Updated: 3/02/07

Megan Jones	Mallory Harrell	Lili Muongkhot	Erin Radomsky

Texas Acteen selected for national panel

By Amy Whitfield

Woman’s Missionary Union

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Woman’s Missionary Union has selected Tiffany Clark, 16, of Humble Area’s First Baptist Church to be a 2007 National Acteens Panelist.

Tiffany earned the honor because of her strong commitment to missions and to Acteens, a Baptist missions program for teenage girls, national WMU officials said. They also cited her exemplary leadership and involvement in her school, community and church.

Tiffany Clark

“Tiffany is always the first to volunteer and serve when help is needed—inside and outside the church—and has been a faithful leader in all our student ministry activities,” said Michael Anthis, high school minister at her church.

“Tiffany is a vital part of our student leadership, giving of her time to be the leader that God wants her to be. Most notably, she has gone above and beyond expectations serving in the missions ministry of Acteens.”

At her church, she participates in the youth and choir ensemble, student leadership team, Bible study and a monthly student-led, door-to-door outreach for recent visitors and members of the church.

She has been involved in several mission projects through Acteens, including a summer trip to rural Mexico, volunteering for a food pantry, Christmas caroling to shut-ins, cleanup days, fall festivals, Vacation Bible School and ministering at a Baptist ministry in inner-city Houston. Tiffany began working with teenage girls there in fall 2006 when her church started an Acteens group there. Now she plans weekly programs and leads devotions for the girls.

Tiffany also was a 2006 Texas Acteens panelist.

The 2007 National Acteens Panelists serve from Feb. 1 to Dec. 31, and each will receive a $1,000 Jessica Powell Loftis Scholarship from the WMU Foundation, to be used for higher education.

Throughout the year, Tiffany will write articles for The Mag, the missions magazine for Acteens, and for the Acteens website, HYPERLINK "http://www.acteens.com" www.acteens.com. In addition, panelists will work together as a focus group to help shape the future of Acteens.

She also will serve at at Blume, the national missions event for teenage girls and collegiate young women, July 10-13 in Kansas City, Mo., and at WMU Missions Celebration and annual meeting in San Antonio, June 10–11.

In addition to Acteens who are chosen to serve as panelists, WMU also selects 15 young women as Top Teens to recognize their strong involvement in missions. 

Mallory Harrell of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, Megan Jones of Humble Area’s First Baptist Church, Lili Muongkhot of First Baptist Church in Amarillo and Erin Radomsky of Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin were selected, along with 11 other girls, as 2007 Top Teens.

Updated: 3/02/07

‘From the Dust’ takes music behind bars

By George Henson

Staff Writer

THE COLONY—Like missionaries Paul and Silas in the New Testament, band members of the Christian band From the Dust hope taking their songs to prisons might cause inmates to ask, “What must I do to be saved?”

From the Dust grew out of a church praise band that led worship on Sunday mornings.

Kevin Snow, bass guitarist and vocalist for From the Dust.

• Watch video clips about the ministry of From the Dust here and here. • Hear their blues version of Blessed Assurance. • Listen to more music at their website, www.fromthedust.com.

“We started praying, because we wanted to do more,” said Pat Callaway, the group’s drummer. “We talked about it and talked about it, and there was a guy doing sound at the church who got tired of hearing us talk about it and told us to do something about it.”

Like other bands, From the Dust began by playing at youth events and in churches, but gradually those opportunities dried up.

A relative of Callaway helped the band nab an invitation to perform in a prison. Even though they felt apprehensive at first, they decided God had opened the door, and they walked through it.

And while they continued to look to churches as venues, all those doors closed.

“We tried to do some community events and other things but walked away from them saying, ‘We probably shouldn’t have done that,’” Callaway recalled.

After that initial prison concert, however, other prison chaplains began to call. More importantly, From the Dust members began to sense God’s call.

“We wouldn’t ever have dreamed of playing in prisons, but that is where God has directed us,” said Kevin Snow, bass guitarist and vocalist.

“For me, it was a spiritual awakening to be around a lot of people—many of whom had problems all their lives—and to tell them about Jesus in a way they maybe hadn’t heard before,” Callaway added.

All the From the Dust members have a long history playing in bands—and not always churches. All have played in clubs and bars, and they participated in the lifestyle expected in those venues.

Drummer Pat Callaway and lead guitarist Mitchell Martin.

“All of us have dabbled in drugs and alcohol, and some us have more than dabbled,” Callaway admitted.

“But it’s interesting that God uses our mistakes with drugs and alcohol to connect with guys we probably wouldn’t connect with otherwise,” Snow added.

The band typically begins with songs that have a hard-driving rock-and-roll beat and gradually moves toward more worshipful music, preparing inmates to hear the message lead guitarist Mitchell Martin preaches.

Martin and his wife, Cissy, are members of Legacy Drive Baptist Church in Plano. Their bandmates are active in other Dallas-Fort Worth-area churches.

Prison inmates “connect with the music first, and then we can talk to them,” Callaway explained.

So far, 360 prisoners have said they have accepted Christ as Savior following a From the Dust concert.

“The worship experience in a prison is something else,” Callaway said. “They are down so low, they have no inhibitions about raising their hands in praise or anything else.”

God confirmed Snow’s calling for the band last November, he said. He went to hook up the trailer with all the band’s sound equipment, and it had been stolen.

“It didn’t occur to any of us to quit, but we just went to work sending out letters to friends and family, explaining the situation, and more money came in than we needed to replace the things we lost,” he said.

“When we saw that, we said, ‘This is a confirmation that God’s not done with us yet.’”

Band members made a list of what they needed to continue and a second list of instruments and equipment they would like to have. Both lists have been filled.

Money not only came from family and close friends, they said, but also from people they went to church with years ago. Most touching was the money from missionaries and the spouses of inmates who had little to give but still contributed out of their meagerness.

The experience has made From the Dust stronger, Martin said. Prior to the theft, the band members had pretty much been going it alone. Now, they not only have financial supporters, but, more importantly, an army of prayer warriors.

“God wants his people on mission,” Martin said. “That doesn’t mean going to China or even to prisons with us. They can do it by praying or whatever, but we’re always called to be on mission with Christ.”

