Crumpler receives award. Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, former executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union and a past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, received the annual Courage Award from the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society during the CBF general assembly…
RIGHT or WRONG? Repenting of racism
Many years ago, an African-American man attended our church by climbing the bell tower to listen to worship. He is buried eight feet outside church property but not in the church cemetery, according to the church’s policy at the time…
Planting churches that take root requires right processes, right people
Christ’s Great Commission—to share the gospel with people of every language, nationality and culture—calls Christians to find ways to penetrate unreached areas. Planting new churches in places where none exists, or in specific cultural contexts, can result in changed lives…
How should church starters measure success?
Andrew Daugherty sees success where others might only have glimpsed failure when Christ Church Baptist in Rockwall, Texas, ceased to exist as a congregation four years after it launched. Should the death of a new church be considered a failure? That…
Missional, emergent movements place premium on church starting
The missional church and emergent church movements are sweeping through many aspects of religious life — including church planting. While both most often are tagged as movements, they also function as foundations for birthing new congregations. “It’s easier to start…
Common denominator for new churches: They all need funds
Regardless of the method or process used to start them, all new church plants have one thing in common — the need for money. Sometimes a church planter will raise enough money through individual donations or start with a handful…
ANALYSIS: Southern Baptists face the future — and an identity crisis
(ABP) — Institutionally and organizationally, American Protestantism is in a state of permanent transition — and the Southern Baptist Convention is no exception. These days it is clear that fewer religious Americans think of their primary identity in terms of…
BJC files brief opposing sectarian prayer at government meetings
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty filed legal papers July 6 arguing that inviting religious leaders to invoke sectarian prayers a North Carolina county's board of commissioners meetings is unconstitutional. The BJC filed a brief of…
Half a year after an earthquake, Haiti has a long way to go
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti is a country of conspicuous contrasts — a landscape both monochrome and vivid, and a people standing solidly, yet shaken to pieces. Six months after an earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, the city remains a mess. Every fifth…
Westboro Baptist Church claims military funeral protests are protected by the First Amendment
TOPEKA, Kan. (ABP) — A fundamentalist Baptist church known for picketing funerals of fallen soldiers argued in a U.S. Supreme Court brief filed July 7 that its actions are protected by the Constitution. Margie Phelps — attorney of record for…
Mormon influence, imagery run deep through ‘Twilight’
LOS ANGELES (RNS) — Ever since Bram Stoker’s Dracula began haunting the imagination in 1897, popular culture has identified Christian symbols — crucifixes, holy water, Communion wafers — as weapons to ward off a blood-thirsty vampire. Kristen Stewart (Bella) and…
Invitation to Jim Wallis strikes sour note for Christian music festival
OSHKOSH, Wis. (ABP) — A five-day Christian music festival that kicked off July 7 in Wisconsin is being criticized for inviting progressive evangelical activist Jim Wallis to speak. At least one sponsor has pulled out of Lifest — an annual…