Updated: 4/14/07

Update: Embattled Missouri exec
fired in closed meeting

By Vicki Brown

Associated Baptist Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (ABP) – In a split 44-7 vote, the Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Board fired its top administrator, David Clippard, April 10.

Clippard, who assumed duties as executive director Sept. 9, 2002, was terminated in a four-hour, closed-door session — the culmination of a growing rift between two conservative factions within the state convention.

According to people in the meeting, convention attorney and spokesman Michael Whitehead summed up the reason for Clippard’s termination as a lack of confidence in his ability to continue in the top position. The attorney said that although the decision did not come as a complete surprise to the executive director, Clippard was still “hurt and shocked” by the outcome.

A meeting of the board in September turned into a showdown between Clippard and Roger Moran, the convention's fundamentalist powerbroker and leader of the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association, which is credited with steering the Missouri convention's rightward shift.

Convention president Michael Green, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Republic, Mo., referred all questions to Whitehead. The attorney would not release information about a severance agreement. He noted that an official statement was to be offered later that evening. However, nothing had been posted on the convention’s website or on its news journal’s site as of April 11.

An edited version of the committee’s report is supposed to be released before the end of the week. Individual names and sensitive personnel and legal information will be removed from the report, Whitehead explained.

In a brief meeting with reporters, the attorney characterized board members as “very passionate” but “respectful” during the executive session.

Before closing the meeting to outsiders, Green reminded board members that he would not tolerate rude and disrespectful behavior, referring to the raucous September session concerning Clippard, in which members shouted at one another.

“We are not going to act like a bunch of monkeys in the St. Louis zoo…. I am not going to let people get away [with similar behavior]…. We have got to work together,” the president said.

Board member Don Denney urged the Executive Board to override Green’s decision to close the meeting to the public. But after Whitehead reminded them that personnel issues, including a legal contract, were involved, board members affirmed the chair.

Associate executive director David Tolliver was named as interim executive effective immediately. A search committee for Clippard's replacement was not named.

Tolliver met privately with convention staffers for about half an hour to inform them of the board’s decision before the announcement was made public in an afternoon open session. Although open to other news writers, the Associated Baptist Press representative was not allowed to attend that meeting.

Some 25 to 30 Missouri Baptist pastors, directors of missions, and laypeople in attendance were not allowed to speak before the meeting was closed, even though board member Wayne Isgriggs urged Green to allow them to do so. The board also did not give them an opportunity to speak during the open session.

Clippard had been at odds with some Executive Board members, as well as Moran, for more than a year. Some Clippard critics were upset that the executive director opposed an Executive Board decision last April to tap reserve funds for a $200,000 contribution to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Some were reportedly upset that Clippard also opposed the board’s commitment of up to $150,000 for the convention's Christian Life Commission to oppose a stem-cell-research amendment to the state’s constitution, which Missouri voters approved in November.

The executive director also drew some ire for allegedly firing Bob Baysinger, managing editor of the convention news journal, The Pathway, after the paper revealed details of a secret contingency contract to sell the Baptist Building property to Cole County in August 2004 for the site of a new justice center. The deal fell through when county voters turned down a proposed tax increase to fund the project.

Last April, the Executive Board stripped Clippard of supervision of The Pathway editor Don Hinkle, placing him under board control. That move also upset some Clippard supporters.

Settlement of a harassment suit filed by former convention controller Carol Kaylor in 2003 and misunderstandings with Missouri Woman’s Missionary Union also contributed to Clippard’s firing.

According to several sources, battle lines between Clippard and Moran supporters became more apparent following Clippard’s 2006 evaluation in July. The evaluation committee called for a meeting between the executive director and Moran, who served as chair of the convention’s powerful 2006 nominating committee.

Billed as a “unity and reconciliation meeting,” Executive Board members and a few selected former convention presidents met with Moran and Clippard behind closed doors Sept. 22.

The growing rift between conservative factions took a public turn at the 2006 annual meeting in Cape Girardeau in October when a move was made to replace outgoing president Ralph Sawyer, a nominating committee selection to the Executive Board, with former convention president Gerald Davidson.

Although Davidson removed his name from consideration, he later called for an end to Moran’s Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association, the organization credited with the convention’s conservative turn.

Despite his termination, board members credit Clippard with restructuring and streamlining convention operations, with improving the convention’s financial position and with focusing on evangelism and church planting.

In a brief interview, Tolliver said he plans to continue the evangelism and church planting focus.

“This is another time of life that I feel like … I’m not ready for the task,” he said. “My goal is to have staff and convention unification, to unify the staff and to work for unifying the convention.”

—Vicki Brown is a free-lance reporter working for Associated Baptist Press. This story updates one released by ABP April 10.

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Posted: 4/16/07

Southwestern Seminary files motion
against dismissed professor’s suit

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

FORT WORTH– Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the gender-discrimination lawsuit that former professor Sheri Klouda brought against the school.

The motion argues the suit should be dismissed because seminary officials’ decision to dismiss Klouda is protected by the First Amendment.

“The seminary’s relationship with its professors has been held by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to be the same relationship as a church with its ministers,” the motion said. “Any decision the seminary may take regarding the employment of one of its professors is an ecclesiastical decision, which this court is bound to accept out of deference for the free exercise of religion, protected by the First Amendment.”

The motion also refuted each of Klouda’s claims of breach of contract, fraud, defamation, and promissory estoppel

Klouda, who was hired in 2002 to teach Hebrew in a tenure-track position at the Fort Worth school, lost her job last year, allegedly because of her gender. She sued the school March 8.

In the suit, Klouda said Paige Patterson, who became Southwestern’s president in 2003, personally assured her the advent of his administration would not jeopardize her position. However, school officials told her in 2004 she would not get tenure.

