GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — “This is the time that is right for an explosion of biblical leaders,” Pollster George Gallup Jr. told a Texas audience June 30. Gallup received the John Newport Foundation Annual Leadership Award for his years of…
College ministers offer advice for keeping students connected
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — “Churches need to do better jobs connecting with college students and keeping them in the denomination,” said former college minister Ryan Clark during a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship workshop July 1. “Students often go to college and…
Hispanic involvement growing within Fellowship ranks
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Hispanics are coming to the United States in droves — and in response the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship plans to plant Hispanic churches in droves. The CBF's Hispanic Initiative aims to start 400 new Hispanic congregations…
CBF, Buckner will partner to combat AIDS in Africa
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and a Texas Baptist charity have begun a partnership to help combat the growing AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership with Buckner Orphan Care International was announced during CBF's annual general…
Stories, statistics motivate Global Women to action
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — There are 1.3 billion people in the world considered “absolute poor,” according to information provided by Global Women. Of these, 70 percent are women. Two-thirds of the world's illiterate people are women. One woman a minute…
Leonard says Baptists should learn from ‘generic’ Christian churches
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The popular “generic Christianity” represented by nondenominational churches holds promise for Baptists if they reclaim the importance of rituals, recapture the individual and communal aspects of church life, and respond to the challenges of secularism and…
Court rules Shorter decision final; trustee chair warns of changes
ROME, Ga. (ABP) — The Georgia Supreme Court's decided July 1 not to reconsider a ruling that Shorter College improperly severed ties with the Georgia Baptist Convention. The decision brings an end to the long battle over control of the…
Poverty, suffering present ‘acid test’ of faith, Vestal tells CBF
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — Global poverty is “the moral issue of our day,” and how Christians respond is “the acid test of our faith,” Daniel Vestal told members of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship July 1. “Statistics do not tell all…
Charlie Johnson urges BJC supporters to challenge ‘uncivil religion’
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — American Christendom has become infected with a disease, and free and faithful Baptists hold the cure, Texas pastor Charlie Johnson told a group of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty supporters July 1. Johnson addressed the…
Sandra Day O’Connor, crucial ‘swing vote’ on controversial issues, to retire from court
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has played a crucial role in many of the Supreme Court's most controversial decisions over the past 24 years, announced her plans to retire from that body July 1. The surprise announcement…
CBF assembly OKs partner proposal that caps funding, classifies schools
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship affirmed a proposal for how the moderate group relates to its partner institutions and agencies, in spite of concern that the plan favors the strongest partners and harms the most vulnerable. “We've…
CBF’s new purpose statement critiqued for not mentioning Jesus, evangelism
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship approved revisions to its constitution and bylaws July 1, turning aside a move to make a commitment to Jesus Christ and evangelism explicit in the CBF purpose statement. The old statement said,…