Posted: 9/17/04

BaptistWay Bible Series for Sept. 26

God gives strength, mercy enough to perservere

2 Corinthians 4:1-15

By Todd Still

Truett Seminary, Waco

Ministry is anything but an easy, cushy vocation. On the contrary, it is a calling that requires, among other things, thoughtful convictions, perpetual preparation, skillful communication and intentional interaction. Because of unrealistic expectations, considerable challenges and consistent demands, not a few ministers decide to throw in the towel along the stony way.

Even those ministers who do survive the arduous journey that is ministry throw up their hands in frustration and bewilderment on occasion. When it seems ground is not gained and may be being lost, it is difficult to keep going in ministry. It is tempting to succumb to doubt and disillusionment.

While the Apostle Paul was in some respects no ordinary individual, he was clearly human. He too experienced astonishment, anxiety and anger (2 Corinthians 11:28-29; Galatians 1:6; 5:12). Nonetheless, he persevered in the race he had been called to run (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:12-15; 2 Timothy 4:7). How did he and how might we stay the ministerial course? This week's text from 2 Corinthians 4 offers uncommon insight into this question. In this passage, the apostle indicates how he maintained a heart for ministry amid adversity. Paul's autobiographical reflections in these verses regarding his service can direct and illumine our own ministerial paths.

At the outset of chapter 4, Paul declares he and his colleagues do not lose heart as ministers of the new covenant (2 Corinthians 4:6). What enabled the apostle to be steadfast in suffering and not become disheartened? Among other things, we may point to Paul's theological understanding of his calling. Far from seeing his apostolic labors as an endurance test he had to pass by depending upon his own resources, Paul regarded his ministry as a divine, if sometimes severe, mercy.

From the apostle's perspective, the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3) not only rescued him from spiritual destruction through the “light of the gospel” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4); God also graced him with the perception to see and the power to share “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).

Whatever Paul's detractors said to the contrary, Paul insisted he executed his ministry with utter integrity and total transparency. Before God and everybody else, Paul stated unequivocally that he had in no way attempted to manipulate others or negotiate the truth of the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:2). Because the apostle was fully aware that everything is laid bare before “the Father of lights with whom there is no shifting or shadow of turning” (James 1:17), he conducted his ministry accordingly.

Additionally, Paul iterates in 4:5 that the message he proclaimed did not focus upon him; on the contrary, it centered upon the lordship of Jesus Christ. In Paul's day, it was not uncommon for unbelievers to regard and confess Caesar as lord. Along with other early Christians, Paul was convinced the Lord reigned in eternity not in Italy (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Philippians 2:11). It now appears “Jesus is Lord” was (among) the earliest Christian confessions.

We would do well to remember the baptismal waters where we verbally and/or graphically declared the same. When other commitments, no matter how noble or spiritual, distract our attention, redirect our affection or curb our devotion to Christ, we need to make immediate course corrections and return to the “Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). When inclined to self-absorption and self-promotion, we would do well to remember it was none other than the God who said “Let there be light and there was,” who sent Christ as the Light and exalted Christ as the Lord (4:6).

Because Christ is Light and Lord, he should be the subject of our preaching and the model for our living. Far from preaching ourselves or living unto ourselves, we are to be servants of Christ and of other believers (4:5). We, like Paul, are to be jars of clay. While we might fancy ourselves to be expensive porcelain eggs or costly crystal vases, in the gospel economy, we are ordinary vessels who possess and proclaim the message of an extraordinary God (4:7).

Although Paul was empowered by God, he was not exempt from suffering. In fact, affliction and opposition marked his ministry. Paul offers a sampling of his apostolic hardships in 4:8-9. Instead of regarding trying experiences as a negation of his calling, Paul came to understand such conflicts and clashes as constituent to his calling. The apostle's hard-knock life became a model of the gospel–his “dying” for Jesus resulted in Christ's living in him. Paul's “death” made it possible for others to find Jesus' life (4:10-12).

For Paul, the gospel was not a limited commodity to be bought, bartered, or bottled; it was an indescribable gift to be shared and an indestructible hope to be embraced. To the apostle's mind, the greatest gift of all is God's acceptance of sinful, yet faithful people, into his presence through Jesus Christ the Lord and the greatest hope of all is God's resurrection of the dead in Christ unto eternal life (4:13-15). It is the Christian vocation to be faithful, charitable and hopeful. In so being, we model the gospel. This is the ministry to which all of Christ's followers have been called.

Discussion question

What causes you to grow weary in ministry?

Posted: 9/17/04

BaptistWay Bible Series for Oct. 3

Live knowing you will have to give an account

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10

By Todd Still

Truett Seminary, Waco

Some Christians have been (rightly) accused of being so heavenly minded they are no earthly good. Alternatively, other believers, perhaps unwittingly, have grown so accustomed to and comfortable with this life that they seldom, if ever, contemplate life after death. There is, to be sure, a rather delicate balance to be struck here.

Indeed, the desirable Christian course is neither wholesale rejection of “the world” nor indiscriminate adoption of “the world” (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 5:9-10). Arguably, the Apostle Paul points the Corinthians (and those of us who are privileged to read their “mail”) in the right direction when he indicates it is his ambition whether he lives or dies to please the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:9). It should be the Christian preoccupation to love the Lord both in life and in death and to praise him as long as he lends us the breath (“My Jesus, I Love Thee,” second stanza).

