Posted: 5/18/07

Bible Studies for Life Series for May 27

Being a peacemaker requires effort

• Genesis 50:15-21; Matthew 5:23-24; Colossians 3:12-15

By David Harp

First Baptist Church, Stanton

Conflict affects us all. When conflict is faced properly, reconciliation can bring people back together and give glory to God. One of the greatest pieces I ever read is a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, which is a reminder for each of us who would be peacemakers: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy; O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Believers are to pursue genuine reconciliation. How do I pursue genuine reconciliation when I am in a conflict situation?

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Be ready to restore (Genesis 50:15-21)

When their father Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers feared Joseph would seek revenge. They sent a message to Joseph asking for forgiveness. This message included a personal request for Joseph to forgive them. When his brothers approached him, they fell before him, declaring they were his slaves. Recognizing the evil they had done, Joseph saw the hand of God working to save many lives.

Through Joseph, God spared the lives of Jacob and his family along with the lives of the Egyptians. Joseph assured his brothers and promised to provide for them and their families. His words of kindness relieved their fears and gave them a new beginning.

Like Joseph, when we can see past our own hurt, we can begin to see God at work in our human relationships. His desire is to bring about restoration and reconciliation. We do not ignore the wrongs that have been done, but with God’s grace and help, we can move past them. The opportunities to bring restoration must be sought.

Joseph asks a classic question, “Am I in the place of God?” (Genesis 50:19). We never are in the place of God. We should be ready to restore.

Make reconciliation a priority (Matthew 5:23-24)

Jesus is serious about human relationships. Worship is a primary part of our relationship with God. If we are not in right relationship with each other, we cannot be in a right relationship with God. Jesus instructed people to leave their offerings at the altar and be reconciled with other believers.

Believers must be as serious about worship and relationships as God. When we have a broken human relationship, according to God, our worship will be disrupted to the point God will not be honored. We must make a priority of mending broken human relationships, and then we will be ready to resume our worship with God.

Notice the phrase “has something against you” (Matthew 5:23). This can refer to a just cause or to what the person thought was a valid cause. This verse speaks to an offense the worshipper has committed against another person.

It should be noted an effort at reconciliation can be attempted without being successful. The teaching of Jesus clearly instructs the believer that we should do the right thing whether or not anyone else does. We are not called to be successful—we are called to be faithful and walk with God. Worship means we get the vertical relationship right, but it does not mean we ignore the horizontal (human to human) relationships.

Forgiving completely (Colossians 3:12-15)

Paul encourages believers that Christian values such as forgiveness, love, peace and thanksgiving should mark every believer. Believers are to forgive as Christ has forgiven them. Yet, forgiveness does not automatically cancel the consequences of past actions. Sometimes the consequences have to be faced in order for genuine forgiveness to occur. Christian forgiveness is not simply based on emotions, forgetting or excusing, but it is an act of the will. One must choose to forgive. As always, Jesus leaves the choice with his followers.

The word “forgive” comes from a root word translated forgiven (v. 13), based on the word for grace. Forgiveness is an expression of grace and is not based on whether or not the forgiven person is deserving. The word “peace” (v. 15) has the same meaning as the old Hebrew word “shalom”—well-being and wholeness under God’s rule. It carries the idea of Christian harmony found in the church when people are committed to one another in Christ.

Discussion questions

• How can we make restoring human relationships a greater priority?

• Is your worship being affected today by some past wrong human relationship?

• How can we forgive those who have offended us but have now died?

• How can we find peace with ourselves and become true peacemakers?

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

Posted: 5/18/07

Explore the Bible Series for May 27

Adopting an eternal mindset

• 2 Peter 3:3-12, 14, 17-18

By Kathryn Aragon

First Baptist Church, Duncanville

The typical mindset is that God allows suffering so we will learn more about him, but God sometimes works in ways we don’t expect. As an example, during our seminary years, he reversed my family’s fortunes and made his word come alive. You see, we lived in a $6 million mansion during our two years in seminary.

The house was involved in a divorce settlement, and the wife was trying to sell it. Her mother managed the estate, but preferred to stay at her home in Arkansas. Our job was to be caretakers. There were rules, of course, but we had the run of the place.

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Here’s how it worked: The mother told us her expectations and outlined our few chores, then departed. Before leaving, she told us she’d come back now and then to check on us. Meanwhile, we could go about our lives. She really just wanted someone to be there who would watch over the place while she was gone.

True to her word, I came home from work one day to find her there. Lucky for us, we had obeyed her while she was gone. She was pleased with our work, and we were blessed to live in a mansion instead of our one-bedroom seminary house. What I learned was how serious the mandate is to be ready.

Jesus is coming

Our lesson this week is a reminder that Jesus is coming, and we must be ready. We’ve talked a lot lately about the disparity between what we know and say and what we do. My question is this: If Jesus came back today, would he be pleased?

Because Jesus has been slow to return, we Christians have become lazy. God has given us a manual that lays out his expectations, the rules for how his children should live. We are told to study to show ourselves approved, yet few of us give the Bible more than a cursory read now and then.

Of course, there are the parts we like, and we’ll return to them again and again. We like the part about God’s grace. We like that Jesus died on the cross to cover our sins. We like that salvation is a work of God’s grace, not our good deeds.

But this emphasis on God’s grace has become a stumbling block. For most Christians, security of salvation means not having to think about sin or Judgment Day or God’s call to purity. Since we are forgiven, we think we can do what we like, leaving Jesus to clean up our messes.

