their ordination candidates. 5. Larger churches are more thorough in their examination of ordination candidates. Churches with a larger membership are more likely to cover more topics during the screening process, require a background check, and require training. The full report is available at https:// jasonalowe.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/sbcordination-practices-report.pdf.
ACP Questions Considered
In his May 14 update, Bethancourt noted that there is no expected change for this fall’s Annual Church Profile report churches are asked to submit
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Governing Documents Amended
beginning this summer and throughout the fall. Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, who oversees development of the Annual Church Profile in concert with pastors, state convention representatives, and SBC leaders, told Executive Committee staff in a May 2 email that the 2019 report had already been finalized and distributed to states and associations for them to begin the annual process of collecting responses from more than fifty thousand churches and church-type missions across the United States and its territories.
Annual Meeting Activities
During the SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, a beehive of activities will highlight sexual abuse prevention in a church setting. The central element of this focus is a scheduled presentation during the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission presentation, part one, at 2:45 on Wednesday afternoon, June 12. In addition to the report to messengers, the Sexual Abuse Advisory Group and the ERLC “will partner together for a Monday night event on ‘Sexual Abuse and the Southern Baptist Convention,’” according to Bethancourt’s May 14 update. The event is scheduled for Monday, June 10, and will meet in the South Exhibit Hall, Level 1, in the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. Space is limited for the event. Panelists include ERLC President Russell Moore; SBC President J. D. Greear; author and Bible study teacher Beth Moore; attorney, advocate, and educator Rachael Denhollander; and Susan Codone, a survivor of sexual abuse in a Birmingham area Baptist church, Bethancourt wrote. The ERLC booth in the exhibit hall will serve as a hub for information, resources, and conversations about abuse.
J. D. Greear, left, Russell Moore, and Amy Whitfield answer reporters’ questions in an informal gathering after Greear’s address to the SBC Executive Committee, Monday, February 18, 2019. photo by morris abernathy
“We serve a God who laid down his life to protect the vulnerable. How dare we proclaim that Gospel with our mouths and turn a blind eye when the vulnerable in our midst cry out for help?” J. D. Greear president, Southern Baptist Convention
Database Possibility Explored
In his February 18 presentation to the Executive Committee, Greear raised the possibility of a “database of offenders.” He noted that the “subject of a database is complicated and will take time to evaluate.” “Just because we are not announcing any plans regarding a database tonight does not
mean that we are not doing everything we can to evaluate it as an option,” he said. In his May 14 update, Bethancourt indicated that an update on the status of a potential database “is not expected at the SBC annual meeting”; but, he wrote, “progress is taking place” on this “long-term item” on President Greear’s list.
During the February 18 –19 Executive Committee meeting in Nashville, the EC adopted a proposed amendment to SBC Constitution Article III that would provide for removal of any church deemed to have “evidenced indifference in addressing sexual abuse” from the list of cooperating churches with the Convention. In the intervening months, the Bylaws Workgroup, joined by the EC chairman, has held numerous conference calls in continuing deliberations on this subject. In late May, it recommended that the EC officers present a streamlined version of the Article III amendment, and proposed expanding SBC Bylaw 8 (which currently primarily relates to the registration of messengers) to the Executive Committee for consideration at its June 10 meeting in Birmingham. The expanded Bylaw 8 being considered would create a standing SBC Credentials Committee with a defined set of responsibilities to assist the Convention by reviewing allegations it receives that place a particular church’s relationship with the Convention in question, and then making a recommendation. Both matters—a constitutional amendment to Article III and an amendment to Bylaw 8, with attendant amendments to Bylaws 15 and 29— are on the agenda for the EC’s June 10 meeting, and the recommendations on these two matters, if passed, will be presented to SBC messengers on June 11 during the EC’s second report session on Tuesday afternoon. This update was compiled from numerous sources by Roger S. Oldham, executive editor of SBC LIFE and member of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
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SUMMER 2019
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BAPTIST GLOBAL RESPONSE “On the most basic level, this ministry gives food to hungry people in a desperate situation; however, not surprisingly, we see God doing so much more. We see Christians grow in their faith as they watch God work and provide in amazing ways and also sustain them in suffering.” Janet Hammond IMB missionary
Bags of food and toiletries provide refugees, who cannot work legally, with the resources to help them survive. courtesy of janet hammond
Ohio Baptists Give Food and God’s Love to Refugees in Thailand— Through a Fence by John Vaught
J
an* and Haley*, members of a Southern Baptist church in Ohio, always knew they were bound for Thailand. They never expected to witness the suffering of refugees firsthand. Their church had set a goal for 2018: one hundred volunteers serving in fourteen countries on five continents. On their world map, they had placed a pin in Thailand, the final trip of the year. Jan and Haley felt excited about teaching English as Second Language for the underprivileged. But when circumstances threatened to cancel the trip, a former International Mission Board (IMB) contact suggested an alternative: volunteering for a refugee ministry through an international Baptist church in Thailand that received funding from Baptist Global Response (BGR). BGR, though not an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, does promote the Cooperative Program (CP) and all giving channels and programs of the SBC. CP dollars, for example, support overseas field workers who partner with BGR so that Global Hunger Relief gifts, as well as human needs donations to the IMB and BGR, are used for their intended purposes. Jan said she felt uncertain at first. “I had never done refugee ministry before so I did not know what to expect,” she said. “I just wanted to serve the Lord as He had directed us.” So, five members of the church packed their suitcases and boarded a plane.
A Catch-22
When they arrived, the team connected with Carl and Janet Hammond*, a couple who had come to the region as IMB missionaries but now provide pastoral leadership of the international Baptist church that operates a ministry providing basic needs to refugees. “On the most basic level, this ministry gives food to hungry people in a desperate situation; however, not surprisingly, we see God doing so much more,” said Janet Hammond. “We see Christians grow in their faith as they watch God work and provide in amazing ways and also sustain them in suffering.”
Jan and Haley said they expected some culture shock, but they hadn’t expected the level of poverty and fear the refugees were living in. They brought food and toiletries and prayed with refugee families living in shabby one-room apartment complexes. They had few belongings. Some of them hadn’t even left their homes in months. It was too risky. Jan and Haley learned that asylum seekers in Thailand can apply for and receive a temporary visa relatively easily. The challenge comes when they have to renew that visa after thirty days. In order to renew their visas, refugees must complete an extensive interview with the authorities and pay a fee, which is no small thing for asylum seekers, who are not allowed to work. Refugees can appeal for official refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but after three denials, their case is closed permanently. Even if refugees wish to leave the country and return home, they still have to pay a fee. It’s a catch-22. Some refugees sneak out at night to work for cash under the table, but their families live in fear that they’ll be caught. If they’re arrested, it could be years before they’re released. Unfortunately, many refugees are still in the country when their temporary visas expire—making them illegal immigrants. Police officers frequently raid housing communities where refugees typically live, and they haul anyone who can’t produce legal documentation to a confinement center.