In the text for this week's lesson, Paul's focus falls decidedly on eternity. Having reiterated in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that he does not lose heart despite affliction (4:1) due to his confidence in God's resurrection of the Christians (v. 14), Paul proceeds in 4:16-5:10 to offer personal reflections on his apostolic experience and expectations. These remarks, like the catalog of sufferings set forth in 4:8-10, are replete with contrasts.

At the outset of this penetrating passage, Paul states that even though his physical body (literally “outer person”) is wasting away, his spiritual life (literally “inward person”) is being renewed day by day (4:16). Instead of viewing his various and sundry external trials as permanent and debilitating (for a specific, illustrative list of Paul's hardships, see 2 Corinthians 11:24-27), he regards them as preparatory for eternal glory (v. 17).

In Pauline thought, suffering with and for Christ was part and parcel of the Christian vocation (Romans 8:17). Furthermore, however severe his suffering might have been at any given time, Paul figures it pales in comparison to the surpassing value of being with Christ for all time.

What enabled Paul to embrace this seemingly “unrealistic” attitude? The apostle was able to view his afflictions as fleeting, and even profitable, because he believed reality should not be confused with physicality. On the surface level, Paul would have had every reason to yield to discouragement.

Through the eyes of faith, however, Paul could look beyond the seen to the unseen. There will indeed be a day, the apostle insists, where “faith will be sight” and “the clouds be rolled back as a scroll” (“It Is Well with My Soul,” stanza four). Nonetheless, until that day, while it is still called today, in the time between Christ's first and second Advent, believers are to “walk by faith, not by sight” (5:7). “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” (Romans 8:24).

External circumstances should not serve as the barometer by which believers measure all matters. Christians are not to orient their lives around the temporal; they are to live their lives in light of the eternal. “For the form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31).

Paul was not only able to keep heart because he viewed adversity as temporary and preparatory; he also was able to forge ahead in faith because he viewed death as a door that ultimately would open to eternal life. For the apostle, the sting of death would give way to victorious life through the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

For the Christian person, destruction (death) of the earthly body, which Paul likens unto a tent, does not mark the end. On the contrary, it serves as a passageway into life eternal. In conjunction with the resurrection, God will give to believers a body fit for eternity. Paul depicts this resurrection body as a “building from God, a house not made with hands” (5:1).

Although the apostle did not model detachment from the present world or advocate a disembodied state (5:4), he indicates he would rather be “at home with the Lord” (5:8). Or, as Paul puts it in Philippians 1:24, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Prior to the redemption of our bodies, Christians are to groan (5:2, 4) along with creation (Romans 8:19, 23).

For Paul, there was a persistent yearning and longing to be fully clothed in Christ, for the mortal, temporal tent to give way to the immortal, eternal home. The apostle attributes a Christian's anticipation for an “eternal wardrobe” to God, and more specifically, to the Spirit who serves as a guarantee of divine, eternal promises (5:5; Romans 8:11; Galatians 5:5). Elsewhere in 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of the Spirit as a seal and “down payment” for the Christian (1:21).

According to Paul, the Holy Spirit indwells and directs believers from the point of conversion (Galatians 3:2-3; 5:16, 25; Romans 18:1-17). It was the Spirit's presence that gave the apostle the confidence to remain faithful and hopeful. Although Paul desired to depart and be with Christ, to remain in the flesh afforded him the privilege to live for Christ (Philippians 1:21; 3:8 Galatians 2:20). What is more, the apostle lived his life with an awareness that he ultimately would have to give an account to Christ for that which he did (and failed to do) in the body (5:10). We would be wise to live likewise.

Discussion questions

How would your actions be different is you were continually cognizant that you will give an account for your life before God?

Posted: 9/17/04

BGCT first vice president
nominee encouraged by signs of progress

By Marv Knox

Editor

DALLAS–Michael Bell, longtime pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, will be nominated for first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas when it meets Nov. 8-9.

George Mason, a pastor colleague of Bell's from Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, announced he will make the nomination at the BGCT annual session in San Antonio.

“Michael Bell is a gifted proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Mason said. “He leads with courage and is not afraid to confront injustice wherever he finds it. He speaks the truth with the passion of a prophet and the compassion of a pastor.”

Mason cited Bell's consistent involvement in denominational activities as a qualification for leadership. For example, Bell has been active in not only the BGCT, but also Tarrant Baptist Association and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

“His presence and leadership add hope to the ever-increasing vision of our state convention being a truly diverse and representative body,” Mason noted. “The convention will be blessed and will be better because of his service.”

Bell is a current member of the BGCT Executive Board and BGCT Christian Life Commission and is chairman of the BGCT Executive Board nominating committee.

He has been president of the Tarrant Association African-American Pastors' Fellowship since 1994 and secretary of the African-American Fellowship of Texas since last year.

Bell said he is grateful to be nominated for convention office at a “kairos moment in the life of Texas Baptists.”

“This is an opportune time,” he explained. “With the changes taking place in our state, with Texas becoming more diverse, we have an opportunity to do missions and do ministry in a greater way–and be more effective at it–than ever before.

