Posted: 11/30/07

Church greeter has firm
grip on thousands of names

By Dee Anne Finken

Religion News Service

ANCOUVER, Wash. (RNS)—Some people preach. Others bear witness to their faith with a song of praise.

Rich Liedtke ministers with his hands. That is, he offers a firm, two-handed grip that lasts long enough for him to look straight into a churchgoer’s eyes, memorize the face, and announce cheerfully: “Hi, I’m Rich. And you are?”

The 64-year-old is a “master greeter”—his own term—who proclaims his faith by welcoming newcomers and members to church every Sunday, each by name. Over the years he has memorized thousands of names and faces, though he stopped keeping a tally at his own church three years ago at 3,000.

“People want to be known as individuals, and a person’s name is the key to that,” Liedtke said.

His passion for making visitors and members feel welcome frequently has him traveling across the country, and even to Asia, to lead seminars.

A handyman by trade, he shows congregations how to “enhance a culture of friendliness,” from memorizing names, to using the proper grip, to fostering the sincerity that makes a person feel at home in a new church.

His message is more significant than many might think.

A Gallup Poll reported church attendance across the nation declined about 4 percent last year. So extending a sincere welcome to a newcomer can be crucial, said Jerry Hickson, chairman of the department of religion and Christian ministries at Warner Pacific, a liberal arts Christian college in Portland.

“People who visit a church decide within the first five minutes if they are going to come back,” Hickson said.

Ministerial leaders might not realize it, Hickson said, but “there is no question many churches do a poor job of greeting.”

At Vancouver First Church of God, which Liedtke has attended for 30 years, Carol Ludwig said Liedtke’s remembering her name—on her second visit—prompted her to take lessons from him.

Standing next to her mentor on a recent Sunday, Ludwig said: “When someone remembers you, you want to come back. My gosh, it made me think, ‘I must be pretty special.’”

One after another, Liedtke greets worshippers as they pour through the church door—Judy, Tom, Dave, Kelli, Ally and Natalie.

It was Kelli Wright, new to the church three years ago, whose name was the 3,000th Liedtke memorized. The next Sunday, he greeted her with a helium-filled balloon to celebrate the milestone. And he has been known to mark other special occasions, like handing out chocolates near Valentine’s Day.

“I felt welcome and important that he cared enough to know my name,” Wright said.

With newcomers, Liedtke pauses to hold their hands a moment longer while making a mental note. Sometimes, on a folded 3-by-5 card, he’ll jot down a name, followed by a description—beard, tall, flowered shirt, blond.

Liedtke, who has been married 40 years to the appropriately named Joy, is admittedly outgoing, but he understands some people just don’t want to open up.

It’s rare, however, he said. In the eight years he’s been formally greeting, Liedtke can count only six people who have declined to reveal their names.

Most are like he was, he said, when years ago two older gentlemen welcomed him into church and opened him to the practice of extending a hand to others.

“I liked that. I felt welcome.”

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Lewisville volunteers share pure
water and Living Water in Guatemala

By Marv Knox

Editor

ZACAPA, Guatemala—Members of First Baptist Church in Lewisville delivered both Living Water and pure water during a late-fall mission trip to an orphanage in Guatemala.

They told the children about Jesus, the Living Water, who can quench their spiritual thirst. But they also completed a filtration system that now purifies the orphanage’s parasite-laced water supply.

Brittainy Holmes of First Baptist Church in Lewisville shows Christ’s love to a girl in an orphanage in Zacapa, Guatemala, during a mission trip coordinated by Buckner Interna-tional. The church is sending three teams a year to the state-run orphanage.

Working in cooperation with Buckner International, First Baptist in Lewisville has developed a partnership with Hogar Zacapa, a transitional care facility for children up to about age 12. Some of the children are true orphans, whose parents are dead. But others are “social orphans,” whose parents cannot care for them and who become wards of the government-run facility.

The church has committed to send at least three ministry teams to Zacapa, a metropolitan area of about 175,000 residents 90 miles east of Guatemala City, each year for at least three years.

Ongoing ministry embraces two key elements, explained Truett King, the church’s missions minister.

First, each mission trip features tangible improvements to the orphanage facility, he noted. On two previous trips this year, volunteers worked on the water-filtration system. Earlier this year, workers also picked up shards of broken windows, to make the grounds safer, and cleaned and painted bathrooms. In November, in addition to completing the water system, they built storage cabinets. Next year, volunteers plan to build a greenhouse within the compound.

Orphans in Guatemala open presents from volunteers on a mission trip coordinated by Buckner International. (Photos by Ron Gibson)

“These things improve the children’s lives, although they probably don’t realize it,” King said. “But they also strengthen our relationship with the orphanage administrator, who realizes we have the best interest of these children at heart and we’re willing to invest in this orphanage—both financially and with our labor—to make it a better place.”

