ATLANTA (ABP) — For the fourth year in a row, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has received a multimillion-dollar anonymous gift for global missions — this time $5 million. The majority of the gift will go to field personnel salaries, benefits,…
Fellowship hires Karen Gilbert to lead mission volunteers
ATLANTA (ABP) — Karen Gilbert of Dallas has been hired as the associate coordinator for volunteers and partnerships in the global missions office of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The position is based in Dallas, where Gilbert had been minister of…
Unorthodox church succeeding in traditional East Texas
LONGVIEW, Texas (ABP) — When Brian Shobert surveyed Longview, Texas, two years ago, he saw something he didn't like — multitudes of people without a connection to a church. Demographic information backed up Shobert's observations. An estimated 80 percent of…
Florida judge in Schiavo case asked to leave Baptist church
CLEARWATER, Fla. (ABP) — The Florida judge who ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed has resigned his membership in a prominent Southern Baptist church. According to media reports, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer informed Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater that…
Anti-conversion bill in Sri Lanka could restrict liberty, relief work
(ABP) — The Sri Lankan government appears poised to vote on anti-conversion legislation in April, according to a number of media reports. If approved, the vote would cap a three-year effort by Buddhist leaders to stem the tide of rural…
New fundamentalist group seeks ties with SBC, but not BWA alternative
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article expands and replaces one issued March 30. LYNCHBURG, Va. (ABP) — Fundamentalist Baptists in February formed a new international organization they hope will include Southern Baptists, who last year withdrew from the Baptist World Alliance,…
WMU president Wanda Lee criticized for addressing moderate convention
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (ABP) — National Woman's Missionary Union executive director Wanda Lee will follow through with a commitment to speak at the annual meeting of the moderate Baptist General Convention of Missouri in April — despite an attempt to…
Baptist rescue workers seek survivors of latest earthquake
WASHINGTON, D.C. (ABP) — A search-and-rescue team from Baptist World Aid and Hungarian Baptist Aid is trying to find survivors on the Indonesian island of Nias after a March 28 earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale. According to reports,…
Opera goes West: Larkspur celebrates life of Depression-era pastor in Texas
ABILENE, Texas (ABP) — Opera and West Texas may seem like an odd combination. But to the creators of Larkspur, a new opera about a pastor's struggles during the Great Depression, it's a natural. Larkspur, which premieres April 1-2 in…