Posted: 12/21/07

Novelist Grisham joins New
Baptist Covenant speakers lineup

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

ATLANTA (ABP)—Best-selling author John Grisham, whose recent novels have revealed his deeply rooted Christian faith, will deliver a rare public speech at the New Baptist Covenant meeting in late January.

Grisham, a member of University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Va., joins a lineup of Baptists who will address the three-day interracial meeting in Atlanta, including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and Republican senators Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa).

“The Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant,” organized by Carter, will seek to unite an estimated 20 million Baptists Jan. 30 – Feb. 1 around an agenda of Christ-centered social ministry. Forty Baptist organizations in the United States and Canada are participating, including the four main black Baptist conventions and most of the other Baptist denominations except the Southern Baptist Convention.

The 53-year-old Grisham, a lifelong Baptist, has taught Sunday school to young couples and 4-year-olds and regularly goes with fellow church members on mission-service trips.

In announcing the addition of Grisham to the Covenant lineup, program co-chair Jimmy Allen described the author as “a Baptist churchman, not only in regular worship but also in active service. The subthemes of his fiction reveal his understanding of the plight of the poor, his commitment to seek justice in our criminal system, his concerns for environment, and his descriptions of the challenge to reach across the racial lines that divide us.”

Allen said Grisham will speak Jan. 31, during the second evening session of the pan-Baptist meeting, on the topic of “Respecting Diversity.”

Grisham, a self-described “moderate Baptist” whose 21 books have sold more than 100 million copies, has said he probably wouldn’t even be a novelist if weren’t for a concern for social justice. As a young attorney in Mississippi, he said, he heard the testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. He determined to write about the tragic consequences, leading to his first novel, A Time to Kill.

Since 1993, Grisham has made almost yearly mission trips with his church to Brazil. “We went down there for the purpose of constructing a church in this little town sort of in the outback,” he told USA Today. “And it was such a rewarding experience that I’ve done it several times since.”

Those experiences surface in his novel The Testament, in which the lead character, an attorney, goes to Brazil in search of a missionary who has inherited the bulk of a billionaire’s fortune.

Although intensively private about his charity work, Grisham and his wife, Renee, have set up a charitable foundation that supports mostly Christian efforts, raised $8.8 million in grants for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and built six Little League baseball fields in his hometown of Oxford, Miss.

A member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990, Grisham is a longtime Democrat who frequently donates to Democratic candidates and recently hosted a fundraiser for Hilary Clinton.

Although the New Baptist Covenant meeting will occur in the heat of the presidential-nomination season—and the lineup includes the famous husband of Democratic front-runner Clinton—Carter has said there is no political intention for the gathering. Instead Carter and co-organizer Bill Underwood, president of Mercer University, are seeking to unite Baptists around an agenda of ministry, inspired by Jesus’ sermon in Luke 4:18-19.

The themes of the sermon comprise the core of a statement drafted in April 2006 by Carter and other Baptist leaders. The statement commits the Covenant group “to promote peace with justice, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity.”

Those same themes will provide the framework for the gathering’s plenary sessions, Carter said.

Republican Grassley and Democrat Bill Clinton will speak the evening of Friday, Feb. 1. South Carolina Senator Graham, a Republican who served on the Clinton impeachment panel, will speak Thursday morning. Nobel Prize winner Gore will deliver his presentation on global warming during a luncheon Thursday.

Grisham, the latest addition, fills a keynote slot vacated by commentator Bill Moyers, who withdrew because of a schedule conflict.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor and governor of Arkansas, originally was announced as a speaker but withdrew four days later to protest Carter’s characterization of President Bush’s administration as “the worst in history.”

Joining Grisham and the politicians as keynote speakers are sociologist and activist Tony Campolo, seminary professor Joel Gregory, African-Americans pastors Charles Adams and William Shaw, Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, and Atlanta-area pastor Julie Pennington-Russell.

Several dozen special-interest sessions will focus on religious liberty, poverty, racism, AIDS, faith in public policy, stewardship of the earth, evangelism, financial stewardship, prophetic preaching and other topics.

