Posted: 9/14/07

2nd Opinion: The importance of letting go

By Bob Campbell

Two years ago, I retired from a large church in Houston after almost 15 years of pastoral service. The day I retired, I gave up my role as “pastor” of the church.

I have elected to stay in the church with the many friends I made over the past 15 years. However, all of my friends will testify that I do not allow them to “talk” church business with me. I always refer them to the current leadership. Any member of the church will tell you that I have not said or done anything that could be construed as “pastoral” ministry in the church. I visit prospects as any member might. I never identify myself as the “former” pastor.

No pastor can stay with a congregation he has pastored if he does not recognize that he no longer holds the office of pastor. I told my congregation I wanted to stay under the following self-imposed conditions:

• I will not perform any weddings or funerals of church members. 

• I will not participate or criticize the business and ministries of the church or its pastoral leaders. (I do not attend any of the business meetings of our church.)

I have met our new pastor at his request and at the encouragement of the pastor-search committee. I assured him that he can count on my verbal support. I told him: “If I do not like what you are doing, I will pray. If I really, really do not like what you are doing, I will pray.” Why would anyone ever do anything else? I believe prayer is the most powerful action any Christian can ever take. Why would I resort to any other method of voicing my displeasure?

All ministers who resign must in actuality “genuinely resign” all duties and responsibilities of the position they are leaving. The new minister needs complete freedom to minister to any personal crisis in the congregation. This establishes his pastoral relationship to the membership. He will change things, because we must always look for better ways to communicate the gospel. He will cancel some programs or ministries I started. God bless him in following God’s will as he understands it.

If a former minister cannot let go, he should move far away from the church so that he will never be “tempted” to interfere. He should never go back to preach or speak, except at the personal request of the church’s current pastor.

Bob Campbell is the retired pastor of Westbury Baptist Church in Houston and a former president 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: 9/14/07

DOWN HOME:
Lessons learned at a busy intersection

Commuting is a microcosm of life.

Many folks, bless their souls, live in small towns, where commuting is nothing. But those of us who drive miles through city traffic every day view the gamut of human nature on the streets and expressways and overpasses of our lives.

This morning on the way to work, I witnessed the extremes of kindness and reckless selfishness within 15 seconds.

The Good Samaritan appeared first. Her dark-blue SUV grabbed my attention, because it was stopped on the left side of the road—out of the traffic lanes and partway onto the grass.

Then I saw the driver. Immediately, I knew what she was doing. She had waded out into the tall grass, still damp with morning dew. Her posture signalled her intent. She bent forward slightly at the waist, and she gently clapped her hands in front of her as she spoke into the distance. I followed her eyes and found what I knew I would see: A stray mutt, cowed by the whizzing traffic, shivering on the far side of the median, just a few feet from oncoming traffic.

Of course, you can debate the wisdom of parking a vehicle on the edge of a median in the middle of Dallas rush-hour traffic. But you’ve got to give that woman stars for care and compassion. No telling how many cars and trucks pass that spot every hour all day long. The little dog wouldn’t make it out of there alive unless someone stopped to render aid.

Seconds later, I nearly watched a wreck. The dog-gone (at least I hope it’s dog-gone) median is formed by two lanes of traffic that merge before splitting again so drivers can head to Dallas or Fort Worth.

The traffic flow through this ill-designed intersection “works” because most people remember what they learned in kindergarten: When two lines come together to form one line, it’s polite to let every-other person from each line take a turn.

This morning, a self-absorbed gal in a bright-red sports car nearly ran a white mini-van off the road because she apparently feels she’s too important to wait for one vehicle to get on the road in front of her.

OK, they weren’t going that fast, so nobody would’ve been injured. But thousands of commuters behind them could have been delayed by one person’s need to gain one car-length on the freeway. What a jerk.

Driving on in to work, I thought about the woman who took the time and accepted the risk to save a stray dog and the one who risked others’ property and time to “save” a few seconds.

And then I wondered about Christians today. Are we the kind of Christ-followers who risk our own safety and give our own time to help save people on the median between heaven and hell? Or are we so concerned about our own souls that we risk bouncing others into oblivion, just so we make good time through life?

–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: 9/14/07

EDITORIAL:
Good news from MTV, of all places

The best way to ensure the happiness of teens and young adults is to envelope them in the embrace of family.

A new study sponsored by MTV and the Associated Press revealed the most significant factor contributing to teen happiness is family. Spiritual faith also is a vital contributor to teens’ and young adults’ emotional well-being. Conversely, many of the supposed happiness-providers that dominate teen- and young-adult-oriented media—money, fame, sex and drugs—finished far down the list. And some of them even cause unhappiness, survey respondents said.

The majority of American young people lead happy lives, the poll found. Sixty-three percent of survey participants aged 13 to 24 said they are very happy (21 percent) or somewhat happy (42 percent). Another 22 percent said they are “neither happy nor unhappy.” Only 15 percent said they are somewhat unhappy or very unhappy.

