Posted: 9/19/05

Baptist Message board moves paper
under Louisiana convention control

By Lacy Thompson

Louisiana Baptist Message

ALEXANDRIA, La. (ABP)—Just 14 weeks after rejecting the idea, trustees of the Baptist Message of Louisiana voted 6-1 Aug. 30 to dissolve their board and move the newspaper under the control of the Executive Board of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

Meanwhile, convention leaders set the stage for Oklahoma conservative John Yeats to become editor of the Baptist Message Jan. 1 after current editor Lynn Clayton retires.

Yeats, editor of the Baptist Messenger of Oklahoma, is scheduled to be elected director of communications for the Louisiana Baptist Convention at the September meeting of the state Executive Board. In that role, he would become editor of the Baptist Message if the transfer is approved.

In May the newspaper’s trustees voted 8-4 against moving the newspaper under convention control. But after hearing a presentation from Yeats and debating the proposal in executive session, they voted overwhelmingly to approve the transfer, which was proposed in May by the convention’s new executive director, David Hankins.

The move must be approved by two thirds of the messengers to the Louisiana Baptist Convention in November.

The plan calls for the Baptist Message to become part of the convention’s communications division. “The vast majority of states are moving to a state paper published by the state convention,” Yeats said in his presentation to Baptist Message trustees.

Trustees approved resolutions calling for the convention to dissolve the newspaper’s corporate status and to elect Yeats to the combined post. The current newspaper trustees would serve as a transitional advisory committee until 2007.

In his presentation, Yeats emphasized the value of a coordinated approach to the convention’s communications. While Louisiana Baptists do not want a “public relations rag” but a genuine news publication, he said, they also want a wise use of resources, which can be accomplished with a coordinated approach.

“For the sake of its future, the Baptist Message must see its larger role in the kingdom fulfilled as part of a cohesive communications team of the Louisiana Baptist Convention,” Yeats insisted.

Baptist Message trustee Randy McGee of Monroe, La., asked members of the editor search committee what happened to change the committee’s direction after trustees voted 8-4 in May against moving the newspaper under the convention staff.

Trustee chair Larry Thompson of Westlake responded the search committee met with Yeats, who expressed support for a coordinated approach. Thompson said he was willing to revisit the idea of transferring the newspaper in order to get Yeats as editor.

Search committee chair Nathan Luce of Prairieville said Yeats’ approach to moving the newspaper was different enough from the earlier one to merit reconsideration. The new proposal gives authority to hire and fire the editor to the convention’s Executive Board, rather than the executive director alone.

Luce noted the latest proposal would restore the structure of the Baptist Message to the one in effect in the 1960s, before the newspaper was moved from convention control to a separate board.

Search committee member Floyd Davis of Shreveport said he is not in support of transferring control of the newspaper. “I think we’re moving too quickly,” he said. “This is a major change.”

Naida Sexton of Shreveport said she supports Yeats as editor but wants assurances the newspaper will remain fair and balanced. “We have a job to do, and that’s my heart. I want to see us get it done in a way that makes our people proud,” she said.

Jim Ingram of Bastrop added, “I feel that we’re rushing things too much.”

“The search committee is not pushing to do it one particular way,” Luce responded. “We just have a man we’d love to get on board.”

As trustees began asking Hankins if there was a way to adjust the timeline, the executive director noted that the discussion was beginning to touch on sensitive personnel matters. He requested a move to executive session, and trustees agreed.

Following a discussion of about 45 minutes, trustees opened the doors and spent little time in approving the action.

Prior to the vote, trustees asked Clayton, the retiring editor, if he had any comments. “One, my opinion has not changed from the (May) meeting,” he said. “Two, the search committee and the board have not sought my input prior to this point, so I will respect that and decline to speak.”

Trustees voted without further discussion of the matter.

Later, Hankins said he expects messengers to be enthusiastic about the proposed changed. He said he will present Yeats to the Executive Board in September as planned.

Yeats, recording secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a former pastor. He served as director of communications for the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana before becoming editor of the Oklahoma newspaper in 1997.

A native of Oklahoma, he is a graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and American Christian College and Seminary in Bethany, Okla.

Posted: 9/19/05

Court finds Pledge of Allegiance unconstituional

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Once again, a federal court in California has found the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional because the oath affirms that the United States is “under God.”

