Posted: 12/15/06

COMMENTARY:
What if Jesus had not come?

By Marcus Norris

At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ. However, when you have been doing something for over 2,000 years there is a risk of losing the reason for and vibrancy of the celebration. So, in an effort to remind us “why” we celebrate his birth, consider what life would be like if there had been no babe in a Bethlehem manger.

An empty manger would mean:

• No angelic announcements.

• No invitation to humble shepherds as representatives of the less fortunate.

• No star to beckon the wealthy and wise.

• No model of obedience in Joseph fleeing with his family to Egypt.

• No miraculous healings or feedings.

• No Sermon on the Mount to correct our understanding of God’s law.

• No washed feet, no cross, no empty tomb.

• No church.

• No New Testament.

Let that reality soak in for a moment. Now consider the implications that would ripple through all the ages and to every corner of our planet:

• As Gentiles, most of us would now be engaged in some form of pagan religion.

• For those who might find their way to the God of Israel, you would discover a legalistic covenant under Old Testament law. You would depend upon the blood of animals for atonement and, in despair, await some prophet to bring us a word from the Lord—or better yet, the appearing of the Messiah would usher in a new age.

• There would be no Christian orphanages, and the orphanages that might exist probably would resemble the godless warehouses of the old Soviet Union.

• There would be no church-sponsored hospitals to relieve human suffering.

• There would be no Salvation Army or myriad other Christian welfare agencies/missions.

• There would be no Christmas carols or grand hymns such as “Amazing Grace,” “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” or “It is Well With My Soul.”

• The other major religions largely are ethnocentric. Neither Judaism, Buddhism, nor Hinduism have aggressively reached out to other nations to offer them food, medicine or other ministry. Islam still would go about conquering lands and imposing the fascism of sharia law.

• Cemeteries would echo with wails of ultimate despair and loss.

• Concepts that enrich our society, such as the quality, dignity and worth of all people, would not exist because no other religion has embraced those concepts as much as Christianity.

Our world would be starkly different if there had never been a babe in a manger. But, praise God, he did send his Son to that manger! God chose to establish a new covenant of grace through faith that is available to all people. Because of that single event, our world has been positively changed in so many ways, and we have salvation and hope. Merry Christmas, indeed!

Marcus Norris is an attorney and lay member of First Baptist Church in Amarillo. (Copyright; all rights reserved.)

Posted: 12/15/06

DOWN HOME:
Wanted: Yard-art Christmas Chicken

The nightly news stirred a strong sense of deja vu a couple of weeks ago. A correspondent stood in front of a local hospital, droning in somber sincerity about two unfortunate men who lay similarly incapacitated in similar rooms.

They’re both paralyzed after falling off extension ladders as they strung Christmas lights on the roofs of two-story houses.

I sympathized with those men and hoped for their healing.

But I also empathized with their plight.

A few years ago, shamed by the exuberant Christmas-lighting extravagance of a couple of my neighbors, I decided to string lights on the roof of our two-story house.

So, I calculated the perimeter of the front half of our roof. Then I took my figures to the nearest hardware megastore and bought strings and strings of lights, extension cords and those little clips you can use to hook the lights to your shingles.

When I got home, Joanna and our daughters were gone shopping. Thinking I would surprise them, I brought my old extension ladder around to the front of the house and decided to get started.

Ten minutes later, after realizing the pitch of our roof is a lot steeper than it looks from the ground and confronting the rickety nature of our ladder, I put the ladder back in the garage and packed up the lights to return to the hardware store.

The shame induced by my neighbors’ yuletide exhibitions paled in comparison to my fear of heights, which had been extended significantly by the way the ladder shook when I tried to step over the top of it onto the roof.

“A guy could get seriously injured stringing Christmas lights,” I reasoned.

Really, I never believed that. When I would see a beautiful red-and-green-lighted roofline, I’d think, “Marv, you’re the Christmas Chicken. Too scared of falling off your roof to decorate your house according to the standards your neighbors have come to expect.”

And I was right.

But now I also know being scared of a rickety ladder up against a second-story roofline isn’t such a bad thing. Because, as viewers of the local news now know, a guy could get seriously injured stringing Christmas lights.

