Posted: 11/14/05

Michael Bell elected first
African-American BGCT president

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

AUSTIN — The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) announced today at its annual conference, that it has selected Michael A. Bell as its new president.

Bell, the first African American ever elected to this post, currently serves as senior pastor at Greater St. Stephen First Church in Fort Worth and as first vice-president of the BGCT.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas is the largest non-Catholic Christian group in the state, with a membership of 5,700 churches and 2.5 million people.

Bell has long supported the ethnic diversity and inclusion of the BGCT.

“The door is open. There is no need to keep wasting time looking for the keys. It’s open,” stated Bell, addressing a large crowd at a local church Sunday, “Let’s walk through and be part of what God has for the Baptist General Convention — all of the Baptist General Convention of Texas — to do.”

Bell holds a Doctor of Ministry from the Interdenominational Theological Center and Morehouse School of Religion, a Masters of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at Tyler, and a Master of Divinity degree from Howard University Divinity School.

“God didn’t make everybody short, black and bald,” Bell added, in his trademark charismatic style while rubbing his hand over his head, “and he didn’t make just roses — he made daffodils and bluebonnets, too. We need to recognize and celebrate our diversity.”

Posted: 11/11/05

Baylor regents unanimously elect Lilley president

By Marv Knox & Ken Camp

Baptist Standard

WACO–Baylor University regents unanimously elected John Lilley, president of the University of Nevada at Reno, as the Texas Baptist university's 13th president on a first ballot following the unanimous recommendation of an 11-member regents presidential search committee.

Lilley, 66, is a consensus builder who impressed the regents with his collaborative approach to leadership and love for Baylor, Regents Chair Will Davis said. He takes office Jan. 2, succeeding Robert Sloan, who became university chancellor June 1.

He earned three degrees from Baylor, and in January, the Baylor Alumni Association awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award–the organization's highest honor.

Lilley–the son of a Louisiana Baptist pastor–is a licensed Baptist minister who served as a minister of music during his student years.

Although he has been an ordained ruling elder in Presbyterian churches in recent years, Lilley and his wife, Gerrie, said they looked forward to “coming home” and rejoining First Baptist Church in Waco.

“I've always told my Presbyterian pastors, 'I may be joining your church, but I'm a Baptist,'” Lilley said, noting that distinctive Baptist principles were life-shaping beliefs “learned at my father's knee.”

Lilley described Baylor as “the crown jewel of Texas Baptists” and said he looked forward to a strong relationship with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Given the choice between traveling to Washington, D.C., to participate in Baylor's bid to obtain the George W. Bush Presidential Library or going to the BGCT annual meeting in Austin, Lilley said he chose to meet with Texas Baptists, noting the library presentation was in good hands.

Lilley acknowledged this move at this point in his career is something he would do “only for Baylor.”

The president-elect showed emotion when he recalled leaving a small-town Louisiana Baptist pastor's home to study at Baylor in the late 1950s.

“The atmosphere I experienced–in the classroom and out of the classroom and at First Baptist Church here in Waco–that was a transformative experience for me,” he said.

And the opportunity to come back to Baylor is a special privilege, Lilley added. “To be president of a place where you can give full expression to your faith, where its naturalness is unleashed, already it is a great joy.”

Fielding questions from reporters in a news conference and in an interview, Lilley faced the issues that have divided the “Baylor family” in the past few years, as well as specifics about how he will serve the school that has a long history as a Texas Baptist institution but also designs on prominence far beyond the Lone Star State.

Baylor regents, faculty, alumni and students have been divided over the future of the university, primarily the leadership of former President Sloan.

Baylor 2012, the school's 10-year vision to make it a top-tier university with a distinctively Christian character, has been the flashpoint of controversy.

Among other issues, 2012 has raised questions regarding the appropriate balance of faith and learning, and it has pitted faculty against each other, with long-term teachers who excelled in the classroom against newer scholars whose emphasis is on research.

