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…
Homeowners weigh morality of walking out on mortgages
ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS)—Lynn Thompson quit paying the mortgage on her investment property—not because she couldn’t afford the payments, but because she thinks walking away is better for her long-term financial health. trategic defaults on home mortgages accounted for 31 percent…
Musician teaches young girls that modest is hottest
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—As Jaime Jamgochian performs concerts and leads worship around the country, she communicates to teenage girls messages about modesty, purity and self-worth. “I really want young girls to be who God created them to be and to believe that…
FAITH DIGEST
Church attendance inches up, Gallup says. A new Gallup Poll found Americans’ self-reported church attendance has increased slightly since 2008. When asked how often they attend church, synagogue or mosque, 43.1 percent of Americans in 2010 said they attended “at…
Churches start their own humanitarian aid agencies
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Members of Metro Community Church in Englewood, N.J., support the missionaries sent by their denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, to the Congo, but Africa is a distant and dangerous trip from the 400-member flock. “We can’t send our short-term…
BAPTISTS BRIEFS
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
VIRGINIA BAPTIST FORUM: Ready for a name change
Thank you for your excellent editorial in the Herald of May 27, “Is it time for a name change?” The problem for Southern Baptists is that we have been, or we think we have been, a majority with great power…