Posted: 11/16/07

DOWN HOME:
Agnostic & editor agree on thanks

Sometimes, it’s downright weird how people with widely divergent worldviews can come down in the same place.

But here I am, right beside A.J. Jacobs.

He’s the author of a best-selling book, The Know-It-All. I’ve been accused of knowing practically nothing.

He’s an editor-at-large for a hoity-toity men’s magazine, Esquire. I’m the editor of a Baptist newspaper 99.9999999 percent of the readers of Esquire never heard of.

He’s an agnostic. I’m a Baptist minister.

But Jacobs and I agree that, of all the kinds of prayer, thanksgiving is the—well, I don’t know if he’d use this word, but I’m guessing it’s close—most fulfilling.

Jacobs just came out with another book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Haven’t read it, yet, but The Christian Century carried excerpts.

He spent a year trying to do literally everything the Bible says. Ironically, his entry on stoning is both hilarious and poignant.

When he started working on prayer, a Lutheran minister explained the four types of prayer with the ACTS acrostic—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.

“Right now, the one that’s working for me best is T, thanksgiving,” Jacobs writes. “The prayers … remind me that the food didn’t spontaneously generate in my fridge. They make me feel more connected, more grateful, more grounded, more aware of my place. … And they remind me that I’m lucky to have food at all. Basically, they help me get outside of my self-obsessed cranium.”

I don’t know if Jacobs would take this as a compliment or not, but let me say one thing: “Amen.”

Actually, I like the ACTS acrostic and use it often during my morning prayer time. It provides discipline and structure for my talk with God. Because of my limited imagination, adoration often sounds like a broken record. Because of my persistent sinful condition, confession also sounds mighty repetitious. And because I fall in awe of God’s infinite wisdom and power, my supplication often seems presumptuous. But because of God’s great generosity, thanksiving is easy, fun and uplifting.

Even when I don’t particularly care for how parts of my life are going, this world is full of so many wonderful things that the list of blessings for which I am (or should be) grateful is the closest I can imagine to infinity.

Just as a parent takes delight in grateful children, I’m sure our prayers of thanksgiving please God, who deserves gratitude for “every good and perfect gift.”

But I imagine what pleases God the most about our prayers of gratitude is how they reorient our spirits and set our hearts aright.

–Marv Knox

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

EDITORIAL:
Differences, defamation & grace

A thoughtful reader recently sent me a letter lamenting the landslide of personal attacks and the torrent of abusive language that characterize Baptist life these days. He specifically cited the tone of several blogs. But he also could have pointed to many church business meetings, e-mail and telephone gossip about individuals and events in the Baptist General Convention of Texas, occasional pronouncements by outsiders about our convention, and far too many Baptist dinnertables where “roast preacher” is served up as if it were a local delicacy.

The problem, friends, is a growing inability to disagree agreeably. People no longer seem to understand they can disagree with each other without being angry at each other. They stumble over the concept of honest disagreement expressed in a spirit of goodwill.

I understand this phenomenon all too well. Almost every week, I hear from people who have severe problems with disagreement. They generally fall into two categories. One group seems to love disagreeing, and hostility gets their juices flowing. They relish a good fight. The other group absolutely detests fighting and just wants everybody to get along. Problem is, they’re so conditioned by the other crowd that they now think disagreement equals fighting. So, they dysfunctionally avoid expressing honest differences for fear of fighting. Both groups can’t seem to comprehend that people, especially Christians, can disagree passionately and yet continue to love one another, care for each other, pray for the other.

Multiple factors account for this, but I blame talk radio. Call it the “Limbaughization” of America. Talk radio hosts practice “ritual defamation,” explains former Texas pastor Bruce Prescott. It’s a calculated political strategy—“defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence.” They also like it because it’s good for ratings. Americans have become so coarse and desensitized they’re titillated by the pain and humiliation of others. Call it talk radio for a generation who grew up on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. Many bloggers unwittingly (or maybe not) have picked up on this. After all, outlandish rhetoric drives up the hits. Never mind if the tone is so extreme it casts doubt upon the truthfulness of the content.