But this is wrong thinking. We like Paul’s assertion that where sin increases, grace increases all the more (Romans 5:20). But we fail to read on. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1).

If our behavior and attitudes don’t change after salvation, is it real? Jesus preached “wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13). Anyone can recite a prayer and quote Scripture. Anyone can call themselves Christian. It isn’t what we say or do that determines our eternal home. Jesus was speaking to his disciples when he told them, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). The key word here is change. Only a changed heart will put us on the straight and narrow road.

Are you ready?

Let’s face it, we like our sin. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t find God’s principles so difficult. The trouble, however, is we’re so comfortable with our sin, we don’t recognize it for what it is. Peter reminds us to adopt an eternal mindset. Jesus has said he is coming again, and like the mother at the mansion, he could come at any time. We must be ready.

Peter calls us to fine tune our focus as we prepare for Jesus’ return, mandating we “live holy and godly lives as (we) look forward to the day of God” (2 Peter 3:11-12). He wants us to realize Jesus’ return is real. We will stand before God to give an account for everything we say and do in this life. And we must allow this knowledge to change us. We must become like Jesus, living holy and godly lives.

Sound impossible? Jesus says we must change. Peter specifically tells us we must be holy. Even Paul teaches about the difference between the new and the old man. Would God ask us to do the impossible?

Change is difficult, and we tend to resist it. Our defense typically is that we aren’t saved by works, but by grace. But this is not a theology of works. It’s a theology of change. And while it is hard to change, it may be worse not to change. That’s where the eternal mindset comes in.

One day, we will stand before God. The very idea should strike fear into our hearts. That is, it should if we really believe it. Many people call themselves Christians who have not changed their path to the straight and narrow. Peter is reminding us to take stock. Are we ready to stand before God? Have we deliberately forgotten Jesus’ return, loving our sin so much that we’re willing to protect it at the cost of God’s kingdom? Or have we adopted an eternal mindset, looking forward to Jesus’ return while allowing him to change our hearts in the here-and-now?

Let’s listen to Peter. Eternity is worth the wait, and it is certainly worth working for.

Discussion questions

• Are your thoughts and actions different than they were before you were saved?

• Do you make your decisions based on how God would judge your choices?

• What changes do you need to make to feel more comfortable about standing before God on Judgment Day?

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

Posted: 5/16/07

British Baptists take action
on migrants, human trafficking

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

BRIGHTON, England (ABP)—Baptists in Great Britain are calling on their government and churches to do more for migrant workers and to oppose human trafficking around the world.

The resolution came at the May 4-7 Baptist Assembly in Brighton, the largest European Baptist event of the year. More than 2,000 were expected to attend the four-day event involving the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the BMS World Mission.

Event organizers planned the meeting to correspond with the bicentenary anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. They also used the occasion to launch a new campaign against human trafficking.

“This assembly recognizes that in the United Kingdom today, significant numbers of workers arriving from other countries are facing situations of abuse, poverty and exploitation,” the resolution said. It also called on the government to provide legal protection for migrant workers and on local churches to “speak out against instances of injustice and exploitation.”

Alistair Brown, the general director of BMS World Mission, challenged delegates to face modern-day slavery, noting that lifestyles in the United Kingdom still relegate many people to a lifetime of forced labor and poverty.

Baptists in Albania especially have focused on the trafficking of people within their country. According to a statement from the Christian mission agency, Albania has large numbers of women and girls trafficked through the nation. Two-thirds of them are sent to Greece or Italy, experts say.

A BMS representative for counter-trafficking, Hannah Wilson, said evangelicals in Albania have been helping trafficking victims through a women's prison ministry. They now are lobbying the Albanian government to create anti-trafficking legislation and training people in churches to know how to prevent trafficking in their communities.

A prayer of lament read to the audience by Jonathan Edwards, the general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and Brown also acknowledged that Christians had participated in the slave trade and even profited from it.

“We recognize that, tragically, new forms of slavery have been introduced to our world and that there are still millions of people who are enslaved,” Edwards and Brown read. “We cry out now for those brutalized as prisoners of the sex industry, for those damaged by inhuman working conditions, for those sentenced to poverty by biased, unjust economic systems and for those suffering because of our exploitation of creation.”

Edwards said that “many reports of abuse and exploitation” should compel Baptist churches to welcome migrant workers and show them practical support. He also urged governing authorities to “engage in a coordinated way with the massive challenges that are posed by this influx of migrant workers.”

The Baptist conference concluded May 7, the same day as a migrant-worker rally in Trafalgar Square and a mass for migrant workers in Westminster Cathedral.

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

Posted: 5/16/07

IMB policies on baptism,
‘prayer language’ softened

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (ABP)—Controversial policies for missionaries on baptism and speaking in tongues were slightly softened—but not revoked —by trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board May 8.

The trustees, meeting in Kansas City, approved an ad hoc subcommittee report of the board’s missionary personnel committee, which had spent more than a year studying the issues.

Many who opposed the rules had hoped the committee would recommend revoking them altogether. In the end, however, the panel suggested softening the language on the baptism guideline and changing the tongues ruling from a policy to a guideline, which carries slightly less authority.

The decision is not likely to silence the denomination-wide controversy over the guidelines, which detractors say improperly exceed doctrinal parameters set in the SBC’s confession of faith, approved in 2000.

