Young Baptist leaders address social justice at Current retreat

Posted: 2/16/07

Young Baptist leaders address
social justice at Current retreat

By Patricia Heys

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

AUSTIN (ABP)—More than 100 leaders from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship gathered a few blocks from the Texas state capital to discuss social justice.

Current, the fellowship’s network for young leaders, hosted its eighth annual retreat at First Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.

“The theme of social justice hits home with our generation,” said Jeremy Colliver, youth minister at Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ky., and a student at the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky.

“I think our generation’s mission lies in not just changing lives but changing communities. This retreat has been beneficial because it has brought in people who are experts in their field and who have offered theoretical and practical application.”

Young leaders in attendance also participated in a variety of workshops each day, including sessions on hunger and advocacy, terrorism, economic justice and immigration.

Adam Taylor and Suzii Paynter were the retreat’s keynote speakers. Taylor is a senior director at Sojourners/Call to Renewal, a 34-year-old Christian organization that integrates spiritual renewal with social justice. He spoke to attendees about poverty, HIV/AIDS and advocacy.

“As Christians we are called to the role of justice and the role of compassion,” Taylor said. “Jesus healed people’s pain, but he also spoke out against the things that caused people pain.”

Paynter serves as the director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, ethics and public-policy arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“We are a country where our direction is determined by the voices that speak and are listened to,” Paynter said. “If we don’t speak, that voice isn’t there. We often have an assumption that someone is speaking for us, so we don’t speak. I think that makes Jesus weep.”