Posted: 4/28/06

Many ‘religious’ people seldom attend church

By David Barnes

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Americans are among the world’s most religious people, but a new study indicates more than one-third of all adults in the United States rarely attend any religious service.

The annual tracking survey conducted by the Barna Group found 34 percent of American adults—about 76 million people—have not attended any type of church service or activity in the past six months, excluding special events such as weddings and funerals.

The study said the majority of Americans referred to as “un-churched” had attended at least one religious service earlier in their lives.

Sixty-two percent of the unchurched described themselves as Christian, 4 percent said they are Jewish, 4 percent said they follow an Eastern religion and 24 percent said they are atheist.

By comparison, an October 2005 Gallup poll found that 66 percent of Canadians rarely attend religious services and 80 percent of Britons go unchurched.

The U.S. figures were based on a random sample of 1,003 adults collected by the Barna Group, a Christian community research firm based in Ventura, Calif.

Posted: 4/28/06

Moldovan orphans warmed
by individual, corporate generosity

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

SAN ANTONIO—An 82-year-old woman’s last mission project and employees of a large Christian music company teamed up to keep Moldovan orphans warm in the midst of the country’s worst winter in 70 years—proof that both the “widow’s mite” and big corporate donations can work together to do good.

Hazel Hilton, a longtime Texas Baptist, died in February, just one month after Baptist Child & Family Services mission volunteers distributed a box of her hand-knitted caps to 60 orphans in Moldova.

Meanwhile, Nashville-based EMI—working through Sweet Sleep, a Baptist Child & Family Services-related program headquartered in Tennessee—started out with the goal of raising enough money to buy 250 coats.

By the end of its fund-raising effort, 1,040 orphans had coats, hats and gloves.

Children from Moldovan orphanages benefit from the coats and hats provided by Christians in the United States.

And while children in Moldova—a small Eastern European country with a climate like Minnesota—would have welcomed the warm gifts anytime, this winter marked the coldest in 70 years.

In mid-January, temperatures plunged as low as 11 degrees below zero Fahren-heit.

At least 13 people froze to death in a five-day period, and several others died when makeshift fires got out of control and burned houses down, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported.

An EMI employee traveled to Moldova last year with a Baptist Child & Family Services/Sweet Sleep team and returned so moved by the experience that others at EMI wanted to get involved.

“Once we heard about the need and the desperate situation these children face, there was a tremendous response among our staff, record labels, artists and songwriters,” said Holly Whaley, director of corporate communications for EMI.

In early December, EMI employees—after picking up hangers with a picture of a little boy or girl who needed winter wear—rode charter buses to a Nashville discount store to buy coats and other items. Then they wrapped and vacuum-packed all their purchases for delivery half a world away.

Hazel Hilton spent most of her 82 years leading friends and neighbors and new acquaintances to faith in Christ and going around the globe—including China and Russia—to share her faith, including lengthy tenures at First Baptist Church in Beaumont and Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston.

Physical problems halted her overseas travels several years ago and necessitated a move from Texas to Little Rock, Ark., to be near one of her children.

But her heart still belonged to missions and her mind to Texas, so she read, prayed and sought out things she still could do.

In November 2004, she read about Baptist Child & Family Services’ work in Moldova and asked her son-in-law, Arkansas Baptist newsmagazine editor Charlie Warren, to find out how she might help.

Teams from the Texas Baptist child care and family services agency go to Moldova twice a year, so it was last winter before the box she shipped to San Antonio made it to Eastern Europe

“We gave the hats to children in the two orphanages and at a small church in a small village,” said Tony Tomandl of Baptist Child & Family Services.

“It is not unusual for these kids to go without hats and gloves, so they met a great need. When I first saw the box, I thought, ‘That’s nice this lady made a few caps for kids.’ But when I started packing them in my luggage I was totally amazed. There were over 60 caps in many colors—what a tremendous labor of love.”

Information about mission trips to Moldova with Baptist Child & Family Services is available at www.bcfs.net or by calling (210) 832-5000 or (800) 830-2246.