Trustee Wade Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor who has been at the forefront of the opposition, said the softened guidelines aren’t enough. “I would like to urge my fellow trustees to seriously consider the wisdom of adopting these guidelines,” he told the board. “I would much rather the (full) convention speak on this matter for the board.”

But Paul Chitwood, a Kentucky pastor who serves as chairman of the board’s mission personnel committee, said the guidelines are necessary despite the lack of evidence of a “systemic problem” with charismatic practices among IMB missionaries.

A preamble to the recommendations said, in part, “the rapid spread of neo-Pentecostalism and its pressure exacted on the new churches in various regions of the world warrants a concern for the clear Baptist identity of our missionary candidates.”

It continued, “Furthermore, the diversity of denominational backgrounds among missionary candidates requires a clear baptism guideline to guide the work of our candidate consultants as they consider the qualifications of candidates.”

IMB trustees first adopted the regulations in 2005. They were designed to disqualify new missionary candidates who practice a “private prayer language,” a form of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. Many observers saw the move as a slap at IMB president Jerry Rankin, who has acknowledged using a “private prayer language.”

The other policy was designed to prevent the approval of candidates baptized by a church or denomination with a different understanding of the doctrine of baptism than the views held by most Southern Baptists.

Board policies already in place in 2005 required missionary candidates to refrain from public glossolalia and other practices common to the charismatic movement. The board has always required missionaries to have been baptized by immersion after professing faith in Christ.

But the IMB’s 2005 action tightened those policies, stirring almost immediate controversy among younger pastors and others in the SBC blogosphere. Many of the disgruntled leaders said the mandate reflected restrictive theological beliefs held by some Southern Baptist leaders but not shared by the denomination at large.

The controversy led the board to appoint the study committee in March 2006. Chitwood said the panel solicited “vast amounts of material” from “across our convention” in its work.

In discussion on the recommendation, Burleson asked Chitwood and other board leaders to define the practical difference between an IMB “policy” and an IMB “guideline.”

IMB attorney Matt Bristol, addressing the question, said guidelines allowed for some wiggle room on the part of those screening missionary candidates.

“The only difference between the two terms is that the term ‘guideline’ carries with it an implication that in the implementation … that as the circumstances are presented with each individual candidate, it will be applied with a degree of flexibility, or if you would rather, pragmatism rather than dogmatism,” he said.

After a 45-minute discussion, the trustees approved the guidelines by a voice vote, with only a handful in audible opposition.

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

Posted: 5/16/07

Board to consider search committee
for new BGCT executive director

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board will consider at its May 21-22 meeting a proposed 15-member executive director search committee chaired by Ken Hugghins, pastor of Elkins Lake Baptist Church in Huntsville and chairman of the Christian Life Commission.

BGCT President Steve Vernon, First Vice President Joy Fenner, Second Vice President Roberto Rodriguez, Executive Board Chairman Bob Fowler and Vice Chair John Petty named the slate of the proposed committee. Fowler sent a May 16 e-mail to Executive Board directors to notify them of the nominees.

The recommended committee, composed of seven Executive Board directors and eight members from the convention at-large, will be charged with selecting a successor for Executive Director Charles Wade, who has announced plans to retire Jan. 31, 2008.

“I am pleased to advise you that, although we had a list of some alternates, we did not need even one of them, as every one of these folks accepted being nominated to participate in this very significant task in Texas Baptist life,” Fowler wrote. “This process has extended over a month for the five of us, and we have felt your prayerful support. We believe that these good people will serve Texas Baptists very effectively in finding the person God has identified to serve in this pivotal role.”

In addition to Hugghins, who is an Executive Board director, other nominees for the search committee are:

—Michael Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth and immediate past president of the BGCT.

—Linda Brian, Executive Board director and layperson from First Baptist Church in Amarillo, a former member of the Christian Education Coordinating Board and the Theological Education Council.

—Jerry Carlisle, Executive Board director and pastor of First Baptist Church in Plano, and chair of the education subcommittee of Executive Board’s Institutional Relations Committee.

—Stacy Conner, pastor of First Baptist Church in Muleshoe and former second vice president of the BGCT.

—Teo Cisneros, pastor of Templo Jerusalem Baptist in Victoria, a Baptist University of the Americas trustee and recent chair of BUA presidential search committee.

—Gloria DuBose, Executive Board director and lay person from First Baptist Church in Midland, and a member of the WorldConneX board.

—Gary Elliston, layperson from Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, a Baylor University regent and former chair of Howard Payne University’s board of trustees.

—Elizabeth Hanna, Executive Board director and layperson from Calder Baptist Church in Beaumont, chair of the finance subcommittee of the Executive Board Administration Support Committee.

—Mary Humphries, layperson from First Baptist Church in Tyler and a past president of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas.

—Dan Malone, layperson from First Baptist Church in El Paso, member of the Baptist Standard board of directors, and former member of the BGCT Administrative Committee.

—John Nguyen, Executive Board director and pastor of Vietnamese Baptist Church in Garland, and president of the Vietnamese Baptist Fellowship of Texas.

—Jim Nelson, Executive Board director and layperson from Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, and former Executive Board vice chair.

—Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Houston and member of the Truett Theological Seminary Advisory Board.

—Dan Wooldridge, pastor of Crestview Baptist Church in Georgetown and immediate past second vice president of the BGCT.

The Executive Board will vote first on the entire slate. If the slate of nominees for the search committee is approved, then Hugghins will be nominated as its chair.

The board also will consider two institutional representatives and two staff representatives who will serve as non-voting ex-officio members of the search committee.