Putting up with all of this is bad enough in the secular media in an election year. (That’s right; we’re less than 12 months from the next general election.) But it is tragic within the church of Jesus Christ. We wound the body of Christ when we tear at one another in anger and vengeance. We also harm the name of Christ before a watching world when we denigrate one another.

Of course, since we’re human and thus sinful, the temptation toward anger is strong. I know: For years, I harbored anger and bitterness toward brothers and sisters I believed (and still believe) caused harm to our national and state Baptist conventions. But one day (I remember the moment vividly) God told me to give up my anger. I’d savored it like a sweet, righteous dessert, and it was hard to push away. But I realized this was spiritual cannibalism, because I was chewing on another part of the body of Christ, his church.

Recognizing this truth does not mean forfeiting our right to disagree. Nor does it mean spiritual pacifism, allowing domination and coercion.

But it does mean adopting a spirit of humility and grace.

It means accepting the possibility we might be wrong.

It means refusing to treat brothers and sisters in Christ as objects to be vilified and ridiculed.

It means grace over law.

It means people over power.

Jesus said it best: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

No executive director
nominee likely before year’s end

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—A nominee for the next executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board is unlikely to be named before Jan. 1, the chairman of the search committee announced.

Ken Hugghins, pastor of Elkins Lake Baptist Church in Huntsville who is leading the committee, said the first round of candidate interviews continues. Once that is finished, the committee will begin narrowing the field further. To do that, committee members will analyze strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and compare those with the characteristics they value for the position.

The committee is looking for a person who can unite Texas Baptists behind core causes, bringing together the strength of Texas Baptist ministers, laypeople and institutions across diverse national denomination ties, he said.

Hugghins asked Texas Baptists to continue praying for the search committee and the person whom God already has chosen for the position.

“We appreciate Texas Baptists’ patience,” he said. “Please translate that to prayer. We trust that God is leading us to the person he would like to serve as the next executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Faith Digest

Black Baptist prof told to choose college or church. Professor Denise Isom loves her work at Calvin College and her Grand Rapids church, Messiah Missionary Baptist. But her employer has told she must choose one or the other. The Calvin board has refused to exempt Isom from a rule that requires professors to attend a congregation with ties to the Christian Reformed Church. The issue sparked a student “prayer protest” and discussion about how the church-membership policies may hurt diversity on campus. Isom, an assistant professor of education since 2003, is black and her research focuses on race and education. She told the board she finally found what she was looking for at the predominantly black Messiah Missionary Baptist.

Religious activists lobby for changes in farm bill. Religious leaders led by the Bread for the World advocacy group have refused to endorse subsidies for large farm operations and demanded that senators pass an agriculture bill that supports small farmers, as well as the nation’s poor. The $288 billion farm bill, reauthorized every five years, has come under attack this year from an array of groups for its large commodity payments, subsidizing production of wheat, rice, corn, cotton and soybeans. According to the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, $164.7 billion in commodity payments were made between 1995 and 2005—and 10 percent of subsidy recipients received 73 percent of the money. The group voiced support for several proposed amendments—one seeking a $250,000 yearly cap on commodity payments to farmers; another cutting commodity payments and offering free revenue insurance for all farmers, with savings redirected to nutritional support programs.

Pittsburgh takes step toward leaving Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Pittsburgh has taken a big step out the door of the Episcopal Church, declaring itself at odds with the denomination’s more liberal view of Scripture and homosexuality and paving the way to join a more conservative Anglican branch. By a 227-82 ballot, lay and ordained delegates to Pittsburgh’s annual convention voted to change their diocese’s constitution, removing language that requires “accession” to the national church. Pittsburgh is the third U.S. diocese to take that step, following San Joaquin, Calif., and Quincy, Ill. Constitutional changes require the approval of two consecutive diocesan conventions. San Joaquin is scheduled to hold its second vote on the constitutional change in December.