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

Posted: 12/21/07

Missouri leader who warned of Islamic
takeover hired to aid world-mission effort

RICHMOND, Va. (ABP)—David Clippard, the former Missouri Baptist Convention executive who earned national headlines when he said Islam has a plan to “conquer and occupy” the United States, was hired Dec. 10 by the Southern Baptist Convention’s world-missions agency to enlist Baptist churches to spread the gospel to non-Christians worldwide.

According to a news release from the International Mission Board, Clippard will serve as managing director of the IMB’s church services team. He will use his new position to enable all Southern Baptist churches to reach the world’s 6,000 unreached people groups, the release said. He is especially interested in involving young pastors in the outreach.

Clippard won national attention in 2006 when he preached a sermon to the Missouri convention claiming the “real threat” to the United States is that “Islam has a strategic plan to conquer and occupy America.”

He claimed the Saudi Arabian government paid for 15,000 Muslim college students to come to North America to study and funded scores of Islamic study centers and mosques here with the intention of taking the continent for Islam. “They are after our sons and daughters, our students,” he said.

Hired in 2002 as executive director-treasurer for Missouri’s Southern Baptist-related convention, Clippard was later fired by the same fundamentalist leaders who hired him. Himself a conservative, Clippard ultimately failed in demonstrating the solidarity for which convention leaders had hoped.

He was fired April 10 after divisions within the convention’s Executive Board emerged regarding leadership styles, spending and real estate. He had recently settled a harassment lawsuit involving convention controller Carol Kaylor and been charged with having an “autocratic and dismissive” leadership style.

Clippard, who has also worked with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and Evangelism Explosion International, spent much of his tenure at the Missouri convention working with projects involving El Salvador, Romania, Iraq and Turkey.

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

Posted: 12/21/07

CBF to lease building from Mercer

ATLANTA (ABP)—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has signed a 10-year lease with Mercer University for offices previously occupied by the Georgia Baptist Convention.

The state convention recently moved to new headquarters in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.

CBF will rent the offices—which are part of Mercer’s Atlanta campus—in an agreement that solidifies the existing partnership between the two groups.

It also links CBF with other Baptist organizations that have moved or are moving into the facility.

CBF has occupied offices elsewhere on the campus since 1997, occupying space on the second floor of Mercer’s McAfee School of Theology building.

With the new lease, the Fellowship will move into a 19,000-square-foot space on the first floor of a facility that houses administrative offices and conference facilities.

The building is also the new home of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, which moved into the facility earlier this year. The American Baptist Historical Society is scheduled to occupy space in the building as well.

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

Posted: 12/21/07

Baptist outreach defuses
Ebola fear in western Uganda

By Sue Sprenkle

International Mission Board

FORT PORTAL, Uganda (BP)—When the deadly Ebola virus began spreading in western Uganda, Southern Baptist missionaries and Baptist Global Response moved to respond.

Thirty-five people have died since the Ugandan Health Ministry documented a new strain of the virus. Although now apparently declining, the deadly hemorrhagic fever broke out in Uganda's Bundibugyo district in August, killing a number of people before tests confirmed it was Ebola Nov. 29.

As word about the deaths spread throughout the district, panic set in. Most people remembered the last Ebola outbreak in Uganda. In 2000, 425 people caught it, and more than half died.

Missionaries Lew and Brandi Johnson worked in partnership with Baptist Global Response to educate their neighbors about the deadly fever. Flyers explaining how Ebola is spread were handed out in the local language of Rutooro, as well as in English.

The virus is thought to be transmitted by consuming infected bush meat and also can be spread by contact with the blood secretions of infected people.

“In the beginning, the people did not understand how Ebola was transmitted. The people have heard lots of rumors but not many facts,” Johnson said. “Anyone who gets sick is suspected of having Ebola. It was rumored that different tribes were the cause. It is also thought to be a curse from God.”