“In a time when the expectations for the work of this committee are so high from so many groups, the five of us believe that these four additional folks, upon your approval next week, will give valuable input on behalf of their respective groups, as well as providing the committee valuable insights and backgrounds from their own experiences.” Fowler wrote in his correspondence to the 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: 5/11/07

Baylor prof Beckwith becomes Catholic,
resigns as head of evangelical society

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

WACO (ABP)—Evangelical philosopher Francis Beckwith has become a Roman Catholic and, as a result, has resigned as president—and as a member—of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Beckwith, associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University, said the decision he made to seek “full communion” with the Roman Catholic Church grew from his desire to find “historical and theological continuity” with the early Christian church.

Beckwith, famous for his arguments against abortion and for the right to teach intelligent design, has been a leading figure in the Evangelical Theological Society, the prominent academic society for conservative Protestants.

But his views on the church and society, which he acknowledged are “Catholic-friendly,” have drawn criticism from some Baptists. He served as associate director of Baylor’s J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies from 2003 to early 2007, despite protests from descendents of the institute’s namesake, who said Beckwith’s views denied church-state separation. His application for tenure at Baylor was first denied but granted on appeal.

Because Beckwith was a Catholic in his youth, he needed only to go to confession and receive absolution to become Catholic again, he said.

The ETS executive committee issued a response May 8 praising Beckwith but calling his resignation “appropriate” in light of the differing belief systems of evangelicals and Catholics.

“The work of the Evangelical Theological Society as a scholarly forum proceeds on the basis that ‘the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs,’” the statement said.

The Catholic Church accepts writings of the Apocrypha as authoritative Scripture, ETS said, and “extends the quality of infallibility” to certain doctrines and pronouncements of the pope and the church hierarchy.

“We are grateful for Dr. Beckwith’s past association with ETS, and we pray that God will continue to use his considerable gifts,” the leaders concluded, noting Hassell Bullock of Wheaton College, ETS president-elect, will serve as acting president until new officers are elected.

Beckwith has been a member of the Evangelical Theological Society since 1984. He said his return to Catholicism was unexpected. But in January, he began reading “some of the more sophisticated works on justification by Catholic authors,” as well as writings by the early church fathers.

“I became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant and that the Catholic view of justification, correctly understood, is biblically and historically defensible. Even though I also believe that the Reformed view is biblically and historically defensible, I think the Catholic view has more explanatory power to account for both all the biblical texts on justification as well as the church’s historical understanding of salvation prior to the Reformation all the way back to the ancient church of the first few centuries.

Beckwith is author of more than a dozen books, including To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview and Law, Darwinism and Public Education.

He holds a doctorate and master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University, as well as a law degree from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. Before going to Baylor, he taught philosophy at Princeton University. He is a fellow of the Discovery Institute, chief advocate for teaching intelligent design in public schools.

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

Posted: 5/14/07

Missionaries return to
Tanzania after surviving attack

By Charlie Warren

Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine

MOSHI, Tanzania (ABP)—Two Southern Baptist missionaries are returning to Tanzania, where they were attacked with machetes and shot during a vicious robbery in the East African country.

Carl and Kay Garvin, Southern Baptist missionaries who returned to Arkansas after the Feb. 23 attack in a remote village south of Moshi, Tanzania, have recovered remarkably well from the assault. They arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, April 24 for missionary meetings and a prayer retreat before a May 6 return to Tanzania.

The alleged robbers and would-be murderers have been apprehended by Tanzanian authorities, but the Garvins are still reeling from the harrowing evening when they were attacked in a rural inn.

They had just finished working in neighboring churches and were settling down after dinner when two men burst into the building, shouting for everyone to get on the floor. Baptist volunteers traveling with the Garvins ran to their rooms, but when the Garvins retreated to their room, the men tried to break the door.

Carl Garvin braced his back against a bed in the small room with his feet on the door to hold it closed. The door finally broke, collapsing onto Carl Garvin’s head and cutting him deeply. He was partially blinded by blood pouring into his eye. One of the men swung a machete at Garvin, who blocked the blow with his left arm.

“I felt the force of the blow, but I did not feel any pain,” he said. “The man was wild-eyed. He looked demon-possessed to me. He was very much out of control. He never stopped. He just kept constantly swinging. I counted six or seven hits on my body.”

At the same time, another “very calm” man stood in the hallway with a pistol. When the men demanded money, the Garvins gave them a purse and a wallet. But as the first intruder laid down the machete, Kay Garvin picked it up and took a swing at him.

That’s when she was shot by the man in the hall, whom she had not noticed.

“I told Carl, ‘He shot me!’” she said, “I was in disbelief that the man did that. I truly thought I was going to die.”

The bullet entered above her left breast, went through her lung and lodged in her back. It missed her aorta by an inch.

Carl Garvin feared the worst. “I thought I was going to get shot,” he said. “We had seen their faces. I was not afraid, but I was resigned to the fact that the next bullet would be mine.”

But the men took the money and a few possessions and left. Carl Garvin, a military nurse for 34 years and a Vietnam veteran, began treating his wife.

“I had seen gunshot wounds, and I knew that the chest was not a good place to get shot,” he said. “I thought I would lose her. I found it very difficult to say much more than a sentence prayer.”

Just then, volunteers Joe and Cindy Lennon, members of First Baptist Church of Harrison, Ark., and Rudy Dehrens, a member of Grandview First Baptist Church of Berryville, Ark., emerged from their rooms.

