By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer DEVILLE – Twenty-four living miracles returned back to Philadelphia Baptist Church late Saturday, nearly 30 hours after surviving a serious bus accident in Florida on the way to a church camp. Those students and adult chaperons, along with nearly 40 other students and adults, walked into the church welcome center to a roar of applause, welcome home signs, balloons and plenty of hugs with their loved ones. “Today is a good day because we all were able to come home and to be able to come home alive and basically in really good shape,” Pastor Philip Robertson told the crowd of nearly 200. “There’s no way from a human standpoint that everybody should have walked away from that accident alive. “It shouldn’t’ have happened,” he continued. “There should have been some fatalities, but there weren’t. Death knocked on the door and God said not today. They will live.” The crash was reported at 3:10 pm on Friday, just west of State Road 331 near DeFuniak Springs, Fla., according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The 30-passenger bus carrying youth and chaperons from the church left the roadway and hit a tree. Twenty-five were taken to four different area hospitals for treatment, though … [Read more...]
Mission:Dignity buoys retired pastors, widows
By Roy Hayhurst, GuideStone Financial Resources EDITOR'S NOTE: June 28 is Mission:Dignity Sunday in the Southern Baptist Convention. DALLAS (BP) - Virginia Pangle summed up what Mission:Dignity means to a pastor's widow like herself. "I don't have to worry about being cold, hungry or going without my medicine," she said. Mission:Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, ensures that Pangle along with nearly 2,000 other retired Southern Baptist pastors, their spouses or widows are able to have a sense of financial dignity in retirement. The ministry, fully supported by gifts from individuals, Sunday School classes and churches, provides monthly grants to retired Southern Baptist workers in critical financial need. The neediest couples can receive up to $600 each month in assistance. Mission:Dignity Sunday, held the fourth Sunday of every June on the Southern Baptist Convention's calendar, is set aside for churches to make a special offering for support of the ministry. Sixty percent of Mission:Dignity recipients are widows; one out of every four recipients is a pastor's widow age 85 or older. Mission:Dignity receives no Cooperative Program funding. "GuideStone … [Read more...]
Gibbie McMillan named to IMB board
By Baptist Press staff COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) - Gibbie McMillan, a pastor and Louisiana Baptist men's ministry and volunteer strategist as well as state director of disaster relief, was among 11 late nominees the Southern Baptist Convention entity trustees elected June 16 at the SBC annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Also at the annual meeting, messengers asked questions of two SBC entity heads. The 11 additional proposed trustees were nominated by a seven-member subcommittee of the Committee on Nominations appointed at the committee's March meeting in Nashville. The need for late nominations arose for a variety of reasons such as initial nominees' opting not to serve, trustee resignations and trustee deaths. The Committee on Nominations' entire slate of nominees to the SBC Executive Committee, the four convention boards, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the six seminaries and the Committee on Order of Business was elected after messengers rejected Virginia messenger Brent Hobbs' motion to replace International Mission Board nominee Tom Polvogt of First Baptist Church in Katy, Texas, with Johnson Ellis of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. The 11 late nominees were: -- EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: … [Read more...]
More Louisiana Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers trained at two Monday night sessions
By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer Two Monday night training sessions resulted in 31 more members of Louisiana Baptist Disaster Relief mud-out team members. Twenty-two people attended a training session at Summer Grove Baptist Church in Shreveport while nine were present at Alford Heights Baptist Church in Many. They join other disaster relief volunteers who are serving in areas impacted by the recent flooding of the Red River. Ricky Woodard is among those who already have benefited from the ministry of disaster relief volunteers. Woodard, whose Shreveport property is less than 100 yards from the Red River, estimates work done by the mudout team from Zoar Baptist Church saved him nearly a month’s worth of clean-up. “They’re like a bunch of ants coming together and getting things done almost instantly,” Woodard said, with his two grandchildren standing nearby. “I’m so appreciative.” The team worked all day, removing mud and debris inside homes in the neighborhood heavily damaged by the river’s recent floodwaters. Loren Warren, a member of the team from Zoar Baptist Church, said that despite the temperatures that reached the upper 90s, the humidity was a small inconvenience compared to the blessings the … [Read more...]
Resources for men’s ministry
By Baptist Press Staff NASHVILLE (BP) -- The following are men's ministry resources recommended by Stephen Rummage of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla.; Fred Luter of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans; and Richard King of First Baptist Church in Las Cruces, N.M. Henry and Tom Blackaby, "The Man God Uses" (Nashville: B&H, 1999). This seven-week study helps men understand how God is working in their lives and how to surrender completely to Him. Topics covered include a godly man's relationship to family, work, church and community. Al and Lorraine Broom, "One to One Discipling" (Multiplication Ministries). This nine-lesson study is designed for one person to teach another the basic doctrines of Christianity. Edwin Louis Cole. "Maximized Manhood" (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker, 1982). This book teaches men to realize their full potential in Christ, addressing such issues as pornography, adultery, television addiction and immaturity. Tony Dungy, "Uncommon Manhood" (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2012). This book encourages men to focus on character, integrity and courage rather than status. Tony Evans, "Kingdom Man" (Carrol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2012). This book explains how men can be godly in their … [Read more...]