Pundit/professor named Vatican ambassador. President Bush has nominated Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor and conservative commentator, as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Glendon, 69, is a longtime opponent of abortion and gay marriage and has written widely on culture and ethics in books and scholarly journals. Her appointment must be confirmed by the Senate. The Massachusetts native has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and—until her nomination—was an adviser to the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Singer/songwriter shares
life story through music

By Leann Callaway

Special to the Baptist Standard

ARLINGTON— While leading worship at this year’s Focus Conference for students and Texas Baptist Youth Ministry Conclave, Charlie Hall shared his life story through songs.

Through times of soul-searching, personal struggles and trials, Hall offered a personal message to youth and college students.

“I love people who question things and are trying to figure things out. That’s one of the reasons I love leading worship for youth and college students,” Hall said.

During his own wayward teenage years, Hall said he turned away from the church. But while he was in high school, he made a profession of faith in Christ and that turned his life around.

Hall started “reading the Scriptures like mad” and developed an intense desire to make an impact on people for God’s kingdom.

He even thought about becoming a pastor, but while he was attending a worship event in Oklahoma City, he felt God leading him toward a music ministry.

“I saw that when people’s hearts interacted with God through songs, that something awesome happened,” he said. 

Soon after, Hall began to lead worship at his church, and he started writing songs. He also began meeting with a small group of college students for prayer, Bible study and worship.

About that time, Louie Giglio heard some of Hall’s music and invited him to lead worship at Passion worship gatherings and conferences for college students.

As a songwriter, Hall is known for the authenticity and vulnerability expressed in his songs. From his days as a young Christian, to his struggle to find a place where his love for music and ministry could meet, to the subsequent growth of recent years, Hall uses those experiences as a way to minister to others.

“Somewhere in the beginning of 2003, disappointments were culminating for me,” Hall said. “Some of my relationships became confusing, my sister died from cancer, some of my songs were being rejected. … It made me question my calling, my artistry—everything. All my crutches were being kicked out from under me.”

With little left to lean on, Hall relied on God during those difficult times.

“It was hard, but the bottom line is that God was in all of that, preparing me for the next step,” he said. “My heart is now set on a pilgrimage towards God—no matter what. I want to help people desire God and not just humdrum through their faith.  Through pain and dark, joy, ups and downs, losses, I’m going after God, and I want to help connect people to him.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

D.C. congregation gives
homeless a ride to church

By Beckie Supiano

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Jill Peddycord and Gary Bradley bow their heads and pray in the front seats of a white van parked outside Metropolitan Baptist Church in the nation’s capital.

Peddycord asks for God’s blessing as they begin the weekly rounds of Metropolitan’s transportation ministry.

Many churches provide rides to worship services for seniors and people with disabilities. Metropolitan takes transport a step further—sending a van to pick up women from several area homeless shelters.

Metropolitan has a long-standing ministry to homeless people, but it did not always include transportation.

“The purpose is to give them an opportunity to go to church,” Peddycord said. “It’s an opportunity to introduce them to Jesus, who is called the bread of life in the Gospel of John, but they also need physical bread. We have to attend to both of those needs.”

With this in mind, Metropolitan serves breakfast and lunch to women who come from the shelters.

Metropolitan is not the only District of Columbia church to bring people from homeless shelters to services. Back to Basics, a nondenominational church, has a bus that usually can be found right behind Metropolitan’s van.

Throughout the country, transportation ministries are targeting other populations as well.

Westminster Presbyterian in Greenville, S.C., gives free rides to people visiting a family member in prison. Chinese Bible Church of Greater Boston picks up college students on campuses to bring them to church. Still others drive members to and from doctor’s appointments or the hospital, a service Black Rock Congregational Church in Fairfield, Conn., provides.

A recent National Council of Churches survey on health care ministries found that more than half the 6,000 congregations that responded offered transportation of some kind.

Metropolitan’s transportation ministry started small, with Peddycord picking up a homeless woman she had invited to church in her own car.

