Trustees of the International Mission Board created a task force to examine future directions for Southern Baptists’ 163-year-old missions enterprise during their June 23-25 meeting in Rockville, Va. ROCKVILLE, Va. (BP) – Trustees of the International Mission Board created a task force to examine future directions for Southern Baptists’ 163-year-old missions enterprise during their June 23-25 meeting in Rockville, Va. The trustees also appointed 72 new missionaries and appropriated $3.2 million from reserve funds to cover expenses not met by last year’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Thirty-eight of the new missionaries were appointed at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond on Wednesday night. The other 34 will be appointed at Southern Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City on Friday. In his report to the trustees, IMB President Jerry Rankin shared some of the challenges missionaries will face and how the IMB must be poised to respond. “Our society ... Our denomination and churches ... Our world is changing,” Rankin said. Rankin cited global events – natural disasters and conflicts, urbanization, Muslim extremism, diversity within the Southern Baptist Convention, declining values and growing technology – as some of … [Read more...]

The legendary Paul Bunyan, who according to folklore hacked through seemingly impenetrable frontier forests to open much of North America, is said to have been based on the exploits of a French-Canadian lumberjack in the mid-1800s. OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada (BP) – The legendary Paul Bunyan, who according to folklore hacked through seemingly impenetrable frontier forests to open much of North America, is said to have been based on the exploits of a French-Canadian lumberjack in the mid-1800s. French-Canadian church planter Rick Lamothe now envisions the same kind of endeavor from one end of Canada’s Eastern Corridor to the other – a 715-mile stretch along the St. Lawrence River populated by more than half of the country’s 33.3 million people. “Rick is one of our best pastors,” said Gerry Taillon, national ministry leader for the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists. “We have high confidence in him.” Paul Bunyan, according to www.americanfolklore.net, was a symbol to North Americans in the early 1900s of “the willingness to work hard” and “the resolve to overcome all obstacles.” That pretty much sums up the frontier spirit of the visionary planter of Ottawa’s Sequoia Community Church, already one of the leading Baptist … [Read more...]

Alexandria Carl L. Taylor III  # Baton Rouge Karen O. Wagley Bernice Amber LeFaye Urrey Bossier City Lindsey Burns Central Joy Clark Katherine Clark Jacob Forrest Schopp Justin Bryant Schopp  # Columbia Janna Carroll  # Deville Cody Edwards  # Micah Rachelle May  * Shane Middleton  # Trey Miller  # Doyline Brittany Lee Courtny Sulzer Grand Cane Justin Hoell Kennedy  * Greenwell Springs Rachel Oliphant Harrisonburg Grace Jordan Ruth Jordan Sarah Jordan  * Heflin Bethany Daniels David Daniels Jonesboro Hilary Reed Kenner Nathan Michel Graham Waller Joe Waller  * Lafayette Toni LaBiche Lake Charles Mollie Yorks LaPlace Hannah Bergeron Leesville Elizabeth Gautreaux Ashley Hartel Zachary Mueller Livingston Ashlyn Harrell Luling Anne-Marie Laque Marksville Ellen Durand Minden Daniel Hutto Monroe Silver Ringold Justin Woods Morgan City Matthew Powell  # Mt. Herman Jonathan Statham Natchitoches Cammie Recer Marlee Roberts Pineville Katie Boles  # Ashley Cockerham Brittany Jones M’Kayla Love Camille Perkins Jay Purdy Hannah Quarles  # Rachael Quarles  # Kara Ramirez  # Pollock Brett Roussell Ponchatoula Allison Layne Joiner  # Quitman Molly Frances … [Read more...]

The American Family Association on July 3 launched a boycott of McDonald’s, saying the restaurant chain’s corporate leaders refuse “to remain neutral in the culture wars” by promoting the homosexual agenda. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) – The American Family Association on July 3 launched a boycott of McDonald’s, saying the restaurant chain’s corporate leaders refuse “to remain neutral in the culture wars” by promoting the homosexual agenda. An official with the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, while not commenting specifically on the AFA boycott, issued a statement to Baptist Press recapping general principles regarding Christian stewardship in their consumer spending. “Discerning Southern Baptists note which corporations support causes or movements which are antithetical to a biblical perspective and then weigh carefully which businesses in good conscience and, perhaps of necessity, they can patronize,” ERLC Vice President Dwayne Hastings said July 7. “In this day of conglomerates and multinational corporations, it is difficult to find a large corporation that does not in some way support something which stands in opposition to what we know to be good and moral,” Hastings added. “Yet as … [Read more...]

When John Hebert and Clovis Sturdivant spent time together at the Baptist Building recently, it was for more than just to share a cup of coffee. ALEXANDRIA – When John Hebert and Clovis Sturdivant spent time together at the Baptist Building recently, it was for more than just to share a cup of coffee. Hebert, Louisiana Baptist Convention’s Region 4 (Central Louisiana) missions strategist, and Sturdivant, director of missions in Jackson, Winn and Shady Grove Baptist Associations, met to discuss chaplaincy ministry in the state. Chaplains are people assigned to be a spiritual leader in a non-church setting such as a hospital, military installation, police/fire department, prison and, increasingly, in the workplace. “I haven’t been able to give chaplaincy any attention,” said Hebert, who is responsible for 50 or more church and/or community ministry centers statewide, and for ministry to an unknown number of chaplains across the state who are affiliated with Southern Baptists, in addition to his work with associations and churches in Central Louisiana. Despite his workload, Hebert did provide assistance at least twice in the recent past to Sturdivant, the DOM said. Sturdivant, certified by the International Conference … [Read more...]