Posted: 4/28/06

BGCT launches probe of
church-planting funds in the Valley

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—The Baptist General Con-vention of Texas has enlisted an independent accountant to investigate possible mishandling of church-starting funds in the lower Rio Grande Valley.

“Allegations came to our attention, and we began an internal probe,” said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade. “That effort has indicated a need to bring in an outside financial expert to evaluate the situation.”

The convention enlisted Mike Steiger, a retired certified public accountant from Arlington, to examine how BGCT church-starting funds were used from 1996 to 2003 in Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association and what is now The Borderlands Baptist Association to start “cell-group” congregations, said Ron Gunter, BGCT associate executive director and chief operating officer.

“We want to determine how the money was used,” he said. “It’s important that we not pre-judge what took place, but it’s also important that we do a thorough audit.”

Gunter declined “at this time” to identify specific findings of the internal probe that prompted the state convention to secure the services of an independent accountant.

The audit likely will take three to four months, he said, adding he did not know yet how much money is in question of possibly having been mishandled.

Steiger began gathering information April 17, and the BGCT is cooperating fully in providing all requested data, Gunter said.

The accountant not only will look at the number of churches and money received, but also will look at how many church-starts still are in existence, he confirmed.

“We’ve not wanted to limit him in any way,” Gunter said.

The 1995 BGCT Annual listed 90 churches and 29 missions in Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association. In 1996—the first year included in the investigation—the association reported 92 churches and 38 missions.

In 2003—the final year being probed—the BGCT Annual listed 105 churches and 240 missions for the association.

Of those 240 missions, 151 listed as their sponsors six of the churches that formed The Borderlands Baptist Association the following year. The 2004 BGCT Annual listed 10 churches and 174 missions in The Borderlands Baptist Association.

Listing as a mission in the annual does not necessarily mean a congregation received BGCT funding.

David Montoya, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Mineral Wells and former pastor of First Baptist Church in Donna, has called for an investigation of church-planting funding in the lower Rio Grande Valley for several years.

Montoya said he was pleased the BGCT staff secured an independent accountant for an audit, but he wants the BGCT Executive Board to launch its own investigation.

The Palo Pinto Baptist Association executive committee adopted a resolution asking the BGCT Executive Board to investigate the matter, and Montoya said he expects other associations to take similar action.

BGCT emphasis on church-starting dates back at least to the Mission Texas emphasis of 1985 to 1990, and it has continued in recent years, with Texas Baptists starting 191 congregations in 2005 and setting a goal of 250 new congregations this year.

“Most of those grow into healthy, full-fledged churches,” Gunter said. “But when there is a question about how BGCT funds are being used, it’s important that we do everything possible to look into the situation.

“The BGCT has a long history of integrity in dealing with finances, and the effort to check into this situation more deeply is a reflection of that continued commitment. … We are evaluating all of our procedures in regard to starting churches, as well as examining other processes as a part of our reorganization. We want to continue to improve and always strive to do a better job.”

BGCT Communications Director Ferrell Foster contributed to this article.

Posted: 4/28/06

Lilley installed as Baylor president

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—Humility and civility offer common ground where faith and reason can exist in harmony—whether in a nation or on a Christian university campus, speakers stressed at the inauguration of John Lilley as Baylor University’s 13th president.

“It is sometimes said—and it is sometimes the case—that faith and reason are at war,” said keynote speaker Jon Meacham, managing editor of Newsweek magazine.

But in an age gripped by political and religious extremism, secularists and religionists alike should heed the Apostle Paul’s admonition to “put way childish things” such as the conflict between belief and doubt, religion and science, and faith and reason, said Meacham, author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation.

John Lilley, Baylor University’s 13th president.

“We must begin to think of the life of the mind and the life of the soul not as enemies, but as two wings that enable all of us to rise above a fallen world,” said Meacham, an Episcopal layman.

Both science and faith are—in some sense—about making the invisible and mysterious understandable, and that shared goal of both secular rationalists and people of faith offers the potential for peace, he asserted.

“In our country and in our time, I believe it is on the common ground of curiosity and civility and charity and humility that peace between faith and reason is possible,” he said.

Voices of moderation must make themselves heard, or they will be drowned out by the clamor of extremists, Meacham warned.

