Posted: 4/16/04

UMHB Easter Pageant

Erich Lopez of Hutto portrayed Jesus Christ in the 65th annual outdoor Easter pageant at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in Belton. He is seen healing a child and rising from the dead under the watchful eye of an angelic messenger. The drama, depicting the psssion of Christ from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his crucifixion and resurrection, was produced, directed, costumed and performed by university students. More than 90 students participated in the three presentations of the passion play.

Posted: 4/16/04

Church-goers less likely to gamble, Gallup poll reveals

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Americans who attend church every week are less likely to gamble than those who do not, according to a recent Gallup Poll.

Only 52 percent of Americans who said they go to church weekly gambled in the past 12 months, while 74 percent of those who seldom or never attend religious services said they gamble.

The poll, conducted in December 2003, asked 1,011 adults about 11 forms of gambling, from buying state lottery tickets to video casinos to betting on sports.

Two in three Americans said they have participated in some form of gambling in the past year, with state lotteries the most common. Men are significantly more likely to gamble than women.

The second-most common form of gambling was visiting a casino, at 30 percent of respondents. Visiting a casino was the only category to show an increase in popularity since the survey was first performed in 1989. In all other categories, the survey found Americans gamble less than in 1989.

The largest area of decline was betting on professional sports events, dropping from 22 percent in 1989 to 10 percent today. Americans are least likely to admit participating in Internet gambling. Only 1 percent said they had.

Those living in lower-income households are less likely to have participated in some form of gambling in the past year than those making a higher income. Also, those with a four-year college degree are more likely to have gambled in the past 12 months than those with a lower level of education. Seventy-one percent of college graduates said they gambled, while 66 percent of those with a high school education or less said the same.

Though the survey shows a majority of Americans have gambled in the past year, only 6 percent said they gamble more than they should. The same small percentage of respondents said gambling has been a source of problems for their families.

The study was based on random telephone surveys of American adults, conducted Dec. 11-14, 2003. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Posted: 4/16/04

Postmoderns value authenticity, not authority, pastor says

By Tom Allen

Faithworks

MINNEAPOLIS (ABP)–Clad in faded jeans, paisley shirt and sandals, Doug Pagitt doesn't look much like a preacher.

But Pagitt, the 30-something pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, is on the vanguard of an effort to help today's emerging, largely unchurched culture connect with the gospel.

At an Emergent Convention, a gathering of alternative church leaders in San Diego, Pagitt bluntly told 1,100 young participants that “preaching is broken.”

Pagitt and most other leaders of the emerging church movement come out of an evangelical background that values preaching. Could it be preaching really is broken? And if so, what's the solution?

Most of those young leaders are quick to point out it isn't about technique. Preaching is broken, they say, because the church has failed to take the cultural shifts of postmodernity seriously. In today's culture, they explain, people are increasingly distrustful of authority figures, especially preachers, with overarching explanations of how the world works.

“The thing that's changed is that Wizard of Oz part,” says Rudy Carrasco, a pastor and associate director of the inner-city Harambee Center in Pasadena, Calif. “The screen is pulled back, and you see who the wizard is. It's this guy pulling levers. That's changed.”

“The entire culture knows there's a curtain,” Carrasco says.

In such a culture, some doubt that conventional preaching can survive. For Pagitt, it is unhealthy–even abusive–to suggest that only a few, privileged individuals can speak for God. “Why do I get to speak for 30 minutes and you don't?”

“A sermon is often a violent act,” says Pagitt, a key figure among emerging leaders. “It's a violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it.”

To treat the sermon as an oratorical performance delivered by a paid and trained professional who claims to speak for God sets up an artificial power imbalance within the congregation, says Pagitt, a Baptist by training. It's hard for a congregation to practice the priesthood of all believers when the preaching perpetuates an image of the pastor as somehow more authoritative or spiritual than his or her listeners.

In an emerging church culture that values authenticity above all else, such an approach to preaching creates an artificial distance with the congregation, Pagitt suggests.

Preaching is often “too packaged and clean” to connect with our listeners, Carrasco says. “Every day, every week, there's stuff that pops up in life, and it's not resolved, just crazy and confusing and painful. When people come across with three answers, and they know everything, and they have this iron sheen about them, I'm turned off. Period. I'm just turned off. And I think that's not unique to me.”

Tim Keel agrees. An experience three years ago on a mission trip to India led Keel, pastor of Jacob's Well in Kansas City, Mo., to change how he prepares sermons. He was asked to preach 14 times over an 11-day period. If he applied his seminary training to that task, he would have been overwhelmed, he said. But Keel said he sensed God telling him “not to prepare, but simply to show up and speak.”

When Keel returned to Kansas City, he began limiting his sermon preparation to the hours immediately preceding his church's Sunday night service. Keel “meditates on the text” through the week. Around noon on Sunday, he scribbles thoughts onto a yellow notepad, looks for connections and forms a rough outline from which to speak.

The result is impromptu and conversational, yet structured. At Jacob's Well, Keel stands at floor level with the congregation beside a small lectern. Occasionally he stumbles over words or changes thoughts in mid-sentence. But the young congregation, packed into a traditional Gothic sanctuary with pews and stained-glass windows, is fully engaged.