While the band has had nothing but good experiences behind the walls of Texas prisons, John Denton, one of the group’s sound engineers, admits his first time was stressful.

He recalled looking up at a cross wrapped in razor wire atop the chapel. “It was very intimidating to walk up to the razor wire and have the lock behind you. I was nervous as a cat,” he remembered.

“Also, those guys were up on the stage all together with everybody watching them. I was in the back all by myself.”

Yvette Snow, From the Dust’s lead vocalist and keyboard player, said the band no longer is afraid.

“They treat you like gold. They are so appreciative that you have taken the time to come and play for them,” she said of the inmates.

Ninety-five percent of all prisoners who have been incarcerated for more than five years receive no visits from family or friends, Martin added.

Cissy Martin, the group’s manager and prayer warrior, recalled one time when the group was singing the song “I Can Only Imagine.”

“The Spirit impressed on me to go to the front and look at the inmates’ faces,” she recalled. “I saw the tears on their faces and noticed one man in a wheelchair. I’m not supposed to have any interaction except for shaking hands, but I bent down and put my arms around him and told him: ‘Won’t it be great? When we get to heaven, we won’t need wheelchairs.’”

“It really is great to see some of them come in with that hard ‘you’re not going to get to me’ look on their faces, and to see that just melt away as we sing about the love of Christ,” Kevin Snow said. “That’s the miracle for me, to see God chip away at their hearts.”

“We get to watch dead people come to life,” Mitchell Martin said.

Along with the calling, God also has given the group a gift.

“God has given us contact lenses to see the man, see the woman, but not the crime, not the place. God has given us the ability to see past the sin,” Yvette Snow said.

But it is the calling that brings them to two prisons a month, nine months out of the year.

“It’s just the absolutely fantastically glorious feeling of being in obedience. The Bible tells us that if we don’t praise him, the rocks will cry out. Well, we cannot not do this,” Yvette Snow continued.

“It’s a calling,” Mitchell Martin said. “God has put it in my heart to do this. It’s my joy to serve. Service to God is a joy, not a duty.”

Updated: 3/02/07

Sweet tells Truett conference
God is ‘defragging and rebooting’ church

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

WACO (ABP)—Deal with it, get over it or get help. That’s Leonard Sweet’s mantra when it comes to understanding Christianity’s fluid role in the postmodern world.

The Christian church is in the midst of a “perfect storm,” Sweet told a crowd at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. Such stormy weather is manifested in, among other things, postmodernism —the worldview that questions modern assumptions about certainty and progress. Modernism gave Christians a preferred status as “chaplain” to the culture. But Christians in the West no longer can expect to have that “home-court advantage,” he said.

What’s more, the church can’t change the fact that culture has rejected traditional institutions, he added. So, it must change from the inside out.

And it does no good to complain about it.

“God is defragging and rebooting the church,” Sweet said, alluding to computer terminology for reconfiguring and restarting a system. “What he is doing is he is getting us back to the original operating system of Christianity.”

Sweet’s address came as part of the seminary’s fifth annual conference for pastors and laymen. He is a professor of evangelism in the theological school at Drew University in Madison, N.J., and is a visiting professor at George Fox University in Portland, Ore. His latest book, The Gospel According to Starbucks, uses the coffee giant to illustrate postmodern people’s shift toward an experiential, image-laden and communal way of viewing the world.

The old model of church is “killing the West,” Sweet said at the conference. The out-dated model is “attractional, propositional and colonial.” It must become missional, relational and incarnational, he said.

“This culture understands that everybody knows they’ve been created for a mission,” Sweet said. “It’s not a mission project. Do you hear the difference? (Throughout) your whole life, you’re in it. It’s a pilgrimage. It’s a journey.”

According to Sweet, the Roman governor Pilate was the first postmodernist because he asked Jesus a “fundamental postmodernist” question: “What is truth?”

All of Christianity hinges on the answer, he suggested.

“Truth is Jesus,” Sweet said. “This is the uniqueness of Christianity in all of the religions of the world. Every other religion defines truth in propositional terms.”

All other prophets and spiritual leaders told adherents to follow their teachings to find the way to enlightenment, Sweet said, but Jesus was the “only one who had the chutzpah to announce to the whole world, ‘I am the way.’ Truth is a relationship.”

The ability to help people recognize the difference between propositional teachings and relational truth will come from a different mindset for teaching, preaching and living, Sweet said.

When he attended seminary, he learned that “preaching is making the Scriptures come alive.” Now, he has come to believe the complete opposite—Christians must come alive to the Scriptures.

“I’m not 360 degrees from there (his time at seminary), I’m at 180 degrees. The complete opposite,” he said. “The problem is not with the (Bible); the problem is with us.”

Updated: 3/02/07

Did the IMB ‘investigate’ charges?
Burleson, president say no

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

RICHMOND, Va. (ABP)—Wade Burleson says the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board did not conduct an “investigation” into his allegations of trustee improprieties—despite some trustees’ insistence to the contrary.

“What idiot told Mr. Burleson there was no trustee investigative committee?” asked trustee Jerry Corbaley recently on his blog.

That “idiot” was IMB President Jerry Rankin, Burleson countered.

The IMB trustees recently responded to Burleson’s call for an investigation, issuing a statement Jan. 29-31 that said, among other things, the agency has policies in place to prevent or correct some of the improprieties Burleson alleged and that other allegations were outside the IMB’s scope and authority.

The Southern Baptist Convention will act on the IMB’s response next June.

The response initially was described by Associated Baptist Press and several other news outlets as an “internal investigation.” But Burleson said Rankin told him that was not the case; no investigation was conducted. Instead, the response reportedly was drafted by IMB staff.

And an IMB spokesperson did not dispute that characterization.

Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor who is an IMB trustee, made his motion during the SBC annual meeting last June. The motion called for the SBC Executive Committee to conduct an investigation into several areas of IMB business for which the board recently came under criticism.

At the time, then-SBC President Bobby Welch referred the motion to the IMB itself rather than the Executive Committee—a common practice for motions made at convention meetings that deal with SBC entities. Burleson did not formally object to the referral.

