Tom Leland, pastor of University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, leaned back in his swivel chair in his spacious office and smiled broadly. Clearly, talking about the church and it's ministries is a topic in which he is well-versed and one…
New about Virginia Baptists and their ministries for April 19, 2007
Staff changes • Bernard Camden, to Fellowship Church, Chester, as pastor. • Jeff Hudgins, to Heritage Church, Farmville, as pastor. • Tim Mathia, resigning as pastor of Mentow Church, Huddleston. • Bill Welch, to Woodville Church, Woodville, as interim pastor….
Virginia Tidbits
$1 MILLION FOR BTSR. Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond has received a $1 million anonymous gift in honor of four Richmond Baptist leaders—Harwood and Louise Cochrane and Elmer and Betsy West. Both the Cochranes and the Wests have been instrumental…
Virginia Tech students gather at Baptist ministry center
Blacksburg, Va., is a wounded city. With 26,000 students, Virginia Tech is the dominant presence in the town usually bustling with students crisscrossing the campus and spilling over into the streets of the burg. Not Monday. Although barraged with requests…
Reformatting will end ‘Mission Moments,’ but not church photos
For the past three years, the Religious Herald has run photographs of church mission trips in a back-page feature called “Mission Moments.” With the recent reformatting of the newspaper, the Herald is discontinuing that feature and utilizing the back page…
RIGHT OR WRONG: What should I tell my preschooler about Santa Claus?
You actually have asked two separate “right or wrong” questions. One concerns whether it is right or wrong to tell a “little white lie” to a child if it brings happiness. Parents avoid telling their children the absolute truth all…
EDITORIAL: When someone slaps you in the faith, turn the other cheek
The biblical word translated into English as persecution means to chase after; to harass, trouble, molest or mistreat. It seems to me that Christians and Christianity suffer persecution—face-slapping if you will—from numerous places. I realize that I may be accused…
Are some people born to be religious?
NEW ORLEANS (RNS)—A recent debate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary was titled “The Future of Atheism,” but the heart of the dialogue explored a related question: Can mankind's age-old belief in God be explained purely as a stubbornly recurring…
SECOND OPINION: Good manners and speaking the truth
The early onset of the presidential campaign has brought with it a renewed call for a “return to civility.” There seems, however, little prospect for any immediate restoration of such civility, assuming that it ever existed. I think there are…
Faith & family help minorities bridge academic achievement gap
WACO, Texas—The academic achievement gap between Anglo students and their African-American or Hispanic peers disappears when the students live in intact, religious families, a new study shows. William Jeynes, a nonresident researcher with the Baylor Univer-sity Institute for Studies of…
Evangelical leaders join broad-based coalition urging immigration reform
WASHINGTON (ABP)—A bi-partisan array of Congress members and evangelical leaders exhorted their colleagues on the moral necessity of immigration reform. Leaders from across the ideological spectrum—from Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to Southern Baptist public policy agency…
In days following shootings, Hokies search for bright spots amid tragedy
BLACKSBURG, Va. (ABP) — Two days after Cho Seung-Hui shot and killed at least 32 students and professors on the campus of Virginia Tech, students are searching for something good to come of the massacre. “There are people out there…