Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Josh Anderson, to Summit Church, Boise, Idaho, as youth pastor. Gwyn Bacon, to First Baptist Church, Athens, Ga.,…
Trump’s faith advisory team is coming back … maybe
‘Israel has never had a better friend, and yet I got 25% of the vote.” The former president joined an online meeting of supporters from the faith community Sept. 2 to launch his National Faith Advisory Board, but two weeks…
Carey Nieuwhof: Reflections on the wilderness, COVID, burnout and how to move forward
As American churches wander in “the wilderness,” pastor and thought leader Carey Nieuwhof is reckoning with his own burnout. He processes these challenges out loud in his new book, At Your Best. Nieuwhof is founding pastor of Connexus Church in…
Lost amid other news: Number of migrants being held in U.S. detention centers has decreased
The number of migrants being held in U.S. civil immigration detention centers has stabilized after many weeks of growth and remains well below pre-pandemic and Trump administration levels, according to researchers at Syracuse University. “The most recent numbers show that…
Erica Whitaker named associate director of BSK’s Institute for Black Church Studies
Erica Whitaker has been named associate director of Baptist Seminary of Kentucky’s Institute for Black Church Studies, where she will work alongside Lewis Brogdon, who became the institute’s first director earlier this year. Whitaker, pastor of Buechel Park Baptist Church…
Elijah Zehyoue named co-director of Alliance of Baptists
The Alliance of Baptists has called Elijah Zehyoue as co-director, following the retirement of Paula Clayton Dempsey, director of partnership relations. The Washington, D.C., pastor and former BNG columnist will begin work Oct. 15, upon Dempsey’s retirement. In the Alliance’s…
Broad support for helping Afghan refugees does not uniformly extend to all refugees
Nearly 70% of Americans favor allowing certain categories of Afghan refugees, including those who worked for coalition forces in Afghanistan, into the United States because “we owe them,” according to a survey released this month. That support includes 64% of…
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…
Kentucky child care discrimination and proselytizing cases take opposite turns
A two-decades-old dispute between the state of Kentucky and a Baptist child care agency turned two pages in opposite directions within a few days, offering anything but clarity about the situation. On one hand, Sunrise Children’s Services, an agency of…
Want to help slow immigration to the U.S.? Address global hunger
Policies promoting global economic and food security will do far more to stem the tide of immigration than efforts to tighten borders and expel migrants, the world’s top anti-hunger official said during a Sept. 10 conference at Baylor University. “People…
SBC task forces hires the same investigative firm the Executive Committee wanted but on different terms
The independent firm originally hired by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee to investigate itself has been chosen for that task again — this time by the special task force created by SBC annual meeting messengers in a rebuke to…
9/11 was a day of dark despair but also multicultural unity
Serving amid the chaos and anguish of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was more about ministers and congregations living into callings than it was about summoning great courage, said David Waugh, who was pastor of Metro Baptist Church in…