While many pastors devote considerable energy to crafting good content, what the congregation wants most, Keel says, “is you. They want God in you. And when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and imperfect, then all of a sudden there's connection, because that's who people feel like. They're full of shame. They're full of doubt. They're full of abuse and brokenness. And so to get up and be 'he of the white teeth' and the polished ideas is alienating.”

“My only qualification for ministry is my incompetence,” he says. “'When I am weak, he is strong.'”

Pagitt too believes preaching should be improvisational. “It's more like jazz,” he says. But for Pagitt, what matters most is hearing the biblical text. He disagrees with the familiar formula in which pastors read Scripture three minutes and “preach their own ideas” the remaining 27 minutes. “That's very odd to me to call that biblical preaching,” he says.

Instead, his Solomon's Porch congregation reads lengthy portions of Scripture. Pagitt follows with a few words of commentary. “My hope is that what I do during that time doesn't ruin what happened in the rest of the night,” he says.

The use of Scripture also is central to worship at Church of the Apostles in Seattle, a new “post-denominational” congregation with ties to the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“The word is like a living voice,” says Karen Ward, the pastor.

Ward's church closely follows the lectionary, an ancient assignment of biblical readings for each week of the year, followed by many mainline denominations. “We can receive that as a gift, not as stricture,” she says.

At Church of the Apostles, preaching is known as “Reverb” and it can take on many forms. The church might discuss the lectionary reading talk-show style, watch a film clip, hear a sermon, or interview a community member. In a recent service, they used a clip from the cable TV cartoon 'South Park' “to explicate holy communion.”

But the focus is Scripture, not methodology. Ward, like the other young leaders, is technologically savvy. But like the others, she keeps the sermon low-tech.

PowerPoint?

“Gross!” she says. “There's nothing worse that I could think of than making a sermon into a classroom lecture. To me, it's more like you speaking from your heart and telling a story, telling a story about God, about the world.”

Tony Jones, author of “Postmodern Youth Ministry,” contrasts his present preaching with what he was taught in seminary. In seminary, he learned to analyze the Bible, to position himself “over the text” through critical study. Instead, suggests Jones, “let the lectionary assign the text. And then you get under it and let it teach you all week.”

Jones adapts his preaching style to the biblical narrative. “I try to embody the text,” he says. “It's whatever I think the text demands.”

Sometimes that's wearing a robe and preaching from a carefully worded manuscript. Sometimes it's sitting on a stool telling stories. Occasionally it means leaving the sermon totally open-ended.

“If the text is an unresolved text,” he says, “don't tie it up in a neat little package. A friend of mine calls it the 'Aesop's fable-ization' of Scripture, where you feel like every time you teach something, you have to have a moral at the end.

“There's not a moral at the end of a lot of these (biblical) stories. It's just confusing, weird.”

If there is no moral, why do we feel angst about finding one? “Everybody's looking for behavior modification,” suggests Jones. Some preachers use instruction-heavy, fill-in-the-blank outlines, he says, while others use emotionalism to produce moral change in the congregation. Neither approach, he says, is particularly effective.

So what is effective at long-term behavior modification?

“Well, I don't know if preaching is at all,” Jones offers. “I think the verdict is out on whether preaching is at all. I think relationships are. The only preaching that could be …”–he grasps for the right words– “would be preaching that comes out of an embodied life lived authentically in community.”

“It's like water over rocks,” Karen Ward adds. “Effective preaching takes course over time. It's not some sort of instant gratification, some sort of, 'This is a high point, and I better nail this sermon or else.'”

All five young leaders emphasize the importance of involving the listener–before, during and after the sermon.

On Tuesday nights, Pagitt meets with church members to study the text for the upcoming service. Those discussions largely shape his comments at the worship gathering.

For Keel, lay involvement comes afterward, as small groups continue the discussion initiated in the sermon. Keel also interjects questions as he preaches, and people actually answer him.

Ward, who meets with church leaders to plan her sermons, believes preaching should be a dialogue. Ward, who is African-American, compares the interaction of her predominantly white congregation to that in historically black churches.

“You're not up there alone,” she says of her preaching. “It's a community event around the word.”

What about the academic community? Does she consult commentaries as she prepares? “No, never,” she laughs. “Hardly ever. I used to do that, you know, for like three years after I got out of seminary.”

Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia, an experimental church in Houston, finds a model for preaching in the Jewish tradition of midrash, in which the rabbis offered opposing viewpoints on Scripture for the sake of discussion. This approach “explores the tension” within a biblical passage rather than trying to resolve it, Seay explains. “So preaching doesn't become an event but a launching pad.”

None of these ideas sounds new to preaching icon Fred Craddock.

A professor emeritus at Emory University and one of Time magazine's 10 best preachers in America, Craddock quietly digests the comments from these young preachers.

“Well,” he says finally, “everything you've said thus far sounds like the '60s.”

Craddock describes worship gatherings in the 1960s that incorporated drawings on easels, images projected onto walls, and people sitting on floor cushions, as a minister reads Scripture and music is played on a recorder.

In the 1960s, Craddock wrote “As One Without Authority,” an influential book in which he advocates an inductive, incarnational preaching approach. “If (emerging church pastors) would read some work in the area of preaching and church life from the 1960s and 1970s,” suggests Craddock, “they would find a lot of friends.”

But Craddock concedes that the new approach never carried the day. “That was just late '60s, early '70s,” he says. “That was in the seminaries, it was in a lot of the churches, but apparently it didn't catch hold in enough places to make a difference, because the church just went on preaching the same way and building bigger buildings and family-life centers and huge congregations and nothing essentially changed.”