Parents and family are the far-and-away dominant factors in young people’s happiness. Asked to cite the “one thing in life that makes you happy,” 46 percent of young people named spending time with family, friends and loved ones. Seventy-three percent of survey respondents said they are very happy (41 percent) or somewhat happy (32 percent) with their relationship with their parents. Eleven percent said they are somewhat unhappy with their parents, and only 2 percent are very unhappy.

Asked to name their heroes, U.S. young adults’ top answer is their mother (29 percent), followed by their father (21 percent), followed by their parents (16 percent).

The young people also projected a positive image of family in their answers regarding their own expectations. Ninety-one percent said they believe getting married will make them happy. Ninety-two percent said they definitely (52 percent) or probably (40 percent) want to get married, and 64 percent said they “very likely” will be married to the same person their whole life.

Faith and spirituality also are important to many young people. Sixty-five percent of respondents ranked “religion or spirituality” as important to them, with 11 percent claiming it is the single most important thing in their lives, followed by 33 percent who said it is very important and 21 percent who ranked it as somewhat important. Those feelings eclipsed actual church attendance, with 36 percent of young people saying they attend religious services at least once a week and 7 percent noting they attend once or twice a month. Seventy-five percent said “God or a god-like figure” has some impact on their personal happiness.

While almost no young people suggested money or material possessions provide happiness, 70 percent said they want to be rich someday. But only 29 percent indicated they want to be famous.

The full reports on this survey are available online at www.mtv.com/thinkmtv/research and http://surveys.ap.org/. They offer volumes of information that will be enormously helpful to parents and caring adults who work with young people.

The survey reinforces the importance of strengthening parenting skills. Although peer pressure and other influences impact young people tremendously, parents still provide not only the greatest source of happiness but also the most significant influence on teens.

Churches could significantly expand the impact of their student ministries if they would include training, equipping and encouraging parents as part of their programming. Too often, churches—and especially youth ministers—feel they must shoulder the burden for spiritual formation in teens’ lives. But if we will help more moms and dads to be effective parents who provide role models for how to live lives of faith, we will enable them to pass their most important legacy—faith in Jesus Christ—on to their children.

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Faith Digest

Religious activists fast for debt relief. A group of religious activists began a 40-day fast Sept. 6 to advocate for legislation that would cancel the debts of the world’s 67 poorest countries, according to the Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of more than 80 religious denominations and faith communities. 2007 is a Sabbath year, according to Jubilee USA, which in the Old Testament meant creditors were expected to cancel the loans of fellow Hebrews. In June, Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., introduced the 2007 Jubilee Act in the House of Representatives. Jubilee USA says its goal is to get a hearing on the bill and similar legislation introduced in the Senate.

Confucius joins Jesus at courthouse. Napoleon, Confucius, Hammurabi and more than a dozen other historical figures have joined Jesus Christ on the wall at a Louisiana courthouse in a bid to reassure visitors that the court wanted nothing more than to showcase people who helped to create the laws of civilized nations. Officials mounted the additional portraits one week before a scheduled court hearing at which the Louisiana ACLU planned to ask a federal judge to remove the Jesus portrait. The ACLU has sued the court, the city of Slidell, St. Tammany Parish and Judge Jim Lamz, saying the portrait and the accompanying words, “To know peace, obey these laws,” violates the First Amendment and the separation of church and state.

School revises move-in policy to avoid religious conflicts. The University of California no longer will force students to choose between observing religious holidays and move-in days at dormitories, according to a new system-wide policy. Previously, Jewish students had complained that move-in days often conflicted with the Jewish High Holy Days, such as this year, when move-in day is scheduled for Sept. 22, during Yom Kippur. Under the policy, schools with move-in days that conflict with a religious holiday must change their schedule so no student will have to choose between fulfilling their religious obligations and moving in. While the Jewish High Holy Days were the impetus for the change, the new policy applies to all religions.

Court strikes down restrictive school terminology. A Texas court has struck down a state requirement that religious higher education institutions must meet specific standards before they can call themselves a “seminary” or use certain terminology to describe their degrees. The Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of HEB Ministries, which runs Tyndale Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. The state had fined the school $173,000 because it had not been authorized by a state educational board to grant degrees. The case also affects two other religious institutions—San Antonio-based Hispanic Bible Institute and Dallas-based Southern Bible Institute—that joined the case as additional plaintiffs. In an effort to ban so-called “diploma mills,” the state had enacted a law that restricts the terminology a school can use about educational attainment unless a school has received a certificate of authority from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Hearing the Call

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Hearing God’s call to vocational service may not be as easy in a Baptist church as it once was, but some congregations are determined to change that.

Once upon a time, a public invitation at the close of the sermon in many Baptist worship services routinely included an appeal to “surrender to God’s call” to vocational ministry. Not so today. And unless trends are reversed, some observers fear a clergy shortage in years ahead.

We have lost the theology of ‘call’ in many churches,” said Paul Baxley, pastor of First Baptist Church in Henderson, N.C. “We need a recovery of the language of calling in the life of the church.”