Van McClain, chair of the school’s board of trustees, explained in a letter posted on a Southern Baptist blog that Klouda “did not have tenure and, like hundreds of professors around the U.S. every year, was told that she would not be awarded tenure.”

Public outcry at the dismissal, reported not only in Baptist news outlets but also in the Dallas and Fort Worth daily newspapers, the Associated Press and Religion News Service, has given the issue unexpected national prominence.

The seminary terminated Klouda’s contract in December 2006, and she now teaches at Taylor University in Upland, Ind.

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Updated: 4/13/07

Mission Waco volunteers
offer pure water, living water

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—Sixteen Mission Waco volunteers recently provided food, medical care and a source of clean water for a village in Haiti and—just as important to the mission trip’s sponsors—gained a new perspective on ministry among some of the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere.

“Our mission is two-fold. We want to provide holistic, relationship-based programs that empower the poor and the marginalized. We also want to mobilize middle-class Americans to become more compassionately involved in ministry among the poor,” said Mission Waco Executive Director Jimmy Dorrell.

Waco physician Rafael Perez worked with local health-care providers and Mission Waco to provide a clinic in Ferrier, Haiti, where medical professionals treated more than 100 patients in three and a half days.

“These exposure trips are always high impact, and certainly this one was transformative for those who went,” including a half-dozen college students from Baylor University, Texas Tech and at least one school in Alabama, he noted.

Mission Waco makes annual treks to Haiti, and it also offers mission exposure trips to Mexico City and to India, where volunteers work among a largely unchurched people group.

The recent Mission Waco team served in Ferrier, a village where Dorrell and his wife, Janet, lived in the mid-1980s and worked closely with Texans Ed and Mary Brentham of Belton. They used the same drilling rig Brentham secured more than 20 years ago to drill a new water source for the village.

“Clean water is one of the most precious commodities for this nation that often resorts to bacteria-infested river water to drink,” Dorrell said.

But in the near future, Christian workers in the area should find it easier to provide additional water sources. Within the next month, new drilling equipment should arrive in Haiti, thanks largely to grants from Woman’s Missionary Union and its Pure Water Pure Love initiative, he noted.

Waco physician Rafael Perez worked with local health-care providers and Harry Porter, a pharmacist who serves with the Medical Ambassadors International missions organization, to provide a clinic where they treated more than 100 patients in three and a half days. They also delivered more than $20,000 worth of donated medicine and served beans and rice to more than 600 people.

Volunteers also led classes at Berraca Baptist Church on nutrition, basic hygiene and how adherence to biblical standards of sexual behavior could virtually eliminate the risks of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

“Haiti is second only to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the high infection rate of HIV/AIDS,” Dorrell noted.

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

Updated: 4/13/07

Evangelical leaders join broad
coalition urging immigration reform

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—A bipartisan array of Congress members and evangelical leaders exhorted their colleagues March 29 on the moral necessity of immigration reform.

Leaders from across the ideological spectrum—from Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to Southern Baptist public policy agency executive Richard Land—held a Capitol Hill press conference to call on Congress and President Bush to institute immigration reform.

They said any such reform should both secure American borders and treat justly the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.

“At the bottom of this whole debate and discussion, this is a moral issue—a moral question, deeply moral,” said Kennedy, who called the Capitol Hill press conference and who has led a long fight for immigration reform.

“One of my very favorite provisions in the Bible is Matthew 25, when the good question that is put by the Lord is, ‘What have you done for the least of these?’“ Kennedy said, noting that Jesus calls his followers to aid “the stranger.”

He also noted passages in the Old Testament law in which God commanded ancient Hebrews to welcome “aliens among you.”

Congress took up immigration-reform legislation last year, but it became bogged down from internal struggles in the then-Republican majority.

The party was torn between anti-immigration hardliners and those, including President Bush, who wanted more comprehensive reform.

The comprehensive reform would have included opportunities for undocumented workers in the United States to earn permanent status and start the process toward citizenship.

Some conservatives have objected to such provisions in Bush’s plan. They call such plans “amnesty” for illegals.

But Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told reporters such terminology clouds the debate.

“The idea that you would call having to learn to read and write and speak English and you would have to go through a series of processes … to earn legal status and citizenship—it does great harm to the English language to call that ‘amnesty,’“ he said.

Legislators at the press conference expressed hope that a reform bill will make it through the new Congress.

Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have introduced a bipartisan bill in the House. Kennedy said he believes the Senate will take up similar legislation when the chamber returns from its Easter recess.

Graham, a Southern Baptist, told reporters Congress is closer than he’s ever seen to passing immigration reform.

“I am more encouraged than I ever have been on this particular issue that the Congress is coming together, with help from the administration, to create some legislation that will make America safe (and) secure, and we can still say at the end of the day that we’re America,” he said.

“There is a way to hold people accountable for breaking the law and still have a just result. Because if the law doesn’t render justice, what good is it?”

The Gutierrez-Flake bill is known as the “Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act of 2007,” or the STRIVE Act. It is H.R. 1645.

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Updated: 4/13/07

Woodworker labors long for
Carpenter from Nazareth

By George Henson

Staff Writer

FRIONA—A look at J.G. Baker’s hands gives a glimpse into a man who has enjoyed working with wood his entire life, but a look at his heart gives insight into a man who has placed his eternal life in the hands of yet another carpenter.

While he is approaching age 92, even a casual observer can tell he was a powerfully built man and no stranger to hard work. He and his family ran harvesting combines from Arizona north to almost the Canadian border, and then back south, ending in the wheat and maize fields of the Texas Panhandle for many years. During the off-season, Baker worked in his woodshop.

“I made whatever anybody would pay for,” he said with a smile. But woodworking has long brought a smile to his face. He still has an animal carving he made as a small boy.

“I could carve any type of animal you wanted without even looking at them from the time I was 8,” he said.

