Posted: 1/19/07

New IRS rules require
receipts for church donations

By Jeff Diamant

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The next time you toss dollar bills into the church collection plate, consider asking the usher for a receipt.

New federal rules for the 2007 tax year—which took effect Jan. 1—forbid tax deductions for charitable donations unless the taxpayer can prove the donation through receipts or other official financial records.

The rules, enforced by the Internal Revenue Service, require that people claiming charitable donations back up those deduction claims with documentation. Acceptable documentation includes canceled checks, records from banks, credit card companies or credit unions or written notices from the charity or not-for-profit institution.

In the past, the IRS has allowed personal notes, diaries or bank registers as sufficient proof that a person actually placed money in the offering plate each week of the year.

Congress approved the new guidelines in August, as an add-on to the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which deals mostly with pension and retirement savings. President Bush signed them into law. The new rules cover monetary donations to any charitable institution, not just religious ones.

The changes should not affect the giving habits of people who already donate in church-provided envelopes, with checks or over the Internet. They still can receive records from the church, bank or credit card company and present them to their accountant.

Still, a lot of money is given anonymously. And cash donors who throw their bills unfettered into collection plates must change their habits if they want to claim deductions, said Todd Polyniak, a partner in Sax Macy Fromm & Co., a business accounting and consulting firm in Clifton, N.J.

“They’re making it much more difficult for you to say you gave money you truly didn’t give, even if it’s small dollar amounts,” he said.

In the end, Polyniak said, some not-for-profit organizations will bear the burden of the new rules, because offering receipts for every cash donation would strain their resources.

“A lot of them don’t have the resources to provide all this documentation,” he said. Providing it for everyone is “going to take away from their mission. Or they’re going to have to say to folks who are contributing cash, ‘Look, we can’t really provide you with the documents.’

“I feel the pain of the not-for-profits more than for the government, but I can understand why the government’s doing it. … The government is responding to what they perceive as abuse, and the way they see it, a lot of small dollars add up to big dollars.”

Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.

Posted: 1/19/07

Church giving lacks external focus, study reveals

By Matt Vande Bunte

Religion News Service

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (RNS)—An annual study of church giving shows most offerings go to activities and needs within local congregations, and activities focused beyond the congregations increasingly go unfunded as donations decline.

The authors, Sylvia and John Ronsvalle of Champaign, Ill.-based empty tomb inc., contend Christianity in the United States is becoming a “maintenance organization” that soon will have zero financial capacity for external ministry if the trends continue.

The numbers lay guilt at the feet of the worshippers in the pews and also challenge church leaders to motivate their members toward a financial generosity that could have Earth-changing effects.

“We’re not doing the good that we can do,” said Sylvia Ronsvalle, co-author of The State of Church Giving Through 2004: Will We Will? “The portion of income going to benevolences has been shrinking steadily.”

The Ronsvalles have published 16 annual editions of the study. The most recent report, which uses published financial data from the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches as well as direct correspondence with denominations, contains figures for 2004, the latest numbers available.

The study finds that while donations to churches have in-creased 78 percent in real dollars since 1968, income has risen 116 percent over the same period.

The average U.S. congregation member gave 2.56 percent of personal income to the church in 2004, a decline for the fourth straight year. That’s down 18 percent from 1968, and below giving levels from the early 1930s at the height of the Great Depression.

“It is clearly not an issue of capability. The issue is: Will we choose to do what we know we should be doing?” Ronsvalle said.

As financial contributions to U.S. churches founder, building projects and staff salaries consume more of the available funds, the study showed.

The percentage of the average church member’s income devoted to internal congregational operations was at 2.18 percent in 2004, on par with figures from the mid-1970s.

But the amount used for benevolent causes outside the congregation has declined to 0.38 percent, about one-third of a penny for every dollar of income. In 1968, 21 percent of the typical church member’s giving went to external ministries; in 2004, that figure was less than 15 percent.

A study of eight members of the National Council of the Churches found benevolent efforts have borne the brunt of the decline in giving, dropping 46 percent since 1968, while congregational funding has remained stable.

A separate survey of 34 U.S. denominations shows churches spent an average of 2.1 cents per dollar of donations on overseas missions.

The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA) and United Church of Christ all checked in at less than a penny.

“These numbers are the thermometer of our choices of where our hearts really are,” Ronsvalle said. “There is absolutely nothing to prevent us from being faithful, and we’re growing cold.”

The numbers from the Ronsvalle study do not include donations to disaster relief for 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, for example, or for the bulk of response to the Asian tsunami in the final week of 2004.

People will respond to urgent crises and will give if they know what their giving is going to accomplish, Ronsvalle said. But she stressed the vision emphasized in churches has ignored benevolence too often in recent years.