“When there's a kairos moment, we either take advantage of the opportunity, or we fall back. We progress or regress. This convention has expressed a commitment to move forward. … We're thinking outside the box and coloring outside the lines to make the redemptive difference God is calling us to make with an increasingly diverse population.”

Bell believes God has prepared him–as an African-American pastor with longstanding and deep relationships with Anglo, Asian-American and Hispanic Christians–for convention office now.

“I believe my experience in leading and relating cross-culturally has given me the tools needed to serve our convention,” he said. “With the increasing Latino population … and our country becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, my experiences and what I've been blessed to take part in capacitate me to serve our convention.”

Bell recalled a pivotal experience in the mid-1990s, when he and other pastors founded Tarrant Clergy for Inter-Ethnic Peace and Justice.

“This was Anglo-American, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic. It was truly interfaith,” he said. “It helped bring familiarity–listening and speaking to issues that different cultures may have.”

Similarly, he led a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship committee that helped the organization develop relationships with people groups, denominations and other faiths.

“I'm a person who's at ease with progress,” Bell described. “I've seen our convention daring to dream and becoming more flexible and organic. I think that's necessary, because our culture has shifted; the faith community no longer is the hub of our culture. We must understand how to respond.”

Bell praised the leadership of BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, President Ken Hall and recent presidents Bob Campbell and Clyde Glazener. “They've been willing to engage the changing environment of our culture,” he said. “I've been thinking about that, praying about it and talking with our church members. And I'm excited about where we're headed as a convention, and I believe that's forward.”

Bell is the second announced candidate for BGCT office. Albert Reyes, president of Baptist University of the Americas and the convention's current first vice president, will be nominated for president.

Reyes would be the convention's first non-Anglo president. His probable election, along with changing demographics in Texas and the convention's imminent reorganization, as well as intergenerational “bridge building,” are exciting developments, Bell said.

“There's room enough for all of us” in the BGCT, he noted. “We're all in this together. God can use all of us together to do what he would have us to do, to extend the kingdom, to meet the needs of the persons who come to our churches and institutions. This is a great opportunity for us.”

Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church has 897 resident members and baptized 32 new Christians last year. The church has an average combined attendance of 305 at two Sunday morning worship services and 78 at its Sunday evening worship service.

Last year, the church contributed $1,800 to the BGCT Cooperative Program unified budget.

Bell is the executive director and founder of the Southeast Neighborhood Interest Coalition in Forth Worth. He also serves on several community boards and is or has been chairman of Tarrant Clergy for Inter-Ethnic Peace and Justice and the county American Cancer Society board.

He is a member of the Texas Baptists Committed board of directors and was chairman of the CBF Committee on Representation and Relationships. He has been a member of the CBF Coordinating Council and the Baptist Advisory Committee at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School.

Bell also has been an instructor for the National Baptist Convention, USA's Congress of Christian Education, both nationally and in Texas.

Among his recognitions, Bell has received the Invisible Giant Award from the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute, the Human Relations Award from the Dallas Interdenominational Ministers' Association, the TBC African-American Leadership Award from Texas Baptists Committed and the BGCT, the Community Service Award from the East Fort Worth Interdenominational Ministers' Alliance, and the Racial Justice & Reconciliation Award from the Tarrant Area Community of Churches. He also is a charter member of the Mainstream Baptist Network Hall of Fame.

Bell is a native of Marshall and grew up in Fort Worth.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Wiley College in Marshall, master's degrees from Howard University Divinity School in Washington and the University of Texas at Tyler, and a doctorate from the Interdenominational Theological Center and Morehouse School of Religion in Atlanta.

He has been pastor of four churches and also taught public school and at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins.

He and his wife, Mary Louise, have three children and three grandchildren.

Posted: 9/17/04

Six children of Baptist leaders among
casualties from Russian hostage crisis

BESLAN, Russia (ABP)–At least six children of Baptist leaders were killed when a hostage standoff in a Russian school ended violently Sept. 3, according to Baptist groups from the region.

The two-day crisis in the southern town of Beslan came to a climax when Russian commandos stormed the school following an explosion, according to news sources on the scene. Russian authorities have said that at least 338 people–many of them schoolchildren–were killed in the massacre, and hundreds remain missing.

Baptist World Alliance leaders familiar with the situation said the tragedy hit the local Baptist church in Beslan hard. Pastor Sergey Totjiev and his wife, Bela, lost two children, and one son remains hospitalized with a severe eye injury.

Church elder Taymuras Totjiev–the pastor's brother–and his wife, Ria, had five children taken hostage. Four died and one was injured.

When a crowd of more than 1,500 people gathered outside the homes of the Totiev brothers–who are next-door neighborhoods–vowing to take revenge against the terrorists, Pastor Totiev said: “Yes we have an irreplaceable loss, but we cannot take revenge. As Christians, the Bible teaches us that we must forgive. Vengeance is in God's hands.”

In a letter of condolence, BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz wrote: “Our hearts go out to the parents of the children whose lives were so quickly and sadly taken from them. … Men and women of faith from all over the world mourn the unbelievable loss of life that has come to innocent children.”

The BWA's relief arm, Baptist World Aid, is working with local partner Mission Vera to provide for the physical and psychological needs of the children and their families. The group's directors, Yevgeniy and Nadia Zhigulin, attended funerals for many of the victims.

