The Jesus Room lies in the bowels of Richmond’s cavernous First Baptist Church, one of those stately old churches that takes up most of a city block. It’s a part of the basement floor of the church, comprising a community…
Homeless is not the way you want to spend your sunset years, but more and more older Americans find themselves there
Scott, a 63-year-old former chef and factory worker, was trudging toward the tent encampment where he lived on the outskirts of Richmond, Va., when he found fellow camper Ed sprawled on the path, unconscious. “It scared the hootenannies out of…
Peter James Flamming, ‘bridge-building’ pastor in Texas and Virginia
Peter James Flamming, one of the best-known “moderate” Southern Baptist preachers of the 20th century, died in Richmond, Va., March 27, at age 89. In 1986, Flamming joined the Southern Baptist Convention’s Peace Committee to fill the spot vacated by…
Facing white Christianity’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection
On Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden became the first commander in chief to use the words “white supremacy” in an inaugural address. Naming “the cry of racial justice 400 years in the making” and its corollary, “a rise in…
Can Trump’s combative social media style help pastors, churches promote the gospel?
Many observers are raising concerns that some pastors share in President Trump’s hard-core fan-the-flames approach to social media. But there are, other ministers say, confrontational and gentle approaches to social media that can be healing and prophetic.
Thinking of church membership in new ways, thanks to ‘cyber hospitality’
The way Susan Sparks sees it, congregations are missing a huge opportunity to share the gospel by not livestreaming their worship services. “We represent a messiah who used every available opportunity he had to reach out,” said Sparks, pastor at…
Hope blooms in the Arkansas Delta, thanks to ministry team
Twenty-year-old Ira Nealy is from an economically distressed, high-crime community in the Arkansas Delta. Plenty of men his age in his hometown of Helena, Ark., don’t have bright futures. But such statistics don’t define Ira Nealy — thanks, he says,…
Pastoral residencies picking up as churches expand ministry, purpose
By Jeff Brumley It’s hardly news anymore that Baptist and other churches are struggling to rediscover their identity and relevance in a postmodern, post-Christian era. But what is getting church leaders’ attention is the growing number of congregations finding their…