Sermons about vocation and calling have become “a more frequent part of the congregation’s diet” since Baxley arrived at Henderson, he noted. Even so, he hastened to add the church already took seriously its responsibility to help young people discern how God might want them to spend their lives.

As a part of that emphasis, Baxley and another minister on staff taught a class of high school seniors every Sunday during Lent last year, concluding with a weekend retreat where each young person was challenged to reflect on God’s plan for his or her life.

While Baxley was director of congregational ministries at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Va., he directed the Samuel Project—an initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment to explore the nature of vocational calling and to nurture a sense of calling among young people.

That initiative, in turn, helped to spark “The Choice” curriculum produced by Smyth & Helwys and Echo camps sponsored by Passport.

It also gave birth to church-based initiatives to “call out the called,” such as the YourCall program for high school-aged teenagers developed by Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

Young people at Wilshire can apply for YourCall in the ninth grade, indicating their commitment to the four-year process. Participants are mentored by a mature Christian in the church, learn about various aspects of the Christian life and become involved in ministry and missions.

Students read and study units on worship, Christian ethics, church history and various biblical topics. Teens in the program are expected to post an entry on the YourCall weblog at least once a week, gather with other students in the program one Saturday morning each month, meet with Pastor George Mason once a quarter and stay in frequent, regular contact with their mentors.

YourCall is designed to engage students in an ongoing, serious conversation about their life’s work, Mason explained.

“We want to help young people to be able to discuss vocation spiritually and not just offer a default response based on the expectations of culture or family,” he said.

Part of that process is helping students recognize their giftedness in areas such as listening, caring, communicating and leading others. Another aspect involves talking to teenagers about those things that matter most to them.

“What do they feel burdened about? What really sticks in their craw and makes them feel dissatisfaction with the way the world is?” Mason asked, illustrating the kinds of questions that students explore.

Both First Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga., and Zebulon Baptist Church in Zebulon, N.C., have adapted the Samuel Project to their congregations.

The project is based on the Old Testament example of Samuel, who heard God’s call to become a prophet; his mother, Hannah, who dedicated her son to God before he was born; and Eli, the priest with whom Samuel lived and from whom he learned what it meant to be God’s servant.

The approach involves inviting young people to be a “Samuel” who will agree to let God guide in vocational decision-making, encouraging each parent to be a “Hannah” who will encourage a child to be sensitive to God’s direction and enlisting adult mentors to serve as an “Eli” for a Christian teen.

At First Baptist in Dalton, Pastor Bill Wilson tries to help create a culture of calling by speaking of it in fresh language to which young people seem to respond.

“We have just about rubbed ‘God’s will’ smooth,” Wilson said. “I don’t talk about God’s will as much as I talk about God’s dream. I challenge young people to discover the dream God has (for his or her life), to follow the dream and to live the dream.”

As young people in the church grow comfortable talking about the stewardship of gifts and talents and ask informed questions about how to make vocational choices, Wilson has observed it creates a contagious excitement in the congregation.

“A lot of adults are coming around and asking, ‘Is it too late for me to get in on that?’” he said.

Zebulon Baptist Church seeks to teach young people that they will be able to discern God’s call best when they develop spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible study, devotional reading, journaling and silent reflection.

“Our young people have responded to the invitation to silence—to be able to disconnect from all the noise in their lives,” Pastor Jack Glasgow said.

Students are less likely to be receptive to God’s call if they see conflict and stress at church and know ministers who are unhappy in their positions, some pastors noted.

“I suspect a lot of young people have been turned off by professionals who have tended to emphasize the negative aspects of ministry,” Baxley observed.

Baptist teens and young adults also have grown up in an environment that has focused on denominational controversy and division, he added.

On the other hand, young people are more open to listening to a call to vocational ministry when they see role models who find fulfillment by serving a church, Glasgow noted. He has been at Zebulon Baptist 30 years—four years as youth minister and 26 as pastor.

“It’s a great life of ministry, serving a church like this. It’s very positive,” he said.

But several pastors stressed their churches emphasize God is interested in the vocation of all his children—not just those who end up serving on a church staff.

A “call-friendly” culture “doesn’t mean everybody has to walk the aisle and become a preacher,” Wilson stressed. “We validate that (vocational) ministry is part of God’s call, but it’s not all of it.”

When children or young teenagers make a public commitment to vocational Christian service, churches have to walk a fine line, Glasgow added.

“We want to affirm those who express a sense of calling at a young age. At the same time, we try to give them wide boundaries about what that means so they don’t feel like a failure later if they go a different direction,” he said.

“We want them to understand it’s a journey. We encourage them to keep their options open and look at a variety of ways they can be used by God.”

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

Posted: 9/14/07

East Texas church gives stamp
of approval to 82-year-old’s ministry

By George Henson

Staff Writer

HALLSVILLE—First Baptist Church in Hallsville licensed one of its own to the gospel ministry earlier this year—Buck Lineberger, age 82.