Fred and Chip Luter share insight about servant leadership at home
By David Roach, Baptist Press EDITOR'S NOTE: Father's Day is Sunday. NASHVILLE (BP) -- When Fred Luter had a son, he wanted to give him a biblical name. So he decided on "Chip." As in, "chip off the old block" -- a reference to the oft neglected biblical principle that children's lives are shaped by the spiritual, intellectual and emotional leadership of their fathers. "When I started living for God and then I got married and God blessed me with a son, one of my prayers to God was, 'Let me be the spiritual man in my son's life that I didn't have in my home growing up,'" said Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. "And God honored that." Today Fred "Chip" Luter III is campus pastor at Idlewild Baptist Church's Sulpher Springs campus in Tampa, Fla. Fred Luter Jr., a former Southern Baptist Convention president, is among the Baptist leaders seeking to teach men practically what it means to be the leaders of their homes. "Men are supposed to be, according to Scripture, the provider, the protector and the priest of their family," the elder Luter told Baptist Press. As providers, men are responsible to meet their families' needs financially "no matter how much their wife makes," Luter said. … [Read more...]
S.C. massacre ‘demonic,’ Baptist pastor says
By Diana Chandler and Art Toalston, Baptist Press EDITOR'S NOTE: Responses by Southnern Baptist leaders Ronnie Floyd, K. Marshall Williams, A.B. Vines, Russell Moore, Frank S. Page and Richard Harris follow this story. CHARLESTON, S.C. (BP) - Christians are uniting in prayer and benevolence across racial distinctions in Charleston, S.C., after a 21-year-old man massacred nine Christians in a June 17 prayer service at historic Emanuel AME Church, said neighboring Southern Baptist pastor Keith Biggs. "Everyone together -- white, black, Hispanic, everybody -- we're coming together in unity to see this not only [as] an attack on people, but an attack on the body of Christ," said Biggs, associate pastor of Citadel Square Baptist Church, which neighbors the site of the crime. "I mean, who can walk into a church and sit for an hour and have prayer, and then just begin to kill everybody?" The FBI identified the shooter as 21-year-old Dylann Roof of Columbia, S.C., whose uncle told police he believes Roof received a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present, Reuters reported. Roof was arrested late Thursday morning in Shelby, N.C. In what police are calling a hate crime, a man identified as Roof sat calmly in the church during … [Read more...]
SBC panel: Value love, Gospel with LGBT community
By Tom Strode, Baptist Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) - Christians should not undervalue the effect of love or the Gospel in relating to gays and lesbians, recognizing, however, that faithfulness to the biblical definition of marriage will prove costly, members of a special panel told messengers at the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention. During the Wednesday afternoon session (June 17), five panelists answered questions from SBC President Ronnie Floyd about how churches and pastors can minister in an American culture that increasingly approves of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. The discussion occurred about two weeks before an expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could result in gay marriage's legalization nationwide. Same-sex marriage already is legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, the conversation came on the same day Floyd and 16 former SBC presidents released a statement saying they will not perform and the churches they pastor will not host same-sex ceremonies. Rosaria Butterfield, an author who has chronicled her journey from lesbianism to Christ, told messengers not to "deny the power of the Gospel to change lives and to travel at the grass-roots level. Your friendships … [Read more...]
ERLC to open Mideast office, honors embattled florist
By Art Toalston and Erin Roach, Baptist Press COLUMBUS (BP) - An international religious freedom office in the Mideast will be opened by the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Russell Moore announced at the SBC annual meeting June 17. Moore, the ERLC's president, told messengers, "We must contend for religious freedom for our brothers and sisters in Christ and for everyone else wherever they are on the globe." He added, "We will not stand idly by while those with whom we will share eternity are being led to the slaughter." Also during the ERLC report, Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist punished for refusing to participate in a same-sex wedding, received a standing ovation by messengers at the convention in Columbus, Ohio. "Mrs. Stutzman knew that the truth is not up for sale and the Gospel doesn't bend to the highest bidder," Moore said, "and faithful Christians do not stow away their convictions in a blind trust when they enter the public square." International religious freedom The ERLC announced the appointment of Travis Wussow of Austin, Texas, as ERLC director of international justice and religious liberty in a news release, also on June 17. Through its … [Read more...]
Louisiana Baptists named to SBC Committee on Nominations
By Staff COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) - Two Louisiana Baptists are among 68 Southern Baptists from 34 state Baptist conventions who will serve on the 2015-16 SBC Committee on Nominations. The Committee on Nominations will nominate people to serve on the SBC's boards, commissions and committees. They will present their report to the 2015 SBC annual meeting in St. Louis. The committee, announced during the June 16-17 SBC annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, is made up of two people from each state convention, with at least one layperson. An asterisk denotes the committee member is a layperson. All others are church vocation workers. ALABAMA - *Joyce Overstreet, First Baptist, Bay Minette; Timothy Cox, Liberty Baptist, Chelsea. ALASKA - *Amanda Elkins, True North, Anchorage; Bryan Myers, Faith Baptist Fairbanks. ARIZONA - *Paula Hoyt, White Mountain Apache Baptist, Whiteriver; Chet Anderson, Calvary Baptist, Lake Havasu City. ARKANSAS - *Jerry Byrum, The Summit, North Little Rock; Stephen Davis, First Baptist, Russellville. CALIFORNIA - *Natalie Baggs, First Baptist, San Francisco; Mark Hammond, Village Baptist, Norwalk. COLORADO - *Janila Beach, Applewood Baptist, Wheat Ridge; Matthew Perry, Arapahoe Road Baptist, … [Read more...]
