TOCCOA, Ga. (ABP) — A vigil is planned Oct. 3 to show support for the family of a Baptist pastor shot dead a month earlier by undercover police officers in a drug investigation gone wrong. Members of Shoal Creek Baptist…
Cheerleaders’ Bible banners raise community controversy
FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. (ABP) — Hundreds of people gathered Sept. 30 in northern Georgia to support cheerleaders at a public high school ordered to stop using religious messages on banners carried on the field during football games. Cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort…
BGCT leaders again recommend reduced budget for 2010
DALLAS (ABP) — For the second consecutive year, the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board approved a budget proposal reduced from the previous year. Messengers to the BGCT annual meeting, scheduled for Nov. 16-17 in Houston, will consider a…
Baptists appeal for aid after typhoon hits Southeast Asia
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Baptists in the Philippines are appealing to the global Baptist community for donations as they gear up for relief efforts in the wake of a Sept. 26 typhoon that has killed 300 people there and…
Baptists in Bahamas protest nation’s rising murder rate
NEW PROVIDENCE, Bahamas (ABP) — Bereaved families, government leaders and concerned members of the community gathered Sept. 27 at a Baptist church in the Bahamas to draw attention to rising murder rates there. While regarded by most Americans as a…
Update: Currie resigns as Texas Baptists Committed leader
SAN ANGELO, Texas (ABP) — Texas Baptists Committed, formed as a political organization two decades ago to resist a “fundamentalist takeover” of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, David Currie. Currie, a…
North Carolina pastor’s death believed to be self-inflicted
HICKORY, N.C. (ABP) — Baptists in North Carolina reacted with shock to the apparent suicide of a well-liked pastor active in denominational life Sept. 27. Sandy Ridge Baptist Church leaders said Pastor David Treadway, a member of the Baptist State…
Broad coalition of Baptists helps build N.C. immigrant family home
Nicolae Buzulan, right, works with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity volunteers for a wall-raising in January. Buzulan, his wife, and four children closed on the house in July after 10 Baptist churches provided the other volunteer labor on the home….
Baptist disaster-relief groups assessing response to Georgia floods
RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — The Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Baptist General Association of Virginia and other Baptist groups are gearing up to respond to catastrophic flooding that has afflicted the Atlanta area and other parts of…
Pakistani pastor asks world’s Baptists for prayer support
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — A pastor in Pakistan has asked his fellow Baptists around the world to pray for the nation’s beleaguered Christian community as it faces increasing pressure from the Muslim majority. In an e-mail to the Baptist…
Faith leaders urge G-20 summit to remember the poor
Religious leaders, including CBF Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash, fourth from right, process to a meeting with members of the U.S. delegation to the G-20 Summit Pittsburgh, Pa. PITTSBURGH (ABP) — Faith leaders including the missions coordinator of the Cooperative…
Barna survey: Women pastors gaining ground in United States
VENTURA, Calif. (ABP) — The percentage of churches in the United States employing a woman as senior pastor has doubled during the past decade, according to a new survey by the Barna Group. The evangelical pollster said one church in…