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, ruling in Sacramento Sept. 14, said three Sacramento County school districts’ policies encouraging recitation of the pledge violates the First Amendment. In his opinion, Karlton wrote that the act of government officials— in this case, principals and teachers—leading students in reciting the words violates the children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”

The suit is similar to one that Michael Newdow, an atheist who has a child in one of the school districts, lost last year in the Supreme Court because Newdow, a non-custodial parent, lacked the proper legal standing to bring the suit. Therefore, the high court never considered the constitutional merits raised by Newdow’s case, which was Elk Grove Unified School District vs. Newdow.

In the current case, Newdow vs. Congress of the United States, Newdow is joined by three unnamed atheist parents. They claim the school districts’ policies violate their right to raise their children free of government coercion to believe in a monotheistic God.

Karlton’s ruling came on a motion from the affected school districts—the Elk Grove district along with the Elverta Joint Elementary School District and the Rio Linda School District—to dismiss the case. In court papers, they cited the Supreme Court ruling, which reversed a 2002 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But Karlton noted that the high court never explicitly overturned the lower court’s finding that the districts’ policies violate the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion. Since the new parents have standing to file the case, it may proceed, he said.

“Because this court is bound by the 9th Circuit’s holding … it follows that the school districts’ policies violate the establishment clause of the Constitution,” Karlton wrote. “Accordingly, upon a properly supported motion, the court must enter a restraining order” barring the schools from directing recitation of the pledge.

If the case is appealed to the 9th Circuit—as it is expected to—and that court agrees with Karlton, then public-school recitation of the pledge with the offending words will be illegal in the nine Western states over which that panel has jurisdiction.

The 9th Circuit’s original ruling on the pledge was wildly unpopular, leaving a wave of controversy in its wake. Many politicians—and not just conservative Republicans—denounced it. Conservative religious leaders have pointed to it as chief among the examples of “judicial activism” that they said are plaguing the nation’s courts.

The latest decision is also likely to be a target for controversy. It came in the middle of confirmation hearings for John Roberts, the federal appellate judge President Bush has nominated to succeed the late William Rehnquist as the 17th chief justice of the United States.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), while questioning Roberts Sept. 14, mentioned the just-released pledge decision.

“This is an example, in my opinion, of where judges do not protect us from having the government impose religion upon us, but declare war on all things religious,” Graham said. “That’s why Americans are sometimes dumbfounded by the things going on in the name of religion.”

Since the decision was news to many in the marble-and-wood-paneled hearing room, Graham’s mention sent a wave of whispers across the press gallery.

Karlton, at the beginning of his opinion, noted the publicity it is likely to stir, saying it dealt with “something of a cause celebre in the ongoing struggle as to the role

of religion in the civil life of this nation.”

However, he added that his ruling also likely “will satisfy no one involved in that debate,” because he disagreed with another aspect of the plaintiffs’ assertions—that the 1954 act of Congress adding the words “under God” to the pledge was itself unconstitutional.

The pledge’s original version first came into wide use in 1892 and did not mention God, although it was composed by a Baptist minister. Congress first made it the official pledge to the flag in 1942. Twelve years later, legislators added the words “under God” as a response to the perceived atheistic threat of communism.

The 9th Circuit’s original 2002 decision found that act unconstitutional as well, but the court later limited its decision only to the pledge’s recitation in public schools. Karlton said he was also bound by that part of the appeals court’s decision.

At least one group praised Karlton’s decision. The Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State—one of the few organizations to publicly support Newdow’s original case—said in a press release that the latest ruling “shows respect for religious diversity.”

Posted: 9/16/05

RIGHT OR WRONG?
Plagiarizing sermons

I think my pastor has been preaching some sermons he downloaded from the Internet and took from books. Should this be considered plagiarism? And if so, why is it wrong?

In my growing up, I watched commercials. I learned the jingles before I understood the product. Memorex provided one of my fondest commercial memories. Ella Fitzgerald, renowned jazz singer, was on stage rehearsing as the camera panned between her and a tape deck. Upon completion, they showed her again and asked the question, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" That simple phrase provides the parameters for the moral engagement in this question.

Pulpit ministry has become many things in recent years. Some preachers attempt to model and emulate the mannerisms of those who are perceived as prominent pulpiteers, while others simply reproduce the prominent ones' ideas and thoughts.

This diluting of the gospel's proclamation has produced many side effects. At the least, the use of others' materials without due reference and credit constitutes plagiarism, dishonest use of material. Plagiarism comes from an ancient term meaning "kidnapping." Thus, an act of dishonesty and even violence occurs.

