This is the fourth in a series created by a partnership between Baptist News Global and the Campbell University Center for Church and Community. Each month’s columns explore one of the seven types of capital described in the Community Capitals Framework…
In state legislatures, a push against trans teens, for churches as ‘essential’ and seeking to define ‘religious freedom’
Ensuring the absolute right of churches to meet during a global pandemic, amending religious freedom legislation and enacting legislation against transgender youth have emerged as key faith-based actions in state legislatures across the nation this year. All three issues are…
What we missed most about in-person church, what’s coming back and what’s likely to change
Taking Communion, socializing and experiencing live sermons were the top features of in-person worship missed by churchgoers during the coronavirus outbreak, new research shows. The aspects missed the least — partly because they were more easily provided online — included…
How to find resilience for the long run of COVID, as we’re ‘almost there, but not quite yet’
Rochelle Walensky, director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed more than a statistical update during a briefing last Monday, sharing her concern about the uptick of new coronavirus cases even as more than 2 million Americans are…
Second Easter during pandemic brings greater sense of hope nationwide
Easter 2021 was filled with tears for many Christian worshipers across America, but this year they often were tears of joy as congregations met in-person for the first time in a year. Even if those services were held outdoors, they…
The habits of churches that need resurrection
In the 13th century, the Muslim poet Rumi had an interesting way of describing our need for resurrection: “The mystics are gathering in the street. Come out!” “Leave me alone. I’m sick.” “I don’t care if you’re dead! Jesus is…
Why I’ll remember 2021 as ‘The Year with Two Easters’
I may refer to 2020 as “The Year Without an Easter.” That is certainly how it felt to me, at least. I had been serving as pastor of Ardmore Baptist Church for less than seven months before the global pandemic…
This Holy Week, let us ‘go in peace’
Sam Baker did not start writing music until after he nearly died. In 1986, he was on a train in Peru headed to Machu Picchu. He was 31. A bomb planted by the Peruvian terrorist group the Shining Path exploded…
New devotional book asks what it means to follow God in a time of global pandemic
Greg Funderburk’s first book followed the survivors of the Great Storm that killed 8,000 people in Galveston, Texas, in 1900. His second book, released this month, is a devotional born from the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 3 million…