“Loaves and fishes” come to mind when people think about a Brownsville, Texas, church’s ministry to migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. And a recent Cooperative Baptist Fellowship grant illustrates why. The New Testament describes how Jesus fed at least 5,000…
Thomas Graves, founding president of BTSR
Thomas Henry Graves, founding president of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, died Aug. 17 at age 75. Trained as a Southern Baptist pastor, he became a leader in the so-called “moderate” movement that broke away to create the Alliance of…
CBF gets $1.25 million grant to serve immigrant and refugee families
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will receive $1.25 million from the Lilly Endowment to promote family-church partnerships that help immigrant and refugee parents nurture emotionally stable children. The grant comes through Lilly’s Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative, which seeks to help…
Serving immigrants is part of advocating for religious liberty, Cano says
Those dedicated to religious freedom should remember that serving the needs of immigrants is part of that struggle, Anyra Cano said during a June luncheon hosted by Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. This reminder is a critical given that…
BWIM and CBF launch resource for churches studying women in ministry
Baptist Women in Ministry and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have unveiled a new curriculum to provide congregations with a biblical foundation for embracing and celebrating women in church leadership. The reveal came during the July 29 plenary session at CBF’s…
Embracing a queer spirituality would have freed me from years of anguish, self-doubt and self-loathing
I was a junior in college, studying religion and serving as a youth minister when I first encountered the Southern Baptist Convention’s vitriol against women. Although a Southern Baptist church employed me, a not-yet-out queer woman, as a youth minister…
Baptist Women in Ministry marks 40th anniversary by blessing women cast out by the SBC
Meredith Stone opened Baptist Women in Ministry’s 40th anniversary celebration dinner with spontaneous and scathing remarks about the Southern Baptist Convention’s continuing assault on female clergy. “Forty years later and we are still talking about the SBC,” quipped Stone, BWIM’s…
CBF will hire two full-time staff in advocacy
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship intends to double its efforts on advocacy. For the first time, CBF plans to hire two full-time staff members working in this area, one as director of advocacy and one as congregational advocacy manager. Advocacy work…
At this Baptist gathering, there will be no debate about women preaching
The national media won’t be on hand, and there aren’t likely to be hot debates over women in ministry when the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship gathers in Atlanta next week for its General Assembly. The largest of two breakaway groups from…