“During the days of deep grief our employees leave for Beslan for funerals of victims, providing material assistance where needed,” the Zhigulins reported.

Baptist World Aid will provide $2,500 to Mission Vera for relief work in Beslan.

The hostage incident began Sept. 1 when an armed gang took hundreds of children, parents and teachers hostage on the first day of school in Beslan, located in North Ossetia, The region is adjacent to the troubled Russian province of Chechnya, where rebels have been fighting the Moscow government and demanding an independent Islamic republic.

Posted: 9/17/04

Kindergartner reads her favorite
Bible stories to nursing home residents

By Renee Busby

Religion News Service

FAIRHOPE, Ala. (RNS)–Hannah Denham has been practicing her reading. But she doesn't always sit at home in her room to read her favorite stories. Instead, she shares them with strangers.

Since February, the 5-year-old kindergartner has been going to Beverly Healthcare Eastern Shore once a week to read to nursing home patients from her children's version of the Bible. She recently was recognized as the facility's youngest volunteer.

“I like to do it because the residents are very special to me, because they let me love on them,” said the soft-spoken little girl, clutching her Bible outside the facility before going into rooms to read.

On a recent visit, Hannah sat on a sofa between two residents and opened her Bible to read the “Crossing the Red Sea” story.

Her shoulder-length hair pulled up on top of her head with a bow, Hannah read the story as the two elderly women patted the little girl and stroked her hair.

Hannah's mother, Pam Denham, remembers her own mother taking her to a nursing home to read to residents and how much she enjoyed seeing the older people.

“I always wanted to do it with Hannah,” said Denham.

When the volunteer coordinator from Beverly called her church looking for volunteers to visit the residents, Denham thought it was a sign for them to volunteer.

Betty Jackson, Beverly's recreational service director and volunteer coordinator, said she was surprised at how comfortable Hannah was with the elderly residents and that she remembered all of their names.

“She has a really tender heart and just loves on them,” Jackson said. “And the excitement I see on her face–she's not frightened by them.”

Denham said her daughter not only reads to the residents, but she also pushes them in wheelchairs and even feeds one lady who can't feed herself.

“I've told Hannah that all these people had dreams, had children, had a life, and don't ever forget it,” Denham said.

“It makes me feel good when she reads,” said 79-year-old Miriam Allen as she sat next to the little girl. “She's just as sweet as she can be.”

Allen said since she doesn't have any grandchildren, she thinks of Hannah as a granddaughter.

“She does an excellent job,” said 75-year-old Katie Hadley. “She's always sweet and has a smile.”

Hadley said when Hannah finishes reading with her, they sit and talk about their families.

“We don't have nobody to come see us,” she said. “I think it's wonderful that old people like us have a young child come to read to us.”

As Hadley got up from the couch, Hannah grabbed her hand and helped her to the door. Hadley spoke up when Hannah was asked why she comes to the nursing home.

“It's what Christ wants you to do, isn't it, Hannah?” Hadley said. “She's helping us and helping the cause of Christ.”

Posted: 9/17/04

Detours lead to linkage between churches in Waco, Boulder

By Sarah Farris

BGCT Summer Intern

BOULDER, Colo.–Life had taken a wrong turn. A minister with a passion for unreached people was called to work in Waco with Baylor University students. And a Rocky Mountain girl who wanted to attend Colorado University ended up at Baylor.

But God used their detours to create an unlikely partnership between First Baptist Church of Woodway and Boulder, Colo.

Bobby Erickson is the college pastor at First Baptist Church of Woodway. Before coming to Woodway, Erickson and his wife, Tyra, served two years in East Asia.

“When God unexpectedly led us to Waco, we couldn't understand at first why he had led us to such a saturated place. Then we began to see Baylor as an incredible resource. Thousands of 18- to 22-year-olds passionate for Jesus.”

The Ericksons began an intentional effort to make the college group at First Baptist of Woodway a sending ground for students to go to “frontier places overseas and secular campuses in the states.”

Christina Gibson's desire to invest in the students at Colorado University never subsided. But she believed God called her to Baylor, so she invested her time and energy in ministry among Baylor students. She became involved in Woodway's college group, and eventually she was one of the student leaders.

During the summer of 2002, one of the reasons God sent her away from Colorado became clear to her.

College group leaders were discussing strategies for reaching secular colleges. Out of that conversation, several individuals began feeling God's call to work with college students after graduation.

The group began weekly prayer meetings about moving to Boulder, and all seven of the current mission team members came out of that group.

“From the beginning, the student who was going to carry this vision to others was Christina,” Erickson said. “Her heart was in Colorado, and her desire was to see the students (at Colorado University) have the same opportunity she had during her college years at Baylor.”

While the team knew they were called to Colorado, they had no idea what that would look like. After pursuing several avenues, doors opened to work with Cornerstone Church of Boulder Valley. First Baptist of Woodway's vision for ministry was to plant a college group at an existing church.

Cornerstone Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, is only two minutes from the university, but it had no college group.

In preparation for the new ministry, First Baptist of Woodway sent short-term mission teams to Boulder during school holidays before any long-term team members moved there. The trips, which the church has continued, focus on praying for Boulder, the university, the team, the church and the ministry, rather than evangelism.