This year, we moved into a one-story house. So now, I really don’t have a good excuse for not putting lights on the roof. Except I spent so much time stringing new red and white lights around the perimeter of our newly expanded flower beds and trying to get most of the leaves out of our yard. And now, it’s almost Christmas, and I really don’t have time to decorate the roof.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Maybe next year, I’ll buy some lights. Our roof is red, so white lights would look festive. And I can string them from a tall stepladder, so I won’t fear falling.

Or maybe, by next year, I’ll buy a lighted blow-up yard-art version of the Christmas Chicken.

It’ll look a lot like me.

–Marv Knox

Posted: 12/15/06

EDITORIAL:
A peace-full gift for a war-weary world

Let us celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

Do we ever need peace now.

If you doubt it, fly on an airplane. You’ll ponder peace—or the possibility of its polar opposite, violence—as you fulfill all the requirements to board a plane in safety: From double- and triple-checked identification, to X-ray machines, to metal-detectors, to drug-scanners, to pat-downs and delays, such is the time-consuming price of peace in the airways.

Since Cain murdered Abel in the first case of religion gone wrong, the world has experienced precious little peace. The prophets railed against heart-wickedness that produced cold malice and perversity, and they predicted military annihilation as divine punishment. I just read a fascinating article about the revolt of the Jews against Antiochus Epiphanes, a vile dictator who sought to impose Greek religion on the whole world and sacrificed a pig in the Temple in Jerusalem. Led by the brilliant general Judas Maccabeus, the Jews rose up and won a measure of victory. It was one of their finest hours. And it was bloody.

So, we are not surprised to look back and realize that, as in millennia gone before, the most significant pages of world history during the last century were written in blood. From World Wars, to Holocaust, to guerrilla skirmishes, to genocide and ethnic cleansing, to suicide bombings, to Five-Year Plans and Cultural Revolutions. The mind goes numb contemplating the pain and anguish. From Stalin, to Hitler, to Pinochet, to Mao, to Pol Pot, to Amin, and Bull Connor and on and on. The capacity for individuals to embody evil defies human imagination.

And yet, for all the violence of the past century, the world seems even less peaceful today. Witness security shakedowns in every airport. And that’s nothing compared to what a mother must feel in Baghdad, or a child in Palestine, or a father in Afghanistan, or just about everyone in Darfur.

Those are the most egregious examples of systemic violence—un-peace. But the world is a pretty peace-less place, even closer to home. Pick up the paper, and you’ll read about domestic violence, rape, arson, road rage, suicide and fisticuffs on youth football fields. Think about your friends and neighbors, maybe even family and church members. You’ll see the tell-tale signs of people searching for peace in all the wrong places—possession of things, out-of-marriage sex, alcohol abuse, over-the-top busy-ness, narcissism, worry, out-of-control debt, sleeplessness. Even secure in rural villages and upscale suburbs, locked behind bolted doors and alarm systems, we are a people without peace.

So, at Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. Does this mean anything to us and for us this December 2006?

First, we must accept Christ’s offer of peace for ourselves. Peace is the quiet equivalent of joy. Like joy, peace exists independent of circumstances. It arrives in the presence of Christ, when we realize he alone is sufficient, enough, all. Possessions come and go. Health fails. Friends and family disappoint. Jobs fade. Yet in Christ, we discover peace. And through Christ, peace remains. I can’t explain it. If you don’t understand, you don’t have it. But you can; accept Christ not only as Savior, but as Lord over all you have and all you are.

Second, we must fight for peace for others. Walker Knight, the great Baptist journalist and civil rights advocate, issued the call years ago: Wage peace.

As long as other people of any race or creed endure injustice, discrimination or persecution, we must wage peace on their behalf. We must be the voices calling for justice when theirs are silent. We must be the ones who stoop down to pick up a load when their backs are breaking. We must be the ones who look power in the face when they cannot lift their heads. We must demand peace when others lust for violence and war. We must be the open arms, moving feet and loving voices who demonstrate peace when elsewhere around them they see, feel and hear ample evidence of anything but peace.

Of course, this is hard to do. Our materialistic and political culture urges us to look out for No. 1. Nationalism claims we’re better and more deserving. Fanatical religion declares we’re right and denigrates others for believing differently. Peacemaking is counter-intuitive, counter-cultural. It reminds us of someone. Oh, yeah, Jesus. Prince of Peace.

A popular Christmas song poses a good question: What can I bring Jesus for Christmas?