As churchgoers direct most of their money elsewhere—“maybe simply because there are more things to buy,” Ronsvalle said—donations that make it into the collection plate are spent on serving the congregation. And that leaves much of the world out of the loop, she said.

For example, the study theorizes U.S. Christians could evangelize the world, stop the daily deaths of 29,000 children younger than 5 worldwide, provide elementary education across the globe and tackle domestic poverty—and have $150 billion left over annually—if church members tithed a full 10 percent of their income.

Per U.S. churchgoer, it would cost 28 cents per day to cure those global ills. Catholics could foot the bill on their own for 61 cents per day, or evangelical Christians for $1.56 per day, according to the study.

Instead, according to the empty tomb analysis of figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditures Survey, Americans spend almost four times as much on entertainment as on church giving.

And 85 percent of the average person’s $565 annual gift to churches and religious organizations is spent internally, according to the study.

“It’s not that people aren’t generous, but church leadership are not providing a vision to use our power for good,” Ronsvalle said. “We’re using all of our power for self-gratification. (Jesus) is not impressed with buildings. He’s saying, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

Matt Vande Bunte writes for The Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Posted: 1/19/07

Semester missionaries merge
vocational, ministerial callings

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

ARLINGTON—Each week, Bryan Simpson leads a Bible study at Mitchell College in New London, Conn. At first, it was he and another person. Then someone else joined him. A third person has said he will start coming, but hasn’t shown up yet.

And it doesn’t matter to Simpson. He wants people to hear the gospel and study the Bible, but he’s not focused on numbers. He’s more concerned about discipling college students who have little knowledge of the Christian faith, helping them mature spiritually.

Matt Miller, a recent Stephen F. Austin State University graduate, explains his interest in mission in this short video. (requires Windows Media Player)

That way both people in his Bible study can lead a few of their friends to Christ. Then those friends can lead other people to Christ. A Bible study with two people can be the epicenter of a larger Christian movement on a campus, he said.

Simpson, a Hardin-Simmons University graduate, is one of several Texas Baptist college students and recent graduates who serve as semester missionaries through Go Now Missions, the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ student missions effort.

Many of the student missionaries discover ways to incorporate the vocational abilities they learn in college into the ministerial calling God has laid upon their hearts. Lindsay Mouser, who recently graduated from Texas Tech University, found she could use her nursing skills in Niger, where she worked alongside an African midwife.

Niger has one of the highest rates of maternal death during childbirth in the world, and the village where Mouser served is three hours from a hospital. Mouser and the midwife provided a safe delivery option for pregnant women.

Serving as a nurse allowed Mouser to minister to people in Niger, and she believes it will help her serve others wherever she works.

“There’s sick and lost people everywhere,” she said. “I thought (nursing) would be a good career to put next to ministry. That’s just something people can trust you with. If they can trust you with their health, then you’ve got that ‘in’ for them to trust you, and you can speak to them about their faith, and they can trust you with that too.”

Courtney Tardy, an education student at the University of Texas at Austin, ministered by teaching English as a second language classes in North Africa. The classes allowed Tardy to engage people in spiritual conversations.

She became close with one Muslim family in particular, spending time in their store and eating with family members in their house. Tardy hopes she modeled a Christ-like love for the family.

“I want them to remember him and not me,” she said. “That’s hard at times, because I want them to remember me because they’re my friends, but ultimately, I want them to know that Jesus is what I’m all about.”

Semester missionaries said they learned much during their time on the field, noting the experience invigorated their respective prayer lives and prompted them to be bolder in sharing their faith.

Matt Miller, a recent Stephen F. Austin State University graduate, said his experience through Go Now Missions and Greater Good Global Support Services (G3S3) in Cranfills Gap helped him work through his missions calling. He is going to continue ministering at G3S2.

“Through Go Now Missions and G3S2, I found a place where I fit in,” he said. “I’ve been able to figure out a lot more about my calling.”

Posted: 1/19/07

People in house churches report greater
satisfaction than conventional churchgoers

By Adelle Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Worshippers who attend services in independent house churches report higher levels of satisfaction than Christians in conventional church services, a new study shows.

The Barna Group interviewed more than 2,000 Americans about their experiences in traditional congregations and the nondenominational churches whose services are held in homes or other locations than a church building.

Higher percentages of people attending a house church said they were “completely satisfied” with the four dimensions of church life they were asked about:

• 68 percent of house church attenders were completely satisfied with the leadership of their church, compared to 49 percent of people attending conventional church services.

• 66 percent of people attending a house church were completely satisfied with the faith commitment of the people in their gathering, compared to 40 percent of conventional church attenders.