It was 65 years after Lineberger initially felt God’s calling to ministry—and more than 60 years after he believed a brief, unsuccessful marriage disqualified him for service.

In 1935, he made a profession of faith in Christ during a week-long revival at the Hallsville church.

“I believed with all my heart that Christ died for my sins,” he said.

After graduating from high school in 1942, he left Hallsville to join the Navy. While on board a ship in the Pacific, he often communed with God.

“While I was in the Navy, God would reveal things to me, and I would say ‘Oh man, I could preach that,’” he recalled, but he did not tell anyone that he felt God had called him to preach.

See related articles: • Hearing the Call • Ministers hear call through many voices • East Texas church gives stamp of approval to 82-year-old's ministry • When it comes to missions, there's something in the water in Red Springs • Call clarification important at Baptist schools

As he was preparing to leave the Navy at the end of World War II, his life took a turn. In California, he met a woman whom he soon married. Before long, it became apparent they were not a match, and they divorced.

“Because I had a divorce, some people looked down on me, and I kind of thought maybe God did, too,” he said.

He remarried, to his wife of many years, Tommye. Early in their married life, Lineberger said, he and his young family didn’t attend church. He recalled three men from First Baptist Church in Hallsville who visited his house and asked him to come to church with his wife and two young children.

“I told them I would be there on Sunday. I wasn’t. They were back on Monday,” he recalled with a grin.

The next Sunday, the Linebergers were in church. And on the second Sunday of October in 1955, he rededicated his life to Christ.

He quickly became involved after that, and from 1958 until 1960, he served as Brotherhood president for the association—a position that allowed him to spend most Sundays preaching in churches without a pastor.

That’s when he began thinking again maybe God had called him to preach.

“I put out a fleece and said, ‘God, if you want me to preach, give me a place to preach three Sundays in a row,” Lineberger recalled.

Shortly after the prayer, a church called, asking Lineberger to fill their pulpit while they searched for a pastor. He stayed there until his job took him away from Hallsville in 1960.

In 2001, he and his wife moved back to First Baptist Church in Hallsville.

He teaches the 10th- and 11th-grade boys’ Sunday school class and participates in a group that speaks to youth on Wednesday nights on a rotating basis,. He also chairs the senior adult council, visits homebound and hospitalized church members, and fills in when the pastor has to be absent from prayer meeting.

And he mows the yards of church members who can’t cut their own grass and repairs the lawnmowers of those who can.

He also leads devotionals at three retirement centers—one in Hallsville and two in Longview. He said he believes God has given him more than 150 devotionals, and he’s used only one of them more than once.

“I do a lot of sitting on the back porch, watching the birds around the birdfeeders, and God shows me more sitting there than anywhere else. God just keeps giving me these devotionals, and for that I’m grateful,” Lineberger said.

And after preaching 60 to 70 funerals, he can say, “I’ve preached more funerals than a lot preachers.”

Lineberger thanks God for good health—he takes no medications—and he’s not interested in slowing down.

“I love people, and I love the Lord, and as long I’m alive, I’m going to serve him somehow somewhere,” he said.

After Lineberger mentioned to Pastor David Massey and Minister of Education Monty Pierce that he once believed he had been called to ministry, it was a short road to his licensing.

“Everybody who knows Buck knows that God’s hand is on his life, and God is evident in his life. The church was just a little slow in officially recognizing that,” Pierce said.

Massey agreed. “We may have licensed him to ministry, but he was already doing it and doing it very well.”

The licensing service was a special ceremony to everyone in the congregation, Massey added.

“Usually when you license somebody, it’s a young man about to go to college or seminary, and there’s a vote, and that’s about it. But we wanted it to be a little more special than that and called him up to receive a framed certificate of his license. The whole church stood up and applauded,” Massey said.

It was even more meaningful for Lineberger, because the ceremony was held on Mother’s Day.

“My mother was a very, very godly woman, and I know my mother ran and shouted all over heaven,” he said with a tear in his eye and a smile on his face.

“After all these years, one of my greatest desires was fulfilled. I had wanted and felt God wanted me to preach, but I had that hang-up that I had been divorced.

“There were times I thought maybe God had forgotten about me, but looking back, it’s so obvious God never forgot about me for a minute.”

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

Posted: 9/14/07

When it comes to missions, there’s
something in the water in Red Springs

By George Henson

Staff Writer

ED SPRINGS—Hay fields surround Red Springs Baptist Church, stretching as far as the eye can see.

Looking out the front door of the church, located more than 60 miles southwest of Wichita Falls, some might become so entranced by the wide-open spaces of the Northwest Texas Plains that they never would want to leave. But at least 10 of its pastors have walked through its doorway with a missionary calling and a vision to change a much larger world.