“Extremes make the journey more perilous, and ours is, sadly, an age of extremism,” he said.

Moderates have a sacred duty to present the “sensible center” in public discourse, he asserted.

Religion can be a force for unity rather than division in the world, Meacham insisted.

“Reverence for one’s own tradition is not incompatible with respect for the traditions of anyone else,” he said.

Humility and a sense of history offer Americans a way to find peace in the midst of culture wars, Meacham said.

The “American gospel”—the good news about the United States—is that “religion shapes the nation without strangling it, and life is best lived when Athens and Jerusalem are not at war, but in alliance,” he said, adding religion and ethical secularism have been steadfast allies in many human advances.

America’s founders created a landmark of statecraft by creating a system that checked the rise of extremism and protected personal religious liberty, Meacham said.

“Dedicated Christians should be among the fiercest defenders of liberty of mind and heart,” he said.

Faithful Christians who present their views in the public square should make their arguments on the basis on reason and not revelation alone, he asserted. People of faith should humbly recognize their interpretation of God’s revelation is not infallible and they see “through a glass darkly,” as the Apostle Paul said.

“We live in twilight and in hope more than in clarity and certainty. This is why the gift of reason is so essential,” Meacham said. “Light can neither enter into nor emanate from a closed mind.”

Humility and civility should be hallmarks of a Christian university, Lilley said, in remarks following his installation as Baylor’s president.

The challenge for all generations of institutional leaders is to seek “what is right and just and fair,” he said, quoting from the Old Testament book of Proverbs.

“Humility is a virtue that needs the attention of all of us,” he said, adding Baylor’s administrative leaders benefit from the ideas of colleagues, students and friends of the university—particularly regarding how to implement the school’s often-controversial Baylor 2012 long-range vision.

“It is the experience of my life that humility is often in short supply at universities—this one included,” he said.

“I have asked all of us to lower our voices and raise our spirits, and a daily dose of humility can help us as we seek to discover what is right and just and fair.”

Posted: 4/28/06

Texas Senate honors Strickland

AUSTIN—The Texas Senate praised former Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission Director Phil Strickland April 27 for his years of advocacy in the Texas government.

Strickland, who served the Texas CLC nearly 40 years, died in February. He devoted much of his life to improving the quality of life to Texas children, lawmakers noted.

Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, introduced a resolution that communicated condolences to the Strickland family. It passed unanimously.

“Phil Strickland was one of the very few people I’ve ever met that was good to the bone,” she said in placing the resolution before the Senate.

The resolution remembered him as “a man of deep faith and compassion” who “spoke with courage and grace on behalf of the less fortunate in our society.”

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, praised Strickland for his ability to encourage young people to get involved in politics. He seized every opportunity to teach younger generations, she noted.

“Phil modeled his whole life on working in a Christ-like manner,” she said.

The resolution passed shortly after Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Charles Wade opened the session in prayer. During his invocation, he remembered Strickland.

“He lent the weight of his powerful convictions and integrity to move debate and decision-making forward. He helped us all do right and give care for the least among us,” Wade said.

Posted: 4/28/06

Around the state

• Tickets are on sale for the third annual “Singin’ with the Saints” Southern gospel concert for senior adults. It will be held May 18 beginning at 9:45 a.m. in Howard Payne University’s Mims Auditorium. The featured performers will be the Dove Brothers Quartet from Bladenboro, N.C. Other groups will be 4 X Grace from Brownwood and the Brazos Boys Quartet from Abilene. Humorist Lou Brown also will entertain. Tickets are $15, and the price includes lunch. To order, call (800) 950-8465.

• Former members of the steering team for Texas Week at Falls Creek are invited to attend the June 2 evening worship service at the Oklahoma Baptist assembly. Recognition is slated for Texas Baptists who have planned the special emphasis since it was launched in 1963. The 2006 Texas Week, May 29-June 3, marks the end of the tradition, due to increased demand by Oklahoma churches for the use of the conference center. For details, contact Dale Berry at (940) 567-3741.