• 61 percent of house church adherents were completely satisfied with the level of personal connectedness they experienced, compared to 41 percent of conventional churchgoers.

• 59 percent of those attending a house church were completely satisfied with the spiritual depth they felt in that setting, compared to 46 percent of conventional church attenders.

The study also found the vast majority of house churches—80 percent—meet weekly, but only one-quarter of them meet on Sundays; one-fifth of them vary their meeting day. Gatherings tend to last for two hours, with 7 percent meeting for less than an hour and 9 percent meeting for more than three.

Researchers discovered many house church attenders are checking out the independent gatherings but have not yet made a decision to leave a conventional church. Forty-two percent of those attending house churches regularly rely on them exclusively for their primary worship experience.

The survey by the Ventura, Calif.-based research organization was conducted in August and October 2006 and included interviews of a random sample of 2,008 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

Posted: 1/19/07

Jubilee USA urges multilateral debt relief

By Katherine Boyle

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A coalition of religious and secular groups is working to ensure this month marks not only the beginning of a new year, but also a fresh push to eliminate the debts owed by impoverished nations.

Jubilee USA is using 2007 to advocate multilateral debt relief for poor nations, claiming they can ill afford to repay wealthy nations and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The group has timed its campaign to coincide with a new biblically based Sabbath year, which calls for debts to be forgiven once every seven years.

After seven cycles of seven years, a Jubilee year, when debts should be forgiven and land given back to the poor, is mandated. The last Jubilee year was in 2000.

Two members of Congress, Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., plan to introduce a bill that would require the Treasury Department to advocate for debt cancellation at the IMF and World Bank.

“The World Bank and the IMF basically work on the principle of one dollar, one vote,” said Jubilee USA spokeswoman Kristin Sundell.

“As the largest contributor to the IMF and World Bank, the U.S. has a very strong, controlling share of the vote … so if the U.S. changes its position, it would really go a long way toward changing policies.”

The bill calls for debt cancellation for every country that needs additional funds in order to meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Several religious leaders are pushing debt relief as well, spreading the word through their congregations and using texts from Scripture to make their case.

“Is there any way people of faith cannot be concerned about the poor, sick, hungry, oppressed and debt-laden around the world?” asked Stan Duncan, a pastor with the United Church of Christ in Massachusetts and leader in the Jubilee USA movement.

“Being concerned about people without health care, educational resources and infrastructure resources because all their money is being drained to pay debts—some of which are two generations old—is part of most major religions’ reason for being.”

Jubilee USA was formed in 1997 to campaign for debt relief in the year 2000. That movement resulted in substantial bilateral debt cancellation between countries, Sundell said.

“It was a significant victory but did not touch multilateral debt that countries owe to organizations like the IMF and World Bank,” Sundell said.

Posted: 1/19/07

Do conservative evangelicals
regret justifying Iraq war?

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—As the number of American soldiers killed passes 3,000 and Congress debates President Bush’s latest strategy for winning the war, some Christians who supported invading Iraq in 2003 are wrestling with whether the invasion was a “just war” after all.

While most progressive evangelicals, mainline Protestant leaders and the Roman Catholic Church opposed the war prior to the March 2003 invasion, many Baptists and other conservative evangelicals justified the war in Christian theological terms.

“Military action against the Iraqi government would be a defensive action. … The human cost of not taking (then-Iraqi dictator Saddam) Hussein out and removing his government as a producer, proliferator and proponent of the use of weapons of mass destruction means we can either pay now or we can pay a lot more later,” said Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency, in a Sept. 2002 article published by the denomination’s news service.

Land later organized a group of prominent conservative evangelicals who signed an open letter arguing that the proposed Iraq invasion satisfied classic Christian theological criteria for justifying a war—often referred to as just war theory.

Saddam Hussein “has attacked his neighbors, used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and harbored terrorists from the al-Qaeda terrorist network that attacked our nation so viciously and violently on Sept. 11, 2001,” the letter said.

Its signers included Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, a member of a church affiliated with both the SBC and the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Colson, in a December 2002 article for Christianity Today magazine, argued that the classical definition of Christian just war theory should be “stretched” to accommodate a new age in which terrorism and warfare are intertwined. He concluded that “out of love of neighbor, then, Christians can and should support a pre-emptive strike” on Iraq to prevent Iraqi-based or -funded attacks on the United States or its allies.

Since those statements, however, the war has not gone according to plan:

• Some estimates indicate that as many as 100,000 Iraqis—mostly civilians—have died violently since the invasion.

• Iraqi Christians, professionals and intellectuals are fleeing the country.

• Parts of the nation are ruled by Islamic law and sectarian militias.

• Several independent groups investigating President Bush’s reasons for invading the country have determined there was neither a connection between Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist network nor convincing evidence that Iraq posed an urgent threat to U.S. interests.