The Prince of Peace beckons his followers to be bearers of peace.

–Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.

Posted: 12/15/06

Evangelicals apply the ‘good news’ in diverse ways

By Charles Honey

Religion News Service

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—If you want to serve me, Dave and Veronica Commire heard God saying, paint this guy’s house.

So, the couple rounded up about 15 of their church friends and beautified the home of a neighbor who had lost a son and was angry at God. Telling him about Jesus had not worked; painting his house did.

“It unfolded to be this incredible moment where God met us there,” said Dave Commire. “He was at church the next week.”

The Commires are evangelicals, proudly so. They believe in what the word means—good news—and believe God calls them to share it in every facet of their lives—his job, her home-schooling their three children, and their sleeves-rolled-up ministry to their neighbors in Lowell, Mich.

“It’s not about handing out Bible tracts,” said Commire, 37-year-old co-owner of an auto-repair business. “The best way to someone’s heart is to be in their life through service. We want to model Christ-like behavior.”

Living out their faith in a modest home and at a booming megachurch, the Commires typify in many ways the 60 million or so Americans who call themselves evangelicals. They are part of a powerful religious movement that has become a potent political and cultural force in American society.

But don’t dismiss them as the Bible-thumping, pushy cultural warriors of the popular stereotype. Evangelicals share core beliefs but span a wide sweep of denominations and apply the gospel in sometimes surprising ways.

Indeed, most evangelicals are “extraordinarily normal,” notes Jeffery Sheler, a longtime religion writer and author of a recent exploration of the evangelical movement.

“They are your neighbor, your doctor, the insurance salesman, the person who checks you out at the grocery store,” Sheler writes in Believers: A Journey Into Evangelical America. “Their distinctive faith aside, evangelicals are looking and acting more and more like the rest of America.”

Sheler’s book, which follows the evangelical movement from the 18th-century Great Awakening through Billy Graham’s crusades to Christian rock festivals, evangelicals’ affinity for President Bush and Rick Warren’s mega-best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life.

“They have a tremendous amount of influence on the culture,” said Sheler, a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report magazine.

Sheler said he was prompted to write the book partly by his own upbringing. He became a Christian as a teenager and boldly told his parents he would no longer watch movies, go to school dances or play cards. He and his wife later joined Nazarene and Presbyterian churches.

Sheler’s book debunks stereotypes of evangelicals as a primarily political monolith, he said. Evangelicals range from conservative Baptists and tongues-speaking Pentecostals to pacifist Mennonites, Dutch Reformed Calvinists and countless nondenominational churches. They are united by belief in the authority of the Bible, salvation in Christ and an obligation to share the gospel.

“The difficulty arises in trying to apply those Scriptures to the contemporary needs of a changing society without changing the basic core of evangelical belief,” Sheler said.

While evangelicals vote overwhelmingly Republican and spawned the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition, the movement is more politically diverse than meets the eye, he adds.

“Evangelicals today are very much in tune with the world around them. They are not marching in lockstep behind some celebrity preacher.”

Sheler pointed to a recent full-page national newspaper ad calling for an end to genocide in Darfur signed by evangelicals across the spectrum. The ad exposes a “fault line” between evangelicals focused on a few issues such as abortion and gay marriage, and those whose faith compels them to tackle human rights and the environment, Sheler said.

“There is an increasing recognition within the evangelical movement that its agenda needs to be expanded beyond two or three hot-button issues if it’s going to continue to be relevant and effective as a voice in our culture.”

Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich., said he signed the ad because he believes Christians should respond to Darfur’s “crisis of epic proportions.” But he rejects the conservative political agenda advanced by the religious right.

“The first Christians would be so unbelievably offended that in our culture this word has come to mean those who are grasping for political power,” said Bell, who calls himself a “small e” evangelical. For him, it does not mean trying to impose Christian values via government. Rather, “Being an evangelical is about believing that God can use people through humble acts of compassion and service.”

The Commires call themselves conservative Republicans. Abortion, gay marriage and character education are key concerns. But politics are less important than serving Christ where they live.

“Showing Jesus to our neighborhood in tangible ways—that’s what (being evangelical) is to me,” Veronica Commire said.

Posted: 12/15/06

Report highlights legal wrangling
over Bush’s faith-based initiatives

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—In a year when President Bush’s “faith-based initiative” faced considerable public-relations challenges, it also continued to raise challenging legal and institutional questions, a new report from an independent group revealed.

