Posted: 3/17/06

NAMB trustees ask task force to investigate

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)—Trustees of the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board are asking a task force to see if there is any truth to allegations—first reported in the Georgia Christian Index—that the mission board’s evangelism and church-planting efforts are lagging and improperly reported.

But NAMB refused to release a 2003 communications audit that is at the center of a possible conflict of interest involving President Bob Reccord and a NAMB subcontractor.

Trustee Chairman Barry Holcomb of Alabama has appointed a task force of trustees—composed mainly of the board’s executive committee members—to review the issues raised by the Christian Index in an analysis published Feb. 16. The task force already has met once at NAMB’s offices north of Atlanta.

Trustees have scheduled a special called meeting March 23 to hear the task force report.

The Southern Baptist agency’s auditing firm, Capin and Crouse, also has been asked to conduct an audit of the issues raised.

According to the Christian Index, the number of career missionaries funded by NAMB has dropped 10 percent since 1997, when NAMB was formed as the Southern Baptist successor to the Home Mission Board. The Index also cited a lack of a consistent evangelism strategy, a loss of momentum in church-planting efforts, and a drop in NAMB cash reserves from $55 million to $23 million.

The Index also raised questions about NAMB’s dealings with subcontractor Steve Sanford, a longtime friend of Reccord’s. Sanford was asked to perform an audit of NAMB’s communications strategy in 2003, which NAMB officials say led the agency to outsource 40 positions in its communications and Internet areas. InovaOne, a company founded and owned by Sanford, was later hired to perform some of those services.

In an interview, Sanford insisted there is no connection between the audit and his subsequent contracts with NAMB. But the agency is not denying such a connection.

Both Sanford and NAMB declined to release a copy of the communications audit. Sanford said only NAMB is authorized to release it, and NAMB declined a request for a copy.

The Index also raised questions about potential conflicts of interest between Reccord’s role as head of NAMB and his moonlighting ministry as a speaker and author.

In a meeting Feb. 22, Reccord urged NAMB employees to “keep your heads high, stay on task, pray a lot, and reflect Christ in everything you do.” News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Churches can minister through
schools, inner-city pastor maintains

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ARLINGTON—Churches once again can become the center of communities across Texas, but they may have to hit the books to do it, an urban pastor said.

Schools bring communities together, said Eddie Sanchez, pastor of Ross Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas. Children and parents regularly are involved in school-related activities, creating a ministry opportunity for churches willing to lend a helping hand.

Teachers need supplies. Students need mentors and tutors. Administrators need help with various duties around the school.

And churches need a place to minister. It seems like a perfect fit to Sanchez, who has led his church to do just this kind of ministry.

Volunteering at schools through mentoring programs, school boards and parent-teacher associations helps Christians connect with and invest in people who may not come to their church, Sanchez said. Although it is not an openly evangelistic opportunity, it can become one if a student or parent asks why a person volunteers.

“The people are in the school,” Sanchez told the Baptist General Convention of Texas Hispanic Evangelism Conference.

“They are looking for something. They want something more than just education.”

School ministry can radically change a church and the way a community views it, said Patty Villareal, director of community ministries for Buckner Baptist Benevolences.

Church members are energized by ministry opportunities, she said.

They feel a responsibility to minister to others. They begin to pray for people in their community.

Members of the community notice when a congregation is taking an interest in them, Villareal said.

They begin to believe the church is a place that cares about them. They see church members listening to what administrators say are the needs of a school, and then they see the needs met.

People’s lives can change when a congregation gets involved in its community, Villareal said. It should, because it is the same model Jesus used.

“When we read the story of Jesus, we see the importance of what happens in the church,” she said.

“But much of his testimony happens with people in the community.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Follow Jesus, and evangelism happens

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ARLINGTON—God calls Christians to take their faith with them wherever they go, said Victor Rodriguez, pastor of South San Filadelfia Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Christ does not ask people to develop strategies that rely on their knowledge but wants their actions to reflect their beliefs, Rodriguez told the Baptist General Convention of Texas Hispanic Evangelism Conference. If people do as Christ desires, non-Christians will come to faith.