The allegations included internal suppression of dissent among trustees over board policies and improper use of closed-door trustee “forums” to conduct policymaking business. Burleson also requested an investigation into the propriety of the board making policies for missionaries that go beyond the doctrinal parameters of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement—the SBC’s confession of faith.

The board replied that it retains “the prerogative and responsibility of further defining the parameters of doctrinal beliefs and practices of its missionaries.”

Burleson also accused IMB trustees of bending to undue influence from SBC leaders outside the board, and alleged that members of the convention’s nominating committee had attempted to elect people with hidden agendas as IMB trustees.

In response to those aspects of Burleson’s motion, the IMB said the board had no authority to investigate actions by other SBC bodies—in this case, the convention’s nominating committee and other SBC agencies or officers.

On Feb. 2, Burleson—who operates a popular blog, kerussocharis.blogspot.com, that he has used to criticize some actions by his fellow trustees—posted a blog entry titled “There was no trustee investigative committee.” He said an IMB administrator told him the term “investigation committee” in his initial post about the response was inaccurate.

Burleson affirmed the board’s response, with the caveat that he is uncomfortable with moving beyond the doctrinal parameters of the Baptist Faith & Message without explicit SBC approval. Burleson noted he was aware the board couldn’t investigate the actions of other SBC leaders and agencies—which, he said, is exactly why his SBC motion called for an external investigation into the IMB’s affairs.

Then, on Feb. 8, fellow IMB trustee Corbaley of California used his own blog, sbcglossolalia.blogspot.com, to criticize Burleson’s description of the response.

“Since July of 2005 the IMB (board of trustees) has increasingly tracked, searched into, inquired systematically, examined in detail, expressing care and seeking accuracy, regarding the myriad accusations of Mr. Burleson,” he said. Burleson’s earlier critiques of his fellow trustees proved so controversial the trustees made an unsuccessful attempt to remove him from the board.

Corbaley, the director of a local Baptist association, continued: “What idiot told Mr. Burleson there was no trustee investigative committee? Or were such words twisted out of context?”

He said Burleson’s description discounts the work of both trustees and staffers at the Richmond, Va.-based agency, given their long exposure to the controversies that led to the motion. “Such a statement disparages the integrity of the International Mission Board trustees (again) and the Richmond staff,” Corbaley wrote.

Soon after, Burleson responded.

“The report speaks to IMB policy, and it is quite accurate on all counts, but there was no ‘investigation’ conducted into the major concerns I had expressed in the recommendation itself,” he said.

It is not clear how the SBC will respond to the IMB report. Burleson said he is hoping the convention will call for an external investigation.

“If an investigation is needed, and it may or may not be determined at the SBC that one is, then an outside ad hoc committee will be created by the president of the convention in consultation with the … Executive Committee—the very thing I asked at last year’s convention,” Burleson said on his blog. “The IMB board of trustees should not waste their time in these matters, just as the IMB report affirmed.”

Burleson then said Rankin himself wrote Corbaley to note he was the “idiot” who asked Burleson not to use the term “trustee investigation committee” to describe the response.

Corbaley countered that Burleson had improperly characterized Rankin’s description of the board’s response. “While I regret Mr. Burleson making Dr. Rankin an issue, I assert that whatever Mr. Burleson was told was twisted out of context by the time it was posted on Mr. Burleson’s blog,” he wrote on Feb. 12.

On Feb. 14, Burleson replied that he “most assuredly did not” take Rankin’s words out of context.

“Dr. Rankin, in his usual forthright and gracious style, told me that I should remove the phrase. He said that the report to my motion was an honest and cooperative effort to answer policy questions raised by my motion, to not spend any more time dealing with my recommendation than necessary, to attempt to be as noncontroversial as possible in the response, and to get back to focusing on the missions and purpose of the board.”

Burleson said he affirmed the rationale for the perfunctory nature of the board’s response, but asked why no one from the board ever asked to look at the evidence and documentation he had amassed to buttress his charges about impropriety surrounding IMB business.

“Again, he responded by saying, ‘There was no investigation committee,’ and suggested that I remove the phrase from my blog,” Burleson wrote.

A board spokesperson, Wendy Norvelle, declined to dispute Burleson’s description of events.

“Our leadership has conversations with individuals—trustee leadership and other individuals—all day, every day,” she said. “Individuals certainly have the right and freedom—no problem with us—to report that. We just don’t see any merit in trying to move into ‘he said, she said’ kind of things.”

When asked if Burleson’s description of the board’s reply to his motion was actually an investigation, she said simply, “It is a response.”

Updated: 3/02/07

Identity conference questions SBC’s direction

By Phillip Jordan

Associated Baptist Press

JACKSON, Tenn. (ABP)—The future should be bright for the Southern Baptist Convention, but it won’t be if infighting continues, SBC President Frank Page insisted at a conference on Baptist identity.

Page, pastor of First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C., urged Southern Baptists—who have been squabbling over narrowing doctrinal parameters and other issues—to stick together.

“But if we continue to break into factions that continue to fight each other and focus on turf-protectionism, the future will not be bright,” Page said.

He spoke during “Baptist Identity II: Convention, Cooperation and Controversy,” a winter conference at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.

Page wove a theme of unity throughout his message, which focused on the need for Baptists to remain together despite disagreements.

He cautioned that dissent and debate should not devolve into anything that would reproach the gospel. The Apostle “Paul didn’t say, ‘Whose side are you on?’” Page said. “He asked, ‘Are you preaching Jesus Christ?’”

The conference comes amid intra-denominational disagreements among Southern Baptist conservatives and fundamentalists, who have controlled the 16-million-member SBC for almost three decades. Recently, internal differences—over issues such as control and cooperation, speaking in tongues, the place of women in leadership roles, censorship and alcohol use—have signaled some unraveling at the edges of the denomination.

For well over a year, some conservatives have expressed their displeasure with what they perceive as narrowing fundamentalism in some SBC circles. Page won the SBC presidency last June with support from allies who want more flexibility and transparency in the convention.

