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CYBERCOLUMN BY Berry D. Simpson: Reading all the way through
Posted: 7/06/07
CYBER COLUMN:
Reading all the way throughThis morning, I read a long hammerfest by the prophet Amos against a collection of evil nations—the Syrians, Philistines, Tyre, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites … and so forth. I asked myself how this particular prophecy would speak to the rest of my day.
It was several years ago when I first decided I should try reading through the entire Bible in one year. I didn’t have a plan or a schedule. I just opened to Genesis and started reading, doing the same the next day, and the next. I stayed on task until Leviticus, where I ground to a halt about halfway through. I tried again a couple more times but never finished. I wondered why it was so hard to read through the entire Bible when I read a lot of books cover-to-cover every year, some of them way longer. Why was the Bible so different? Why was it so much harder?
Berry D. Simpson A few years later, someone gave me a printed schedule for reading the entire Bible. It had a lot of little boxes, which were great fun to check after each day’s reading. The schedule helped solve the Leviticus problem by mixing passages from the New Testament and the Old Testament and from Psalms every day. It was a good plan, and I followed it for about six months, reading and flipping pages and checking boxes. Then I stopped out of exhaustion. Too much flipping.
I finally put myself in the camp of people who say, “Reading the entire Bible is OK for you, but I don’t need to do it.” I sat comfortably in that camp for years until my wife, Cyndi, bought a copy of “The Daily Bible” for me. It was a New International Version rearranged into chronological order and divided up into 365 dated readings. I didn’t want it at first. I already had a shelf of Bibles, and when you get a new Bible. you can’t throw the old ones away. (I think I could lose my church membership if they found out I threw away an old Bible.) So, they sit on my shelf. Forever. And now I had one more to worry about.
07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Around the State
Posted: 7/06/07
Miller Heights Church in Belton held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of the first phase of the church’s multiphase building program. The nearly 4,000-square-foot administrative building will house offices, a library, restrooms and a greeting area. Participating in the ceremony were trustees Les Connally, Buddy Peschel and Jimmy Parker; building committee members Mary Connally, Jeff Levi and Pastor Bill Adams; and the construction and design team of Charlie Cox, Sam Blount and Larry Neal. Around the State
• Paisano Baptist Encampment will hold its 87th general encampment July 22-27. Morning worship will be held at 11 a.m. and evening worship at 8 p.m. Fellowship begins in the dining shed at 6 p.m., and choir practice starts at 7 p.m. Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Church in Houston, and Dennis Wiles, pastor of First Church in Arlington, will alternate preaching duties. Todd Still, a Truett Seminary professor, will be the Bible study leader. For more information, see www.paisanoencampment. org.
• Baptist Mission Centers has opened its newest facility. The Houston facility, named in honor of missionary Mildred McWhorter, will house up to 36 missionaries and will provide additional office space and parking for staff volunteers.
• The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor played host to first seminar on Academic Leadership in Baptist Universities. Leaders from each of the eight Texas Baptist universities interacted with a panel of national leaders on Christian higher education administration. The event was sponsored by the Center for Ministry Effectiveness and Educational Leadership at Baylor University and the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
• Howard Payne University has announced faculty promotions and awarded service pins in recognition of years of service. Mike Daub, accounting, and Tonya Horner, mathematics, both have achieved the rank of associate professor. Bobbie Price, administrative assistant to the registrar, received a pin marking her 35 years of service. Also recognized were Chuck Boland, Ann Smith and Beth Willingham, 25 years; Glen Hopp, Betty Lancaster and Sharon Riker, 20 years; Cherie Dail, Amy Dodson, Bill Fishback, Mary Hill, Wade Kinnin, Les Plagens and Groner Pitts, 15 years; and Bobby Anderson, Curly Cox, Marcie Drew, Millard Kimery, Dag Sewell, Vicki Vaughn and Terrie Wells, 10 years.
07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Book Reviews
Posted: 7/06/07
Book Reviews
Higher Ground: A Call for Christian Civility by Russell Dilday (Smyth & Helwys)
Russell Dilday’s latest book, Higher Ground: A Call for Christian Civility, is the best of his many good writings. It is an enlargement and powerful application of his prophetic message to the Southern Baptist Convention in 1984, calling for living out the gospel message in relationship to our fellow believers. It is filled with sound biblical interpretation and clear illustrations. It calls for “biblical obedience, not biblical defense.” Chapter two by that title is worth the price of the book alone.