Dehrens, a nurse, began treating Kay Garvin. Carl Garvin, who had severely damaged bones in his arm and knee, organized locals to move his wife to a car to drive to the nearest medical facility, in Moshi—a two-hour drive over rough roads.

“All I could do was pray short prayers,” Kay Garvin said. “‘Lord, I love you.’ ‘Lord, thank you for your protection.’”

She said she asked God not to let her die.

“I knew if I went to sleep, I would never wake up,” she said. “I looked out the window. The sky was bright. The stars were beautiful, and I said, ‘Lord, I know you are all around, and I know you’re going to protect me.’ But I still had that fear. For two hours, I did not know if I would make it.”

As she looked at the stars, she said, she started to sing “God is so good,” and the others joined in.

Once on the road, Carl Garvin notified the International Mission Board, their employer, by calling the cell phone of the strategy associate in Nairobi, who happened to be in a meeting with IMB vice presidents. IMB personnel then called the Garvins’ children and started a prayer chain.

When the Garvins and the volunteers arrived at the Moshi medical facility, they immediately met with three missionary doctors and a Muslim doctor the Garvins had befriended.

Meanwhile, the IMB arranged for a medical evacuation plane, equipped with a doctor and a nurse, to fly to the nearby Kilimanjaro airport. Lanterns were placed on the airstrip so it could take off.

The Garvins had to get special permission to leave the country. Finally, 12 hours after the attack, they arrived at a hospital in Nairobi to receive the quality medical treatment they needed.

Carl Garvin now has a steel plate in his arm and can’t drive or lift anything for three months. He may face surgery on his knee in a few years.

Through it all, critics have asked the Garvins how God could let such an attack happen to people apparently serving him. But Carl Garvin calls that “shallow thinking.”

“God was in the room with us,” he said. “God allowed our bodies to be touched, but our lives were preserved. God’s purpose was they could only go so far.”

Plus, he added, God enabled everyone to remain calm throughout the ordeal. God provided a driver to the hospital, protection on the difficult journey to Moshi and comfort to the injured during the trip, he said. Moshi even had electricity that night —an uncommon occurrence at times, he added.

“This is not our story. It is God’s story,” he said. “It is a story of his mercy, his grace, his power, his timing, (and) his miracles. It was miracle after miracle.”

Kay Garvin plans to attest to that power. After her surgery, she held the .38-caliber bullet once embedded in her back. She’d like to keep it for good.

“It was given to me personally, and I want it back,” she joked, adding that she plans to mount it on a necklace and use it as a conversation piece about God.

Indeed, the Garvins firmly believe their return to Africa is necessary as a way to reach more people in Tanzania and encourage other missionaries there. Kay Garvin, for all she’s been through, said she’s excited to go “home.”

“There will be many things we will have to face as we return, but God has seen us through so much already (that) I am sure he will see us through these things also,” she said. “We look forward to see his plan for our life and how he will use us to share the gospel. We want to share what he has done for us, and we want the African people to see what a wonderful God we serve.”

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

Posted: 5/11/07

RIGHT or WRONG?
How to honor your parents

I’m worried about my elderly mother driving a car, but I hate to take away her independence by taking away her keys. The Bible says to honor your father and mother, and I don’t want her to think I’ve lost respect for her. What should I do?

Your question touches on several significant issues. Just as we are sensitive to our own aging processes, we also are sensitive to the aging of our parents. Our hearts go out to our parents as we recognize they are not capable of doing many of the tasks they enjoyed in the past. It hurts our parents, and it hurts us.

One of those difficult decisions of aging is knowing when it is time to hang up the car keys and let someone else do the driving. The nature of your question leads me to make an assumption that you currently are making a number of decisions for and with your mother. You probably are involved in her medical care, her finances, her property, her legal issues and many other issues. Your involvement is slowly whittling away at her independence, which makes this decision to drive even more challenging. But among all of these issues, your mother’s safety and the safety of others is among your concerns.

Many tools can help in gauging your mother’s driving ability. One is found in Aging Parents and Elder Care (www.aging-parents-and-elder-care.com). Here is a small sample of their tools for evaluation. Does she: “Drive at inappropriate speeds, either too fast or too slow?” “Fail to judge distances between cars correctly?” “Ask passengers to help check if it is clear to pass or turn?”

I believe the intent of your question is, “Am I dishonoring my mother when I take away her driving privileges?” In my opinion, you are not disrespecting or dishonoring your mother by monitoring and perhaps ultimately removing her privilege to drive. In this decision, you are expressing love for your mother and possibly your neighbor. You also are being a responsible member of our society in helping to create a safer environment. Honoring our parents is more than just doing what we are told by our parents.

As I have listened to church members grapple with this issue over the years, I have heard a variety of approaches. One gentleman who promised not to drive pleaded, “Please let me keep my keys in my pocket.” That arrangement has worked very well. I have seen the other extreme, where the car had to be removed because spare keys were stashed away.

Parents may grieve in losing the ability to drive, but they generally understand when the time has come. For many, driving in traffic has become unnerving. Knowing that someone else will be running the errands might be a relief. Sometimes the companionship when getting out is actually welcome. Responsibly monitoring the safety of your mother is a valuable part of honoring her.

Stacy Conner, pastor

First Baptist Church

Muleshoe

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

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

Updated: 5/11/07

Texas Baptists minister to Cactus tornado victims

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DUMAS—Clutching his Bible to his chest, Saul Monreal lay on the floor of his trailer home as the April 21 tornado roared through Cactus. He prayed for his life.

