Church leaders must abandon the desire for control and prestige and cooperate with other ministers if they seek to be effective agents of change in their communities, a New Jersey pastor and street minister believes. “One of our main responsibilities…
4 in 10 Americans believe we are living in the end times
Evangelical Christianity is built on the ever-present possibility of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This belief permeates sermons and songs alike and has spawned a cottage industry of books and movies. Talk of the “end times” often is used…
Dig deeper when looking for your church’s racist or anti-racist history, Gardner advises
A church may have a racist past even if its archives reveal no evidence of support of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation or other racist structures, author and historian Andrew Gardner said during a recent webinar hosted by the Alliance…
New Food and Faith course at Wingate University has college students gardening and learning to cook as they learn about religions
New to Wingate University’s religion department is a course titled Food and Faith, a class that takes freshmen through the basics of religious eating practices, discusses the ethics of food in popular culture and even incorporates some instruction time in…
Transitions for the week of 12-16-22
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Amanda Allard, to Westwood Baptist Church, Cary, N.C., as children’s minister. Daniel Bailey, to Latonia Baptist Church, Covington,…
Pioneering missionary journalist Craig Bird dies in Texas
Baptist journalist and educator Craig Bird died Dec. 12 at age 73 due to complications from a fall he experienced the week before, according to his family. Bird, who was born in Arkansas on Oct. 4, 1949, to Clyde and C.W….
Amanda Tyler testifies before Congress against Christian nationalism
For an ever-so-brief moment Dec. 13, a congressional hearing on the rise of anti-democratic extremism morphed into a Sunday school lesson as Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, fielded questions on the history of Baptists…
Have the ‘nones’ hit a plateau?
The so-called “nones” may now have something in common with most American churches: They’ve plateaued, according to Gallup. Amid all the attention that’s been given to the dramatic growth of this segment of the American population — those who tell…
ECFA study finds pandemic hit church finances harder than for other nonprofit ministries
Individual evangelical churches struggled financially much more during the COVID-19 pandemic than other kinds of ministries and nonprofits, leaders of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability revealed in a webinar hosted to unpack ECFA’s “2022 State of Giving” report. “Unfortunately,…
Ministry jobs and more
Baptist News Global provides a free listing of ministry-related jobs for Baptist churches, theological institutions and organizations across the United States. Each free posting is for 30 days and is limited to 150 words. Postings may be extended another 30…
Your words are not enough, Beth Allison Barr tells male SBC pastors on sexual abuse after Johnny Hunt’s ‘restoration’
Pastors guilty of sexual abuse never should be restored to ministry, Baylor University professor and author Beth Allison Barr wrote for a news service in the United Kingdom Dec. 9. The opinion piece published by Premier Christianity addresses the case…
Baylor study finds — surprisingly — that student athletes express higher levels of religious belief
Student athletes at Baylor University demonstrate higher levels of religious belief, participation and identity than their non-athlete counterparts at least in part because the Baptist school is successfully balancing faith and athletics, according to a study published last month in…