The next week, the same woman brought several friends. Eventually, Peddycord convinced the church to let her use its van to bring people from the homeless shelters to church.

Each Sunday, a driver and another volunteer drive from the church to several locations, picking up as many as 20 people, most of them from women’s shelters.

At one stop, Peddycord notices a woman reading in the lobby and asks if she’d like to come to church.

“Not today—maybe next week,” she responds.

A dozen women head to the van, some wearing a suit or Sunday dress, others in jeans. Most of them have been to the church before. One woman said she became a member last week.

Bradley, the driver, spent time in a shelter himself, and it was there he experienced a desire to come to church while listening to a choir on tape.

“I started in the back,” Bradley said, gesturing to the passenger section of the van. “Now I’m a driver.”

For Peddycord, this ministry is “where I could truly see the work of God—the hungry fed, the naked clothed and the good news given to the poor.”

That’s the goal, said Larry Sampson, who directs Metropolitan’s ministry to the homeless.

“There are certain people who don’t come to church for whatever reason,” Sampson said. “They may have been burned, they may be scared or just have never gotten into it. We have to take Christ outside the church to meet them where they are.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Christian leaders urge compassion
in debate regarding immigration

By Heather Donckels

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The faith community needs to help bridge the gap between immigrants and a society that often rejects them, representatives of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform said last week.

“We call on people of faith to stand with immigrants as fellow human beings deserving of God’s love and to advocate for effective immigration policies consistent with our history as a nation,” said James Winkler, who heads the United Methodists’ Board of Church and Society.

A new attitude toward the ongoing immigration debate is just as necessary as new legislation, the religious leaders said.

“How we talk about undocumented people is a matter of … life and dignity,” said Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners community and the Call to Renewal movement.

According to a report released by the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the talk about immigrants has worsened recently, resulting in what Winkler called the “demonization of immigrants.”

The report documents “the increasing prevalence of mistreatment of immigrants” in the United States and says “immigrant families are ripped apart and individual undocumented immigrants are treated as less than human.”

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said although Christians for Comprehensive Immig-ration Reform does not foresee immigration reform being debated in Congress until early 2009, the group is concerned with how immigrants will be treated in the meantime.

Christians in the United States should reach out to immigrants with compassion, an issue at the very heart of the Christian faith, said John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the Catholic bishops’ committee on migration.

“When Jesus spoke those words in Matthew’s Gospel—when you welcome the stranger, you welcome me—I can’t help but think he was thinking of his own beginnings when he became one of us,” he said.

Wallis voiced concern that Christian ministry to immigrants is close to becoming illegal, but he doesn’t doubt the church will defy civil laws and do what is right.

“I think you’re going to hear from people in churches across the political spectrum that ‘if you tell us Christian ministry is illegal, we will go ahead and do Christian ministry, whether it’s legal or not,’” he said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Did the Bible’s bad girl get a bad rap?

By Heather Donckels

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Few historical characters rival Jezebel for negative stereotypes. Today, “she’s a household word for badness,” one scholar said. Culturally, she’s portrayed as a brash, sexually provocative woman wearing too much make-up, another observed.

So in her new book, author Lesley Hazleton strives to set aside stereotypes and cultural images and show whom Jezebel, one of history’s most infamous women, really was.

“She was a magnificent, proud, powerful queen of Israel,” said Hazleton, author of the recently released book, Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen. “She was anything but the harlot and the slut of legend.”

Jezebel was a Phoenician princess whose marriage to Israel’s King Ahab was one of political convenience. She ran into trouble with the prophet Elijah when she brought her many gods to monotheistic Israel.

After a 31-year reign, she died a gruesome death, pushed out of a window and trampled by horses, then eaten by dogs.

In today’s society, Jezebel practically means prostitute, an association Hazleton said springs from the “dismaying literalism” with which people have read an Old Testament metaphor.

Biblical authors, not unlike modern writers, knew they could get their readers’ attention by sexualizing their material, Hazleton said. And so, they used the term “harlot” to describe people who abandoned Israel’s God to pursue foreign gods.