Gibson and her husband, Brett, along with a concert violinist, two engineers, an outdoor recreation specialist, and a non-profit administrator make up the team. All work full-time at regular jobs except for the Gibsons, who are the full-time college ministry leaders at the church. Because Cornerstone does not have the budget for college staff pastors, the Gibsons are supported financially by members of First Baptist of Woodway.

The strategy of the team, besides holding weekly college group services, is to build relationships with students and to start Life groups, small groups to encourage spiritual growth and accountability among the students.

In the groups, “Students can interact on an intimate level and challenge each other's pursuits of Christ,” said team member Ashlyn Reynolds.

“Especially exciting is when students catch on to the idea of committing to each other's relationship with Christ. We have seen students form accountability on their own who normally would not necessarily even socialize, but who are learning about the deeper connection they have by being a part of the body of Christ.”

The team, made up of Baylor University graduates, has found the environment of Colorado University different than the one to which they were accustomed.

“At Baylor, students are raised in the Christian tradition and know all the right answers, but few are willing to live out their convictions. At CU, students are not concerned with conforming to a belief system they do not live out, but rather flaunt their lifestyles,” Reynolds said.

“All ideas and religions are accepted and practiced. CU students are open to anything except Christianity,” said team member Derek Polk.

The team hopes the students will become leaders and take ownership of the ministry. Their biggest challenge has been the lack of commitment or continuity by many local students involved in the budding ministry, but still a core group of students developed, participants noted. And after almost a year since the team began full-time work in Boulder, Cornerstone's college group sent a small summer missions team, lead by the Gibsons, to Asia.

Erickson says he has “seen a dramatic increase in dependence up on God and one another. … I think we can talk spiritual community theory all day in Waco and really not know what we are talking about. In Boulder, those students have had to live it.

“They know the struggles and the successes of living in a close community with a team of believers all living under the same vision for the same purpose. It is not always pretty, and it's definitely not easy, but for those who endure–and thankfully our entire team continues to persevere–the experiences of genuine spiritual family and purpose is far greater than the momentary struggles that must be faced.”

For the seven members of the Baylor group in Colorado, ministry has taken on a new meaning–it has become everyday life.

“Life is your ministry, not just college students,” said team member Josh Duncan. “Therefore, your team, coworkers and neighbors also make up the reason for being where you are.”

For the Ericksons and the Gibsons, it wasn't a wrong turn after all. But it wasn't a short cut either.

Posted: 9/17/04

Baptist Briefs

Transition murky at Habitat. Millard Fuller, who founded the world-renowned Christian housing ministry Habitat for Humanity International with his wife, Linda, in 1976, will end his service as president next year. But Fuller and Habitat directors have been in conflict for several months over how and when the leadership transition will take place. While retaining the title of president and chief executive officer, Fuller, who turns 70 in January, said he has been forced into a "figurehead" role since former board chairman Paul Leonard Jr. was sent to the Americus, Ga.-based headquarters in June as managing director. Former President Jimmy Carter, a longtime Habitat volunteer and personal friend of the Fullers, brokered an agreement that called for Fuller's retirement in January 2005. But Fuller has sought to extend his term as Habitat's president and CEO until later in 2005 when the completion of the 200,000th house built by the worldwide ministry is expected to occur. Board leaders have offered Fuller the opportunity to preside over the dedication of that historic milestone, but not in the role of CEO.

Olford dies at 86. Biblical expositor Stephen Olford died at age 86 after suffering a massive stroke. He was a member of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn. He founded the Stephen Olford Institute for Biblical Preaching in 1980 to promote verse-by-verse biblical preaching and practical training for pastors, evangelists and lay leaders.

Criswell College installs president. Jerry Johnson was installed as the sixth president of Criswell College in Dallas last week. The 40-year-old Malakoff native was the unanimous choice of trustees last December and began serving in February. Johnson, a 1986 Criswell graduate, came to Criswell College from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he was dean of the seminary's Boyce College. Criswell College is affiliated with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Former seminary presidents join faculty. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has added two former seminary presidents to its faculty as distinguished professors. Mark Coppenger, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1995 to 1999, has been named distinguished professor of apologetics. He is pastor of Evanston Baptist Church in Evanston, Ill. Ken Hemphill, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1994 to 2003, has been named distinguished professor of evangelism, missions and church growth. He is national strategist for the Southern Baptist Convention's Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative. Both men will teach part-time.

Mars Hill president emeritus dies. Fred Blake Bentley, president emeritus of Mars Hill College, died recently at age 68, following a two-and-a-half-year battle with colon cancer. When Bentley became president of Mars Hill College in 1966 at age 30, he was the youngest college president in the nation. Bentley was the 19th president in the college's 110-year history. He served almost 30 years before retiring in 1996.

Mohler joins Focus on Family board. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., has been named to the Focus on the Family board of directors. Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson said Mohler brings to the board "a wealth of leadership experience, theological insight and intellectual acumen."

Belmont proposes new relationship. Belmont University trustees have given leaders of the Tennessee Baptist Convention a proposed covenant that would take away the convention's current responsibility of electing trustees for the university. The covenant stipulates at least 60 percent of the Belmont's trustees will be members of Tennessee Baptist churches, while the remaining 40 percent will be "committed active Christians." Belmont University has been affiliated with the Tennessee convention since 1951.