The three-day conference at Union University was organized in an attempt to discuss what the future of Southern Baptist life might look like.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson began the second day of the conference by asserting contemporary Baptists could learn much about how to relate to each other from Anabaptists—the Reformation-era ancestors of modern Baptists.

“If modern Baptists are to find a way out of our current malaise, we must, like the Anabaptists did, find a way to make church membership more meaningful,” said Patterson, himself a former SBC president.

Baptist churches—both in the Anabaptists’ time and today—are lacking in their ability to effectively discipline and provide guidance to new converts, he said. “We are showing a lack of care with new converts. And a disciplined church is necessary for the church’s witness.”

Patterson, a key figure in conservatives’ rise to SBC power, noted Anabaptists’ refusal to change their minds on issues unless convinced by Scripture should be a testament to contemporary Baptists.

Only God can know people’s religious motivations, Patterson said, chastising those who spread slander and gossip from within Baptist ranks.

“That should be shameful among any Baptists today,” he said.

Patterson’s remarks come less than a month after his dismissal of a female professor from her position at Southwestern’s School of Theology solely because she is a woman became public knowledge.

In January, Baptist blogger Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., wrote a widely circulated essay on kerussocharis.blogspot.com that denounced Patterson for dismissing Hebrew professor Sheri Klouda. Patterson adheres to a strict interpretation of biblical texts that he believes mean women should not be allowed to teach men, even in seminary.

While Patterson avoided the topic during his speech, members of the audience later said they wished the subject had been addressed. They included Baptist bloggers who have played a key role in recent SBC dissent and Page’s election. Interaction with the bloggers was a part of the conference program, and several attended.

Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, and another blogger who has written about Klouda on baptistblog.wordpress.com, said he wished Patterson had more time to answer questions. Patterson only answered two questions after his presentation.

Cole had planned to ask Patterson if he agreed with a thesis by author Roland H. Bainton that Anabaptists had been among the earliest reformers to advocate for women’s education, suffrage, ordination and holding church office.

“I wanted to ask him about what contemporary Baptists could learn from Anabaptists in that area,” Cole said. “Anabaptists were among the first to support women’s suffrage, and by the early 20th century, they supported the election of women to serve in the faculties of their schools.”

Other conference presenters included Thom Rainer, president of Lifeway Christian Resources; Mike Day, director of missions for the Mid-South Baptist Association in Memphis; Russell Moore, dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; David Dockery, president of Union University; Ed Stetzer, missiologist and research team director at the North American Mission Board; and Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University.

More than 300 people attended the conferenc.

The first Baptist identity conference was held in April 2004.

Updated: 3/02/07

Gonzales touts religious-freedom
initiative; others question Bush record

By Lonnie Wilkey & Robert Marus

Tennessee Baptist & Reflector / Associated Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—Attorney General Alberto Gonzales chose the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s winter meeting to announce a new Justice Department focus on religious freedom.

But some Christian leaders questioned the move, as well as the Bush administration’s commitment to a robust defense of the Constitution’s religious protections.

Gonzales told members of the SBC’s main governing board the department was launching the “First Freedom Project” to fight religious discrimination in employment, housing, land use, education and other areas of the law.

“Religious freedom is a fundamental part of our nation’s history and one of its core principles,” Gonzales said.

His department’s civil-rights division will spearhead the effort, he said. It will include educational efforts to inform government officials, employers and everyday Americans about their religious-liberty rights under law. It also features a new website, www.firstfreedom.gov, containing resources on religious freedom and information on filing religious-discrimination complaints with Justice officials.

Gonzales sought out SBC leaders for the chance to make the announcement at the meeting.

“Throughout our history, nothing has defined us a nation more than our respect for religious freedom,” he said. “It is not confined to members of one church or the followers of one set of beliefs. Through this initiative, the Justice Department continues its vigorous efforts to enforce protections against religious discrimination.”

The announcement coincided with the release of the Justice Department’s “Report on Enforcement of Laws Protecting Religious Freedom: Fiscal Years 2001-06.” Referring to the report, Gonzales suggested the Bush administration had more assiduously enforced religious freedom than the Justice Department under President Bill Clinton.

The 43-page booklet, which is available on the First Freedom website, attempts to illustrate how Bush’s Justice Department has increased the enforcement of religious-freedom laws.

The report notes the department’s religious-discrimination caseload increased from one case and conducting no investigations between 1995 and 2000, during the Clinton administration, to 82 cases reviewed and 40 investigations during the first six years of the Bush administration.

For example, the department filed a successful lawsuit to protect the right of a Muslim student to wear a headscarf while attending public school and defended the right of religious groups to meet in public facilities on an equal basis with secular groups.

But some Christian leaders said Gonzales failed to draw attention to all aspects of religious freedom.

Brent Walker, executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said he appreciates the administration focusing on the First Amendment. But the amendment covers two aspects of religious freedom that are inextricably linked to each other, he added.

“The First Amendment has two protections for religious freedom—prohibition on religious establishments and protection for free exercise of religion,” Walker said. “The administration has often ignored the importance of the no-establishment principle by supporting attempts of governments to endorse a religious message, using tax dollars to fund pervasively religious organizations, allowing religious discrimination in hiring for federally funded projects, and going to the Supreme Court to cut back on the rights of citizens to challenge such practices.”

Walker also noted the Bush officials’ record on free-exercise protections is “not perfect.” He pointed to a Supreme Court case last year in which the administration attempted to limit a small religious sect’s ability to use hallucinogenic tea for sacramental purposes. A unanimous high court rejected the administration’s position.

The head of the National Council of Churches said he wished Gonzales had chosen a more representative body to hear his announcement. SBC leaders have been among Bush’s strongest and most consistent supporters.

“We are pleased to see the Bush administration focus renewed interest on religious freedom,” NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar said. Nonetheless, his organization does “find it unsettling that only a single denomination, representing a fraction of the rich diversity of religious life of America, was selected to receive the attorney general’s personal presentation. It would seem more appropriate had he made such an appearance before an ecumenical or interfaith gathering, symbolically underlining the vision of a nation in which the law plays no favorites but sees all faiths as equal before the Constitution.”

After his speech, Gonzales told reporters he chose an audience of Southern Baptists to announce the government’s new effort because “this is a group very interested in the protection of religious freedom.” He noted the “timing worked out where this was a good venue to speak to a receptive audience.”