Those efforts have produced unanticipated benefits, King and several other repeat volunteers noted when they arrived in November. Since the church began working on the facility, the government has funded additional improvements. They include a dormitory expansion, new roofs, tile in bathrooms and fresh paint. The government also made the facility safer by replacing a chain-link fence with a cinder-block/stucco wall around the compound.

The second element of each trip is more personal, heartwarming and eternal, King added. First Baptist missionaries spend hours loving the attention-starved children.

The November trip featured a Vacation Bible School, with stations for Bible stories and crafts, English as a Second Language, sports camp and games. A medical team performed physical exams on all the children, and the church paid to send some of the children to visit a dentist.

Children received medical care during the trip.

The volunteers treated the children to a movie night, featuring a Spanish-language child-oriented version of the “Jesus” film, plus pizza and soda pop. They also provided each child with a new set of clothes, plus many more pants and shirts for the orphanage.

But mostly, they spent time loving the children. Whether they communicated through a crew of Buckner interpreters, used their own fledgling Spanish, or simply smiled and laughed and hugged, the volunteers showed the children they are loved.

“Every minute I was with the kids, I just loved it,” Nancy King said. “I just couldn’t get enough of it.”

“Missions is God using you to show his heart,” Ron Gibson added. “That’s one of the most important things to do in life—show God’s heart to others.”

Reflecting on their days at the orphanage and particularly a tearful farewell with the children, Julio Amaya confirmed the children did see God’s heart and reciprocated the volunteers’ love.

“The kids kept hanging on, saying: ‘I don’t want you to go. I’m going to miss you,’” Amaya, who grew up in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and speaks Spanish fluently, told the other volunteers. “And they would have said the same thing to all of you if they had been able.”

Many of the First Baptist team hope they’ll get that chance again someday, when they return to Hogar Zacapa.

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Howard Payne coeds mentor
girls at juvenile correctional facility

By George Henson

Staff Writer

BROWNWOOD—Each week, 39 Howard Payne University students travel a few miles down the road to another world. They visit the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex to show girls there how to experience the different life that Jesus offers.

Students Chassidy Carroll and Chaley Perkins share their lives with girls who need positive role models. Carroll, who helped begin the program three years ago, now mentors four girls during her twice-a-week trips to the facility.

“We’re very open that this is faith-based mentoring, but we talk about anything they want to,” Carroll said. Some of the mentors from the university lead Bible studies or devotionals for the incarcerated girls. While Carroll mentors four girls and Perkins two girls, most mentors invest themselves in a single girl.

“A lot of these girls are really struggling,” Carroll said of the 13- to 18-year-olds at the facility.

“But the girls who have realized a need have requested a mentor, so they’re interested in changing their lives and want to know how God can help in that.”

Staff members at the high-security juvenile facility also sometimes request a mentor for younger girls entering the system, Perkins added.

“The staff see a change in the girls that have mentors, so sometimes they will set up a meeting with a mentor to see if a relationship develops,” she said.

While the length of stay for girls in the correctional facility varies with their offense, most are incarcerated one to two years, the students said. That length of stay allows for some deep, trust-filled relationships to be built.

It also necessitates that mentors commit to at least a school year of continuous contact.

“We train the mentors before they meet with girls, and the biggest thing we stress is that it is a commitment,” Carroll said. “The girls really need them to show up on a regular basis.”

“These girls have been let down so much, if we’re not there, it’s just someone else letting them down,” Perkins added.

Showing the love of Christ is very important, Carroll said.

“God’s love is the underlying theme of every question they ask,” she said.

“These girls come from very broken backgrounds and that someone loves them is very hard for them to understand.”

The program is part of the Baptist Student Ministry at Howard Payne. The students who are a part of the program gain as much from the interaction as those who are mentored do, BSM Director Katy Blackshear said.

“HPU students who mentor at the State School are able to take a glimpse outside of their world into a reality that is not their own, be strengthened in their own faith by hearing how God’s redemptive love is at work, as well as be challenged to know the word of God and be ready to share the gospel freely,” she said.

She identified only one negative aspect to the mentoring program—a waiting list of girls who have requested a mentor and not enough volunteers to fill the need.

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Groups say hunger stats, food prices up

By Heather Donckels

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—While millions of Americans stock their kitchens for holiday feasts, many groups are concerned about people who will go hungry during the festive season—and in the weeks and months to come.

Inflation has made food more expensive, making it harder for families to put food on the table and more difficult for food banks to keep their shelves stocked.

“We’re very concerned about the people who live in food-insecure households,” said Jean Daniel, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which recently released its annual study on hunger in America.

The study showed the number of people living in households with “food insecurity”—where their normal diets changed due to lack of food or money—increased from 35.1 million in 2005 to 35.5 million in 2006.

The Bread for the World Institute also released its annual hunger report, calling for the United States to “make it a national goal to cut hunger and poverty in half by 2015.”