Furthermore, pastoral leaders stop thinking about the gospel issues at hand and merely explore the oft-trodden terrain of theological sameness. Sermons become clichéd, and parishioners are lulled into spiritual apathy. More astonishingly, pastoral leaders seek out the next ulterior source of information as opposed to inspiration–the renewed sense of engaging the divine.

Ministry flows from either the heart of the Divine or the energies of humankind. The former stirs us to pursue the Divine as we perceive him. This process of "taking his yoke upon us and learning of him" leads us into streams of living water. As a result, ministry flows from the inside out and not from the outside in. The latter, however, leads down the pathway of spiritual anemia. Preaching based on plagiarism is manufactured from expedient sources and significantly diluted of its essence. Those who choose this path follow the pathway of least resistance.

Preaching is vital for congregational development; yet the pastoral leader should identify and quote any material incorporated into the message. This gives credibility to study and resourcefulness. Although technology has provided unrestricted access to everything from term papers to sermons, worshippers come to hear a "word from the Lord," not a word from another. Therefore, credibility and integrity are formed within the context of ministry and are developed and sustained by the relation between clergy and congregant.

This dual-edged sword is sharpened through the worshipper's willingness to participate in this process. If you are aware of a leader's questionable practices, it is best to confront the person in private and pursue proper protocol from that point forward.

Be sure you know if it is live or Memorex before you determine your course of action.

Kelvin Kelly, pastor

Mount Zion Baptist Church

Abilene

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

Posted: 9/16/05

Longtime leaders receive Heritage Awards

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS–A retired missionary to Vietnam, a Hispanic Texas Baptist leader, two former grocery store executives and a Christian ethicist received top honors at the 2005 Texas Baptist Heritage awards banquet.

Mary Humphries, a past president of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, received the Mary Hill Davis Missions Award.

Humphries and her husband, Jim, served as Southern Baptist missionaries in Saigon, Vietnam, from 1966 to 1973. They now live in Lindale and are members of First Baptist Church in Tyler, where she is WMU director and teacher in an international Sunday school department.

In addition to serving as Texas WMU president from 1992 to 1996, she has been a member of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board and Administrative Committee, the strategy council for Texas 2000 and the BGCT Efficiency & Effectiveness Committee, and she was chair of the BGCT Sesquicentennial Committee.

Rudy Sanchez, former chairman of the BGCT Executive Board and a two-time president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, received the J.B. Gambrell Denominational Service Award.

Sanchez was pastor of First Mexican Baptist Church of Dallas, First Mexican Baptist Church of Corpus Christi and Trinity Baptist Church in Houston.

He served two years as moderator of Union Baptist Association, was second vice president of the BGCT and served in the ethnic missions division on the BGCT Executive Board staff.

He currently serves on the board of trustees of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and on the Baptist Standard board of directors.

Sonny and Gretchen Minyard Williams of Casa View Baptist Church in Dallas received the Sam Houston Distinguished Leadership Award.

The couple held top executive posts with Minyard Food Stores–he as president and chief operating officer and she as co-chair of the board and chief executive officer of the business her father started.

He serves on the Dallas Baptist University board of trustees, and she serves on the Baylor University Medical Center board of trustees.

Christian ethicist and former denominational executive Foy Valentine received the George W. Truett Religious Freedom Award.

He was director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission from 1953 to 1960.

He served as executive director of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission from 1960 until his retirement in 1988.

After he retired, he became founding editor of Christian Ethics Today.

He was a long-time trustee of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Valentine is a member of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.

Also at the awards banquet, BGCT Executive Director Emeritus Bill Pinson, director of the Baptist Heritage Center, recognized Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.

Posted: 9/16/05

Katrina evacuees consider
Baptist encampments a godsend

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

NEWTON–When Hurricane Katrina neared New Orleans, Ella Robinson knew she had to leave. She loaded her car and drove west through wooded Louisiana for 18 straight hours. Fatigue set in after she crossed the border into Texas.

“I told my sister-in-law I couldn't drive anymore,” she said. “I was seeing things on the road.”

A gas station attendant directed her to an impromptu shelter for displaced hurricane victims at East Texas Baptist Encampment, a few miles outside Newton.

There she joined nearly 300 others from Louisiana, each carrying whatever they could salvage.

The scene easily could have been grim, but Robinson said it was just the opposite. She found volunteers who cared about her and wanted to help. People from across the area brought clothing and food. Individuals and teams prepared meals for everyone. The encampment chapel was turned into a registration center for evacuees.

Volunteers even helped Robinson and her sister-in-law find a place for their two dogs and directed them to the camp, Robinson said.

“It was a godsend,” she said. “It was like a miracle. There's no other word for it.”