Craddock doesn't entirely dismiss the critique offered by the Emergent leaders. “I think those are legitimate reactions to some terrible preaching that's out of the Middle Ages,” he says. But he also believes their characterization of preaching is exaggerated. It's “a cartoon of preaching,” he says flatly.

Charles Bugg, preaching professor at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, agrees. “It's very, very hard to talk about preaching as a monolithic thing.”

Both Bugg and Craddock point to many examples of excellent preaching in more traditional settings. Bugg insists authenticity and quality can go together. “There is a balance,” he says, “between being prepared and being so over-prepared that the words that you may have thought about for the sermon come out just as a sequence of words rather than as an occasion for experience and transformation.”

George Mason, 47, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, worries that too much emphasis on spontaneity could easily become “an excuse for sloppiness and laziness.”

Mason compares the preacher's preparation to that of an actor or musician.

But could preaching be more like jazz, as Pagitt suggests?

“Let's talk about jazz,” says Mason. “There is no such thing as jazz improvisation without a jazz musician who knows already what the score is, who understands the bass line, who knows the melody, and who has spent lots of time and energy mastering the scales, the basics and how the instrument is played.

“Improvisation comes out of an incredible mastery that has already been undertaken. Otherwise, it's like putting a child in front of a piano and saying, 'Play whatever you want.' That's not improvisation.”

But if it's good jazz? “Sure,” says Mason. “Why not?”

Neither the younger nor older preachers are certain about the direction of preaching in the future. Even if the sermon undergoes major remodeling, they caution, there will be counter-trends and local variations. “The good part in all of it,” says Craddock, “is a re-accent on the church as a community where everybody participates and is listened to and is respected.”

And preaching and programming and teaching and administration — and everything — has to pay attention to that.

“However shocking it may be.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Reyes challenges Texas churches to
'fill the gap' to leave no child behind

By Eric Guel & Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO–The federal government asked Albert Reyes to help address what U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has called the nation's “most important civil rights issue”–the academic achievement gap between Hispanic and Anglo students on standardized exams.

In turn, Reyes is challenging his fellow churchmen to play a key role in that battle in the Lone Star state.

“Texas Baptists are in the best position to immediately fill the gap with tutoring and volunteerism in public schools,” Reyes, president of the Baptist University of the Americas and first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, told an audience of 800 educators and parents recently.

"Texas Baptists have the opportunity to tangibly impact our state by considering educational initiatives focused on the Hispanic community–a kind of focus that resonates with our historic focus on missions, evangelism, Christian education and human welfare."

Comments by Paige and Reyes highlighted the national kickoff rally at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio for President George Bush's No Child Left Behind effort.

At a reception earlier, Paige presented Reyes with an award for his work as chairman of the Hispanic Task Force for No Child Left Behind. He was appointed to the position last May and helped form a faith-based task force, charged with disseminating information on the initiative to Hispanic families through local churches across the country.

“Dr. Reyes is a wonderful gentleman and a committed citizen to the children,” Paige said. “Working with him has been a delight.”

The educational reform act, which demands a high-quality education for all children, is based on four principles–accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents and an emphasis on proven methods of teaching. It passed Congress with bipartisan support but has drawn criticism that it is not being adequately funded.

“If we want to close the achievement gap, we must help empower parents,” Paige noted. “Through this outreach effort, we are crossing language and cultural barriers so that all children in our great nation, including those who are English learners, receive the quality of education they deserve.”

Paige also explained the reasoning behind the faith-based task force. “We know that Hispanics and other minority groups rely on their places of worship to receive information and guidance, and that is why our partnership with these organizations is vital to ensuring that parents know what No Child Left Behind means for their children.”

The Education Department's deputy under-secretary, Maria Hernandez Ferrier, emphasized how important this legislation is for Hispanics and other minorities.

“There are many great schools, administrators and teachers in our country, but we all know that many of our children have not received the quality of education they need to succeed. The results have been that Hispanics now have the highest dropout rate and some of the lowest test scores, and many are not prepared to enter institutions of higher learning,” she said.

“No Child Left Behind now ensures that all children are given basic quality instruction that will give them the opportunity to achieve their greatest academic potential.”

Ferrier also praised Reyes.

“Dr. Reyes has been a tremendous leader in bringing together Hispanic faith-based leaders from across the country to spread the good news of No Child Left Behind,” she said. “Dr. Reyes and the task force leaders know that we have the gospel of faith–believing in our Lord Jesus Christ–but he also asked us to take care of our children, and that's exactly what the wonderful task force members are doing.”

The next step for the task force is to promulgate the message to 16 key cities across the nation. “We will take the message of No Child Left Behind to parents across the country through local congregations and clergy. I will be going personally to some of these places, but not all of them,” Reyes said.

Reyes was happy with the success of the kickoff event, and he said a solid foundation for educational improvement has been laid.

“I believe we are on the right track and have placed the needs of families and children above everything else,” he said. “It was exciting to initiate this educational partnership with the United States Department of Education and to see how all our work for the past eight months has paid off.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Texas Tidbits

Hardin-Simmons faculty president elected. Ronald Smith, senior theology professor in the Logsdon School of Theology, has been elected faculty president at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. Smith has been on the Hardin-Simmons faculty since 1979. Other new faculty officers are Donathan Taylor, associate professor and head of the history department, as vice president, and Allyn Byars, associate professor of physical education and director of the aerobics and human performance lab, as secretary.