Several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of various aspects of the faith-based program have moved forward in federal and state courts, producing a significant victory for the program’s opponents.

The report, from the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, highlighted the ruling, one of the most sweeping regarding the faith-based initiative.

“As a matter of substance, the year’s most striking developments involve the role of FBOs (faith-based organizations) in the prison setting,” wrote church-state law experts Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle in the report on the state of the law regarding government funding of religious groups.

“At least four major cases involving faith-based rehabilitation programs are pending in the federal courts. One of them … has already led to a sweeping opinion against the constitutionality of such a program, as well as a court order that the money spent on that program be returned to the state.”

Lupu and Tuttle, who both teach at George Washington University Law School, track and analyze legal aspects of the faith-based program for the Roundtable. They presented the report to journalists, government officials and others involved in the faith-based initiative during the group’s annual conference in Washington.

Lupu pointed specifically to a June ruling by a federal judge in Iowa against a Christian prisoner-rehabilitation program. The judge in Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries said the government-funded program at Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility violated the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

The judge found that participants were coerced with living-arrangement advantages unavailable to those who did not participate in the program, that the program and the prison had no sufficient way to monitor whether government funds given to it were spent on secular or sectarian purposes, and that the program was focused on Bible study and conversion to an evangelical form of Christianity.

“I must say that that case … is a poster child for how not to set up and run a faith-based prison program,” Lupu said. “The state violated virtually every relevant constitutional norm.”

Under the Constitution, religious groups may not use direct government grants to pay for proselytizing, worship services or other clearly religious activities.

The scholars also reiterated concerns they have raised repeatedly since 2002, when they began to monitor the faith-based program.

Lupu and Tuttle have argued that the government agencies doling out grants to religious organizations are not providing sufficiently clear guidance on what sorts of activities the money may support.

Tuttle noted a report, issued in July by the independent Government Accountability Office, that identified significant weaknesses in the kind of guidance several federal agencies provide to religious grantees.

The GAO report also found deficiencies in federal agencies’ oversight of religious groups that already had received funds to ensure they did not violate constitutional standards.

Such problems, Tuttle noted, could lead to situations such as a recent case in which the Department of Health and Human Services terminated a grant to an abstinence-based sex-education program.

The program, called the Silver Ring Thing, inspired a lawsuit against HHS because the group did not adequately segregate the government funds it received from private moneys it said it used to pay for religious activities, such as school rallies where children were encouraged to follow Christ.

In a settlement HHS negotiated to end the lawsuit, the agency came up with a set of safeguards to ensure that the program would not use government funding in unconstitutional ways should it apply for, and receive, future grants.

Posted: 12/15/06

Green named interim president at BUA

By Brad Russell

Baptist University of the Americas

SAN ANTONIO—Baptist University of the Americas has named Jack Green—a veteran institutional leader and lifelong South Texan—interim president of San Antonio-based theological university.

Green served as president of South Texas Children’s Home in Beeville from 1973 to 1998. He assumes his duties Jan. 1, concurrent with the departure of President Albert Reyes, who is leaving BUA to become president of Buckner Children and Family Services.

BUA trustee Chair Debbie Ferrier of San Antonio appointed Green to the post.

Green brings to the position an “experienced leadership record and strong relationships among BUA’s diverse constituencies,” she noted. “With his background in the pastorate, Texas Baptist institutional ministry and familiarity with a number of our supporters, Dr. Green will be able to quickly step into the many roles and relationships of an interim presidency with great facility.

“As a lifelong resident of South Texas and a Christian leader serving the needs of South Texas children, Dr. Green is well-acquainted with cross-cultural ministry and the unique mission of BUA arising from a Hispanic context.”

Early in his career, when he was pastor of Shearer Hills Baptist Church in San Antonio, Green served as a trustee for BUA, then known as Mexican Baptist Bible Institute.

“I have marveled in recent years at how BUA has skyrocketed forward to become a tremendously effective school for training cross-cultural ministers and mission-spirited lay people,” Green said.

“I am humbled to serve with the highly capable and creative staff that has been leading their transformation. I ask all Texas Baptists to join us in praying that every resource will be provided so that their momentum can continue and another God-called leader will be found to build the next exciting chapter of BUA’s service to Texas Baptists and the world.”