Giving God’s Love Through a Fence
Jan and Haley said nothing could have prepared them for the experience of visiting the confinement center. One morning, each volunteer was handed a big yellow bag brimming with food and toiletries, along with the name, ID number, and photo of a refugee in the confinement center. Each person would only have enough time to visit with one refugee. When they arrived, they had to wait two hours just to gain entry. Security guards searched
the food bags, removing contraband items and discarding them. When it was their turn, Jan and Haley were herded into a large open room. Two chain-link fences reinforced with steel bars divided the room in half—visitors on one side, refugees on the other—with a gap of six feet in between. About eighty-five refugees were waiting for them, craning their necks for a glimpse of a friendly face on the other side of the fence. Friends and family members cried out when they spotted each other. They ran to the fences to get as close to each other as they could. “They’re clinging to a chain-link fence to find you, and you’re clinging to a chain-link fence to find them,” Jan recalled. People cried and yelled over one another. The room was loud.
Cung and Lin*
Jan and Haley squinted at the faces of the refugees in their photos and scanned the crowd. Finally, Jan and another volunteer found whom they were looking for—a married couple who had fled their country due to religious persecution. Their two small children had been taken from them and were living in other homes. Though they were married, the couple was kept in separate rooms. Visitation was the only forty-five minutes they were allowed to spend together, but they were both required to have a visitor to do so. Jan and the other volunteer called their names: Cung and Lin. Jan said when Cung and Lin spotted them, they immediately started crying tears of joy. When the volunteers told them they had brought bags of food, even though it wasn’t even enough to last a week, Cung and Lin still thanked God for His provision. “They had so much faith and hope in the Lord,” Jan said. “They were behind bars and they were still praising God.” Jan and the other volunteer stepped back to give Cung and Lin as much time together as possible, but not before asking God to give them strength even when they weren’t together. Jan said she was surprised when Cung
Janet Hammond cradles a newborn refugee child. courtesy of janet hammond
and Lin prayed for them, asking God for safety and good health. Then they shouted the names and ID numbers of other detainees who hadn’t received visitors in a long time. Jan said they wanted others to have the same blessing and encouragement.
More Than Just Food
Jan and Haley said they left the center realizing that God had used a bag of food to give the refugees something even more important—the love of another person. “You realize the joy that God has given to you to bring a bag and let it be used,” Jan said. “Food was a way to get in, but they got so much more than just food to eat.” Haley said the experience has given her a new way to pray for refugees and their situations. “I can’t go a day without thinking about it,” she said. “It happens whether or not we’re thinking or praying about it.” Jan cited Galatians 6:9 as a cornerstone for Baptists to care about refugees: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. “They were in very poor conditions, and for many, whose case had been closed, not a lot of hope,” she said. “But their hope was coming from the Lord. Should we not work to help them and not give up, when they are not giving up?” You can learn more about Baptist Global Response and support projects that benefit refugees by visiting GoBGR.org. *Names have been changed. John Vaught is a writer for Baptist Global Response located in Nashville, Tennessee.
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SBC ANNUAL MEETING
SBC19 Mobile App Offers 21 Languages by Diana Chandler
C
losed captions will be available in twentyone languages during the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting livestream and on the SBC mobile app, an expansion from three languages offered in 2018. SBC Executive Committee President-elect Ronnie Floyd champions the language expansion as a major advancement in diversity and in spreading the Gospel globally. “I believe the Southern Baptist Convention must have the clear vision of becoming the most multigenerational, multiethnic, and multilingual denomination in the United States that is committed to presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and making disciples of all the nations,” Floyd said. “When our Executive Committee staff team heard this vision, they began to pursue a way to increase our capacity to offer closed captioning.” During all sessions of the SBC Pastors’ Conference and the SBC annual meeting, closed captions will be available in Arabic, traditional Chinese, English, Filipino, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. Communicating with people of different ethnicities and languages is vital, Floyd said. “If we want to reach this nation and the world with the Gospel, then we must do all we can to communicate with as many people as possible in the language they can understand,” Floyd
said. “When people of other ethnicities and languages know that we are trying to serve them through this offer of closed captioning, it will help them identify with us and understand more about us as their Southern Baptist family.” In 2018, closed captions were available in English, Spanish, and Korean, in continuing efforts of the multiethnic EC Convention advancement advisory councils, said Bill Townes, SBC EC vice president for Convention finance. “In response to Dr. Floyd’s vision, our Convention Planning Team continued to explore the expansion of the live translation feature in our closed captioning services,” Townes said. “In partnership with the SBC Pastors’ Conference, we are excited that translations in twenty-one different languages representing many different Southern Baptists will be provided.” The closed captioning services will all be available through the 2019 SBC Mobile App and directly by linking to www.ccproductions.com/ sbc/. The app is available in online app stores. “Users will be able to simply select the Closed Captioning Icon on the dashboard of the 2019 SBC Mobile App and when the closed captioning stream opens up,” Townes said, “they will be able to select from twenty-one different languages from a drop down menu.” Diana Chandler is general assignment writer/editor for Baptist Press and is a member of First Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. This article was previously published in Baptist Press.