Moving to Cactus a month ago for a job with a meat processing plant, Monreal had lived in his new trailer only a few days before the violent storm hit. He didn’t know many people in the community of 2,500 people.

“I didn’t know where to go or if there was a shelter, so I stayed in my trailer,” he recalled. “The tornado blew out the windows, and I ran to a bedroom that didn’t have any windows to try for safety.”

As he prayed for his life, his wife and four children were safe at home more than 700 miles away in Durango, Mexico. Glancing up from the floor of his trailer, he realized the tornado had pulled the roof off and ripped out the walls. His home was gone.

“I am alive. It’s a miracle, I think,” Saul said. “I didn’t die because Jesus didn’t want me to.”

Then he remembered “everything started falling from the sky, like metal, wood, metal sheets, 4x4s and 2x2s.”

Frightened, he covered his head with his Bible, but he was knocked unconscious and trapped under a pile of rubble. As firemen and rescue teams searched for victims, they heard his cry, dug him out from under twisted metal sheeting, wood, a washing machine and a refrigerator, and called 9-1-1 for help.

Monreal, one of 15 people reported injured in the Cactus tornado, suffered head and face injuries and a shattered finger. Doctors stapled his facial injuries and reduced the swelling, then released him to the Dumas Red Cross shelter.

More than 300 families sought refuge at the shelter after the tornado hit as officials evacuated the entire town of Cactus because there was no water, electricity or gas.

The victims survived the harrowing ordeal and found solace in a compassionate collaboration of Texas Baptist church members, Texas Baptist Men volunteers and Red Cross, among others.

Monreal’s injuries were a pressing concern. He lost everything but his “green card, Social Security card and driver’s license.” He had no food, no home, no insurance and no funds for the surgery.  

Texas Baptists partnered with other relief groups to help victims like Monreal get disaster relief. In the first few days, the first responders on the scene including Texas Baptist Men volunteers, many of them from Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, prepared 1,500 meals a day. Church members from First Baptist Church in Dumas alternated serving meals and First Baptist Church of O’Donnell brought in their own tractor trailer-size shower unit.

More than five thousand meals were prepared since the tornado hit April 21. Community leaders have been grateful.

“The Texas Baptist Men can cook 40 pounds of pinto beans in 10 minutes,’ said Dumas Mayor Mike Milligan. “They are impressive.”

Milligan is working to secure FEMA trailers for displaced Cactus residents. More than 300 homes, nine businesses and 100 electrical poles were destroyed or heavily damaged, according to emergency management officials.

Four days after the tornadoes hit, Gov. Rick Perry declared Moore and Swisher counties state disaster areas.  FEMA officials began assessing damages in Cactus and Tulia April 25. If damages reach $25 million, the area is eligible to be declared a national disaster area, which means the communities can get federal aid to help residents and businesses rebuild.

Texas Baptist Men volunteers prepare a barbecue meal for tornado victims at the Dumas Community Center.

Many Cactus residents like Monreal spent days and nights at the shelter where Texas Baptists ministered.

Relief workers and victims alike benefited from a shower and laundry unit provided by First Baptist Church in O’Donnell. The church raised $40,000 to purchase a trailer and build and equip their own disaster relief shower unit, which combines showers, bathing supplies and laundry services. The church’s inaugural mission was in Cactus, where they provided hundreds of showers and laundry loads.

Martina Lorenzo, a Guatemalan mother who could not speak English, sought help as she tried to take care of an infant and two other small children. She was at home by herself when the tornado hit.

“The children were crying, and we hurried to get under the bed,” Lorenzo said through an interpreter. “That’s when I started praying.”

Melva and Rex Stokes from O’Donnell were glad to help the hurting in the Panhandle.

“We had one family who lost everything except for their clothes. Most were strewn outside the area where their home had been,” she said. “They picked up every item and arrived carrying five or six trash bags of clothes to wash.”  

Church members worked tirelessly to remove bits of broken glass and twigs from their clothing, scrubbed sections by hand and washed and dried their belongings.  

Five days after the tornado injury, surgeons operated on Monreal’s crushed finger at an Amarillo hospital. He returned to the shelter April 26 and cannot return to work for a month.

But the tornado has caused him to re-examine his faith. 

“It doesn’t matter as long as I’m alive,” he said. “I can do more shoes, more clothing, anything as long as I’m alive. And God’s going to help me fix everything in my life. …

I’m taking the opportunity to serve him and try and be different from now on.”

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

Updated: 5/11/07

Texas Baptists minister in Piedras Negras

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico—Juan Molina can’t remember the last tornado that hit Eagle Pass or Piedras Negras, Mexico, prior to the one that swept through the area last month.

So, when it started to rain April 24, he thought it was another spring shower. Hours later, he was huddled with his pregnant wife and their 1-year-old daughter on the floor of their mobile home watching a tornado peel off the roof of their house.

“I thought it was going to be the last day of my life,” Molina said, describing how the storm rocked his home like a ship on the ocean.

Days after the tornado, Molina still could not find his wallet, which had his checkbook and credit cards in it. All his family’s clothing was ruined, and they had nothing to eat.

The Molinas were three of several hundred people staying at an American Red Cross shelter in Eagle Pass, where a Texas Baptist Men shower unit operated and Baptist General Convention of Texas staff members counseled victims and offered family financial assistance.