Donaldson named Wayland VP. Wayland Baptist University has named Betty Donaldson vice president for institutional advancement. She will oversee development and fund-raising for the university, as well as the alumni services and communications/public relations offices. Donaldson earned both her undergraduate degree and a master's degree in education administration from Wayland. She was vice president of Learning Bridges Educational Company in Arizona and has served in administrative posts with several school districts.

HBU offers workshop. Houston Baptist University and the Christian Association for Psychological Studies will present a workshop on ethical and risk management concerns in Christian psychotherapy April 23 on the HBU campus. Randolph Sanders of New Braunfels, executive director of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, will be the featured speaker. For more information, contact (281) 649-3000, ext. 2316, or rnero@hbu.edu.

Convocations yield new Baptist Men's groups. After the first three Hispanic Baptist Men regional training convocations in Dickinson, Tyler and Fort Worth this spring, 14 new Baptist Men chapters have been started in Texas Baptist Hispanic churches, and men in 17 other churches have announced commitments to begin chapters, said Eli Rodriguez of Dallas, coordinator of the convocations. Organizers of the regional training events are challenging laymen to organize Baptist Men chapters in 100 Hispanic churches across Texas by the end of this year. The next regional training event will be April 24 at the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio.

Performance marathon set at UMHB. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Conservatory will present a 13-hour "perform-a-thon" April 24. The on-campus event includes 125 solo performances featuring piano, voice, strings, French horn and organ, along with 130 ensemble performers in five choirs and three orchestras.

Baylor makes wireless computing list. Baylor University is one of only three Texas universities named in Intel Corporation's "Most Unwired College Campuses" survey that ranks the top 100 schools for wireless computing access. Baylor made the list at No. 32, while the University of Texas was rated third and Trinity University in San Antonio 74th. Baylor's "AirBear" wireless network covers more than 90 percent of the university's academic buildings, as well as commons areas in residence halls and outdoor locations. AirBear is free to Baylor students, faculty and staff with a valid Bear ID and password and allows them to connect their laptop computers to the Internet without being tied to an office, a computer lab or residence hall room.

Scholarship endowed at Wayland. The family of Marilyn Mansdoerfer has endowed a scholarship in her memory at Wayland Baptist University. It will benefit junior or senior young women preparing for teaching careers in Christian schools, with primary consideration given to those planning to teach preschool.

Baylor opera director bound for Armenia. Richard Aslanian, opera director at Baylor University and artistic director of the Lyric Opera of Waco, has been invited to Armenia as the first American guest conductor at the Armenian National Opera. With the assistance of Baylor's Center for International Education, Aslanian will travel to Armenia in May to conduct "La Traviata" by Giuseppe Verdi.

Posted: 4/16/04

TOGETHER:
Texas Baptists offer hope, God's love

Because of Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection, Christians want to offer hope and the love of God everywhere. Three stories illustrate how Texas Baptists are seeking to do just that.

On April 4, quiet streams became raging floods all around Piedras Negras. Pastor Israel Rodriguez called Dexton Shores, director of Texas Baptist River Ministry, for help. He said, “I knew Dexton would get the word to the rest of Texas Baptists.” Dexton left San Antonio as soon as he could load a truck with blankets, clothes and drinking water. He sent word to Texas Baptists as well. Tuesday afternoon, Bluebonnet Baptist Association's Texas Baptist Men feeding unit crossed the border with a water purification system.

Because Texas Baptist Men, led by Leo Smith, have a servant spirit and respect the people with whom they work, doors swing open wherever they go. Guadalupe Morales, wife of the governor of the state of Coahuila, was impressed with the range of services Texas Baptists were providing and their willingness to work under the direction of Mexican officials. Due to her influence, Texas Baptist volunteers were invited to the hardest-hit neighborhood at Villa de Fuente.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has entered a partnership with the National Baptist Convention of Mexico, and this has provided the opportunity for us to know one another better and celebrate our friendships in Christ. This also allowed effective and coordinated response when the unexpected happened.

You can help these ministries do their work and provide for the needs of people devastated by these floods through gifts designated “Piedras Negras Relief,” to Texas Baptist Men and/or Texas Baptist River Ministry at 333 North Washington, Dallas, 75246-1798.

Rick Davis, director of our Center for Strategic Evangelism, tells about a young couple who moved to a new home. As other new homes were built, they took home-baked cookies to their neighbors, told them they were glad to have them in the neighborhood and promised to pray for them. Some were grateful. Others seemed skeptical.

Late one evening, a call came. A young couple–living together but not married–had experienced a personal tragedy and asked if the Christian couple would pray for them. “I didn't know whom else to call,” the man said. “I don't know anyone else who prays.”

People need our love and prayers. They are all around us. Watch for ways you can be the presence of Christ to someone you will see today.

Recently, we welcomed 65 new Texas pastors and spouses to a retreat in Dallas. Tim Studstill, director of the Center for Music and Worship, met a pastor from a new church in Houston who needed some kind of instrument his church could use in worship. Tim referred the need to Bill Ingram, who communicated the need to the Singing Men of Southeast Texas. A day later, a good small organ was made available.

The pastor reported to Bill Ingram that they had used the organ, and his people are thrilled. Bill wrote to say it feels really good to be the “middle man” in helping connect people who have needs to those who have a resource.

