Posted: 12/10/04

Church leads visitors on a walk-through journey to Bethlehem

By Michael Leathers

Associated Baptist Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (ABP)—With just a portable heater as defense against the cool night, Kendra Jackson waits for the next group of Christmas celebrants to arrive. The 30-something mother of two daughters is portraying Anna in the interactive Christmas drama produced by Western Oaks Baptist Church.

Jackson has never acted before, unless you count bit parts in her high school's production of "Li'l Abner." But she's been involved in the Western Oaks production, "Journey to Bethlehem," for the past three years because it "attracts people to church and helps them celebrate the season better."

The walk-through drama, told in nine scenes, has been performed by Western Oaks for the last five Decembers. Some 300 church members are involved in every aspect of the drama—from construction of outdoor and indoor sets in the fall to baking thousands of cookies for visitors. Even the script is locally written, tailored for the layout of the church.

While many churches stage living nativities and choir cantatas for Christmas, Western Oaks Pastor Jeff Blevins wanted the church to try a different approach—something unique that would be a gift to the community.

The answer was an interactive play. Visitors are taken through a tour of the Christmas story, led by a wise man searching for the location of the birth of the Christ child. The traveling audience follows their guide through the journey's nine scenes in and around the church. The audience interacts with different characters, each one revealing a little information they need to find the birthplace of Jesus.

"By making it an interactive journey, people feel like they participate in the story and in the journey," said D.J. Shultz, director of worship and music at Western Oaks.

That's important, because visitors are reminded in the final scene that "we're all on a journey" to find Christ—a journey that continues after they leave the church, he added.

This season, Western Oaks transformed its lobby into Herod's court, complete with a running fountain. Visitors are greeted and then sent through the drama in groups of 15 to 25 each. On busy nights, groups are dispatched every four minutes. Actors like Jackson may perform their scenes up to two dozen times in one evening.

Other characters include Zechariah, an excitable priest who is delighted to have visitors after losing and regaining his speech when his son, John the Baptist, was born. They meet Herod, who assigns a skeptical servant to tour with the group as they search for Jesus. They find help from a beggar child in a bustling marketplace. A merchant tells them about a star that another caravan of travelers had been following.

The tour ends with a reflective stop at the Bethlehem manger. There, Herod's servant tells the travelers she cannot return to Herod because she has been changed by the story of the newborn Messiah.

About 120 church members serve as cast and crew each night during the six-night production over two weekends. Last year, more than 4,200 people attended, the highest attendance of the five-year run. The church rewrites the story each year, adding new scenes and retiring some characters to keep the drama fresh for return visitors.

The interactive drama has been spreading to other churches. Calvary Baptist Church of Alton, Ill., planned a three-night performance of its own version of "Journey to Bethlehem.” The church sent about a dozen members to Western Oaks last year to attend a production. "Having the opportunity to see it done was so much more helpful than just reading it on paper," said Rick Patrick, the church's minister of education. The church is incorporating a living nativity into its production.

Blevins said one strength of the drama is that it brings families together to slow down for a few moments and reflect "in a world where we're racing toward Christmas."

Another strength, he said, is the drama's life-changing potential. One 19-year-old man, who was halfway through a drug rehab program, talked to Blevins after the drama because he was having serious questions about his life and purpose. He later made a decision to commit his life to following Jesus Christ.

The drama strengthens church members as well.

"I see our people coming alive and serving," Blevins said. "That's what we're designed to do."

Posted: 12/10/04

Colleyville church feeds the needy,
draws 138 to professions of faith in Christ

By Gregory Tomlin

Baptist Press

COLLEYVILLE (BP)—It wasn’t quite comparable to the New Testament feeding of the 5,000, but an army of volunteers served hot meals and passed out sacks of groceries to more than 2,800 people.

Even so, the real miracle occurred in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Colleyville, where 138 people came forward to accept salvation in Jesus Christ, ministers at the church insisted.

"At the end of the service tonight, we are going to give you good gifts. Your money is no good here. We are not taking up an offering, and we will not accept donations," Pastor Frank Harber told the 800-plus families at the event. "The gift of eternal life is just like that. It is free, and you would offend God if you tried to buy it."

The dinner, grocery distribution and gospel presentation were part of the church's third annual Mission Colleyville outreach. Attendance at the events has doubled in three years, since one of First Baptist's deacons conceived the idea of feeding and providing for the community’s most-neglected residents.

Ron Cogburn, deacon chairman when the idea of the mission was developed, said people in the area have embraced the mission because they see in it true compassion.

"Compassion without action is nothing. True mercy is compassion with action," Cogburn said. "We are not only telling the people here that Jesus loves them; we are showing them. Where else could they get a meal, groceries and toys for their children? This makes a lot of difference in their lives."

This year, more than 400 volunteers from the church participated in the mission. Bilingual pastors and ministers from area Hispanic churches also took part.

Carlos Flores, a minister at Highland Meadows Church, strolled around inside the tent on the church grounds where dinner was being served, greeting the families that carpooled from as far away as Irving. Several school buses also transported community members to the church.

Flores, wearing a bright red shirt with the word "bilingual" in white, shook hands, prayed with families and encouraged them to listen closely to the gospel message they would hear in the church's sanctuary.