About 7,000 flyers have been circulated through businesses, churches and individuals. As Ugandans in this district learn about Ebola, they also learn about the gospel story, which is printed on the reverse side. The educational flyer is turning up in villages all over the region. One Muslim man asked for a Bible because he was scared of Ebola and thought he might find answers in Scripture.

“Just as Ebola is affecting us all, the people are having hope and truth put in their hands and can share it with others,” Johnson said. “The Batooro are getting the story—creation to resurrection—in their language. This is turning into a mass seed-sowing distribution.”

Mark Hatfield, Baptist Global Response area director for sub-Saharan Africa, said this distribution found a niche response ministry to Ebola that is appropriate for Baptist Global Response and the International Mission Board.

“We are not equipped to provide primary care to people suffering from Ebola, but we were able to assist in controlling the fear that was running rampant in the districts surrounding the outbreak,” Hatfield said.

“It has taken courage on the part of Lew and Brandi to keep living close to the outbreak with their new baby. They demonstrated by their actions that when we have knowledge about the disease and confidence in our Lord, we provide assistance to others—people who care responding to people in need.”

The Johnsons plan to follow up the flyer distribution with hygiene classes in areas ripe for new church plants.

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

Posted: 12/21/07

Blogging pastor lauded for defending
fired female seminary professor

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

MINNEAPOLIS (ABP)—One of Southern Baptists’ most outspoken pastors has been recognized for his defense of women—even though he does not believe women should serve as pastors.

Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., and former president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, recently received the Priscilla and Aquila Award from Christians for Biblical Equality.

The award honors people who, like early church leaders Priscilla and Aquila, faced persecution for the sake of the gospel. With the award, CBE honors those who have “risked their necks for the sake of biblical equality,” the organization’s website says.

The non-profit organization, which promotes gift-based—rather than gender-based—Christian service for men and women, lauded Burleson for using his blog to alert Baptists to the firing of Hebrew professor Sheri Klouda. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson fired Klouda earlier in 2007 for holding a “position reserved for a man.”

Klouda, a graduate of Criswell College and Southwestern, said school administrators had previously told her she would not be fired when Patterson came to the post in 2003. After the dismissal, Southwestern trustee Chairman Van McClain described her earlier hiring to the position as “a momentary lax of the parameters.”

Southern Baptists’ 200 Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal calls on women to “submit graciously” to their husband’s leadership and says they are “unqualified by Scripture” to serve as pastors. The statement does not address women in other leadership roles.

Some Southern Baptists, like Burleson, feel Southwestern’s dismissal of Klouda was unethical, illegal and a far reach beyond the convention’s stated doctrinal positions.

Through his website, Burleson raised thousands of dollars to assist Klouda during a period of financial hardship brought on by her dismissal and her husband’s health problems.

Klouda, who now teaches at Taylor University in Indiana, is suing Southwestern and Patterson for fraud, breach of contract and defamation. An attempt by the seminary to have the lawsuit dismissed failed recently.

Burleson, who has gained notoriety in recent years for calling for a stop to the ever-narrowing circle of participation in the SBC, is a trustee of the International Mission Board. He has claimed that fellow trustees loyal to Patterson are implementing policies that exclude many missionary candidates and undermine the leadership of IMB President Jerry Rankin.

Burleson’s blogging about issues related to the IMB and the SBC has troubled some trustees. Last year they approved, and then withdrew, a motion asking SBC messengers to remove Burleson. But in November they accomplished much the same by censuring and effectively barring him from carrying out the duties of his office.

While Burleson said he maintains his view that women should not serve as senior pastors, he said such decisions should rest with autonomous congregations rather than Baptist conventions. Women’s roles, he said, should not be considered a primary and divisive theological issue.

In a posting at his website, Burleson even suggested that he might be wrong about his current view on women’s roles.

“I wonder if dogmatism against women in ministry might one day be viewed the same as we now view Southern Baptists’ former dogmatism in defending slavery. I don’t know. I’m just asking,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I refuse to be dogmatic on my complementarian beliefs and will listen to my friends who are egalitarian.”

Egalitarians believe men and women should be treated equally, while complementarians believe women are limited to roles that “complement” male leadership. Both groups claim biblical support for their positions.