The report applauded the government’s recent decision to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by July 2009, but it stressed that low-income families need access to affordable health insurance and child care.

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless released its own report that chided 22 cities for new laws that they say punish individuals and groups who feed the homeless in public areas.

In Dallas, for example, “anyone caught sharing food with a homeless person without a permit may be fined up to $2,000 and/or jailed for up to six months,” the report said.

“We need to encourage, not arrest, good Samaritans,” said Michael Stoops, the acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Persecution’s blessing:
church growth in India

By Lance Wallace

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

HYDERABAD, India (ABP)—Sam Bandela has worked five years in the mountainous central region of India. Even as tsunami relief and personal challenges intervened, he continued to find local partners, train indigenous church planters and fund development projects in the largely Hindu region.

Finally, he is seeing results.

Among three tribal groups—Sora, Jathava and Kui—in the area between the Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states, 50 new churches have been planted. Some were in spite of active resistance by other religious groups.

In this region, anti-Christian militants often threaten new converts. In recent years, several foreign missions workers have been killed.

“The persecution is causing the church to grow,” Bandela said. “The church in India has not grown much in the last 50 years, but it has grown tremendously in the last two years because of the persecution.”

Narayan Paul, a 78-year-old pastor and evangelist, and his ministry partners have started more than 120 churches after leading 12,000 people to faith in Christ. Their methods are simple. They travel to the remote hill villages building relationships and sharing the gospel.

“In March, Brother Paul baptized 80 people and another 70 people in May. The people are responding,” Bandela said.

In April, more than 3,000 Christians from the hill tribes staged a silent prayer walk as a demonstration against religious persecution. The event solidified the new believers and was not marred by violence.

As Paul and his partners travel, they identify physical needs that Bandela—a Co-operative Baptist Fellowship field worker—is able to channel CBF Global Missions resources toward addressing. As a result, some villages have built new water systems, saving people a two-mile hike down a mountain at a nearly 45-degree angle to retrieve water.

Bandela also schedules medical clinics in the remote areas, bringing physicians from the United States to treat the villagers who have little access to health care.

In some areas, they have helped complete church buildings, which usually begin as four walls with thatched roofs or no roofs at all. So far, Bandela has worked with five churches to build new roofs, with five more in progress. The plan is for 50 more.

Plus, Bandela has channeled aid and supplies to help more than 400 families after floods hit the area in August of 2006.

“Our focus, our end result is church planting,” Bandela said. “Medical clinics, sewing center projects, supplying food, flood relief, water projects—they are all means and methods for evangelism. All that we do is helping people come to know the Lord, giving birth to a new church.”

Bandela and his wife, Latha, live in the United States because of the special needs of their youngest son, Paul. Bandela travels to India several times a year for a month or longer at a time to network, develop partnerships, facilitate church groups, conduct medical clinics, train new church planters, execute building projects and participate in evangelistic meetings.

Often, pastors from the United States participate by teaching in the church-planting seminars and training in Hyderabad. The program, established by Bandela with gifts from CBF churches, now is led entirely by indigenous Christian leaders and produces cohorts of 10 to 20 church planters several times a year.

At the graduation ceremony, each church planter is given a new Bible and a bicycle. The newly trained evangelists are then sent out into the remotest areas to be the presence of Christ in word and deed.

“Giving a bicycle to them is like giving a car,” he said. “The roads are cow paths. It’s only $50 for a bicycle. When you and I go to eat, we’ll spend about $50. For us, it is just a meal and fellowship, but for them, $50 for a new bicycle is a lifetime investment.”

Bandela works with local leaders, empowering and equipping them to build upon the foundation he has laid and start new work in areas he couldn’t possibly get to.

“American Christians have a part—prayer, encouragement, giving—but they are not the front runners,” he said. “Times have changed. We need to stand behind our Indian brothers and sisters as they lead the way.”

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Texas Baptist Forum

Ominous trend

What a commentary on American Christians! We gave more during the Great Depression to win the world to Jesus than we are giving now. 

• Jump to online-only letters below

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

“This election, the candidates are talking so much about faith that one would think they wanted to be in the College of Cardinals rather than the Hall of Presidents.” Jonathan Turley George Washington University professor (USA Today/RNS) “We are not preaching any type of civil disobedience. We’re just simply saying if someone comes to us and they’re in need of food, they’re in need of going to the doctor, we’re not going to take the time to look for a green card. We’re going to minister and show them Christ’s love.” Robert Wilson Ardmore, Okla., pastor, explaining an Oklahoma Baptist resolution that vowed to continue working with immigrants despite a state law that makes it illegal to aid or assist undocumented immigrants (Daily Oklahoman/RNS) “Everything she does and says reflects on her husband’s ministry, and I don't think the men understand the stress that places on a woman. Their whole identity can be wrapped up in being the pastor’s wife, and they begin to lose themselves.” Ginger Kolbaba Co-author of a novel about four pastors’ wives (Leadership/RNS)

We have been warned repeatedly that God will move on and find others more obedient to his command to take the gospel. But we continue to turn inward and become more and more self-absorbed with meeting our own needs and those of our churches than with sacrificing to take the good news to those who have yet to hear.