Baptists in America were early champions of religious liberty and influenced the development of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees religious liberty and other freedoms.

But the NCC’s Edgar had invited Gonzales to appear at the NCC Committee on Religious Liberty meeting, slated for March 12 in Washington, to “extend to this very diverse group of interfaith advocates for religious freedom the same courtesy of a face-to-face visit that he has already extended to the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said.

The NCC also encouraged Gonzales to make similar appearances before leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals and “Jewish and Muslim faith groups who together make up the complex tapestry of religious life in our nation.”

The First Freedom Project will sponsor a series of regional training seminars for leaders interested in religious liberty. The first one will be March 29 in Kansas City, Mo., followed by seminars in Tampa, Fla., April 25, and Seattle, Wash., May 10. Other dates and locations will be announced later.

At the conclusion of his address, Gonzales asked the Executive Committee to help spread the word of what the Justice Department is doing to preserve religious liberty and to help educate Southern Baptists about religious-liberty laws.

Another initiative—unrelated to Gonzales’ announcement but called the First Freedoms Project—is a partnership between three Baptist organizations. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Associated Baptist Press and the Baptists Today newspaper have joined in that project to emphasize the Christian commitment to First Amendment principles, particularly religious liberty and freedom of the press. Their website is at www.firstfreedoms.com.

Updated: 3/02/07

CBF council reports declining
revenues, adopts new budget

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DECATUR, Ga. (ABP)—Halfway through their fiscal year, leaders of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship learned about a significant revenue shortfall during the CBF Coordinating Council winter meeting in Decatur, Ga.

Undesignated receipts were 13.2 percent below the year-to-date budget, according to a financial summary of the six months ended Dec. 31, 2006. That budget itself had been revised downward from an earlier adopted budget.

In order to address an anticipated revenue shortfall, council members instituted a plan last fall to operate at 90 percent of the original 2006-07 budget.

The Fellowship’s partner organizations, such as CBF-affiliated seminaries, already have felt the budget shortfall, since partner allocations are adjusted each month to reflect current revenues.

All told, CBF’s undesignated revenue for the first six months of the fiscal year totaled $5.9 million, compared to the budgeted amount of $6.8 million. The undesignated-receipts category includes general contributions, offerings for global missions and income from resource fees.

Including designated gifts, the Fellowship’s total revenue for the first half of the fiscal year was $8.5 million. CBF expenditures for the same period were $10.3 million, resulting in a net loss of $1.8 million for the period.

CBF Controller Larry Hurst said the revenue gap could be due to a “timing issue” for several contributing churches that have delayed their regular gifts in order to meet fund-raising goals. The discrepancy also could be due to reduced budgets at churches throughout the CBF network, he added.

Council finance committee member Joe Goodson said several key donors and churches had reallocated funds previously given to CBF in order to support ongoing hurricane-relief efforts along the Gulf Coast.

But while some initiatives like CBF’s Global Missions Offering remain underfunded, Hurst pointed out, resource income revenues are at 110 percent of the projected budget.

The organization’s staffers are reducing expenditures in light of the deficit, Hurst said. “We’ve got a gap here that we’re trying to close. We’re really trying to do anything we can think of to reduce costs.”

CBF employees have held conference-call meetings instead of on-site meetings and used local churches instead of hotel conference centers to host council meetings.

The finance committee also has decided to hire a new auditing firm, Capin Crouse, which will provide a decrease in auditing fees of about 50 percent from last year’s auditors. CBF had retained the national firm Deloitte and Touche as auditors since 1999.

The change to a smaller, niche firm with a long client list of nonprofit organizations would give CBF “more bang for the buck” in its auditing services, committee members said. Capin Crouse is based in Atlanta.

CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said he and his staff are “trying hard to be good stewards of the Lord’s money” but added that they could expand their services if they had more resources.

“This does represent more than money,” he said. “It represents the investment and the vision of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.”

Council members also unanimously approved the proposed 2007-08 expense budget, which projected total expenses of $16,481,000. The 2006-07 budget listed expenses of $17,050,000.

Connie McNeill, coordinator of administration, said the finance committee derived the 2007-08 budget from the previous year’s revenues. To get a new budget that would realistically reflect probable income levels “required a reduction of all the (Fellowship’s) initiative areas,” she said.

“It is, of course, something about which we share concern,” she said. “We hope that the message is that the challenge and the opportunities are there. We think the resources are there. We just hope we can get those together.”

Updated: 3/02/07

Covenant most important Baptist
event since Civil War, Allen says

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DECATUR, Ga. (ABP)—Next January’s “Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant” will be the most important Baptist event since before the Civil War, an emotional Jimmy Allen told Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders.

Allen, the last moderate to serve as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, stressed that the two Democratic former presidents leading the charge for the historic pan-Baptist gathering—Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—want to avoid politics at the rally.

“Be assured we will have Republican speakers in the plenary session,” said Allen, program chairman for the Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2008, event.

“We will have at least two speaking as of right now,” he promised. “You will not be free of the accusation about (the event) being Democrat. You’re going to have that. But the answer is that neither of these folks wants it to be a political event. We don’t want that. We don’t want to be partisan. We want to speak to the issues.”

Allen declined to name confirmed Republican speakers for the event.

Some Southern Baptist leaders have criticized the gathering, which aims to draw as many as 20,000 people from all of North America’s major Baptist denominations to Atlanta to talk about more cooperative efforts and improve Baptists’ public image.

Besides the ex-presidents, it involves leaders of the North American denominational and para-denominational groups affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is not involved in the New Baptist Covenant, have dismissed the event as merely another chance for disgruntled moderate and progressive Baptists to thumb their noses as the more conservative SBC. Some also have pointed to the event’s election-year timing and Clinton and Carter’s involvement as evidence it is designed to stir up Baptist support for Democrats—and especially the presidential bid of Clinton’s wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Leaders of the event have denied those charges.

Allen said the presidents are involved because they probably are the world’s most famous Baptists. Nobody, he contended, could have compelled so many denominational presidents and Baptist leaders to meet “in the same room to talk about the issues except one man—a politician named Jimmy Carter.”