Jehu, the man who killed Jezebel, forever linked the word “harlot” with her name when he asked her son: “What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?” (2 Kings 9:22).

Alice Ogden Bellis, a professor at Howard University School of Divinity and author of Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes, a book about Old Testament women, agreed the writer’s metaphor has been dangerously misconstrued.

“The narrator is not accusing her (Jezebel) of any sexual impropriety,” she said.

Hazleton’s book is the latest installment in a continuing trend of books focusing on the overlooked stories of biblical women. Liz Curtis Higgs wrote Bad Girls of the Bible in 1999, focusing on some of the not-so-nice women in the Bible.

She agreed Jezebel had a powerful personality and strong leadership abilities, but does not put the queen in such a good light in her book.

“Hers is a tragic story when you get right down to it, because she had so much potential,” Higgs said. “But she was working for the wrong God.”

And while Hazleton wrote her book to debunk centuries-long legends about Jezebel, Higgs had a different purpose.

“I write about the bad girls (of the Bible) primarily … to show the goodness of God, because he loves and uses his people even though they’re flawed,” she explained.

Bellis, meanwhile, wrote her book when she couldn’t find a textbook to use in her graduate school class on Hebrew women. Her work surveys the literature—academic, creative and sermonic—written about biblical women.

In the last 30 years, “most of the books written about women in the Bible have been written by women,” Bellis observed. And while some women wrote on this subject before the 1970s, she said most treatments were nonacademic.

The advent of birth control, though, combined with increased accessibility to higher education, launched women from the home into careers that allowed them to write scholarly works.

“Basically, the profusion of books on women in the Bible … has coincided with the women’s movement and the increasing numbers of academically trained female biblical scholars,” Bellis said.

Recent years have brought an “increased interest in historical women, period,” Higgs said. Women are interested in stories that have stood the test of time, she said.

As a Christian, Higgs finds herself inspired by stories of virtuous women. But as a human, the stories of the Bible’s “bad girls” intrigue her.

“They’re the ones I’m most like,” she said.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Texas Baptist Forum

Confession & churches

As a minister to youth, I was perplexed by Marv Knox’s approval of a forced public confession by two teenagers (Oct. 15). I would support these young people if they chose to confess their sin publicly. But forced confession is not true confession, just as forced conversion is not true conversion.

• Jump to online-only letters below

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“Hell is the crazy cousin that Protestants keep locking in the basement. … A lot of people don't want to talk about hell and engage it because if there is a hell, there’s a possibility they are going there.” Greg Stier President of Dare 2 Share Ministries, an evangelical youth ministry in Denver (The Washington Times/RNS) “There’s another church in our community that doesn’t have a baptistery, and that pastor and I were talking. He has five folks. I have three. I told him we might want to wait just a little bit, and I’ve never had to do that.” Brian Harris Pastor of Rock Springs Baptist Church in Rock Springs, S.C., on the drought that has prevented church members from filling up their baptistery and delayed the baptism of new members (WYFF4.com/RNS) “When I was growing up, denominations were a big deal. I don’t see that today. In our church, we have Baptists, Methodists, Jewish people—all kinds of people. I think a lot of those walls have come down.” Joel Osteen Houston megachurch pastor and author (USA Today/RNS)

I also fear many churches would not have reacted as this church did. Instead of humble acceptance of these young people, forced confessions often create communities that reject, despise, humiliate and condemn sinners, even repentant ones.

I find it alarming that while Jesus, in John 8, refused to humiliate the woman, loving her even in her sin (“neither do I condemn you”) and yet still confronted her sin (“go and sin no more”), often our attitude is to condemn as the Pharisees did.

I applaud the church in Knox’s story for reaching out in acceptance and forgiveness, allowing their arms and tears to express God’s love to these two precious youth. Though these youth’s actions were scandalous, these youth were not treated as scandalous.