“Christ had a plan for his church,” Rodriguez said. “It was not man’s plan. It was God’s plan.”

In Christ’s plan, his followers share the gospel with people who have not accepted it as true, the pastor said. Christians seek nonbelievers so they may know Christ as well.

For this to happen, church leaders must train laypeople in three stages of spiritual development—conversion, maturation and reproduction, Rodriguez said. Individuals first come to faith, grow in it and share the gospel with other people who become Christians.

This method is how Christ instructed his disciples, Rodriguez noted. He showed them how to live faithful lives. “Christ taught by example with his life.” Then the disciples tried to follow his model.

A passion for living this way will infect other people, he said. When people are invigorated by an idea or belief system, people around them become excited. The excitement of one person can change an entire congregation, he stressed.

This technique of evangelism may seem simple, but it is from God, Rodriguez said. God’s desire for our lives remains the same.

“The plan of Christ never changes,” he said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Christian witnessing requires readiness

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ARLINGTON—The most important part of sharing one’s faith is being ready to do it, said Javier Elizondo, Baptist University of the Americas vice president of academic affairs.

Spreading the gospel takes place in a variety of ways, Elizondo told the Hispanic Evangelism Conference. Some people will knock on doors up and down a street. Other Christians will share their faith with a waiter at a restaurant. Many Texas Baptists will talk about their beliefs with their friends.

“We all have different manners of evangelism,” he said.

The avenue does not matter, but the message does, Elizondo stressed. Having a well-thought-out faith makes the gospel more accessible. People are more open to ideas they can understand.

“We must always be ready,” Elizondo said.

Preparation is made easier when Texas Baptists have Christ working in their lives, he said. God is then guiding every action of their lives and prompting people to share their faith at specific times.

Christ compels his followers to care for other people in special ways, he said. God then honors those actions by accomplishing unique things. A person can be completely changed by the gospel.

That person then has a testimony to share with others about God, Elizondo noted, and the gospel can be spread even further.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Church growth does not equal
kingdom growth, speaker says

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Church growth does not necessarily result in expansion of God’s kingdom, a Canadian pastor told a Texas Baptist conference.

“It is possible to participate in church expansion and unintentionally be an agent for shrinking the kingdom of God,” Jeff Christopherson, pastor of The Sanctuary in Oakville, Ontario, said at Epicenter, a spiritual formation and missions event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Some Christians substitute the church for God’s kingdom because they want to be able to control it, he noted, pointing out the kingdom’s scope transcends any single church.

“The church is a temporal tool to advance something eternal—the kingdom,” Christopherson said.

“The church has a shelf life. If we look at our church as the kingdom, we miss the kingdom.”

Sincere seekers outside the church may come nearer the kingdom of God than some self-centered people within the church who artificially manufacture growth but are detached from the true source of power, he asserted.

“It is possible to unknowingly value the kingdom of God before acknowledging the value of its source—the King,” he said. “We love the forms, but Jesus talked about the source.”

Christopherson maintained people fit into one of four positions in what he referred to as the “kingdom matrix.”

• Brand-expanders.

These people are members of the church but are citizens of “the dominion of darkness,” he said.

Brand-expanders are religious consumers whose source of authority is their corporate identity.

They are energized by competition with other religionists who want to expand their own brand.

“Brand growth is a fake copy of the real deal,” Christopherson said.

• Self-seekers.

Like brand-expanders, they are captives of darkness, but at least they are honest about it.

They are narcissistic materialists energized by their own egos, he explained.

Self-seekers find their ultimate authority in themselves, and they manipulate other people to advance their own agendas.

• Kingdom-seekers.

Although they are outside the church, they value principles of God’s kingdom such as good will, community, personal transformation and spirituality, Chris-topherson said.

“Kingdom-seekers find the brand-expanders’ worldview unattractive and unhelpful,” he said.

“Kingdom-seekers respond when they are exposed to the authenticity of the kingdom. When they see the real thing, they want it.”

Once kingdom-seekers find faith in Christ, they become the most effective evangelists to self-seekers, he added.