"The people here at the church are doing this because they have a heart for people. They have a heart for the lost in the Hispanic community," Flores said.

Eric Vaughan, associate pastor at First Baptist Church, said he expects Mission

Colleyville to continue its growth. And he expects his church to seek more assistance from Hispanic churches.

"Each year, we have an increase in the number of Hispanics involved in this outreach. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. As our population grows, we will need to partner with Hispanics to reach into their communities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them," Vaughan said.

"We have a heart and a passion to reach out to our Jerusalem, or northeast Tarrant County. It all boils down to the fact that this church body at its core, at its heart, is evangelistic."

Posted: 12/10/04

Shared holiday meal fills El Paso
Baptists with renewed passion for missions

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

EL PASO—A holiday meal filled several Texas Baptists from El Paso with a renewed desire to see and meet needs around them.

Four members of First Baptist Church celebrated Thanksgiving at the Alfa & Omega School in Denia, Spain, where they taught children about why Americans celebrate the holiday. The Texas Baptists served turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce to more than 100 people.

The Texas Partnerships Resource Center of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has a relationship with Spanish Baptists.

The volunteers explained to the school’s students, staff workers and their families why Christians thank God for blessing them, said Debra Collins, First Baptist Church’s minister of missions, community ministries and women’s ministry.

Gay Brown, a member of First Baptist Church in El Paso, explains why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving to a class at the Alfa & Omega School in Denia, Spain.

“It was a lot of work,” said Gay Brown, a member of First Baptist Church. “It was a lot of fun. And it was an enormous blessing.”

The experience invigorated the travelers, who shared details of their trip with their church one Wednesday, Collins said. They also are telling stories about their journey to different segments of the congregation through Sunday school classes and personal relationships.

Brown emphasized to her class that God calls each person to be involved in mission work.

The trip to Spain gave volunteers a broader view of how God is expanding his kingdom, Collins said. El Paso Baptists saw ministry can take many different forms. They took that information home with them and are looking to apply it in their community.

“It gives us an extra focus that there are things we can do outside receiving support for Juarez and El Paso,” Collins said.

“Whether we go to Spain or we go across the river or are serving right here in El Paso, we are to be sharing the gospel,” she said.

Brown said she more clearly sees the needs in El Paso and its surrounding communities. She particularly mentioned ministering to people who live in a valley north of the West Texas city.

“We don’t have to go to Mexico,” she said. “We don’t have to go to Spain. We have (needs) all around here.”

For information on partnering with Spain and other countries, contact the Texas Partnerships Resource Center at (214) 828-5181 or via e-mail at texas_partnerships@bgct.org.

Posted: 12/10/04

Evangelical Theological Society to
adopt Chicago Statement on inerrancy

By Jeff Robinson

Baptist Press

SAN ANTONIO (BP)—Members of the Evangelical Theological Society passed a resolution to consider using the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to clarify the organization’s position on the inerrancy of Scripture.

Adoption of the Chicago Statement would allow the society to exclude members or potential members who hold theological positions, such as open theism, that they believe undermine biblical inerrancy.

Members attending the 56th annual society meeting in San Antonio voted 234 (78.5 percent) to 58 to accept the resolution put forth by the society’s executive committee.

Greg Beale, the outgoing president of the society, said many members felt a more precise definition of inerrancy is needed in the wake of the recent challenge presented by open theism.

At the 2003 annual meeting in Atlanta, society members voted against revoking the membership of two theologians who hold to open theism or the openness of God, a position that teaches God does not know perfectly what will happen in the future.

The two theologians—Clark Pinnock and John Sanders —were acquitted largely because society members could not agree on a precise definition of the term “inerrancy” in the organization’s statement of faith.

To join the Evangelical Theological Society, one must sign a statement of faith that affirms belief in two doctrines—inerrancy of Scripture and the Trinity.

This year’s vote on the Chicago Statement does not automatically enact it as a society bylaw but allows the executive committee to examine the resolution further at its next meeting in August.

The committee will take feedback from society members and then decide whether to recommend adopting the Chicago Statement as a proposed bylaw at the 2005 Evangelical Theological Society national meeting in Valley Forge, Pa. Beale said the committee could bring the resolution before the society membership for adoption or could recommend further discussion.

If members vote to adopt the Chicago Statement, it will not become a part of the society’s statement of faith but will serve as “a useful instrument for interpreting” the article on inerrancy, Beale said.

If adopted as the interpretative instrument, the Chicago Statement then could be used for excluding members who hold aberrant views of Scripture, Beale said. One of the aspects of openness theology the resolution seeks to address is its teaching that some biblical prophecies will not actually be fulfilled in reality, a teaching many evangelicals believe undermines biblical inerrancy.

Society founder Roger Nicole, who brought the charges last year against Pinnock and Sanders, said adoption of the Chicago Statement would set forth precisely what the charter members of the society intended when they included the term “inerrancy” in their statement of faith.

“In my judgment, (adoption of the Chicago Statement) eliminates the claim by anyone that inerrancy is a vague term,” Nicole said. “The meaning of ‘inerrancy’ is clarified, and if there is any member who does not agree with that definition, he should resign … or be disciplined.”