This leaves us with a penetrating question about the condition of our churches: Are we ready to embrace those who confess such sin? Are we ready to forgive, restoring gently, looking out for ourselves that we too may not be tempted (Galatians 6:1)? The issue is not merely about sinners “owning up” to their sin, but also churches “owning up” to their responsibility to love and unconditionally accept and restore those who confess.

Matt Brown

Burnet

Slow greening

I’m all for going green. Each person can do the things mentioned in the Oct. 1 edition, and it will help some. But industry really needs to be cleaned up to make a big difference.

We have a real problem in that area, because there is no consensus on the best form of alternate energy. Ethanol has major problems, because it puts out as much carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide as oil fuels. If we are to grow massive amounts of corn, we need to feed the poor, not use it as fuel. Cellulose ethanol may be a better option; then we can feed the poor and use the byproducts as fuel. Algae has good possibilities too. Space-based solar energy would probably be the cleanest and most powerful option. There many more possibilities.

Let’s not make a fast, rash decision and hurt ourselves in the long run. Let’s develop and share clean technology for now and do more research to find the best solution, not a fast, politically correct solution that will show itself as a bad decision in the future.

Jean Whitmore

Okinawa, Japan

Pastor searches

Much debate has gone on about the appropriate manner in which a search committee looks for a pastor. The virtues of search committees secretly infiltrating a church to decide whether or not to steal the pastor away have been extolled and condemned. 

However, no one has mentioned looking at resumes sent in to a church by potential pastors who actually are looking for a church. Why go to the trouble of stealing a pastor away from a congregation where he or she is content when there are ministers who actively are seeking a congregation? 

As one who has sent out resumes and waited, I would like to encourage search committees to give time to look at the resumes they are sent. I have been a member of churches that chose pastors based on the resumes they recieved; those churches were very pleased with their decisions.

David Tankersley

Abilene

What do you think? Send letters to Editor Marv Knox by mail: P.O. Box 660267, Dallas 75266-0267; or by e-mail: marvknox@baptiststandard.com.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Churches, volunteer receive
LifeCall missions recognition

A longtime Texas Baptist missions volunteer and five churches recently received LifeCall Missions honors.

Sue Low received the LifeCall Missions lifetime achievement award in a presentation at Hampton Road Baptist Church in DeSoto. Low, 91, began ministry in jails and prisons more than 70 years ago and continued until failing eyesight limited her abilities last year.

For many years, she made twice-weekly visits to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center in downtown Dallas—a practice she and her late husband, Asa, initiated and she continued after his death in 1996.

In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board recognized her as Mission Service Corps volunteer of the year. She was commissioned as a Mission Service Corps volunteer in 1994 and as a LifeCall volunteer 10 years later.

LifeCall church of the year honors went to Primera Iglesia Bautista in Alamo in the small-church category and First Baptist Church of Vernon in the large-church category.

Primera Iglesia Bautista in Alamo recently sent 33 of its 120 members to serve over a three-week period in Costa Rica to conduct Vacation Bible Schools and train churches in how to lead them. Team members also participated in construction projects in churches and orphanages.

First Baptist Church in Vernon involved 370 members of all ages in a “Faith in Action Sunday” event to meet needs in their community. Members worked in the yards and performed home repairs for elderly and disabled residents, visited homebound people and conducted Backyard Bible Clubs for children who were not attending church on Sunday morning.

First Baptist Church in Mexia received the LifeCall Philippian Award for initiating a partnership with Antioch Baptist Church in Mexia to minister among African-Americans in their community.

Primera Iglesia Bautista in Mission received the LifeCall Genesis Award for developing an innovative community ministry to reach children and teenagers. The church developed a skateboard park and multi-use building for Christian concerts. More than 60 young people have become involved in weekly Bible studies each Wednesday, and special events have drawn from 200 to 400 teenagers.