• Ray Martin has been named associate vice president for student life and dean of students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. In addition to continuing his responsibilities as dean of students and providing leadership to campus activities, residence life and health services, he also will supervise the director of campus recreation, and the offices of community service and campus organizations.

• Baylor University has presented the Milton T. Gregory Distinguished Service Award to Carroll and Aline Webb of Waco. The award is presented annually to a development volunteer. Former Dallas residents, the couple moved to Waco to be more involved in activities at Baylor. He is director of the Baylor Bear Foundation, and they are members of the Development Council, the Endowed Scholarship Society, the Baylor Alumni Association and are charter members of Old Main Society. They were the originators of the Deloitte & Touche/Carroll L. Webb Ac-counting Scholarship. They are members of Columbus Avenue Church in Waco.

• The Hale School of Business at East Texas Baptist University honored seven students for their acheivements. Spotlighted were Ryan Fason, Luke Corley, Rebecca Rinehart, Tiffany Fitts, Jenny Wheeler, Shannon Corley and Luke Garrett.

• Four new faculty members have been named at Dallas Baptist University. They are Michelle Henry, assistant professor of English; Suzanne Kavli, associate professor of management information systems; Brian Thomas, assistant professor of biotechnology; and Barbara Wallace, professor of music.

Anniversaries

• Mike Davis, 10th, as associate pastor for connection ministries at First Church in Conroe, April 15.

• Hickory Grove Church in Kilgore, 95th, April 30. Kelly Brian is pastor.

• Second Church in Highlands, 60th, May 3-7. The church will hold revival services May 3-6 with Homer Allison Jr. preaching. Nick Anders will lead the music. On Sunday, former pastor Billy Gene Walker will preach. A catered luncheon will follow the service. Beau Rosser is pastor.

• Jerry Smith, 20th, as pastor of First Church in Clifton, May 10.

• Lexington Church in Corpus Christi, 50th, June 3-4. Saturday’s activities will begin with a dinner at 6 p.m., followed by a concert with performances from former members. The church history will be highlighted and former staff recognized. Sunday will continue the spotlight on former members. For more information or to register, call (361) 855-1554. Darrell Tomasek is pastor.

Deaths

• Claude Roy, 82, March 29 in Texarkana. He was pastor of churches in Texas, Oklahoma and Michigan more than 50 years. He served with the Southern Baptist Convention Home Mission Board 21 years. During his time in Michigan, he helped start 92 churches. He was preceded in death by his brothers, Harry and Alvin. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Treva; daughter, Carolyn Clark; sons, Ron and Michael; sisters Dora Roberts and Martha Dobbins; brothers, Elmer and Joseph Leon; seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.

• Dan Terry, 75, April 6 in Clyde. Ordained at First Church in Goodlett in 1951, he was pastor at Bethel Church in Bugs Scuffle, City View Church in Wichita Falls and two churches in Oklahoma before retiring. He also was camp manager at Chaparral Assembly. He was a member of First Church in Clyde. He is survived by his wife, Etta; daughters, Vicki Roulan and Dana Fickling; brother, Wayland; and four grandsons.

First Church in Denton held “Operation Blessing” during spring break. More than 65 adult and student volunteers ministered to people in their own community. Free services included haircuts, a clothing room, manicures, dental exams, medical checks, hot meals and groceries for people in need. Jeff Williams is pastor.

• Vaughn Manning, 82, April 16 in Bryan. He was a former pastor and a leader in the implementation of the intentional interim ministry of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He also served El Paso and Creath-Brazos associations as director of missions. He was a member of First Church in Bryan. He was preceded in death by his wife, Juanita. He is survived by his wife, Billie; daughters, Charlotte Stephenson and Trink Ruthven; son, Jim; sister, Dorothy Martin; stepsons, Ben and Scott Welch; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

• Bill Wright, 78, April 17 in Beaumont. He was a volunteer with Texas Baptist Men, helping to build 49 churches. He was preceded in death by his son, James; daugh-ter, Cynthia Wright; and grandson, Jona-thon Wright. He is survived by his wife, Lucille; sons, John, Gary and Kenneth; daughters, Paula Wright, Sue Collier and Ruth Gilliland; step-children, Kay Beard, Susie Breen, Mike Nolan, Jeannee Campbell and Phyllis Smith; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Events

• First Church in Pasadena has named Roland Hill associate pastor emeritus. He served the church from 1967 until 1998 as minister of pastoral care.

