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together_92203
Posted: 9/19/03
TOGETHER:
Churches & BGCT focus on missionsI love worshipping in our churches, sharing fellowship and experiencing the heart for missions and evangelism that permeates our congregations.
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
Recently, I visited First Baptist Church of Nederland. The church reaches out to inmates at a nearby state prison, and the week before I arrived, 300 prisoners had attended a revival service. Pastor David Higgs invited me to accompany him and Sam Maggio, a Sunday School teacher who has ministered to inmates every week for more than 25 years, to baptize some of the men who had made professions of faith in Jesus. We took 10 men into the prison yard, where a large trough had been filled with water. Pastor Higgs baptized several and then asked me to assist.
It was the perfect ending to a day focused on missions, beginning with a marvelous missions emphasis in the church's morning worship service and continuing in an afternoon missions fair. Children of the church had marched in carrying flags from around the world. The pastor had introduced the parade by saying: “People from over 100 countries of the world have come to Texas. These flags represent the incredible challenge that has come to all of us who live in Texas. God has trusted these dear people to our care … to share the good news of Jesus with every one of them.” That day, the church surpassed its Mary Hill Davis Offering goal of $6,000, and more money was still coming in. Additionally, the church had its largest budget offering for the year, and church members gave more than $2,000 for benevolence ministries.
09/19/2003 - By John Rutledge
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trooper_92203
Posted: 9/19/03
Trooper learns of God's love through crash
TEXARKANA–A tragic accident almost took his life, but now Paul Sigman has a life he considers much richer.
Sigman, 28, had been enjoying a successful, if brief, career as a state trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety. He moved to Texarkana in 2001 after graduating from a police academy and rescued a man from a burning vehicle his first week on the job. That incident, along with his everyday efforts, earned him the title Officer of the Year.
Paul and Amy Sigman, with daughter Annabelle, strengthened their faith in God through Sigman's recovery from a near-fatal automobile accident. The state trooper quotes a favorite author: "You will never know God is all you need until God is all you have." Last year, Sigman and his wife, Amy, started attending First Baptist Church in Texarkana at the invitation of one of his co-workers.
09/19/2003 - By John Rutledge
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sperry_92203
Posted: 9/19/03
NEIL SPERRY:
Radio GardenerSince 1978, gardeners in North Central Texas have gleaned their planting, weeding, spraying and harvesting information from the voice of Neil Sperry, first over WFAA radio and since 1980 over KRLD on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He also broadcasts daily statewide over the Texas State Radio Network and will be inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in October. His radio show, "Neil Sperry's Gardens Magazine," and a Texas gardening calendar have been judged the best communications of their kind by the Garden Writer's Association of America, and his book, "Neil Sperry's Complete Guide to Texas Gardening," has sold more than half a million copies.
A native Texan, Sperry attended Texas A&M University and has two degrees in horticulture from Ohio State University. He taught horticulture in high school two years and was a horticulture specialist with the Texas Agriculture Extension Service. He and his wife, Lynn, have three children. When he is not gardening, he is involved in a variety of hobbies, such as photography, painting Santa Clause figurines and making pens from historic woods of Texas. Proceeds from the sale of the pens go to the McKinney Education Foundation and Serenity High School. The Sperrys are members of the Lutheran Church.
Neil Sperry displays an assortment of the pens he has made from the historic woods of Texas. Among them are pens made from the Treaty Oak in Austin, a live oak at the Alamo and from a bat used by Rafael Palmeiro. Q.
You speak of your father often on your radio program. I know he was a major influence in your career choice, but was there an event or events that solidified the decision?
09/19/2003 - By John Rutledge
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music_pirates_90803
Posted: 9/5/03
Does your church harbor pirates?
By John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
Pirates not only have ruled the Caribbean at the box office this summer, they've continued to ravage the music industry, including the Christian music industry.
09/16/2003 - By John Rutledge
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letters_90803
Posted: 9/5/03
TEXAS BAPTIST FORUM:
Judicial activismI've noticed in the media coverage of Judge Roy Moore's Ten Commandments travail in Alabama a constitutional “sleight of hand” being performed by pundits before an unsuspecting public.
Those opposed to the judge's display of the Ten Commandments have cleverly substituted the phrase “state endorsement of religion” for “state establishment of religion.” Moore's 5,000-pound monument represents the “endorsement of a specific religion” we are told.
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com So what? Nothing in the Constitution prohibits the government from endorsing, preferring or even supporting with tax dollars a particular religion, just as President Thomas Jefferson–the father of the phrase “separation of church and state”–did when he requested funds from Congress to support Christian missionaries to the Kaskaskia Indians.
09/08/2003 - By John Rutledge
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tidbits_90803
Posted: 9/5/03
Texas Tidbits
HBTS alumni reunion planned. Alumni, faculty, and staff of Hispanic Baptist Theological School will join in a reunion event Oct. 3-4. The event will begin with dinner on the Riverwalk in San Antonio Friday night before a day of activities Saturday. Current students are organizing an international fair, decorating booths and cooking food from their countries of origin. Alumni will have opportunities to take their best shots at staff in a dunking booth. To RSVP, call HBTS (210) 924-4338 or email rayala@hbts.edu.
Jim Wilkinson Baylor honors former military spokesman. Jim Wilkinson, who served the last 10 months as director of strategic communications for Gen. Tommy Franks at U.S. Central Command, received the 2003 Baylor Communications Award Aug. 25. The award recognizes those who have distinguished themselves in the field of communications and in their communities. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wilkinson served as Gen. Franks' principal spokesman. In addition to a number of other roles within the Republican Party, Wilkinson served as a spokesman for George W. Bush during the Florida recount. From 1992 to 2000, he worked for U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey. The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that Baylor President Robert Sloan recently offered Wilkinson a position as vice president for university relations. Instead, however, Wilkinson accepted a new role as communications director for the 2004 Republican National Convention. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington and Johns Hopkins University. UMHB receives grant. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor has received a $200,000 grant from the Thomas Kinder and Martha Farris Foundation of Floydada for the Mayborn Campus Center. Martha White Farris is a 1942 graduate of the university. She served as honorary chair of the university's "Challenge Beyond 2000" campaign that raised $17 million.09/06/2003 - By John Rutledge
UMHB receives grant. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor has received a $200,000 grant from the Thomas Kinder and Martha Farris Foundation of Floydada for the Mayborn Campus Center. Martha White Farris is a 1942 graduate of the university. She served as honorary chair of the university's "Challenge Beyond 2000" campaign that raised $17 million.