Oak Street Baptist Church in Graham received the LifeCall Salt and Light Award. In addition to local missions and ministries in its community, the church also sent volunteers to work in New Orleans with disaster recovery and reconstruction following Hurricane Katrina, and members have served in church-starting efforts and ministries to orphans in Ukraine and Uganda.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

Couple offers hard-to-place children
a family where everyone fits right in

By Analiz González

Buckner International

LUBBOCK—Robert and Sheila Lee waited until their four children reached their teens and 20s before starting over with a younger batch—Jazmine, 7, Nico, 6, and Kylie, 2.

The couple brought the three foster children home in March and April of 2005. The plan was to foster them through Buckner, then let them move on.

But the Lees were hooked. A year and a half after the new three landed in their home, the Lees began the adoption process.

“We had no idea we’d get as attached to them as we did,” Mrs. Lee said, looking at Jazmine who hung over her shoulder. “They fit so well with our kids. They’re part of us now.”

The Lees, now in their 40s, said they struggled back and forth before deciding to adopt because they didn’t want to cheat the children out of having younger parents. But Kylie has shaken-baby syndrome and Jazmine and Nico are Hispanic. They knew special-needs children and non-Anglos are harder to place in adoptive homes.

The Lees didn’t want their babies in foster care forever. So, they began the adoption process.

Mrs. Lee was amazed at how the new children fit in with each other and their existing family. Jazmine and Nico had an older sister with medical problems, so the seizures suffered by Kylie didn’t scare them.

The Lees’ biological children long had done volunteer work and participated in mission trips, so they were ready to serve.

And if it hadn’t been for the Lees’ medical background, they never would have been able to care for Kylie, who used to have up to 30 seizures a day. Lee is a lab and x-ray technician, and his wife is a licensed vocational nurse.

“Everyone just fit,” Lee said.

Still, the family had to make several adjustments to accommodate the new children.

There are Legos and dolls in the living room and a playground in the backyard. And Mrs. Lee has to drive Kylie to Dallas every couple of months so she can see a doctor. Kylie has had about 30 doctor’s appointments and four hospital admissions since she’s been under the Lees’ care.

The Lees expected the adoption process to be complete in mid-November. Weeks before, Jazmine was already making plans.

“When I get adopted, me and Amy (the Lee’s 17-year-old daughter) are going to the mall,” she said. “And when Kylie grows up, we’re all going to go to Hawaii.”

Kylie also attends physical therapy twice a week, and the Lees get help from a nurse who visits their home during the week.

Lee even quit his job for one year so that he could stay home and care for Kylie, whom doctors said would never walk or talk. Now, she does both, and he insists the sacrifice was worth the reward.

“She’s our miracle baby,” Mrs. Lee said. “We just didn’t accept the diagnosis that she wouldn’t get better. She’ll look at me now and say, ‘I love you Mama.’ For a child who’s not supposed to talk, it’s just amazing.”

And the Lees don’t mind having a full house.

“A lot of people don’t understand that it’s a calling God has put on our lives,” Mrs. Lee said. “Six kids at home and one away is the norm for us now.”

But she added that bringing in more children has had its challenges, like juggling Kylie’s medical condition with work and raising teens and young children at the same time.

Jazmine has grown a lot since she first came to live with them, Mrs. Lee said, remembering how scared she was when she first came in.

“One night she was sitting on my lap and we were talking about Jesus. Jazmine said, ‘Who is Jesus?’ and I said Jesus is the one in your heart. Then Jazmine said with teary eyes, ‘I don’t feel anything in my heart.’

“Since then, Jazmine has grown close to God,” Mrs. Lee said. “She spends time praying and looking forward to church. She says she wants to be a foster parent one day.”

Although Kylie, Nico and Jazmine found a loving home with the Lee family, many children still are displaced.

“There are kids sleeping in CPS offices because there aren’t enough homes for them,” said Anna Rodriguez, program manager for Buckner in Midland. “They are our responsibility.”

For information on becoming a foster parent, visit www.buckner.org.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 11/16/07

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s …
a superhero in a burqa?

By Beckie Supiano

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON—Move over, Fantastic Four. There’s a new team of superheroes in town.