• Open Range Cowboy Church in Whitney held its first service in its new building April 23. Terry Gayle is pastor.

• First Church in Dallas will be the site of a conference on homosexuality May 6. The focus of the “More than Words” conference is on walking, versus talking, people out of a homosexual lifestyle. Tim Wilkins is the featured speaker. Topics will include “What’s a Parent to Do,” “Untwisting Gay Theology,” “Loving and Reach-ing the Gay Community” and others. For more information, go to www.firstdallas.org. Wilkins also will preach at the church’s Sunday evening service the next day.

• The Cowboy Church of Ellis County will hold its First Sunday Singing May 7 at 5 p.m. Performing will be Tom Uhr and the Shady Grove Ramblers, and singer Cheryl Dunn, along with many other singers and instrumentalists. Snacks and desserts will be available during intermission. Gary Morgan is pastor.

• Speaker and author Tony Campolo will preach at Cliff Temple Church in Dallas May 14 at 10:45 a.m. Glen Schmucker is pastor.

Ordained

• Zane Porter and J.D. Templeton to the ministry at First Church in Cotton Center.

• Travis Jackson, Jonathan Perry, Matt Sanchez and Tony VanDerWilt to the ministry at First Church in Paris.

• Drew Dabbs to the ministry at Spring Creek Church in Meridian.

• Jay Huckabee, Jimmy Moore, Trey Casper, Dennis Hurley, and Roger Pharr as deacons at Colonial Hills Church in Tyler.

• Rich Reynolds as a deacon at West Sherman Church in Sherman.

• Tommy Tomerlin as a deacon at First Church in Carlsbad.

Revivals

• First Church, Three Rivers; May 7-10; evangelist, Walter Knight; pastor, Randy Samuels.

• First Church, Vernon; April 30-May 3; evangelist, Wayne Shuffield; music, Bill and Ivy Jean Sky-Eagle, pastor Derrell Monday.

Posted: 4/28/06

Baptists and Jews share love of liberty

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

MACON, Ga. (ABP)—Baptists and Jews, both having suffered historically as minority faiths, share a strong commitment to religious liberty, Rabbi David Saperstein said during an inaugural Mercer University lecture series.

Saperstein has directed the Washington-based Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism for 30 years. At the recent Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty, Sapperstein said the “robust religious liberty, free of government interference, is the indispensable component” Jewish and Baptist communities share in common.

The lectureship was created through a gift to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty from Walter Shurden, the founding executive director of Mercer’s Center for Baptist studies. The Georgia Baptist Convention founded Mercer in 1833, although the convention recently severed the affiliation.

Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director Brent Walker and Saperstein, both attorneys, work closely with lawmakers on religious freedom issues and jointly teach classes on First Amendment church-state law at Georgetown University.

The “genius of America,” Saperstein said, is that rights are granted to individuals rather than to groups, from which an individual can be excluded or excommunicated.

“It doesn’t matter if all 290 million Americans … believe your way of worshipping is wrong,” Saperstein said, adding that individuals retain freedom of religious expression.

Saperstein also said the framers of the U.S. Constitution “did something revolutionary” in clearly stating that citizenship does not depend on one’s religious convictions.

Those who claim America as “a Christian nation,” Saperstein said, must look to the early Puritan settlers who “really believed they were the new Israel” and “created a political structure based entirely on God’s law.”

Those who later framed the U.S. Constitution “captured the spirit” of religious liberty that has been upheld by the courts through the years, Saperstein added.

He noted now-retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor provided the deciding vote outlawing government-sponsored prayer in public schools.

“Sandra Day O’Connor is not there,” Saperstein said, expressing concern about whether new justices will continue to keep Americans free from “majoritarian” religious views and control.

Saperstein said Jews—“the quintessential victims of religious persecution”—have not won cases before the Supreme Court but have benefited from decisions on cases brought by Seventh-day Adventists and other religious minorities.