The Chicago Statement was produced in the fall of 1978 during an international summit conference of concerned evangelical leaders. It was signed by nearly 300 evangelical scholars such as Nicole, Norman Geisler, Carl F.H. Henry, Harold Lindsell, J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul and James Montgomery Boice.

It contains five short statements that define inerrancy, followed by 19 affirmations and denials that further define the doctrine. For example, the first article reads: “We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the church, tradition or any other human source.”

One of the brief opening statements says of Scripture: “Being wholly and verbally God-given … (it) is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.”

By contrast, the society’s statement on Scripture is brief. It reads, “The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”

Posted: 12/10/04

Court dismisses most of legal
challenges to faith-based initiatives

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—A federal judge has dismissed the most sweeping portions of a lawsuit that challenged President Bush's faith-based initiative as unconstitutional.

Judge John Shabaz of the U.S. District Court of Western Wisconsin dismissed most of the claims in Freedom From Religion Foundation vs. Towey, the suit filed in June by the Wisconsin-based foundation.

It launched a broad assault on the philosophy and specifics of Bush's program to provide more government funding to churches and other religious charities for social services.

A few days before Shabaz's ruling, the Freedom From Religion Foundation voluntarily narrowed the scope of the lawsuit to two programs funded through grants from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

The suit originally claimed that Jim Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and other administration officials violated the First Amendment's ban on government endorsement of religion "by using federal taxpayer appropriations to support activities that endorse religion and give faith-based organizations preferred positions as political insiders."

The complaint cited speeches given at the dozens of conferences for providers of faith-based social services that the White House has hosted in various parts of the country.

It also claimed the agencies showed favoritism toward religion by providing "capacity- building" assistance to churches and other religious groups to enable them to better compete with secular groups for government grants.

The complaint also said the guidelines the administration provides to religious service providers—that they may not use government funds for "inherently religious" activities —are insufficient to prevent public funds from subsidizing ostensibly "secular" services pervaded by religious components.

But Shabaz ruled the Wisconsin group, which has about 5,000 members and advocates for strict church-state separation, does not have standing to challenge the perceived violations of the First Amendment by the executive branch.

The result of the ruling "is that the complaint has been narrowed to two particular federal grants made by the Department of Health and Human Services—and, at least for now, has been reduced to a small thorn in the (faith-based) initiative's side rather than the large threat it initially appeared to be," according to a legal analysis by George Washington University law professors Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle.

The two have been tracking the lawsuit and other legal developments involving the faith-based initiative for the non-partisan Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy.

Posted: 12/10/04

BUA students spent fall in India mission service

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

SAN ANTONIO—Two Baptist University of the Americas students—one from Mexico, the other from Nicaragua—spent the fall semester working with Banjara Gypsies in India.

Leaders of the Texas Baptist theological university hope all their students have the opportunity for a similar short-term, cross-cultural missions experience before they graduate, said Javier Elizondo, dean of academic affairs at Baptist University of the Americas.

He worked with two former BUA students, Eddie and Macarena Aldape, and their Cooperative Baptist Fellowship colleagues in India, James and Robbi Francovich, to plan the semester-long missions immersion program.

As he learned about the Aldapes’ and Francoviches’ work with the Banjara Gypsy people-group in India and their desire to have students serve alongside them for a short-term internship, Elizondo grew intrigued by the possibility of placing BUA students in India for a semester.

At a church service among the Christian Banjara Gypsies.

“India, Africa and the Arab world are exactly where we’d like to place some of our students for missions service,” he said.

That’s true, at least in part, because Hispanics share many physical characteristics with people in that part of the world and can blend in with the general population, he explained.

Elizondo had a clear idea of what kind of student he wanted to enlist for the pilot project in India.

“I wanted somebody who was bicultural, bilingual and self-motivated,” he said.

He also wanted somebody with roots in Latin America, who would not be so overwhelmed by Third World poverty that he would be unable to serve effectively.

The idea of placing a student from Catholic-dominated Latin America in a culture permeated by non-Christian religions also captivated Elizondo.

“I wanted the students to have the challenging task of reaching a group of people who are not easy to reach,” he said.

“In Latin America, there is still a Christian influence. I wanted them to see how to evangelize in an unreached place like India and to see how much distance there is to bridge there, as opposed to bridging the distance from Catholic non-born-again to evangelical born-again.”

Elizondo enlisted Juan Acuña, a Californian who was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and Allan Escobar, who lived in Nicaragua until age 16, when he moved to Fort Worth.

The students served through the CBF Student.Go program.

Francovich served as field supervisor and professor-of-record for the students’ fall semester, and they received credit at BUA for the work they did in India. He directed their studies as they read a book a week, and he provided mentorship for their cross-cultural learning experience.

Acuña and Escobar spent the first half of their semester in India with the Francoviches, visiting Banjara Gypsy villages, learning about the people and sharing their faith when given the opportunity.

The Texas students experienced some culture shock upon arriving in India.

Escobar acknowledged the first challenge he faced on arriving in India was to “see beyond the poverty.”