“Kingdom-seekers are relationally networked and prepackaged with credibility to influence the self-seekers,” he said.

• Kingdom-expanders.

Kingdom-expanders live where the kingdom of God and the church come together.

They want to move from transformation to incarnation—living out the gospel and being the body of Christ in the world, Christopherson said.

Kingdom-expanders recognize kingdom growth involves sending out and sacrificing, not creating a club that benefits its members, he explained.

“If we see our resources as our own, we’ll never build the kingdom of God. If we see our people as our own, we’ll never build the kingdom of God,” Christopher-son said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Transformed leaders minister
out of spiritual overflow

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Before church leaders can guide other people to be transformed by God, they first must submit to the “rhythm of life with God” that leads to their own ongoing transformation, a former teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago said.

“How you lead is reflective of your life with God,” said Nancy Ortberg, now a church consultant in Menlo Park, Calif.

Spiritual leaders should minister out of the overflow of God’s presence and activity in their lives, Ortberg told participants at Epicenter, a missions and spiritual formation event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

True transformation may take place best when spiritual leaders break out of routines and allow God’s spirit to work in fresh ways, she said.

Even well-intentioned “prescriptive requirements” such as a daily quiet time or spiritual journaling can become a hindrance rather than a help if they become an end in themselves.

Paraphrasing the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, Ortberg said, “God’s greatest gripe is when we boil down a relationship into a list of rules.”

Spiritually transformed leaders can guide the gathered church and the dispersed church to fulfill its purpose in God’s plan, she said.

“What do we do as a church when we are gathered? Our worship services ought to be creative, compelling and challenging because that’s who God is,” Ortberg insisted, adding worship services should cause people to be astounded at God’s wonder.

Spiritual leaders should not shy away from calling for commitment in worship services, she stressed.

“Jesus was a walking defining moment,” she said.

Ortberg recalled a worship experience when Shane, a young man who lived and worked among homeless people, said he planned to go downtown after the church service to minister among his homeless friends.

He asked worshippers on the spot to contribute shoes to people who needed them.

The sound of Velcro straps ripping open filled the worship center, Ortberg said, and worshippers came forward to pile their shoes at the altar.

“Who you make heroes is highly transformational,” she said. “Recognize ordinary people doing remarkable things.”

After corporate worship—when the gathered church goes out as the dispersed church—transformed people can become an incarnational presence in society, Ortberg said.

“When we disperse, we can be the gospel in a world that so desperately needs it,” she said.

You can only be salt and light when you go beyond the walls of the church.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Spiritual outsourcing not the answer, McNeal says

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Christians have outsourced spiritual formation to the church, Reggie McNeal, leadership development director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, told a Texas Baptist group. But if congregations don’t change their strategy, they may end up out of business, he insisted.

Families have given congregations sole responsibility for developing children spiritually, and churches are doing an inadequate job of handling that responsibility, McNeal said.

“We think we understand some stuff,” he said. “Not spiritual formation. We need to rethink it. We need to rethink it to the core.” Congregations remain stuck in a classroom mentality, believing more information will help people—though leaders know they learned their most valuable lessons practicing their faith, McNeal noted.

Most churches continue calling Christians and non-Christians to age-specific classroom-like settings where a teacher imparts information to the gathered, McNeal said during Epicenter, a Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored conference on spiritual formation.

Jesus’s model of spiritual formation is based upon relationships, not instruction, McNeal said. Christ outlined some spiritual truths through his preaching, but mostly he showed the disciples how to live out their faith. “When it came to spiritual formation, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Follow Me,’” McNeal said. “Paul said, ‘Imitate me.’ That is a far cry from. ‘Attend this class.’”

Congregations need to understand people are accustomed to every service being customized to them, McNeal said. Websites are tailored to their buying habits. Movies are available when they want to watch them. Media outlets are designed to appeal to their interests. Churches could customize their efforts as well, he said. The church must begin by asking each member what he or she feels God leading him or her to do. Church leaders become life coaches, helping people fulfill God’s calling upon their lives.