Every Christian has the privilege of being a “middle man” (or woman). We know where the resource truly is!

We are loved.

Posted: 4/16/04

Former Texas Baptist pastor and new bride
commit lives, love to reaching New England

By Marv Knox

Editor

CHELSEA, Vt.–H.B. Graves popped two questions when he proposed marriage to Jo Maddox.

Of course, he asked if she would marry him. He also asked if she'd leave Texas and help him start a church in New England.

That's why the newlyweds–she in her 60s and he in his early 70s–honeymooned in Vermont. They went looking for a place to invest their lives.

Their journey started when Graves, a retired pastor widowed for the second time, picked up the Baptist Standard and learned about a new missions venture.

“I read about Impact Northeast in the Standard, and I was touched,” he recalled.

Impact Northeast is a ministry partnership that links six state Baptist conventions in the South–including the Baptist General Convention of Texas–with the five Baptist conventions that cover the Northeast.

Eager to learn more, Graves traveled from his home in Knox City to the 2000 BGCT annual session in Corpus Christi, where he attended a breakfast for people interested in partnership missions.

“Two representatives from New England talked about their work,” he said. “Right there, I committed myself.”

That decision impacted another set of choices they were about to make.

“I talked to Jo about it, and I asked her, 'When we get married, will you come to New England?'” he reported.

She's a widow of a church planter, and missions runs in her blood too. So, she said yes to marriage and yes to missions.

They decided New England sounded like the perfect place to honeymoon in September 2001. Why not get used to marriage while seeking a place of service?

On that trip, they met Terry Dorsett, director of missions for Green Mountain Baptist Association, which encompasses Vermont.

“The minute I walked in and introduced myself, it clicked,” Graves said of their relationship.

The Graveses returned to East Randolph, Vt., in 2002, and he served as interim pastor there for six months. But one tour of duty was not enough, not for a couple who have given their lives to churches.

Graves, 74, has been a pastor since he was 17, and mostly served Texas Baptist churches. He retired from Gilliland Baptist Church in Knox City. He lost two wives to cancer, 20 years apart.

Mrs. Graves served alongside her first husband, Jack Maddox, who was pastor of churches in Indiana, Oregon, Texas and Utah. His last pastorate was Gillespie Baptist church, west of Munday. The Graveses have known each other more than 35 years.

After six months in East Randolph, they felt God leading them back to Vermont. They returned to Chelsea, a shire town or county seat, with a population of about 3,000 people and only one other church, in April 2003.

They had a hard time finding a meeting place but last November signed a lease on a former plumber's shop that had been filled with junk and abandoned for 30 years. “It had sawdust knee-deep,” she reported.

They've worked hard to clean up the building, and other Vermont churches have donated furniture. Now, First Branch Baptist Fellowship's home looks more presentable and inviting week by week.

But the Graveses acknowledge finding and outfitting a building have been the easy parts of starting this ministry.

“This is a hard place; response is minimal,” Graves noted. “In this area, you can hardly visit (with people about the gospel). They'll turn you off.”

According to Graves' study, 97 percent of the population of the Northeast–from the District of Columbia to the Canadian border–is unchurched.

“Nine of every 10 people you meet are lost or unchurched. There are a lot of churches here, but the mindset is 'just be good.' Universalism (the belief that all people eventually will go to heaven) is set up here.,” he said.

“So, the work is slow. What you have to do is get to know these people. If they know you and trust you, the doors will open.”

The Graveses have been “cultivating” their mission field, practicing what they call “relational fellowship evangelism.” They have written the names of about 30 people on a list of candidates for Christianity, and they've worked hard to get to know them, to earn the right to explain why faith in Jesus Christ is eternally important.

“Some are ripe for the gospel,” Graves said. “I've had one baptism. That's like 100 in Texas.”

The Graveses plan to stay in Vermont until September. But that won't end their work. Back home in Texas, they'll be liaisons for Dorsett, helping to recruit others to spread the gospel in New England.

“We'll be looking for retirees,” Graves said. “That's the biggest need–people to get in these churches and be encouragers.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Retired Texans coordinate missions volunteers in Vermont

By Marv Knox

Editor

MONTPELIER, Vt.–Johnnie and Lahoma Loar may not look the part, but they're expert jugglers.

They keep volunteers at Green Mountain Baptist Association–which covers the entire state of Vermont–in just the right location, rotating and effective.

That's crucial in New England, where indigenous Baptist ministry is relatively young and weak, according to Green Mountain Director of Missions Terry Dorsett.

Dorsett raves about the retired couple from Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, who have committed themselves to ministry through the all-volunteer Mission Service Corps program.

“We couldn't do what we do without Johnnie and Lahoma,” Dorsett insisted.

Last year, the Loars managed the ministry of 1,000 Baptist volunteer mission workers in Vermont. They coordinated the ministries of all types of groups, from youth choirs to retired senior adults, keeping tabs on links and logistics through the phases of each endeavor.

Right now, they're gearing up for at least that many volunteers this year.

“We've heard from states all over the South, from people who have heard about the need for Jesus here,” Mrs. Loar reported. “We're working with 40 to 45 groups this summer and fall.”

Those mission teams from Texas and other states will conduct backyard Bible clubs, Vacation Bible Schools, concerts, prayer walks and other ministries throughout Vermont.