The students learned British English spoken with an Indian accent and Texas English spoken with a Spanish accent bear little resemblance to each other. Slang acceptable to one group could be offensive to a different group, they discovered.

Escobar was taken aback when he saw Indian men holding hands and embracing each other closely until he recognized it as a cultural characteristic.

Even so, Acuña insisted the greatest surprise for him was not the differences he observed but the similarities.

“Indian culture has a lot of similarities with Hispanic culture,” he noted. “Both are very family-oriented.”

During the second half of their time in India, the students worked with the Aldapes and focused primarily on youth. They visited clinics, preached in several churches and taught at a conference for youth leaders.

At one clinic, Acuña performed a sleight-of-hand illusion to capture the attention of young people who were waiting in line.

“Once I grabbed their attention, I was able to share Christ with them,” he recalled.

Acuña noted Indian young people in the cities are more westernized than their rural peers, and their curiosity about all things American provided the Texas students an open door to sharing their faith.

“They’re interested in talking with people from the United States, and we had several opportunities to share Christ,” he said.

He recalled an encounter with two girls in a coffee shop who initially started talking with him about movies. In time, the conversation shifted to a school project one of the girls was researching about the causes of depression among young people.

Acuña explained his belief that many young people experience depression because they lack a relationship with God. He gave one of the young women a copy of Philip Yancey’s book, “Disappointment with God.”

“She wrote an e-mail to me, and she said she’s reading it,” Acuña said, adding he has continued to stay in e-mail contact with several young people he met in India.

Elizondo already has made arrangements for Escobar and Acuña to share their insights with students at BUA in a variety of venues, including a chapel service and several classes. He hopes they will be “the first of many” BUA students who will have similar semester-long missions experiences.

“We are really excited about the mission of BUA to provide cross-cultural mission experiences for their students and for the great opportunity to guide students through first-hand experiences among an unreached people group in a Third World country,” Francovich wrote in an e-mail.

“Many Latin Americans have responded to the call to missions and are living in our country, and we pray that through this partnership between BUA and CBF, many more Hispanic Americans and Latin American students will be challenged to find their place of service in making disciples of all nations.”

Posted: 12/10/04

Rebekah Naylor's ministry has made mark on Bangalore

BANGALORE, India—Ask people around Bangalore, India, what a Christian looks like and many would describe Rebekah Naylor, the Southern Baptist missionary surgeon who has labored at Bangalore Baptist Hospital for the past 30 years.

Some have seen Naylor as a cool, precise, professional medical doctor who has performed countless surgeries and other medical procedures. She has saved lives, delivered babies and relieved suffering for thousands of people over the years.

But others know Naylor through her soft-spoken but persistent sharing of the gospel, her training and encouragement of Indian Baptists in how to witness and plant churches. In this role she has helped thousands of people find eternal life in Christ.

For Naylor, the missionary calling and the drive to become a physician were one calling.

“I experienced a call to missions specifically when I was 13 years old,” she said. “God spoke to me very clearly about personal involvement in foreign missions service.” That calling combined with her interest in medicine.

“My ambition in medicine was basically to use it as an avenue to share my faith in Jesus Christ,” she said, summing up a vision for her life she pursued with steadfast devotion over the following decades. Already she had plowed new ground. Few women became physicians, much less surgeons, in the 1960s.

By the time she arrived in India as a newly appointed missionary in 1974, she had managed to get through university, medical school and related training. From a comfortable home in Fort Worth, the medical and missionary newbie found herself stepping through India’s poor who slept on sidewalks for want of homes.

She arrived at Bangalore Baptist Hospital when it had been open for just six months. The building sat then on a bare, 15-acre site outside the city. Although she was anxious, the Indian staff and the 12 patients welcomed the American warmly.

India boasts nearly 20 million evangelicals, such as this member of Andheri Baptist Church. Yet the country's 1.05 billion people are 80 percent Hindu. (Matt Jones Photo)

“The foreign doctors were supposed to know something more than others, so they came hoping that they would find excellent care. They did find excellent care, but they also found people who really cared about them,” she said.

As years passed, the city grew out to surround the hospital compound, and the hospital also grew, from 80 beds to 160. The hospital began to help educate doctors and train Indians to become X-ray and lab technicians.

Today the hospital delivers 1,500 babies a year—average of about four babies a day. Doctors there treat more than 100,000 patients a year and impact five times that many for the gospel.

Naylor served in several key roles at the hospital, including administrator, coming to be accepted more as family than foreign staffer. She also became honorary “Auntie” to hundreds and hundreds of Indian young people and children.

From its inception, the hospital maintained pastoral ministry and outreach. “Its reason to exist was to tell people about Jesus Christ,” she said.

Today Indian Baptists point to a map of Bangalore that is dotted with Baptist churches, most the result of the hospital’s outreach. When workers went to one community a couple of miles from the hospital years ago, there were no Christians and no churches. Within a year, there were 20 baptized believers. Today Trinity Baptist Church is a thriving congregation that has started 18 other churches and is working in many other communities to start more.

When a man died at Baptist Hospital some years ago, the staff gave the man’s wife and family a Bible. Though they grieved, they began reading this strange book they had never seen before.