Because God calls people to accomplish diverse tasks, each person’s development will look different, McNeal said. He compared it to having a personal trainer at a gym who trains multiple clients. The number of available workout machines remains constant, but each client will perform different exercises to meet a specific goal.

But spiritual formation is not simply about building people up, McNeal insisted. Some need to “debrief” their lives and remove some of the emotional baggage they are carrying.

Through helping people accomplish what they feel led to do, churches will find ministry and missions opportunities, he said. “It’s going to be as we serve the world that we will connect with it. Because we will connect over pain.”

Effective spiritual formation takes place through mission opportunities, not class experiences, McNeal insisted. Outside the walls of the church, believers of different generations can share about their faith. They can learn from each other. This is especially important for younger generations looking to connect with older individuals who have lived through hardships and retained their faith, he said. This aspect of life fascinates young people.

McNeal readily acknowledged he does not know how the churches can encourage relationship-driven spiritual formation beyond what he outlined during Epicenter, but he is excited about its possibilities. People will come to Christ as they interact with Christians, and their faith will be deepened through continued dialogue, he noted.

“They’re looking for life,” he said. “If we stop short of that, we’ve sold Jesus short.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Church leaders urged to trust and obey

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

WACO—Christians do not have to see where God is calling them; they simply must trust him and obey, Robert Smith, preaching professor of Beeson Divinity School, told the Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored African American Leadership Workshop.

Smith acknowledged God has called him out of secure positions to do things that made no sense to him, but he believes God always had a plan.

“God has called me to trust my rationality with his irrationality or supra-rationality,” he said.

Smith recalled God calling him to leave the pastorate of a growing church in Cincinnati to become a professor. Many people told him not to do it, but God has blessed his life because he chose to follow God’s desires.

When Smith’s wife was diagnosed with lupus, a fatal disease where the body attacks itself, leaders throughout Cincinnati prayed for her, and many felt a miraculous recovery surely would happen.

In 1984, she told Smith to tell the congregation she would be fine and would be going home. He did, only to arrive at the hospital and see her going to intensive care after a series of seizures. She died there—a loss Smith still feels.

“It was irrational,” he said. “It made no sense.”

Smith said he did not know it at the time, but God already was working in the life of a woman working on the third floor of that hospital. She eventually would become his second wife.

“When life is falling apart on the seventh floor (the ICU), he’s putting it together on the third floor,” Smith said.

“My trust is not in the institution. My trust is not in people. My trust is in the invisible God who makes invisible things visible.”

Following God into what seems to be uncertainty can be difficult, Smith confessed. But his faithfulness remains constant. God continues working in his followers’ lives—a point it is especially important for pastors to remember, Smith said.

Ministers are called to take stances that may not always be popular with their congregations. They must follow God’s leadership for the betterment of God’s kingdom.

“When there is no vision, the people perish,” he said. “Not only when there is no vision do people perish. When there is no visionary leader, the people leave the parish.”

When faced with tough situations, Christians can be encouraged by seeing the faithfulness of God throughout the Bible, Smith noted.

The message is simple: God works in every aspect of a Christian’s life.

“God is my past,” Smith said. “He is my present. He is my future.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Around the State

• Baylor University will remember its founding and early days with the dedication of Baylor Park on Windmill Hill at 2 p.m. March 25 in Indepen-dence. Baylor Park stands at the site of the original Baylor University campus, before its move to Waco. The congregation of Liberty Church in Independence will host a barbecue lunch beginning at 11 a.m. Baylor President John Lilley will speak at the dedication, and will be joined by former presidents Bill Underwood and Herbert Reynolds. For more information, call (254) 710-1268.

• The third annual Yellow Rose luncheon, hosted by the Howard Payne University Woman’s Club, will be held March 27 at 11:30 a.m. Millie Cooper, author of Aerobics for Today’s Woman, will be the featured speaker. Her topic will be “The Joy of Living.” During the event, the Yellow Rose Award will be presented to a woman in the community who exemplifies leadership and service and is a role model for students. The Yellow Rose Scholarship also will be presented to an HPU female student. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased by calling (800) 950-8465. Reserva-tions should be made by March 22.

