What do Donald Trump, Teletubbies, Starbucks coffee cups and other forms of Christian persecution have in common? More than you might think. As someone raised in a very conservative Southern Baptist church in Orlando, Fla. — I would not go…
Monetizing Baptist saints
If Southern Baptists have saints, there are only two and they are both women. Each are revered for their dedication to ministry and circumspect way of living. Neither was flashy or given to being the life of the party. This…
On the Trump trial, the SBC and accountability
What happened in New York City Thursday? For one brief moment, in my 72 years, I saw a nation united around one idea that the rule of law still works as it was intended. Transparency hurts at times. In shortly…
Annie’s Link keeps those cards and letters coming
When Jenny Nethery sat at her desk and pondered ways to keep in touch with employees of the former Home Mission Board, she never envisioned a communications tool that would eventually span nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple agencies. In 1997,…
State conventions beyond the South question SBC North American Mission Board’s spending and accountability for church planting
A decade-long disagreement over how Southern Baptists fund church planting and missions in North America is coming to a head and threatens the sanctity of the denomination’s spirit of cooperative giving. The result: State conventions outside the South are reducing…
With five weeks remaining in this bizarre year, churches hope to finish well fiscally
While stuffed Americans put away the Thanksgiving leftovers and turn to the online Black Friday shopping ritual, houses of worship are hoping their members will drop by their websites as well. As the year of COVID approaches its first end,…
Pandemic summer makes the finances of running a camp even harder
If owning and managing a camp or conference center was hard before March 15, consider the difficulty created after COVID-related cancellations began pouring in. Baptists saw the first crack in the viability of running retreat and conference centers seven years…
Baptist camps tally their losses as COVID-19 summer comes to a close
In Central Florida this summer, the sounds at Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center resembled more a Quaker retreat than a rambunctious camp for teens yelling at the tops of their lungs. There was no frolicking in the lake or singing…
30 years ago today, Baptist news changed with two firings
The birth of Baptist News Global — formerly Associated Baptist Press — 30 years ago today was the offshoot of a decade or more of theological rift between two factions in Southern Baptist life. But theological posturing aside, the July…