Fifteen Texas Baptist encampments offered to make their facilities available to evacuees, with the potential of providing food and shelter for 2,900 displaced people. About 1,000 were housed in seven camps during the first week after the disaster.

In her three days at East Texas Baptist Encampment, Robinson managed to learn from other family members about her brother, who stayed behind in New Orleans because he didn't think his knees could handle a long car ride. He was cooking meals for the people around him, helping however he could, she discovered.

Robinson and her sister-in-law want to return to New Orleans as soon as possible, but they are not sure when that will happen. She knows her home still is standing, but conditions are not good enough to go back yet.

She will be different when she goes back, she said. She pledged to leave any supplies she buys while at the camp to help others who may take her place. She also will give some money to her temporary home. She has a new understanding of what is important.

“I think God has a plan for me in the long run,” she said. “I think that's why I'm here. … It's a life-changing experience.”

Posted: 9/16/05

Volunteers help displaced
Louisianan contact his wife

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO–McKinnley Pittman lost all his phone numbers in the post-Katrina flood. For eight days, he didn't know if he also had lost his wife.

Pittman took his wife, Geraldine, to a niece's house outside of New Orleans Aug. 28 to shelter her from the incoming hurricane, and then he returned home to ride out the storm.

“Monday night I went to bed, and everything was OK. We had survived, and there was no water on the ground,” he recalled.

But the next morning, after the levees began giving way, he awoke to find his van already under water to its tailpipe. He moved to a neighbor's house that had a second floor, but the water kept rising.

Finally, after five days, he was rescued by helicopter, “but I didn't have any of my papers with me,” he said.

Pittman was moved to a shelter at Churchill Baptist Church in San Antonio–one of a half-dozen shelters for people with special needs operated by Baptist Child & Family Services.

At the shelter, he mentioned his concern about his wife to volunteer John Nelson.

“He couldn't remember the name of the town near Philadelphia where his daughter lived, only that it had five or six letters and was north of Philly,” said Nelson, a member of Churchill Baptist.

Nelson went home and brought back maps for Pittman to look at, but still no luck.

But Pittman remembered his son-in-law's name–Edward Lebreaux. That was enough for Nelson, who used the Internet to locate a phone number.

“I called and asked the woman who answered if she knew a Mr. Pittman. She did; it was her daddy,” Nelson said. “And her mother had called her from a shelter in Baton Rouge just 15 minutes earlier, so I was able to get a number to reach her.”

Back at Churchill Baptist, Nelson handed Pittman the phone after Mrs. Pittman came on the line.

Grinning and weeping at the same time, Pittman said: “Hey woman, where have you been hiding? I've been looking all over the world for you.”

After hanging up, with a promise to call back soon, he kept repeating: “Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.”

Moments later, Pittman's daughter called the shelter. Flights to get her mother out of Baton Rogue were impossible for several days.

“If we have to, I can drive and get her and bring her here,” Nelson told Pittman. “But let's see if we can get her to someplace else where she can get a flight, and we'll get you on a plane to her and you can reunite in Philadelphia.”

But in the middle of the celebration, Pittman mentioned he still had a daughter and granddaughter unaccounted for. Nelson got their names and started trying to track them down.

“I didn't do this, and the Internet didn't do this,” Nelson said. “God did it. We're just doing what we should be doing to help these people.”

Posted: 9/16/05

AFTER THE STORM:
Mississippi church finds reasons to give thanks

By Dee Ann Campbell

Associated Baptist Press

GULFPORT, Miss. (ABP)–Six days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Gulfport, Pastor Chuck Register told church members he wholeheartedly believed it is "the redemptive moment in history" for Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

The congregation that received the message had lost everything–homes, cars, personal belongings, even their church building–everything except each other and their faith.

The sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Gulfport, Miss., sustained significant damage from Hurricane Katrina's wind and storm surge.

Register stood in a borrowed pulpit at Crosspoint Baptist Church. His message was one of comfort and hope for his hurting congregation. But it was also one of challenge, to call God's people to service in a desperate community.

“Our Lord is still on his throne, and he's given us the greatest opportunity on the face of this earth to get his message out,” Register said. “We need to use this opportunity to reach this community.”

Almost a week after a 30-foot storm surge and 130-mph winds left much of Gulfport in ruins, hundreds of worshippers packed the borrowed sanctuary of Crosspoint Church, a congregation on the north side of Gulfport planted by First Baptist just last year.

“We're glad to have our 'mom' church here with us today,” Crosspoint Pastor Israel Cox said as he embraced Register. “I just want you to know that we are praying for you.”