Across the Rio Grande in Piedras Negras, the situation was grimmer. An eight-square-block area nearly was leveled by a tornado that touched down there. Days after the storm hit, limbs still were strewn everywhere. Large pieces of sheet metal remained imbedded into broken trees. Rubble lay were homes once stood. Windows were either blown out or had holes in them where softball-sized hail came through.

“It looks like a bomb exploded,” said Robert Cepeda, a Baptist General Convention of Texas church starter who, along with BGCT Congregational Strategist Noe Trevino, helped coordinate Texas Baptist disaster response in the area.

In the shadow of what remains of a 200-year-old Catholic church, Texas Baptist Men volunteers were cooking 4,500 meals a day for tornado victims and recovery workers. A constant flow of people came through the tent, creating opportunities for ministry and relationship building for the TBM unit.

“We have been compelled by Christ to serve mankind as demonstrated to us when he was here on earth,” said Ed Alvarado, TBM ethnic coordinator. “We’re just trying to imitate Christ.”

In the community, a TBM chainsaw unit was cutting and clearing limbs for residents. Four Baptist University of the Americas students spent time in the neighborhoods counseling and praying with people. A load of clothes and food from Buckner International was due into Eagle Pass.

“We’re an extension of the local Baptist church,” Alvarado said. “We’re hoping our presence will influence and undergird the local churches in Piedras Negras.”

The BGCT also called in trained counselors to help victims —including friends and family of those affected by the tornadoes—decompress. Many people continued talking about where they were and what they were doing when the storm struck. Sharing their stories helped them process what had happened to them, said Cepeda, a trained counselor. The addition of people trained to help victims will help the recovery process, he noted.

“Just seeing their faces makes your heart melt,” Trevino said.

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

Updated: 5/11/07

Holy Spirit conference
decries lack of Baptist unity

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

ARLINGTON (ABP)—Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit are largely overlooked in Baptist churches, Pastor Dwight McKissic said at his Baptist Conference on the Holy Spirit.

That lack of awareness is Baptists’ loss, said McKissic and many of the 200 others who gathered at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington. The event was scheduled eight months after McKissic triggered a tempest in the Southern Baptist Convention by acknowledging he has practiced a "private prayer language" since his days as a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

While Christians celebrate the blessings of God the Father at Thanksgiving and rejoice in the advent of God the Son at Christmas, most Baptists don’t celebrate or study the “ignored member of the Trinitarian enterprise,” he said.

“The church nullifies and cancels the power of the incarnation when it is not unified,” said McKissic, who led his church to pull out of the Baptist General Convention of Texas six years ago and join the breakaway Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

“How can we ever find unity again? I suggest to you that we must accept the principle of Pentecost (as a model) for reuniting God’s family by his power.”

Pentecost, the biblical celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, brought together a remarkable diversity of Jews and proselytes from all over the Roman Empire, he said, comparing the Holy Spirit to a unifying “wind” that blows through Christians. And while the particular events of the Pentecost won’t be repeated, the principle is the same.

McKissic told listeners, who hailed from Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Alabama, that people question the authenticity of the faith when Christians divide over color and “over the question that somebody might speak in tongues in their prayer closet.”

“That’s why we invited everybody,” he said. “This conference is not about indoctrination. It’s about education.”

The first day of the conference featured a pastor’s roundtable discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit in Baptist churches. The meeting was a follow-up session to a December pastors’ meeting McKissic also hosted.

Pastors and other Baptist leaders at that earlier discussion voted unanimously to request Southern Baptist Convention officials to reconsider policies restricting speaking in tongues, including “private prayer languages.”

McKissic, a trustee at Southwestern Seminary, has feuded with fellow trustees over the seminary’s policies on glossolalia. The controversy began in August after McKissic mentioned in a Southwestern chapel service his practice of a private prayer language.

In that sermon, McKissic said he disagreed with the SBC International Mission Board’s 2005 decision to exclude missionary candidates who espouse the practice. Later, seminary trustees threatened to ask the convention to remove McKissic from the board.

The rift eventually became known throughout the Southern Baptist blogosphere, with many younger SBC bloggers criticizing Southwestern trustees and administrators for their treatment of McKissic. Some of the more prominent bloggers, including Alan Cross, Art Rogers, Wade Burleson and Benjamin Cole, attended the April conference.

Cole, the prolific pastor-blogger from Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, went one step past McKissic’s admonition of Baptists to study the Holy Spirit. During his presentation, he chastened pastors for holding Fourth of July picnics and singing patriotic songs in church while most of their church members “can’t even name the date of Pentecost.”

Baptist hymnals have “six or seven” songs about the Holy Spirit but “many more” in the “God and country” section, he said. It’s part of a national, patriotic identity that has robbed Baptists of their identity in Christ, he added.

“There is nothing worshipful about ‘America the Beautiful,’” he said. “It is an idolatrous song when sung in the midst of the people of God. … Our identity is in Christ. I don’t pledge allegiance to the flag when I gather with the people of God on the Lord’s day.”

Cole, who was later loudly accosted by a man in the audience who took exception to what he characterized as “arrogant” and “unpatriotic” sentiments, said he is not ashamed of being an American citizen, “but that citizenship is so transient that it almost becomes meaningless when I gather with the people of God.”

The Pentecostal paradigm, Cole said, is that God tore down barriers like race and nationality in order for Christians to become known by the name God intended—Christ. Cole, McKissic and event speakers emphasized that despite differing opinions among Baptists on the role of the Holy Spirit, especially when it comes to speaking in a private prayer language, unity should be a common goal.