• A seminar on faith and healing will be held at Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene March 31 and April 1. Dale Matthews, author of The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer, will be the primary speaker. He will review findings from numerous scientific studies that demonstrate the effects of religious commitment upon health. Topics will include the healing power of prayer, biblical perspectives on faith and medicine, and reconciling physical and spiritual healing. Registra-tion deadline is March 24. For more information, call (325) 670-2256.

• A Baylor University day of prayer will be held prior to the national day of prayer at The Fort Worth Club, 306 West 7th Street, in Fort Worth March 28. Registration will begin at 11 a.m. with lunch following at 11:30. Featured speakers will be Dub Oliver, interim vice president for student life; Scott Drew, Baylor men’s basketball coach; and Paul Smith, minister of worship at First Church in Colleyville. Tickets are $25, with $13 discount tickets available to 2003-2006 graduates. For more information, call (866) 281-9444.

• University of Mary Hardin-Baylor faculty pianist Michelle Schumann was named winner of the 2006 UT-San Antonio Janice K. Hodges Contemporary Piano performance competition. She will perform at the Hughes Recital Hall at UMHB alongside violinist Brian Lewis April 6 at 7:30 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, call (254) 295-4678.

• Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, will be the lecturer for the T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lec-tures to be held April 10 and 11 at Hardin-Simmons Univer-sity’s Logsdon School of Theology. The lecture at 7 p.m. Monday will debunk myths about church-state separation and highlight its importance. The topic for the 9 a.m. Tuesday lecture will be “The Religious American Citizen.”

• Registration for the Omega Term of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute is now open. The term will last from April 17 to June 10. A complete list of classes is available at www.bhcti.org.

• Ann Pennington, a chaplain with VistaCare Hospice in Waco, has been endorsed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, bringing the number of chaplains and pastoral counselors endorsed by the fellowship to 520.

• Houston Baptist University has selected its campus Piper Professor nominees: Marie Mater, associate professor in speech communications; Martin Bressler, professor in marketing and entrepreneurship; Randy Wilson, professor in sociology; Lucindra Campbell, associate professor in nursing; and Jacqueline Horn, professor in biology. The Piper Foundation grants 15 awards annually to professors across the state for dedication to the teaching profession and oustanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement.

• Starter kits for people interested in making the witnessing bracelets described in a March 6 story in the Baptist Standard can be obtained at no charge by calling (254) 896-2080. The kit will contain instructions on how to make the bracelets, materials for 25 bracelets, information on where to purchase additional materi

als, and a print out in English and Spanish versions concerning the meaning of the colors.

Anniversaries

• Jeff Scott, fifth, as minister of youth at First Church in Levelland, March 5.

• Robby Barrett, 10th, as minister of education at First Church in Amarillo, March 5.

• Tim Owens, 10th, as pastor of First Church in Bryan, March 5.

• Angela Hamm, fifth, as spiritual formation/single adult minister at First Church in Lewisville, March 18.

• Dennis Williams, 10th, as pastor of First Church in Lorenzo, March 25.

• First Church in Brown-field, 100th, April 22-23. A Texas historical marker will be dedicated at 2 p.m. Saturday, followed by a time of fellowship. Sunday morning’s activities will begin at 9:30. Randy Land is pastor.

• First Church in Ira, 100th, April 30. The morning service will begin at 11 a.m. and will be followed by lunch and a time of fellowship. For more information, call (325) 573-6277. Kenneth Martin is pastor.

Deaths

• Reggie Bowman, 62, Feb. 22 in Abilene. He served churches in various staff positions in Palestine, Odessa and Lampasas, Texas; Del City, Okla.; and Hobbs, N.M. In Bozeman, Mont., he was director of Baptist Student Ministry at Montana State University. His final place of ministry was Pioneer Drive Church in Abilene, where he served as minister of education from 1999 until his retirement in Oct. 2005. He is survived by his parents, J.D. and Virginia Bowman; wife, Darlene; son, Greg; daughter, Melody Gram-mer; brothers, Rodney, Ernie and Terry; and one grandson.