See related articles: • Hearing the Call • Ministers hear call through many voices • East Texas church gives stamp of approval to 82-year-old's ministry • When it comes to missions, there's something in the water in Red Springs • Call clarification important at Baptist schools

Consider the roll call of pastors who have left Red Springs Baptist Church and the distant fields in which they served: Keith Parks, missionary to Indonesia, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board and Global Missions Coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellow-ship; Merle Stephens, Canada; Bob Tremaine, Florida, California and director of missions in Parker-Palo Pinto Baptist Area; Harry Garvin, Uganda; James Oliver, Colombia; Bud Edmonds, Canada; Randall Parks, Egypt; Robert Harper, Leeward Islands, St. Martin; Gary Wester, Ecuador; and Jack Bennett, Middle East and North Africa.

Bobbie Morgan, a member of the church since 1943, said Keith Parks launched the church’s enthusiasm for missions when he came as pastor.

“He influenced the church and all of us,” she said. “We were young and impressionable back then. I was still in high school when Keith came. Young people can really get on fire, and Keith was so excited about what he was learning at the seminary and seeing God do around the world.”

Parks likewise recalls fervency for missions.

“When we were at Red Springs, we were missions volunteers and emphasized missions and their importance. The church seemed to take hold of that and gave generously to the missions offerings,” he said.

Members of the small, rural church, have continued to maintain a global mindset, Parks added.

Senna Winn, a 76-year member of the church, agreed missions has remained important to the church.

“Keith Parks started our church’s focus on missions. At one time, we even had two Woman’s Missionary Unions —an older group and a younger group,” she said.

The church was so interested in missions, it sent groups many times to New Mexico to participate in Missions Week at Glorieta Encampment, she noted.

Even now, the church takes time during Sunday morning services for “Mission Moments,” when the work of missionaries around the world are spotlighted and prayed for.

“For a few minutes, that brings our attention to what is going on in the lives of missionaries,” Morgan said. “People hear how God is moving and say, ‘I can be a part of that.’”

Pastor Gary Godkin was aware of the church’s missions heritage before he arrived and has seen it lived out in his own life since becoming the church’s pastor. Earlier this year, he traveled to Niger, West Africa, for a three-week mission tour, and during the summer, the congregation sent him to Belize.

“When I thought about it, the church had sent me or allowed me off for six weeks to focus on missions. That’s not an ordinary circumstance,” Godkin said.

The church has maintained giving to missions as a top priority, not only to Southern Baptists’ Lottie Moon Christ-mas Offering for International Missions and Annie Arm-strong Easter Offering for North American Missions, as well as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions Offering, but also with support for the Seymour Area Ministerial Alliance, Salt Fork Baptist Association and the Seymour Organization for Helping Others.

Also, women of the church, which runs about 65 in attendance most Sundays, make up about one-third of the volunteers at the hospital in Seymour, 10 miles away.

“I think it’s just a reflection that they really want to help others in the community and aren’t afraid to share the love of Christ with people outside the walls of the church in secular situations,” Godkin said.

Since 2005, members of the church have served in Del Rio and across the Rio Grande in Acuña.

The church also has contributed to the cause of Christ by serving as a training ground for young pastors, Morgan added.

“As far back as I can remember,” she said, “we’ve had seminary pastors.”

Red Springs was the first church Tremaine served as pastor and recalls the help he was given. When he had been at the church only a few weeks, a young girl died, and her family called to ask if he would preach at the funeral. As pastor, he naturally accepted. Shortly after that, a deacon called to make sure the pastor had heard about the death and to ask if he needed any help.

“I told him I not only had never preached a funeral, but I had never even attended one,” Tremaine remembered.

The deacon sent him to see Wesley Harrison, who owned both the hardware store and funeral home in town.

“I went in, and he didn’t even look up,” Tremaine recalled.

“He said, ‘You don’t know how to preach a funeral do you?’ I told him I didn’t, and he put a list of things on a piece of paper for me.

“By the time I got to the funeral, you would have thought I’d have done a hundred of them, because I had been so well equipped by the people of that church.

“In today’s jargon, they had a mission and a vision,” he continued.

“Their concept was that they had a purpose—No. 1 was to convert the people of their community; that was primary. The second item was that they felt like their mission was to train up preacher boys. Most of them, like myself, it was their first church.”

The church also has provided Morgan and her husband with a long-term opportunity for service.

“We married in June 1954, and in September the church asked us to be custodians. We’re still doing it 53 years later—so I’m very proud and possessive of my church,” she said.

Considering Red Spings’ missions heritage, Morgan and many others believe they have good reason.

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Ministers hear call through many voices

By Jim White

Virginia Religious Herald

God uses a variety of voices in calling people to Christian service, veteran ministers agreed, pointing to their own experience.

In Joel Thielepape’s case, two voices figured prominently—a representative of the New York Yankees who delivered a discouraging word and a young preacher who presented a message of hope.

Thielepape, who recently celebrated his 60th year in ministry, was 17 years old in the summer of 1947.

See related articles: • Hearing the Call • Ministers hear call through many voices • East Texas church gives stamp of approval to 82-year-old's ministry • When it comes to missions, there's something in the water in Red Springs • Call clarification important at Baptist schools

“I had one burning desire in my life, and that was to play baseball. The New York Yankees invited me to a tryout camp, and I was thrilled to death to go,” he recalled.

