2006 Archives
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together_71403
Posted: 7/11/03
TOGETHER:
Needs-based ministries emulate JesusThe Baptist General Convention of Texas wants to work with all our related churches to help them be healthy and missional. Eleven characteristics of a healthy church have been identified, and our staff provides resources and links to help any church in Texas be all it can be for the sake of the gospel and our Savior.
One characteristic of a healthy church is that it has a “needs-based ministry” strategy. Churches that are Jesus kind of churches seek to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of individuals and communities. When John the Baptist sent his disciples to question the authenticity of Jesus, our Lord chose to validate his life and ministry not by the crowds that came to hear him preach, but by the people he touched. “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22).
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
The BGCT Center for Community Ministries works closely with churches and associations to identify and meet physical, spiritual and emotional needs of people across Texas. This may be through one of the 14 hospitality houses and visitor centers that minister to the needs of inmate families as they visit their incarcerated loved one. It may be by providing training and resources to the more than 1,000 Texas Baptist churches that lead Bible studies and worship services in the jails and prisons across our state, recording 1,445 professions of faith.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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TOGETHER: Healthy churches prepare for crisis_102003
Posted: 10/17/03
TOGETHER:
Healthy churches prepare for crisisAll of us have been praying for our brothers and sisters at First Baptist Church of Eldorado in their sorrow. We pray for these dear people who have lost family and friends. We pray with thanksgiving for God's salvation and his mercies. We pray for those who are still in the hospitals recuperating.
Bus accidents are sudden and can be devastating. Pastors and deacons who serve in times like these receive extra grace by the Holy Spirit so they have compassion and wisdom, stamina and courage.
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
Disasters come in many shapes, and they arrive suddenly and unexpectedly in all parts of Texas. We need one another in times like these. Thankfully, God has knitted our hearts, skills and energies together with one another so that wherever someone needs us, Texas Baptists have a way of showing up. Representatives from Concho Valley Baptist Association and our BGCT staff quickly responded to needs in Eldorado and will continue to be available. Any time there is a disaster in our world and you want to help, you can send contributions through the BGCT, and we can use them to help people wherever there is a need.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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TOGETHER: God’s blessings flow through worship_110303
Posted: 10/31/03
TOGETHER: God's blessings flow through worship
To serve God faithfully in ministry to people over a lifetime, you must have an active worship life. You cannot give what you do not have. In worship, our hearts are renewed, and our faith is kept alive and active.
My son, Mark, recently told me what it means to him to worship with fellow believers: “To see them standing around me singing and worshipping God, and knowing some of the achievements and some of the heartaches they feel, brings an enormous sense of awe and gratitude to God to me.”
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
True worship always connects us to people as well as to God. One of the classic passages on worship is Deuteronomy 10:12ff. “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. … He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him.”
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Around the State
Posted: 11/11/05
Around the State
Abilene physician Carl Trusler, Houston-based missionary Betsy Brown and information management consultant Larry English were named Hardin-Simmons Uni-versity's 2005 Alumni of the Year.
Howard Payne University has inducted four people into its Sports Hall of Fame. Barney Hale coached at HPU from 1933 to 1935 and 1941 to 1947, with his 1942 football team not giving up a single point. When the football program was suspended during World War II, he became the basketball coach, leading the team to its first undefeated season. Billie Hamrick was a four-year starter on the football team and went on to become a successful high school coach for 26 years. Melvin White was an outstanding athlete for HPU in football, basketball and golf. Ray Jacobs played football at the school and went on to a career in the National Football League. 