“They'll be doing anything that will get the message of Jesus out,” she said. “God's word is getting out up here. We saw 54 professions of faith (in Christ) from missions teams last year.”

The Loars have loved Vermont since a vacation in 1984, when the beauty of its mountains first mesmerized them. They pondered what they should do after he retired from Montgomery Ward and she retired from the chaplains' office at All Saints Hospital.

But God used a couple of major events to place them in the middle of their ministry.

First, a gunman stormed their church and killed seven worshippers on a Wednesday evening in September 1999, causing them to search even more diligently for God's plan for their lives in retirement.

“After the Wedgwood shooting, we said, 'What now, Lord?'” she recalled. “We had discussed how we would spend our retirement years. It never occurred to us to sit down and do nothing.”

But before they developed an answer, they looked death in the face.

In March of 2000, doctors diagnosed Loar with breast cancer, among relatively few males who contract the disease each year.

“Johnnie had 43 lymph nodes removed, and 42 were malignant. The doctors told us this wasn't good,” she recalled.

But their faith remained strong as he received six months of chemotherapy and 37 radiation treatments, and he recovered splendidly.

Looking back, they see God at work. Their response to the Wedgwood tragedy appeared in a book on the shooting at about the time they discovered his cancer.

“So many prayed for us,” she said. “People were praying for us and rejoicing that we had been spared (at Wedgwood). They prayed for another reason, but God used it as a prayer covering in our time of need.”

As his strength grew, they repeated their prayer, “What now, Lord?”

The answer came through friends of friends who were recruiting participants for Mission Service Corps.

The Loars prayed about five ministry opportunities in New England. “Vermont was the cream that rose to the top,” she said.

They contacted Jim Wideman, then director of missions for Green Mountain Association and now executive director of the Baptist Convention of New England, who recruited them to come and help him.

They arrived the first time in May 2001 and stayed five months. They returned in 2002 and stayed six months. Then they came back in February 2003 to stay two years. They actually plan to stay until at least October 2005 and hope to extend their ministry “if God continues to give us the physical grace,” she said.

They kept returning because of their commitment to “the Lord's work” in the Green Mountain State, Loar said.

“Vermont is home to 650,000 people. That's less than the population of Fort Worth, where we're from,” he observed. “Most people live in small villages, and they're fairly isolated. Vermont-ers are independent.”

That independence makes them resistant to the gospel, he added, noting most of the state's residents aren't receptive to direct evangelistic approaches.

“We're praying about that,” he said. “And we're focusing on servant evangelism.”

That ministry involves meeting needs people know they have and, over time, developing relationships that will provide opportunities for sharing the gospel.

For example, the Loars connected a youth group from a church in the South to an 80-year-old woman whose home hadn't been painted in 40 years. She couldn't afford to pay for the paint job, but the Baptist teens did it anyway.

“We let her know there is a group of people in this town who love her, who are motivated by the love of the Lord,” Loar said.

As fast as the Loars can juggle volunteers and resources, more needs appear.

That's why their greatest need is prayer, Mrs. Loar said. “We obviously need really committed prayer.”

“We also could use some retired help,” he added. That would be folks like them, who are willing to go to Vermont and invest themselves, for a few weeks or a few years.

They also need funds for renovating more housing to accommodate the volunteers who decide God wants them to work in Vermont, he said, noting Texas churches can connect with Vermont churches and form ongoing ministry relationships.

And Baptists don't necessarily have to travel all the way to Vermont to provide tangible help, she said.

“People can take on a responsibility as simple as forming a 'sunshine club' to adopt a pastor and his family up here–to commit to pray for them, to encourage them, to remember their birthdays,” she said.”They're isolated, and they work hard. They survive six-month winters and then flooded basements in the spring. It helps just to know people think of them, pray for them and love them.”

For more information about ministry opportunities in Vermont, contact the Loars at (802) 229-9903 or jolaloar@aol.com.

Posted: 4/16/04

Video terminals could open
door to Texas casinos, CLC says

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to introduce a new level of gambling in the state, and a Baptist legislative expert says it is opening the door to casino-type gaming.

The governor's school finance proposal includes support for video lottery terminals at Texas's horse racing tracks and on land owned by Native American tribal groups.

Perry's plan calls for the machines to generate $2 billion over the next three years. That estimate is based on a projection of 18,000 machines being made available to the public.

Suzii Paynter, director of citizenship education and public policy for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said the machines are much more than lottery terminals. A player can access an electronic version of virtually any casino game, including slot machines.

If the VLT plan is approved, Paynter said “racinos” will be coming to Texas. “Slot barns” containing 1,000 to 5,000 video slot machines will sprout at the state's 10 racetracks and on tribal lands.

“The VLT proposal opens the door in Texas to Class 3 gambling,” Paynter said.

In Texas, gambling is divided into three classes. Classes 1 and 2 cover social games, bingo, the state lottery and parimutuel gambling. Class 3 refers to all other gambling.

Paynter said VLTs are bad for two primary reasons–the addiction that comes with it and its role as a gateway to other forms of gambling.

A study by the gambling commission in Louisiana showed 30 percent of all gambling revenues come from pathological addiction, she said.

“The social costs are very high,” Paynter said. “It brings with it addiction, bankruptcy and crime. In this industry, addiction is not incidental; it's essential to the business.”