• Jack Boggs, 69, Feb. 26, in Lockney. Boggs preached his final sermon the morning of his death. He was pastor of First Church in Roaring Springs. He was in ministry more than 46 years and was pastor of Texas churches that include Gillespie Church in Munday, First Church in Mertzon, Highland Church in Denton and First Church in Matador. He also served churches in North Dakota and Colorado, in addition to 12 years spent as pastor of a church in Britain. He is survived by his wife, Jo; daughters, Robbie Core and Rhonda Wiltshire; brothers, Andy and Bill; and six grandchildren.

• Glen Norman, 85, March 1, in Houston. He died from head trauma incurred in an auto-pedestrian accident. A minister for 66 years, he was pastor of a number of churches, including Calvary Church in Houston, First Church of Oak Cliff in Dallas, Trinity Church in Amarillo, Second Church in Corpus Christi, Richland Church in Richland, Wash., and Greenspoint Church, which he started in northwest Houston. He also participating in church- starting efforts in Alaska, Brazil, Jamaica, Korea, the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam. He was a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Wooster Church in Baytown in his later years. He was preceded in death by his wife, Eloise. He is survived by his sons, Kenneth, Price and David; daughter, Sarah Norman; and nine grandchildren.

• Amy Walker, 29, March 12 in Dallas. She was employed at Dallas Baptist University as online student coordinator. She is survived by her mother, Sharon Robinson; father, Bobby Walker; brother, Kevin; and grandparents, Wade and Mar-guerite Owen.

Retiring

• James Morrow, as pastor of Western Hills Church in Kerrville, May 1. In his more than 40 years of ministry, he was pastor of churches throughout Texas, including the Rio Grande Valley, Burnet, Ralls and Kerrville.

Event

• Youth at Mount Olive Church in Paris participated in World Vision’s 30-Hour Famine Feb. 24-25 and raised more than $1,800 to feed the poor. During the weekend, the youth participated in community service projects and studied Scripture on fasting.

Revivals

• Live Oak First Church, San Antonio; March 26-29; evangelist, Gordon Fort; music, Don Fellers; pastor, Donald Valenta.

• First Church, Paducah; March 26-29; evangelist, James Semple; music, Darrell Dundas; pastor, Lyn Means.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Book reviews

A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer Edited by Carla Barnhill, (HarperSanFrancisco)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the authentic heroes of World War II.

A German Protestant theologian who spoke out fearlessly against Hitler and participated in an assassination plot against him, Bonhoeffer was hanged on Hitler’s orders three weeks before the Nazi dictator committed suicide on the eve of Germany’s surrender in April 1945.

Bonhoeffer’s fame today rests perhaps more on his political courage than on his theological views. In A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of a series of books drawing on the writings of significant thinkers, editor Carla Barnhill arranges spiritual exhortations from Bonhoeffer’s work into a kind of Christian religious almanac, offering one item for each day of the year.

The dark and tragic political events in which Bonhoeffer was involved are kept largely offstage, alluded to only when useful for making some spiritual point. Under appropriate dates, the reader finds laconic footnotes marking the author’s arrest and imprisonment and other pertinent events, but further commentary mainly is left to progressive evangelical minister Jim Wallis, who contributes an insightful introduction.

All sorts of topics are considered in this bite-sized format—the nature of sin and evil, love, peace, forgiveness, Christian community, authority, judgment and prayer. The tone is elevated and didactic, often highly abstract and somewhat ecumenical in tone.

Taken one daily page at a time, the book doubtless will have more impact than when read straight through over a week or so. It offers a kind of secular breviary for the religiously inclined lay Christian.

Some of Bonhoeffer’s bedrock personal religious convictions recur like themes in a musical work—the need for Christians to live their faith actively in the world by tackling its toughest problems, for example. He is contemptuous of those who merely talk a good game.

Perhaps Bonhoeffer’s most famous religious coinage, the term “cheap grace,” is the theme for several dates. It means simply praying and going through the Christian motions; “no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.”