As interim president, Green arrives at BUA at a critical time. Ground was broken earlier this fall on the new 80-acre Baugh Family Campus. On Nov. 15, trustees approved a $5.4 million construction contract for phase one of the Piper Student Village, slated to open in late fall 2007. The project will enable the school, which has a waiting list for on-campus housing, to triple its student housing capacity.

“I am thrilled with the energy we believe Dr. Green will bring to telling the story of BUA’s personal attention to students that has created a graduation and retention rate that is unrivaled by community colleges and most other higher education options available to our students,” trustee and presidential search committee Chair Teo Cisneros said.

“BUA’s strength, growth and effectiveness is such a great success story,” Green said. “I am looking forward to investing my energies in the students and staff so we can advance the visionary plans on their drawing board.”

Posted: 12/15/06

Dallas homeless choir hits all the right notes

By Marcia Davis-Seale

Religion News Service

DALLAS (RNS)—It’s Wednesday morning at the Austin Street Centre. The bell in the tower clatters harshly against the cold wind, beckoning people from the streets for a pious word or two, a prayer, perhaps a cracker crumb dipped in the Communion cup.

Up in the low-ceilinged chapel loft, Chris Snidow is shifting gears from psychiatric nurse to choirmaster as his proteges straggle in for a midweek worship service. Sun streams through beveled cuts of glass, splashing stains of hot color against the smooth white walls.

From the front row, Rufus Barnes clears his throat. He’s missing the other half of his duet, so he’ll go solo today. Other key vocalists are no-shows, so yesterday’s carefully planned repertoire is abandoned as if it had never been rehearsed.

Barnes grew up singing in the church, then spent years singing the blues in smoky night clubs, jive joints and now, on the streets. Diabetes took part of his foot and any prospects of steady work. He lost his family, his home and eventually most of his belongings.

He’s written a million lyrics before tearing them up. He never thought—homeless and older than 50—he would fulfill his lifelong dream of actually recording a song he’d written.

But that’s just what’s happening at the 400-bed shelter. Rising above the sour notes of hardship, the voices of the shelter’s transient homeless choir have found a permanent home on a professionally recorded CD of spiritual songs labeled The Seasons of Austin Street.

The CD includes a few Christmas songs and a poem, “Homelessness,” written by a former shelter dweller no one’s seen for a while. Snidow hopes she’s still alive. He has “sent word out on the street to tell her to come in,” he said.

A small portion of the proceeds from the $20 CD cover recording costs; most money, Snidow said, goes to shelter operations. The 120 church groups that support the shelter are snapping them up.

Attendance at rehearsals was forever unpredictable, so Snidow decided that scheduling a group recording session was out of the question. Instead, he escorted the members of his choir, one by one, to his cramped and cluttered home sound studio to record their parts. A few friends chimed in to round out the sound.

Laying down each voice separately, adding music, track by track, it took him 18 months to painstakingly synthesize a cohesive group presence and performance, and send the finished CD to be reproduced.

“This choir has given many a spiritual reconnection and helped their self-esteem,” he said.

Austin Street opened in 1983. What started as a drafty soup kitchen has grown into a well-ventilated, security-mindful shelter that includes a chapel for worship, funerals and weddings; transitional housing; thrift shop; day program for the mentally ill; and drug and alcohol support groups—all backed by a professional staff.

“A lot of psychiatric programs don’t want to recognize the spiritual, and if they get government money, they can’t.” said Snidow, 57. “But no one can receive long-term deep healing unless the spiritual foundation is laid down. … You can find God, sense his presence, even more so, in a shelter.”

Snidow would like to find time to rehearse Christmas music. But the daily rhythm of shelter life—anger management classes, job interviews and doctor’s appointments—always seem to get in the way.

Ron Byrd has found his way back to choir. His thin frame is draped in a wool coat with padded shoulders, street stylish but too heavy for what will become an unseasonably warm day. He takes it off and settles in at the piano.

“You can’t practice on the streets. Someone is going to have a complaint,” he said.

Between the cigarette smoke and the barrel fires lit for warmth, the relentless damp and cold, and the constant need to speak loudly just to be heard above the cacophony of street noise—all that takes a toll on the homeless singer.