God’s Spirit “is moving in a new, energetic way in which we don’t try to do anything about turf,” he continued. “We’re not trying to start conventions and bureaucracy. We’re trying to create an atmosphere in which networking can be accelerated.”

Instead of creating a new denomination or political coalition, Allen and CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said, they hope the covenant forms the foundation to a new Baptist network.

“I hope that we’ll get so involved with each other … that we’ll have a major clearinghouse of information,” Allen said. “I hope that out of this comes a new energy for the issues that face us in our world.”

With a “silent majority” of 24 million people worldwide involved in the Baptist World Alliance, it could be quite a network.

But it’ll take a lot to create it. Mercer University, with President Bill Underwood at the helm, has taken a “great risk” in its role in the 2008 meeting in Atlanta, Allen said. The proposed budget is $1.4 million, and that’s “doing it on the cheap.” And critics must be answered—or at least acknowledged.

“Whenever God gets ready to do something big, there are going to be people throwing rocks at it,” Allen said. “And the right people are getting mad, so we must be doing something right.”

Allen himself said God must be laughing, because the event’s organizers are trying to do the impossible. They’ve planned the conference to dovetail with a joint meeting of the four major historically African-American Baptist denominations. That gathering is expected to draw more than 10,000 people.

“Less than a year from now, we’re taking over the whole (Georgia World) Congress Center,” Allen enthused. Event organizers said they will launch a website, www.newbaptistcovenant.org, soon.

The potential for thousands to participate in the covenant event presents what could become organizational chaos. But Allen assured CBF council members that multiple administrative factors have already fallen into place.

“If you have to, you can do it. And right now we have to. And we have to because right now is the time for it,” he said. “It’s just a matter of harnessing the power. It’s not a matter of creating it.”

Vestal agreed. He already has participated in planning meetings for the January convocation, and he urged council members to release an official statement supporting the covenant.

“If CBF is going to do this, I think as the governing body there needs to be some point when you say that,” he said. “In some way, among a lot of other things, this is one of those moments for which CBF has come to be. We are a renewal movement. And this, as I see it, is a part of that ongoing renewal.”

Council members agreed to consider the covenant and release a corporate statement of support later this spring.

And while critics are taking a wait-and-see attitude, others—including many at the CBF Coordinating Council meeting—are enthusiastic about the possibilities.

“If you’re tuned in, there’s a moving of God about this,” Allen said. “It’s one of those things where God sort of interrupts us and says ‘By the way, I’ve got something more important than you knew.’”

Posted: 3/02/07

Archaeologists, evangelicals
critique “Tomb” documentary

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—Archaeologists, biblical scholars and Christian leaders are casting doubt on explosive claims about the life of Jesus in a new documentary from Hollywood director-producer James Cameron.

The film, called The Lost Tomb of Jesus, presents evidence producers say could prove Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene and had a son.

At the center of Cameron’s film is a 2,000-year-old limestone tomb discovered in 1980 during an excavation project in Jerusalem. In the tomb, Amos Kloner, an archaeologist from Israel’s Bar Ilan University, found 10 stone burial boxes (also known as ossuaries). Some of the boxes had names inscribed on them: “Jesus, son of Joseph;” “Mary;” and “Judah, son of Jesus.”

Kloner and his team didn’t attach significance to the names when they first unearthed the ossuaries, because the names used were common in Palestine during the time period. However, Cameron (who produced the film) and director Simcha Jacobovici contend the bones could well have been from Jesus of Nazareth’s family.

In a Feb. 26 interview on CNN’s Larry King Live show, Jacobovici said the statistical improbability of having people named Jesus, Mary and Judah in the same tomb lent credibility to the documentary’s claim.

DNA evidence from the tomb showed that the “Jesus” and “Mary” inside were not related, which indicates they could have been married, documentary researchers said. It was unclear whether the researchers tested the DNA from the box containing Judah.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the archaeologist who first uncovered the ossuaries has criticized the documentary.

“The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any new idea,” Kloner said. “It is only an attempt to sell. It’s a waste of money.”

Steven Ortiz, a professor of archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said most serious archaeologists and experts agree with Kloner.

“It’s a publicity stunt,” Ortiz said, adding the tomb has “been known” for years without any such hubbub. “Jesus was a very common name back then, (as was) Joseph. This isn’t anything unusual. The name Jesus became a unique name only after the resurrection.”

Had a scholarly paper—rather than a movie —publicized the claims, Ortiz said he’d be more ready to seriously consider them from an archaeological standpoint. As it stands, he said, the film’s experts are picking and choosing the facts they prefer to present, rather than telling the whole story.

“From what I’m hearing, already by the second day (after Cameron’s announcement) most scholars are just jumping on him, (saying) ‘how irresponsible,’” he said.

Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., appeared on King’s show the same night as Cameron and Jacobovici. Like the others, he called the $3.5 million-project “farcical.”

“The archaeologists there in Israel, who are the closest to this [and] who have the greatest expertise, are not only looking at this with skepticism, but basically dismissing its claims,” Mohler said.

“If Jesus had remained in the tomb, first-century opponents of Christianity would most certainly have found his body and put it on public display.”

He later said the evidence from the ossuaries would not stand in a court of law.

“It has to be an evidence trail that makes sense,” he said. “It has to be evidentiary material that fits the context. Nothing could ever prove—there’s no DNA—there’s nothing that could ever prove these bones are the bones of Jesus. It makes no sense.”

Other conservative Christian leaders also criticized the film.

Jim Tonkowich, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, sent a letter to supporters Feb. 27, calling the work “a cynical ratings ploy that deserves to be buried with all of the other fantastical claims that arise about the ‘real’ Jesus this time of year.” The institute is a watchdog group that attempts to steer mainline Protestant denominations in more conservative directions.

“Much like The Da Vinci Code, the documentary promises a tantalizingly alternative view of biblical events but ultimately offers little more than groundless speculation,” he wrote. “An ossuary labeled ‘Jesus’ is about as specific to Christ as a chunk of wood that is claimed to be a part of the Ark.”