The sanctuary of First Baptist, about 100 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, survived Gulfport's worst previous hurricane–Camille in 1969–with only flood damage. This time, however, it is a total loss, its walls blown apart and pews nowhere to be found. The church's other buildings are similarly damaged.

Register told a reporter the congregation likely will be displaced for three years. It is possible the church will rebuild somewhere besides the waterfront, the pastor said. “It's not fair to make another generation go through this.”

Still, he found reason to be grateful. “Praise the Lord, we've had no fatalities in our church family and no injuries in our church family,” he said.

In addition to members of First Baptist, others attended the worship service, including members of First Presbyterian Church of Gulfport and other local church-seekers who came merely to find a place offering comfort for their pain.

“I came because I needed this,” said lifelong First Baptist member and Long Beach resident Becky Brown, 38, who brought her two sons, ages 7 and 9, to the service. “My week is not complete unless I go to church, and I needed it, especially today. I needed to be with these people, for comfort.”

And words of comfort were plentiful.

“You may be asking, 'If God is a loving God, why is there eight feet of water in my house?'” Register said to the crowd. “You may be asking why you lost everything you had. But God is still with us. He was with us on Monday. He's with us in the dark. He's with us in the gas line, and he will give us strength, even if you have to drag all of your belongings to the roadside for FEMA to pick up.

“From New Orleans to Mobile, this is the message we need. No matter what condition you are in, or what you go back to when you leave here, God wants you to know that he loves you.”

Register's words echoed those spoken prior to the service by First Baptist maintenance director Mike Parmer as he worked to get generator power connected for the sound system.

“Some people are going to ask, 'why?'” he said. “But I truly believe God is going to provide the right people at the right place at the right time to show us why. God's love is all around this, and he will be exalted through it.”

“I took this job two-and-a-half months ago,” Parmer added. “It was a pay cut. At the time, I wondered why God had me do this. But now I know why. It is divine providence that we should be here today.”

Emergency sirens blared outside throughout the service, reminding those in the standing-room-only crowd that their world still was in chaos. But the congregation seemed undaunted. Arms outstretched and tears flowing, they joined music director Ken Nuss in song, hundreds of voices echoing through the building.

Among the worshippers who packed the sanctuary was Gulfport mayor and member of First Baptist, Brent Warr. In an emotional ceremony, Register and other church leaders laid hands on Warr, petitioning God to give him strength.

Also present were members of rescue teams and other ministries who had come to the area to offer assistance, including members of a Knoxville, Tenn.-based ministry who worked with First Baptist on a mission trip to Honduras in July.

“We came here to assess the situation to see what we could do to help,” said Tim McGhee of Knoxville. “We have about 10 to 15 churches in Knoxville who want to come here, to commit to long-term help. The first team will be here next week.”

In a particularly poignant moment in the emotion-filled service, First Baptist missions director Tom MacIntosh baptized his 10-year-old daughter, Connie, who made a profession of faith in Christ a few weeks before the storm.

Her baptism, Register said, was just the first of many he hopes will follow in the weeks to come, weeks filled with challenges and obstacles but also opportunities to share the gospel.

“While you're out there helping where you can, don't just give out water and food. Give away Jesus Christ,” he told the congregation.

“If, weeks from now, we see people baptized all over this city, we can shout and say, 'All things work together for good according to his purpose.'”

Dee Ann Campbell is a journalist and free-lance reporter in Gilbertown, Ala. Greg Warner contributed to this article.

Posted: 9/16/05

Texas Baptist universities open doors

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Texas Baptist universities responded to Hurricane Katrina by mobilizing campus communities for service, opening enrollment to displaced students and making resources available to evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi.

East Texas Baptist University provided lodging in eight married housing apartments for employees of an evacuated South Louisiana nursing home.

The employees and their families traveled with their patients, who were placed in a Longview nursing home.

ETBU collected an offering in chapel services to buy gasoline cards and gift cards for evacuees and provided a pancake breakfast for people housed in a Red Cross shelter at the Marshall Civic Center. Students also helped the staff at a local public housing complex prepare 13 empty units for immediate occupancy.

Dallas Baptist University students volunteered to set up and staff a shelter for displaced families at nearby First Baptist Church in Duncanville and helped personnel at Mount Lebanon Baptist En-campment meet the needs of evacuees.

DBU also collected funds for Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans and its members. Fred Luter is pastor at Franklin Avenue, and his son, Chip, is a junior at DBU.