“A lot of people think we’re lazy,” said Byrd, 52. “God is working with us personally, and homeless or not, all of us still have to sometimes say a prayer alone.”

Nearby, Debbie Whiddon shakes her head and laughs at Byrd. She’s petite and blond, with fair skin and freckles. Somewhere in her 50s, her eyes reflect the pain of a shattered life tentatively glued back together, holding for now.

She remembers taking voice lessons. But music got lost in the struggle to raise two sons and survive 20 years at the backhand of an abusive husband. She escaped to the streets, where she drank in her fill of hardship and hard liquor.

“I started out as a client,” she said. “And now I work here and have a future.”

She said she draws comfort from the lyrics of a song on the CD.

“‘Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God’ … That one song means so much to me. It’s what my life’s about now. I hope it will mean as much to others—struggling—who hear it on the CD.”

Posted: 12/15/06

‘Low food security’ masks hunger in U.S.

By Rebecca U. Cho

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided Americans who go without food are no longer hungry. Instead, they possess “very low food security.”

In an annual report that measures Americans’ access to food, the word “hunger” was omitted in favor of what the department has decided is the more scientifically accurate term.

The president of Bread for the World, an ecumenical Christian anti-hunger group based in Washington, blasted the department’s move as an attempt by the Bush administration to play down the reality of U.S. hunger.

“This was a politically motivated resort to jargon in order to reduce the scandal of hunger in America,” David Beckmann said.

The department’s move was under the influence of an administration that does not like to acknowledge Americans are hungry, he said.

The Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies, an independent panel of scientific experts who made the recommendation, is defending the change in terminology, saying hunger is a term that describes the consequences rather than the state of food security.

Because hunger is “an individual-level physiological condition that may result from food insecurity,” it must be measured on a person-to-person basis that is beyond the scope of the annual report, the committee said on the department’s website.

The report measures the ability of Americans to put sufficient food on the table for a healthy lifestyle. In previous years, “hunger” had been used to describe Americans at the lowest end of the measure, least able to adequately feed themselves and their families.

Critics also accused the administration of playing politics by waiting until after the Nov. 7 elections to release the report instead of putting it out, as usual, in October.

Beckmann called the new term a “technical, bloodless word” that obscures reality, while “hunger” is a word that motivates people into action.

“These people who are being described as food insecure—these people are hungry,” he said. “‘Hunger’ has meaning to people. ‘Very low food security’ doesn’t mean anything.”

The Department of Agriculture said there were 35 million Ameri-cans in 2005—down from 38 million in 2004—who lived in households that at some point in the year were not able to put food on the table. The number of people threatened by “very low food security” was stable at 10 million after five consecutive years on the rise.

Bread for the World’s annual hunger report found that by the third week of each month, nearly 91 percent of food stamp recipients had depleted their benefits and didn’t have enough to make it through an entire month.

“It’s clear that God cares about hungry people,” Beckmann said. “There’s nothing in the Bible about very low food security.”

Posted: 12/15/06

Violence deters Nuevo Laredo missions

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

SAN ANTONIO—The number of Texas Baptist mission trips to Nuevo Laredo is down significantly this year, due in large part to violence between drug cartels there.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas Border/Mexico Missions office facilitated fewer than 10 mission trips to Nuevo Laredo this year, down from nearly 30 in 2005.

Dexton Shores, director of BGCT Border/Mexico Missions, attributed the drop largely to highly publicized violence between drug cartels in the region that has deterred church groups from coming to the area.

“The Nuevo Laredo area has continued to be a hotbed of violent activity this year, due to the ongoing fighting between two drug cartels to gain control of this significant port of entry,” Shores said.

Shores understands why mission teams are avoiding the Laredo area, but he noted violent acts can happen anywhere, whether ministering in Mexico or Texas. No team that has worked through his office has encountered any violence in Mexico.

Mission volunteers should take common-sense precautions in Mexico like they would in any unfamiliar place, Shores said. These include staying together as a group and keeping clear from areas where known criminal activity is taking place. From there, Texas Baptists must trust God to protect them as they do his work, he said.

“I am in Mexico at least 30 times a year and do not feel any more vulnerable or unsafe there than I feel in San Antonio,” he said.

“We daily have crimes reported in our communities in Texas of home invasions, random robberies/burglaries, murders and kidnappings, and we understand that we live in a sinful world and must always exercise caution.