Mending the rift will require “big ears,” Lilley said. “There needs to be lots of talk, lots of conversations. … My sense is that everyone, No. 1, loves this university and wants it to grow and prosper as a Baptist institution and also as a top-tier institution.”

Excelling in academics and holding fast to Baylor's reputation as a Christian university in the Baptist tradition will require balance and touch, he said. And it means recognizing constituents within the Baylor community will disagree–“as Baptists do,” he added.

Lilley noted he has studied Baylor 2012 and will seek to lead Baylor to fulfill its aims.

“Its fundamental premise is that Christian universities in the Baptist tradition … will remain so through great effort,” he said, acknowledging many universities founded by churches and denominations have cast off their mantles of faith as they have sought academic prominence. “It's very easy to lose that focus (on faith). Our question is: Can we maintain and enhance it?”

In recent years, Baylor's constituencies have argued about how to balance faith and learning–its legacy as a Baptist Christian university as well as its desire to be respected for its academics, he said, but he delineated the terms of the disagreement. “Baylor has had a spirited debate about how to do it, … but agreement that it should be done.”

In recent years, the Baylor community not only has sought to handle the faith-and-learning debate, but also to grapple with the classroom-versus-research debate.

“To take on either of those issues simultaneously is a huge undertaking,” he admitted.

Penn State University at Erie, which he led for 21 years, shifted from being a school noted for its classroom teaching to a research university during his administration.

While long-term teaching faculty can feel diminished when new research professors arrive, the transition can be made sympathetically, he said, noting the important factor is everyone is valued.

A school like Baylor can honor and affirm excellent classroom teachers while progressing in research, he said, adding teaching is central and scholarship is crucial.

Resolving the faith-and-learning debate is even more difficult, Lilley said.

“We must find a way to be intentional about Baylor's faith,” he stressed, noting Baylor 2012's emphasis on this is appropriate but not easy.

“We have to figure out how to balance this,” he added. “The only way to deal with this is to talk it through. I can't resolve it, but I think I can create an environment where reasonable people can come together and work this out.”

Asked if he would be a unifier who could bring reconciliation to Baylor, Lilley said: “That's every president's wish. Every president wants to have an intellectual community that pulls together. … Spirit, trust and fellowship are very important.”

Underscoring his sense that Baylor's relationship with the BGCT is vital, Lilley said he would be a Texas Baptist within two days, when he and his wife would join First Baptist Church in Waco, where he was a member when he was a student at Baylor. He also intends to attend church with every member of the Baylor board of regents.

“Baylor has been the crown jewel of Texas Baptists–and it still is,” he said. “The relationship is very important. I will do everything I can to strengthen that relationship.”

Although Lilley has not been a member of a Baptist church for much of his adult life, “I was raised a Baptist and always have been a Baptist,” he said.

His father, Ernest Lilley, was a longtime Baptist pastor in Louisiana, and his mother, Sibyl, was a schoolteacher and strong Christian influence.

“My father led me to Christ at age 6,” he recalled, noting some people may question whether he was too young to make such a commitment. “Having been raised as I was raised, it was authentic.”

From his father, Lilley learned bedrock Baptist principles, he said. “Eternal salvation by faith, not of works; immersion; soul freedom; priesthood of the believer–all those things I learned at my father's knee. … Faith has been a great part of my life.”

In recent years, he has attended Presbyterian churches, primarily because of worship, he said.

“Music is at the core” of worship for him, he explained. “I grew up on a bit of rock 'n roll, but I want to have that organ.”

Outside the South, he has not found Baptist churches that provide the kind of worship that touches him spiritually, he added. “Not that there aren't Baptist churches (in the communities where he has lived), and I certainly don't condemn them. But, simply speaking, (contemporary worship) doesn't speak to me.”

So, he and his family have been members of large, downtown churches that engage in worship with organs and choirs and stirring preaching, he said.

Lilley majored in music at Baylor, earning bachelor's degrees in 1961 and 1962 and a master of music degree in 1964. He earned his doctorate in music at the University of Southern California in 1971.

Lilley became the University of Nevada at Reno's president in April 2001 after 21 years leading Penn State at Erie. He began his academic career as a faculty member at the Claremont Colleges in California. In 1976, he was named assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Kansas State University.

He and his wife, Gerrie, have four grown children and three grandchildren.

Posted: 11/11/05

Musical upbringing provided
foundation for ministry

By Leann Callaway

Special to the Baptist Standard

ABILENE–When future worship leader and Christian recording artist David Frush was a small child, his parents realized God had given him a unique gift to minister through music.

As a second grader, Frush was deeply affected by the death of a classmate who died after a two-year battle with leukemia. Early the next morning, Frush's mother found him sitting at the piano and playing a song that he wrote–a composition performed two days later at his friend's funeral.

Sherry Frush, now president of the Texas Music Teachers Association, introduced her son to music at an early age, so she wasn't surprised when he expressed his deepest feelings musically.

“My mom took me under her guidance and taught me how to play and write compositions for the piano,” he said. “I took lessons with her for 14 years and participated in various recitals and competitions for performance and composition. During this time, my mother also worked with me on vocal instruction.

“I am blessed to have such a musical family and definitely give credit to them for inspiring me to live a life filled with music. My parents always encouraged me to develop my relationship with God and also inspired me to find ways to use my talents to glorify him.”

During Frush's junior year in high school, he began leading the worship band for the youth ministry at First Baptist Church in Abilene.

“First Baptist Abilene always challenged and encouraged me to reach my full potential in Christ and also gave me opportunities to develop my passion for worship,” he said.

Around that time, Frush also began planning a future career in medicine, inspired by his friend's illness. But after serving as a camp counselor for seventh- and-eighth grade boys, he felt God was calling him to reach people for Christ by using music.

“It was at this camp that I experienced a life-changing event. During the Wednesday night worship service, each member of my group came up and personally thanked me for being their leader and informed me that they had either accepted Christ as their Savior or re-dedicated their life to him. I will never forget that moment,” he said.

“The presence of the Lord has never been more real to me than at that time. I could not grasp the fact that God had used me to reach out to those students. I also felt God calling me to a decision that night. I wanted to be able to always encounter moments like that, and a desire to preach to the nations was ignited within me.”

That night, Frush called his parents and told them how God was stirring his heart.

“I knew that God was calling me to serve him through ministry, and I desired to walk in obedience,” he said.

“During my senior year, worship leader Jeff Berry began to disciple me and helped develop my calling for worship. He met with me on a weekly basis and not only held me accountable, but also gave me advice and leadership on what exactly it means to be a worship leader. He also invited me to sing and play with his band at various events throughout the year. This experience helped me understand what I was created to do. I knew that the Lord desired me to surrender to this calling for the music ministry, and I could not wait to see what he had in store.”

Frush attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, and he led worship at various church and youth events across the state. He also served on the worship team and executive staff for Grace Bible study, a weekly collegiate Bible study with nearly 1,000 students attending.

Three years ago, he released his first worship CD, Journey Home.

“I decided to name my first project Journey Home because I feel that I am on a journey that is preparing me for my true home in heaven,” he explained. “Each song reflects where I have been in a particular time of my own spiritual journey. I pray that this CD will help lead people to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and will also serve as an inspiration to fellow believers by encouraging them to give everything for the cause of Christ.”

While maintaining a busy touring schedule, Frush served as a youth intern and interim youth pastor at First Baptist Church of Abilene. This fall, he participated in the Embassy Music Tour, sponsored by World Vision.

He recently became associate minister for students and worship at First Baptist Church of Forney, and he also will be the worship leader for the church's new Saturday night contemporary worship services, scheduled to begin in January.

“I am called to serve on the road and desire to use our ministry to preach to the nations, but I believe that having a local church's support is a necessity,” he said.