No country in the world, Saperstein said, has more people participating in religious communities than the United States. The claim that “separation of church and state is anti-religion or anti-God” is not true, he stressed.

The principles of complete religious liberty advocated by Baptist pioneers Isaac Backus and John Leland “have served us,” Saperstein said. “Jews I know who care about this study the Baptists.”

Posted: 4/28/06

Book Reviews

“All Churches Great and Small: 60 Ideas for Improving Your Church’s Ministry” by Kirk Farnsworth and Rosie Farnsworth (Judson Press)

Co-pastors Kirk and Rosie Farnsworth, of The Gathering Church in Kingston, Wash., present a thoughtful work on the advantages and strategies of a small church. They build upon a questionable—perhaps flawed—foundation. It is their unwavering opinion that small churches are better churches, assuming larger churches are marred by bureaucracy and the unbiblical standards of numbers, facilities and programs.

What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com.

Moving beyond this disposition, the authors introduce 10 “life-transforming activities” that apply to small congregations—shepherding, gathering, covenanting, ministering, studying, worshipping, praying, giving, living in the Spirit, and witnessing. With each chapter, the authors offer multiple “ideas for improving your church’s ministry.” These 60 ideas are practical and helpful.

This book will be helpful for leadership teams in any church, with an abundance of thoughtful follow-up suggestions for implementation. Innovative and thought-provoking ideas abound. Its unfortunate bias against larger churches masks its application, which will be helpful to any church, small or large.

Mark Denison, pastor

First Baptist Church

Gainesville

I Saw the Lord by Anne Graham Lotz (Zondervan)

I Saw The Lord is a wake-up call for your heart.

For the Christ-follower who has wandered from your “first love,” this book will draw you back from the complacency, hum-drum routine of life into a fresh, new vision of God.

Just as Isaiah saw the Master sitting on a throne, high, exalted, Anne Graham Lotz challenges us to see God with a fresh, new vision, and to add the logs of daily disciplined prayer and Bible study (not just reading) to our personal revival fire.

The alarm clock has been ringing loudly, but we seem to be ignoring it.

The wake-up call sounded loudly on a day we remember as 9/11, but we hit the snooze button, rolled over and resumed sleep. Then came the wake-up sound of the tsunami, and we continued our lifestyle, sleeping as usual. Katrina and Rita sent the alarm ringing even louder! Are we awake yet?

I Saw The Lord draws you into a personal revival, “a quiet, miraculous, eye-opening revelation of God within your Spirit” that will ignite your soul with a fresh, new vision of God.

Nelda Taylor-Thiede, president

Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas

Gonzales

Letters from Dad by Greg Vaughn with Fred Holmes. (Integrity)

Greg Vaughn has started something.

The death of his own father sparked a strong conviction: He would make sure his children and other family members would have meaningful letters from him as a legacy of Christian faith, hope and love.

In the process of fulfilling his promise, he got a group of men involved in the same commitment.

The results were good. “Letters from Dad” developed into a full-fledged men’s ministry, and it’s spreading.

This book tells the story, with inspiration and practical instruction for giving your family a blessing to treasure and to pass on.

It is designed for fathers and for the context of a men’s ministry, but the principles can be adapted and applied across the whole church family.

Men who read the book and follow its advice will experience many of the same results.

It offers terrific potential for making significant family memories and for extending a healthy Christian witness at the same time.

Rick Willis, pastor

First Baptist Church

Lampasas

Posted: 4/28/06

Posted: 4/28/06

Christian chat rooms may
offer safer Internet alternatives

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

DALLAS (ABP)—The Internet can be a scary place, at least for the parents of teenagers flocking to social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook. Teens see them as places to keep up with friends and make new ones online. But many parents imagine only faceless predators trolling chat rooms for unsuspecting teen victims.

Enter Xianz.com, a “social networking platform” that caters to a Christian crowd, offering some of the same socializing tools as MySpace but in what organizers call a “safe environment for teens.”