“This does not mean I doubt the word of God,” Burleson added. “I fully trust God’s word. It means I fully comprehend my own fallibility in properly interpreting the word of God.

“Let’s dialogue about the issue. Let’s debate the issue. Let’s disagree over the issue. But we should never divide over the issue. There are far more important doctrines that unite us.”

CBE also honored Mary Lambert, who was asked by the pastor of Watertown Baptist Church, an American Baptist Church in New York state, to forego her position as a Sunday school teacher to adults. He asked her to leave on the grounds that he believes the Bible prohibits women to teach men. Lambert had taught Sunday school more than 60 years.

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

Posted: 12/21/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for December 30

Jesus and hopeless situations

• Mark 4:35-5:43

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

During a political campaign season, presidential candidates running for elected office are examined under the microscope of the American public. Amidst the many storms of scrutiny, they must respond to questions raised about their personal and professional lives. While their public records are visible for all to see, their private worlds are exposed through both facts and rumors that wash up on the shores of newspaper headlines and tabloid magazines. When it finally comes to who gets elected, we can hope it is a person who possesses those rare qualities of experience, character and self-knowledge; one who is not so whipped by the shifting winds of popularity that they do or say whatever it takes to deny public failure or prevent personal humiliation.

One New York Times columnist recently wrote the American presidency is a bacterium. David Brooks comments: “It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House and is best for the country.”

For a printer-friendly version, click on the printer icon at bottom of page.

What the presidency does to a politician is what life can do to a person. Life can be a bacterium that finds the wounds of a person or even helps create the conditions that make those wounds possible. Situations and circumstances make people vulnerable to fear and physical and psychic illnesses and even death. At one time or another and to one degree or another, life presents itself as an experience of suffering.

It can be claimed that Jesus is for all times the leader of the free world (the whole world he came to set free). Yet, like his followers, even Jesus would not be able to boast about being the person with the fewest wounds.

While there were political dimensions to his ministry, Jesus never was purely a political personality. He never seemed to care about his public personae as much as a savvy politician does. He cared so little about his public reputation, he ate and drank openly with sinners and risked religious ridicule by violating ritual purity laws such as touching the woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years.

The people’s desperate times called for Jesus’ dramatic gestures of healing and renewal. In the episodes of this passage, Jesus tends mercifully to the “walking wounded” of his time. It is a tender foreshadowing of a time when Jesus would have no one to tend his wounds.

Mark’s Gospel again portrays the power of Jesus to respond to the troubles and crises of the people he encountered. As these miracle stories show, Jesus created peace out of chaos, ordering the storm to stand still. He restored the sanity and peace of the mentally disturbed man by banishing the spirit that had possessed him. He healed the woman who had suffered hemorrhaging 12 years. He revived the life a 12-year-old girl, who everyone else believed to be dead.

Just as Mark before had disclosed the kingdom of God through the stories Jesus told, he now discloses the identity of Jesus as Christ through the acts Jesus performs. These miracles accompany Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. While his message about the kingdom of God was his primary mission, the miracles provided signs the message he came proclaiming was indeed the truth and power of God.

This is where the contemporary reader must ask an important question about these miracle stories. Rather than interpret these stories in “scientific” categories, it may be more faithful to Mark’s Gospel to interpret these stories in “religious” categories.

If Jesus is to be a living reality that makes a difference in the hopeless experiences of our lives, the question is not, “Did Jesus perform these miracles” The more enduring question becomes: “What do these miracle stories mean for our lives today?” If there is enduring truth to be told, then the calming of the storm is not an occasional event that happened only once upon a time. It must be a living experience with the Spirit of Christ that can happen for us today.

Consider two stories from this passage. Mark’s first storm story helps us understand that riding in the eye of a hurricane is more than just a boat ride on a stormy day. For some of us, storm stories don’t have anything to do with the weather. Scientifically, Doppler radars and 7-day forecasts may tell us to bring an umbrella to work, evacuate a city or take cover. But they don’t provide much help when the biopsy test results come back positive or our marital relationship is on the rocks or when the storms we feel are inside of us rather than around us. To say Jesus calmed this storm on the Sea of Galilee doesn’t give us much comfort until we come to know that Jesus has the power to calm the storms of our lives.