Tonkowich also criticized the Discovery Channel in general for presenting a show that “appears to be designed to tear at the fabric of the faith and hope of billions worldwide.” He said the network should recognize religious faith as “legitimate, credible and beneficial to society.”

Cameron—who won an academy award for directing the film Titanic—had a simple answer for his critics.

“I don’t profess to be an archeologist or a biblical scholar,” the director told Newsweek. “I’m a film producer. I found it compelling. I think we’re on firm ground to say that much.”

Posted: 3/02/07

African Children’s Choir
symbolizes hope for future

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

ABILENE—Like most boys his age, 8-year-old David dreams about what he’ll be when he grows up. This week, he wants to be an air traffic controller.

A year ago, he probably never dreamed he’d be in the United States. Born in one of the most impoverished areas of Uganda, he had little hope of getting an education.

His 9-year-old friend Esther aspires to be a professional singer, but a year ago that would have been highly improbable. A choir trip to the United States is changing their lives.

Esther and David, singers in the African Children’s Choir, use their voices to inspire children in their homeland as well as people in America. The children are two of 24 singers between the ages of 7 and 11 who make up a world-renowned choir in the middle of the Texas leg of its 28th U.S. tour.

Singing about how the pure in heart will walk the highway to heaven, the children’s choir represents millions of children in Africa. Many have lost one or both parents to war, famine or disease, organizers said.

Their voices sing for Africa’s 12 million AIDS orphans. Despite the tragedy marring their young lives, these children are full of hope.

“These children are bright, articulate and motivated to realize their potential,” said Ray Barnett, founder of the African Children’s Choir. “We believe they can make a difference, and we believe that when audiences see Africa through their eyes, they will want to partner with us to give these children every opportunity to succeed and impact their countries.”

Performing 35 concerts in Texas in five months, the choir sang Feb. 21 at Shining Star Baptist Church in Abilene.

“We wanted to send a message that indicates how churches are showing partnership with the community,” Shining Star Pastor Richard Darden said.  

Darden’s congregation partnered with Pioneer Drive Baptist Church to provide shelters and showers for the young singers, and Holiday Hills Baptist Church secured meals.

“This, we hope, will make communities aware that churches do care,” Darden explained. “We all have something in common—children at risk.”

Darden considers the choir performance an extension of his multi-ethnic congregation’s ministry and community outreach.   

To honor the choir and support the church’s community efforts, the mayor proclaimed Feb. 21 “African Children’s Choir Day” in Abilene.   

“This is a golden opportunity for Abilene to highlight the ministry of this internationally acclaimed choir,” said Gerald Davis, the Texas Baptist convention’s community development specialist. “The BGCT was glad to present a $500 grant to help provide food and lodging for the singers, their teachers and tour leaders.”

The choir’s 2006-07 tour began in Washington in May. After watching the performance in Spokane, tour leader Marci Cole had a life-changing experience.

“God moved in my heart in a huge way,” Cole said. “I immediately applied to join the organization. We want to give the kids a chance to be educated, to have opportunities they never dreamed about.”

The students on tour spend part of their days rehearsing. But more importantly, they take classes from teachers who travel with them. They also receive full tuition for the remainder of their primary, secondary and college education.

“This effort shines a spotlight on the millions of children in Africa living in impoverished conditions,” said Dawna Hodges, choir spokesperson. “Since its inception in 1984, the choir has brought hope, joy and the love of Christ to communities across the U.S., the United Kingdom and Africa.”

Traveling with the choir are two former members who returned to mentor current singers. One graduated with a diploma in radio and television production and journalism, while the other earned a music degree, which she uses to train more children.  

Through its evangelical parent organization, Music for Life Institute, the choir is providing an education for more than 7,000 children in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. It also finances relief and development projects in Africa.

The Texas tour began in December 2006 and will run through the end of April at Baptist churches statewide.

Posted: 3/02/07

Around the State

• Martin Wilson, associate pastor at La Verdad Community Church in El Paso, will offer the opening prayer for the U.S. House of Representatives March 7 in Washington D.C. He also is a U.S. Border Patrol chaplain.

• The Piecemakers, a knitting and crocheting group at Crestview Church in George-town, will send knitted and crocheted baby blankets and children’s sweaters with a team of volunteers who will travel to Romania in early May. Others who want to participate can go to www.forgive490.com and click on “Blankets for Romania” for patterns and more information. Blankets should be made with soft cotton yarn and children’s sweaters with wool or wool-blend yarn. Yarn donations also are being accepted.

• Ollie Finney has been named adviser of the year at Dallas Baptist University. A DBU alumna, she began serving in the college of adult education in 2000.

Anniversaries

• Gilbert Gonzales, fifth, as pastor of One Cross Three Nails Church in Lubbock, March 10.

• First Church in San Augustine, 105th, March 11. Former Pastor James Day will preach in the morning service. A luncheon will follow. David Burcham is pastor.

• Red Springs Church in Seymour, 100th, March 23-25. A time of fellowship along with a slideshow of past church events will be held at 6 p.m. Friday. A time of singing, testimonies and recounting the church’s history will be held from 10 a.m. until noon Saturday at the community center, with former pastors taking part. A brush arbor has been constructed on the church grounds for Saturday evening’s 6 p.m. meeting. A catered lunch will follow Sunday morning’s service. Among the former staff members expected to attend are Bob Tremaine, Keith Parks, Harry Garvin, Bobby Blaylock and Lynn Holly. Make reservations for the meal by March 15 by calling, (940) 889-2092. Gary Godkin is pastor.

• Zan Walker, fifth as minister of music at Oakwood Church in Lubbock, March 31.

• First Church in Pampa, 100th, April 13-15. Festivities will begin Friday at 6 p.m. with registration and a worship service. Saturday at 10 a.m., a brunch honoring the wives of former staff members will be held. A reunion choir rehearsal will be begin at 3:30 p.m., followed by a time of fellowship at 5 p.m. A banquet and program will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday morning’s worship service will begin at 10:30 a.m. Former staff expected to attend include Jerry Arrington, Todd Blackhurst, David Campbell, Claude Cone, John Glover, Dale Moreland, Garry Schwalk, Randy White and Joe Whitten. For more information or to make banquet reservations, call (806) 669-1155. Johnny Funderburg is pastor.