Years later, the hospital staff learned the family had turned to Christ and all the children had become ministers. Naylor has a treasury of such stories.

One family she ministered to was that of Mutes Khan, a Muslim social worker and community leader. Naylor got to know the Khan family when his first wife developed breast cancer. After his wife died and he remarried, Naylor delivered his new son.

As Baptist Hospital was looking to extend its medical care to villages outside Bangalore, Khan wanted someone else to take over a small medical clinic he had developed. Because he had come to know and trust the hospital through Naylor, he donated the clinic to the hospital in 2003.

Although Khan remains Muslim, he has heard the gospel from Naylor and works to maintain good relations between the two faiths. That’s important in India, where militant Hindus, Indian Muslims and Christians often have clashed in recent years.

Despite a career most missionaries and physicians would envy, in recent years Naylor has realized that even the many churches started through the hospital’s ministry never will be enough to reach all of India. In Karnataka state alone, 52 million people represent 300 language/cultural groups. Missionaries have learned that when a group begins to respond to the gospel and start new churches, the growth stays within the group and only rarely crosses into another.

To reach the spiritually lost people in this one state, Christians must deliver the gospel in 300 languages and in 33,000 villages, towns and cities linked by few roads.

“I think this gives you just a small picture of one part of India as to how difficult it is and challenging it is to access all these different communities and people groups and languages and to communicate effectively,” Naylor said.

Beyond the people group divisions, India’s social castes create still more barriers. “It is difficult for a person of one caste to reach into another, but I firmly believe that this can happen,” she said.

Her experience has made Naylor into a cheerleader for the whole nation and its peoples. “When we think of all of India, our vision is that we would like to see at least 1,000 workers come into India,” she said. Southern Baptist workers have identified 50 megacities (with populations of more than 1 million) and 1,100 unreached people-groups in South Asia, most in India.

“In order to engage them with the gospel, I think it’s evident that many, many, many workers are needed,” she urged.

India’s millions are open to the gospel, Naylor insists, and they constitute an open door. “They are waiting to hear. They are ready to respond.”

Article courtesy of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, www.imb.org.

Posted: 12/10/04

Louisiana College placed on probation

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

PINEVILLE, La. (ABP)—The South’s major accrediting agency for schools has placed a Louisiana Baptist college on probation for a year for violating the agency's standards.

Louisiana College officials announced the Pineville, La., school was placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Members of the association's Commission on Colleges voted to make the change at their regularly scheduled December meeting in Atlanta.

Probation from the accrediting agency is a more serious sanction than a warning or "notation" on the school's record, but less severe than the full removal of accreditation. The school will have 12 months to prove it is in compliance with the agency's standards.

Louisiana College has been roiled by controversy for several years, with much of it coming to a head in the past two years as a group of fundamentalists gained a majority on the institution's board of directors. All board members are appointed by the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

In the past few months, the college's president, chief academic administrator and board chairman have resigned. Last month—only a week after being introduced to the Louisiana Baptist Convention—the college's newly called president unexpectedly withdrew his application for the job, citing "governance issues."

Earlier this year, a special committee from the accrediting agency visited the college's campus on a fact-finding mission. Committee members determined Louisiana College was not in compliance with several of the association's standards regarding academic freedom and proper board governance.

"The committee concluded, based upon extensive interviews with members of the board of trustees, senior staff and faculty that a significant portion of the board of trustees of Louisiana College are influenced if not controlled by the agenda of the Louisiana Inerrancy Fellowship and the Louisiana Baptist Convention," the SACS report read.

The study team said an agenda from the inerrancy group—established as a political movement within the Louisiana Baptist Convention—had unduly influenced the board's work.

Among the controversies on campus were two trustee-initiated policies that many professors said violated academic freedom—a 2003 move to require prior approval of class texts and materials by administrators and more recent actions that made the board more closely involved in faculty hiring and that required new faculty hires to be in agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention's 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement.

According to a statement released by Louisiana College, Interim President John Traylor said the school will meet that goal.

"It is my opinion that SACS is calling on the institution to recognize the seriousness of the accrediting standards. Trustees, administration and faculty must take the steps necessary to move the college into full compliance, lest we lose membership in SACS," the statement read.

"The entire college community—trustees, administration, faculty—have committed themselves to the actions necessary to bring Louisiana College into compliance with the standards of accreditation."

Posted: 12/10/04

Church hopes other churches adopt Operation
Inasmuch to minister to the 'least of these'

By Wayne Grinstead

Associated Baptist Press

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (ABP)—Ten years ago, Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, N.C., was a church ready for a new challenge. To revitalize the congregation, staff members envisioned a brief local-missions blitz with the ambitious goal of involving more than half of the people attending Sunday morning services.

What resulted was a one-day effort to minister to "the least of these" in and around Fayetteville, a military town. Blending military and biblical terminology, they called the project "Operation Inasmuch," taking inspiration from Jesus' parable in Matthew 25.

The first event drew 450 participants from the church—two-thirds of the average Sunday attendance.

"The day after, … some members came to me and said, 'That's our idea of missions,'" recalled David Crocker, at the time the church's new pastor. "Operation Inasmuch became the heart of the church's mission statement. It changed the identity of the church in the community. From that point on, the church was sold on it."

