Charles Chandler, founder of the Ministering to Ministers Foundation, gives five suggestions of pastoral self-care. • Develop an informal feedback group within the congregation. Pastors should choose just a few that they can trust and whom other members talk to….
Ministers are not able to leap tall buildings or stop bullets
Charles Chandler can joke about preachers suffering from “Superman syndrome” since he portrayed the “Man of Steel” when Metropolis, Ill., claimed the status as the superhero’s hometown. The first “Superman” for the city’s annual celebration, Chandler, now director of the…
A new book claims more Baptists will embrace liturgical forms of worship as inherently missional
(ABP) — Pastors and scholars familiar with a new book about liturgical worship say its publication signals the practice’s spread in Baptist churches which realize ancient Christian practices are inherently missional and may lure younger generations to the faith. Gathering…
Gardner-Webb program aims to tackle hunger in region
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. — Many Americans are still struggling to put food on the table, a full four years after the global recession ended, a new poll by Gallup shows. “Twenty percent of people polled last month said that they…
KBF caravan finds joy, pain in Morocco
By Jeff Brumley What started as a Baptist women’s empowerment tour of Morocco grew into an eye-opening, jaw-dropping education on the painful realities of immigration and human trafficking on the African continent. The October trip arranged by the Kentucky Baptist…
Baptist home considers hiring gays
This story was edited after posting to correct an error in the third paragraph from last. By Bob Allen After a dozen years defending lawsuits stemming from the firing of a lesbian worker in 1998, a Kentucky Baptist child care…
Teamwork needed to fight hunger: official
By Lori Fogleman Eliminating poverty and hunger will take the collective commitment of Americans from “many different disciplines, many different walks of life,” Melissa Rogers, a lifelong Baptist who serves as special assistant to the president and executive director of…
Hollywood looks to Bible for screenplays
NEW YORK (RNS) — Studios and filmmakers are rediscovering a classic text as source material for upcoming mainstream films: the Bible. Nearly 10 years after the blockbuster success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which earned $611.9 million…
Do BYU visits signal evangelical-Mormon truce?
(RNS) — Last month, after being sure to get his caffeine fix at Starbucks, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land went where few evangelicals had dared to go before: the campus of Brigham Young University, the intellectual heart of Mormonism. After…
Lewis’s legacy shines in U.S., but not his homeland
CANTERBURY, England (RNS) — When C.S. Lewis died on Nov. 22, 1963, hardly a soul blinked in Northern Ireland where he was born or in England where he spent most of his working life as one of the world’s greatest…
Church giving has reached Depression-era record lows, according to Christian research group
WASHINGTON (RNS) — Collection plates are growing even lighter as Protestant church member giving reached new lows in 2011, and tithing probably will not recover from the recession, according to a new report by Empty Tomb, a Christian research group….
Increasingly, Hollywood looks to Bible for screenplay potential
NEW YORK (RNS) — Studios and filmmakers are rediscovering a classic text as source material for upcoming mainstream films: the Bible. Nearly 10 years after the blockbuster success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which earned $611.9 million…