• U.S. soldiers trying to help Iraqi counterparts pacify the nation continue to be killed by insurgents and terrorists.

• Polls of Iraqis show continued decline in support of American troops there.

So, do Baptist leaders still consider the war just? The answer is about as complicated as the war itself has become.

Daniel Heimbach, a professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., defended the war on its eve—although in limited terms.

Heimbach, appearing in a February 2003 panel discussion at the seminary, said the attack on Iraq could be considered justified if it were viewed as simply enforcing terms of the Iraqi surrender that ended the first Iraq war in 1991. In that sense, he said, the more recent war “was and continues to be, in retrospect, justified or justifiable.”

Heimbach is widely credited with outlining the just-war doctrine then-President George H.W. Bush employed during the earlier Persian Gulf War. However, on the eve of the current Iraq war, Heimbach cautioned against citing “regime change” or fears that Saddam Hussein may be supporting terrorists or planning to attack the United States as valid reasons for attacking Iraq.

“I would recommend that we not focus on what Iraq is doing to support terrorism but focus on enforcing the terms of the 1991 surrender,” he said at the time.

Heimbach acknowledged that many of the justifications officials of the current Bush administration began mentioning in justifying the war confused the motivations.

“That rhetoric has shifted. Particularly, the big shift was whether we found weapons of mass destruction or not—and of course that has made a difference,” he said.

“If it’s justified as a continuation of the Persian Gulf War, whether you found weapons of mass destruction or not was irrelevant. But if you justify it as a prevention of the risk of nuclear attack and then you don’t find nuclear weapons, then the whole thing is hollow.”

Land and Colson both originally went further than Heimbach.

They argued, in the run-up to the war, that a reconsideration of the classical terms of Christian war theory for the age of terrorism would justify a war conducted for regime change, to spread democracy and to dismantle perceived threats to the United States.

Assistants for both Land and Colson said they were unavailable for comment on this story. However, on the third anniversary of the war last March, Land said he continued to believe the war was just.

Citing the three Iraqi elections in the past two years—the nation’s first free elections in decades—Land told the website Beliefnet: “I believe our cause in Iraq was just; I think it was one of the more noble things we’ve done. We went to liberate a country that was in the grip of a terrible dictator who had perpetrated horrible atrocities and crimes against humanity, against his own people as well as his neighbors. We removed him, and we are giving the Iraqis the ability to defend themselves and to build a stable democracy.”

Land repeated such views as recently as September, saying he believed the vast majority of Southern Baptists agreed with him that the war continued to be justified.

A spokesperson for Colson sent copies of two editions of his “Breakpoint” commentaries, both from December. In one, he lamented that the recent Iraq Study Group’s report did not mention the fate of Iraq’s indigenous Christian communities.

In the other, he opposed the idea of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

“The options are pretty bleak. If we leave now with the insurrection gaining strength, Iraq will deteriorate into full-fledged chaos: the Shiites vs. the Sunnis vs. the Kurds, with unimaginable bloodletting,” Colson wrote.

“Iran cannot help but step in on the side of their fellow Shiites in Iraq. In fact, this would further Tehran’s ambition to become the region’s dominant power, an ambition that has led Iran not only to support Iraq’s Shiites, but Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well. … If this happens, America will be even less safe than it is today.”

He went on to advocate the addition of U.S. troops to help stabilize the country—a plan that Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have endorsed.

However, such a plan seems to have little support with Congress or the general public.

David Gushee, a Southern Baptist ethicist and professor at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., was much more cautious about the war than many of his fellow evangelicals from its beginning.

But Gusheee has turned increasingly against it in recent months. In a Dec. 11 column published by Associated Baptist Press, he cautioned his ideological cohorts.

“The massive carnage in Iraq should serve as a permanent reminder to my fellow Christian conservatives that war is a moral-values issue,” he wrote.

“Indeed, war is a sanctity-of-life issue. Every day’s body count in Iraq should drive this point home with greater and greater urgency. Every body that turns up with holes drilled in it, every head torn apart by gunshots, every soldier whose helicopter crashes and ends his life, every veteran who will spend the rest of his or her life with three or two or one or no limbs, is a human being of immeasurable worth, made in the image of God.”

After the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government rushed to hang Hussein for war crimes at the end of 2006, leading to charges of a botched execution that could further inflame sectarian passions, Gushee seemed to have had enough.

“The fact that we protested the way Hussein’s execution was handled will probably earn us little goodwill from Sunni Arabs who have experienced this event as a deepening of their humiliation and their vulnerability,” he wrote in a Jan. 4 column.

“I don’t see how we can justify the death of one more American soldier in the cause of a ‘democracy’ such as the one on display at the execution of Saddam Hussein. Let’s bring the troops home.”