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GLOBAL HUNGER RELIEF
Souley,* a Nigerien food vendor, poses with his children. Last year, Global Hunger Relief funds helped keep his business running during a drought so he could supply the local community with sorghum, beans, and corn. photo courtesy of baptist global relief
Global Hunger Relief Fund Helps Feed Nigerien Area, Boost Economy by Casey Watson
A
little over a year ago, a small, rural area of Niger faced a hunger crisis. Although most locals made meager income as farmers, they had enough money to buy food. Vendors simply didn’t have the food to sell them. Fortunately, Christian workers Lane* and Lisa Smith* predicted the failing harvests and empty store shelves. The country’s weather had cyclical seasons of drought, and they knew people would go hungry. “We have lived in eastern Niger a long time, and we realized there was going to be a major need when all of the nationals kept telling us how bad the harvest season had been,” Lisa said via email. The Smiths used funds from Global Hunger Relief (GHR), formerly known as the World Hunger Fund, to help solve the problem. Established in the 1970s, GHR is one of the major avenues Southern Baptist individuals, churches, and associations use to help meet hunger needs. Baptist Global Response, a disaster relief and community development organization, helps the International Mission Board manage, design, and carry out projects overseas. Eighty percent of gifts given to GHR go toward those needs in foreign nations and the remaining 20 percent helps curb hunger in North America through the North American Mission Board. That means 100 percent of GHR donations help fight hunger in the world. Sometimes, relief workers and missionaries use GHR funds to distribute food directly to
Eighty percent of gifts given to GHR go toward those needs in foreign nations and the remaining 20 percent helps curb hunger in North America through the North American Mission Board. That means 100 percent of GHR donations help fight hunger in the world. Sometimes, relief workers and missionaries use GHR funds to distribute food directly to families—especially after disasters. But, in cases of chronic hunger, they often find other, more sustainable ways to feed those in need. families—especially after disasters. But, in cases of chronic hunger, they often find other, more sustainable ways to feed those in need. The Smiths, for example, boosted local food markets. The couple knew that distributing food to Nigerien families would solve some problems, but it could also harm the local economy by cutting out community suppliers. So, they decided to work with vendors. They used a loan from the Global Hunger Relief fund to purchase sorghum, corn, and beans and then distributed the items to fifteen salesmen in the area. The vendors sold the food at a reasonable price and received a commission when they gave the proceeds to the Smiths. “By selling the food at a lower price, we were able to help more people in the
community who had an actual need for the food,” Lisa said. “Also, this provided an opportunity for the seller to make a small profit and understand the great need for selling food during the hungry season.” This method of food distribution, she said, allowed a vendor named Souley* to continue caring for his wife and two children while also giving his friends and family critical access to food. He enjoyed serving his community. “Every time I returned home with more grain to sell, there was a line at my house of people wanting to purchase,” he told the Smiths. “My first bag of grain would sell out in an hour. In a normal year, this could take days. All of my neighbors are so happy that they are able to buy food for their families now.”
Jeff Palmer, CEO of BGR, said relief workers and missionaries around the world often use GHR funds to meet needs in unique ways. They carefully assess situations and strategize how to solve the root problems of hunger. This approach results in projects that serve communities through various means such as providing villages with agricultural training so they can grow more food, offering vocational skills training so families can improve their income, or demonstrating improved food storage so people can use more of their harvest yields. Many people in need also receive livestock, like pigs, cows, chickens, and more, to provide their families with meat and small business opportunities. “The summary is that with the [Global Hunger Relief] fund, we help people get food, grow food, buy food, and use food,” Palmer said in a phone interview. Baptist Global Response and Global Hunger Relief are raising awareness throughout the year for the millions of people around the world who need better access to food. Those who would like to donate toward this cause can do so online through the Global Hunger Relief and Baptist Global Response websites. Any amount can help give a parent hope and send a child to bed with a full belly. *Names have been changed. Casey Watson, a former Baptist Global Response staff writer, also writes for Global Hunger Relief.
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SOUTHERN BAPTIST MEDIA DAY, JULY 28
“Southern Baptist Media Day” Added to SBC Calendar by Baptist Press Staff
S
outhern Baptist publications across the nation will have their day, July 28. Southern Baptist Media Day will recognize print and electronic publications—state papers, SBC entity magazines, websites, and more—around the nation that are dedicated to covering Southern Baptist news, missions, and ministry. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention added the new day to the SBC Calendar during their February meeting in Nashville. For many editors, this is a welcomed addition. Allan Blume, who retired as editor of the Biblical Recorder on May 31, has often expressed his concern for state Baptist publications and how they are desperately needed in today’s culture. “When I began serving as your editor,” Blume wrote in a column for the official newsjournal of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, “a senior leader at IMB said to me, ‘We need the state papers to survive. The papers are a major part of promoting the Lottie Moon offering and keeping Baptists informed all year long on the work of our missionaries.’ He said it is not possible for IMB to get mission information to people in the pews without the Biblical Recorder and the state newspapers.” Blume continued, “I genuinely believe one of the factors in the decline in [Cooperative Program] giving and other missions giving is due to the lack of information reaching the people in our pews.”
“I genuinely believe one of the factors in the decline in [Cooperative Program] giving and other missions giving is due to the lack of information reaching the people in our pews.”
Jim Burton, center, takes a selfie with Bill Bangham, left, and Joe Westbury in 2014 during a lunch in Cumming, Georgia. The three friends all once served as editors of World Mission Journal, a magazine once published by the former Southern Baptist Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, Tennessee. Burton died on May 10, 2019, from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). photo by jim burton, courtesy of baptist press
Allan Blume retired editor, Biblical Recorder Baptist State Convention of North Carolina
Shawn Hendricks, editor of Baptist Press, agrees with Blume’s assessment and the need for Southern Baptist journalists. “They are more needed than ever,” said Hendricks, former managing editor of the Biblical Recorder. “Without them, social media personalities, banter, and debate will more and more become the news providers. And facts and solid reporting will be replaced with rumor and speculation. That would be bad news for all of us.”
