By Aaron Weaver In the sixteenth chapter of Genesis, God promises the weary and desperate Hagar a future for her unborn son, Ishmael, offering the Egyptian maidservant hope and strength as she wanders through the burning Judean desert. Stopped at…
Churchless Believers: Searching for mystery, not the mission of church
There is a difference between ‘church work’ and ‘the work of the church’. For many churchless believers, they are weary of the ‘busyness of churchwork’ and hungry to engage the mystery of the ‘work of the church’. The ‘work of…
I abuse my church
I have a confession: I abuse my church. When I write abuse, I don’t mean it in the contemporary sense of the word. I mean it in the traditional sense, like when your grandfather abused those old work boots by wearing them in…
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,…
World’s restoration is focus of young adult gathering
By Blake Tommey In the field of social psychology, scholars have coined a technical term known as plausibility structure. Among those who seek to understand how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by others, plausibility structure is essentially a…
Paige Patterson details missiological ‘battle’ at IMB
By Bob Allen Four months before the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board announced plans to eliminate between 600 and 800 jobs, a seminary president said about 750 missionaries need to be removed because they are ineffective or doctrinally unsound….
CBF releases funds for Syrian refugee relief
By Bob Allen The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has sent $15,000 to field personnel in Macedonia and Lebanon to assist with humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees, leaders of the Decatur, Ga.-based Fellowship announced Sept. 10. An estimated 4.1 million Syrians have…
10 years later, one Baptist group reflects on Katrina and its aftermath
By Aaron Weaver Aug. 28, 2005, should have been a music-filled Sunday morning at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. The congregation was scheduled to sing its top 10 favorite hymns. Instead, that Sunday turned out to be…
Ministers, churches seek end to ‘mission tourism’
By Aaron Weaver Parachute missions. Poverty tourism. Vacationary. These descriptors are frequently invoked to characterize and critique a misguided (western) approach to missions — an approach that many say encourages an unhealthy dependency and paternalism. “Contrary to popular belief, most…