For the last 54 years, Friona has been Baker’s home. The First Baptist Church there bears the marks of both of his passions. The sanctuary pulpit furniture, the cross that hangs on the wall of the baptistry, the cabinet for the sound equipment and desks throughout the church—all those and many other pieces are evidence of his love for wood and God.

The ministry that has strewn his handiwork across the state started about eight years ago, when a man he had cut grain for 40 years started a church in Phoenix, Ariz. As a show of his support, Baker made the pulpit, the communion table, two platform chairs, two flower stands and two lecterns.

He now has made eight of those sets, the first four of white oak, the last four of red oak.

“It’s good, sturdy stuff; I can tell you that,” he said.

At the time, he averaged about one set a year, but something prompted him to make four sets in 2006. He didn’t know why then, but now he thinks maybe he does.

“It guess the Lord knew I wasn’t going to be able to do much more after I got that done,” he said.

After a lifetime of excellent health—“I was working eight to 14 hours a day before October”—his health deteriorated rapidly. A series of setbacks left him using a walker and using oxygen to breathe scant months later. He’s trying to wean himself off the oxygen, but the exertion forces him back to it.

For months, he was unable to get into his workshop, but now he’s trying to spend at least a couple of hours there each day. Even so, he confesses he does more resting than working.

His handiwork will without a doubt succeed him, because it has scores of years ahead of it.

He laughs as he recalls his meeting with a pastor in Happy. First Baptist Church there was struck by a tornado, ripping away the roof. Eighteen days later, as repairs were hours away from being completed, fire stormed through the building, leveling it.

When the church neared its rebuilding, Baker visited the community and remembers walking around the unfinished building. When someone asked what he was doing, he said he was looking for the pastor.

Baker recalled Pastor Paul Burwash told the story of the meeting when the church held its open house a few weeks later with a set of Baker’s furniture prominently featured.

“The pastor over there, he’s a joker anyway,” Baker said with a grin.

He recalled the pastor relating: “I saw this old man walking around who looked like he’d escaped from a nursing home, and then he told me, ‘I want to give you your pulpit furniture, and there won’t be any down payment or any payments afterward.’ I thought: ‘I better call somebody. He’s starting to talk irrational.’”

Most of Baker’s furniture has gone either to churches that recovered from disasters or churches just getting on their feet. He has a heart to help those who could use a dose of encouragement.

Encouraging is precisely the word Deacon Woodrow Browning used to describe Baker’s gift to Kokomo Baptist Church in Gorman. Wildfires that raced across that part of the state took no pity on the church and burned it to the ground.

“It’s hard to put into words what his gift meant,” Browning said. “It’s just unbelievable that he gave us that furniture—and what a craftsman he is. It’s comparable to when we were working on the church and somebody would come by and talk for awhile and leave us a check before they left.”

The check would have to be a big one. The church furniture he used as his model sells for $8,500 out of a catalog he found.

And that was $8,500 that definitely was not in the budget when his church finally was able to build a building after more than a decade of renting space, Pastor Monte Byrd of Mill Creek Baptist Church in Bellville said.

“This was a tremendous example of God supplying exactly what you need,” he said. “It wasn’t in our budget by any stretch of the imagination, but when we went and picked it up, it matches perfectly with our organ that was also donated, the exposed beams we have in the ceiling and the cabinets the Texas Baptist Men built for us. We couldn’t have picked it out any better if we had known what we were doing.”

Baker is thrilled his handiwork is being used for God’s glory across the state, but he said he is just as thankful he has found a way to serve.

“There’s a lot of different ways to serve the Lord, and this is one way that I found,” he said.

“You wander off sometimes from serving, but more than anything, I’ve always tried to live my life in a way where I didn’t have to make any apologies.”

Baker said he may have gotten that philosophy of living from a doctor he knew when he was growing up in McKinney.

“This old doctor had a son who had just finished doctor school, and I remember he told me, ‘I told him if you want to be a good doctor, you have to be a good man first.’ I’ve always thought that was good advice no matter what you do,” Baker said.

And so, Baker has put his hands where his heart is.

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

Updated: 4/13/07

Buckner orphan writes her story

By Analiz González

Buckner International

GARLAND—Only a privileged few children grow up with perks like private piano lessons, swimming classes and rigorous academic programs.

Frances Jones counts herself among the privileged. Minus parents, her childhood was almost a fairy tale.

Frances Jones

“Once upon a time, there was a 10-year-old girl named Frances who lived in an orphanage called Buckner Orphan’s Home in Dallas, Texas,” Jones writes in her new book, Orphan Journey: Memoirs of Growing up in Buckner Orphans’ Home. “Six hundred boys and girls lived there.”

Jones, 67, decided to write her story after being urged by her adoptive parents and friends to share her Buckner adventures. She enrolled in a creative writing class at Eastfield Community College in Mesquite, where her professor and classmates also encouraged her desire to write.

She wrote most of the memoir at her kitchen table. She would pick up a notebook and pen and scribble away until her childhood appeared on the pages.

“I mainly wanted to tell what I loved about Buckner and why I loved it and what they gave me,” she said.

Jones had a happy childhood.

People who don’t know any better feel sorry for her because she was an orphan, she conceded. But they’re completely wrong. In fact, when a couple offered to adopt her at age 14, she turned them down. She felt at home at Buckner. She’d been there since she was 5 months old, and as a high school student, she was pretty popular, she said.

Luckily, her adoptive parents were willing to wait until Jones was 18 before making her a part of their family. They adopted her just in time to put her new name on her high school diploma.

“I had a wonderful childhood, and even though it was cloistered within these gates and fences, I still had a lot of opportunities,” she said. “I never lacked love. I call (Orphan Journey) my love story for Buckner.”

Jones’ story includes memories of Christmas presents, basketball games and the close friendships she had with her 600 to 800 “brothers and sisters.” She also writes about the times she got into trouble with teachers.