No wonder, according to world-watchers, the center of the Christian faith has now moved to the Southern Hemisphere.

How sad in some ways!  And how ominous for us!

Helen Jean Parks

Richardson

Blogging & dissent

Your words about the tone of disagreement in Baptist life are appreciated (Nov. 19), as were your warnings prior to the Baptist General Convention of Texas meeting in Amarillo encouraging messengers to “behave” (Oct. 29). We always need those kind of reminders.

I am a little bit disturbed, however, by the fact bloggers always seem to get lumped together as a bunch of angry, disgruntled individuals who seem to have nothing better to do than to use cyberspace to be critical. Some bloggers do make that choice, as do some editors of Baptist-related newspapers, but it is a far cry from all, or even a majority, of us. It isn’t fair to paint everyone with the same broad brush. Many bloggers, myself included, are governed by scriptural principles when writing.

The ability to disagree and dissent is a cherished Baptist principle. Blogging now opens a door for those of us who are not “insiders” but who care about our denomination and its agencies and institutions to have our voices heard and to contribute to a decision-making process that for many Baptists has seemed cliquish and exclusive for a long time.

Lee Saunders

Sugar Land

‘Winning’ letter

I have yet to read a nicer, more unselfish letter from a presidential “runner-up” as the one written by David Lowrie (Nov. 5).

With his history as a dedicated Christian leader, he could in no way be called a “loser.” I really appreciated his attitude in this very important election.

Sybil McClendon

Sulphur Springs

Name fits

Micah Meurer objects to the BGCT staff and the Baptist Standard referring to people affiliated with our state convention as “Texas Baptists” (Nov. 5). 

It would be interesting to see what he feels would be the appropriate term of reference.  Are members of BGCT-aligned churches less than Texans or less than Baptists? With all due respect, it has appeared to me over the past few years that the other Texas Baptist convention has adopted the attitude of exclusion. 

Charles Alexander

Benbrook

Control illustrated

The action of the International Mission Board trustees to censure Wade Burleson (Nov. 19) is one more demonstration of the controlling nature of the group that has taken over the Southern Baptists-in-Name-Only Convention. 

They have forgotten the things that made Baptists distinctive and successful. They tolerate no (soul) freedom, no priesthood of any believer that doesn’t kiss their ring or drink their Kool-Aid, no expression of dissent of any kind.

We must pray for our brothers and sisters in the Southern Baptists-in-Name-Only Convention, that they will repent and return to being the SBC that existed from World War II through the adoption of Bold Mission Thrust, another casualty of the Baptists-in-Name-Only, who took control beginning in 1979. 

We must pray that God will forgive them for the unloving and unlovely way they conduct denominational business.

Ralph E. Cooper

Waco

Committed Texas Baptists

Texas Baptists have been trying to process the events of recent months in our state convention. We are dealing with Charles Wade’s departure, the search process for a new executive director, scandals and the close presidential vote in Amarillo.

A part of that conversation has involved the future of Texas Baptists Committed. There are those who feel TBC should go away or cease to have influence. I think that would be a mistake. I look back at 20 years of work and am proud of what we have accomplished. The BGCT is a better place because of TBC.

TBC has had influence in Texas because we are what our name implies—“committed.” I read where critics are considering cutting BGCT funding. Churches like mine are here for the short term and the long term. We are committed to helping like-minded Baptists reach this state for Christ.

Critics have also hinted that TBC no longer represents the “center.” We still are right at the center of Texas Baptist life.

We are liberal enough to think that blacks, Hispanics and women can lead. We are conservative enough to believe that the Bible is truth and worthy of all authority in churches and in personal life.

We at TBC have not hand-picked the next executive director. That is God’s business.

I can only speak for myself, but the new executive director will have my prayers and dollars.

I am still a Texas Baptist who is committed.

Ed Hogan

Houston

Future shudder

As I read Ken Williams’ reasons for remaining a Baptist (Nov. 19), I was reminded of my reasons for joining the Southern Baptist Convention nearly 24 years ago.

I left a group that promoted women pastors for the SBC. I wanted to be in a group that stood up for the Scriptures and did not change with every social movement in America. I am glad the SBC has stood for the tenets or dogma of the faith.

People like this remind me of the words of B.H. Carroll, who wrote over 75 years ago: “The modern cry, ‘Less creed and more liberty’ is a degeneration from the vertebrate to the jellyfish and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy. … It is a positive and very hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine.” 

When I read a letter such as this one, I shudder to think where the SBC will be in another 20 to 30 years.