So, apparently, were a lot of others.

A decade later, more than 300 churches representing many denominations now participate, as the idea has spread from North Carolina into Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and even across the Atlantic. Burton Latimer Baptist Church in England held an Operation Inasmuch last year.

"When you start something like this," Crocker said, "you have no idea where it's going."

People of all ages gravitate toward expressing their concern for missions in local and personal ways, he noted. "They want hands-on involvement," he said.

Operation Inasmuch attempts to get church members outside of the church and into the community. But it's not about church image. "It's about doing what Jesus said," Crocker explained. "It's practicing what we say we believe. I grow weary of how often we gather in comfortable places and talk about doing missions. And I know that when you offer a way to do missions, laypeople in particular are very enthusiastic about it."

An event last spring in Knoxville, Tenn., where Crocker now is pastor of Central Baptist Church in Fountain City, included Presbyterians and Methodists and provided hands-on missions activities for almost all age groups.

That is a key to involvement, said Martha Johnson, a registered nurse who has been Central's volunteer coordinator for three Operation Inasmuch efforts.

During the April event, children in the church were part of a pizza party given for guests at a Ronald McDonald House, which offers temporary housing for families of ill children. The church children also packed personal-care kits that were distributed to people in local homeless shelters. Senior adults participated in light assembly projects.

Other church members prepared and froze 112 casseroles for the Fellowship Center, another organization that houses out-of-town families of local hospital patients. Central sponsored a baby shower, with all gifts donated to a home for unwed mothers. They prepared 500 "compassion bags." Each item inside had a Bible verse attached. Church members sorted food and clothes that had been donated to the Fountain City Ministry Center, an interdenominational project of eight churches housed at Central Baptist.

Youth and adults, working under the direction of project leaders, completed 20 construction-related projects during the one-day event, including painting, roofing, landscaping and installation of a wheelchair ramp in a home.

Even when construction is involved, the costs are kept to a minimum, Crocker said. It's often possible to partner with local groups that are "pass-through organizations" for projects funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"HUD makes money available to almost every community in the nation for repair of resident-owned property for people who are unable to do the repairs themselves," Crocker said. "These organizations are looking for volunteers. Our proposal is: 'You provide the materials. We provide the volunteers.'"

The Operation Inasmuch churches provide lunches for all participating volunteers. And churches must purchase items to be used in the personal-care kits. But the average out-of-pocket cost for Central Baptist for an Operation Inasmuch with approximately 500 volunteers is only $3,000. "So often people are willing to donate things," Crocker said. "Lots of businesses are eager to help out when they understand what this is."

In many Operation Inasmuch projects, those ministering and those ministered to are in direct contact. Does this then become an evangelism effort? And, Crocker was asked, how do you keep the recipients from feeling patronized?

In home-repair projects, volunteers are asked to take time to visit with homeowners, get to know them, share with them, and pray with and for them. Operation Inasmuch gives homeowners a Bible with the names of the volunteers listed inside.

"While volunteers are putting on a new roof, other volunteers are meeting and talking with the owners," Crocker said. "We do ask volunteers to inquire about their spiritual situation and, to whatever extent they will allow, to share with them. But we don't want it done in a heavy-handed way."

Operation Inasmuch has contributed to church growth at Central Baptist. "We've had people join the church because they were impressed that people would do such things," Crocker said.

But public relations and church growth are not the goals of Operation Inasmuch, Johnson emphasized.

"You have to be careful about the image you want to project," she said. "We don't want to imply that we're doing something that nobody else is doing.

"It's not an opportunity to brag about your church. It should be done more quietly than that. It's an opportunity to know that our church has a presence in the community. And people know that we are out there helping other people. Not that it's something great. It's just something that we are supposed to do. With just a little bit of effort," she said, "you can help a lot of people."

A manual for Operation Inasmuch is available for a nominal charge from the ministry’s website, www.operationinasmuch.com.

Posted: 12/10/04

Abilene church encouraging members
to use skills to live 'missionally'

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ABILENE—At Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, any member who can sweep a floor has a skill that can be used to honor Christ. Church leaders emphasize Christians should live “missionally”—using their talents and abilities to glorify God and share Christ.

This means each person, whether a banker, construction worker, writer or businessperson, answers the same calling of expanding God’s kingdom, said Randy Perkins, the church’s minister of missions and outreach.

Christians are called to examine the community and meet needs, Perkins said. Each person has a skill set that can help people. They must engage and intentionally serve Christ through it.

A member of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene hugs a young girl during a recent mission trip to New York City.

“If you see a need, let’s meet that need,” Perkins said. “And while we’re meeting that need, let’s share Christ.”

Members have started ministries that match their skills and gifts, from roof repairs and church building ministries to volunteering in a crisis pregnancy center or a service that provides showers to the homeless. The congregation also has started two churches.

Perkins is quick to note these are not programs of the church in the traditional sense but congregationwide efforts to “empty” itself into neighborhoods. Members use their skills and passions to serve where they want, rather than functioning through artificially designated areas of ministry.