“Mr. Holman was forever catching me talking to my neighbor,” she writes. “He would reprimand me and call me to the front of the class. Then he would get out his paddle and give me a few licks in front of everybody. You’d think that would cure me. However, I guess the temptation to talk was greater than the fear of punishment.”

Jones loves to chat. When she talks, she moves her hands and looks her listener right in the eye. In fact, her friendliness kept her from feeling lonely in the orphans’ home, she said. And with so many people around, there was always someone to talk to.

Jones also writes about how Buckner molded her into who she is now. One obvious influence was her decision to adopt her two children, Richard and Melissa. Melissa was adopted through Buckner. And Jones said both her children had strict Christian upbringing, just like the one she always knew.

“If something is good in my life, I give Buckner the credit,” she said. “I’m just very grateful.”

Buckner took in the 5-month-old after she was declared “unadoptable” because of an eye deformity. The orphans’ home made itself responsible for eye surgeries. The home’s founder, R.C. Buckner, died long before Jones was born, but she feels a special bond for this man, who did so much for her, she said.

One of her favorite pictures is of a group of orphan girls standing in front of founder R. C. Buckner's statue. They’re all smiling and facing the camera, except for one. Jones’s upper body is tilted toward the statue. And if you look closely, you’ll notice she’s clinging to the figure’s hand.

“My childhood at Buckner was all I ever knew,” she said.

It’s where she met her life-long friend, Maggie. It’s where she learned to swim and cheerlead. And it’s where she learned to sing and play piano.

Today, her piano sits next to a window in her living room, and the sunlight falls on the keys when she plays. It’s one of the things she carried with her into adulthood, along with her determination to write a memoir.

When Jones finally finished her book, she wasn’t sure how to go about getting it published. She’d always thought the only way to publish a book was by submitting it to a publisher and waiting to see if they liked it. Until one day, a friend called to tell her about a website that allows writers to publish their own work. After spending two and one-half years writing her memoir, she decided it was time to share her story with a larger audience.

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

Updated: 4/13/07

Within Frye's heart, there
still rings a melody

By George Henson

Staff Writer

LEWISVILLE—Ruth Frye considers herself supremely blessed. For more than 50 years, she has had the opportunity to do what she loves—serve God from the organ bench of First Baptist Church in Lewisville.

Frye began playing first for her Sunday school class as a child, and by age 9 or 10, she was the accompanist for the youth choir. Just a few years later, she began playing the organ after the church’s organist moved away.

She is quick to say, however, that she has always been part of a team.

“We’ve always had a piano, and I’ve always had that support from the pianist,” she said. “And now that we have an orchestra, there are many talented musicians that lead in worship each week.”

She may not want any applause for long-tenured service, but Associate Pastor for Music and Worship Larry Grayson is impressed.

“In this day and time, it’s pretty amazing that anyone can do anything for as long as she has,” he said. “And she has served this church for a long time and with such a sweet and humble spirit.”

During her years of service, Frye has seen many changes in her community, her church and in music. When she began playing, it was for a small, country church in a community of fewer than 4,000 people. Now, Lewisville is a growing city of almost 100,000 people, and more than 1,200 people attend worship services at First Baptist Church.

“The music has gotten progressively more difficult as the church has grown, but so far I’ve been able to keep up,” she said.

Adding contemporary choruses to the worship service presented Frye with her greatest challenge, she acknowledged.

“I resisted it within myself. I didn’t say anything, but at first it just didn’t seem like music that should be played on an organ, but I’ve grown to like it,” she said.

That flexibility is a great trait, Grayson said.

“She has seen music ministry evolve so much during her tenure,” he said. “When she began, the organ was the dominant instrument. In much of the newer music, the organ is not the dominant instrument but a part of the orchestra. She has made that transition very well, and not everyone could have done so.”

The reason she continues to play is very simple, Frye said.

“I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And I’ve been glad to have the church music to practice on, because if you don’t have a reason to exercise a talent other things crowd in, and you don’t practice as you should, and you can lose some of your abilities.”

And abilities to serve God should always be exercised, Frye said.

“When God gives you a talent, no matter how great or small, you should use it for his glory,” she said. “It’s not about how good you are; just do your best, and stay faithful.”

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Updated: 4/13/07

Wanted: Gospel preachers for South Africa 

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS – Molehi Karneels Diutwileng paints a picture of Baptist ministry in South Africa that is both disconcerting and hopeful.

He describes how nine pastors serve 30 churches in one region. Thirteen churches have no buildings. He and other Baptist pastors fear they may be driving away some of the very nonbelievers they need to reach—people with HIV/AIDS.

“One person is leading six churches,” said Diutwileng, president of the Baptist Union of Southern Africa and pastor of Galeshewe Baptist Church in Galeshewe. “By the time he gets back to the church where he started, the congregation has lost what was taught in the last sermon.”

When there’s “no leadership, the church collapses,” Diutwileng laments.

Molehi Karneels Diutwileng, president of Baptist Union of Southern Africa, recruits Texas Baptists for a four-year evangelistic “crusade for souls” in his homeland.

But a South African Baptist evangelistic emphasis—Impact 2010, designed to blanket the region with the gospel by the end of the decade—could change the disquieting face of Christianity in his homeland. To make it work, he says, Baptists in South Africa need the help of Texas Baptists.

Armed with preaching invitations and letter-sized posters that read, “Wanted: Gospel Preachers for South Africa,” Diutwileng has been on a recruiting mission in Texas. His mission to encourage involvement by Texas Baptists stemmed from a meeting between Angelo Scheepers, general secretary of the Baptist Union of South Africa; Wayne Shuffield, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas missions, evangelism and ministry section; and Leo Smith, executive director of Texas Baptist Men.

Diutwileng arrived in Texas March 10 for a two-week visit. He preached and recruited at several predominately African-American churches, including First Missionary Baptist in Fort Worth, Bethlehem Baptist in Mansfield, Fellowship Missionary Baptist in Texas City and Greater St. Stephen First Baptist in Fort Worth.