University professor Penelope Abernathy discusses community newspapers at the Association of State Baptist Publications February 11–14, 2019 meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. Pictured are Michigan Baptist Convention Communications Coordinator Jamie Lynn, left; Oklahoma Baptist Messenger Editor Brian Hobbs; and California Southern Baptist Managing Editor Holly Smith. photo courtesy of arkansas baptist news
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SBCLIFE
SUMMER 2019
PAGE 18
WOMAN’S MISSIONARY UNION
Through its Pure Water, Pure Love ministry, WMU has awarded more than $1 million in grants for water projects and water filtration units. In 2018 alone, 1,380 filters were given through International Mission Board personnel and missions teams. photo courtesy of wmu
WMU—True and Loyal by Sandy Wisdom-Martin
I
freely admit I’m a history nerd. I love slipping into the library at national WMU late at night or early in the morning to find nuggets of history previously unknown to me. Of special interest is what happened one hundred years ago. Minutes from the thirty-first annual meeting of WMU held in Atlanta, Georgia, showed WMU cooperated in the SBC $75 Million Campaign and committed to raise $15 million. Each state had a campaign director; 838 associations and 14,491 churches had WMU campaign organizers. Spoiler alert, we surpassed our goal five years later. In the previous year, 1918, WMU introduced the Calendar of Prayer asking participants to intercede on behalf of our missionaries on home and foreign mission fields. The bit of history I had never gleaned before was an organized plan for something called Emergency Women. These women would give to meet emergency needs of the mission boards. In researching, I came across a delightful letter entitled “A Message to Our Women” by J. F. Love, corresponding secretary of the Foreign Mission Board. Love wrote: “I greet the women . . . with a glad heart. After years of distress under the burden of debt the Foreign Mission Board has at last been relieved of its burden. The Missionaries on all the fields have been notified and have taken new heart for their work. “To the women . . . we extend heartiest and most grateful thanks and offer most cordial congratulations. Never have they shown finer spirit, been more heroic and practiced greater self-denial than in the campaign which has just closed. It is an honor worthwhile to have been found true and loyal at the time when world conditions are laying new duties upon the soldiers of Christ. “The women . . . have broken all their splendid records and it is by their help that Southern Baptists have for the first time contributed more
I want you to know that true and loyal spirit still resides in the heart of WMU. Our mandate is to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission. We are biblically-rooted, missions-focused, church-based, world-aware, and denominationally-supportive. No one church can do alone what many churches can do together. Our voluntary cooperation extends the missions reach of the local church. Sandy Wisdom-Martin executive director-treasurer, WMU Birmingham, Alabama than $1 million in twelve months to Foreign Missions. The fine cooperation which the women have given the Foreign Mission Board and their liberality to the work are all the pledge we ask of their support for the future. With the feeling of profoundest gratitude, I thank God for you, my sisters, and pray that His rich blessings may attend you during the year upon which you have entered and give you the larger achievements upon which you have set your devoted hearts.” It was that true and loyal spirit that compelled WMU members to give sacrificially above and beyond normal offerings time and time again to rescue the boards and even the Southern Baptist Convention from debt. It was that true and loyal spirit which caused WMU to establish the Home Mission Board’s Church Building Loan Fund. It was because of that true and loyal spirit WMU opened the Margaret Home for the children of missionaries and started the Margaret Fund, providing scholarships for missionary children. It was that true and loyal spirit
propelling WMU to begin an annuity fund for missionaries and work tirelessly with the Southern Baptist Convention to launch and promote the Cooperative Program. I want you to know that true and loyal spirit still resides in the heart of WMU. Our mandate is to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission. We are biblically-rooted, missions-focused, churchbased, world-aware, and denominationally-supportive. No one church can do alone what many churches can do together. Our voluntary cooperation extends the missions reach of the local church. His mission is our passion. As Southern Baptists, we are a missionary people. WMU today is just as devoted to our mission boards and our missionaries. We provide missions discipleship for every age level so people can hear and respond to God’s call to go to the ends of the earth. We provide water filtration units and systems for every IMB missionary so they can have access to clean water while they share the Living Water. We maintain a database of more
than five hundred missionary homes across the United States, providing a place of respite when missionaries are stateside. We help support more than two thousand artisans globally, giving our missions personnel a platform to share real hope. We have nearly two hundred Christian Women’s Job Corps and Christian Men’s Job Corps sites, helping people develop life and job skills in a Christian context. Although we do not receive Cooperative Program funds, we believe in the CP. We believe in our boards and agencies and entities and institutions. We believe in our conventions and associations and Baptist children’s homes. And we believe we can do more together. That’s why you will see us engaging in partnership projects all across our denomination. We are helping Baptist children’s homes and associations complete water projects worldwide. We are working with NAMB missionaries to begin WorldCrafts ministries to give work with dignity to the impoverished people they serve. We are dedicated to telling the stories of God’s work through our associations, conventions, and mission boards. We are engaged in mobilizing people to be on mission through ministries like Baptist Nursing Fellowship and much more. We are passionate about calling Baptists to generosity and helping people develop spiritually toward a missions lifestyle. I want you to know what J. F. Love said of WMU 101 years ago is accurate today. We are true and loyal helpers to our denomination, committed to making Christ known among the nations. Annie Armstrong once said, “What has been done for the glory of God will be steadfast as the stars.” May all we say and do bring honor to God. Sandy Wisdom-Martin is executive director-treasurer of national WMU and is a member of Wilsonville Baptist Church in Wilsonville, Alabama.
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MISSION:DIGNITY
Gwen Eiland photo courtesy of mission:dignity
Because We Love You by John Ambra
G
wen Eiland always enjoyed a visit from her good friend, Carol Dobson. “She was so sweet and I just loved her, but she was kind of special to me,” Gwen remembered. “One day, when I opened the door, she took my hand and squeezed it. When I looked, I saw she had put a fifty-dollar bill in my hand.” “I said, ‘Carol, what is this for?’ And she said, ‘It’s just because I love you.’ She was just that kind of a pastor’s wife; she was special.” It’s easy to love Gwen Eiland. At age ninetysix, her steps are a bit slower than they once were, but her mind is sharp and her heart is big. And like Carol, Gwen was a pastor’s wife herself.
She and Clarence married in 1941 while he was a young seminary student and she was a member of one of the churches he pastored. “My husband’s dad was a pastor,” Gwen said. “We have a picture with six different Eilands who were preachers.” “When we got married, Clarence served two half-time churches in Pine Island and Gillum. We soon moved to Plain Dealing and Vinton and those were half-time churches, too. Our first full-time church was at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. That was a good start; we felt like we were really progressing.” The churches were small in those days and so were the salaries.
“We were paid $25 a week, we had no insurance, the church didn’t pay any retirement, and it was just that little salary that we had for the week,” Gwen said. “There was nothing provided for the future. “Back then, you didn’t realize it wasn’t very much,” she noted. “I just thought that was how things were supposed to be and what we were supposed to get as a pastor. My dad had a grocery store and my mother sewed a lot so that helped us.” Clarence and Gwen continued in pastoral ministry for forty years, raising two daughters while starting and serving churches in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Their income varied over time and only a few churches made retirement plan contributions. “When we left our last church, we knew that we really didn’t have a full retirement so we had to do something,” Gwen said. “I had a cousin who was an interior decorator and she said we could come work for her. We moved to New Orleans and I made draperies and Clarence made top treatments for the windows. That was our life for several years.” After Clarence died in 1986, Gwen moved back home to northwest Louisiana to care for her aging mother. “I lived on his Social Security and, fortunately, the Lord had let us buy a home through some friends while we were working. We had sold that home and I had a little savings left to live on. My mother and dad gave me this house after she died.” It was Gwen’s pastor, Jimmy Dobson, who introduced her to Mission:Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Resources that helps retired Southern Baptist ministers, workers, and their widows living on low incomes.
