It’s an old saying but true: If you have to keep rescuing people out of a raging river, eventually you ought to walk upstream to see who’s throwing those people in the river. This is the difference between charity and…
In Busia, Kenya, a rare look at what became of a mission project 15 years later
It’s a common scenario in church mission work: A congregation goes into an area and provides a much-needed ministry, and then they leave for whatever reason and never see the results that follow. But every now and then a chain…
Here I raise my ebenezer
Standing at the crossroad of two gravel roads, one can turn in any direction to see wheat fields and cotton rows fade into a crimson haze on the horizon. Each road is pre-ordained to the straight and narrow by land…
Perez and Aho named to new staff roles with CBF
A North Carolina pastor and a Texas mission strategist have been named to new staff positions with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Chris Aho, pastor at Oxford Baptist Church in Oxford, N.C., has been named director of CBF’s Thriving Congregations project…
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…
Despite COVID restrictions, faith-based agencies continue to improve lives in Africa
U.S-based humanitarian enterprises with long histories of service in Africa are continuing their work despite coronavirus and because of partnerships forged over years of ministry. Field personnel of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, for example, have been restricted in travel since…
Helping when it costs you something: A love lesson from the ditch
As an educator, I am captivated by the conversation between Jesus and a lawyer described in Luke 10:25-37. The expert in civil and religious law asked how he could inherit eternal life, which he could answer by quoting a command…
Baylor initiative feeds 270,483 children in 43 states amid a global pandemic
If the coronavirus outbreak has proved anything, it’s that hunger and poverty must be addressed through creative and collaborative efforts between government, private-sector and faith-based individuals and organizations, according to Jeremy Everett, executive director of the Baylor University Collaborative on…
On being a church with a mission or being a missional church
“Either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church. Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission to missional church.” The move from church with a…