Michael L. Simons

Cleburne

Right thing

As a longtime Baptist, I would like to see in print something I have never seen.  I would like to read where some spokesperson from a Baptist committee, convention or business meeting said, “We did the right thing.”

The right thing as opposed to the “almost” right thing, the “nearly” right thing, the “practical” right thing or the “popular” right thing. The right thing regardless of what people may (or may not) think. The right thing regardless of what it costs. The right thing regardless of “setting a precedent.”

How could it be wrong to “set a precedent” of doing the right thing?

What would Jesus do? 

He would do what he always did—the right thing.

Jack Newton

Azle

Do not stoop

No matter what “hot war” America might be fighting, we must not stoop to terror and torture. The Golden Rule says, “Treat others as you want to be treated.” Individuals or nations that break the God-given rule suffer consequences, lose any moral authority they might have, and give up the ability to win friends and influence people. 

It is a huge mistake for America to get caught up in the tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye violation of the Golden Rule, which has plagued Israel and the Palestinians for decades. 

It is a waste of time for politicians and preachers to ask God to bless America if we intentionally break the most basic human relations principle that is revealed in the scriptures of most world religions.

The Golden Rule is simple, difficult for mortals to obey, but if abided by guarantees peace and God’s blessing. America must not stoop to terror and torture if it is to be a world leader among the nations.

Paul L. Whiteley Sr.

Louisville, Ky.

What do you think?

Because the Baptist Standard affirms the historic Baptist doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, we particularly value feedback from readers.

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

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Baylor and Texas Baptist Men bring
clean water to Mongolian town

By Matt Pene

Baylor University

KHONGOR, Mongolia—A village in central Mongolia that suffers from extensive water and environmental contamination soon may see better days ahead, thanks to the work of Baylor University researchers and Texas Baptist Men.

Researchers have completed one phase of the Baylor in Mongolia project. They identified about 1,000 people in Khongor who have been become sick due to environmental contamination from industrial mining. About 70 percent of the households in that town have at least one sick person—a crisis that has drawn attention from the World Health Organization.

“It is significant because Khongor is the first of perhaps many in this region with this same problem,” said Rene Massengale, an assistant professor of biology at Baylor, who is leading the project.

A project by Baylor Univerisy is alleviating extensive water and environmental contamination in the Mongolian town of Khongor.

“This is a clear human rights and human health issue, because these people were knowingly exposed but never told about it.”

Massengale’s study marked the first comprehensive independent environmental look at the problem in Mongolia, a northern Asian country between China and Russia. The Baylor study found residents had been exposed for more than a year to toxic levels of cyanide, mercury and heavy metals like arsenic due to multiple environmental spills by legal and illegal mining companies searching for gold in the soil. Symptoms include skin rashes, severe headaches, seizures and liver problems among many others.

The Baylor study was commissioned by Khayankhirvaa, the state governor of Darkhan, a region in northern Mongolia; Gunchin Luvsandorj, the presidium president of the Darkhan Aimag; and Batdulam Jambadoo, the foreign affairs officer for the Darkhan Aimag and special assistant to the state governor of Darkhan, after they toured Baylor in 2006.

Massengale acted as one of their Baylor tour guides during the visit. And, after learning of her line of research work, the dignitaries formally asked Massengale to lead a water-quality study in Khongor.

Massengale and her team now are partnering with local government leaders in Mongolia, Lifeqwest Mongolia and Texas Baptist Men to bring medical supplies and individual home water purifying equipment to Khongor. Massengale said those supplies should provide a short-term fix to the problem. Phase two of the project, which should begin in the summer, is a long-term environmental clean-up.

A few weeks ago, Massengale ran more than 2,400 tests on soil and water samples in the village. Tests indicated levels of cyanide and mercury have improved in many wells, but there still were a few wells with elevated levels of contaminants. There also was significant contamination of the soil and the building where the illegal mining took place. The contaminated soil is leaching toxic chemicals into the surrounding area and remains a health hazard to the community, Massengale said.

As the second phase gets under way, Massengale also hopes to set up a permanent Baylor in Mongolia program for students at Baylor and at the National University of Mongolia. The program would establish a permanent water-quality laboratory in Khongor, where students could conduct applied research to identify the needs of area towns and then work to meet those needs by training local Mongolian students about water quality, health and sanitation. 

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Diverse group of Christians seeks
better relationship with Muslims

By Adelle M. Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A wide range of Christian theologians and leaders have endorsed a document calling for increased efforts to work with Muslims for peace and justice. The move responds to an earlier call from Muslim leaders seeking common ground.

The new document, “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to ‘A Common Word Between Us and You,’” was signed by about 300 Christians and published in a Nov. 18 advertisement in the New York Times.

“Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great,” the statement reads. “The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace.”

Four scholars at Yale Divinity School initially released the document in mid-October, responding to an open letter by 138 Islamic clerics and scholars to Pope Benedict XVI about the need for partnerships aimed at peace.