“He came to visit one day and wanted to ask me a personal question about my finances. We talked and then he told me about this program. He asked if I would mind if he turned my name in. I said, ‘Of course not.’” Gwen’s first check from Mission:Dignity arrived in January 1998 and she has been receiving monthly assistance from the ministry ever since. “When we get old, God looks after us and takes care of us and not just in the big things. It’s also in the small ways that we don’t always realize,” she said. “He holds our hand and is there for us in every way. “Mission:Dignity has helped me with my living expenses. It helps me with my medicine; it helps pay my taxes every year. It just helps me in a lot of ways. “I’m especially thankful to all the people and churches who contribute to this program,” Gwen said. “Knowing they are giving and praying for me, I love them.” And those Southern Baptists are giving and praying for the same reason: “Because we love you.” John Ambra is director of development for GuideStone Financial Resources and is a member of Ovilla Road Baptist Church in Ovilla, Texas. Mission:Dignity assists nearly 1,800 aged pastors and their widows, many of whom served small churches in rural areas with modest incomes and little or no benefits. Sixty percent of Mission:Dignity recipients are widows with one in four a pastor’s widow over the age of eighty-five. For churches, Sunday school classes, and others interested in supporting Mission:Dignity, GuideStone provides free bulletin inserts, promotional posters, and a DVD with several brief testimonies of people assisted by Mission:Dignity. The materials are undated and can be used anytime. The free resources can be ordered at MDSunday.org or by texting MDORDER to 41444 from a mobile device. Individuals wishing to donate, or wishing to refer potential recipients, to Mission:Dignity can do so through MissionDignity.org.
JOIN US!
Caring for the “least of these” is a biblical call for every Christ-follower. What does that look like in your life and in the life of your church? Join us at our booth, as many of our SBC ministry leaders will be sharing their experiences, insights, and encouragement to help you engage in life-changing ministry to children and families. Some of our guests include: Danny & Charlotte Akin J.D. Greear Paul & Michelle Chitwood David & Tera Melber Kevin & Lynette Ezell David & Heather Platt
Kevin & Pat Smith Todd Unzicker Sandy Wisdom-Martin
All interviews will be hosted by Jedd Medefind, President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) and Rod Marshall, President/CEO of Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries (ABCH). For interview times, visit our booth or website at alabamachild.org/SBC19.
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COOPERATING FOR THE GOSPEL Worship at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in greater Birmingham. Pastor Danny Wood serves as president of the 2019 SBC Pastors’ Conference. Numerous church members are serving as volunteers at the BirminghamJefferson Convention Complex during the Pastors’ Conference sessions. photo courtesy of shades mountain baptist church
Shades Sets Goals by Karen L. Willoughby
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ascading goals at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in greater Birmingham have coalesced into what has become a redemptive river of Gospel missions. Missional goals that started in 2002 mean that preschoolers then who have now grown up in the church have learned missional living. “That’s all they know,” Pastor Danny Wood told SBC LIFE. “They think, ‘It’s natural to support missions, go on mission trips, and consider serving as a missionary as a life calling.’ Starting with their sixth-grade mission trip, they will have the opportunity to go on eleven mission trips by the time they graduate high school, with a number of them being international. Thus many of our students say, ‘Whatever [college] degree, I want it to be used for Kingdom purposes.’” The church where about 2,200 people gather weekly for worship allocates 10 percent of undesignated offerings to support missions through the Cooperative Program, which links the efforts of Southern Baptist churches to state, national, and international missions. “We believe in the Southern Baptist Convention and the work the Convention is doing,” Wood said. “We support the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, the work of our state convention, and our seminaries. It’s just a part of who we are.”
Shades Mountain Baptist’s goal-setting started with a Facilities Master Plan capital campaign in 2002. That same year the 2010 Vision based on Acts 1:8 launched, challenging church members to live on mission, give to missions, and participate in mission projects. And in March of that year, Shades Mountain hosted its first (now annual) Global Impact Celebration, which brought fifty missionaries onsite for five days in late winter. The event “radically affected the church body by allowing members to know missionaries personally and to partner with them in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection,” according to the church’s website. “It [Vision 2010] just jettisoned our church to having a heart for missions,” Wood said. “Once a person goes on a mission trip, it changes their heart and their priorities. It affects both their going and their giving.” With achievement of the goals for 2010, Wood presented Touch the World 2015, to “go into more of a partnership with some of the people we had met,” the pastor said. While Touch the World 2015 was continuing, the church initiated a $7.5 million capital campaign in 2013 entitled Chapters. By the time 2018 rolled around, “we had invested $26 million in our facilities over fifteen years, completed our master plan, and at the same time given $34 million to missions and we were debt-free,”
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Wood said. “We had done ministry in all fifty states and eighty countries, sent 1,300 people a year on thirty-five mission trips, and now have about two hundred members who are serving in full-time missions around the world. “We’ve also supported fifteen church plants internationally and thirty-one church plants in North America,” the pastor, who serves as president of the 2019 SBC Pastors’ Conference, said. “Our goal each year is that 25 percent of our total offerings goes to missions and ministries outside our church.” Shades Mountain Baptist began to see more ways to impact Birmingham with the message of God’s unconditional love. They created a new staff position, minister of community engagement. In these last two and a half years they have adopted five local schools, gotten involved in chaplaincy with first responders, and increased their work in foster care/adoption. This is in addition to the thriving special needs ministry that Shades has had for twenty years. “These last couple of years have been really exciting, both with taking the love of Jesus to our community and working with NAMB’s strategic vision,” Wood said. “We’re committed to continually supporting church plants in each of NAMB’s five regions. “The next goal of that plan is to do ministry in every one of NAMB’s thirty-two Send Cities
by 2025,” the pastor continued. “The reason I want to do that: I believe every city is important. I want our people to have the opportunity to travel to those cities and see the ministries going on. Our goal is that peoples’ hearts will be touched so they will not only be prayer partners for this church plant and its city, but some may feel God’s calling to move to that city and be a support to that church.” Two families have already done so, Wood noted. One moved to Columbus, Ohio; the other, Denver, Colorado. Both now are helping with NAMB church plants. Presently, Shades Mountain Baptist is in the first year of NEXT . . . The Time is Now. This initiative is about spiritual transformation and facility modification, the pastor said. Its current goals for spiritual transformation extending to 2020: encouraging the congregation to engage the Scriptures by reading through the Bible; members having ten thousand Gospel conversations with people far from God and praying for 250 people to put their trust in Jesus for the first time; three thousand members on mission trips, including five hundred who’ve never been before; and giving sacrificially to the advancement of God’s Kingdom. The facility modification is remodeling the thirty-year-old worship center to improve sight lines and provide more flexibility. In addition, they will repurpose the lobby by increasing its size by 30 percent to create more community spaces for fellowship. Shades Mountain Baptist also is planting a collegiate church focused on the campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Antioch Community Church is “relentlessly focused on reaching and discipling lost students,” some who will in time plant additional collegiate churches. “The hope is that the students who graduate and get jobs in Birmingham will remain in the church and provide leadership,” Wood said. “There will be others, however, who will get the vision to move to other campuses and plant multiplying churches.” This all coincides with the church’s mission statement: “Sending transformed people to influence their world for Christ.” Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for SBC LIFE and Baptist Press and is a member of First Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