“If we believe that Jesus was serious about his followers fulfilling the Great Commission unto all the world, we must be obedient, trust him to protect us and exercise caution on the other side of the border, just as we do at home.”

Posted: 12/15/06

Child learns early lesson about selfless giving

By Miranda Bradley

Children at Heart Ministries

ROUND ROCK—Most adults find it hard to be selfless, no matter how many sermons they hear about it being “more blessed to give than to receive.” But Megan Simmwell, age 7, learned the lesson early—and has become hooked on giving.

Recently, she gave her own brand-new birthday presents to children served by STARRY’s emergency shelter program. STARRY is a community-based agency of Children at Heart Ministries that serves children, teenagers and parents in crisis.

“Last year, we sort of forced the issue,” said Kim Simmwell, Megan’s mother. “We just believe it’s important for our kids to realize there are many people out there who don’t have as much as they do.”

A year ago, the Simmwells gave to a family who fled Hurricane Katrina with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

That act led to even more giving projects for Megan. Aside from donating goods, she also has helped feed the homeless and participated in food drives for the needy.

“She’s a sweet kid,” her mother said. “I think she really likes to help people.”

Before her 7th birthday, Megan’s parents gave her a choice between a large party where she would donate the gifts or a smaller party where she could keep the presents. She chose a big party that would help other children, and she tapped one of her favorite pastimes—arts and crafts—as the gift theme.

“She told me she wanted to give these things because she likes art, and she wanted all the kids to enjoy the art supplies,” Mrs. Simmwell said.

With more than 100 arts and crafts supplies loaded in the back of their SUV, Megan and her mother made a trip to one of STARRY’s emergency shelter cottages, which houses children removed from their homes by Child Protective Services due to abuse or neglect.

Mrs. Simmwell said she was given STARRY’s name by an acquaintance after calls to other nonprofit organizations went unreturned. Until they delivered the items, the Simmwells never had visited the ministry.

After touring the cottage, Mrs. Simmwell showed an interest in becoming even more heavily involved in STARRY’s mission.

“I can tell STARRY does wonderful work,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to know so many children need a safe place to come to.”

Megan knows she lives in a household surrounded by love, her mother said, but her mother wanted her to know other children are not as blessed.

“These people are part of her generation,” Mrs. Simmwell said. “Not everyone lives they way Megan lives, and you never know when someone will need to take care of you.”

Posted: 12/15/06

Protestants decide there’s something about Mary

By Sarah Price Brown

Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES—Scot McKnight, a religious studies professor, was teaching several years ago when he had an “aha” moment.

McKnight had just read aloud the Magnificat, the Virgin Mary’s hymn of praise from the Gospel of Luke.

“What kind of woman would have said this?” McKnight asked his students at North Park University in Chicago.

Keisha Castle-Hughes plays Mary in The Nativity Story. Many Protestants have used the film to spark discussions about Mary and her role in Christian history. (RNS photos courtesy of Jaimie Trueblood/New Line Productions)

As he listened to their answers, McKnight, an evangelical Christian, became convinced of two things. One, most Protestants know next to nothing about Mary. And two, the popular conception of Mary as “hyper-pious, with her hands folded in prayer … like a nun,” has little to do with the “courageous, gutsy” young woman—“the real Mary”—of the Bible.

At that moment, McKnight vowed to “reclaim” Mary, a New Testament figure revered by Roman Catholics and largely overlooked by Protestants.

His new book, The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus, tries to do just that.

But McKnight isn’t the only Protestant taking another look at the mother of Jesus.

The Nativity Story, a movie that chronicles the lives of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus, recently opened in theaters nationwide, and Protestants around the country are using the film to re-evaluate the role of Mary within Protestant tradition.

McKnight and his publisher, Paraclete Press, have helped organize more than 60 Protestant groups around the country to host forums this month to discuss the movie and the book.

The goal, as McKnight sees it, amounts to nothing short of a coup by Protestants.

“There are a few of us who are in a Trojan horse,” McKnight said. “It’s as if we’ve been released in the Vatican, and we’re swiping Mary and taking her back to the Protestant world.”

Even though The Nativity Story premiered at the Vatican, filmmakers hosted about 60 early screenings of the film for Protestant leaders to get their flocks energized about the movie.

“We’ve taken the film around to every big Protestant leader we can think of,” said Wyck Godfrey, one of the film’s producers.

