The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers …. (Ephesians 4:11) The 1980s brought a proliferation of “spiritual gifts inventories.” I first heard this taught by Peter Wagner at…
Baptist students develop awareness of poverty while on mission
FARMVILLE, Va. — Virginia Baptists’ ministry to college age young adults, now called Kairos Initiative, sponsored a statewide mission trip to Haiti this year. The majority of the cost was provided by Baptist collegiate ministries across the state, with individual…
FIRST HAND: College students bring glimmers of hope to resilient Haitians
God blesses us in so many ways that most of the time we do not see it. I was blessed by God in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, last May. I did not know anybody going on this trip. I prayed that everything…
HERITAGE: Heap o’ living at Halfway
One of the most attractive and appealing areas of Virginia is the Hunt Country of Northern Virginia. The gentle hills, the rolling dark green meadows, the horse farms, the stacked stone walls that stretch forever are mental images which remain…
EDITORIAL: An associational touch
On Sunday, Oct. 16, an historic vote will be taken. In one form or another, the Albemarle Baptist Association has been around since 1791, when the Orange Baptist Association divided to form Culpeper, Goshen and Albemarle itself. In 2003, it…
OUT LOUD
“Sounds good to me.” Archbishop Philip Hannan The former archbishop of New Orleans, who died last month, was responding from his hospital bed to the part of the Sacrament of the Sick that offers absolution from sin in the name…
VITAL SIGNS: Are you ill?
My grandmother often used a word to describe herself or other people. It was the word “ill.” She did not use it to describe someone who was sick with a cold or the flu. She used it to describe an…
WINN RECOMMENDS
Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee (IVP) Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has long fueled Christian imagination and social rebellion. The Sermon offers Jesus’ tangible expression of what the Good Life in…
Washington’s National Cathedral needs millions in quake repairs
WASHINGTON (RNS) — The Washington National Cathedral will need “tens of millions of dollars” over “numerous years” to repair extensive damage to the nation’s second-largest church following an Aug. 23 earthquake, church officials said Oct. 4. The landmark church requires…
The Blue Ridge Mountains thunder again as motorcyclists gather for rally
LYNCHBURG, Va. — When 85-year old Bruce Heilman spoke to the motorcyclists who gathered at Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center Sept. 30-Oct. 1, they listened with interest. When they discovered that he had ridden his own Harley to the event,…
Richmond, Va., church cancels services, packs meals for children
RICHMOND, Va. — On an overcast Sunday morning in Richmond, 500 volunteers gathered at Gayton Baptist Church in the city’s western suburbs to make a difference a half a world away, preparing healthy meals to feed 277 malnourished children a…
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Unique opportunity
Chaplain Service Prison Ministry of Virginia Inc. is the official agency that provides chaplains to Virginia’s state prisons and juvenile correctional centers. Virginia is unique in that its prison chaplains are not state employees. They are not compensated by the…