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SBCLIFE
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COOPERATING FOR THE GOSPEL Worship at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham. Associate Minister Rosevelt Morris Sr. is on the SBC Local Arrangements Committee. Numerous church members are serving as volunteers at the BirminghamJefferson Convention Complex during the Wednesday sessions of the SBC annual meeting. photo courtesy of sixth avenue baptist church
Sixth Avenue Baptist Church: A Light to the Community, Nation, and World by Karen L. Willoughby
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ixth Avenue Baptist Church, the largest black church in Birmingham, dually aligns with the Southern and National Baptist Conventions. It has done so since then pastor John Porter reached out to the Southern Baptist Convention in 1989. “It broadens our fellowship with all the Baptists, in Birmingham and throughout the country,” current pastor John Cantelow III told SBC LIFE. “So many people fought to be inclusive; so many blacks and whites worked for that. “It was a big thing at the time when we joined with Southern Baptists,” the pastor continued. “I’m pretty much continuing with it because I believe it broadens our fellowship to be joined with both conventions. We participate in the spirit of unity” that should be exhibited by Baptist churches, he said. Sixth Avenue Baptist is noteworthy in the Civil Rights Movement because in 1963, the pastor—John Porter—invited Martin Luther King Jr. to bring his non-violent protest of racial inequality to Birmingham. “Dr. Porter was Dr. King’s assistant at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,” Cantelow said. “The entire South was racially divided, but the
North was as well. . . . The Children’s March happened because the children really wanted to be involved in the movement.” Horrifying televised images of children as young as six being sprayed with high-pressure fire hoses, and attacked by snarling, biting dogs, began a national reversal of signs of inequality. “It meant a lot to gain some form of equal rights,” the pastor said. “I was born after the Civil Rights Movement and I was fortunate to grow up in a strong black neighborhood, so I did not feel the brunt of racism as my parents and grandparents did.” The differences between the Southern and National Baptist conventions come down mainly to people, Cantelow said. He knows more people in the National Baptist Convention because they share a common culture, vocation, and similar social and political views about justice and equality. Southern Baptists produce very good conferences, church curricula, and good opportunities to be a part of various ministries, Cantelow said. They also seek to reach beyond their denomination in a spirit of inclusion and unity in the name of Jesus. “Sixth Avenue Baptist Church is a family of
faith known for its historic and contemporary influence in the greater Birmingham area,” Rick Lance told SBC LIFE. Lance is executive director of the Alabama Baptist Convention. “One of their key staff members, Dr. Rosevelt Morris Sr., recently served with distinction as the moderator of the Birmingham Metro Baptist Association. “The church has strong outreach into the community, and many of its members are intricately involved in numerous areas of service in the city and beyond,” Lance said. “Sixth Avenue Baptist Church has been a cooperating Southern Baptist church for many years,” Ken Weathersby told SBC LIFE. Weathersby is the SBC’s Executive Committee’s vice president for Convention advancement. “The church has been instrumental in race relations during the time it was not popular,” Weathersby continued. “The late Dr. John Porter was instrumental in bringing Southern Baptists and National Baptists together to explore ways to partner together, and the church was involved in city-wide revivals and outreach to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. “That continues today under the leadership of Dr. John Cantelow III,” Weathersby said. “I am excited for the leadership of Sixth Avenue’s
involvement in our 2019 SBC annual meeting.” Sixth Avenue Baptist sees about 3,400 people throughout the month in Sunday morning worship, with about 1,000 on any given Sunday. Its wide range of church programming from infants to “Keenagers” (retirees) is to help members become active disciples, being Jesus’s hands and feet in the community, the pastor said. “As pastor, my objective is to have a Spiritfilled church and an ever-increasing manifestation of the gifts and fruit of the Spirit,” Cantelow said. “I would like to see people experience liberation from whatever has them in bondage as Christians.” Sixth Avenue Baptist, which supports missions through the Cooperative Program, Birmingham Metro Baptist Association, and the National Baptist Convention, also tackles problems that stem from Satan’s activity in Birmingham, Haiti, and Liberia. The church has a food pantry, ministers in a variety of ways to the homeless, assists people with utility payments, and provides support for Children’s Village, a refuge for abandoned, abused, and neglected children, as well as several other Birmingham-area ministries. “We want to equip Christians to serve and reach the world for Christ,” Cantelow said. “We are a people striving to be who God wants us to be. We definitely want to be a light in our community as well as to the state and world.” Outside of Birmingham, teens have ministered in New Orleans, Louisiana; Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; Myrtle Beach, North Carolina; and elsewhere across the Southeast. A group of church members go to Vredenburgh, Alabama, a town of about three hundred people southwest of Birmingham, twice a year for ministry and free medical clinics, and last year the church built an activity center for the town. Teens and adults for the last two years have ministered through an orphanage the church adopted in Haiti. Sixth Avenue Baptist also has ministered in Liberia for many years. Most recently they helped to build a school there. “We want Sixth Avenue Baptist Church to be a place where people experience salvation, healing, good fellowship, and discipleship,” Cantelow said. “A place where you get a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is all about. That’s what I want to see at Sixth Avenue.” Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for SBC LIFE and Baptist Press and is a member of First Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
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SBCLIFE
SUMMER 2019
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COOPERATING FOR THE GOSPEL
Birmingham Metro Baptist Association Executive Director Chris Crain leads a roundtable in April for pastors in the association to network, discuss church issues, and enjoy fellowship. photos by toni wall
The Birmingham Metro Baptist Association staff and volunteers from First Baptist Church of Chalkville partnered with the local association in Camden, Alabama, one of the poorest sections of the state, to paint a school located near one of their churches during a mission trip.
Birmingham Metro Baptist Association Promoting Inclusion, Partnering in Ministries by Karen L. Willoughby
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irmingham residents were shattered out of segregated complacency in 1963 by televised images of children as young as eight charged by snarling police dogs and laid flat by a barrage of high-pressure water aimed from fire hoses. They (and the nation) woke to the need for equality, in public buildings at any rate. Churches were another matter. Until in 1989 John Porter, influential pastor of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church (see related article) approached Southern Baptists about the possibility of partnering with National (Black) Baptists for the sake of inclusion.