He also spoke at three leadership conferences in Houston, Victoria and Lubbock to recruit pastors for Impact 2010.

“We are having a year of revival,” Diutwileng said. “And we’re inviting ministers and church leaders to come and speak in these crusades to win souls to Christ.”

Shuffield called the invitation a “unique opportunity … for Texas Baptist churches, pastors and evangelistic and outreach teams to partner with South African Baptist churches, and provide a ministry of evangelism and outreach in that region of the world.”

In 2005, Texas Baptist Men formed a partnership with South African Baptists to lead spiritual renewal emphases to encourage pastors and church leaders. TBM continues to strengthen that collaboration through renewal weekends. TBM leaders and volunteers also have conducted spiritual renewal meetings, leadership training events and pastor retreats in South Africa.  

Retiree builders helped construct a church building in Pescodia in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Baptists in South Africa hope to develop a men’s ministry, mission education for boys and disaster relief groups.  

Seeing the value in broadening their ministry base, last year TBM leaders invited Diutwileng to Texas to begin expanding relationships with other groups, including African-American Baptist leaders and the BGCT.

TBM is encouraging Texas pastors to join the “Crusades for Souls” ministry effort over the next four years. This project will focus on evangelistic outreach campaigns in different regions each year, culminating with countrywide, mass evangelistic crusades during the final year.

Building on a relationship started when the group sent Charlie Singleton, director of BGCT African American ministries, to South Africa in April 2006, TBM is moving to initiate new cultural relationships.

Singleton was instrumental in reaching Texas Baptist leaders. He worked closely with Diutwileng, scheduling opportunities in Texas pulpits and at area conferences in cooperation regional associations, including Guadalupe and Tarrant Baptist Associations, and the Baptist Ministers Union of Fort Worth.

“We found there are a number of pastors and laypersons who are interested in going to South Africa to minister to the need raised by Karneels,” Singleton said. “They want to know how to go about doing so.”

To mobilize and challenge South African churches to return to the biblical mandate to preach, share and live out the gospel, the 2007 crusade is slated for September and October on the Northern and Western Capes, he noted. It will last 10 to 14 days.

While the BGCT has no formal partnership with Baptists in South Africa, “Texas Partnerships ministry frequently enters into limited time frame, specific emphasis projects like this one from South African Baptists,” said Steve Seaberry, director of BGCT Texas Partnerships.

“We find this type of project is often very attractive to the entire Texas Baptist family. This four-year emphasis by the Baptist Union of Southern Africa to blanket their country in evangelistic efforts has the potential to involve a wider participation by Texas Baptists. I am impressed by the vision of BUSA leaders, and I am looking forward to continue exploring a possible special-focus partnership with BUSA leaders.”

In a country where residents daily face economic issues such as poverty, basic service issues like a lack of running water, and social issues including a lack of morality, an increasing population of orphans and growing HIV and AIDS concerns, Diutwileng maintains hope Texas Baptist leaders will bolster efforts to overcome his homeland’s obstacles.

As a pastor, he sees first-hand the problems facing the growth of Christianity.

“When it comes to HIV and AIDS, we need someone who can understand, come to our churches and train leaders how to help AIDS victims,” Diutwileng said.

There are more than 1.1 million AIDS orphans in South Africa, Diutwileng added. And besides the physical aspect, there is much spiritual work to be done.  

“In most cases, the way we deal with them may discourage them from attending the church … and we would be unable to show them the love of God,” Diutwileng said.

And that’s an image Diutwileng wants no one to paint.

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

Updated: 4/13/07

Faith & family help minorities
bridge academic achievement gap

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—The academic achievement gap between Anglo students and their African-American or Hispanic peers disappears when the students live in intact, religious families, a new study shows.

William Jeynes, a nonresident researcher with the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion and professor of education at California State University at Long Beach, discovered religious commitment and intact parental family structures bridge the achievement gap, both among students in public schools and in private religious schools.

“The results suggest that the achievement gap might not be quite as indefatigable and pervasive as many people believe. Given the number of efforts social scientists have launched to reduce the achievement gap, the fact that the combination of personal religious commitment and coming from an intact family eliminates the gap for African-American and Latino students is nothing short of magnificent,” Jeynes wrote in an article published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.

Furthermore, in single-parent families with a deep religious commitment, the achievement gap between African-American and Hispanic students and their Anglo counterparts is halved, he noted, suggesting devotion to faith makes the key difference in academic success.

“Clearly, their faith is a source of strength,” Jeynes said, presenting his findings in a lecture at Baylor University.

Jeynes’ research focused particularly on the benefits of religious schools as compared to public education.

“According to the findings, students of low socioeconomic status and students of color especially benefit from attending religious schools,” he asserted.

Not only do students in religious schools outperform their counterparts in public schools in almost every measurable area of academic achievement, but the gaps between low socioeconomic students and high socioeconomic students—as well as between Anglo students and ethnic minorities—also are reduced and, in some areas, eliminated, he found.

His research showed the lower the student’s socioeconomic status, the greater the benefit from a religious school education. And for all academic measures, regardless of socioeconomic status, African-American and Hispanic students benefit more than Anglos from attending religious schools, he discovered.

Public schools can learn from the example of religious schools, Jeynes suggested.

“Although educators are frequently divided over the merits of school choice, there is a growing consensus that public schools can benefit by imitating some of the strengths of the religious school model. There may be limitation on just what qualities can be imitated, but the increased emphasis on character education, high academic standards and parental involvement can be imitated,” he concluded.

Jeynes offered several recommendations for educators:

• “Recognize education is not just about methodology but is also about loving the child,” he said.

• Raise expectations regarding student’ effort and work ethic.