Posted: 9/17/04

Church benefits as families give up cable TV

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN SABA–When challenged to give sacrificially to build a new sanctuary, some families at First Baptist Church of San Saba decided to give up ESPN, CNN and HBO.

A few of those families shared testimonies in worship services about how they disconnected cable or satellite television, and then they donated to the church the money that had been spending on television service.

Randy Robbins' family decided to disconnect their cable. The move helps the family give $70 a month more to the church.

It was an easy choice, considering all Jesus had done for them, Robbins said.

“We decided our TV was pumping sewer into our living room,” he added.

The money flowed into the church's general budget, as well as to a fund for a $2.4 million proposed sanctuary that could serve up to 20 percent of the town's population, said Danny Ingram, minister of music and administration at First Baptist Church.

To raise funds for the new sanctuary, and to promote ongoing giving to the church budget, the San Saba church entered a United We Build campaign, sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas stewardship office.

The campaign proved effective, Ingram said. The first Sunday in May was the highest giving day in the history of the church.

And May was the highest giving month in the history of the congregation, he added.

The increase came from general sacrificial giving, he added. There were no one time gifts.

About $1.1 million has been pledged for the building project, and nearly half of that amount already has been received.

“God has his hand on the church,” Ingram said. “That's the bottom line.”

The new sanctuary nearly doubles the church's current worship center and will include multimedia screens and a high-tech lighting system.

It not only will help the congregation serve its community, but also will impact its region. People are driving from 20 miles away to be part of the church, Ingram noted.

"It's just a wonderful feeling to be part of a church that's growing like ours," Robbins said. "I thank God for it every day."

Posted: 9/17/04

Volunteers from First Baptist Church in Canyon Lake offer free drinks to vacationing tubers on the Guadalupe River, explaining that God freely offers salvation as a gift, just as the church freely provides the refreshing drinks.

Hope floats at First Baptist Church, Canyon Lake

By Craig Bird

Special to the Baptist Standard

CANYON LAKE–Every summer, the Guadalupe River becomes an international waterway. Mike Bates thinks that makes it a prime location to tell folks about a God who loves the whole world.

Bates, who leads First Baptist Church of Canyon Lake's ministry to the “tubers” who flock to the small Comal County town to float the Texas Hill Country stream, admits he wasn't looking for a multinational experience when he suggested the unusual evangelism effort.

He just wanted to offer free bottled water and soft drinks as an expression of God's love to hot and thirsty tubers. But he assumed most would speak in a Texas drawl.

Tommy Lawson of First Baptist Church in Canyon Lake offers a free drink to a tuber on the Guadalupe River. (Craig Bird Photo)

“Who would have thought we'd get to talk with people from Ireland and Mexico or from Germany, Switzerland or England?” he asked.

“We had one man who only spoke French, so I don't know if he ever understood what we were saying–and a man from Japan kept trying to pay us for the drinks, over and over.”

One reply was clearly understood–nothing is really free, and there is a catch buried somewhere in those ice chests among the plastic bottles and pop-top cans.

“The first time they come by, they look to see if there is a donation can somewhere and keep asking: 'Is it really free? What's the catch?” Bates admitted. Obviously, the large hand-lettered signs proclaiming “free sodas” and “free water,” or even the First Baptist team members' assurances weren't convincing enough.

But the card the tubers were offered along with the drink convinced most of them.

“Yes … it really is free!” the purple-and-white business-card-sized handout declares. “We hope this small gift brings some light into your day. It's a simple way of saying that God loves you–no strings attached. Let us know if we can be of more assistance.”

The reverse side has a schedule of services at First Baptist Canyon Lake along with a map, address and phone number.

Bates isn't aware of anyone who has visited or called the church, but he is encouraged that so many people tucked the cards into waterproof pouches, along with their driver's licenses and other important documents.

“This is about getting them to realize there is a God who cares about them even when they are floating down a small river in an out-of-the-way rural Texas town,” he explained. “We're not here to be intrusive or get in their way. But if they want to talk, we are available.”

Though the First Baptist church building is less than a mile from the popular launch point of Horseshoe Bend, Pastor Gordon Hightower pointed out the church never before had found a consistent means of sharing the gospel with tourists.

But Bates paid attention when Hightower taught a class on "How to Become a Contagious Christian" that included books on friendship evangelism. The church embraced his idea. Four other church members joined him for distribution duty while others provided cases of water and soft drinks and cash contributions.

The project launch was delayed for a month when unusually heavy spring rains kept the release rate from Canyon Lake Dam so high that the currents were unsafe.

But by July 4 weekend, the flow was cut back, and the weather was hot and clear.

“The river was bumper-to-bumper with people all weekend,” Bates said. “There were times you couldn't see the water because all the inner tubes were touching.”

The effort may be nonintrusive and casual, but that doesn't mean it isn't strategic, he noted.

“The local economy is pretty much driven by the floaters,” Bates pointed out.

“We didn't want to upset the companies who make their living catering to them, so we don't go into the camp grounds. I checked with the sheriff's office to be sure we were all legal–then we picked our spot. I feel like God made this path just so we could be here and do this.”

The location is about two-thirds into a mile-long hike–uphill–tubers must make to take another trip around the bend.

