AUSTIN, Texas (ABP) — Some social analysts observe the United States in the past half-century has shifted from a Bedford Falls-like culture of small businesses and community-friendly financial institutions to a Pottersville-style nightmare of predatory lenders and seedy businesses that…
Faithful Stewards: ‘Generosity’ as a concept over ‘stewardship?’
LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. (ABP) — A 2,000-year-old incident continues to set the standard for what it means to be a generous church. The sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Galveston, Texas, served as a staging area for collecting clothing and…
Faithful Stewards: Debt keeps Christians from reaching potential
RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — If Americans had followed biblical financial principles, they could have lessened — or completely avoided — the worst recession in decades, two prominent Christian money-management specialists said. “Debt may not be a sin, but it is…
Global Baptists responding to Pacific Rim disasters
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Baptist relief agencies worked on several fronts to respond to humanitarian needs created by a series of tsunamis, earthquakes and tropical storms in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World…
Study says SBC funding plan inadequate to achieve stated goals
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (ABP) — The Southern Baptist Convention has identified a missionary-sending goal big enough to accomplish the nearly 2,000-year-old task of the Great Commission — but lacks a clear fund-raising plan for meeting it, according to an upcoming annual…
Virginia Baptists conclude two-year recovery effort in south Louisiana
PORT SULPHUR, La. — Virginia Baptists concluded their more than two-year assistance to south Louisiana’s victims of Hurricane Katrina with a Sept. 26-27 celebration at Port Sulphur Baptist Church — one of the congreations hardest hit and the focus of…
Flood relief teams won’t be deployed, but alert raised for service in Pacific
RICHMOND, Va. — Large numbers of Baptist disaster relief teams responding to recent flooding in Georgia have made it unnecessary for Virginia Baptists to send their own units, a disaster relief coordinator said Oct. 1. But a Norfolk, Va.-based “fly…
Ragan Courtney to lead workshop on integrating worship and the arts
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Integrating worship and the arts will be the focus of a one-day workshop led by Christian composer Ragan Courtney in November. The event, sponsored by the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Falls Church, Va.,…
Ragan Courtney to lead workshop on integrating worship and the arts
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Integrating worship and the arts will be the focus of a one-day workshop led by Christian composer Ragan Courtney in November. The event, sponsored by the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Falls Church, Va.,…
Baptist group announces slate of BGAV candidates — with a twist
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Baptists Committed, a moderate advocacy group which for almost 25 years has successfully nominated officers for the Baptist General Association of Virginia, announced its slate of candidates Oct. 2 — but this time with a twist….
U.S. Christian leaders join calls to restore civil rights in Honduras
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Several Christian leaders in the United States are calling on the current government of Honduras to restore civil liberties suspended in an escalating political crisis in the Central American nation. The heads of several Protestant and Catholic…
Rally planned for Georgia pastor killed in botched drug sting
TOCCOA, Ga. (ABP) — A vigil is planned Oct. 3 to show support for the family of a Baptist pastor shot dead a month earlier by undercover police officers in a drug investigation gone wrong. Members of Shoal Creek Baptist…