2007 Archives
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2nd Opinion: Longevity: Key to student ministry
Posted: 1/19/07
2nd Opinion:
Longevity: Key to student ministryBy Jeff Dooley
I was talking with Matt, a youth minister in Tennessee, asking him how he was doing in his first years of ministry. He said he was doing great and loving ministry. Matt and I began to reminisce. It seemed like just yesterday when he was one of my seventh-grade students in our youth group. We had a good time laughing about some of the teenage-boy pranks he and his buddies had pulled on some of our summer camp trips—some I am just finding out about many years later. I’m glad I did not know then what I know now.
I was standing on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, conducting a beautiful wedding at sunset for Amanda, another former student who now is a recreation minister in Virginia. I was thinking to myself, “Where does the time go?”
How many student pastors get the opportunity to be part of the life of a student from middle school to marriage? I have come to realize these situations are rare in student ministry. I read the average tenure of a student pastor is 18 to 24 months. The frequently asked question to every student pastor is, “When are you going to pastor your own church?” I think people have finally stopped asking that question of me.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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DOWN HOME: What’s interesting to all those men?
Posted: 1/19/07
DOWN HOME:
What’s interesting to all those men?Stuck in an airport the other day, with time to kill and legs to stretch, I walked the concourse. On about the third or fourth lap, a sign caught my eye from high on a wall above magazines in a bookstore.
“Men’s Interests,” the sign said. A tall rack of books blocked the magazines below the sign.
“Well, what are ‘men’ ‘interested’ in these days?” I asked myself. Curiosity piqued, I took a detour from my concourse-walking and stepped inside the bookstore to find out.
I could’ve guessed, and so could you.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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EDITORIAL: A time and place for healing wounds
Posted: 1/19/07
EDITORIAL:
A time and place for healing woundsIf you could watch a wound heal, would you do it?
If so, plan to travel to Atlanta in just about a year. Baptists of all races and ethnicities from across Canada, Mexico and the United States will convene to celebrate a new covenant of committed, compassionate cooperation. Participants will spiritually and emotionally mend a wound that has disfigured the body of Christ for generations.
About 200 years ago, missions fervor compelled Baptists in America to cooperate so they could spread the gospel across the continent and around the globe. By 1845, however, their differences over slavery tore them apart—a denominational precursor to the Civil War.
So, for at least 162 years, Baptists have divided over race. To some extent, our churches and even conventions have integrated. But the wound inflicted by slavery has not healed enough so the four dominant African-American Baptist conventions and Anglo Baptists far and wide could come together for common passion and purpose.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Faith Digest
Posted: 1/19/07
Faith Digest
Carter book prompts resignations. Fourteen members of an advisory group to the Atlanta-based Carter Center resigned in protest over former President Jimmy Carter’s recent book and statements on the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate. At the same time, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, a group that represents nearly 2,000 Reform rabbis, canceled a visit to the Carter Center during the group’s scheduled March convention in Atlanta. The resignations and cancellation were prompted by anger over a recently published book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which is critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, and remarks Carter has made defending the book. Last month, former Carter Center Director Kenneth Stein resigned as a center fellow, saying the book is biased and marred with factual mistakes. Carter has defended the book as fair and thorough.
Christ’s return in 2007 “somewhat likely,” poll says. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe it is at least somewhat likely Jesus Christ will return in 2007, a poll from the Associated Press and AOL News shows. The poll, conducted by the international polling firm Ipsos, found 11 percent of those surveyed said it is “very likely” Jesus will return this year. An additional 14 percent said it was “somewhat likely.” Twenty-five percent of those polled said it was “not too likely,” compared to 42 percent who said it was “not at all likely.” Eight percent said they did not know or were not sure. While a quarter of Americans polled said it is at least somewhat likely Jesus will return this year, views varied depending on religious persuasion. For example, 46 percent of white evangelical Christians believe it’s at least somewhat likely Jesus will return this year, while 17 percent of Catholics and 10 percent of those with no religion feel the same way.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Church giving lacks external focus, study reveals
Posted: 1/19/07
Church giving lacks external focus, study reveals
By Matt Vande Bunte
Religion News Service
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (RNS)—An annual study of church giving shows most offerings go to activities and needs within local congregations, and activities focused beyond the congregations increasingly go unfunded as donations decline.