Video slots also have a “cannibalizing effect” on the consumer economy, she said. “All the money that goes into a gambling machine comes out of the consumer economy.” Video gambling doesn't create new wealth or products nor have the multiplying effects of other industries.

They will create a few jobs but not many and not high wages, Paynter said. In fact, 20 percent of the money will leave the state, some going to “offshore” enterprises, she noted.

“This also would be a community rip-off,” said Phil Strickland, director of the CLC.

“For every dollar the state collects in revenue, our communities will pay $3 to take care of the social consequences.”

Introducing VLTs in Texas will require a constitutional amendment, and that will require two-thirds of the Legislature to approve it being placed on the November general election ballot.

Legislators cannot pass the buck and say that putting it on the ballot is just letting the people decide, Paynter said. “A vote for a constitutional amendment is a vote for gambling.”

Strickland said stopping this “huge, well-funded gambling lobbying effort will require people who want decent funding for public education, without the problems of gambling, to contact their legislator immediately.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Buckner signs on as first strategic
partner with WorldconneX network

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS–Buckner Orphan Care International has become the first “strategic partner” with WorldconneX, the missions network created by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Leaders from Buckner Baptist Benevolences–parent organization of the international orphan care ministry–and the missions network recently signed an agreement linking the two entities in global missions.

Buckner and WorldconneX agreed to provide each other resources and help to place volunteers in international missions service.

Buckner will pay a monthly fee to WorldconneX for consulting services, networking opportunities and volunteer recruitment. Buckner Care International serves children living in orphanages in Russia, Romania, China, Kenya and Guatemala.

WorldconneX already is working with Guatemalan Baptists, the Baptist University of the Americas, Baylor Health Care System and Buckner to develop a missions project in Guatemala involving church leadership development, health care ministries and services to children and families, said Bill Tinsley, network leader for WorldconneX.

Tinsley and Buckner President Ken Hall both pointed out the 125-year-old child and family service organization and the fledging missions network share common values and vision.

“WorldconneX exists to connect God's people for God's vision,” Tinsley said.

The partnership with Buck-ner presents an ideal “first learning experience” for the network as it seeks to create new connections with Baptist and evangelical partners for Buckner, he said.

“This is a big step for us–moving beyond the start-up phase toward implementation,” Tinsley added.

By June 1, WorldconneX should be “ready to assist churches and individuals with connections to help them move to the front line of missions,” he said.

Hall expressed appreciation for the WorldconneX leadership team's ability to respond quickly, dynamically and flexibly to emerging missions opportunities.

The WorldconneX approach “is the ministry model of the future, not only for Buckner, but for all missions-minded Christians,” he said. “We believe the WorldconneX way of doing missions is the way of the future, and we want to be on the ground floor of what they are building.”

Hall, who also serves as BGCT president, pointed out the money the convention provides for WorldconneX is not enough to build a missions network, nor is it intended to be the only funding stream for WorldconneX.

Hall said he will encourage other Texas Baptist agencies and institutions to follow Buckner's lead in paying for the services WorldconneX can provide, adding that “dollar for dollar,” the fees paid to WorldconneX are a bargain for his organization.

WorldconneX will use its developing network of international connections to “help Buckner find new places of service as we seek to broaden our aid to children in desperate situations around the globe,” he said.

Russ Dilday of Buckner ontributed to this report.

Posted: 4/16/04

Christian band goes backwards down under

By Jonathan Petty

Wayland Baptist University

PLAINVIEW–A conversation with an Australian pastor helped Clinton Staj understand he and the other members of his musical group were planning to do things backwards down under.

Christian bands in Australia often play in pubs to reach non-Christians. And like their secular counterparts, they want a “paying gig” so they can earn enough money to go to the United States, the pastor explained.

“You are coming to Australia to make no money, to play to school children and teenagers before they ever get to the pub. You guys are doing it exactly backwards,” he said.

Greg Howle of Zuigia

But taking the gospel to Australian schoolchildren through music is the mission Staj and the other members of Zuigia believe God has given them.

And doing things differently is nothing new for the band. Since Staj and a couple of other students formed the group in a Wayland dorm room, Zuigia has reached across barriers with an alternative folk style and message that attracts listeners of all ages.

Now, after months of praying and planning, the three Wayland graduates–Staj of New Mexico, Greg Howle from Hawaii and Salem Posey of Brownfield–hope to reach a new audience in Australia.

The band took the name Zuigia (Zoo-ee-zha) from a song Staj wrote describing a place where nobody is judged by appearances and everyone can experience God's love.

Band members planned on a limited run as graduation and careers began to pull them apart. “We did what we thought would be our last concert in May of 2001, after Salem graduated,” Staj said. “We said the band was over unless God wanted it together, and we couldn't see how that would happen.”

But as the summer passed, the group began to feel called toward a musical mission field. The desire became so strong that they decided to reform Zuigia.

The band rehearsed, performed and worked on a CD while trying to determine where their call was leading them.

“We asked God, 'Do you want us here, or do you want us somewhere else?' We just started praying, and God started opening doors toward Australia,” Posey said.

Staj already had a trip to Australia scheduled. While he was there, he stayed with pastors and missionaries who began to outline a plan for Zuigia's missions work.

“They could see why God was leading us there,” Staj said.

Australian public schools teach religious education classes, opening a world of opportunity to a group geared toward ministering to youth, he noted. The state contracts the class out to a group called Scripture Union, which Staj compared to the Gideons.