Mark’s second story about the demoniac deserves considerable attention with regard to the men in charge of the pigs that were driven in to the sea. The meaning of this miracle story affects us in the way Christ tends to affect change in the status quo. Obviously a man was healed in this story, yet the owners of the pigs had a different perspective, because their herd had been destroyed. This meant economic loss to them.

How are we like the owners and keepers of the pigs? What are the ways in which we don’t want to be disturbed? Maybe we don’t want our comforts, our money, our beliefs or our relationships to be different or disturbed by Christ’s call to us. Maybe our fear makes us cling to life as we know it rather than life as God wants it to be.

Whatever it is, this story makes a claim on our lives that goes beyond us making a claim about the scientific aspects of this miracle story. The words Jesus spoke to the wind and the waves are the same ones he spoke to the demon-possessed man in Mark 1:25. Perhaps they are words we need him to speak to us, too: “Peace! Be still!” (4:39).

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

Posted: 12/20/07

Board voting on Daehnert
as interim executive director

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Jan Daehnert, a retired Baptist Building employee who led the state convention’s intentional interim pastor program several years, has been recommended as interim executive director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

Board directors are casting e-mail ballots beginning today. If elected, Daehnert will start work in January, meeting with Executive Board staff. He will begin service as interim executive director when Charles Wade retires Jan. 31 and will continue in that role until a new executive director assumes duties.

The interim executive director will assume leadership of a staff that went through a round of layoffs in recent months and has experienced significant changes in key executive staff posts.

In early October, 29 full-time employees—12 program staff and 19 in support and clerical positions—received notice their positions were being eliminated at the end of that month. Several part-time staff positions also were cut.

Then Ron Gunter—chief operating officer for the BGCT and the person most responsible for implementing Executive Board staff reorganization over the last two years—resigned effective Nov. 30.

If elected as interim, Daehnert said he hopes to “begin the healing,” encourage and affirm staff, ensure fiscal responsibility and “plow the ground to make sure the transition for the new executive director is as smooth as possible.”

Daehnert expects his time as interim to be relatively brief, but he hopes during his short tenure to model inclusiveness and listen to Texas Baptists.

He noted particularly the contested presidential race—and close vote—at the BGCT annual meeting and the need to be attentive to all churches that related to the state convention.

“I’d like to make sure nobody feels left out,” he said.

Daehnert, 66, headed the BGCT Executive Board staff’s leadership team before he retired in March 2006. Previously, he was director of the minister/church relations office and director of the bivocational/smaller church development department.

Daehnert joined the BGCT Executive Board staff in 1967 as a director of student ministries at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Later, he served at the University of North Texas. From 1975 to 1983, he was associate director of student ministries and from 1983 to 1993 was director of personnel administration.

He served two years with Drug Prevention Resources in Irving. He has been a pastor and has served as interim pastor for more than 50 Texas churches.

He is a graduate of Howard Payne University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and earned a doctor of ministries degree from Fuller Theological Seminary.

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

Posted: 12/19/07

Executive director interim
candidate to be announced

Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board directors will be polled Thursday afternoon, Dec. 20, by e-mail ballot regarding a prospective interim executive director. The Baptist Standard has interviewed the candidate and will post an article about his nomination at 1 p.m. on Dec. 20, after board members have received information about the nominee.

The board received the required three-day notice Dec. 17, informing them a candidate would be nominated Dec. 20 and that they would vote by e-mail.

Charles Wade retires as executive director Jan. 31.

Ken Hugghins, chairman of the BGCT executive director search committee, said his committee is completing the first round of interviews and has begun the second round with some candidates for executive director.

If a nominee is brought forward and approved in January, it is unlikely the person would assume the position before Wade’s retirement date. The nominee likely would need to give a current employer several weeks notice and take a couple of weeks to relocate, Hugghins noted. The interim will serve until a new executive director assumes the post.