Meet Jabbar the Powerful, a Hulk-like strong man, and Noora the Light, who can create holograms. Darr the Afflicter wields powerful pain waves. One hero, The Hidden, wears a burqa.

All are part of the 99, Muslim superheroes created by Kuwait-based Teshkeel Comics. Each has a power based on one of the 99 characteristics of God described by Islam.

Superheroes from the new comic book, The 99, include Jabbar the Powerful, a Hulk-like strongman; Noora the Light, who can create holograms; and Darr the Afflicter, who wields powerful pain waves.

The comic, already sold throughout the Middle East, made its U.S. debut recently, and the new issue, “Welcome to America,” finds Jabbar, Noora and Darr—like other immigrants—arriving at New York’s JFK airport.

While the comic has its roots in Muslim and Arab culture, creator Naif Al-Mutawa said the series is geared toward a wider audience. An American reader wouldn’t need to know anything about the Muslim world to understand the storyline, he said.

Edina Lekovic, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, thinks the comic could find a broad American audience. The key, she said, will be appealing to human values rather than faith principles.

“These 99 names of God are attributes people aspire to,” Lekovic said. “These are not shared solely by Muslims. They are human values and characteristics.”

The 99 features a diverse cast of characters, each from a different country. But the comic’s back-story is decidedly Arab. It’s based on the destruction of Baghdad’s ancient libraries in the Mongol invasion of 1258—a familiar story in the Middle East.

Al-Mutawa said it was important to create modern cultural heroes for young people in the Middle East. His superhero concept merges the American/Judeo-Christian model of go-it-alone action heroes with the Japanese model of heroes who work as a team.

That kind of cultural hero also can resonate with American Muslims—even those with no connection to the Middle East. Eboo Patel, who heads a Chicago-based interfaith youth group and is a frequent commentator on Muslim culture, said heroes serve a dual function—exemplifying values to humanity at large and speaking specifically to the group that shares their cultural background.

In Al-Mutawa’s fictionalized history, the Mongols invaded with the express purpose of razing the library and destroying Baghdad’s knowledge. This wisdom, however, was hidden in 99 jewels, which were scattered throughout the world. In the comic, modern-day character Ramzi Razem has learned of the gems’ ability to provide individuals with superhuman abilities and coordinates the heroes’ activities.

While the 99 heroes display attributes of God, each has only one, and they must work in teams of three.

Female characters are dressed more modestly than those in most comics, and they are shown in various forms of Muslim dress. Some, but not all, wear headscarves, and those who do display different countries’ interpretations.

And while the diversity of characters demonstrates Al-Mutawa’s conviction that “there is not one Islam,” he is nonetheless conscientious of Muslim social mores.

“The 99,” he said, “won’t be dating each other.”

By design, the comic never mentions Islam, Allah or the Quran. Nonetheless, it has been banned in Saudi Arabia. Apparently censors thought a promotional tagline that mentioned the 99 characteristics of God was blasphemous, Al-Mutawa said. This decision was arbitrary, he said, noting that while the comic books themselves are censored, a comic strip featuring the 99 runs in Saudi newspapers.

Even if not every American reader is dazzled by The 99, the real purpose of the U.S. launch is “visibility,” Al-Mutawa said in an interview.

“Our eye is on animation and the film market,” Al-Mutawa said.

Branching out in those markets likely would require American resources.

Troy Brownfield, a columnist for the comic book news site Newsarama, said in the publishing industry at large, and for comic books in particular, most revenue comes from advertising and licensing. Comics alone rarely pay the bills.

The 99 is Tesh-keel’s first original title, but the company also translates and distributes books from comic book giants DC and Marvel in the Middle East.

Teshkeel is self-publishing The 99 in the U.S. In order to have The 99 published and distributed by Marvel or DC, Teshkeel probably would have to sell the comic, said Sven Larsen, Teshkeel’s chief operating officer. Big companies usually stick with books to which they own the intellectual property rights, he noted, except in cases of high-profile tie-ins, such as comics based on a video game.

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