By Jeff Brumley No one expected a vacation Bible school run by a visiting Baptist youth group to be a catalyst for racial healing in Shaw,Miss. Yet, by all accounts that’s just what the June visit by 34 youngsters from Houston’s South Main…
Interim pastor consoles grieving church
By Bob Allen God did not cause last week’s brutal murder of a minister’s wife in a normally quiet neighborhood in Homewood, Ala., but is in control of the situation, the interim pastor of a grieving congregation said Sunday at…
What if a generation of women in ministry planted new congregations?
It is hard to believe it has been more than 35 years since I was ready to leave seminary in Louisville, KY for what I thought would be my first full-time church pastorate. Although I had grown up in Baltimore…
Shots fired in Missouri church
By Bob Allen A Missouri man faces multiple charges after allegedly shooting a gun in a Southern Baptist church during Sunday morning worship. About 40 people at First Baptist Church in Norwood, Mo., were in attendance July 21 when an…
Experts: VBS needs missional focus
By Jeff Brumley Relatively few of the 90 to 100 children who attend vacation Bible school at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church each summer are members of the Jacksonville, Fla., congregation. And that’s just fine with children’s minister Faith McCall. Offering…
When violence visits your church, how ready should you be?
Wednesday morning, July 10th someone started two small fires inside Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. As of this writing fire officials are calling it arson and an investigation continues. The damage was small in economic cost; probably less than…
Stunned by arson, church will worship Sunday
By Jeff Brumley Investigators now know that arson was the cause of two fires that struck Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday morning. What authorities and the CBF-affiliated church still don’t know is who did it and why. “At…
Lottie Moon’s church led by woman
By Bob Allen What would Lottie do? Last year, Southern Baptists gave $149.3 million to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, hailed as the third-highest amount in the offering’s 124-year history. With less fanfare, meanwhile, the iconic missionary’s…
Church in foreclosure? Make a plan
By Jeff Brumley A Missionary Baptist pastor in Anniston, Ala., learned recently that his church faces foreclosure and its building may be auctioned to the highest bidder by the end of the month. The Anniston Star reported Friday that Pastor…
Still believing in the church
By Roger Lovette Moving through the kitchen I barely picked up the TV words. They were interviewing another minister who said he just could not believe in God. He has started a church for atheists. He even wears a clergy…
Historian tackles believer’s baptism
By Jeff Brumley Baptist historian Bill Leonard waded into the troubled waters of believer’s baptism June 28, but told his audience it’s really another issue that should be engaging them. “We have to rediscover what it means to say we…
‘Dawnings’ a way of living, being church
By Jeff Brumley Dawnings, CBF’s new missional process for congregations, is about discerning God’s will for churches and ministries, Bo Prosser, coordinator of missional congregations, said during a presentation about the system today in Greensboro, N.C. What it is not, he…