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

Posted: 12/18/07

Bible Studies for Life Series for December 30

Bowing before the Savior

• Matthew 2:1-12

By Steve Dominy

First Baptist Church, Gatesville

This story is particular to Matthew, we do not find it in any of the other Christmas narratives. Some take that to mean it is an artificial construction, a later addition and not a valid part of the Christmas story. But the early church found itself in serious conflict with the astrology cults around it, so it is not likely to have invented a story in which those who could be construed as astrologers are shown in a favorable light.

The primary theme of this story comes in its contrast. In particular, there are two kings and two kingdoms contrasted. The “three kings” who come from the east are not technically kings and are better understood as magi. “Magi” is originally a term for a Persian priestly class but later became used for magicians and astrologers.

Matthew presents Jesus as the true king of the Jews in contrast to the unworthy king Herod. Herod hardly was a popular leader among the Jews, at least in part due to his ethnicity. It was not uncommon for the Romans to allow native rulers in the territory and that is the case with Herod. Herod was an Edomite, and it was but one of many reasons the Jews despised him.

Herod was absolutely paranoid. His power was held tenuously and he feared anyone who might take his kingdom. You did not want to get on the wrong side of Herod the Great. Herod’s power corrupted him, and the more power he had, the more he wanted.

One of Herod’s first acts was to have 46 members of the Sanhedrin, or the Jewish ruling party, executed. He killed at least two of his wives, all of their extended families and three of his sons. Caesar Augustus said of Herod that it was better to be his pig than his son. Prior to his death, he decreed that 300 prominent Jews be killed as soon as he died. He determined that if there would be no mourning over his death at least there would be mourning at the time of his death. Fortunately for those who might have been on his list it does not seem that this decree was carried out.

Herod also embarked on a building program as fantastic as any before or after. He built hippodromes, amphitheaters and the port of Caesarea where the Roman administration in Palestine was housed.

But the greatest contribution to Jewish society was the restoration of the temple. It was by no means an expression of his faith, rather it was an attempt to soothe his subjects. The temple was decorated with white marble, gold and jewels. It was said of the temple, “Whoever has not seen the temple of Herod has seen nothing beautiful.”

What a powerful contrast to the opulence of Herod is the birthplace of Jesus. If you were going to look for a king, the palace would be the logical place to start. It should not be surprising that the magi started in a royal setting surrounded by the finest things and the most important people. But the magi did not find him there; they found him in a stable. The son of God, the king of kings, born in a manger intended as a feed trough. No royalty was anywhere to be found. The first visitors were not kings or Pharisees, they were shepherds, unwelcome members of first century society. Not a single priest showed up. What a contrast in kingdoms.

The magi were faced with a choice; to which king would they bow? The could stay with the would-be king or they could find the real king. The could be a part of a kingdom of tyranny or follow the king who says come unto me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. They could follow the king who kills to keep his power or the king who by his power invites all into his kingdom. It is a contrast that forced the magi to choose and calls us to choose as well. This contrast also introduces two other themes in the story.

Jesus’ own people were absolutely indifferent to his birth. Herod calls together some of the Jewish religious leadership to inquire of this new king, and they are absolutely clueless as to what has happened. It takes three Gentiles looking for the king to even cause them to think about what might have happened. Although the high priests would have believed in stars as signs of births and things to come, they were not even looking for the coming of the Messiah.

Matthew begins and ends his Gospel with worship. He begins with Gentiles coming to pay homage to the king and ends with Jesus’ disciples worshipping him on the mountain. This is a consistent theme throughout Matthew; that Jesus is worthy of our reverence. Not only is Jesus worthy of the reverence of a king, he is worthy of our worship as Lord.

The contrast of kings and kingdoms forces us into the same position the magi were in: Which king will we follow? Whether we will admit it or not, being confronted by the incarnate God forces us to deal with that revelation. We can be indifferent as were the Jewish leaders Herod called together or we can respond with our worship and our lives as the magi. News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Baptist churches, in Texas, the BGCT, the nation and around the world.

