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…
Christian advocacy puts words and actions together in following God
Words matter. They are how we frame our society, our relationships, our entire lives. They are a gift. Actions matter. They impact everyone and everything around us. They have the power to help or harm. The central question for Christians,…
Millennial, Gen Z Christians support missions — with reservations
Christian missionaries face a world of challenges even in “normal” times — unfriendly governments, hostile social and religious forces, cultural barriers and language struggles, to name a few. Now, a global pandemic has made the basic acts of travel and…
Lessons learned on a journey of interfaith friendship
Interfaith friendship is my passion. How did a lifelong Christian — born and reared in the family of a Southern Baptist pastor, who holds three degrees from a Baptist university and seminary, and is an ordained Baptist minister and 25-year…
Coronavirus teaches us that ‘church’ is a verb
In this time of coronavirus, we need a new grammar of church. “Church” is not a noun with a cynosure of place. It is a verb. It is a verb not to be used in the singular but always in…