Baptist News Global

Welcoming people with special needs can mean spiritual, numerical growth

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (ABP) — Churches that do a good job of including members with special needs like autism often reap side benefits of a positive witness to their community and sometimes even numerical growth, says an expert in disability…

FIRST PERSON: Anybody can be a friend

NASHVILLE (ABP) — My 24-year-old son is a certified nursing assistant who provides care for three children — two with intellectual disabilities — four nights a week while their single mother is at work. Bob Allen One “benefit” of such…

Author describes what having an autistic child taught her about God

CINCINNATI (ABP) — Kathleen Deyer Bolduc, a nationally recognized author and speaker in the field of disability ministry, said she was unprepared to parent a special-needs child before the birth of her third son. Now 24, Joel has autism, intellectual…

Barriers of attitude block people with disabilities from full inclusion in churches

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A longtime advocate for people with disabilities said the greatest barriers to including special-needs individuals in churches are not architectural or language but rather barriers of attitude. “We have within us prejudices,” said Ginny Thornburgh, director of…

Church should be place of acceptance for people with special needs

WASHINGTON (ABP) — People with disabilities don’t want churches that just “welcome” them, but rather congregations that value them and include them in living a “full life of faith,” a long-time advocate for special-needs ministry said. “Valued is being seen…

‘Idaho 10’ member blames UNICEF for group’s arrest

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (ABP) — With the last of 10 Southern Baptist mission volunteers released from a Haitian jail May 17, one of her "Idaho 10" co-laborers is breaking his silence and blames the whole ordeal on meddling by the…

RIGHT or WRONG? Christian leadership

I’ve talked with lots of friends who say their pastor operates in a heavy-handed, preacher-centered fashion. Just what are the New Testament marks of a Christian leader? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could always look to leaders as models…

OPINION: When a pastor goes to church

Amy Butler I had a free evening last week, so I decided to go to church. Though I spend quite a bit of time at church, I don’t often go to church in the way that most people think of…

Baptists increasingly mark Pentecost with missions, multiculturalism

WASHINGTON (ABP) — While the annual observance of Pentecost is not one that has a long history with many Baptist churches, there’s a natural fit between the holiday’s emphasis on the international nature of the church and the traditional Baptist…

Members of college mission team survive crash in Haiti

HANNIBAL, Mo. (ABP) — Fourteen students and a faculty sponsor from Baptist-affiliated Hannibal-LaGrange College were injured May 16 in a vehicle accident while on a mission trip in Haiti. The students — nine women and five men — were riding…

Flood relief turns to long-term recovery

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Twenty-seven volunteers from First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., traveled three hours to Nashville in three shifts during the week of May 15-20 for flood relief. They were one of countless groups pitching in as response…

We also need a reckoning with racist words that cut like a knife

How a ‘good kid’ makes a catastrophic choice

‘All we do is believe the Bible,’ Baptist scholars summarize

How anti-vaxxers and evangelicals found common cause