• Encourage parental involvement. “Establish strong relationships with parents,” he suggested.

• Encourage students to draw from their sources of strength—including their religious beliefs.

However, Jeynes voiced some doubt about how effectively public educators could incorporate some of the elements that make religious schools most effective. Consequently, he supports a system of “school choice” that provides low-income and minority students access to religious schools.

Jeynes maintains it “appears illogical and potentially racially oppressive and discriminatory to deny minority students the right to more fully reach their potential via a school choice system.”

But Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, took issue with Jeynes’ call for any system that uses public tax dollars for private religious education.

“It is prejudicial to religious schools’ autonomy and ultimately a denial of religious liberty for government to subsidize—and therefore regulate—pervasively religious schools,” he said “It is simply wrong to tax citizen A to pay to teach citizen B’s religion.

“Acceptable alternatives are to tap private sources of financial aid, choice within the public schools and a serious commitment to reforming and funding public education.”

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

Updated: 4/13/07

Texas House bill would expand CHIP

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

AUSTIN – A bill overwhelmingly approved by the Texas House of Representatives would include more than 100,000 additional children in the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the next two years.

The legislation, which passed 126-16, allows families to stay in the program for one year instead of having to reapply every six months, and it would wave the 90-day waiting period for uninsured children. It now goes before the Senate.

The bill would be a significant step toward returning CHIP to what it was in 2003, when Texas lawmakers cut it. Before the cuts, about 500,000 children were in the program. More than 325,000 children currently are enrolled in CHIP.

The program provides health insurance for families who earn too much money for Medicaid, but not enough to buy private insurance for their children.

A family of three with an income of $34,340 qualifies for CHIP. A full-time office worker in a Baptist General Convention of Texas-affiliated church makes on average $25,109, and a custodian makes $26,316, according a study of all Southern Baptist churches. The total pay package is slightly larger.

A custodian with one child and a spouse who works in the home would qualify for CHIP, as would an office worker with a child and a spouse working in the home. That person also would qualify if he or she is a single parent with two children.

Suzii Paynter, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, said the proposed expansion of the program would provide basic medical care for thousands of children who go without it each year.

“HB 109 is a good step toward strengthening the fabric of health care for working families in Texas,” she said. “The legislature has negotiated a bipartisan solution that can provide medical coverage and baseline data for the next two years. “

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

Posted: 4/13/07

Spiritual ‘smorgasbord’ reveals
hunger for ultimate meaning

By Cecile Holmes

Religion News Service

ASHINGTON (RNS)— A new book based on interviews from the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly finds a spiritual hunger beneath the secular veneer of modern culture, with many searching for something beyond the material world.

The Life of Meaning was edited by the show’s executive editor and host, Bob Abernethy, and longtime journalist William Bole. They drew essays in the book from interviews conducted by Abernethy, who founded the show 10 years ago after four decades as an NBC correspondent. Bole has written for many publications, including the Washington Post and Commonweal magazine.

Speakers featured in their book explore personal struggles with faith and doubt, individual reflections on suffering, personal experiences of God and thoughts on the ultimate meaning of existence.

Filled with ideas of people from scientists to writers, the book dismantles the myth that postmodern thinking offers little room for faith.

“A lot of people have this feeling that there is ‘Something More,’” Abernethy said. “They find their greatest meaning in life in attempting to be in touch with, in communication with, this ‘Something.’”

Some of the people interviewed call it God or a higher power; many give it no name at all.

Some of the people in the book are religious, ranging from Hindus to Jews to Protestant Christians. Many have no formal faith affiliation but might generally be described as spiritual or truth seekers.

Bole said he learned from both types, absorbing bits and pieces of their wisdom.

“The people in this collection, they are good noticers,” he said. “Anne Lamott makes the point that just paying attention is about as spiritual as you can get. Anything that brings you into the now, the present moment, is a gift. … My kids notice more things than I do. I’m an unreconstructed philosophy major. My mind wanders at church. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of being mindful of everyday things like walking and breathing.”

The book groups essays into sections such as “The Meaning Makers,” “Evil and Suffering,” “Prayer and Meditation” and “Paths Up the Mountain.”

In the section on evil and suffering, historian and religion scholar Edward Linenthal explores the myriad memorials found at places such as the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, crash of United Flight 93 in the rural serenity of Shanksville, Pa.

“We look for the sacred in lots of places now,” Linenthal says in the book. “We consider ourselves a secularized culture. … But I don’t think there’s been a secularization of consciousness at all. Everything—from our fascination with certain sacred sites or relics, with the apocalyptic, with that which is beyond the immediate, graspable or material—says that the religious sensibilities in the culture are very, very, very strong.”

No matter where they spring from, such sensibilities shape how we understand life and how we understand each other, Abernethy said.

“There’s no preaching here. We don’t attempt to say, ‘This is how you find a life of meaning.’ We talk to these people. We listen to these people. They are insightful, eloquent. We just lay it out.”

The book’s essays feature all sorts of people, from famous rabbis Irving Greenberg and Harold Kushner to Buddhists such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. It includes a veritable who’s who of writers—Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thomas Lynch, Phyllis Tickle, Rachel Remen, Martin Marty and others.

Some have likened the book to a feast or banquet, Abernethy said, but he takes the imagery further.

“You are served at such an occasion. I think it would be a little more accurate to think of it in terms of a buffet, a smorgasbord. You can sample and choose from an enormous variety of perspectives.”

—Cecile Holmes is the former religion editor at the Houston Chronicle and now teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina.

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

Posted: 4/13/07

Around the State

• The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor will host a Governor’s Forum at 9:30 a.m. April 19, featuring former Texas governors Dolph Briscoe and Mark White. It is free and open to the public.

Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene has received a rare and valuable manuscript. The ancient Sefer Torah scroll contains more than 200 columns comprising the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, which appear as the first five books of the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Bible. Scribed in Hebrew on highly finished white cow vellum panels, the scroll about 27 inches tall. It is the product of a South Arabian Jewish scriptorium, published in the late 17th or early 18th century. The scroll has been appraised at a market value at more than six-figures, but many experts believe the document to be priceless. Robert Ellis (left), associate dean of Logsdon Seminary, evaluated the scroll after unpacking it. Doyle and Inez Kelley, benefactors of the Kelley College of Business at HSU, gave the scroll to the university. (Photo by Tiffany Turk)

• Dallas Baptist University will hold the 19th annual Norvell Slater Senior Adult Hymn Sing at 2 p.m. April 20. Last year, almost 1,000 senior adults attended the event. For more information, call (214) 333-6824.

• The modern foreign languages department of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor will present an evening of bilingual storytelling, “Our Stories—Nuestros Cuentos,” at 7 p.m. April 21 in the Shelton Theater on campus. The event will consist of readings and comments by authors Araceli Ardon and Debbie Lufburrow. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call (254) 295-4631.

• Tickets are on sale for Howard Payne University’s fourth annual “Singin’ with the Saints” Southern gospel concert for senior adults. The concert will begin at 1:30 p.m. May 17 at Coggin Avenue Church in Brownwood. Featured performers will be The Florida Boys, Gold City, The Brazos Boys and HPU chancellor and humorist Don Newbury. Tickets are $12 and can be ordered by credit card at (800) 950-8465.

• Five inductees have been added to Hardin-Simmons University’s Hall of Leaders. Honored were George Anderson, who served as a trustee of the school 61 years; Bill Thorn, former pastor, author and president of Dallas Baptist University; Lee Hemphill, a former pastor andvice president emeritus of HSU; Jim Flamming, who was pastor of First Church in Abilene 17 years, chairman of the Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and BGCT vice president; and Jesse Fletcher, former HSU president and chancellor, professor at Logsdon Theologi-cal Seminary and Baptist historian.

• Rick Akins of Round Rock has been elected chairman of the board of trustees at Howard Payne University. An HPU graduate, he has been a member of the board 14 years, beginning in 1990. He is a member of First Church in Salado.

• Don Looser is retiring as vice president of academic affairs at Houston Baptist University after 43 years of service to the university. He joined the faculty in 1964 as an assistant professor in music as the first classes of the school were enrolling. Looser will continue serving the school in various capacities.

• Dallas Baptist University has presented the inaugural Tom Landry Leadership Award to Congressman Sam John-son.

• Charla Kahlig has been named controller at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

• Pattie Orr has been appointed vice president for information technology and dean of libraries at Baylor University.

• The Wayland Baptist University Students in Free Enterprise Team won one of 17 regional competitions held across the nation. The teams create economic opportunities in their communities by organizing outreach projects. The Wayland team organized 28 projects in Plainview and the surrounding area that included working with older adults, businesses and school-aged children.

Larry and Melinda Ewing		Trent and Kay Jones
John and Lucy Long

• Three couples with Texas ties have been appointed missionaries by the International Mission Board. Larry and Me-linda Ewing serve in Central and Eastern Europe in university ministry. Members of First Church in Lubbock, they have three adult children. Trent and Kay Jones will serve in South America; he will be a strategy planner and she will work in community outreach. He previously served as youth minister at Martindale Church in Martindale and Primera Iglesia in San Marcos. She was a youth intern at First Church in Wimberley. Travis Avenue Church in Fort Worth is their home church. John and Lucy Long will be church starters in Western Europe. He previously served three churches in Florida and College Heights Church in Plainview, where he was minsiter of education. They have one adult daughter.

Anniversaries

• Joe Walton, fifth, as director of missions for Double Mountain Association, April 25.

• Oakalla Church in Oakalla, 100th, April 28. A fellowship time will begin at noon, followed by a meal and song service. Clay Cole is pastor.

• John Hatch, 25th, as pastor of First Church in Lake Jackson, April 29. For a schedule of activities, e-mail rtedder@fbclj.org.

Deaths

• Jesus Perales, 64, Jan. 30 in Odem. He was pastor of Primera Iglesia El Calvario in Edroy. He is survived by his wife, Olivia; sons, Joel Perales and Orlando Serda; daughters, Elizabeth Ortiz, Yolanda Villarreal and Celinda Ermis; mother, Juanita Perales; step-son, Freddie Martinez; brother, Jose; 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Student Body President Chris Burkley presented former U.S. first lady Barbara Bush with a bowl filled with purple and gold chocolate kisses to commemorate her speech at the school as part of the College of Business McLane Lecture Series. She also was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities degree.

• Aaron Guajardo, 70, Feb. 15 in Mineral. A pastor for more than 40 years, he led churches in Corpus Christi, Portland, Ingleside, Rockdale and Pleasanton. He also started churches in Oregon and Washington. The last five years, he was pastor of Primera Iglesia in Mineral. For more than half his ministry, he was a bivocational pastor, while serving as a schoolteacher and later as a principal. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Delpha Martin. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Livia; sons, Aaron and Josue; brothers, Alcides and Able; sisters, Aurora Garcia and Amanda Revelle; and nine grandchildren.

• Harry McConnell, 93, March 2 in Richmond, Va. A Foreign Mission Board missionary, he served in Chile 40 years. While there, he helped establish the Baptist Theologi-cal Seminary in Chile and later served as its president. He later served two years in Colombia, and then moved to El Paso, where he was the volunteer editor at the Baptist Publishing House. He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary. He is survived by his daughters, Elizabeth Finch, Ann Hollan-der, Martha Jelsma and Grace Alarcon.