Clinton Staj and a couple of other former Wayland Baptist University students will take their unusual brand of alternative folk music to Australia as a mission outreach.(Esther Gonzalez Photo)

“They said what they need is a band that can go around to schools,” Staj said. “We can go into the public schools and tell them anything we want. We can tell them the plan of salvation, our testimonies, how to become a Christian. We can pray with them and lead them to the Lord.”

Staj said what astounded him was the fact that of the hundreds of children they will reach each day, fewer than 5 percent have had any contact with a church.

“The first time they hear the words 'Jesus Christ' will be from our lips on stage. To me that is extremely humbling.”

Zuigia's plans seem to have been mapped out, except for finances. The group is working in cooperation with Scripture Union and has received help from the Texas Partnerships Resource Center at the Baptist General Convention of Texas. But there is no organizational funding for the band's living expenses on the mission field.

But once again, band members say they have seen God's hand at work.

Zuigia released its first CD in February. It was two years in the making, but the band borrowed no money and incurred no debt to finance it.

All proceeds from the sales of the CD will help fund the trip overseas. The band hopes to move in August 2004.

Also, pastors in West Texas voted to use money from the Gordon Benson Memorial Fund to purchase the band's plane tickets to Australia at a cost of roughly $7,500.

The fund was set up in memory of Benson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Halfway, who was killed in an automobile accident last year. Zuigia also has received donations and love offerings from churches where they have performed.

“God is providing for us to get there in really humbling ways,” Posey said.

“Doors that we didn't even knock on have been opened.”

But the band still needs money to ship its sound equipment and to secure medical insurance and transportation in Australia.

The group will have religious worker visas, meaning they are not allowed to hold jobs in Australia. Therefore, they will be living off funds raised and donated in the States.

Zuigia has been registered with the IRS as a non-profit organization with tax-exempt status. Donations may be sent to Zuigia International, c/o David Howle, 105 SW 9th St., Plainview 79072. For information on booking Zuigia for a concert, visit the band's website at www.zuigia.com.

Posted: 4/16/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
The right guy

By Berry D. Simpson

At lunch, during a conversation about career choices and ministries and teaching the Bible and leading discussion groups and spiritual theories and what comes next in our lives, Art asked: “You once said that you’re always one book away from having all the answers. Have you found that book yet? Have you figured out the answers?”

I said: “No, but it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. I’ve decided that searching for answers is more important than the answers themselves.”

It occurred to me that for most of my adult life, at least my disciple years, which includes college, I was driven to find all the right answers. I thought that was my job. I read books and studied the Bible and went to seminars and learned all I could so I could be a better teacher and help people. Having something to share was my prime motivation, and I worked hard to keep my supply of facts and principles well-stocked.

After we finished lunch, I walked across the street toward my office and thought about our conversation. It occurred to me, in the middle of the street, that through the years my motivation had changed. I wasn’t trying so hard anymore to learn all the right answers. Nowadays, my motivation was to be the right guy. I still read books and study the Bible and go to seminars and learn all I can, but I do it so that I can be a better, more godly, man. Right answers versus right guy.

At first, I wasn’t sure the change was good, since it sounded so selfish. Where I used to be motivated to help other people, now I just wanted to work on my own heart. Was I moving in the right direction?

And then, of all places, as I walked up the stairs to my floor, it was as if I got a fresh gift of grace from God. He said to me: “Don’t worry about this so much. You are a more effective teacher nowadays than you were back then—you are affecting more people in a deeper way.” Well, I was stopped breathless, and not from the stair climb, but because this was a big insight for someone like me.

I thought, this explains why I am more content with not knowing the full path of my life. I used to worry about that, but in fact, it now scares me to know too much. I’m afraid if I know too many answers I’ll decide I can handle my life without God’s help. I need the uncertainty and tensions of trying to figure out my path and purpose. It’s what gives me the energy to keep seeking after God. The search is more important than the answers. Answers may satisfy my mind, but the search molds my heart.

I thought about all those Bible verses I memorized when I was in college—we were coached to memorize verses so we could answer questions and counsel people and be better ministers, always ready to whip out a verse on the quick draw. But not once in the past 25 years have I had the opportunity to rattle off a Bible verse to answer someone’s question or meet an intellectual objection. No, as it turned out, the strength of all my memorization was not in teaching other people the answers, but in changing my heart. I may have learned and reviewed verses to know more facts, but the process of learning changed who I was. It changed my character. And so, all those years of self-discipline were less about finding the right answers and more about becoming the right guy. Who knew?

And I realized why it’s been so hard for me to explain what I learned from a Promise Keepers rally or from the Wild at Heart Boot Camp, or even from a solitary backpacking weekend in the Guadalupes. So many times I’ve come back telling everyone what a great time I had and how God spoke to me, yet unable to articulate exactly what God said or what I learned. I remember looking back through pages of seminar notes so I would have an answer, but it seldom helped. I often wondered if I was wasting time seeking God if I couldn’t state clearly what I found.

However, there in the stairwell of my office building, it all started coming together in my mind. I had pursued spiritual experiences, read books, studied and taught the Bible, not to find answers, but to let those experiences change me and mold me. It was about my heart, not about facts.

Well, I must say, the search isn’t over. I’m still looking for that one book that will finally explain it all and solve all my questions, but when I find it, I doubt I’ll be able to say much about it. However, I will be a changed man.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland.