Posted: 3/17/06

Church growth does not equal
kingdom growth, speaker says

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Church growth does not necessarily result in expansion of God’s kingdom, a Canadian pastor told a Texas Baptist conference.

“It is possible to participate in church expansion and unintentionally be an agent for shrinking the kingdom of God,” Jeff Christopherson, pastor of The Sanctuary in Oakville, Ontario, said at Epicenter, a spiritual formation and missions event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Some Christians substitute the church for God’s kingdom because they want to be able to control it, he noted, pointing out the kingdom’s scope transcends any single church.

“The church is a temporal tool to advance something eternal—the kingdom,” Christopherson said.

“The church has a shelf life. If we look at our church as the kingdom, we miss the kingdom.”

Sincere seekers outside the church may come nearer the kingdom of God than some self-centered people within the church who artificially manufacture growth but are detached from the true source of power, he asserted.

“It is possible to unknowingly value the kingdom of God before acknowledging the value of its source—the King,” he said. “We love the forms, but Jesus talked about the source.”

Christopherson maintained people fit into one of four positions in what he referred to as the “kingdom matrix.”

• Brand-expanders.

These people are members of the church but are citizens of “the dominion of darkness,” he said.

Brand-expanders are religious consumers whose source of authority is their corporate identity.

They are energized by competition with other religionists who want to expand their own brand.

“Brand growth is a fake copy of the real deal,” Christopherson said.

• Self-seekers.

Like brand-expanders, they are captives of darkness, but at least they are honest about it.

They are narcissistic materialists energized by their own egos, he explained.

Self-seekers find their ultimate authority in themselves, and they manipulate other people to advance their own agendas.

• Kingdom-seekers.

Although they are outside the church, they value principles of God’s kingdom such as good will, community, personal transformation and spirituality, Chris-topherson said.

“Kingdom-seekers find the brand-expanders’ worldview unattractive and unhelpful,” he said.

“Kingdom-seekers respond when they are exposed to the authenticity of the kingdom. When they see the real thing, they want it.”

Once kingdom-seekers find faith in Christ, they become the most effective evangelists to self-seekers, he added.

“Kingdom-seekers are relationally networked and prepackaged with credibility to influence the self-seekers,” he said.

• Kingdom-expanders.

Kingdom-expanders live where the kingdom of God and the church come together.

They want to move from transformation to incarnation—living out the gospel and being the body of Christ in the world, Christopherson said.

Kingdom-expanders recognize kingdom growth involves sending out and sacrificing, not creating a club that benefits its members, he explained.

“If we see our resources as our own, we’ll never build the kingdom of God. If we see our people as our own, we’ll never build the kingdom of God,” Christopher-son said.

Posted: 3/17/06

Transformed leaders minister
out of spiritual overflow

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Before church leaders can guide other people to be transformed by God, they first must submit to the “rhythm of life with God” that leads to their own ongoing transformation, a former teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago said.

“How you lead is reflective of your life with God,” said Nancy Ortberg, now a church consultant in Menlo Park, Calif.

Spiritual leaders should minister out of the overflow of God’s presence and activity in their lives, Ortberg told participants at Epicenter, a missions and spiritual formation event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

True transformation may take place best when spiritual leaders break out of routines and allow God’s spirit to work in fresh ways, she said.

Even well-intentioned “prescriptive requirements” such as a daily quiet time or spiritual journaling can become a hindrance rather than a help if they become an end in themselves.

Paraphrasing the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, Ortberg said, “God’s greatest gripe is when we boil down a relationship into a list of rules.”

Spiritually transformed leaders can guide the gathered church and the dispersed church to fulfill its purpose in God’s plan, she said.

“What do we do as a church when we are gathered? Our worship services ought to be creative, compelling and challenging because that’s who God is,” Ortberg insisted, adding worship services should cause people to be astounded at God’s wonder.

Spiritual leaders should not shy away from calling for commitment in worship services, she stressed.

“Jesus was a walking defining moment,” she said.

Ortberg recalled a worship experience when Shane, a young man who lived and worked among homeless people, said he planned to go downtown after the church service to minister among his homeless friends.

He asked worshippers on the spot to contribute shoes to people who needed them.

The sound of Velcro straps ripping open filled the worship center, Ortberg said, and worshippers came forward to pile their shoes at the altar.

“Who you make heroes is highly transformational,” she said. “Recognize ordinary people doing remarkable things.”

After corporate worship—when the gathered church goes out as the dispersed church—transformed people can become an incarnational presence in society, Ortberg said.

“When we disperse, we can be the gospel in a world that so desperately needs it,” she said.

You can only be salt and light when you go beyond the walls of the church.”

Posted: 3/17/06

Spiritual outsourcing not the answer, McNeal says

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Christians have outsourced spiritual formation to the church, Reggie McNeal, leadership development director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, told a Texas Baptist group. But if congregations don’t change their strategy, they may end up out of business, he insisted.

Families have given congregations sole responsibility for developing children spiritually, and churches are doing an inadequate job of handling that responsibility, McNeal said.

“We think we understand some stuff,” he said. “Not spiritual formation. We need to rethink it. We need to rethink it to the core.” Congregations remain stuck in a classroom mentality, believing more information will help people—though leaders know they learned their most valuable lessons practicing their faith, McNeal noted.

Most churches continue calling Christians and non-Christians to age-specific classroom-like settings where a teacher imparts information to the gathered, McNeal said during Epicenter, a Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored conference on spiritual formation.

Jesus’s model of spiritual formation is based upon relationships, not instruction, McNeal said. Christ outlined some spiritual truths through his preaching, but mostly he showed the disciples how to live out their faith. “When it came to spiritual formation, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Follow Me,’” McNeal said. “Paul said, ‘Imitate me.’ That is a far cry from. ‘Attend this class.’”

Congregations need to understand people are accustomed to every service being customized to them, McNeal said. Websites are tailored to their buying habits. Movies are available when they want to watch them. Media outlets are designed to appeal to their interests. Churches could customize their efforts as well, he said. The church must begin by asking each member what he or she feels God leading him or her to do. Church leaders become life coaches, helping people fulfill God’s calling upon their lives.

Because God calls people to accomplish diverse tasks, each person’s development will look different, McNeal said. He compared it to having a personal trainer at a gym who trains multiple clients. The number of available workout machines remains constant, but each client will perform different exercises to meet a specific goal.

But spiritual formation is not simply about building people up, McNeal insisted. Some need to “debrief” their lives and remove some of the emotional baggage they are carrying.

Through helping people accomplish what they feel led to do, churches will find ministry and missions opportunities, he said. “It’s going to be as we serve the world that we will connect with it. Because we will connect over pain.”

Effective spiritual formation takes place through mission opportunities, not class experiences, McNeal insisted. Outside the walls of the church, believers of different generations can share about their faith. They can learn from each other. This is especially important for younger generations looking to connect with older individuals who have lived through hardships and retained their faith, he said. This aspect of life fascinates young people.

McNeal readily acknowledged he does not know how the churches can encourage relationship-driven spiritual formation beyond what he outlined during Epicenter, but he is excited about its possibilities. People will come to Christ as they interact with Christians, and their faith will be deepened through continued dialogue, he noted.

“They’re looking for life,” he said. “If we stop short of that, we’ve sold Jesus short.”

Posted: 3/17/06

Church leaders urged to trust and obey

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

WACO—Christians do not have to see where God is calling them; they simply must trust him and obey, Robert Smith, preaching professor of Beeson Divinity School, told the Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored African American Leadership Workshop.

Smith acknowledged God has called him out of secure positions to do things that made no sense to him, but he believes God always had a plan.

“God has called me to trust my rationality with his irrationality or supra-rationality,” he said.

Smith recalled God calling him to leave the pastorate of a growing church in Cincinnati to become a professor. Many people told him not to do it, but God has blessed his life because he chose to follow God’s desires.

When Smith’s wife was diagnosed with lupus, a fatal disease where the body attacks itself, leaders throughout Cincinnati prayed for her, and many felt a miraculous recovery surely would happen.

In 1984, she told Smith to tell the congregation she would be fine and would be going home. He did, only to arrive at the hospital and see her going to intensive care after a series of seizures. She died there—a loss Smith still feels.

“It was irrational,” he said. “It made no sense.”

Smith said he did not know it at the time, but God already was working in the life of a woman working on the third floor of that hospital. She eventually would become his second wife.

“When life is falling apart on the seventh floor (the ICU), he’s putting it together on the third floor,” Smith said.

“My trust is not in the institution. My trust is not in people. My trust is in the invisible God who makes invisible things visible.”

Following God into what seems to be uncertainty can be difficult, Smith confessed. But his faithfulness remains constant. God continues working in his followers’ lives—a point it is especially important for pastors to remember, Smith said.

Ministers are called to take stances that may not always be popular with their congregations. They must follow God’s leadership for the betterment of God’s kingdom.

“When there is no vision, the people perish,” he said. “Not only when there is no vision do people perish. When there is no visionary leader, the people leave the parish.”

When faced with tough situations, Christians can be encouraged by seeing the faithfulness of God throughout the Bible, Smith noted.

The message is simple: God works in every aspect of a Christian’s life.

“God is my past,” Smith said. “He is my present. He is my future.”

Posted: 3/17/06

Around the State

• Baylor University will remember its founding and early days with the dedication of Baylor Park on Windmill Hill at 2 p.m. March 25 in Indepen-dence. Baylor Park stands at the site of the original Baylor University campus, before its move to Waco. The congregation of Liberty Church in Independence will host a barbecue lunch beginning at 11 a.m. Baylor President John Lilley will speak at the dedication, and will be joined by former presidents Bill Underwood and Herbert Reynolds. For more information, call (254) 710-1268.

• The third annual Yellow Rose luncheon, hosted by the Howard Payne University Woman’s Club, will be held March 27 at 11:30 a.m. Millie Cooper, author of Aerobics for Today’s Woman, will be the featured speaker. Her topic will be “The Joy of Living.” During the event, the Yellow Rose Award will be presented to a woman in the community who exemplifies leadership and service and is a role model for students. The Yellow Rose Scholarship also will be presented to an HPU female student. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased by calling (800) 950-8465. Reserva-tions should be made by March 22.

• A seminar on faith and healing will be held at Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene March 31 and April 1. Dale Matthews, author of The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer, will be the primary speaker. He will review findings from numerous scientific studies that demonstrate the effects of religious commitment upon health. Topics will include the healing power of prayer, biblical perspectives on faith and medicine, and reconciling physical and spiritual healing. Registra-tion deadline is March 24. For more information, call (325) 670-2256.

• A Baylor University day of prayer will be held prior to the national day of prayer at The Fort Worth Club, 306 West 7th Street, in Fort Worth March 28. Registration will begin at 11 a.m. with lunch following at 11:30. Featured speakers will be Dub Oliver, interim vice president for student life; Scott Drew, Baylor men’s basketball coach; and Paul Smith, minister of worship at First Church in Colleyville. Tickets are $25, with $13 discount tickets available to 2003-2006 graduates. For more information, call (866) 281-9444.

• University of Mary Hardin-Baylor faculty pianist Michelle Schumann was named winner of the 2006 UT-San Antonio Janice K. Hodges Contemporary Piano performance competition. She will perform at the Hughes Recital Hall at UMHB alongside violinist Brian Lewis April 6 at 7:30 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, call (254) 295-4678.

• Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, will be the lecturer for the T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lec-tures to be held April 10 and 11 at Hardin-Simmons Univer-sity’s Logsdon School of Theology. The lecture at 7 p.m. Monday will debunk myths about church-state separation and highlight its importance. The topic for the 9 a.m. Tuesday lecture will be “The Religious American Citizen.”

• Registration for the Omega Term of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute is now open. The term will last from April 17 to June 10. A complete list of classes is available at www.bhcti.org.

• Ann Pennington, a chaplain with VistaCare Hospice in Waco, has been endorsed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, bringing the number of chaplains and pastoral counselors endorsed by the fellowship to 520.

• Houston Baptist University has selected its campus Piper Professor nominees: Marie Mater, associate professor in speech communications; Martin Bressler, professor in marketing and entrepreneurship; Randy Wilson, professor in sociology; Lucindra Campbell, associate professor in nursing; and Jacqueline Horn, professor in biology. The Piper Foundation grants 15 awards annually to professors across the state for dedication to the teaching profession and oustanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement.

• Starter kits for people interested in making the witnessing bracelets described in a March 6 story in the Baptist Standard can be obtained at no charge by calling (254) 896-2080. The kit will contain instructions on how to make the bracelets, materials for 25 bracelets, information on where to purchase additional materi

als, and a print out in English and Spanish versions concerning the meaning of the colors.

Anniversaries

• Jeff Scott, fifth, as minister of youth at First Church in Levelland, March 5.

• Robby Barrett, 10th, as minister of education at First Church in Amarillo, March 5.

• Tim Owens, 10th, as pastor of First Church in Bryan, March 5.

• Angela Hamm, fifth, as spiritual formation/single adult minister at First Church in Lewisville, March 18.

• Dennis Williams, 10th, as pastor of First Church in Lorenzo, March 25.

• First Church in Brown-field, 100th, April 22-23. A Texas historical marker will be dedicated at 2 p.m. Saturday, followed by a time of fellowship. Sunday morning’s activities will begin at 9:30. Randy Land is pastor.

• First Church in Ira, 100th, April 30. The morning service will begin at 11 a.m. and will be followed by lunch and a time of fellowship. For more information, call (325) 573-6277. Kenneth Martin is pastor.

Deaths

• Reggie Bowman, 62, Feb. 22 in Abilene. He served churches in various staff positions in Palestine, Odessa and Lampasas, Texas; Del City, Okla.; and Hobbs, N.M. In Bozeman, Mont., he was director of Baptist Student Ministry at Montana State University. His final place of ministry was Pioneer Drive Church in Abilene, where he served as minister of education from 1999 until his retirement in Oct. 2005. He is survived by his parents, J.D. and Virginia Bowman; wife, Darlene; son, Greg; daughter, Melody Gram-mer; brothers, Rodney, Ernie and Terry; and one grandson.

• Jack Boggs, 69, Feb. 26, in Lockney. Boggs preached his final sermon the morning of his death. He was pastor of First Church in Roaring Springs. He was in ministry more than 46 years and was pastor of Texas churches that include Gillespie Church in Munday, First Church in Mertzon, Highland Church in Denton and First Church in Matador. He also served churches in North Dakota and Colorado, in addition to 12 years spent as pastor of a church in Britain. He is survived by his wife, Jo; daughters, Robbie Core and Rhonda Wiltshire; brothers, Andy and Bill; and six grandchildren.

• Glen Norman, 85, March 1, in Houston. He died from head trauma incurred in an auto-pedestrian accident. A minister for 66 years, he was pastor of a number of churches, including Calvary Church in Houston, First Church of Oak Cliff in Dallas, Trinity Church in Amarillo, Second Church in Corpus Christi, Richland Church in Richland, Wash., and Greenspoint Church, which he started in northwest Houston. He also participating in church- starting efforts in Alaska, Brazil, Jamaica, Korea, the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam. He was a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Wooster Church in Baytown in his later years. He was preceded in death by his wife, Eloise. He is survived by his sons, Kenneth, Price and David; daughter, Sarah Norman; and nine grandchildren.

• Amy Walker, 29, March 12 in Dallas. She was employed at Dallas Baptist University as online student coordinator. She is survived by her mother, Sharon Robinson; father, Bobby Walker; brother, Kevin; and grandparents, Wade and Mar-guerite Owen.

Retiring

• James Morrow, as pastor of Western Hills Church in Kerrville, May 1. In his more than 40 years of ministry, he was pastor of churches throughout Texas, including the Rio Grande Valley, Burnet, Ralls and Kerrville.

Event

• Youth at Mount Olive Church in Paris participated in World Vision’s 30-Hour Famine Feb. 24-25 and raised more than $1,800 to feed the poor. During the weekend, the youth participated in community service projects and studied Scripture on fasting.

Revivals

• Live Oak First Church, San Antonio; March 26-29; evangelist, Gordon Fort; music, Don Fellers; pastor, Donald Valenta.

• First Church, Paducah; March 26-29; evangelist, James Semple; music, Darrell Dundas; pastor, Lyn Means.

Posted: 3/17/06

Book reviews

A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer Edited by Carla Barnhill, (HarperSanFrancisco)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the authentic heroes of World War II.

A German Protestant theologian who spoke out fearlessly against Hitler and participated in an assassination plot against him, Bonhoeffer was hanged on Hitler’s orders three weeks before the Nazi dictator committed suicide on the eve of Germany’s surrender in April 1945.

Bonhoeffer’s fame today rests perhaps more on his political courage than on his theological views. In A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of a series of books drawing on the writings of significant thinkers, editor Carla Barnhill arranges spiritual exhortations from Bonhoeffer’s work into a kind of Christian religious almanac, offering one item for each day of the year.

The dark and tragic political events in which Bonhoeffer was involved are kept largely offstage, alluded to only when useful for making some spiritual point. Under appropriate dates, the reader finds laconic footnotes marking the author’s arrest and imprisonment and other pertinent events, but further commentary mainly is left to progressive evangelical minister Jim Wallis, who contributes an insightful introduction.

All sorts of topics are considered in this bite-sized format—the nature of sin and evil, love, peace, forgiveness, Christian community, authority, judgment and prayer. The tone is elevated and didactic, often highly abstract and somewhat ecumenical in tone.

Taken one daily page at a time, the book doubtless will have more impact than when read straight through over a week or so. It offers a kind of secular breviary for the religiously inclined lay Christian.

Some of Bonhoeffer’s bedrock personal religious convictions recur like themes in a musical work—the need for Christians to live their faith actively in the world by tackling its toughest problems, for example. He is contemptuous of those who merely talk a good game.

Perhaps Bonhoeffer’s most famous religious coinage, the term “cheap grace,” is the theme for several dates. It means simply praying and going through the Christian motions; “no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.”

Bonhoeffer showed his contempt for “cheap grace” in the most extreme way when he passed up a post abroad to return to Hitler’s Germany, well aware he probably was signing his own death warrant.

He plunged into work with the underground anti-Nazi “Confessing Church” and joined in a failed plot to kill Hitler—surely an extreme act for a man otherwise committed to Christian nonviolence.

But then, he once had written, “It is an evil time when the world lets injustice happen silently,” so he knew what he had to do. A lesser man might have dodged the issue to save his skin.

The 100th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birth passed in February largely unnoticed. He was hanged in the Flossenburg prison camp, just a couple of months after his 39th birthday.

Robert Finn writes for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. This article was distributed by Religion News Service.

Posted: 3/17/06

Baptist Briefs

Three students charged with Alabama church fires. Law enforcement officials arrested three men March 8 in connection with a string of nine fires at Baptist churches in rural Alabama. A 10th fire, although ruled arson, has yet to be connected to the initial nine. Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk, both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, said they set the fires as a “joke,” authorities said. Moseley and Debusk appeared in federal court March 8 on charges of arson and conspiracy, according to the office of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. Later that day, officials also arrested 20-year-old Matthew Lee Cloyd, a student at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. If convicted, the students could face a minimum sentence of five years for each church they burned, according to U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

BJC offers essay contest for teens. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has launched the 2006 Religious Liberty Essay Contest, seeking original compositions on the theme: “Why the separation of church and state is necessary to ensure religious liberty for all.” Open to all Baptist high school students in the classes of 2006 and 2007, the contest offers a grand prize of $1,000 and airfare and lodging for two to Washington, D.C. Second prize is $500, and third prize is $100. Winners will be announced in the summer of 2006 and will be featured in the BJC publication, Report from the Capital. The grand-prize winner also will be recognized Oct. 2 at the BJC board meeting in Washington, D.C. Essays should be 700 to 1,000 words. They will be judged on the depth of content and the skill with which they are written. Students should demonstrate a sound knowledge of the subject matter and support their assertions. For more information or to download a registration form and promotional flier, visit www.bjconline. org/contest/.

Central Seminary announces plans to move. Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., has announced plans to move, mostly to help defer rising maintenance costs on its 16-acre campus. Administrators at Central—an American Baptist school—fought the financial drain by offering online classes and operating out of a fraction of its 11 buildings, but a resource mobilization team composed of board members, alumni and administration voted to cut losses and find a new location. Seminary President Molly Marshall said in a letter to students and faculty that after 82 years at its current campus, finding a new location would help Central Seminary continue its mission. The seminary’s aging facility faces roughly $5 million in deferred maintenance costs, and the move will save more than $400,000 a year, Marshall said.

N.C. leader resigns over changes. The recent sharp right turn in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has prompted one member of its governing board to resign, saying the state convention is becoming “a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention.” Ken Boaz, pastor of Boonville Baptist Church in Boonville, resigned from the state board of directors, drawing objection to two actions taken at the North Carolina convention’s annual meeting in November. At that time, convention messengers agreed that money churches send to the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship should not count as state Cooperative Program gifts, and they directed the state’s board to approve a policy excluding any church that “knowingly affirms, approves or endorses homosexual behavior.”

Sibley moves from NAMB to Criswell. Jim Sibley, who served 10 years as coordinator of Jewish ministries with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, was named director of Criswell College’s Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies. The college formed the Pasche Institute in 2004 to train Christians in Jewish evangelism and ministries. Sibley and his wife, Kathy, served as Southern Baptist representatives in Israel 14 years.

Longtime professor Nash dies. Ronald Nash, who taught theology and philosophy for four decades at three schools, died March 10 at his home in Orlando, Fla., after a lengthy illness. He was 69. Nash was chairman of the department of philosophy and religion and director of graduate studies in humanities at Western Kentucky University, where he was on faculty from 1964 to 1991. Later, he was a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nash wrote more than 35 books on philosophy, theology and apologetics. He is survived by his wife, Betty Jane, and two children, Jeffrey and Jennifer.

Posted: 3/17/06

Posted: 3/17/06

BWA president offers global
perspective on the church

Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey recently spoke at several Texas Baptist churches, institutions and events as a part of his visit to the United States. Terri Jo Ryan, religion reporter for the Waco Tribune-Herald, interviewed him.

Q: What are some of the differences you’ve observed between Texas Baptist life and that in Great Britain?

A: I think the biggest difference is your Sunday school system. You have what is probably a core element of Baptist life in Texas—that is, the commitment to Sunday school. We don’t have that. We’ve tried that, but it hasn’t worked. I think there are lots more similarities, such as a commitment to local and global missions and your commitment to the fact that the world doesn’t stop at the Texas border, that there is life beyond there.

I think musically, you’ve got a much stronger tradition. … There has been a worship renaissance, not just in Baptist life in Britain but in many evangelical circles, which has re-established the Reformation principle of putting worship back as the property of the congregation, not a group of professionals.

There is a gain and a loss in that. The gain has been evident. It has made worship more a corporate experience. If you worship in the average Baptist church in Britain, the sense is that everybody is participating.

The loss is the loss of the traditional choir. And historians, I think, would be amazed to see the demise, even in my lifetime, of the church choir. Very, very few churches now have church choirs. They have music groups—there’s been a huge shift in that direction.

Q: So, there is a movement toward contemporary Christian music, then, on your side of the world?

A: Oh, huge. When I travel around the world, one of the disappointments I have, if I have a disappointment, it’s that you can be in South Africa, you could be in Hong Kong, you could even be in places in South Korea and Great Britain, and there’s almost a global hymnody. You long sometimes for that indigenous culture. But it’ll pass. Music has trends and phases, and it may have lasted the last 10 to 20 years, but there’s quite an influence in the United Kingdom now from places like Taize (France, an ecumenical monastery) and … the Celtic influences, a sort of blended worship. The majority of our Baptist churches are less traditional and more informal.

Q: How vital is the role of churches there? We are always hearing that Christianity seems irrelevant in the postmodern age, specifically in secularized Europe.

A: Institutional Christianity is in decline. You can’t deny that because the statistics are there. … But I think there are people, commentators and important sociologists like Grace Davie (director of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Exeter, U.K.) who have surveyed in Europe who would say that the continuing presence of religious symbol is going to be very important. … We have every 10 years a major census in the United Kingdom. In the last census (2001), it was revealed that 75 percent of the population when asked their chosen religion put down Christian. In this non-church-going age, only 10 percent of the population across Europe, a mean average, is going to services each week. All institutional Christianity has suffered.

But Christianity as a movement … especially in the United Kingdom, makes me spiritually optimistic. … I believe that every human being is made in the image of God, and the heart is restless until it rests in God. There is always that soul quest—the spiritual quest. The difference nowadays is that people don’t necessarily turn to Christianity or the church to fulfill that quest when there are all theses other avenues . … Some things about the church change—the structures, the outward form. But the core, the good news of Jesus Christ, doesn’t change though the centuries.

Q: What is the role of the Baptist World Alliance in fostering Christian unity? What should that role be?

A: One of the core values of the Baptist World Alliance since its inception has been that it stands for unity—unity among the various shades and differences of opinion among Baptists. It takes its place within the world communion of the Christian churches.

One of our great former presidents, Alexander Maclaren, at the very founding meeting of the BWA, was bold enough to get all the delegates there to quote the Apostles’ Creed, and we repeated it in Birmingham last year in England for our Centenary Congress.

He wanted to demonstrate that Baptists were part of the one universal church of Jesus Christ. Now, how we express that, in terms of our outward commitment, will vary. I do believe there is one true church, and Baptists are a part of it. But there will be some who say, “I cannot express that in friendship.”

I am one of the presidents of Churches Together of England (an ecumenical body), and I don’t deny that there are some very deep differences—sometimes to a breaking point—between Christian denominations. But I have to believe there is one true church of Jesus Christ, there is one true spiritual church of Jesus Christ, and Baptists are a part of it. … In a world that is so broken with division, I think I would affirm the principle of Jesus in that he prayed that his church would be one, so that the world would believe. The world finds it difficult to believe when it sees a disunited church.

Q: What kind of a witness is this to the world at large when there are major fault lines in Baptist life?

A: We know from Christian history as well as Scripture itself that there are times when Christians disagree so deeply that there is a parting of the ways. Barely is the young early church, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, hardly out of that first century before there are deep divisions showing up.

What I find difficult to cope with is what I call unnecessary division. There is what I call core doctrine, surrounding the central events of the life of Jesus, the unity of the Godhead—and it’s when people start to sort of subdivide which is what I find sad and unnecessary. It damages the integrity of the mission, no two ways about that. … There is an intimate relationship between the unity of the church and the witness of the church to a watching world. Now, we can have deep differences with those who are of other faith traditions, but if Baptists are not able to unite around a core of values that they believe, then I always find that a deep sadness.

Q: Can you speak about the Southern Baptist Convention’s withdrawal from the BWA more than a year ago? Any hopes of a reconciliation between it and the BWA?

A: We were saddened by the withdrawal of the Southern Baptist Convention. There was no rejoicing on the day that happened. We were sad because it was one of those moments, probably the most serious moment in terms of unity that we had faced in 100 years of our history; it happened on the eve of our centenary, it happened under the leadership of one of the most dynamic and gospel-loving presidents, Dr. Billy Kim, and I know he carried it as a heavy burden in his own heart that this had happened.

Speaking about the hopes of reconciliation, I was one of the 10 representatives of the Baptist World Alliance that met with the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville just before the split took place. We met in April (2004) when the decision to resign came in June. In the statement that was signed that day, although it became obvious on the horizon that there were no possible grounds for reconciliation, we did agree there would be regular meetings, there would be opportunities for SBC and BWA people to meet. I now count it as my responsibility at some point in the coming months to contact Morris Chapman (president of the SBC Executive Committee), whom I know well, and say, “Is it time that we had the first meeting since the withdrawal?”

Q: As a European and a Christian, can you speak to the concerns many have about the rise of a militant brand of Islam on the continent and Great Britain? What role can the BWA play in seeking peaceful relations between Christendom and moderate Islam?

A: What it has exposed is that the people who perpetrate such acts, these terrible atrocities, are a minority within the Muslim community. And we have had to work hard in the United Kingdom for peaceful relations.

I was a signatory with the Jewish, the Muslim, the Catholic and the Anglican leaders, of a statement (issued three days after the London bombings last July), where together we called such atrocities evil and barbaric. And we called for peace and calm and good community relations.

We’ve just founded, within the past month, the council for Christians and Muslims. We have a council for Christians and Jews. At the initiative of the archbishop of Canterbury, that came into being this year. The idea is to bring together a dialogue of Christian and Muslim scholars who will be able to speak together about these things. … I think Christians should be working so that Huntington’s Thesis (the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics, and the fault-lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future) doesn’t come true in our lifetime. It’s possible among people of good will.

When I’ve been in these Muslim-Jewish-Christian dialogues, their concerns are our concerns—their concerns for family values, their concerns for peaceful communities, their concern for law and order, and there are many, many people of good will.

Baptist life began in Europe in the 17th century, and some of the great things that were written in those early days about religious liberty were not just for religious liberty for Baptists but for all. We wanted everyone to have the freedom to exercise the soul competency the way they wanted to.

Q: What challenges do you see the world Baptist movement facing in the near future, and the rest of the 21st century?

A: As a Baptist Christian, I believe one of the goals of our world alliance is to share the faith that we have in Jesus Christ. We have to share it sensitively and appropriately, but every human being has a right to hear the good news of Jesus Christ in words or a form they can understand. We need to realize there are still millions of people who do not have access to words of Scripture. So there is a huge commitment to distributing the Bible so that people have the opportunity to read for themselves.

Baptists in many parts of the world have been at the forefront of the Make Poverty History movement. … We’ll be rolling out this summer a coordinated program on HIV/AIDS, to stand beside people who are sufferers.

We’ve already had some major international conferences on human trafficking. Drug trafficking is less of a problem than human trafficking. The trafficking of human beings at a time when, in Britain, we are approaching the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade, is a sad irony. This year the film of the life on William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, will be released. I’m hoping there is going to be a new awareness of how setting the slave free is still a very key element of our commitment.

Religious liberty is high on the agenda. Whether it be North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea or Burma, there are many, many oppressive regimes.

We were founding members of the U.N. as a (nongovernmental organization), and I’d like to see us strengthening our role there so we can have face-to-face conversations with the governments there. We have a human rights visit to Vietnam this May, and Texas Baptists are coming with me, so we will be meeting with government officials there.

Q: Any final thoughts?

A: If there were such a thing as back to basics, my own commitment as a Christian of 45 to 50 years is to be a serious follower—a serious disciple of Jesus Christ. That is my life’s commitment. I became a Christian when I was 17 or 18, and I promised to serve Jesus until the end, and where I saw his footprints I wanted to follow myself.

So for all the complexity my life is leading me into, one day I won’t have any titles like president. I will be, if God spares me, an old man, and the only title left to me will be disciple of Jesus. So therefore, that’s my priority. I’ve been working on the title I will carry for the longest time. I recommend that to any Christian—always be a disciple, a learner. I am always seeking to learn what he wants me to be.

Posted: 3/17/06

DOWN HOME:
A tornado, rain and a prairie set on fire

The radio announcer mispronounced Darrouzett (dare-uh-ZET), but he got all the others right—Booker, Follett, Lipscomb and Higgins.

And before he finished the list, I knew why he was reciting the names of every village in Lipscomb County: Grassfires.

Sure enough, local officials were thinking about evacuating the entire northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle. An incendiary mix of undiminished drought, unrelenting wind and unending prairie engulfed the county. And the flames threatened everything.

Most of his listeners never knew the announcer botched the pronunciation of Darrouzett. “Lipscomb County, where’s that?” they might have mused. Much closer to Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas than to Dallas.

But sitting in my car, driving home from work, I felt the heat of those grassfires. I felt part of my heritage was about to go up in flames.

Mother grew up in Lipscomb County, in Higgins, where old-timers still recall the tornado that devastated the community April 9, 1947—the last monster calamity to strike that part of the world.

By the time I was born, Mother and Uncle Norman were grown, of course. Grammar and Popo, my grandparents, had moved over into Oklahoma, but they still owned the family home. When Popo took me with him to check on things, I soaked up the place and the people who had shaped my family and contributed to who I was.

In 1987, we went back to the cemetery to bury Popo. Grammar showed me the eight graves Popo and another man hand-dug after the twister tore up their town.

Listening to the announcer talk about the threat to Lipscomb County, I couldn’t help but think about the specter of flames sweeping right over Popo’s body. I’ve never seen a burned-over cemetery. Still, I can imagine that if the grave markers don’t get too charred, the place might be pretty if spring rains ever come again and grass springs green and new again.

Homes and stores and churches and the school are a different matter. All the markers that hold memories for generations—not to mention the shelter and livelihood of folks who live there today—could be gone in a matter of minutes.

Given their choices, I’d imagine most folks would take their chances with a prairie fire as opposed to a tornado. But a conflagration that spreads out for miles and eats up hundreds of thousands of acres of farms and ranchland is a ferocious beast. And 59 years from now, a middle-aged Texan will remember his grandparents talking about how they survived the Fire of ’06.

As I write this, I don’t know “the rest of the story.” The weather forecasters are talking about the possibility of precipitation. But today, the wind still blows in Lipscomb County and across the Panhandle. And farms and ranches and homes and towns sit before the fickle mercy of nature.

Pray for rain.

–-Marv Knox

Posted: 3/17/06

Cultural changes call for fresh expressions

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—Cultural changes require God’s people to be open to fresh expressions of the gospel, Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey told a Texas Baptist conference.

“When there is a change in culture, that constitutes a fresh calling from the missionary God,” Coffey said at Epicenter, an event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Cultural upheaval may be “the headache of the traditional church,” but it can become “the heartbeat of the fresh-expression church,” he asserted.

Churches respond in healthy ways to societal change by asking critical questions, telling their story in new ways, reflecting theologically, listening carefully and drawing conclusions thoughtfully, Coffey said.

“Recognize God’s hand in social upheaval and cultural changes,” he said.

Societal change sparks spiritual hunger, and Christians can point people to a relationship with God that truly satisfies.

Like a vendor who distributes tiny samples of a tasty treat to passersby to whet their appetites, Christians should display God’s grace in a way that causes people to hunger for more, Coffey said.

“We are God’s free samples,” he said.

Christians need to pray for spiritual discernment and missionary intelligence so they will know which traditional expressions they should retain and which they should leave behind, he said.

Fresh-expression churches may find it easier than traditional churches to reach people with the gospel, but they could be challenged when it comes to making converts into disciples, Coffey said.

Churches need to distinguish between a blind allegiance to traditionalism and a genuine need for the richness found in tradition, he noted.

“Fresh-expression churches should have a respect for the past,” he said.

“You don’t have a church for today without having the church of the past.”

Posted: 3/17/06

Chat rooms provide open
window into students’ world

By Greg Garrison

Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)—The three college students accused of setting fire to nine Alabama churches left a computer chat room trail that was a window into their personalities.

Within hours after Ben Moseley, 19; Russell DeBusk, 19; and Matthew Cloyd, 20, were arrested March 8 on arson charges, reporters were mining their personal postings on the Facebook website. All three had registered for the site when they were Birmingham-Southern College students; Cloyd later transferred to the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

The students didn’t talk directly about the fires, but they bragged about excessive drinking and partying in messages rife with obscene language.

In one of the few posts not full of obscenity, Cloyd wrote Nov. 28: “Moseley/Monday night/Case of Beer/Powerful Rifle/Lots of Ammo/Green 4Runner/2 complete idiots/1 pack of camel lights/0 law enforcement officers/33 dead innocent whitetailed deer/insanely high speeds.”

The postings illustrate how many students inhabit a cyberspace world in which peers celebrate wild antics under the illusion they are anonymous and isolated, possibly endangering their futures.

“That’s a bizarre phenomenon,” UAB President David Pollick said. “It seems to be giving people a license in words and deeds. It gives one a sense of anonymity, of isolation. That’s an illusion. They do that without regard that they’re creating a living vitae for themselves. They wrote their own letter of reference.”

Internet experts agree.

“A lot of kids don’t understand that anybody who wants to—police, parents, employers—can see what they’re writing,” said attorney Parry Aftab, executive director of the nonprofit WiredSafety.org, which offers tips on Internet safety.

Personal pages, even old postings kept in archives, can be used in background checks when teenagers apply for colleges and scholarships, or when students leave college and apply for jobs, Aftab noted. Some firms hired to run background checks on applicants already use them. School administrators monitor them. Police can find evidence of crimes.

“We now have law enforcement who are using Facebook postings to prosecute students,” Aftab said. “Schools have prevented kids from enrolling or expelled students because of postings. It can prevent them from getting jobs because of their postings.

“You are dealing with kids in college who are bright enough to know the difference, but they don’t get it,” Aftab said. “If they are in a computer room typing things in with their friends, they think those are the only kids who are going to see it. It’s open to tens of millions of people.”

In theory, Facebook users from one college cannot view users from another college unless they are linked as friends and have a valid college e-mail address to sign up. But people often steal or borrow what they need to get online.

“Anybody can get on there,” Aftab said. “It’s not as hard as they think. It doesn’t take much.”

Social networking websites such as MySpace, Xanga, Bebo, Friendster, LiveJournal and Facebook allow individuals to chat and design their own profile pages with photo galleries, graphics, sound and video clips, profiles and journal entries.

They are popular with students but also attract many adults—including sexual predators.

Dan Bowman, a counselor for Personal Relationships Inc. who has led seminars on Internet safety at churches, said most parents he counsels are shocked when they see their kids’ profiles on Facebook.

“I’ve had parents cry, reading that their kids had sex or did drugs,” Bowman said. “It’s like a competition to see how wild they are. They feel comfortable saying provocative things. It provides a forum for deviant behavior.”

Facebook, founded in 2004, is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and has several million registered college student users. Faculty and alumni of schools can register, and it has recently expanded to high schools. For college sites, a school e-mail address is required to join and to post interests, background, contact information and pictures.

“Facebook’s pretty good at policing their site, but it’s almost impossible when you’ve got millions of students,” said Aftab, who has worked with Facebook and other websites on security issues.

Pollick said he’s troubled by the cyberspace culture that seems to obsess the current generation of college students.

“It’s mind-boggling,” Pollick said. “This is part of the climate in which we educate.”

Behavior glamorized on the website may have created such an approving atmosphere of risk-taking and prank-pulling that it could promote not only uncivil but illegal acts, Pollick suggested.

“What is it that would make somebody think that would be acceptable behavior?” Pollick said of torching rural churches.

“You look at their families, their life patterns, there would be nothing to indicate this type of action, this type of blindness. The parents are sitting there wondering how this could happen.”

Some say the cyberchats betray a glimpse of students wallowing in a moral quagmire.

“Knowing young people, one thing led to another, it totally went overboard, way beyond any sense of moral responsibility,” said Duane Schliep, pastor of Rehobeth Baptist Church in Bibb County, which was burned to the ground Feb. 3.

“Students today have created a gray world between what is clearly wrong and clearly right,” Pollick said. “How does that become rampant burning of churches? I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t think anybody does. We are recognizing our own limitations.”

Greg Garrison writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.