The Yale document has expanded to include endorsements from such varied Christian voices as Rick Warren, author and pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.; William A. Graham, dean of Harvard Divinity School; Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary; Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.; Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals; David Neff, editor in chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today; and John M. Buchanan, editor of the mainline Protestant magazine The Christian Century.

The Christian leaders acknowledge that people of their faith “have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors” and ask for forgiveness.

Organizers of the document hope it will lead to conferences and workshops involving some of the signatories as well as other Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders.

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Oklahoma Baptists vow to continue
ministering to illegal immigrants

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

MOORE, Okla. (ABP)—Messengers to the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma passed a resolution emphasizing nondiscriminating ministry to illegal immigrants and adopted a record $24.6 million budget.

“Finishing the Task” was the theme of the convention, which brought almost 900 messengers to First Baptist Church in Moore.

The resolution dealt with a new state law making it a felony to associate with undocumented immigrants. Messengers, in approving the resolution, said they don’t “necessarily agree (with) or oppose the new law,” but will continue to minister to anyone.

Convention spokeswoman Heidi Wilburn said Christians should place their “No. 1 focus” on God and look to government as a second priority, according to news reports.

The resolution states: “Christians are under biblical mandate to respect the divine institution of government and its laws. Let it be known that House Bill 1804 related to illegal immigration will not change their ministry to any people.”

Bruce Prescott, the executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, called the resolution a move in the right direction.

“More often than not, I am a critic of the resolutions adopted by the BGCO,” Prescott wrote on his blog, mainstreambaptists.blogspot.com. “I commend them for passing this resolution—timid, as it is, in opposing an unjust law.”

The local Catholic archdiocese and the Muslim community of Oklahoma City have also sent letters of protest to Democratic Gov. Brad Henry.

Oklahoma messengers also adopted a record-setting budget for 2008, anticipating $24.6 million in Cooperative Pro-gram gifts from convention churches. That’s an increase of $1.1 million from last year’s budget. The convention uses 60 percent of the budget for in-state ministries, while the remaining 40 percent goes to the Southern Baptist Conven-tion for national and international ministries.

Alton Fannin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Ardmore, was elected president by a 292-208 vote over Ernie Perkins, a retired director of missions. Doug Passmore, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lawton, was elected as first vice president. Aaron Summers, pastor of First Baptist Church in Perry, became second vice president. Pat Wagstaff, a member of First Baptist Church in Maysville, was elected recording secretary.

The messengers adopted 10 other resolutions, including ones opposing “any hate-crimes legislation that potentially criminalizes speech and belief”; opposing the sale of alcohol in Oklahoma grocery and convenience stores; and affirming the so-called conservative resurgence in the SBC, which “returned us to our historic roots of commitment to the Bible as the infallible and inerrant word of God.”

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Lectionary helps some Baptist preachers
feed their flocks a ‘balanced diet’

By Robert Dilday

Virginia Religious Herald

RICHMOND, Va.—It’s Saturday night. Do you know where your pastor is? A pretty safe guess might be “in a study, frantically developing the next day’s sermon.”

But how does a preacher decide on the Scripture text? Some free-church Baptist pastors find their answer in the liturgical toolbox. They preach from the lectionary, a centuries-old cycle of Scripture readings assigned to each Sunday of the year.

In general, a lectionary is a collection of Scripture readings appointed for worship on a given day. Today, most Protestant churches use the Revised Common Lectionary, which includes readings each Sunday from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Epistles and the Gospels, organized into a three-year cycle.

“I preach from texts I would never preach from if I did not follow the lectionary,” said Chuck Warnock, pastor of Chatham (Va.) Baptist Church. “Sometimes that poses a challenge. Sometimes I think the texts are not that great. But I dig into them and have been blessed by that discipline.”

Mike Clingenpeel, pastor of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, Va., and David Washburn, pastor of First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Va., echoed that rationale for using the lectionary.

“It guarantees I don’t preach my pet themes,” said Clingenpeel. “The lectionary sort of channels me away from my own subjective feelings. Besides, it balances what the congregation hears.”

Washburn said tackling difficult texts “makes me cultivate a different style of preaching.” Following the lectionary “helps me grow as a preacher and teacher, and we certainly hope that will spill over into the congregation,” he said.

Retaining flexibility to respond to events in the congregation or community keeps some pastors from rigidly adhering to the appointed readings.

Kyle Reese, pastor of Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., typically follows the lectionary in preaching, but he noted “the ebb and flow of life” dictates times when he needs to depart from the prescribed texts.

Even so, he noted many times when he initially thought circumstances would require him to find a text to address a specific situation, but he was surprised to discover the lectionary reading fit perfectly.

Bill Shiell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., agreed. Even on the Sunday after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he discovered the lectionary Scriptures provided an appropriate text for the occasion.