Baylor University Student Govern-ment set up “Paws for a Cause” as an avenue for students, faculty, staff and alumni to contribute to hurricane relief efforts of Texas Baptist Men and Buckner Baptist Benevolences.

Baylor Alumni “Steppin' Out” groups throughout Texas also organized hurricane response efforts ranging from job placement to emergency relief.

Baylor opened its student life center to provide showers and towels for displaced people lodged in a shelter at nearby Seventh & James Baptist Church; Truett Theological Seminary served as the campus collection site for bottled water, diapers, cereal bars and other items needed in emergency shelters; and the university's Mayborn Museum Complex became the collection site for backpacks filled with school supplies for displaced children.

Hardin-Simmons University collected offerings in chapel services for Texas Baptist Men disaster relief efforts, and the campus bookstore collected cash donations for the Red Cross.

Hardin-Simmons' Baptist Student Ministries collected linens, toiletries and baby-care items for evacuees, as well as cash donations for disaster relief.

Staff from Wayland Baptist Univer-sity's San Antonio campus enlisted volunteers, and students provided administrative and clerical help at an operations center for evacuees with special needs, spearheaded by Baptist Child & Family Services.

Students and staff from Baptist University of the Americas also volunteered in shelters operated by Baptist Child & Family Services.

Several campus ministry groups made plans for disaster recovery and reconstruction trips to storm-affected areas.

DBU, ETBU, Hardin-Simmons Uni-versity, Howard Payne University, Houston Baptist University, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and Wayland Baptist University accepted transfer students who had been enrolled at universities in Hurricane Katrina's path.

Schools waived application fees, extended registration deadlines and made other accommodations for the incoming transfer students.

Due to a record freshman class, Baylor University was unable to accept first-year students but enrolled sophomore, junior and senior undergraduates on a space-available basis. The university enrolled more than two-dozen undergraduate transfer students who had been displaced by the hurricane.

Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary offered to accept transfer students from New Orleans Baptist Theological Semi-nary, and Baylor's law school agreed to accept law students from Loyola University and Tulane University.

Karin Klinger, assistant director of student activities at Baylor, placed six students in on-campus housing and received numerous calls from people offering to open their homes or apartments to displaced students.

Baylor's student activities department created an “adopt a displaced student” program, and about 15 student organizations volunteered to help new students learn their way around campus.

The university's counseling services department started a support group for students who have family or friends affected by the hurricane, and transfer students especially were encouraged to participate.

Baylor's Louise Herrington School of Nursing in Dallas provided health care for evacuees sheltered at Reunion Arena, enrolled a displaced nursing student from New Orleans and collected donations for relief efforts. The nursing school allowed faculty to substitute one week of volunteer work for one week of required clinical work.

Posted: 9/16/05

Four generations reunited at San Antonio shelter

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO–When Hurricane Betsy hammered New Orleans 40 years ago, Marion Rosemary Green told her husband, Lawrence, she didn't think she could survive another experience like that. Sadly, her words proved prophetic.

She survived the winds but coping with the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina overextended her weak heart. As her husband, one daughter and a granddaughter looked on helplessly, she died before a boat arrived to carry them to safety. When rescue did come, Green had to say goodbye and leave her behind.

“We were married for 53 years,” he explained. “But we courted for two years–so that makes 55 years we were together.”

Lawrence Green lost his wife when her heart gave out, and he lost touch with all but one daughter and one granddaughter of his family when Katrina's devastation scattered them to various shelters.

“And this is the result of all those years together,” one of his grandchildren added, sweeping her arm toward the three rows of cots that took up one end of the Baptist Child & Family Services shelter at Churchill Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Green's children, sons- and daughters-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were reunited at the special-needs shelter at Churchill Baptist Church from the numerous places to which they escaped when the storm and flood hit New Orleans.

“We kept telling her to calm down, but the excitement was just too much,” Green recalled.

“When the winds hit, it shook the house like everything, and I thought that was the end for all of us. But we survived.”

Then in the middle of the night, Green's car alarm went off.

“When I looked to see if someone was stealing it, it was floating away.”

The flood drove the Greens to the second floor of their daughter's house, where they had taken refuge, but Green refused to try to force his wife up the narrow, steep stairs to the attic.

“She physically couldn't do that, so we just prayed that the water would stop,” he said. It did, but so did his wife's heart.

Three days later, Green climbed out a window with his daughter and granddaughter, onto the roof and into a boat. The boat deposited them on top of a school, where a helicopter picked them up and flew them to a local airport.