Bonhoeffer showed his contempt for “cheap grace” in the most extreme way when he passed up a post abroad to return to Hitler’s Germany, well aware he probably was signing his own death warrant.

He plunged into work with the underground anti-Nazi “Confessing Church” and joined in a failed plot to kill Hitler—surely an extreme act for a man otherwise committed to Christian nonviolence.

But then, he once had written, “It is an evil time when the world lets injustice happen silently,” so he knew what he had to do. A lesser man might have dodged the issue to save his skin.

The 100th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birth passed in February largely unnoticed. He was hanged in the Flossenburg prison camp, just a couple of months after his 39th birthday.

Robert Finn writes for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. This article was distributed by Religion News Service. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

Baptist Briefs

Three students charged with Alabama church fires. Law enforcement officials arrested three men March 8 in connection with a string of nine fires at Baptist churches in rural Alabama. A 10th fire, although ruled arson, has yet to be connected to the initial nine. Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk, both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, said they set the fires as a “joke,” authorities said. Moseley and Debusk appeared in federal court March 8 on charges of arson and conspiracy, according to the office of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. Later that day, officials also arrested 20-year-old Matthew Lee Cloyd, a student at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. If convicted, the students could face a minimum sentence of five years for each church they burned, according to U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

BJC offers essay contest for teens. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has launched the 2006 Religious Liberty Essay Contest, seeking original compositions on the theme: “Why the separation of church and state is necessary to ensure religious liberty for all.” Open to all Baptist high school students in the classes of 2006 and 2007, the contest offers a grand prize of $1,000 and airfare and lodging for two to Washington, D.C. Second prize is $500, and third prize is $100. Winners will be announced in the summer of 2006 and will be featured in the BJC publication, Report from the Capital. The grand-prize winner also will be recognized Oct. 2 at the BJC board meeting in Washington, D.C. Essays should be 700 to 1,000 words. They will be judged on the depth of content and the skill with which they are written. Students should demonstrate a sound knowledge of the subject matter and support their assertions. For more information or to download a registration form and promotional flier, visit www.bjconline. org/contest/.

Central Seminary announces plans to move. Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., has announced plans to move, mostly to help defer rising maintenance costs on its 16-acre campus. Administrators at Central—an American Baptist school—fought the financial drain by offering online classes and operating out of a fraction of its 11 buildings, but a resource mobilization team composed of board members, alumni and administration voted to cut losses and find a new location. Seminary President Molly Marshall said in a letter to students and faculty that after 82 years at its current campus, finding a new location would help Central Seminary continue its mission. The seminary’s aging facility faces roughly $5 million in deferred maintenance costs, and the move will save more than $400,000 a year, Marshall said.

N.C. leader resigns over changes. The recent sharp right turn in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has prompted one member of its governing board to resign, saying the state convention is becoming “a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention.” Ken Boaz, pastor of Boonville Baptist Church in Boonville, resigned from the state board of directors, drawing objection to two actions taken at the North Carolina convention’s annual meeting in November. At that time, convention messengers agreed that money churches send to the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship should not count as state Cooperative Program gifts, and they directed the state’s board to approve a policy excluding any church that “knowingly affirms, approves or endorses homosexual behavior.”

Sibley moves from NAMB to Criswell. Jim Sibley, who served 10 years as coordinator of Jewish ministries with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, was named director of Criswell College’s Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies. The college formed the Pasche Institute in 2004 to train Christians in Jewish evangelism and ministries. Sibley and his wife, Kathy, served as Southern Baptist representatives in Israel 14 years.

Longtime professor Nash dies. Ronald Nash, who taught theology and philosophy for four decades at three schools, died March 10 at his home in Orlando, Fla., after a lengthy illness. He was 69. Nash was chairman of the department of philosophy and religion and director of graduate studies in humanities at Western Kentucky University, where he was on faculty from 1964 to 1991. Later, he was a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nash wrote more than 35 books on philosophy, theology and apologetics. He is survived by his wife, Betty Jane, and two children, Jeffrey and Jennifer. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 3/17/06

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.