Other reasons cited for using the lectionary:

• It connects local churches with the global Christian community. “Millions of churches around the world read the same passages each Sunday,” Warnock said. “I like being a part of the global church as it gathers for worship in thousands of different expressions, united by common Scripture.”

It unites the Christian family at-large by providing a common focus, Reese added.

“Entering into the broader community of the church is invaluable,” he said. “That particularly resonates with the 20-something and younger crowd who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.”

• It can immerse worship services in Scripture. “Often I adapt the Psalm as a call to worship or call to prayer or as some other liturgical element in the service, to which the people respond. We try to use the texts pretty extensively, so that there’s more than just a nominal reading of Scripture in worship,” Clingenpeel said.

The variety of Old Testament and New Testament texts “work together and weave a tapestry of witness and story that is majestic,” Warnock observed.

• It makes selection of texts easier each Sunday, while offering almost unlimited texts over the long haul. Since the lectionary covers the entire Bible in a three-year cycle, “if you want to preach through the Bible, use the lectionary as your guide,” Warnock said. “Somebody else figured it out for you. Saves you a lot of time, plus a lot of thought, prayer and study was invested in choosing these texts.”

Because there are four readings appointed for each Sunday over three years, “theoretically you could preach for 12 years without ever repeating a text,” said Clingenpeel, who, after serving his current church four years, has preached through the cycle once.

A flock fed from the lectionary should benefit from a “balanced diet,” said Joel Gregory, professor of preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

“The up side of the lectionary is that if a preacher follows it, the congregation will get a balanced diet of Scripture over three years,” Gregory said.

With additional reporting by Managing Editor Ken Camp

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Integrity demands preachers
avoid pulpit plagiarism

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

If preachers pass off other people’s work as their own, they automatically limit themselves to preaching about only eight commandments. “Thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not bear false witness” become off-limits.

But preachers can avoid plagiarism by beginning at the right place—giving time and attention to the biblical text before reading or listening to other people’s sermons about the text, said Joel Gregory, professor of preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

“To be sure you’re not plagiarizing, do your own exegetical work,” Gregory said. “Take the text into yourself, and let the text speak through your personality. Once we as preachers stop doing our own exegetical work, that’s when we start putting somebody else’s stuff in the meditative microwave.”

Authentic preaching remains true to the text and true to the experience of the preacher, he added.

Years ago, Gregory asked Ray Summers—longtime seminary professor and religion department chair at Baylor University—how he listened to sermons. Summers told him the first thing he wanted to hear was the element of testimony.

“I believe that is a hallmark of effective preaching,” Gregory said, noting the importance of “truth as testimony” in preaching.

“I want to know what the preacher has experienced of the truth being preached.”

Naturally, that means it is “always out of bounds” for a preacher to use another speaker’s first-person stories, he said.

But that doesn’t mean every sermon must be a totally original creation for which the preacher owes no debt to anyone who has preached from the same text before.

“As one friend has said, ‘Originality is an oversold idea,’” said Beth Newman, ethics professor at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.

When it comes to the use of source material, intent matters, Newman noted. “I think a key distinction (between plagiarism and honest research) involves the use of other’s work with the intent to deceive,” she said.

Faithfulness to the Scripture—rather than originality—should take priority, she insisted.

Gregory agreed—at least up to a point—that preachers benefit from listening to or reading sermons by other preachers. He draws a distinction between originality and creativity.

“Creativity stimulates creativity,” he said.

“Listening to someone else’s sermon can give a preacher a different angle of view on a text. A lot of landscape painters can paint the same landscape in different ways. … Creativity means taking the same stuff and making different connections.”

Faithfulness to the listeners in a particular place rules out the option of the preacher who “simply goes online, prints out a sermon and preaches it,” Newman added.

Sermons are messages “to a particular body and should reflect the pastor’s knowledge and relationship with a particular congregation,” she said.

“The sermon is an ‘occasional’ event—like a conversation, in some ways—not to be preserved for the ages.”

With additional reporting by Jim White of the Virginia Religious Herald

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

Posted: 11/30/07

Preaching: Stand and Deliver

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

God chose “the foolishness of preaching” as the preferred instrument for communicating the message of salvation, the Apostle Paul wrote.

But when the time arrives to stand and deliver that message, how does a preacher measure whether it’s an exercise in effectiveness or just plain foolishness?

We don’t always know,” Doyle Sager acknowledged.

How does a preacher measure whether his preaching is an exercise in effectiveness or just plain foolishness?

Preachers can learn a lot by watching body language and facial expressions, as well as listening to honest critiques by trusted friends, said Sager, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo.

But ultimately, he added, it comes down to “the witness of the Spirit.”

Something mysterious and wonderful happens when a preacher connects with his listeners—when God uses the words of the preacher to make his word come alive in the hearts of worshippers, several pastors noted.

But sometimes, even the most diligently prepared, best-delivered sermons fall flat—particularly if the preacher doesn’t keep in mind who is sitting in the pews on a given Sunday.