Xianz.com—pronounced “zans,” with the “x” representing the Greek initial for “Christ”—began at the end of 2005. Still in its beta mode—a high-tech trial run—the website has only about 4,500 members so far. But founders Robbie Davidson and Bob Hutchins see great things ahead.

Backed by a marketing company called Buzzplant and Praiz.com, the Nashville-based Xianz started in part in response to the bad press directed toward MySpace—vulnerability to predators, questionable postings, and the like.

“MySpace was really letting anything go,” Davidson said. “A lot of people are wanting a safe alternative.”

Thanks to pressure from school and law-enforcement officials, MySpace recently hired Hemanshu Nigam, director of consumer security outreach and child-safe computing at Microsoft, to oversee safety and privacy programs.

That’s quite a task for MySpace, which has more than 66 million users and gains 250,000 new ones each day. It’s the fourth-largest site on the net in terms of pages viewed, according to Financial Times.

For some competing websites, stats like those are intimidating. For the founders of Xianz.com, however, such staggering numbers only underscore the need for a safe Christian alternative.

Just last month, MySpace removed 200,000 “objectionable” profiles from its site in an effort to protect against predators and identity theft—especially for the teen users who tend to gravitate to networking sites.

The items removed involved “hate speech” or sex-related material, said Ross Levinson, head of the Internet division of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, which bought MySpace for $580 million.

Davidson said Xianz uses safeguards like invite-only login rights and chat rooms segregated by age.

Some observers see such safeguards as only a minor impediment to hackers with less-than-charitable motivations.

“Sounds to me like an open invitation for pagan hackers to have some fun,” said blogger Alan Hartung, general editor of the Christian website theooze.com and former host of the radio show, A Different Perspective.

There’s another problem with Christian-alternative sites, say Hartung and others. “Xianz does not appeal to me, nor do I want my children to blog their lives inside an artificially created goldfish bowl that only seems like it will be safe from undesirables … namely non-Xianz,” Hartung wrote.

Ken Satterfield, a father and marketing specialist, said anonymity of the Internet causes people to divulge personal information they ordinarily wouldn’t share. The Christian label on Xianz.com or Swordwalk, another Christian site, causes some people to let down their otherwise careful guard against strangers, he said.

“There is a tremendous freedom in sharing information with a faceless person via the Internet,” Satterfield, marketing coordinator at the Missouri-based Baptist newspaper Word & Way, said in an e-mail interview. “The acceptance found when sharing personal information online that you wouldn’t do in person and (the) ability to find an accepting audience is why good marriages break up and hate groups thrive online.”

As a parent, Satterfield said, he also struggles with the choice between shielding his children from potentially harmful media and letting them learn how to navigate the world on their own.

“I welcome a safe environment for my boys, but … I think there is too much of a tendency to isolate ourselves behind the church walls,” he said. “The key is developing young adults who can interact with the world in a discerning way and who avoid going too deep in uncharted waters without a parent or trusted adult, teacher or student minister.”

Contrary to popular belief, the site organizers say, Xianz.com is not a “Christians-only” site. Davidson said any and all users are welcome, as long as they abide by site rules. Site rules were not posted on user pages at the time of this writing.

Xianz.com’s “growth-rate has been absolutely incredible,” Davidson said, and organizers plan to unveil an updated version May 25.

Davidson said the lack of questionable advertisements is reason enough for Christians and non-Christians alike to want to join. New users find the site “refreshing,” he said. “The advertising is enough to get a lot of people interested.”

Most of Xianz.com is accessible by invitation only, and it is geared toward providing Christians with “a good time of fellowship,” Davidson said. Nonetheless, he and Hutchins—who met while working together at another Christian website—concede users with malicious motives might be able to access the site.

New technology, which allows dynamic content updates and real-time conversations, separates Xianz.com from other networking sites, Davidson stressed. Mood tags for users and welcome notes to new members lend a sense of community and personality, he said.

The Christian site also offers similar services to MySpace—customized profiles, music, video clips, instant messaging and blogs.

It’s the bloggers, though, who have spoken out most vehemently against the new site. While some welcome it as a place for Christians to interact in an inviting atmosphere, others decry it as a sorry excuse for marketing to an unsuspecting Christian crowd.