But Southeastern Seminary’s Heimbach said a precipitous withdrawal may be morally worse than the costs the war has already incurred.

“If it gets to the point that continuing to fight is costing more than whatever is at stake in winning the fight, then you should stop,” he said.

“Now, I for myself don’t think that we’re at that point. I think that we’re making significant progress. While you shouldn’t be engaging in a war lightly without counting the costs, neither should you quickly, after investing so much in terms of life and property, say, ‘I’m just getting tired, let’s get out.’”

The bottom line for Heimbach: Would he, knowing what he now knows, still have argued as he did in 2003 that going to war with Iraq was justified?

“Absolutely I would have, but I would not have used some of the language that he (Bush) used in explaining why it was justifiable,” he said.

Posted: 1/19/07

Texas Baptist Forum

Drink to that?

The Baptist church has a dilemma—to condone or condemn the drinking of alcohol (Jan. 8). Has our lust for building bigger churches caused our pulpits to be silent on this issue?

<-- • Jump to online-only letters below

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

“The war in Iraq was unjust; to continue it now is criminal. There is no winning in Iraq. This was a war that should have never been fought—or won. It can’t be won, and the truth is that there are no good solutions now—that’s how unjust wars often turn out.” Jim Wallis Sojourners e-mail newsletter “The emerging Christian generation is more like the world than their predecessors. I think that shows the aggressive nature of culture. … We do not realize how aggressive and corrosive culture is in the lives of our kids.” Gregory Kouckl President of Stand to Reason in Signal Hill, Calif., commenting on research that shows young adults hold much more liberal views on extramarital sex, pornography, homosexuality and sexual fantasies than their elders (ABP) “The whole ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ thing is gross. Jesus is not your boyfriend. I mean, he is the lover of your soul, but he’s not going to take you out on a date on a Friday night.” Connally Gilliam Author of Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn’t Expect (The Washington Times/RNS)

In 1884, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Then as now, it was and is quite impossible to judge by a man’s life and conduct whether he is a believer or not.” The overwhelming obstacle why people refuse to believe in Christ is not Christ himself but rather those who call themselves Christians. We must set ourselves apart, by word and deed, from worldly ways. Is having a glass of wine more important than the risk of hindering a believer or nonbeliever?

We, as a church, must choose to embrace or reject drinking. If we choose to condone it, let’s condone it publicly by putting a frozen margarita machine in our family centers. If we choose to shun drinking, let’s be bold in our belief.

Try to explain to a teenager that although our churches preach against the evils of strong drink, we can still enjoy an occasional sip. Hopefully, our children will not generalize this concept to other matters of faith and Christian living. We teach honesty—but what’s the harm in a white lie? We teach that the marriage bed should not be defiled—but what’s the harm in an occasion fling on Saturday night?

Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay.

James Blakely

Garland

I don’t drink. The smell of beer turns me off. The taste of wine is acidic. Other spirits are not known to me.

The article dealing with alcohol was a spirited disgorgement of Baptist dogma. Having been a Baptist for 74 years, I have heard most of the arguments and am still amazed at the lengths some Baptists will go in striving to make the case for abstinence.

The late W.A. Criswell, comparing Daniel’s alleged refusal to drink the king’s wine to some biblical defilement of the body gives new meaning to “maybe.” His exceptional argument that Jesus made a “special” wine at Cana and inferred that it was a “celestial” drink that all Christians will share in glory gives new meaning to “reaching.” One must wonder what Jesus drank as a boy and young man in Joseph’s home, or anywhere else, when he did not make the celestial elixir. Some fundamental Baptists cannot grasp the idea that the culture in Israel included drinking wine with meals and supposedly at other times during the day.

The body defilement argument falls upon fallow ground when we see the fundamentalist’s penchant for food that raises the body weight well beyond accepted medical standards. When the stomach is stretched beyond comprehension, that surely must be defilement, but the answer to criticism of that fact normally reveals the request for another piece of pie.

I detest the drunkard who drinks too much. I detest the glutton who eats too much. Defilement can be excess.

Edward Clark

Danville, Ky.

Thanks to my “uptight” Baptist upbringing, I was sheltered from mean, abusive drunken behavior. I count that as both a blessing and a challenge to shun legalism and instead live an abundant life.

Ephesians 5:18—“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit”—issues instructions that may not be easy to follow. However, we as believers should find it irresistible to experience what God has for us.

LeAnne Chelf

Rockdale

Jesus & low prices

Does Robert Parham really believe Jesus would be more concerned about children’s health care than low prices for all? (Jan. 8) Or would Jesus call for socialized medicine so that children’s health care would not be an issue? Or would he raise the minimum wage so that fewer workers would receive higher wages, in addition to children’s medicine? Or would he mandate a state tax on the wealthy to pay for the children of the low-wage earners who have no medical insurance?

