Baptist Women in Ministry director named. Pam Durso of Atlanta has been hired as the new full-time executive director for Baptist Women in Ministry. Durso, currently associate executive director-treasurer of the Baptist History & Heritage Society, will begin her duties July 1.
Lottie Moon offering $29 million short of goal. Southern Baptists gave $141 million to support the work of missionaries through the 2008 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. But the total fell more than $29 million short of the $170 million goal. The shortfall is equivalent to what it costs to support the work of approximately 667 international missionaries for a year. The final figure for the 2008 offering is $141,315,110.24, which is more than $9 million below of the record 2007 offering of $150.4 million. The offering results follow an IMB trustee meeting during which trustees approved the suspension of new appointments to the International Service Corps and Masters programs and reduced the number of new appointments to the career, apprentice, associate and journeyman programs.
Draper hospitalized with meningitis. Former Southern Baptist Convention agency head Jimmy Draper was hospitalized following a myelogram June 3 at an outpatient clinic. Tests confirmed a strep bacterial meningitis infection entered his bloodstream during the procedure. Draper was moved from intensive care June 9. Draper was president of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1991 to 2006 and president of the SBC from 1982 to 1984.
Pastor proposes Obama resolution. Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, a predominantly African-American congregation in Arlington, Texas, is urging the Southern Baptist Convention to adopt a resolution celebrating the election of President Obama when the denomination meets June 23-24 in Louisville, Ky. McKissic acknowledges policy differences with Obama, but he terms election of America’s first African-American president “a tremendous moment in our nation’s history.” His proposed resolution celebrates Obama’s election as “a significant contribution to the ongoing cause of racial reconciliation in the United States.”
Be fruitful and multiply? Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, says reversing the Southern Baptist Convention’s declining baptism totals is a matter not merely of evangelism, but also birthrates. In an April 16 chapel address at which he called for a Great Commission Resurgence, Akin said Southern Baptists have been “seduced by the sirens of modernity” when it comes to “how we do family and how many we should have in the home.” Akin warned seminarians: “Islam will take over Europe and it will never fire a shot. They will simply outnumber them as white Europeans have less or no children, and Muslims continue to have them at a very large, healthy rate. You say, ‘What are you saying?’ I’m saying you need to have a bunch of kids. It has a missiological motivation.” One of the articles in the Great Commission Resurgence calls for commitment to “build gospel-saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and as our first mission field.” It says too many Southern Baptists “have embraced unbiblical notions about marriage and family,” including that “children are a burden rather than a blessing and smaller families are more ‘responsible’ than large families.”