Southern Baptists never were what we thought we were and will never be what we once were again. Had Dilday’s call to Christian civility been heeded, the slow decay that has been and continues to take place could have been avoided.
What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com. Anyone desiring higher ground in our life together as Christian brothers would do well to read and heed this book. My biggest regret is that it came 20 years too late.
Paul W. Powell, special assistant to the dean
07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Free from debt, Breckenridge now free to focus on ministry
Posted: 7/06/07
Baptist leaders applaud the burning copies of the note for Breckenridge Village of Tyler, signifying the facility for adults with developmental disabilities finally is debt-free. Joining in the ceremony are (left to right) Kevin Dinnin, president of Baptist Child & Family Services; Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Paul Powell of the Rogers Foundation; Pastor David Dykes of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler; Keith Bruce, director of institutional ministries with the BGCT; and Linda Taylor, development director at Breckenridge. (Photos/Craig Bird/BCFS) Free from debt, Breckenridge
now free to focus on ministryBy Ken Camp
Managing Editor
TYLER—Breckenridge Village faced the greatest challenge in its challenge-filled history, but it got by with a little help from its friends. Make that $3.7 million worth of help in 12 months and friends ranging from the Baptist General Convention of Texas to a Jewish family foundation.
Breckenridge Village, a residential community for adults with mild to moderate developmental disabilities, recently retired its building debt in dramatic fashion—offering a new lease on life to the Tyler facility and lifting a burden from the shoulders of its parent agency, Baptist Child & Family Services.
Rosie Simmons (left), who coordinates many of the activities at Breckenridge Village at Tyler, helps Breckenridge resident Deborah with a project. 07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Baptist Briefs
Posted: 7/06/07
Baptist Briefs
Southwestern Seminary trustee resigns. Dwight McKissic, who frequently has been at odds with fellow trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, resigned from the school’s board. McKissic, pastor of the predominantly African-American Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, was the lone dissenter when trustees voted last October to forbid the seminary from employing professors who advocate speaking in tongues. Earlier, in a chapel sermon at Southwestern, McKissic said that since his days as a student at the seminary, he has used a “private prayer language,” considered by many a variation of tongues-speaking. In March, trustees tried to expel him permanently from the board, a move McKissic called “nothing but a 21st-century lynching.” Trustees later decided not to remove him. The debate over tongues “has taken a tremendous toll on my family and ministry, and my wife believes it has negatively impacted my health,” McKissic said in a letter to Van McClain, chairman of the seminary trustee board. He also said he has been “distracted and consumed” by the controversy and needs to refocus on his family and church.
Baptist college association elects leader. The International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities board elected Thomas Corts, president emeritus of Samford University, as the association’s executive director. Corts, 65, succeeds Bob Agee, who announced last December he would retire at the June meeting. Corts served as interim chancellor of the Alabama College System last year. Prior to that position, he was president of Samford University from 1983 to 2006. He served previously at Wingate University in North Carolina, the Higher Education Consortium of Kentucky and Georgetown College in Kentucky. Corts is married to the former Marla Ruth Haas. They have three children and six grandchildren.
07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Joint meeting of American Baptists, CBF models newfound cooperation
Posted: 7/06/07
Joint meeting of American Baptists,
CBF models newfound cooperationBy Robert Dilday & Marv Knox
Associated Baptist Press & Baptist Standard
WASHINGTON (ABP)—Worship infused with music and missions, cooperation and communion, and doses of laughter marked a historic reunion of Baptists in the nation’s capital city.
The American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship held their first national joint worship service—a long-awaited coming together of Baptists whose shared commitment to missions and Baptist principles once was shattered by slavery.
CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal speaks during a panel discussion with ABCUSA General Secretary Roy Medley (left) and Tyrone Pitts, general secretary of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, during the combined CBF/ABCUSA worship service. (CBF Photo/Rod Reilly) 07/06/2007 - By John Rutledge