“We slept on the ground all night and most of the next day before another helicopter took us to the international airport,” Green recalled. “It seemed like it would never end–then all at once we were landing in San Antonio.”

Green was declared a special-needs case because of his age. Baptist Child & Family Services' policy of keeping families together meant he and 27 of his clan were among the first to move into the Churchill shelter that opened Sept. 3. Later, relatives from other shelters in other states were transported to the same site as staff and volunteers helped trace missing relatives, make travel arrangements and provided for the health and physical needs of the large family.

“I don't know what we're going to do, but we sure are grateful for all that everyone has done for us here,” he said. “And we'll survive somehow and move on.”

After a pause, he leaned toward his daughter Rose, named for her mother and the child she was carrying when Hurricane Betsy pounded New Orleans 40 years ago. Then he repeated: “She told us she could never survive another hurricane. She told us.”

Posted: 9/16/05

New Orleans Seminary hopes
to restore campus by August 2006

By Gary Myers

Baptist Press

ATLANTA (BP)–Despite the devastation on the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary campus, President Chuck Kelley said he plans for the main campus to be fully operational in August 2006 and hopes some activities will be held on campus as early as January 2006.

Extension center classes will continue as scheduled.

“New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is here to stay, and we are getting back to work,” Kelley told a professors and staff meeting at the seminary's Atlanta-area North Georgia campus. “We will have a semester. We will have a December graduation.”

Kelley said the August 2006 date is contingent on a number of factors. Trustees must approve the target date during their fall meeting. The date also is contingent on the recovery efforts throughout the city; the surrounding infrastructure must be ready in order for the seminary to meet the target date, he said.

All the members of the seminary family who weathered the storm are out of the city, seminary officials reported. The seminary property avoided major structural damage in the hurricane, said Chris Friedmann, associate vice president for operation, who stayed on campus during the storm. High winds leveled trees on the front of campus and tore shingles, but the buildings escaped structural damage.

However, after the levees broke, most of the campus was flooded. Mike Moskau, the seminary's building contractor, said repair work could begin as soon as waters recede. The repairs will be labor-intensive; apartments, houses and classrooms affected by floodwaters will be gutted, sanitized and repaired. An August 2006 launch date is achievable, Moskau insisted.

“Together as a seminary family and with Southern Baptists we can do this in a way that as much as possible minimizes disruption for student and faculty families,” Kelley said. “God has given us the opportunity to see the true measure of his greatness in helping us overcome the most difficult situation the seminary has ever faced.”

New Orleans needs the seminary more than ever and hopes it can play a role in helping the people of New Orleans heal and recover, Kelley said.

With the target date in sight and a bit of good news about campus buildings, administrators, professors and staff members worked on ways to continue the semester. Continuing the semester is very important to keep students on track for graduation, Kelley said.

An educational task force was formed to develop solutions. After hours of discussion, the team drafted a plan to provide students with flexible educational options while the campus goes through cleanup and repair. The main option is for students to continue classes which will be reformatted. Other options include Internet courses, October workshops and open transfer to extension sites. The options will be available on the certificate, undergraduate and graduate levels.

“All of us on campus have experienced a tremendous loss. However, our students don't have to lose this semester,” Provost Steve Lemke said. “We are designing options so that every student can complete their scheduled load through this semester.”

The most extensive option will be a 10-week term of reformatted courses utilizing “threaded” Internet discussions. The goal is to provide every course offered on campus in the fall.

Some classes offered multiple times on the main campus may be unified into one section per course. Due to the style of instruction, students can study from anywhere in the country. Students who were enrolled in a course on the main campus can join the same courses in the independent study format without additional costs.

Students who were enrolled in the seminary's Internet courses also will be able to continue their courses. Additional course offerings may be offered, and students displaced by the hurricane can add Internet courses without paying the usual technology fees.

During the week of Oct. 17, workshop courses will be moved to the North Georgia campus. A few video extension sites in Florida also may be used. The developing plan calls for expanding the current workshop week to give students additional options.

Students also will be allowed to transfer to NOBTS extension sites without paying drop/add fees, Lemke said. The students would be allowed to join courses already in progress. Some housing is available for displaced students near extension centers. The seminary relief task force is working to match students interested in extension studies with these housing options.

Because the courses already are in session, students seeking to transfer to an extension site need to act quickly. Students would be allowed to make up their work and would not be penalized for the class meetings they already have missed, Lemke said.

The plans of the academic task force and relief information forms will be available online at www.nobts.edu and www.sbc.net. Students in the doctor of ministry, doctor of educational ministry, doctor of musical arts and doctor of philosophy programs should visit the website for information about continuing their study.

