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 exists, or in specific cultural contexts, can result in changed lives…
BAPTISTS BRIEFS
Crumpler receives award. Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, former executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union and a past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, received the annual Courage Award from the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society during the CBF general assembly…
Churches start their own humanitarian aid agencies
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Members of Metro Community Church in Englewood, N.J., support the missionaries sent by their denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, to the Congo, but Africa is a distant and dangerous trip from the 400-member flock. “We can’t send our short-term…
RIGHT or WRONG? Repenting of racism
Many years ago, an African-American man attended our church by climbing the bell tower to listen to worship. He is buried eight feet outside church property but not in the church cemetery, according to the church’s policy at the time…
Missional, emergent movements place premium on church starting
The missional church and emergent church movements are sweeping through many aspects of religious life — including church planting. While both most often are tagged as movements, they also function as foundations for birthing new congregations. “It’s easier to start…
Musician teaches young girls that modest is hottest
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—As Jaime Jamgochian performs concerts and leads worship around the country, she communicates to teenage girls messages about modesty, purity and self-worth. “I really want young girls to be who God created them to be and to believe that…
ANALYSIS: Southern Baptists face the future — and an identity crisis
(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 terms of…
Half a year after an earthquake, Haiti has a long way to go
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti is a country of conspicuous contrasts — a landscape both monochrome and vivid, and a people standing solidly, yet shaken to pieces. Six months after an earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, the city remains a mess. Every fifth…
BJC files brief opposing sectarian prayer at government meetings
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty filed legal papers July 6 arguing that inviting religious leaders to invoke sectarian prayers a North Carolina county's board of commissioners meetings is unconstitutional. The BJC filed a brief of…