“It takes about an hour to float from the bridge where they get into the water until the bridge where most of them get out,” Bates said.

“Then they not only have to climb uphill, but they are carrying those heavy inner tubes that–because they are black–absorb lots of heat.

“Some of them make that loop four or five times in a day. By the time they get to our little shady spot on the trial, some of them look like they are coming out of the desert.”

The team even helped one 15-year-old girl who was on the verge of heatstroke along with scores of lesser emergencies. Sometimes they helped smaller children carry the tubes the rest of the way to the river and, “there was one couple who had spent their last $6 on food but hadn't had enough money to get anything to drink, so we got to meet that need,” Bates said.

Team member Tommy Lawson is a veteran at one-on-one Christian witnessing and relishes the opportunity to talk about his faith when the opportunity arises.

“I enjoy meeting people, and I'm not embarrassed to stand out here with this sign and share these drinks,” he said.

Becky Roosa, who distributed cards while Lawson and Bates passed out drinks, is confident the effort “plants seeds” for other Christian witnesses to water and later reap.

Team members also benefit, she says.

“This sharpens our ministry and witness skills so we can better share our faith in all types of situations,” she explained.

“I am on my way to southern Spain as a missionary, and while I know I won't be able to do this exact type of thing there, this experience will help me in what I can do.”

Bates, who hopes to expand the project to multiple sites along the river next summer, set three ministry goals before they started: Show God's love to the people he brings to the river. Get First Baptist Church members who never had been active in planned evangelism involved. And provide a model for other churches.

The first goal obviously has been met.

“I've been told that our little river is the seventh most popular vacation spot in the country,” he said. “We had an estimated crowd of between 5,000 and 10,000 each day of the July 4 weekend.”

The second goal is under way. In addition to the core team of five, “people at church are interested and involved in praying for us and supporting us–and that's where the new teams will come from next summer.”

The third goal was a bit of a stretch, Bates thought, but he felt led to include it.

Then the very first day a youth group from a church in Corpus Christi was tubing the river, met the First Baptist Canyon Lake team and peppered them with questions about what they were doing and why.

“They left here all excited saying: 'We can do this on the beach at Padre Island. We're going to do this on the beach at Padre Island,'” he said with a broad smile.

And First Baptist Canyon Lake will do it again next summer on the Guadalupe River.

Posted: 9/17/04

Members of Canyon Lake church develop varied ministries

By Craig Bird

Special to the Baptist Standard

CANYON LAKE–Giving away bottles of water and soft drinks to sunburned tubers may be the most unusual outreach project at First Baptist Church in Canyon Lake, but it is certainly is not the only one.

Wayne and Fran Bradbury manage a clothing ministry that is growing rapidly and has even bigger dreams.

Thrift shops in Lampasas, La Grange and Canyon Lake provide a regular supply of high- quality clothing.

Every Tuesday morning and once a month on Saturday morning, volunteers sort, shrink-wrap and pack items into boxes and then onto pallets. In addition to two 8,000 to 10,000 pound shipments to a reservation in South Dakota, the ministry also sent clothes to Native American churches in Sanostee, Rock Springs and Fort Wingate, N.M.

Pastor Gordon Hightower sees his task as equipping members of First Baptist Church in Canyon Lake for ministry.

The clothing ministry even receives mission help from time to time.

Earlier this summer, a youth group from First Baptist Church in Irving traveled to Canyon Lake to paint houses, but that project was rained out. Youth leaders called Pastor Gordon Hightower at First Baptist to see if he had any projects, and they wound up sorting and packing clothes.

“One teenage boy quietly prayed over each box as he loaded it on the pallet,” Bradbury said. “He was thanking God that somebody who really needed those clothes would receive them because of this ministry.”

Bernie Glasford, a truck driver who grew up on the Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota, has hauled two truckloads of clothes to Bible Baptist Church there in support of the work of Pastor Mike Smalljumper. He hopes to take a group of young people from the church to the Sioux reservation to round up and brand cattle while helping the church in community evangelism.

Ken Johnson, a waste water treatment specialist who works for Texas A&M University, heads a church construction team that keeps busy at Alto Frio Encampment and is ready to branch out to other projects. Recently, the team built a gift shop for the Baptist camp as well as assembled scores of wooden beds.

Jan Johnson leads a sewing ministry. She and a co-worker recently made 687 dresses and shipped them to a missionary in a Muslim country for use in her work. She also makes church banners and baby quilts that Hightower distributes to the families of terminally ill children.

Alex Powell, a Mission Service Corps volunteer coordinator, is in charge of an in-demand disaster relief unit. The church bought a trailer, which is capable of serving up to 10,000 meals a day, three years ago and the truck to pull it two years ago. Already, volunteers have worked in the debris of Hurricane Claudette on the Gulf Coast, in Piedras Negras, Mexico, after the flooding there last April and at the scene of a derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in San Antonio.

Ironically, their first job, almost immediately after the first group completed training with Texas Baptist Men, was to help their own town recover from the 2002 flood that swamped 256 houses.

“Backhoe Bob” Whitehead made a profession of faith in Christ after Hightower witnessed to him as the two men worked to repair a water pipe leak. Six months ago, he agreed to go as a support person when a preacher from Tyler started a “trucker's chapel” at a truck stop on I-35 in New Braunfels. The second Sunday, Whitehead agreed to preach–and has been doing it ever since.