Posted: 12/18/07

Board to vote on interim executive director

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board will vote later this week on a nominee for interim executive director.

BGCT Executive Board directors learned Dec. 17 they would receive background information on a candidate for interim executive director, as well as information about how the e-mail balloting would take place. Voting begins Dec. 20 and will continue until a decision is made.

If elected, the interim will serve until a new executive director of the BGCT Executive Board assumes the post.

BGCT Executive Board Chairman John Petty called the interim executive director candidate “a worthy choice.”

“The executive committee (of the board) is unanimous in its recommendation of this candidate,” he said.

Ken Hugghins, chairman of the BGCT executive director search committee, said his committee is completing the first round of interviews and has begun the second round with some candidates.

In the event a nominee is brought forward and approved in January, it is unlikely the person would assume the position before current Executive Director Charles Wade retires Jan. 31. The nominee likely would need to give a current employer several weeks notice and take a couple of weeks to relocate, Hugghins noted.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

TBM seeks coats for children in North Korea

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Global Resource Services will send 10 containers filled with medical supplies to 10 rural hospitals in North Korea soon, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of its humanitarian work there. And Texas Baptist Men wants to include 10,000 winter coats for children with the shipments.

John LaNoue of Lindale, whose initial work in North Korea gave birth to Texas Baptist Men’s partnership with Global Resource Services there 10 years ago, recently returned from another trip to North Korea with TBM volunteer Jim Pinkston of Edgewood.

LaNoue and Pinkston worked with Global Resource Services to complete the installation of a soybean processing plant that provides oil, tofu and soymilk for children in the Haepo Ri area.

Texas Baptist Men and Global Resource Services began its partnership in North Korea in 1998 by distributing 100,000 coats. The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board collected the coats at LaNoue’s request after he spent three months in North Korea delivering and monitoring the distribution of food provided by American humanitarian aid organizations.

During that time—when he monitored the distribution of 60,000 metric tons of corn from the United States—he saw the needs in North Korea’s rural areas, where children went without coats in unheated school rooms during freezing winter months.

“It seems fitting for the 10th anniversary shipment of medical supplies to include a shipment of children’s winter coats,” LaNoue said. “TBM would like to put 1,000 coats in each container. Each container will be sent to a different rural hospital. The coats can then be distributed to the neediest children in that area.”

The coats should be primary colors, without logos and with American manufacturing labels, he explained.

As an alternative to sending coats, Global Resource Services has an arrangement to provide a six-piece winter outfit for $25. It includes a hat, coat, gloves, socks, sweater and insulated underwear. Checks should be made payable to Texas Baptist Men Coats for Korea and directed to the attention of Mickey Lenamon.

Checks or coats may be sent to Texas Baptist Men at 5351 Catron, Dallas 75227.

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

Posted: 12/14/07

Fair-trade items offer
Christmas gifts with a conscience

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

NEW YORK (ABP)—What’s the perfect revenge for the flannel-lined hot-water bottle Aunt Sharon gave you last year? Or the Michael Bolton CD from your brother-in-law?

Maybe a toilet. Or an ox. A bag of seeds would work, for that matter.

This year, as the world continues to grow more interconnected, increasing numbers of Christians are giving gifts with global economics and ethical sensibilities in mind. That’s where an ox—donated to a farmer in the name of someone on your gift-giving list—comes in handy. It’s part of a greater movement toward supporting fair trade—a way of doing business that promotes equal, sustainable relationships between local communities and consumers.

Advent: Red Letter Days • Happy New Year? For Christians it began with Advent • Christian motorcyclists and mudders bring Christmas cheer in Beaumont • Churches push Advent Conspiracy to teach real giving • Fair-trade items offer Christmas gifts with a conscience • Christmas brighter for children of military families, thanks to UMHB student project • For some, happy holidays means no gifts • International students share Christmas joy • Who were those “wise men from the East” bearing gifts? • 2nd Opinion: The two sides of advent • What if Christmas had not come? • Finding the ‘spirit of Christmas'

And as department stores bulge to overflowing, there may be a need for just such an attitude adjustment.