Where does he get such incredible insight into the mind of God?

Bob Stanford

Austin

What do you think? The Baptist Standard values letters to the editor. Send letters to Editor Marv Knox by mail: P.O. Box 660267, Dallas 75266-0267; or by e-mail: marvknox@baptiststandard.com. Letters are limited to 250 words.

Posted: 1/19/07

On the Move

• Leslie Anderson to First Church in Whitesboro as children’s minister.

• Martha Angell to First Church in Amarillo as interim minister to children.

• David Beirne to Travis Church in Corpus Christi as pastor from Fox Avenue Church in Lewisville.

• Paul Brand has resigned as youth minister at First Church in Whitewright.

• Tanya Brand has resigned as children’s minister at First Church in Whitewright.

• Clayton Chancy has resigned as youth minister at Twin Cities Church in Sherman.

• Kyle Collier to North Park Church in Sherman as interim music minister.

• Gary Covin to First Church in Fredricksburg as music/education minister from First Church in Edna.

• Ronald De Leon to Primera Iglesia in Corpus Christi as pastor.

• David Eckert to First Church in Bridge City as minister of music from Corona Church in Chandler, Ariz.

• Blanton Feaster to West Side Church in Wichita Falls as music minister from North Park Church in Sherman.

• Ed Fenton to First Church in Hallsville as minister of music.

• Karl Fickling to Trinity Church in San Antonio as intentional interim facilitator.

• Bill Fowler has resigned as pastor of First Church in Pleasanton.

• Kent Gonser to Beulah Church in Millsap as youth minister.

• Kyle Hendrickson to Parkway Church in College Station as youth pastor.

• Mike Martinez to New Beginnings Church in Pleasanton as pastor.

• J.J. Mayo to Oran Church in Graford as pastor.

• Bo McCarty to First Church in Big Wells as pastor.

• Kerry Miller to Fairlie Church in Wolfe City as pastor.

• Grady Newsom has resigned as pastor of Belmont Church in Denison.

• Donald and Michelle Norred to First Church in Groveton as youth ministers.

• James Ralson has resigned as pastor of First Church in Celeste.

• John Ramsey to First Church in Dorches-ter as interim youth minister.

• Steven Richardson has resigned as minister of youth at First Church in Thorndale.

• Wally Rogers has resigned as pastor of Hope Church in Yoakum.

• Dennis Stewart to First Church in Dorchester as interim children’s minister.

• Eddie Young to First Church in Cameron as interim minister of youth.

Posted: 1/19/07

Global peace a growing
priority for Christian groups

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—Worldwide, about 1.6 million people each year die due directly to violence. Violence is responsible for 14 percent of deaths among males aged 15 to 44 and 7 percent of deaths for females of the same age, the World Health Organi-zation reports. And it’s up to Christians to stop it, several groups working to promote peace around the world insist.

Steve Bostian, U.S. director of Hope Unlimited, said his group’s focus on investing in children in a Christ-centered way separates it from other attempts to eradicate violence among Brazil’s 10 million street children. That investment in individuals rather than broad social change is a model for peace that Bostian—a former American Baptist missionary—hopes to spread.

Now in its 15th year, Hope Unlimited has provided education, medical attention, housing, counseling and job opportunities for 1,000 children. Located near Sao Paulo, it currently has more than 600 children in three locations.

Only 18 percent of Brazil’s street children are biological orphans, Bostian explained. Most are children who have run away from home to escape violent or neglectful parents. But once the runaways hit the streets, their average lifespan there is less than four years, with most children meeting a violent end. In 2006, the United Nations discovered 16 children are reported murdered every day in Brazil. Many more murders go unreported.

The situation got so bad in the late 1980s and early 1990s that Brazil faced international condemnation after news emerged about death squads killing thousands of “street urchins” pestering local vendors. During those years, Amnesty International listed “street execution” as the third- leading cause of death for Brazilian children.

“The death squad situation was really the impetus for Hope Unlimited,” Bostian said.

The squads consisted of off-duty police officers hired by merchants to get rid of the “nuisance.” Bostian called the underpaid and hardly educated police force “a formula for corruption.” Death squad-type murder still happens in Brazil today, he added.

Short of radical social change, making progress with individual children in Brazil comes down to realizing their worth and potential in Christ—and taking the time to instill that knowledge in themselves, Smith said.

“That’s where the Christian mission comes in,” he said. “It’s really about good, solid biblical parenting. (The children) need discipline. They need instruction.”