But the Yankees were looking for greater speed than Thielepape could deliver, and he didn’t make the cut.

“I came home, and that night the church where I was a member was having a youth-led revival—a young man was preaching. During the invitation, I was overwhelmed by the call of God. I surrendered to God’s call, and I can honestly say that in 60 years I have never doubted for one moment that God called me to preach,” said Thielepape, who recently completed an interim pastorate at Woodlawn Baptist Church in Austin.

Drew Hill, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sedalia, Mo., was influenced to enter the ministry by his preacher father—but even more by his mother.

His father’s presence and preaching had an impact, he acknowledged. But, he said, it was “Mom’s life probably more than any other one thing” that prepared his heart to hear God’s call.

As one of three brothers who entered vocational ministry, he was worried other people might see his pastor father and two older brothers and assume he simply had entered the family business. Hill’s brother Pete is pastor of First Baptist Church in Smithville, Mo., and his brother Jim is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri.

A 1951 photograph has frozen in time a gathering of 10 young adults—four men and six women—who answered what they considered God’s call to full-time Christian service. Re-markably, all 10 were from one small congregation, Fieldale Baptist, near Martinsville, Va.

At least two are deceased—Carlos Flick, longtime head of the history department at Mercer University, and Jerry Mehaffey, who served as a chaplain with the Veteran’s Administration.

But Flick’s twin brother, Carl, remembers how in his early-adult years, Fieldale’s pastor Ryburn Stancil led him to Christ.

“I can’t speak for the others since they grew up in the church and I didn’t, but I think they responded to the love and caring they experienced from him,” said Flick, a retired Navy chaplain.

Henry Martin, another member of the Fieldale Ten, served in Nigeria 25 years as a foreign missionary before retiring from a Memphis church. The preaching of an interim pastor prior to Stancil’s pastorate caused him to answer the call to foreign missions, he said.

“I can’t remember his name, it’s been so long ago, but he had been a Presbyterian missionary at one time. My brother was a deacon at Fieldale, and I visited the church because of him. I joined the church, however, because the preaching of this interim pastor really spoke to me,” he said.

The six women who felt a calling to ministry discovered limited avenues for them to fulfill that calling vocationally in the 1940s, but most married ministers.

Margaret Ann Stegall has worked 50 years as a volunteer at Fieldale Baptist Church, seeking to fulfill the sense of calling she felt as a young woman.

“It was just after World War II, and the world had been our focus for years,” she said. “There was a belief that we could change the world—and we believed God was calling us to do it.”

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Kyle Lake Foundations launches
memorial golf tournament

Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary will serve as honorary sponsor the Kyle Lake Foundation's inaugural golf tournament, Sept. 28 at Cottonwood Creek Golf Course in Waco. Tee time for the four-man shotgun scramble is 1:30 p.m. after a free lunch for participants. Hole sponsorships selling for $250.

Individual players will be accepted, limited to the first 25 teams. The Kyle Lake Foundation was established as a nonprofit organization in March in memory of the former pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco. Lake was the author of two books—Understanding God's Will and (RE)Understanding Prayer. He was electrocuted on Oct. 30, 2005, before 800 worshippers while preparing to baptize a former Baylor University student. For more information, contact Arthur Hadden at (254) 717-3106 or Byron Weathersbee at (254) 772-0412.

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Texas Baptist Forum

Little impact upon lives

I find it somewhat unsettling that “faith changes little over a lifetime” (Aug. 6). I thought Sunday school, Training Union, prayer meeting and regular attendance at preaching services were to help the saints grow in the faith—put away childish things.

• Jump to online-only letters below

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

“Too often the church today is slow to speak forcefully about right and wrong, about out-of-wedlock births, about AIDS, about acceptance of criminal behavior, even about being a good parent. If we can just get the church to find its voice, it will (be) a powerful part of the solution.” Juan Williams Author and radio/TV analyst (World magazine/RNS) “This clash (between evolution and creationism) is an absurdity because on the one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” Benedict XVI Roman Catholic pope, on the debate between creationism and evolution. He added evolution falls short of answering "the great philosophical question, ‘Where does everything come from?’” (Reuters/RNS) “Mother Teresa’s ministry with the poor won her the Nobel Prize and the admiration of a believing world. Her ministry to a doubting modern world may have just begun.” James Martin Jesuit priest and author, responding to a new book of Mother Teresa’s writings, in which she often struggles with faith and doubt (New York Times/RNS)

If the research applies only to “religiosity in early adulthood” and later life, it seems we are not having much impact on adults.

A.T. Maker

Hope, N.M.

Home Ec class

Dolan McKnight criticized the Christian homemaking degree offered by South-western Seminary (Sept. 3). Today, more then ever before, wives/mothers need to know how to manage a home.

Many young women grew up in homes with working mothers, and they may not have learned the basic skills of sewing and homemaking, since their mothers’ full schedules did not allow enough time. Home Ec has not been taught in high school for many years, so how were the wives of pastors supposed to learn the skills?