Promoting Inclusion
Birmingham Metro Baptist Association led in that endeavor to “model what it means to have the love of Christ within us,” John King told SBC LIFE. King is church and community relations specialist with the association, on staff since 1988. “We have to be honest about the issues,” King said. “We have to admit discrimination in any form hurts. We the people of God have to speak up and speak out against injustice anywhere and everywhere.” For twenty-five years black and white Baptists gathered at an annual human relations conference at Shocco Springs, Alabama, sponsored by the association. “People came from different churches, different associations, different state conventions,” King recalled. “They would come together and talk openly about race relations and how we might partner and do better together. It was a great time of worship and fellowship.” Over the last five years that event has transitioned into a more inclusive event that now also involves Hispanic, Korean, and other ethnicities. “There’s an intentionality to be very culturally inclusive,” King said. “I think the intention was to give recognition to the fact there are more ethnic groups and have more cultural discussions. “I think there needs to be a continuation and open honest dialogue about race relations between blacks and whites but we also have to acknowledge, admit, and accept there are other groups, other ethnicities, and we need to hear their stories to understand how we need to partner together and be the people God has called us to be,” King continued. “What I think Southern
“I believe our churches will thrive and join the Holy Spirit in what He is doing when we partner together across racial and ethnic lines. We will join Jesus Christ in His mission as He works through us cross-culturally both here in our metro area and across the globe, and it will certainly mean sacrificing our preferences.” Chris Crain executive director Birmingham Metro Baptist Association
Baptists can be proud of is how the association has reached out cross-culturally to improve race relations for the glory and honor of the Lord.” At the same time Birmingham Metro Baptist Association has been developing racial inclusion, it’s been expanding the ministries of the 126 churches under its fellowship umbrella. The association exists to serve the churches, Chris Crain told SBC LIFE. Crain, new this January as the association’s executive director, immediately began meeting with pastors throughout the metro area, leaders both in the association and in churches with the same doctrines. “I’ve made it a priority to get out and engage with those who want to be a part of us or to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” Crain said. “I have engaged with those who have SBC ties in their leadership and those who share our Baptist beliefs.” As a result, “We are beginning to onboard more churches—multiethnic and multicultural churches—that will really broaden the spectrum across the association,” Crain continued. “I’m excited about that, about reaching more people across the metro area.” The Birmingham metro area in north-central Alabama includes an estimated 1.1 million people in seven counties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 projections. Its two principal cities outside Birmingham are Hoover and Talladega, and seven additional cities have populations more than 10,000. In the last several decades of suburb expansion, several communities have transitioned from one people group to another.
“We’ve had changing communities up and down the valley,” King said. “A great work has taken place. A lot of churches that continue to do the work to advance the Kingdom have facilities that in many instances were deeded to them, either given to them outright or at a very low cost. “I think what many may not know that they should know is that the lives of people are being transformed by the preaching and teaching of the Gospel [in churches that transitioned to new congregations], and faithful men and women carrying on the work,” the BMBA staff member continued. “We have a new generation, new ideas. The leaders are well-credentialed and have that same spirit of inclusiveness to reach out and partner and to bridge gaps that may exist crossculturally for the glory of God and the good of all mankind.”
Partnering in Ministries
The Baptist Health System founded in 1922 by the association, grew to include five major hospitals in Birmingham. A joint partnership with Tenet Health Care in 2015 brought in a sixth hospital and—new this summer—a twentyroom hotel on the sixth floor of the Brookwood Baptist Hospital. “We’re going to use it as a ministry for those who have family or friends in the hospital, and provide opportunities for local churches for hospitality ministry while they’re in town,” Crain said. “Meeting people’s needs is essential to the fabric of who we are. When we are able to extend hands of compassion and care, it helps us advance the ministry of the Gospel.”
Disaster Relief since the late 1990s has been a major component of the association’s ministry, with chain saw, feeding, shower, and mud-out units, and training every couple of months. Greg Moore is the White Cap in charge. A Disaster Relief Center is being designed that will house all the equipment and training needs. “Another of the things we’re moving toward, resourcing for revitalization and church planting,” Crain said. “We want all our churches to be healthy. We’re doubling down in our efforts in revitalization. That’s something I wanted to see happen and that the search committee wanted to see happen. “We’re looking at how to access churches in ways that will help them,” the associational missionary continued. “A healthy church is multigenerational, theologically robust, and is connected to missions.” Other ways Birmingham Metro Baptist Association helps its churches include a ministry center in a former church facility that now serves as an incubator for church planting and other ministries; providing assistance with administration and financial bookkeeping for smaller churches; linking churches of all sizes with First Responders across the metro area for ministry support; assisting churches with a full-time graphic designer to consult with them on their marketing/publicity issues; “and several other things,” Crain said. “I believe our churches will thrive and join the Holy Spirit in what He is doing when we partner together across racial and ethnic lines,” the associational mission strategist said. “We will join Jesus Christ in His mission as He works through us cross-culturally both here in our metro area and across the globe, and it will certainly mean sacrificing our preferences. “Sometimes I think we are prone to be attracted to relationships and people who are like us,” Crain continued. “We have to break loose of those bonds that keep us from enriching our lives and ministries. And yet, from my vantage point, it’s very encouraging when I see pastors sharing life-on-life with pastors of different races. A growing reconciliation between blacks and whites is very real, even if the media doesn’t pick up on it.” Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for SBC LIFE and Baptist Press and is a member of First Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
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CHILDREN’S MINISTRY DAY, JULY 21
Ten-Year-Old Advances SBC Ministry Day by Diana Chandler
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ak McCullar was nine years old when he knocked on a stranger’s door in Black Mountain, North Carolina, eager to tell her about Jesus. “I said we’re from Walker County in Alabama and we’re with Oteen Baptist Church and we want to invite you to church, and if there’s any questions ask me.” The trip was just a month after McCullar had stood among nine thousand messengers and guests at the Southern Baptist Convention 2018 Annual Meeting in Dallas, reading his motion to add a Children’s Ministry Day to the SBC official calendar of events. With his motion referred to the SBC Executive Committee for consideration, McCullar promoted his cause to the EC during its closing plenary session Wednesday (February 19) in Nashville. “I think children’s ministry workers should be thanked by this day,” said McCullar, now ten. “And I want children to be recognized for the work we do to share Christ, even though we are young.” McCullar, a member of First Baptist Church in Carbon Hill, Alabama, told the EC of his family mission trip to Black Mountain, organized through the Walker Baptist Association in Jasper, Alabama. On mission, he helped Oteen Baptist Church in Asheville evangelize nearby neighborhoods. “Even though we kids could have enjoyed VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the church,” McCullar said, “instead most of us children went visiting the homes of Asheville to invite people to church. One of the church members who is nine years old even chased down joggers to invite them to church. I hope you will pass my motion.”
JULY 2019 SEND RELIEF SUNDAY July 14 CHILDREN’S MINISTRY DAY July 21 SOUTHERN BAPTIST MEDIA DAY July 28
AUGUST 2019 SOCIAL ISSUES SUNDAY August 4 STUDENT EVANGELISM DAY August 11
Zak McCullar presented a motion at the 2018 SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas to add Children’s Ministry Day to the SBC calendar of events.