Much of Brazil’s violence is exacerbated by the disparity between the rich and the poor. The majority of people there live in abject poverty. And as “haves” and “have-nots” try to coexist in dense urban areas, it becomes a recipe for violence, Bostian said.

According to the World Health Organization, violent death rates vary according to country income levels. Rates of violent death in low- to middle-income countries are more than twice as high as those in high-income countries—32 per 100,000 versus 14 per 100,000, respectively.

That link between violence and poverty is a key component of Rick Warren’s PEACE Plan, a five-point program to eradicate the “giant problems” of poverty, disease, corruption, spiritual emptiness and ignorance that oppress billions of people around the world. The only entity big enough to solve those problems is the church, Warren said.

“The Scripture shows us that Jesus shared the good news, trained leaders, helped the poor, cared for the sick and taught the children,” Warren said. “Our PEACE plan will just do the five things Jesus did while he was here on earth.”

PEACE stands for planting churches, equipping servant leaders, assisting the poor, caring for the sick and educating the next generation. The plan involves a network of small groups that each adopt a village in which to act out the plan. Warren’s ultimate goal for the project is to mobilize 10 million churches, 100 million small groups and 1 billion Christians.

“Why do we do this?” Warren asked. “Why should I care about the sick and the poor and the uneducated and the spiritually empty? Because of what Jesus has done for us. We do it out of gratitude.”

That Christian mandate drives members of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, a Charlotte, N.C., group that provides resources and support to Baptists building “a culture of peace rooted in justice.” Evelyn Hanneman, interim coordinating director of the fellowship, said peace is essential to living the Christian life—including Baptist life—because it’s what Jesus embodied.

“The whole issue of peace is important, given that Jesus is the Prince of Peace,” she said. “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Peace is what Jesus was about in so many ways.”

Baptist Peace Fellowship emphasizes the concept of shalom as justice. Shalom is a Hebrew word that means inner peace, safety, healing and well-being. Like shalom implies, the simple absence of war doesn’t bring total peace, Hanneman said. Public policy, laws and governments must protect all people so they can live freely in the pursuit of happiness, she said.

“We are very clear that peace is rooted in justice because without justice, you won’t have peace,” she said. “There has to be justice, and that will bring true peace.”

Posted: 1/19/07

Time to call a mediator when focus
turns from problems to personalities

DALLAS—When church members who disagree stop looking for solutions to problems and start focusing on personalities, it’s probably time to call a mediator, said Sonny Spurger, a church mediation specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Spurger points to five levels of conflict, identified by Speed Leas of the Alban Institute, as helpful markers for identifying how problems escalate to church fights.

• A problem develops that needs to be solved.

See Related Articles: • MAKING PEACE: Creating a congregational culture of peacemaking takes time • Time to call a mediator when focus turns from problems to personalities • Global peace a growing priority for Christian groups • Do conservative evangelicals regret justifying Iraq war?

Some people may have conflicting goals or values, and interaction may be uncomfortable. But at this point, the conflict still is problem-oriented, rather than personality-centered. If the problem is not solved at this level, it likely will escalate to the next level where it becomes personal.

• Differences of opinion become personal disagreements.

Issues become identified with the people who hold conflicting opinions, and participants in the conflict become more concerned about protecting themselves than in solving problems.

• Disagreements become contests with winners and losers.

“This is when people start taking sides,” Spurger said. Factions form around personalities, and the emphasis becomes winning the conflict rather than solving the original problem.

• Fight or flight.

At level four, factions are solidified, and participants in the conflict believe the church isn’t big enough for the two parties to coexist.

“If I don’t win, I’m out of here,” characterizes the attitude at this level, Spurger said.

• Conflict becomes in-tractable.

“At level five, people no longer even understand the issues. Personalities have become the issue,” Spurger said. “The focus moves from getting rid of people to their absolute elimination or destruction.”

At this point, church members are not content with driving away people in the opposing faction. They want to ruin their reputations.

Instead of allowing conflict to escalate to that level, Spurger believes, churches should enlist a third-party mediator when any dispute stops being about issues and becomes focused on personalities. A mediator can help church members work through root causes of conflict and deal with real issues.

Better yet, Spurger said, churches should head off destructive conflict by developing workable problem statements. The statements provide clear, agreed-upon guideposts for discussion and problem solving.

“Early on at the beginning of an issue, when a committee or a task force meets, members sit down and write a statement of ‘why we are here,’” he explained. “Everybody agrees to it. It doesn’t blame anybody for anything. It doesn’t deal with old history. It deals with the issue at hand, and they all sign it.

“A group that can adopt this kind of workable problem statement—and that has a chairman who can remind them of it when needed and bring them back to task—can in large measure circumvent conflict before it becomes destructive.”