The authors, Sylvia and John Ronsvalle of Champaign, Ill.-based empty tomb inc., contend Christianity in the United States is becoming a “maintenance organization” that soon will have zero financial capacity for external ministry if the trends continue.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Semester missionaries merge vocational, ministerial callings
Posted: 1/19/07
Matt Miller (left), a semester Go Now Missions missionary, serves at Greater Good Global Support Services. Semester missionaries merge
vocational, ministerial callingsBy John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
ARLINGTON—Each week, Bryan Simpson leads a Bible study at Mitchell College in New London, Conn. At first, it was he and another person. Then someone else joined him. A third person has said he will start coming, but hasn’t shown up yet.
And it doesn’t matter to Simpson. He wants people to hear the gospel and study the Bible, but he’s not focused on numbers. He’s more concerned about discipling college students who have little knowledge of the Christian faith, helping them mature spiritually.
Matt Miller, a recent Stephen F. Austin State University graduate, explains his interest in mission in this short video. (requires Windows Media Player) 01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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People in house churches report greater satisfaction than conventional churchgoers
Posted: 1/19/07
People in house churches report greater
satisfaction than conventional churchgoersBy Adelle Banks
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Worshippers who attend services in independent house churches report higher levels of satisfaction than Christians in conventional church services, a new study shows.
The Barna Group interviewed more than 2,000 Americans about their experiences in traditional congregations and the nondenominational churches whose services are held in homes or other locations than a church building.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Jubilee USA urges multilateral debt relief
Posted: 1/19/07
Jubilee USA urges multilateral debt relief
By Katherine Boyle
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—A coalition of religious and secular groups is working to ensure this month marks not only the beginning of a new year, but also a fresh push to eliminate the debts owed by impoverished nations.
Jubilee USA is using 2007 to advocate multilateral debt relief for poor nations, claiming they can ill afford to repay wealthy nations and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Texas Baptist Forum
Posted: 1/19/07
Texas Baptist Forum
Drink to that?
The Baptist church has a dilemma—to condone or condemn the drinking of alcohol (Jan. 8). Has our lust for building bigger churches caused our pulpits to be silent on this issue?
<-- • Jump to online-only letters below Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum. 
“The war in Iraq was unjust; to continue it now is criminal. There is no winning in Iraq. This was a war that should have never been fought—or won. It can’t be won, and the truth is that there are no good solutions now—that’s how unjust wars often turn out.”
Jim Wallis
Sojourners e-mail newsletter“The emerging Christian generation is more like the world than their predecessors. I think that shows the aggressive nature of culture. … We do not realize how aggressive and corrosive culture is in the lives of our kids.”
Gregory Kouckl
President of Stand to Reason in Signal Hill, Calif., commenting on research that shows young adults hold much more liberal views on extramarital sex, pornography, homosexuality and sexual fantasies than their elders (ABP)“The whole ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ thing is gross. Jesus is not your boyfriend. I mean, he is the lover of your soul, but he’s not going to take you out on a date on a Friday night.”
Connally Gilliam
Author of Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn’t Expect (The Washington Times/RNS)In 1884, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Then as now, it was and is quite impossible to judge by a man’s life and conduct whether he is a believer or not.” The overwhelming obstacle why people refuse to believe in Christ is not Christ himself but rather those who call themselves Christians. We must set ourselves apart, by word and deed, from worldly ways. Is having a glass of wine more important than the risk of hindering a believer or nonbeliever?
We, as a church, must choose to embrace or reject drinking. If we choose to condone it, let’s condone it publicly by putting a frozen margarita machine in our family centers. If we choose to shun drinking, let’s be bold in our belief.
01/19/2007 - By John Rutledge
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