“Meet people where they are,” he encourages Christians. “Get involved in life. Get involved in reality.”

A prime example of ministry growing out of missional living is House of Faith, a Pioneer Drive-sponsored work to poor children, Perkins said. It began with a group of people seeing the need for ministry along streets they traveled regularly.

They began going up and down streets, inviting youth to events such as Bible clubs. At first, parents were reluctant to let them in their yards. Now they welcome church members into their homes.

Denise Davidson, who leads this effort, said volunteers have ministered to about 300 children in three years and have seen 50 children make faith professions through weekly Bible clubs. A grandmother and mother also made the same declaration.

The clubs and volunteers provide some consistency for the children, many of whom come from unstable backgrounds, Davidson said. Workers show the children love and give them a place they feel they belong.

Davidson now is trying to replicate the ministry in several different points in Abilene. House of Faith is active in several West Texas cities.

“I love it when you start the club and you see kids walking down the street,” she said. “They come up and give you a big hug.”

This model of missions with people investing their lives in other people follows Jesus’ example of meeting needs, Perkins noted. Pioneer Drive staff encourage members to stop in their daily work to act as Christ did. “When you put yourself out there, the Lord will use you.”

Posted: 12/10/04

Christmas Bible School teaches true meaning of the season

By George Henson

Staff Writer

PRINCETON—No star above a stable guided them, but the story of the Christ-child still drew people to worship as a North Texas church reminded area families about the true meaning of Christmas.

Each year since 1998, Faith Baptist Church in Princeton has held Christmas Bible School. It began when some members of the church decided to set aside one Saturday in early December to celebrate and teach children about Christ. This year, the event fell on Dec. 4, with 69 children and 39 volunteers attending.

Beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m., Christmas Bible School has many elements of Vacation Bible School, a mainstay of summer children’s ministries in Baptist churches. Like VBS, children at Christmas Bible School are divided into age-graded classrooms and led by volunteers in Bible study, crafts, music and recreation.

The last couple of years, the children’s choir has performed its Christmas musical during the assembly time, Pastor Stan Fike said.

Everything, whether the games or the Bible story, is meant to illuminate the true meaning of Christmas, he explained.

Children listen ontently to lessons during a one-day Christmas Bible School at Faith Baptist Church in Princeton.

Over the years, Faith has chosen a variety of memorable methods to teach the Christmas story. One year, a family set up a pen full of sheep and dressed as shepherds to tell the children about the night the angels shared the message of Jesus’ birth.

This year, for recreation, they opted to use Collin Baptist Association’s new ministry trailer. The trailer includes a bounce house, a cotton candy machine and other equipment to entertain and excite the children during their recreation and snack time.

While individual activities have changed to keep things fresh for children who return year after year, the day always concludes with a special birthday party for Jesus. The party includes the children singing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus before enjoying cupcakes and games. The party reminds the children that behind the fun and games, Jesus is the focus of the day—and Christmas.

Three children made professions of faith in Jesus Christ through this year’s event, and about 30 of the children who participated don’t usually attend church at Faith Baptist, Fike said.

While everything is planned to share God’s love with children, it also is an effective outreach to parents as well, he added.

“We have many unchurched families who take advantage of the opportunity for free babysitting while they go Christmas shopping,” he said. “We don’t mind that at all, because it gives us the opportunity to tell their children about the true meaning of Christmas—the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

And it doesn’t stop with the children, Fike added.

“We have a couple of families whose first contact with our church came through Christmas Bible School,” he said. “The children had such a good time, they made their parents bring them to church the following Sunday, and they’ve been here ever since. I got to baptize three children and their mother and father as a result of the gospel being shared through Christmas Bible School.”

This year yielded similar results, with three families without a church home visiting the day after their children attended Christmas Bible School, he said.

Other churches are beginning to contact Faith Baptist Church after sharing their curriculum, all of which is designed by members.

The amount of preparation and time spent by volunteers is not lost on Fike.

“It’s amazing to me how many of our members, youth and adults, will take a Saturday out of this busy holiday season to serve the Lord by ministering to children,” he said.

Many members who cannot participate on Saturday help by baking cupcakes, donating craft supplies and praying for the children and their families, he said.

“It ends up being a fantastic blessing for everyone involved, whether it’s the kids and their families or our teachers and helpers,” Fike asserted.

“Not only has Christmas Bible School been a great opportunity for us as a church to reach the community with Christ’s love, but it has been a special time to honor the real reason behind the holidays, the birth of Jesus Christ.”

For more information on Christmas Bible School, contact Faith Baptist Church at (972) 736-3733 or faithbaptistprinceton@juno.com

Jennifer Fike, a junior at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, contributed to this article.

Posted: 12/10/04

Emeritus missionary Alma Rohm retires after 54 years in Nigeria

By Mark Kelly

International Mission Board

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)—When King S.O. Abimola II bestowed an African chief's title on a 56-year-old woman from Texas, young people danced in procession to the palace and hundreds assembled for the ceremony.

The honoree, Southern Baptist missionary Alma Rohm, donned a traditional hand-woven Yoruba dress, coral jewelry and a headdress adorned with akoko leaves.

