ATLANTA (ABP) – The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinating Council voted by e-mail May 26 to recommend a 2011-2012 budget of $12.3 million at the group’s June 22-25 General Assembly in Tampa, Fla. The amount is $2.2 million less than this…
Southern Baptists to review assignments of mission boards
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention is ready to consider revisions to working agreements that will allow the International Mission Board to work directly with internationals living in the United States. On the agenda…
Texas Baptist board calls for renegotiated agreement with Baylor
DALLAS (ABP) — The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board voted to take steps to renegotiate the relationship agreement between the state convention and Baylor University. At its May 24 meeting in Dallas, the board directed Associate Executive Director…
Baptists help Myanmar quake victims after learning of collapsed church
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Several Baptist groups are pooling resources for aid after receiving news that a Baptist church in Myanmar collapsed during a March earthquake, killing 24 and injuring 57. According to the Myanmar Times, about 200 people…
OPINION: An opportunity to work together
Bill Webb It is about 4 p.m. on Monday, May 23. Updates have been trickling in all day after a tornado clawed through the south side of Joplin less than 24 hours earlier, leaving a death toll of at least…
Chainsaw units, chaplains activated as Baptists respond to Joplin tornado
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As disaster relief volunteers prepare to assist in Joplin, Mo., in the aftermath of Sunday's devastating tornado, other Baptists in Missouri can assist through donations, particularly of funds for supplies. (See related story here.) The tornado,…
Unlikely allies weave myth of Christian America, historian says
DALLAS — A seemingly unlikely alliance between conservative Christian evangelicals and Mormons recasts American history as the founding of a distinctively Christian republic, Stephen Stookey told a gathering of Baptist church historians. Self-styled historian David Barton and conservative provocateur Glenn…
Three die at Joplin, Mo., church hit by tornado that tears across Midwest
JOPLIN, Mo. (ABP) — At least two Missouri Baptist churches are among the scores of institutions, businesses and homes destroyed when one of 68 reported tornadoes that swept across the Midwest on Sunday struck Joplin. (See related story here.) News…
Wellness responsibility of both minister and church
HERNDON, Va. (ABP) — Most congregations know healthier clergy lead to healthier churches, but few consider how clergy wellness and congregational busy-ness are related, said Larry Golemon, an ordained Presbyterian minister and former research manager at the Alban Institute. “Clergy…
Self-care important for clergy but often neglected
SAN FRANCISCO (ABP) — “You cannot go to church,” Christian philosopher Elton Trueblood once said. “You are the church wherever you go.” That is especially true if you are the pastor. While many people with high-demand occupations view Sunday worship…
OPINION: Learning the language of the soul
I’ve never been great at languages. I wish I were. A natural linguistic facility would have made my years of learning biblical languages (or living in foreign countries, for that matter) slightly less trying. Language study, I understand, comes with…
RIGHT or WRONG? The best and brightest
It has been said that church vocations no longer attract the “best and brightest” young Christians. Do believe that is true? If so, what should we do about it? Twelve years ago, as an editor of a Baptist state paper,…