Peggy Cleveland, a layperson from Pelham, Ala., who attended the conference, said she wants unity as well. Cleveland, who attends a Baptist church but chooses to classify herself simply as a Christian, said she attended the event partly as a skeptic. If McKissic and the others felt the need to hold a conference on the Holy Spirit, that implied there must be something “wrong” with it, she said.

After hearing from McKissic, however, she said she was optimistic about the rest of the conference.

“The Holy Spirit reveals to the individual person … but how will other people know what it reveals to me unless I share it?” she asked. “That’s why the unity is important.”

McKissic too is optimistic.

“I have a dream that the Baptist family will come together—not as black, Hispanic, Asian and white (nor) as tongue-speakers and not-tongue-speakers,” he said. “I have a dream that we will come together as Christians.”

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

Updated: 5/11/07

ABP board honors three,
moves ahead with partnership

By Hannah Elliott & Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—The board of the nation’s only independent news service for Baptists honored two Baptist communicators and a Dallas congregation for their contributions to the cause of Christian journalism April 27.

Meeting in Dallas, directors of Associated Baptist Press also adopted a final 2007 budget and unanimously agreed to move ahead with a business plan for a strategic partnership between ABP, the Baptist Standard and other Baptist publications.

The news agency gives three honors to individuals and organizations that its directors believe have stood for religious liberty and press freedom. ABP bestowed all three at a banquet, honoring Baptist pioneer W.C. Fields, journalist Ken Camp and Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

Fields, who for 28 years worked as director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Press news service, received the 2007 ABP Religious Freedom Award. Marv Knox, editor of the Baptist Standard, called Fields “a leader of integrity” who understood the importance of telling Baptists the complete and accurate story—even when that was not what denominational leaders wanted.

“Freedom has been a central theme and a central concern in Baptist life from the very beginning,” Knox said, adding that Fields “stood in rooms where it was very uncomfortable at times, for all of us.”

Fields, in directing the SBC’s news agency, built it from a loose network of Baptist state newspapers into a daily news service whose journalistic integrity commanded the respect of religious and secular publications alike. Other denominational news agencies have since modeled their operations on the Baptist Press of Fields’ era, Knox noted.

In his acceptance speech, Fields said news outlets must still aim to tell difficult stories, especially in light of a “regional experience out of which Southern Baptists have become part of, this folk faith.”

“One of the greatest threats to true religion, undefiled, in America in our time is this … homegrown religion,” he said. “There is a counterfeit religion in this country that needs replacing with the real thing.”

That folk religion “has frequently done more to canonize prejudice than to wrestle for truth,” Fields continued. And instead of faith acting in “quiet commitment,” it often becomes empty activity out of “institutional loyalty,” he said.

Wilshire Pastor George Mason, who accepted the ABP Founders Award on the congregation’s behalf, said his church was thrilled to be honored on the same night as Fields and Camp.

“Often we have seen that we’ve, in a sense, gone out early and others have followed, and I’m grateful that that is being recognized this night,” he said.

Greg Warner, ABP’s executive editor, also praised the Wilshire congregation as “a pioneer.” In 1997, the church committed $50,000 in support for FaithWorks magazine, which was published for six years by ABP but was discontinued in 2003. It was aimed at younger Baptists and other Christians who wanted news, analysis and theological resources. Wilshire “saw the vision behind that and the need for Baptists to reach out to that group,” he said.

The award, which honors support for ABP’s mission, has previously been given to two other local churches: Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas and Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss.

Camp, managing editor of the Baptist Standard, received the ABP Writer’s Award for his ongoing contributions to Baptist journalism. Previously the news director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Camp became managing editor of the Standard in 2004.

Each year, ABP carries scores of stories under Camp’s byline. Warner said the award recognizes Camp’s entire body of work, rather than one single achievement.

“Without his contributions, we would be a significantly smaller news organization,” Warner said. “He is our most prolific contributor outside of our staff.”

In two days of meetings leading up to the awards banquet, ABP’s directors approved, without dissent, a draft business plan for its new venture with the Standard. The collaborative effort will enable both organizations and other Baptist publications to coordinate newsgathering efforts, share resources and streamline the distribution of news to readers.

The Standard board of directors will consider the proposal May 15.

Mark Sanders, chairman of an ad hoc ABP board committee on the partnership effort, reported that he was encouraged after a joint meeting April 26 with members of a counterpart committee of the Standard board.

“You know, the work of ABP has always been noble and has always been rewarding, but leaving our meeting today, I don’t think it’s ever been this exciting,” he said. Sanders is a lobbyist from Athens, Ga.

ABP directors also gave final approval to a 2007 budget of $ $551,218. Warner told board members the organization ended the previous fiscal year in good shape.

“We finished 2006 (with) probably our strongest finish ever … with a surplus of $32,000,” he said.

However, Warner noted that receipts for the first quarter of 2007 had been sluggish. The slow giving was partially due, he said, to the departure of the news service’s fundraising officer. Tim Norton resigned as ABP’s development director in February to join the staff of the First Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tenn.

Nonetheless, he added, the agency’s staff had cut operating expenses significantly in recent months through measures such as moving to a virtual-office model. ABP’s employees now operate out of Jacksonville, Fla.; New York and Washington. An Internet telephone system has cut expenses, he said, as has closing ABP’s former headquarters office in Jacksonville, with the two remaining employees at that location moving to home offices.

ABP’s next board meeting is scheduled Sept. 17-18 in Richmond, Va.

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