KITALE, Kenya (ABP) — A Kenyan girl sits with her baby doll in hand, smile on her face, changing the doll’s clothes and doing its hair. Minutes later, she places the baby doll into the arms of another child —…
ABP celebrates 20 years
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — July 17 marked the 20th birthday of Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service created by and for Baptists interested in a free press during a tumultuous time within the Southern Baptist Convention. A birthday cake…
Evangelicals pray for those economically affected by Gulf oil spill
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The National Association of Evangelicals and Evangelical Environmental Network set aside Sunday, July 18, as a "National Day of Prayer for the Gulf." Mitch Hescox, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said he realized a…
Campolos model peaceful dialogue on gays
KEUKA PARK, N.Y. (ABP) — During its July 12-17 summer conference, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America used a Christian couple who famously disagree over homosexuality and the church to model a respectful and peaceful dialogue about the issue….
Groups across spectrum file briefs supporting Westboro Baptist Church
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Seven groups representing diverse constituencies filed Supreme Court briefs July 14 defending the rights of a controversial Baptist church to protest near military funerals with messages of hate. Lawyers representing law schools, civil-liberties, religious-freedom and press-freedom organizations…
Planting churches that take root requires the right processes, people
(ABP) — Christ’s Great Commission — to share the gospel with people of every language, nationality and culture — calls Christians to find ways to penetrate unreached areas. Planting new churches in places where none exist, or in specific cultural…
Church Planting: Need for funding common denominator in church starts
(ABP) — Regardless of the method or process used to start them, all new church plants have one thing in common — the need for money. Sometimes a church planter will raise enough money through individual donations or start with…
Church Planting: Missional, emergent movements place premium on planting
(ABP) — The missional-church and emergent-church movements are sweeping through many aspects of Christian life — including church planting. While both most often are tagged as movements, they also function as foundations for birthing new congregations. {youtube}dpXscmLyoUU{/youtube} “It’s easier to…
Church Planting: How should church starters measure success?
Andrew Daugherty ROCKWALL, Texas (ABP) — Andrew Daugherty sees success where others might only have glimpsed failure when Christ Church Baptist in Rockwall, Texas, ceased to exist as a congregation four years after it launched. Should the death of a…
Tenn. city latest flashpoint in culture wars
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (ABP) — Best known to history buffs as the site of a major Civil War battle and to Baptist insiders as the home of the independent/fundamentalist Sword of the Lord newspaper, usually quiet Murfreesboro, Tenn., has recently emerged…
Analysis: Southern Baptists face the future — and an identity crisis
Bill Leonard (ABP) — Institutionally and organizationally, American Protestantism is in a state of permanent transition — and the Southern Baptist Convention is no exception. These days it is clear that fewer religious Americans think of their primary identity in…
Publisher of Ergun Caner’s memoirs stands by demoted seminary head
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (ABP) — A Christian publishing company said it has no plans to pull titles written by a Baptist seminary president recently demoted for making "factual statements that are self-contradictory" in sermons and speeches. After an investigation, Liberty…