It is not abusive or an insult for the seminary to offer a degree in such a vital subject as building a strong Christian home. There is not a higher calling for any woman.

A wife/mother wears many different hats every day that require extensive skills. Without strong Christian homes, our children do not have the foundation to withstand the evils in a secular world.

As the pastor’s wife, she will have the opportunity to guide many young women in the church as they build strong Christan homes. The classes that she attends at the seminary will help her fulfill God’s calling of supporting her husband’s ministry. 

Letha Puett

Dallas

Missiologist needed

It is laudable that churches in communities where foreign-born populations move attempt to minister to them in English or have the pastor’s sermons translated by a native-born interpreter.

However, based on my extensive ministry among Baptists in Texas (1962-1985), I still long for some professional missiologist to be a member of the staff at high level of mission strategy in the Baptist Building.

When will Texas Baptist churches join the “world of the 21st century” and move with the currents of internationalization, global village mission of God and change the mid-20th century mission methods? I hope and pray that it may be in my lifetime, but I am not certain that will happen.

In the meantime, I thank God for Texas Baptists and their generous spirit and mission zeal!

David D’Amico

New York

‘Liberating’ Iraq

As a Christian and a former Marine, I need to believe that “five prominent evangelical leaders” believe destroying a country’s infrastructure, kicking in doors of homes in the dead of night, torturing prisoners, causing more than 2 million refugees and killing thousands is “liberating Iraq” (Aug. 3).

I need to believe they don’t know documents in the Congressional Record reveal that after the United Nations condemned Saddam Hussein for human rights violations, the Reagan and first Bush administrations provided him with chemical and biological agents required for making weapons of mass destruction, and with military weapons and intelligence to use on his own people and to prevent regime change by Iran after he attacked that country.

I need to believe they don’t know that many of the Islamic extremist “freedom fighters” that Reagan recruited, trained and equipped to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan are now al-Qaeda “terrorists.”

I need to believe they don’t know the United States is the only nation ever found guilty of international terrorism by the World Court for mining Nicaragua’s harbors. If cruise ships had struck those mines, there was potential for greater loss of life than on 9/11.

If they don’t know those things and believe that terrorizing citizens in their own homes is “liberating,” then I can believe that they believe war on Iraq is a just war.

Robert Flynn

San Antonio

Christian parenting

I found it very upsetting—appalling, actually—to read that only 14 percent of Christian parents think raising moral children with a strong faith is a sacred duty of their choice to be parents (Aug. 20).

Morality and strong faith begin at home, and the church is there to help the parents in these areas. Many Christian parents are guilty of spiritual child neglect/abuse. They will be held accountable for the poor job they did in that area on Judgment Day. Wake up, parents! 

Church, sound the alarm!  

Sadly, Satan is rejoicing.

Jean Whitmore

Okinawa, Japan

Push for national insurance?

I find it hard to believe the Baptist Standard printed the thinly veiled push for national insurance by Karen Wood (Aug. 20).

She is just another individual spinning the “47 million people without health insurance” message that is currently popular with Democratic presidential candidates, Michael Moore and yes, even President Bush. It’s a blatant attempt to push our society into a socialistic national insurance program.

If she really wanted to dig into those statistics she dreads, she would have found that over 10 million of those represented by the survey are illegal aliens. Another 17 million had incomes over $50,000 per year who chose not to have insurance or were between jobs. With these two groups taken into consideration, the number is closer to 20 million—less than 7 percent of the population.

She can go to either hospital emergency room in Waco and see that health coverage is 100 percent. Everyone (legal and illegal) can receive health care, and it’s the taxpayer and the insured that foot the bill.

Ed Middlebrook

West

A broadcasting parable

A deliveryman once delivered life-saving medicines and medical supplies. But his territory was large, and many people were not served. So, he bought a used truck and expanded the service. Over time, he improved the truck, adding shelves, fixing the engine, painting it. But it wasn’t cheap; his colleagues feared he would bankrupt the company. Meanwhile, the delivery truck was bringing medicines to more people, prompting inquiries for follow-up service calls in new places. More deliverymen had to be hired.

Soon, others in the same line of work saw the benefits of the improved delivery system and asked to piggyback their deliveries on the truck in exchange for a small compensation. The deliveryman agreed, and, though operating at a loss, he decided the future potential was great enough to add another vehicle some day.

But before that happened, his well-meaning colleagues convinced the owner to sell the delivery truck for reasons he never quite understood. Later, the owner noticed deliveries were way down, and he asked the deliveryman why. When he replied that all deliveries were now made on foot, because the truck had been sold, the owner responded, ‘Well, let’s get a new truck!’ But alas, the cost was now too great, and the moment of opportunity had passed.

The meaning of the parable:

The truck—the FamilyNet Television and Radio networks.

The deliveryman—all who have worked there over seven decades.

The territory—North America.

The medicines and supplies—TV/radio programs that help spread the gospel.

David Hammons

Fort Worth

Can the world recognize us?

