Significant challenges emerge as missionaries adjust to life in new countries. Building relationships, perhaps learning new languages and learning cultural traditions are among the challenges. Even Christmas can bring new experiences. Depending on the location, “dreaming of a white Christmas”…
‘Spoken word’ preaching form gaining as racial justice movements grow
Somehow, Trey Lyon is able to pack nearly an hour of gospel into a few short minutes of preaching. And have it stick. “Trey’s sermons are 10 minutes, but I would argue they do more work theologically and homiletically than…
Mission work takes on legal dimensions for Va.-based field personnel
Mission work and ministry are taking on a dizzying array of new looks in the 21st century. Just ask Greg and Sue Smith, Baptist missionaries who spent years performing traditional mission work in Latin America before opening a ministry serving…
Missionary, daughter launch clothing line produced by refugees
There are the kinds of missionaries who translate the Bible into exotic languages, who hold revivals on faraway continents and who provide medical care and food for earthquake victims. And then there are the kind who launch and run businesses…
Separating mission and spiritual formation is bad strategy, say ministers
If he had a magic wand, Trey Lyon says he would likely transform the way churches conceive, fund and experience mission and spiritual formation. Basically, he would combine them. “I would love to see churches with ministers of mission and spiritual…
CBF adopts new model for funding field personnel
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is embarking on a new course for national and international missions, one designed to broaden relationships between churches and field personnel and to boost the Fellowship’s global presence. CBF members voted during its General Assembly in…
‘God sent you here,’ child tells minister in violent community
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Cecelia Beck has established herself as a presence in the lives of children, youth and adults since moving to the “Weed and Seed” neighborhood of Shelby, N.C. “It is important to be present in order…
Unlikely Baptist missionary transformed as she heals others
At an IHOP restaurant in Tampa, Fla., a waitress finishes her shift and heads home, where she stashes the day’s cash tips in a safe place. Each week she deposits the money in her bank and writes an equivalent check…
Christians, Muslims fear backlash from Brussels attacks
The deadly explosions in Brussels Tuesday morning had some American Muslims and Christians awaking with dismay. “I’d like to say I was surprised, but I wasn’t,” said Joe Bradford, founder of the Houston-based nonprofit American Muslims Care. The previous arrests…
Roma children get shot at literacy, income with help of CBF field personnel
By Blake Tommey Imagine illiterate first-grade students excited about learning to read. Then picture them learning, on the first day of school, that their teachers and fellow students are speaking and writing in a different language altogether. It doesn’t take…
Couple creating church ‘Mosaic’ from diversity in Paris
By Ashleigh Bugg Julie and David Brown hurry onto the crowded metro in Paris. They’ve finished singing and preaching at a traditional French Protestant church and are on their way to the outskirts of the city to worship with immigrants…
One couple tries to ease plight of Africa-to-Europe immigrants
By Greg Warner In past centuries, West Africans were forcibly exported as slaves to work in the New World and Europe. Today, that dangerous and desperate journey exists in a different form. During the slave trade of the 1700s and…