• Avium Jordan, 100, March 9 in Abilene. During the 1950s and ’60s, she travelled across the state instructing churches on how to establish programs for preschoolers. From 1969 until her retirement in 1984, she supervised programs for preschool children of ap-pointees preparing for foreign mission service with the SBC Foreign Mission Board. She was preceded in death by her husband, Horace. She is survived by her daughter, Dorothy Fletcher; son, James; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

• Dan Boling, 71, March 22 in Petaluma, Calif. A retired professor of Christian education at Golden Gate Seminary, he was an Austin native. A Baylor graduate, he was Baptist Student Union director at the University of Texas at Arlington. He went on to serve as a minister of youth or minister of youth and music at a number of Texas churches before becoming assistant director of the Baptist Counsel-ing Center at Southwestern Seminary. He is survived by his wife, Elaine; daughters, Dianna Boling and Sara Gustafson; and two grandchildren.

• Virginia Koch, 96, March 26 in Dallas. She worked for the Baptist General Convention of Texas as an administrative assistant 20 years. She also was a volunteer at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, earning a 50-year service award. She was a member of Park Cities Church in Dallas. She was preceded in death by her husband, John. She is survived by her daughter, Virginia Lee Sher-man; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

• Carlos Paredes, 89, April 12 in Dallas. A Baylor graduate, he turned down an offer to sing tenor with the Metropolitan Opera to follow his call to ministry. In 1942, he was appointed by the Home Mission Board to be pastor of Primera Iglesia in Austin, where he served more than 27 years. During his tenure there, he also served four years as executive secretary and six years as president of the Mexican Baptist Convention of Texas. He chaired the committee that recommended unification with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He later served as vice president of the BGCT. In 1970, he joined the convention in the evangelism division as he led efforts to reach Hispanics across the state. He preached in rallies across in the United States, Spain and several South American countries. He also served as interim pastor of Primera Iglesia in Dallas on several occassions. He was preceded in death by his sisters, Amelia Paredes and Tita Huizar; and brothers, Saul, Jose, Pedro and Abel. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Irene; daughters, Ann Paredes, Sylvia Dela Rosa and Miriam Castonon; son, Charlie; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Retiring

• Royce Measures, as pastor of Golden Acres Baptist Church in Pasadena, after 20 years of service there and more than 45 years in the ministry. A reception will be held at the church honoring him and his wife, Chris, April 29 at 11:30 a.m. For information, e-mail minofed@myweb.net or call (281) 487-0582.

• First Church in Midland held a ceremony commemorating placement of a historical marker granted by the Texas Historical Commis-sion April 15. The marker notes the church’s constitution in 1886. Gary Dyer is pastor.

• Agape Church has moved to its new location, the former site of Ridglea West Church in Fort Worth, April 15. The Ridglea West congregation gave the year-old congregation the facility at no cost after the 58-year old church decided the new church would better serve the community. Kris Barnett was pastor of the Ridglea West congregation. Paul Sands is interim pastor of the Agape congregation.

• Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Seminary, will speak at Orchard Hills Church in Garland April 22 at 10:30 a.m. He will share his testimony of how he came to know Jesus Christ as his Savior after being born a Muslim. Dickson Rial is pastor.

• First Church in Dever will hold its fifth annual gumbo cookoff and gospel sing April 28. Gumbo will be served at 5 p.m., and the singing will begin at 6 p.m. Featured vocal groups will be The Martins and The Rileys. For more information, call (936) 549-7653. Harry Mc-Daniel is pastor.

• R.L. Sumner, editor of the Biblical Evangelist, will speak at Northside Church in Highlands May 13 at 6 p.m. David Brumbelow is pastor.

Licensed

• Richard Robinson to the ministry at First Church in Kenedy.

• Meredith Stone to the ministry at Crosspoint Fellowship Church in Abilene.

• Ken Durham to the ministry at Richey Street Church in Pasadena.

• Mario Ramos to the ministry at Ridgemont Church in Abilene.

• Jay Monrad to the ministry at First Church in Woodsboro.

Ordained

• Charles Howard to the ministry at Christ the King Church in Waco.

• Amy Grizzle to the ministry at Wilshire Church in Dallas.

• Lonny Parson to the ministry at Powderly Church in Powderly.

• Gerardo Alfaro and Jeronimo Aviles to the ministry at Iglesia Getsemani in Fort Worth.

• Johnny Moore to the ministry at Temple Church in Gainesville.

• Terry Smith to the ministry at First Church in Floresville.

• Doug Kello to the ministry at Calvary Church in Weimar.

• Dustin Creech to the ministry at College Heights Church in Abilene.

• Brad Echols to the ministry at First Church in Vernon.

• Rick Hertless to the ministry at Meadowbrook Church in Rockdale.

• Trent Jones to the ministry at Martindale Church in Martindale.

• Mike Lyons to the ministry at First Church in Blanco.

• Roy Taylor as a deacon at Dixie Frontier Church in Whitesboro.

• Jerry Harris and Raymond Jeffrey as deacons at Wynnewood Church in Dallas.

• Sherrie Gunter, Marcus Martin, Mauricio Martinez, Marsha Mills, Pat Packard, Frances Phillips, Laura Trubey and Weldon Wells as deacons at Cliff Temple Church in Dallas.

• Joe Pullin as a deacon at First Church in Taft.

• Mark Patton, Roger Hughes, Jack Bray and C.T. Kutschke as deacons at Holly Brook Church in Hawkins.

Revivals

• Jericho Fellowship, Plainview; April 19-22; evangelist, Ed Sena; pastor, Joe Barrera.

• First Church, Cisco; April 22-23; evangelist, Dan Curry; music, Kade Curry; pastor, Craig Curry.

• First Church, Natalia; April 22-25; evangelist, Jonathan Hewitt; music, The Atens; pastor, Billy Morse.

• Friendship Church, Doddridge, April 26-29; evangelist, Clayton Sheets; pastor, Phil Starrett.

• Enon Church, Doddridge; April 29-May 2; evangelist, Jim Moss; pastor, Jim Rust.

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