Well, the Southern Baptist Convention says we cannot drink in moderation, cannot train our kids in public schools, and cannot speak with a private prayer language.  Maybe we should all move to Jonestown and get it over with. 

Maybe my Bible is different than theirs, but mines says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). I wonder how we can do this when we are so far removed from the world that they do not even recognize us?

William Campbell

Port Aransas

Deconstructing "unkown tongues"

After hearing much about “unknown tongues,” and wondering about the subject, I have arrived at a possible solution. There are times when I find myself humming a tune, or making noises like, tum-ta-da or some such things, which make no sense to myself or anyone else. Yet in my own mind, it is a symphony carrying my senses to a feeling of elation.

Also, at times when I feel very close to the Holy Spirit, I may be unconsciously doing the same with an old religious hymn and humming, or in some manner beating out a melody, in my own mind, which, if heard by anyone else, would be a mess of noise. Could that be talking in an unknown tongue? If so, we are all guilty.

J.W. Daniel

Weatherford

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Book reveals Mother Teresa’s
prolonged ‘dark night of the soul’

By Shona Crabtree

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Ten years after her death, a new book of Mother Teresa’s personal letters illustrates a profound and private spiritual struggle—much of it unknown to the world that would come to admire her for her work with the poor and outcast lepers in Calcutta, India.

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, released Sept. 4, is a collection of Teresa’s personal letters to her spiritual advisers. For the most part, they are letters she never intended to become public and—in fact—had asked to be destroyed.

“If I ever become a saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness,’” she wrote. “I will continually be absent from heaven—to (light) the light of those in darkness on earth.”

The book will likely challenge the characterization many people had of Teresa as a simple, pious woman, said James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote the best-selling My Life With the Saints.

“I think that this is a real treasure for not only believers, but even doubters and skeptics,” Martin said. “It shows that even the saints struggle in their spiritual lives and that they don’t have it easier than we do. They sometimes have it harder than we do.”

Brian Kolodiejchuk, who directs the Mother Teresa Center from Tijuana, Mexico, edited the book.

Kolodiejchuk read through 6,000 of Teresa’s letters. For the book, he included letters pertaining to three aspects of her life: her vow to God, what she called “the inspiration” and also “the darkness.”

In 1942, Mother Teresa made a vow not to refuse Jesus anything. Starting in 1946, she experienced several mystical encounters with Jesus, whom she called “the Voice,” asking her to serve “the poorest of the poor.” The “darkness” was her term for feelings of loneliness and abandonment when her communion with Jesus ended.

Prior to 1946, Kolodiejchuk said little was known about Teresa’s spiritual life. “She says in a letter, ‘I came to India with the desire to love Jesus as he has never been loved before,’” he said. “She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus.”

But no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus—a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters. In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: “Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God … The torture and pain I can’t explain.”

Over time, Joseph Neuner, a spiritual adviser, helped Teresa realize her feelings of abandonment only increased her understanding of the people she helped, Kolodiejchuk said. Ulti-mately, she identified her suffering with that of Jesus, which helped her accept it.

Catholic saints typically experience a “dark night of the soul” in the words of 16th-century priest St. John of the Cross, Martin said, but never as long as the “whole working life” Teresa experienced.

But Martin stressed Teresa’s belief in God never wavered—just her feeling of connection to Jesus, especially after her intense mystical experiences.

“It’s one thing to feel that God is not with you. It’s another thing to believe that God doesn’t exist,” he said. “Doubt is a natural part of the human condition. … You could say that she went through 50 years of Good Friday, and that we are able to enjoy the Easter Sunday of her book.”

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

Posted: 9/14/07

Federal court says Seattle-area
high school can deny charter to Bible club

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (ABP)—A federal appeals court ruled a Washington state high school is not required to charter a Bible club, since the club allows only Christians to be full members.

In Truth v. Kent Public School District, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Oregon-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Kentridge High School in Kent, Wash., does not have to offer official recognition to the Truth Bible Club.

The decision stems from a 2003 lawsuit filed on behalf of two then-students at Kentridge by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund. The students sued after the district refused to charter the Truth club because the club intended to limit full membership to Christians who have professed a “belief in the Bible and in Jesus Christ.”

District officials said limiting membership in a club based on religion violated the district’s antidiscrimination policy. Attorneys for the students, meanwhile, contended other student clubs the school already recognized—such as a gay-straight alliance—limited membership on the basis of ideology. Therefore, they said, refusing to recognize Truth violated the students’ religious freedom under the First Amendment, as well as a law that assures religious groups have access equal to other organizations in public schools.

But a federal district court agreed with the school district, and the appeals panel upheld that ruling. The court noted Truth could still meet on school property even though not officially recognized, and other Christian groups had gained recognition without requiring that their members be Christians.

In a written opinion, the court said the district’s nondiscrimination policies do not preclude or discriminate against religious speech. “Indeed, there are two other Bible clubs at Kentridge that have received (official) recognition and do not share Truth’s general membership restrictions.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys vowed to appeal the ruling.

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