Posted: 1/19/07

MAKING PEACE:
Creating a congregational
culture of peacemaking takes time

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

NACOGDOCHES—Helping a church become a peaceable fellowship is a never-ending battle, Pastor Kyle Childress acknowledged. But as Christians wage peace within church, they learn skills that help them build bridges in a divided world, he added.

“It’s a round-the-clock, long-term thing,” said Childress, pastor of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches. “In the 17 years I’ve been here, one of the major challenges I consistently have had is helping people learn and practice reconciliation with one another.”

Peacemaking skills don’t come naturally, he noted. Reconciliation must be learned.

“A lot of people don’t know how to do that. It’s hard. I spend a lot of time taking people by the hand—almost literally—and telling them, ‘We’re going to see so-and-so and work this thing out,’” he said.

“I help them work through the conflict. After they’ve done it and seen it done, and they see the sky doesn’t fall in on them, they’re able to do it again and model it for others.”

Childress views peacemaking and reconciliation within a church—particularly a small church in a relatively small town where “everybody sees one another all the time”—as essential.

“In the body of Christ, we are connected. So, when there’s conflict, the body is broken,” he said. “Because we’re connected in the church, when we’re broken, it affects the whole congregation.”

Christians also can learn to be peacemakers beyond their own congregations the same way—by investing the necessary time and energy to build relationships that bridge dividing lines, Childress said.

For instance, he noted he and some other members of his church have been “able to have some frank conversations” about delicate subjects with some members of an African-American church in their town. But that’s because Austin Heights has built a relationship with that congregation over 30 years, conducting Vacation Bible School together and developing friendships, he added.

“Probably some of the biggest divisions in communities today are the divisions of class and economics. The only way to overcome those divisions is to be a congregation that actually works with people who are in poverty,” Childress said. “Building relationships is key to overcoming barriers.”

Unfortunately, many people consider themselves “too busy” to invest the necessary time to build the kind of relationships in which people deal with tough and sometimes divisive issues, he noted.

“It takes time and patience,” he said. “It’s hard.”

Jon Singletary, director of the Center for Family and Community Ministries at Baylor University, agrees.

“Peacemaking is costly,” he said. “It demands our life and our all.”

Singletary gained firsthand experience in church-based community peacemaking while he was working on his doctorate in Richmond, Va.

“I was a member of a Baptist church there, but I was called by a Mennonite church, initially as a supply preacher. That developed into an interim position, and then I ended up as a Baptist in a Mennonite pastorate for four years,” he recalled.

With the Mennonite’s strong Anabaptist tradition of nonviolence, Singletary found himself leading a congregation ready to initiate peacemaking initiatives in its community.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the United States’ military response—as well as a racial reconciliation emphasis already under way in Richmond—gave focus to the initiative, but it also included issues like family violence.

“We invited churches to enter into a citywide dialogue about these issues,” he said. “We helped church leaders spend some time taking a look at these things, going back to the basis for shalom and what it means in our nation, the community and in families—its multiple expressions.

“Peace has to matter in the lives of individual Christians. We looked at what it means in our families and in our congregations. From there, we’re able to look at its implications nationally and internationally, even when we disagree about its expressions.”

Disagreements about the implications of peacemaking ironically can lead to conflict—particularly when people’s primary identity is tied up in their national pride or political party, Childress observed.

The starting place for Christian discussion of issues related to peace should not be what any political leader of any party says, he added.

“The first place we start should be by asking what Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, says, and then work from there. The good news is that in the body of Christ, when we are committed to each other over the long haul and we share that commitment to Jesus, we don’t have to solve it all today,” Childress said.

Life-changing ministry often takes place over a long time—more often over cups of coffee and long conversations than a single sermon, he noted.

Creating a culture of peace in a church can’t be rushed or coerced, Childress said.

“You can’t force it. That’s opposed to the very idea of building a people who are peaceable,” he said.

Posted: 1/19/07

TBM chainsaw teams serve in Oklahoma

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Four Texas Baptist Men chainsaw teams headed to McAlester, Okla., to help residents hit hard by ice storms.

About three dozen volunteers from Harmony-Pittsburg Baptist Association, Collin Baptist Association, Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall and Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo made the trek to Oklahoma.

“Priorities for our volunteer teams will be first to remove trees that have fallen on homes and caused structural damage to them,” said Gary Smith, TBM disaster relief director.

“Then, crews will move trees from roads and driveways so that residents can travel where they need go.”

In McAlester, many residents sought overnight shelter at First Baptist Church. Most of the city’s 18,000 residents lacked power for at least four days.

At least 10 people have died from traffic accidents and hypothermia in Oklahoma since the winter storm began.

About 92,000 people in Oklahoma still had no electricity Jan. 17.