Yoo Yoon, pastor of Glory Korean Church in Dallas, recently returned from his 10th trip to North Korea, each time taking food donations for orphans and elderly people. Yoon was the point person for a $30,000 donation: $10,000 from Texas Baptist Men, $15,000 from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and $5,000 from individuals and the Korean-American Sharing Movement of Dallas. TBM receives the donations and sends them to China, where a trading company purchases the food and ships it by train to the city of Dan-Dong. Here, Yoon helps a child-care worker lead children at an orphanage in a song. Debra Berry, associate professor of nursing, and David Capes, professor in Christianity, have received Houston Baptist University's Opal Goolsby Award for Outstanding Teaching. 10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Prayer opened door for colonia church to build
Posted: 9/29/06
Pastor Omar Chavarria rests his hands on a cross that normally hangs in the church’s baptistry. Volunteers were renovating the baptistry at Iglesia Bautista Manantial de Vida in Penitas. Prayer opened doors for Rio Grande Valley church
By Scott Collins
Buckner Benevolences
PENITAS—If seeing is believing, Omar Chavarria has 20/20 vision.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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‘Blue like Jazz’ buzz continues
Posted: 10/13/06
‘Blue like Jazz' buzz continues
By Hannah Elliott
Associated Baptist Press
DALLAS (ABP)—Reactions among evangelical Christians to Donald Miller’s best-selling book Blue Like Jazz are about as diverse as reactions to the idea of postmodern Christianity itself.
Although the book debuted three years ago, its steadily growing popularity has made it a bona fide phenomenon in evangelical circles and spurred debates about the direction of Christianity as a whole.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Chinese pastor leads international mission
Posted: 10/13/06
Chinese pastor leads international mission
By Barbara Bedrick
Texas Baptist Communications
STAFFORD—When Peter Leong was a boy in Malaysia, he never imagined he would end up in Texas. Now, as pastor of a Houston-area church, he is leading a team of Baptists back to Asia to help 82 pastors and their families spread the gospel.
The international mission trip is the second in three months for Southwest Chinese Baptist Church in Stafford, and it highlights growth in the Asian Baptist global community. In September, the 300-member church and Cross Pointe Baptist of San Jose, Calif., partnered with sister churches in Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong on their third joint mission to Thailand.
Peter Leong 10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Pendleton church rebounds from disaster
Posted: 10/13/06
High winds destroyed the framework for Pendleton Baptist Church. At right, Pendleton Baptist Church begins to rebuild. Pendleton church rebounds from disaster
By George Henson
Staff Writer
PENDLETON—Pendleton Baptist Church has rebounded quickly after high winds recently blew down the framework of what would have been the congregation’s first building, but Pastor Tom Adams acknowledged the event took the wind out of his sails.
“It didn’t bother me on Saturday when I went out there to see it right after it happened, and it didn’t bother me on Sunday when we had a really good worship service. But on Monday, when we took it back down to the foundation—that bothered me a bit,” he admitted.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Community sees schoolhouse attack as ‘Amish 9/11’
Posted: 10/13/06
Community sees schoolhouse attack as ‘Amish 9/11’
By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service
WHITE HORSE, Pa. (RNS)—The boys walked home from their one-room schoolhouse just across the fields and groaned to their mother that a substitute teacher would be leading the next day’s lessons.
“Well, boys, I’m in no position to hear complaining about schools,” Mary R. told her four young sons.
An Amish family arrives to pay their respects at the White Oak farm of Chris and Rachel Miller, who lost two daughters when a gunman killed five girls at an Amish school. (RNS photo by Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.) 10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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How will the Amish cope with school shooting?
Posted: 10/13/06
A group of local Amish men gather near the scene of fatal shootings at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa. (RNS photo by Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.) How will the Amish cope with school shooting?
By Tom Feeney
Religion News Service
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (RNS)—Five schoolgirls are murdered in their quaint, quiet hamlet. A community that shuns attention as a matter of religious principle suddenly finds itself in the media glare.
How will the Amish cope?
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
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Amish remember gunman as good neighbor, family man
Posted: 10/13/06
Amish remember gunman
as good neighbor, family manBy Carrie Cassidy & T.W. Burger
Religion News Service
BART, Pa. (RNS)—It’s difficult for many to imagine that the man who opened fire in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Oct. 2 is the same man who took his sons to soccer practice and his daughter shopping.
Marie Roberts, the wife of gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV, said it wasn’t the same man.
10/13/2006 - By John Rutledge