Godfrey, a Presbyterian, said the film tries to portray Mary as down-to-earth.

“The bent we took was very Protestant, really, treating (Mary) as a human, someone going through something very difficult, with real emotions. We were not trying to create her as some iconic saint.”

The film’s screenwriter, Mike Rich, said his inspiration for the movie was taken straight from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Seeing Mary the way the Bible shows her is precisely the point, McKnight said.

“We are Protestants; we believe in the Bible; Mary is in the Bible,” he wrote in his book. Therefore, “we need to believe what the Bible says about Mary.”

As early as the second century, Christians honored Mary as the “mother of God.” But since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, Mary has been a point of contention between Catholics and Protestants.

On the one hand, Catholics have venerated Mary, portraying her in stained glass and statues, hailing her in their rosaries. In 1854, Pope Pius IX raised Mary beyond mortal ranks, saying she had been born without original sin. In 1950, Pope Pius XII held Mary even higher, declaring that when she died, her body was taken into heaven and reunited with her soul.

Most Protestants rejected these papal decrees, known as the “Immaculate Conception” and “Assumption,” respectively. Protestants, for the most part, have been wary of focusing too much attention on Mary at the expense of Jesus.

So, when David Hershey, a 26-year-old evangelical pastor at Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, announced recently he would lead a Bible study session on Mary to coincide with the release of The Nativity Story and McKnight’s book, a student e-mailed back, “What are we, Catholic now?”

Randy Pospisil, who teaches Sunday school at First Baptist Church in Medford, Wis., received a similar response when he said he would lecture on the mother of Jesus. In addition to “some pretty confused looks,” Pospisil, 33, got an e-mail asking whether he was “wanting to become Catholic.”

For some, these kinds of negative reactions underscore why Protestants need to talk about Mary. Tim Seitz-Brown, pastor of Paradise Lutheran Church in Thomasville, Pa., said Jesus’ mother is in need of an extreme makeover among Protestants.

In the classic Nativity scene, “Mary is beautiful and passive,” Seitz-Brown said. As he sees it, “Mary would be much feistier” than most people would recognize.

Posted: 12/15/06

Growing church family
finds room for expansion

By George Henson

Staff Writer

ODESSA—As families grow, the need for a larger home often follows. Primera Iglesia Bautista in Odessa has found what seems to be a perfect fit for its growing family of believers.

More than twice as many people have made professions of faith in Jesus Christ in 2006 than in 2005 at Primera, Pastor Mario Martinez said.

Martinez credits the faithfulness of the congregation to visit area residents using the FAITH evangelism strategy as a key to growth.

While more than 40 have professed faith in Jesus Christ this year, only about 20 have been baptized so far. New believers are discipled in an eight-week course by the same people who led them to their decision, and nobody is baptized until they understand its significance.

“Our teaching about baptism doesn’t come until the seventh week, so some haven’t been taught what baptism means yet,” Martinez explained.

Some people are delaying their baptism until New Year’s Eve, when the church plans a large celebration, he added. Martinez already has a list of about 15 people who will be baptized that night.

The church’s growth has surpassed what its facilities can accommodate. Currently, all four of the church’s education rooms are filled on Sunday mornings. Four more classes meet in borrowed space at an Anglo church across the street.

The growth in the number of Christians also has increased the number of children from when Martinez arrived at the church in 2004.

“When I came here, there were four children. One couple had two boys, and my wife and I had two children. Now, we have 20 children in the nursery and 15 in children’s chapel,” he said.

The children’s chapel meets in another small building because there is not a room large enough in main building.

That space crunch prompted the church to pray about building another structure on its property.

But Martinez said before any concrete plans were made, another church four blocks away decided to sell its property and relocate.

The initial asking price was $450,000; Primera initially offered $385,000. In mid-November, the parties came together, and Primera acknowledged it would only be able to come up with about $350,000. That offer was accepted.

“We will move into our new building in February,” Martinez said. “It has 13 classrooms for Sunday school and will seat 340 people.”

Since attendance has been about 100, that gives the church a good deal of room for growth, he said.

“Right now, we have a lot of people who come, and we are crowded in our pews, and our parking lot is full. Some people don’t like that, so they don’t come back. In our new building, we will have plenty of space for everyone,” Martinez said.