Homelessness in this tropical Southern city has changed in the nearly three years since the area was keelhauled by Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29, 2005, and Southern Baptist ministries have adapted to the changes even as local church and associational leaders strategize ways to better meet changing needs. NEW ORLEANS (BP) – Homelessness in this tropical Southern city has changed in the nearly three years since the area was keelhauled by Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29, 2005, and Southern Baptist ministries have adapted to the changes even as local church and associational leaders strategize ways to better meet changing needs. Groups serving New Orleans’ homeless estimate there are about a thousand chronically homeless, living on the streets of the city. Another 2,400 are in some sort of homeless housing at any given time. More live in abandoned housing, but these numbers are very difficult to estimate. Homeless advocates say the number of homeless people is double what it was before Katrina, yet the general population is perhaps half what it once was. The make-up of the homeless individual also has changed. Only perhaps half the number of “traditional” homeless people – the possibly mentally ill, drug and/or alcohol abusers – are … [Read more...]

Nothing happens randomly in the life of a military chaplain. Ken Williams was out on exercises with other members of the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division stationed at Camp Hovey in South Korea. Reporters from the Armed Forces Network were doing a story on how military chaplains minister to soldiers when they’re in the field. They asked Chaplain Williams to recruit a couple of soldiers so they could get some video footage of him with the troops. He picked out two young men and asked them to sit down and make small talk while the cameraman got what he needed. During the conversation, one of the soldiers said, “Hey, I really do need to talk to you about something. Can we get together later?” Williams recalls the meeting: “When we met that evening, he told me he wasn’t sure if he had eternal life. I led him in a prayer to receive Christ.” Maj. Williams, a 17-year veteran of chaplaincy ministry in the National Guard and U.S. Army, knows he has to stay alert and take advantage of the ministry opportunities God gives him. “Satan is the ultimate insurgent. The Bible says he’s always looking for victims,” Williams says. “I have to always be on a heightened state of alert, recognizing that everyone in my path is someone … [Read more...]

Secularists have exploded over the passage of the “Louisiana Science and Education Act.” Secularists have exploded over the passage of the “Louisiana Science and Education Act.” The bill recently was signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal after having been passed by an overwhelming majority of the Louisiana legislature.  According to its text it protects the freedom of “teachers, principals, and other school administrators” in elementary and secondary schools to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of a variety of scientific theories including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” In other words, the act provides for the freedom and support of teachers and school boards to present varied analyses on these and other scientific issues. So why are the denizens of blogs like the Huffington Post in such a huff? Because “science” is their “truth,” and it is blasphemous to question their beliefs. Secularists are unwilling to have their orthodoxy challenged. Just as Galileo had to fight against the church and government of his day, those who dare to question today’s “settled” theories are banished by scientific and political … [Read more...]

The President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been mired in the Senate for months. Late June finally brought signs that a vote, and passage, could be near. The program would cost $50 billion – that’s $165 from each American to fight AIDS, or $1.3 billion from New York City alone. The President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been mired in the Senate for months. Late June finally brought signs that a vote, and passage, could be near. The program would cost $50 billion – that’s $165 from each American to fight AIDS, or $1.3 billion from New York City alone. But will the money allocated for AIDS stop the spread of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, where 76 percent of the world’s HIV-AIDS deaths occurred last year? Not if the dark dealings I’ve witnessed in Africa continue unchecked. In the fight against AIDS, profiteering has trumped prevention. AIDS is no longer simply a disease; it has become a multibillion-dollar industry. In the late 1980s, before international experts arrived to tell us we had it all “wrong,” we in Uganda devised a practical campaign to prevent the spread of HIV. We recognized that population-wide AIDS epidemics in Africa were driven by people having sex with more … [Read more...]

A privately-owned prayer garden less than three miles west of town pays homage by its designer to the One for whom it was designed. KENTWOOD – A privately-owned prayer garden less than three miles west of town pays homage by its designer to the One for whom it was designed. During missionary service over a seven-year period with his artist wife Anne, John “Shady” Hurst walked through many prayer gardens across the globe and decided he would build one on his land once they were back home. “The first thought of such a park was given to me when my wife and I were in Indiana as church planters with the [Southern] Baptist Home Mission Board,” Hurst wrote in a history of the park, which continues to be reprinted and handed out to visitors to the no-cost park. “Upon returning home to retire, I was reading Ecclesiastes in my Bible and God convinced me that He was leading me to do this work for Him,” Hurst continued, a few paragraphs later. “I am not a Solomon, but the little that I do have, I want it to be used of God. This makes me a very happy man.” Inspiration Park emerged over a 10-year period across 34 acres of what previously had been dairy cattle pasture. It grew in stages, as the Hursts envisioned biblical and … [Read more...]