When Bill Shiell moved from Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo to become pastor at First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., he was introduced to an important lesson early. In one of his first messages, as a way of engaging his listeners, he asked for a show of hands from anyone who had worked on a farm.

“In San Angelo, nearly everyone would have responded. Here (in Knoxville), only one hand went up,” he said.

Context matters, and it takes time for a preacher to learn about the people in a particular congregation and how to communicate with them, Shiell noted.

“I preached a lot of great San Angelo sermons here that didn’t connect,” he acknowledged, pointing out cultural differences between church members in a small city in rural West Texas and a larger university city in eastern Tennessee. “It takes awhile to preach effectively in a particular place.”

Listeners intuitively will respond to a message that is “in their ZIP code” and tune out one that is not, Shiell said. “It has to resonate with the people who are in that room at that time.”

Joel Gregory, professor of preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, affirmed that sentiment.

“All preaching is venue-specific,” he said.

Great preachers most often invest their lives in a “specific community of faith,” Gregory added.

Listeners recognize the authority of the message when they realize the authenticity of the messenger, several preachers noted.

Preaching involves more than communicating information; it involves an invitation into relationship, said Kyle Reese, pastor of Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.

“I believe one cannot be an effective preacher without being active in pastoral care,” said Reese, former pastor of First Baptist Church in San Angelo. “We are preaching a gospel that is always incarnational.”

A pastor who spends all his time cloistered in a study will find it hard to connect with listeners on Sunday morning, but the pastor who walks through life alongside church members typically will find a receptive audience, said Gary Long, pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston.

“Be a pastor first. Focus on knowing the people,” Long said, when asked what advice he would give to other young pastors.

“Spend more than half your time living with the people and less than half the time working on a message to deliver to them. … The authority to be heard comes when people know you love them and care for them.”

As he composes his sermons, Long said, he keeps in mind they are intended for “a particular community in a particular season of life.”

When the preacher is an attentive pastor who knows the congregation and the culture of the community in which they live, sermons become relevant to the listeners. But cultural relevance should not be seen as an end in itself, Long noted, pointing out the gospel carries a counter-cultural message.

“Relevance is not our goal. It is just a tool,” he said. “Our goal is not to be relevant to culture. We want to be distinct from culture.”

Effective preaching involves an ongoing conversation between a pastor and a congregation, characterized by mutual love and respect, Sager observed.

“All preaching is dialogical,” he said. “It is a conversation, even if the people are not speaking out loud.”

Sager, Reese and Shiell all noted the value in a preacher being able to make eye contact with listeners and read their body language to know if worshippers are connecting to the sermon. For that reason, they preach without notes or manuscript in hand.

“I find that speaking from memory gives me access to the listener’s world,” Shiell said.

But preaching without notes does not mean preaching without preparation.

Shiell looks at themes about four months in advance and begins planning “the basic plot” of the message two to three months before he delivers it. About two weeks before he preaches a message, he spends serious time studying, and then he typically writes a manuscript, which he memorizes.

Reese follows a fairly similar routine, planning in six-week blocks following the lectionary and the Christian calendar. Typically, he likes to preach in a narrative style, developing a plotline that leaves listeners with one main idea they can take from the text.

“Most people can deal with only one main idea,” he explained. “Sometimes as preachers we try to say too much.”

Although Reese and Shiell both prefer a storytelling approach in preaching, they stressed the literary style of the biblical passage—narrative, poetic, didactic or whatever—should shape the sermon. Some Scriptures lend themselves to retelling in narrative, and others demand a verse-by-verse exposition.

“Every sermon has a scaffolding—a framework. Some lend themselves to an exposed skeleton. Most of mine are hidden,” Shiell said. “I believe all of my sermons are expository, but they are not all expositional.”

Every preaching style has both strengths and weaknesses, Gregory observed. A very linear, deductive, expository approach may work best in preaching from the Apostle Paul’s writings and if the listeners are age 35 or older, he noted.

“If done wrong, it can become dull and predictable,” he said. “Done right, it can sustain a longtime pulpit ministry.”

The parables or stories from the Old Testament books of history naturally lend themselves to narrative preaching in its varied forms, he observed.

Young listeners particularly relate well to a well-told story, and they are more open than older worshippers to an inductive style that raises a question, offers a “slice of life” situation and compels listeners to “connect the dots.”

“Done right, it may be the best way to preach to people where there is a high resistance to authority. … Done right, it sneaks up on people and draws them in,” he said. “The weakness is that it requires a gift of creativity. … It takes a rare creative gift to do good inductive preaching.”

When the preacher begins by doing serious exegetical work—digging into the biblical text either in the original languages or in several English translations—and then relates the text to a specific people at a particular place, the end result is a biblical sermon, style not withstanding, Gregory observed. That’s true regardless of the tendency of some preachers to elevate one preaching style over all others.

“We all like to baptize our preferences,” he said.

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