• Crossroads Church in Marshall, 60th, April 15. Service times are 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. A reception will follow the later service. For more information, call (903) 938-0882. David Rice is pastor.

Deaths

• John Cole, 90, Feb. 17 in Waco. He was pastor of churches in Milam and Bell counties while attending Southwestern Seminary, and after graduation became pastor of a congregation in Ropesville before moving to New Mexico and later California. He moved back to Texas in 1986 was a member of First Church in Waco. In 2000, he married a second time, and became a member of Park Lake Drive Church in Waco. He also was a member of the Baylor Senior Choir and for the last three years had been president of the Retired Ministers Fellowship of the Waco Regional Baptist Network. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Marie, and one brother, William. He is survived by his wife, Dot; daughter, Paula Simon; son, Jim; brothers, Carl and Paul; step-son Bill McGraw; step-daughter, Charlotte Bowling; four grandchildren; and three great-grandsons.

• David Crowson, 53, Feb. 27 in Longview. A Baylor graduate, he was president of the Highway 80 Rescue Mission. A deacon at First Church in Longview, he taught Sunday school there more than 25 years. He was committed to missions, and participated in World Changers each year. He also was a supporter of Buckner International. He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Jane; sons, David and Andrew; daughter, Cara Crowson; mother, Vivian Crowson; brothers, Chuck and Ken; and sister, Cathy Johnson.

Event

• Trinity River Association will hold a gospel music night at First Church in Devers March 13 beginning at 7 p.m. The Rileys and The Master’s Family will perform. The association’s executive board will meet at 6 p.m.

Ordained

• John Balena, Cliff Bottoms, Al Clark, Jerry Hall, Charles Huselton, Brian Kennedy, J.R. Mitchell, Jim Patterson, Joe Riddell and Jay Turner as deacons at First Church in Richmond.

Revival

• First Church, Devers; March 18-22; evangelist, Herman Cramer; pastor, Harry McDaniel.

Posted: 3/02/07

Friends bring friends to Jesus

By David Coffield

Hardin-Simmons University

ABILENE—When Autumn Moran committed her life to Jesus during a recent Bible study at Hardin-Simmons University’s Friendship House, nobody was happier than Danyel Rogers.

Although Moran had been reluctant, Rogers invited the young woman to the Bible study and earned her trust one step at a time.

Rogers is coordinator for the university’s Friendship House and lives in Moran’s neighborhood. She has gained the trust of neighbors such as Moran by living among them, walking up and down their streets and getting to know them.

That’s the hallmark of HSU’s Neighborhood Enhancement Program, an endeavor to transform the historically declining area of northern Abilene that surrounds the Texas Baptist school.

“You have to build relationships and let people know you’re there,” Rogers explained. “Then you can offer them something they need.”

Friendship House, the centerpiece of the Neighborhood Enhancement Program, launched the women’s Bible study group two years ago.

“It gave the women in the neighborhood a comfortable place to gather and (provided) supervised activities for their children while they studied God’s word,” reported Joy Steadman, a volunteer who leads the group. “People who don’t even know who lives next door are suddenly the best of friends when they get together in activities such as this.”

It was the perfect formula for Moran, who called herself a seeker until that special day.

“I knew about Jesus,” she recalled. “I wanted Jesus in my life, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. After meeting with these wonderful friends for awhile, I found it was very simple. I just had to open my heart and declare my life for him.”

Even baptism was a mystery for Moran. She wasn’t sure if she needed to join something, take a test or memorize Scripture, but she was sure it had to be difficult to get into such a life-changing club. “When I asked how to get baptized, Joy said, ‘You just have to ask.’ I said, ‘Can we do it right now?’”

Ultimately, Moran decided to plan the celebration of her salvation so family and friends could be present. After securing permission to use the outdoor fountain at nearby Abilene Christian University as a baptistery, she asked Steadman to immerse her.

“I didn’t know that someone other than a minister could perform the baptism,” Moran said. “It can be a minister, but it can also be someone who has played a meaningful role in one’s spiritual life. I wanted Joy to welcome me to the fellowship of Christ.”

As she rose from the waters, Moran emerged a new person, “I felt like a complete person for the first time in my life. I knew my search was over.”

The effect on her family was immediate.

“My son began asking about God, and we became much more active at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church,” Moran said.

She began searching for used copies of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren—which she credits, in part, to awakening her spirit—to give to people she met in the neighborhood.

“One of our priorities now is to go on a family mission trip. That mission trip might just be to the next house over, sharing the word with someone who needs God in their life,” she said.

The family will move to Houston soon, as careers take them away from the Hardin-Simmons neighborhood. But to Moran’s way of thinking, that only increases her opportunity.

“There are so many people in Houston that need to hear about Christ,” she explained. “But I will always remember these wonderful ladies who helped me hear the words I needed to hear.”

Would she teach a class in Houston? “I’m going to do anything I can,” she said. “I think I’ll probably start with a book discussion group on The Purpose Driven Life. A book discussion is nonconfrontational and comfortable. It’s a good way to share without the expectation of sharing.”

Hardin-Simmons’ Neighborhood Enhancement Program is built on the philosophy that if participants walk the streets, knock on doors and actually meet people, they will break down the barriers of mistrust that cause most renewal programs to fail.

And that’s consistent with the school’s purpose, President Craig Turner said.

“As a Christian university, Hardin-Simmons feels the responsibility to share our time, our friendships, our talents and skills, and our material blessings with those who live closest to us,” Turner noted. “We feel it is important not only to help these neighbors, but also to educate our students regarding the importance of volunteerism, philanthropy and Christian love—to teach them to actively care for their communities and their neighbors.”

Moran believes the Friendship House’s connecting and caring approach helped her turn the corner.

“I was petrified when I thought about going to a Bible study class at a church,” she recalled. “I didn’t know if I’d see talking in tongues, snake handling, or what. But when I came to a place that was open, casual and nonthreatening, it was easier. If I found someone like me who wanted God, but was timid about the process, I’d tell them my story, but I’d want them to be able to have a place like the Friendship House to come to.”