WORSHIP MUSIC WEEK August 18–24
photo by marc ira hooks
The EC answered McCullar’s request, voting to recommend to 2019 SBC messengers in Birmingham, Alabama, the addition of Children’s Ministry Day to the SBC calendar annually on the third Sunday in July through 2023. McCullar traveled to Nashville with his parents, pastor Scott and Suzanne McCullar, and siblings Mackenzie and Nik. Having accepted Christ at age five, and having been baptized on Easter Sunday in 2016, the
In an invitation to address the SBC Executive Committee during its February 18–19 meeting in Nashville, ten-year-old Zak McCullar spoke in support of his 2018 motion to add Children’s Ministry Day to the SBC calendar of events. photo by morris abernathy
SBC CALENDAR
young McCullar expressed to Baptist Press a zeal for Jesus. “He’s a very important part of my life,” he said. “Every time there’s an opportunity for me to go to church I take it.” The 2018 mission trip was his first. “I loved visiting the houses,” he said of the mission trip. “If they were home, we would invite them to church and try to tell them about the Gospel.” Everyone should know Jesus, Zak told BP. “Jesus died for you on the cross, and He loves you, and He wants you to learn more about Him, and He wants you to be with Him someday in heaven,” is how Zak shares the Gospel. “If they don’t know about Christ, how are they going to go to church and go to heaven? And how are they going to help tell other people about Christ?” While he’s a pastor’s son, his father Scott said the move to add a children’s ministry day to the SBC calendar was all Zak’s idea. A homeschooled fifth grader, Zak himself wrote the 2018 motion and the speech he delivered in Nashville. Last June in Dallas, Zak “looked at the (2018) Book of Reports, and he was looking through it, studying it. And he got to the calendar of activities,” pastor McCullar recounted to BP, “and he said Daddy there’s no Children’s Ministry Day. I said sure there is. And he said, ‘Daddy, there’s not one.’” Zak asked whether he could make a motion to add the date to the calendar. His parents helped him research how motions are submitted. Zak filled out the form, got in line and waited his turn. “He got in line and I just bit my fingernails,” his father said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. But he did fantastic. But it was all him . . . . We just let him do it.” Zak hopes the calendar addition will not only encourage youth ministry leaders, but also inspire children to share the Gospel. “I would like them to know,” Zak told BP in February, “you’re never too young to be an evangelist.” Diana Chandler is general assignment writer/editor for Baptist Press and is a member of First Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. This article was previously published in Baptist Press.
SEPTEMBER 2019 SINGLE ADULT SUNDAY September 1 BAPTISM DAY September 8 ANTI-GAMBLING SUNDAY September 15
OCTOBER 2019 COOPERATIVE PROGRAM MONTH October 1–31 PERSONAL EVANGELISM COMMITMENT DAY October 6 GLOBAL HUNGER SUNDAY October 13 WEEK OF PRAYER FOR BAPTIST ASSOCIATIONS October 20–26
NOVEMBER 2019 ORPHANS AND WIDOWS SUNDAY November 3 DISASTER RELIEF APPRECIATION DAY November 10
DECEMBER 2019 WEEK OF PRAYER AND MISSION STUDY FOR INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS AND THE LOTTIE MOON CHRISTMAS OFFERING December 1–8
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WOMAN TO WOMAN—FOR THE PASTOR’S WIFE
Acceptable Authenticity by Veronica Greear “I’m just sayin’.” “I’m just being honest.” “TBH” “No offense, but . . . (cue offensive statement).” “Hot Mess Express” “Lord, Bless this Mess”
Have you heard these phrases spoken to you or a friend? Have you seen them written in posts online, or printed on t-shirts and hats? People today seem to value being honest and authentic above all else. You will often hear people praise a speaker
or preacher for how “real” he is. And let me be clear right away: I am all for honesty and authenticity in Christ’s followers! Inasmuch as people in the past may have focused on looking right on the outside at the expense of being honest in confession and repentance, this emphasis on “being real” is a good thing! After all, James said it this way: Confess your sins to one another . . . that you may be healed (James 5:16). John reminded us of God’s precious promise that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Even typing those words out makes me want to SHOUT praise to our awesome Father! I am concerned, however, for what I see as two unintended consequences. I see them in myself, and others too. The first is a sort of race to the bottom, wherein we brag lightly—even proudly— about our more “acceptable” sins. The sort of “Fed the kids Cheetos for breakfast this morning #hotmessexpress” proclamations. The second is possibly even more insidious to a beautifully functioning body of Christ. We have allowed there to be “approved levels” of sin that are acceptable to share with your friends
As women in ministry positions, I think Satan uses a particular deception to keep us from real confessions: the fear that our sin will somehow bring down our and/or our husbands’ ministries. We are afraid that if people know how we struggle, they might assume that Christianity is useless. I would argue the exact opposite is actually true. or small group, but beyond that level, no one is prepared to listen and help you work out what repentance and healing will look like. Sort of a “You can and should be real this way (e.g. talking about yelling at your kids), but not THAT real (e.g. admitting you are deeply jealous and it is ruining every important relationship you have).” The truth is, there is such joy in repentance, but it is an uncomfortable, hard, even agonizing experience! And it takes TIME. David spoke of his bones that were being crushed. Paul seemed to cry out, practically in pain, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?!”. C. S. Lewis’s picture in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader of when Aslan “un-dragons” Eustace has him commenting that “it hurt worse than anything else I’d ever felt.” As I write these words, I think, when was the last time I faced my own sin so clearly in confession that it was painful?! When was the last time you did? As women in ministry positions, I think Satan uses a particular deception to keep us from real confessions: the fear that our sin will somehow bring down our and/or our husbands’ ministries. We are afraid that if people know how we struggle, they might assume that Christianity is useless. I would argue the exact opposite is actually true. If people DON’T know you struggle, they will either conclude you are a hypocrite, because they know all human beings are sinners, or that Jesus came to help the well get even better, rather than to heal the sick. I think this fear, and others, leads us to try and out-do one another with what a “mess” we are, but never actually talk about the real sins we have, such as pride or bitterness or coveting. And then we never know the real healing Jesus brings. That is what I want to leave you to consider: do you know the healing and peace confession brings? God brought a couple of people into my life the last few years who have helped me realize, I had fallen out of the habit of regular confession, and I needed it back! These friends talk about confession all the time, not as an exceptional happening like I had begun to treat it, but as a regular habit. And so, I’ve begun to say every day, “Search me oh God, and know my heart; see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” There is no other way to live this Christian life fully. As John Owen said, we will “Be killing sin, or it will be killing [us].” Confess your sins to one another, friends! Not the fake real ones, but the really real ones. It’s worth it!
Veronica Greear is a wife and mother of four. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and serves and worships at The Summit Church where her husband, SBC President J. D. Greear, is pastor.