Some, like the bloggers at Bene Diction, said it was inevitable that a Christian social networking site would appear on the heels of the MySpace success. In a recent post on Bene Diction, a blogger wrote that, while social networking plays a “critical” role in “our busy world,” faith communities should not charge money for “righteous MySpace wannabes.”

“The sad thing is the market is there, the fear is there, the money is there, the self-righteousness is there, all offered up as healthy alternatives,” one blogger wrote. “Sooner rather than later, the difficulties any social networking site deals with will also be there. Technology is only an extension of real life, and people are going to be hurt.”

Counselor Vicki Hollon first got involved in MySpace as a way to shield her 17-year-old son from that possible hurt. She thought if she created her own MySpace page, she could keep closer tabs on her son’s online activities. Now, all her grown children have pages as well, and the family—with members in New York, Kentucky and Illinois—uses those pages as a way to communicate.

Hollon, executive director at the Wayne Oates Institute in Louisville, Ky., said sites like MySpace can provide healthy ways to express creativity and individuality. While she doesn’t think there’s anything “inherently evil” with either a secular or a Christian chat room, she said the Christian affiliation will do nothing in itself to exclude adult predators.

The “bottom line is going to depend on who is present,” Hollon said via e-mail. “Do the youth have friends, or are they isolated and searching for friends? Who is facilitating the site? Who is setting and supervising ground rules? (Xianz.com) can be used for good or bad. It depends on who feeds the vacuum.”

Posted: 4/28/06

Volunteers for China needs instructors this summer

Volunteers for China—a Christian humanitarian organization—needs teachers to serve in a variety of settings this summer.

The China Christian Council English program needs one additional teacher for a team that will provide English instruction to pastors and other church leaders. The volunteers will leave the United States June 27 and return Aug. 6.

Qingdao University in Shandong Province has requested two English teachers for its summer program. Volunteers would need to leave the United States by June 28 in order to begin service July 1. They will return Aug. 17.

The Amity Foundation summer English program has a team of three volunteers that needs a fourth teacher who can leave the United States July 1 and return July 31.

Changzhi Medical College needs teachers in medicine and related professions to lead basic courses and workshops to students and staff. Volunteers will leave the United States July 6 and return July 23.

Changzhi Vocational College needs additional team members to teach college students and middle school English teachers. Volunteers will leave the United States July 6 and return Aug. 6.

College students are needed to participate in a cultural exchange program with Chinese college students. The program offers the opportunity to learn Chinese culture while making friends and building relationships. Groups depart the United States June 29, and students may return either July 21 or Aug. 6.

For more information, visit www.volunteersforchina.org.

Posted: 4/28/06

CLC sets world hunger offering goal

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—The Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Christian Life Commission set a goal of raising $750,000 through the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger this year.

The money will be distributed to specific projects throughout Texas, the United States and the world through the BGCT, other Baptist state conventions, the Coopera-tive Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist World Alliance.

Groups send requests for funds to the Christian Life Commission, which then chooses which can be funded and at what level.

“In the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger, Texas Baptists have the opportunity to fund carefully chosen, holistic Baptist ministries to people in need across the globe,” said Joe Haag, CLC director of program planning. “The offering is a remarkable mission opportunity to be the presence of Christ in the very places Jesus calls us to be present.”

Last year, more than $755,000 was given to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger. Funds given through the offering in one year establish the budget for projects the next year.

If the budget is met, $323,000 will be used for hunger relief projects in North America. The money will be spent in Canada and Mexico, as well as in Texas, Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.

Eastern Europe is slated to receive a larger amount of money from this year’s offering than last year. More than $61,000 is to be distributed in Estonia, the Republic of Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

Africa will get nearly $111,000 from the offering. That money will go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia.

The budget allocates $40,000 to South America—$30,000 for the extensive ministry of Reencontro in Niteroi, Brazil, and $10,000 for ministry in Ecuador.

The Texas offering will send $40,000 to the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.

Ministries in countries such as Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos and Thailand are each to receive a portion of the $174,450 slotted for the Far East. Asia and the Far East are allocated a greater portion of this budget compared to the previous year’s budget.