The king had planned to give her the title "Iya Nisin," often used of Christian women to mean "mother of those who worship." But one of the area's Muslim chiefs objected.

"No, we want her to be 'Iya Nisin Ilu’” or ‘mother in service of the whole community,’ he said.

It was, in 1982, a fitting tribute to a woman who had poured out 32 years of her life for Christ among the people of Iwo, Nigeria.

But Alma Rohm was far from finished with her service in Iwo.

The Southern Baptist International Mission Board honored Rohm at her retirement this year with the title, “emeritus missionary.” She was one of 37 veteran missionaries receiving the honor, and her 54 years in Nigeria was the longest tenure in a group with 1,172 years of overseas service among them.

Only three missionaries have had longer tenures in the mission board’s 159-year history—China missionary doctor Rosewell H. Graves, who served 57 years, and Brazil missionary legends William "Buck" and Anne Bagby of Texas, who served 56 years. Only three other missionaries have had tenures longer than 50 years.

A Waco native, Rohm was only 12 when she committed her life to missionary service in Africa. But it wasn't a child's decision lightly made.

"Not long after I was saved at age 9, the Holy Spirit told me I was to be a single woman missionary teacher in Africa," Rohm said. "I objected vehemently. I wanted to get married, have a lovely home and four children.

"When I could not escape the voice of the Holy Spirit, I finally told God I would be a missionary if I could go to China or Japan and serve as a doctor or a nurse. But that was not the task God had for me. When he kept repeating the same call, I stubbornly told God I would not be a missionary.

"When I was 12 years old, our church choir sang an Easter cantata on the seven last words of Christ on the cross," she said. "Between each anthem, the lights were dimmed except for a lighted cross in the baptistery, and the choir director read one of the seven last sayings of Jesus on the cross.

"As I heard those words, my heart was touched, and I said to myself, ‘If Jesus could die for me, surely I should be able to live for him.’"

After graduation from Baylor University in Waco and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Rohm was among six new missionaries appointed May 4, 1950. She set sail for Nigeria July 5.

She arrived in Lagos in time to attend a celebration of the Nigeria Baptist Convention's 100th anniversary.

Rohm was sent to teach briefly in a girls' school in Yaba and then had three months of language study in Ire while serving as companion to a missionary nurse who was alone in the town. A year after arriving in Nigeria, she was transferred to a Baptist teacher-training college in Iwo, a Muslim town in southwestern Nigeria.

It was a time, according to Nigerian journalist Seyi Odewale, when most of Nigeria was "no more than thick jungles, lined by scanty footpaths, and the hinterland, dotted by hamlets of mud houses."

At the Baptist college, Rohm taught English literature, education and organ classes, served as school librarian, played piano for the church, led the choir, directed Shakespearean plays and organized an annual nationwide Baptist music workshop.

When Nigeria gained its independence from Britain in 1960, her choir was called on to sing the country's new anthem as its flag was raised over the capital for the first time.

On Sundays, Rohm went out with students who preached on the town's streets.

"Iwo was one of the most solidly Muslim towns in Nigeria," Rohm recalled. "There was one Baptist church in the town and two small churches that had been started by student preachers, as well as a Baptist church at the college.

"In those early years, I saw two more Baptist churches established by our street preachers. One of those churches is now the largest in Iwo."

Africans were responsive to the gospel message of God's love and salvation in Jesus Christ.

For 100 years, Nigeria was the only African country where Southern Baptist missionaries were serving. As Rohm arrived in the country, the very first Southern Baptist missionaries were just entering Ghana—then called the Gold Coast.

Whereas Southern Baptists had 131 missionaries in Nigeria in 1950, "now we have more than a thousand serving all over Africa," said International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin.

In Nigeria, Baptist churches now number more than 7,000 and report more than 1 million members, a remarkable contrast to the 340 churches and 25,343 members counted in 1950, Rankin said.

Countrywide, Christians account for about 40 percent of Nigeria's 137 million people. In Iwo itself, some estimate the city of 300,000 is now as much as 60 percent Christian.

"Prayer meetings in the churches are crowded," Rohm said, "not only by church members, but also by prominent Muslims."

In a country where tensions between Christians and Muslims at times flare into violence, Rohm's tireless service and genuinely Christian spirit earned her the title "Chief Doctor Mama."

She is chief by a king's decree. A doctor because the Baptist seminary in Ogbomosho wanted to honor her music work in churches all over the country. "Mama" is a title of respect bestowed affectionately on those the Yoruba love.

The church at the college named a new primary school in her honor. A few years later, the congregation changed its name to Alma Rohm Baptist Church. In 1992, the school erected a statue of the diminutive missionary in front of its library.

At the thanksgiving ceremony after receiving the chief's title, Rohm acknowledged that she had found God faithful in her obedience.

"In the Bible, Jesus promised that 'everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold,'" Rohm said.
"I thought I was leaving all that, but here I am, living in the largest mission house in Nigeria. More than a thousand people call me 'Mama.' At least 28 I can name call me 'Grandma.' Ten call me 'Great Grandma.' And now you have given me the land."

At her retirement service, her testimony was simple: "How blessed I have been! How undeserving I am!"

With additional reporting by Mary Jane Welch.