While seminary officials wait for the nobts.edu mail system to be rebuilt, e-mail accounts are being established. The addresses also will be posted on www.nobts.edu and www.sbc.net.

Plans for continuing music courses and December graduation plans still were under development at press time.

In the meantime, faculty, staff and administrators are settling in at the North Georgia campus. Every table in every corner of the building is being used as office space.

Posted: 9/16/05

Underwood doesn't want Baylor's presidency

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO–Contrary to expectations, Baylor University regents emerged from their Sept. 9 meeting without a new president for the 160-year-old Baptist school, and Interim President Bill Underwood announced he had removed his name as a candidate for the permanent president's position.

“I had never wanted to be the long-term president of Baylor Univer-sity. It's not a position I ever coveted,” Under wood told re-porters.

“I had concluded over the last several months that if I continued to be considered as a candidate for the long-term position as president, it would impair my ability to get done some of the things I needed to get done as interim and cause people to question my motives about some things I've done.

“I also believe that because of some of the controversial decisions I've made from the very outset of my term as interim president, that my being a candidate for the permanent job would be unnecessarily divisive.”

Regents selected Underwood, a 49-year-old Baylor law professor, to become interim president June 1. He succeeded embattled President Robert Sloan, who stepped down to become university chancellor.

At the time, regents left open the possibility Underwood could be tapped for the permanent post, and Regents Chairman Will Davis insisted Underwood would not serve in just a caretaker's role.

Indeed, Underwood left his mark early. During his first day on the job, he announced three high-level administrative appointments–most pointedly replacing David Lyle Jeffrey as provost.

Jeffrey, with whom Underwood had publicly debated academic freedom, had been closely identified with Sloan and roundly criticized in some moderate Texas Baptist circles.

Before he accepted the interim president's role, Underwood served as chairman of the panel that investigated reported NCAA violations in the Baylor men's basketball program.

Davis told reporters he was disappointed Underwood withdrew his name from consideration for the permanent president's position. The search committee will continue its work, and they have no prescribed timetable, he said.

One day before the regents' meeting, the Waco newspaper published a letter from Susie Jaynes, immediate past president of the Baylor Alumni Association, calling on regents to delay any vote on the university presidency.

“By deferring the selection of a new president until the end of the 2005-2006 academic year, we in the Baylor family will be able to continue our journey toward consensus,” she wrote.

About a week earlier, the university had issued a statement that the presidential search committee would bring its recommendation to the board at their regularly scheduled meeting.

Although the university released no names prior to the regents' meeting, sources said Linda Livingstone, 45-year-old dean of the Graziadio School of Business and associate professor of management at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., was the expected nominee. Before she joined Pepperdine's business school in 2002, Livingstone was associate dean of graduate programs at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business.

If elected, she would have been Baylor's first woman president.

But Livingstone reportedly was notified prior to the Sept. 9 meeting the board would not take any action.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reported the search committee voted 6-5 in favor of Livingstone after the advisory committee–created by the regents but having no direct authority–overwhelmingly endorsed Under-wood.

Search Committee Chairman Bill Brian of Amarillo declined to verify the newspaper report or discuss any particular names. He confirmed that–other than Underwood–no one who had been seriously considered as a candidate by the committee had been ruled out for further consideration.

Posted: 9/16/05

Nine named to BGCT leadership team

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS–Ron Gunter, associate executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, announced a new leadership team as part of the reorganization of the BGCT staff.

The nine people named to the leadership team all are current BGCT Executive Board employees. Each team member will lead one of the nine areas supervised by Gunter, who also is chief operating officer for the convention.

Four areas will relate most closely to churches. Those areas and their leaders who will serve on the leadership team are:

Congregational Strategists–Andre Punch, currently a Bible study/discipleship consultant.

Missions, Evangelism and Ministry–Wayne Shuffield, local church evangelism strategy consultant.

Service Center–Gus Reyes, ethnic evangelism consultant.

Leadership–Jan Daehnert, director of minister/church relations before becoming interim leadership director.

Five other areas support the overall work. Those areas and their leaders are:

Research and Development–Lynn Eckeberger, currently coordinator of the Church Health and Growth Section.

Christian Ethics and Public Life–Phil Strickland, in an equivalent position as director of the Christian Life Commission.

Institutional Ministries–Keith Bruce, in an equivalent position to his current role.

Communications–Ferrell Foster, interim director and news director.

Texas Baptist Missions Foun-dation–Bill Arnold, president of the foundation.