Baptist News Global

Churches urged to get ready to welcome Afghan refugees

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel across the U.S. are preparing partner networks and local congregations for the expected arrival of Afghan refugees attempting to flee as the withdrawal of American forces continues. “We expect a huge influx all over the…

What should you do if a sex offender wants to attend your church?

When someone who is a registered sex offender shows up at church and wants to participate — even in such a simple way as attending worship — what should church leaders do? There is a five-step process pastors and lay…

Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist is back and armed with data for parents to fight for masks in schools

Your Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist has come to the masking debate armed with new data, and she’s ready to help health-conscious parents advocate at their schools, school boards and churches. Emily Smith, assistant professor of epidemiology at Baylor University and a…

Pandemic has accelerated needed changes in churches, panelists report

The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to churches, but it also helped them sift through outdated programming and policies to reinvent ministry going forward, according to panelists of “Expanding Engagement in the Local Church,” an Aug. 25 workshop of the Cooperative…

Row with the dual oars of God’s word and the wind of the Spirit, pastors proclaim as CBF assembly opens

The Spirit of God is blowing, and Christians can either follow that wind or be left in the past, a team of preachers said in a fast-paced dual-language sermon that opened the 2021 virtual General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist…

Why aren’t we better at differing?

Where I come from, we had colorful descriptions of people who are argumentative, or with whom it’s hard to differ. I’m sure you did, too. Here are some I remember: Why, he’s as stubborn as a mule. She’d argue with…

Pastors ponder pandemic preaching problems — and how they’ve survived

Preaching has been radically different and difficult for Pastor Cheryl Adamson since March 2020, and not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The parallel scourges of police brutality, political subjugation and racial oppression faced by African Americans, and exacerbated by…

Of sheep and goats, vaccines and conspiracies, biblical literacy and illiteracy

I’m not exactly sure when or how it happened, but calling someone a sheep is now meant to be an insult. In this new vernacular, being called a “sheep” or “sheeple” means you’re foolish and easily led astray. It means…

With refugee and immigrant ministries already on high alert, Supreme Court delivers an unwanted message

While the nation’s agencies serving refugees and immigrants are scrambling to welcome thousands of Afghan refugees, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to their advocacy on another front Aug. 24 by telling the Biden administration it must reinstate the…

Three months after Russell Moore’s departure, interim leader of ERLC likely leaving

Three months after Russell Moore left the helm of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission under pressure, his interim successor has announced his impending departure. In a news brief, Baptist Press reported Aug. 24 that Daniel Patterson,…

On World Humanitarian Day, a call to address climate change and improve the conditions of refugees across Africa

On a continent long reeling from the effects of climate change, the 2021 World Humanitarian Day focused on the human cost of the climate crisis and the need for world leaders to take meaningful action for the world’s most vulnerable…

COVID has tied the wedding business in knots

Three weeks before their scheduled wedding date of April 4, 2020, Sam Lebow and Meghan Dworschak wrote a final check to the caterer for their reception. “Two days later,” Sam said, “we had to postpone the wedding.” The reason? COVID-19….

Nobody dislikes Southern Baptists more than Al Mohler

Trump EEOC claims more religious discrimination on vaccine mandates

What I wish Christians knew about Sharia Law

On telling a brother he is going to hell