Fair-trade strategies mandate paying fair wages in local regions and using environmentally friendly methods, all the while maintaining healthy working conditions. Trade partners focus on capitalizing on returns by investing them in health clinics, education and child care. Put most simply, the relationships are based on mutual respect, not necessarily the bottom line.

Andrea Mullins, director of World Crafts, said her organization aims to help people away from poverty and toward spiritual and social health.

“Our focus is holistic,” Mullins said. “Our focus is to bring people to and help provide income for people who have great skills, great marketable products, but they have no markets.”

World Crafts, a nonprofit company based in Birmingham, Ala., holds more than 1,000 parties each year to introduce Christians in the United States to the men and women who create fair trade products. Next spring, it’ll join an ebay store, stores.ebay.com/World-of-Good, dedicated to selling fair-trade-only items on the auction website.

Hundreds of products have been certified for sale in the United States and bear the Fairtrade Certified logo, with more than 3,000 approved for sale in the United Kingdom, according to leaders from London’s Fairtrade Foundation. Products include everything from bananas, spices, flowers and juices to cotton, jewelry, sporting equipment and tree ornaments—some of World Crafts’ most popular sellers, Mullins said.

Worldwide, 17 countries carry the Fairtrade Mark—the trademark of the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International that ensures standardized levels of pay and working conditions. The nonprofit, multi-stakeholder group has more than 20 member organizations, plus traders and external experts who develop and review trade standards. Those countries work with 452 companies sourced through 36 production countries, which hold 4.5 million growers and their families.

Baptists in the United Kingdom in particular are far ahead of their American counterparts in this area, Jeanie McGowan said. McGowan, pastor of equipping at First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo., first became interested in fair trade agreements after friends from England told her about their own efforts to buy goods in a deliberate and ethical manner.

“So many Christians in the U.K. are so focused on this,” she said. “I just thought what a wonderful thing. It’s really a simple thing if you make it a priority to do. It really ought to be.”

Indeed, a Google search for Baptist churches promoting holiday fair-trade events reveals far more churches in England than in any other country. Eastleigh Baptist Church in Eastleigh holds a fair-trade shopping morning every holiday season. Carshalton Beeches Baptist Free Church in Surrey buys and serves fair-trade tea and coffee during worship services and sells fair-trade fruit and nuts during “Fairtrade Fortnight.”

The Fortnight event is an annual promotional campaign that combines producers, campaigners, retailers, licensees and NGOs in an effort to promote products carrying the Fairtrade Mark.

It’s part of a substantial trend. Fair-trade sales in the United Kingdom have been running at growth rates of 40 percent over the past five years, according to the Fairtrade Foundation.

Harriet Lamb, executive director of the independent foundation, said the fair-trade movement is vital.

“Far too many companies are burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the mounting calls from consumers who want to understand more about the origins of the food they eat and the clothes they wear,” she said. “These companies still buy blind as cheap as they can and then make gestures of charity to farmers on whose work their annual profit mountains are built. Those companies are out of step with the nation’s mood.”

The British made an impression on McGowan, who regularly buys fair-trade coffee and is encouraging her church to “become more focused about it.”

Brits “seem to incorporate it into their daily lives I think in some really wonderful ways,” she said. “I’m so impressed. They go to great lengths to try to do it.”

And besides buying goods to use stateside, fair trade also encompasses gifts that are bought in a loved-one’s name and given to a family or community overseas.

Oxfam, World Vision and ChristianAid provide even more options for Christmastide shoppers. By visiting www.oxfam.org, choosing a price range and selecting a fitting gift, families in Africa and Asia can receive a pig, chickens or sheep, for example. The charity then sends a descriptive and appreciative card to the “recipient.”

True, children may not be overly enthusiastic if they get a gift certificate for an apple tree this year instead of an iPod. But for adults, it could be the way to go.

Maybe this year, revenge is best served warm—with a higher good in mind.

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