Darin and Pam Zumwalt went to New Mexico to deliver used clothing and hauled loads in their company's trucks and trailers. They are putting together teams to return to the reservation churches to do construction projects.

Additionally, they are leading efforts within the church to provide furniture, school supplies and other necessities, as well as coordinating a “shoe box” project for children in those churches. Locally, Pam Zumwalt heads the Helping Hands program, which provides holiday gifts of food and personal items for families. The primary funding source is the offering taken up for Helping Hands at the children's Christmas cantata each year.

Bill and Wanda Steward spent a year in Zimbabwe and Malawi in southern Africa as volunteers with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. That has lead them to several projects including gathering clothes, linens and school supplies to ship to Angola and supporting a missionary couple in a closed country by supplying materials they need to run a business.

Hightower, who gladly admits to preaching and teaching the need for mission involvement, also has intentionally changed his role.

“For the first 15 years or so, I thought I had to be the one in the middle of doing everything, that I had to lead by example–whatever the task was,” he explained.

“Now I've seen that my primary role is to seek the vision from God, present it to the congregation and equip the members. I still stay plenty busy, but it's important for others to lead out as God calls them.”

Posted: 9/17/04

See second cartoon here.

“Micah, since you're a minor prophet, I'm going to have to card you.”

Posted: 9/17/04

ANOTHER VIEW:
The '50s weren't what they used to be

By Tom Ehrich

Four parents serve dinner at our church's youth group meeting.

I observe hesitant sixth-graders looking panicked, hopeful seventh-graders withering before 11th-graders, older boys and girls connecting while middle-schoolers choose his-or-her tables.

I am reminded that, along about adolescence, life starts to seem confusing. And life remains confusing from that point on.

Whether you are venturing off to college, boot camp or job market, settling in or still searching, feeling zesty or depleted, life seems to be one confusion after another. Life also has joy and meaning, but never again the uncomplicated serenity of being 8 years old.

Later, we watch “Mona Lisa Smile,” an adventure in stereotypes starring a miscast Julia Roberts and depicting predictable outbursts by Wellesley College girls of 1953-54.

The film captures some of the ugliness of the 1950s–conformism, stifling of intellect and curiosity, marriage as life's only acceptable outcome for women, perfect kitchens yielding perfect lives, stick-figure men following scripts, boundless booze, sex and cigarettes. But it ignores realities such as labor strife, segregation, anti-communist scare-mongering and the fact, discovered later, that men were as trapped by these stereotypes as women.

I was a happy fourth-grader during the year depicted in this film. I walked to school, came home for lunch, learned in a peaceful classroom, played with neighborhood friends, walked to grandmother's, enjoyed a bustling church, and was loved and encouraged by my parents.

It was an idyllic time for me.

I was dimly aware of larger and troubling issues, but I wasn't aware, when the idyll ended in adolescence, that life would never seem simple again. I felt betrayed by the onset of confusion, as if something good had been stolen before I had my turn at it.

Having experienced the 1950s, both as idyll and as truer stories encountered later, it perplexes me when that decade is held up as a golden era, a model of what modernity ought to be, as though everything would be right in the world if we reclaimed neighborhood schools, restored women to the kitchen and male dominance in the workplace, if churches “got back to basics,” if diversity and immigration could be discouraged. And everything were made simple again.

It wasn't simple then.

It only seemed simple because we were children. In fact, the 1950s were as odd in their own right as subsequent decades, the only difference being that post-war Baby Boomers experienced the 1950s as children, the 1960s and 1970s as adolescents, and the years since then as adults vulnerable to uncertainty.

Besides, not all Americans in the 1950s were safe and serene, as gossamer stereotypes insist. Many experienced the '50s through Jim Crow laws, broken marriages, unacknowledged incest and alcoholism, an artificially induced arms race and pillaging by the wealthy, which would bear horrific fruit in later decades.

The retro yearnings of our day claim to be a search for better ethics, better religion and better citizenship. In fact, they are a search for lost childhood.

We were young, naive and safe. We lost that seemingly golden era, not because communists, secular humanists, moral relativists, situational ethicists, Presbyterians, hippies or liberals stole it from us, but because we grew up. And no amount of anti-modernist yearning will put Humpty together again.

Christian fundamentalism tries to roll back religion's clock to “old-time” purity. Traditionalists celebrate conformity and stand tall against modernity. They claim to be serving God. In fact, it's just a power grab.

Politicians bluster about undoing changes and restoring “patriotic values.” They encourage us to look backward with regret, while they quietly do the thoroughly modern work of rewriting tax laws and reshaping government to satisfy their wealthy benefactors.

We are susceptible to retro yearnings because the real world is as confusing today as it was to our parents in the 1950s.

Hearkening back to the “thrilling days of yesteryear” will get us nowhere, however. Nothing was stolen from us. It is time we stopped rewarding demagogues who appeal slyly to our wistful remembrance and offer us simple solutions that serve their interests and not ours.

Our 8-year-old children need to be loved and protected, not emulated.

Tom Ehrich, a writer, computer consultant and Episcopal priest, lives in Durham, N.C. His website is located at www.onajourney.org. His column is distributed by Religion News Service.