“My aspirations of leading worship are to inspire, challenge and encourage people to encounter an intimate time of praise and adoration with their Father in heaven. I will always surrender to this mission and strive to encourage others to do the same.

“I believe that God uses the heart of a person to reach out to others. It is not always the people with the best musical skill that God uses. The heart is so much more important, because it allows the leader to be submissive to the Lord's leadership for any service and also contains the desire to truly use the music as a form of ministry.”

Posted: 11/11/05

Ancient church ruins
discovered near Megiddo, Israel

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

MEGIDDO, Israel (ABP)–The ruins of an ancient Christian church, found within the walls of an Israeli prison, may prove to be one of the earliest churches ever discovered and could change the historical understanding of the Christian church in the region.

Two elaborate mosaics loaded with Christian symbols–presumably the floor of a relatively large sanctuary–were unearthed recently by prisoners working on an expansion project for the Megiddo prison, near the site of the end-of-the-world battle of Armageddon described in the book of Revelation.

Some archaeologists say the evidence dates the mosaics to the late third century or early fourth century, when Christianity was outlawed by the occupying Romans and most Christian worship was held secretly in homes.

If the church was operating in the third century, it “would be very surprising, since Christia-nity was persecuted sporadically until the conversion of (Roman Emperor) Constantine around (A.D.) 312,” said Richard Vinson, professor of New Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.

“If it proves to be as early as some of the early news reports suggest, it would be much earlier than most scholars of early Christianity would expect such a thing.” Two prominent fish symbols at the center of one mosaic, pottery shards found on top of the floor, and the style of Greek used in the mosaics' inscriptions all suggest the floor was made in the late third century. Soon thereafter, the symbol of the cross replaced the fish as the dominant worship symbol, archaeologists say.

One of the Megiddo inscriptions credits a woman named Aketous for paying for a table used in worship. Archaeologists say such tables were replaced by altars in churches of the fourth century and later.

The earliest existing churches are considered the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, both from after A.D. 330, decades after Constantine's decree legalizing Christianity. But little of the original buildings exists in either case. The 30-foot-by-15-foot floor of the Megiddo church would be a major find.

But even a date in the late 4th century would be significant, scholars say.

“Even though by that time Christianity was favored in the (Roman) Empire, this would be one of the earliest–if not the earliest–building discovered,” Vinson said.

Posted: 11/11/05

Novelist trades vampire
tales for early life of Christ

By Benedicta Cipolla

Religion News Service

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (RNS)–The queen of darkness has seen the light.

In her latest book, Christ the Lord, novelist Anne Rice turns away from the doomed souls of her best-selling tales about vampires and witches in favor of a first-person account of the 7-year-old Jesus.

“I was sitting in church talking to (God) about it, and I finally realized there was no holding back anymore,” said Rice, 64, who returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 after a 30-year absence.

“I just said, 'From now on, it's all going to be for you.' And the book I felt I had to write was the life of Christ. … When my faith was given back to me by God, redemption became a part of the world in which I lived. And I wasn't going to write any more books where that wasn't the case. You do not have to be transgressive in order to achieve great art.”

With a distinct emphasis on the devout Jewishness of Jesus and his extended family, the novel–published Nov. 1 with a first print run of 500,000 copies–depicts their first year in Nazareth after leaving Egypt following the death of King Herod. The Gospel of Matthew reports Jesus, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt shortly after his birth to escape a death sentence by Herod.

Rice meticulously recounts the daily life of Jews in Galilee against the backdrop of Roman occupation, detailing purification rites, Sabbath study, construction work in the nearby city of Sepphoris and trips to the Temple in Jerusalem for feasts and animal sacrifices.

“The pious picture of the holy family in a little carpentry shop on a hill–that's not accurate,” Rice said in her first interview about the book, speaking from her new home in California, where she moved five months before Hurricane Katrina devastated her hometown of New Orleans. “The challenge was to get some fictional verisimilitude there, to really present this as a vibrant society in which people are working and living together.”

Rice devoted much of the two and a half years she spent on the novel delving into research, from ancient Jewish philosophers and historians like Philo and Josephus, to contemporary historical Jesus studies. At times, what she found disturbed her, as she explains in an author's note following the novel.

“Some of the people in New Testament scholarship don't hide their bias at all. They're just out to prove Jesus wasn't God, but, of course, that's impossible to prove,” she said, taking issue as well with what she called “trends” and “fads,” such as theories that Jesus was a political revolutionary or married.

Rice also critiques the widespread dating of the Gospels to between about 60 and 90 A.D., and the theory that they appeared decades apart.

Instead, she believes they were produced around the same time, and all before Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Rice chooses 11 B.C. as the date of Jesus' birth. While she said she found one scholarly precedent for doing so, she uses the earlier date mainly to allow the 7-year-old Jesus to arrive from Egypt in time to witness the well-documented violence that erupted in Judea and Galilee after Herod's death in 4 B.C.

That seminal event in childhood is certain to influence Jesus in Rice's planned subsequent volumes. “At the birth of Jesus, the biggest story you would have heard–I can't prove it was ever mentioned, but I can't imagine it wasn't–was about the day the Romans came,” said John Dominic Crossan, professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University and the author of The Historical Jesus. “I would have no problem with someone saying that the constitutive challenge for Jesus growing up in that period was 'OK, what about God, what about Rome, what about violence, what about resistance?'”

Beyond reconstructing the daily life of the times, Rice focuses on the young Jesus discovering–and grappling with–his divinity. Her questions are less about what would Jesus do, and more about how he would think.

Rice's Jesus is conflicted and confused, a dutiful son who comes to terms with what he first only senses and then fully grasps–that he is the Son of God, yet fully human. “You can't write a book, or at least I couldn't, from the viewpoint of someone who knew he was God at every moment,” Rice said. “But I could write a book from the viewpoint of somebody who deliberately separated himself from that knowledge so he could experience things as a human being.”

The Gospels are almost silent on Jesus' childhood, giving Rice a wide berth to take certain liberties with her story. In the book, Jesus is taught in Alexandria by the Hellenistic philosopher Philo, which in turns allows for her Jesus to be fluent in Greek, something many historians doubt was the case.

Rice also borrows two incidents–the slaying of a playmate and the turning of clay sparrows into live ones–from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a second-century work that shows Jesus learning to use his divine powers for good. It never was accepted as part of the Christian Scriptures.

But again, biblical scholars question why Rice is devoting so much time to Jesus' childhood, when the Gospel writers seemed to think it unimportant.

“If you want to talk about the infancy of Jesus, it's perfectly valid, but please don't say you're doing it according to the spirit of the Gospels,” said Crossan. “Only two of the Gospels even bother to talk about Jesus' birth, and only Luke bothered to mention the infant at age 12. The other (Gospels) figure that's not important. Let's get to what really counts, the public life.”

Rice said her greatest hope for people reading Christ the Lord is that they will at least begin to think about Jesus, if not come to believe in him. Due in part to her dismay at the damage done in Christian relations with the Jewish community in the wake of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, she plans to send copies of her novel to Jewish leaders.

“Of course, they're not going to turn around and give a quote to a book called Christ the Lord, but I want them to know that I understand Jesus is a Jew and all his family were, and all his apostles and all the first Christians were. … I hope it will generate good will,” she said.

Rice's ultimate goal, she said, is for readers “to think, 'Wow, maybe he did exist.' That was the challenge, to make it real. The greatest compliment people pay me when they read this book is when they say, 'I was there.'”

Posted: 11/11/05

Baptists respond to new Baylor president

By Marv Knox & Ken Camp

Baptist Standard

WACO–Baylor University Regents Chair Will Davis of Austin characterized the unanimity surrounding President-elect John Lilley's selection as “remarkable.” Given the deep divisions among Baylor's various constituencies in recent years, others called the vote “miraculous.”

Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Charles Wade considered Lilley's election an answer to prayer.

“I have been in conversation with some of those who brought his name forward, and they have been excited to tell me that this man understands Texas Baptists and wants to be a faithful partner in helping Baylor University and the BGCT move together to achieve great goals to the glory of God,” Wade said.

“I have prayed for and believed that the regents of Baylor would make the right decision in this process. Of everything I know about John Lilley, I am confident they have done that. I look forward to introducing him to the convention in Austin and to a fruitful collaboration to advance the kingdom of God in Texas and around the world.

“I believe this signals that the prayers that have been offered for Baylor through this difficult process have been answered, and the future is as bright as it as has ever been for Baylor.”

Bill Brian, chairman of the regents' presidential search committee, agreed Lilley's unanimous election has a divine root.

“I am sure some wondered if we could bring a unanimous recommendation,” Brian said. “Lots of Texas Baptists have been praying for us, and their prayers have been answered.”

Lilley's qualities for bridging the Baylor divide are apparent, he added.

“He has wide and deep experience leading universities,” Brian explained. “He is a Baylor grad for whom Baylor and First Baptist Church in Waco were transforming experiences.”

“The fact his assignments have kept him at some distance from the issues that have divided Baylor” also is a plus, he said. “He is unfettered in leading Baylor to move forward.”

Brian predicted Lilley will succeed in reunifying the university. “He wants to, and he will need help from the regents, faculty and staff, students, alumni and Texas Baptists to make it happen. … It will be a collaborative effort to continue the healing (Interim President) Bill Underwood began, but he can do it.”

Clyde Glazener, pastor of Gambrell Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth and the BGCT representative on a presidential search advisory committee, said the regents and search committee questioned Lilley thoroughly about his commitment to Baptist principles, and they were convinced of his dedication to them.

“This a very good thing–a very positive thing,” he said.

Stan Allcorn, a regent and pastor of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, insisted Lilley's involvement in the Presbyterian Church was not an issue.

“We heard his testimony. We heard his wife's testimony. He sounds like he could have been Herschel Hobbs' next door neighbor,” he said, referring to the renowned Oklahoma Baptist pastor-theologian who chaired the committee that drafted the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message, a pivotal doctrinal document for the denomination.

Allcorn characterized the unanimous votes by both the search committee and the regents as “miraculous–maybe not quite the same as the parting of the Red Sea, but certainly something that doesn't happen every day.”

John Wilkerson, a regent from Lubbock, predicted Lilley will be able to bring Baylor's period of disharmony to a close. “His skills and love for Baylor will make him a great president for our university,” Wilkerson said.

“Because of his love for Baylor, his knowledge of Baylor history and his ability to get along with about everybody, I think he can and will unite the divergent factions of the Baylor family.”

David Malone, president of the Baylor Alumni Association, praised Lilley's selection. “I am equally confident Dr. Lilley is the right president for Baylor at this time,” Malone said, noting Lilley is experienced at all levels of academic administration.

Lilley possesses a rather unique quality among loyal Baylor alumni, since he has lived and worked far away from the campus and has been geographically distant from the Baylor battles, he said.

“He doesn't have a dog in this fight,” Malone insisted. “He was able to come in and win the trust of every person on the presidential and advisory search committees.”

Regent Randy Ferguson of Austin commended Lilley for being “very open, very frank, very honest with the board” and described him as “a very compassionate man who stands for the right things. He loves Baylor and wants Baylor to be all it can be.”

Posted: 11/11/05

Alabama Baptists deny
brouhaha over brewer's water

CLEWISTON, Fla. (ABP)–Southern Baptist disaster-relief leaders have denied reports–spread widely across the Internet–that a group of their volunteers in Florida refused to give water to victims of Hurricane Wilma because it came from a beer-brewing company.

A Fort Myers, Fla., television news crew first reported the alleged incident Oct. 28. NBC-2 reported workers cooking meals near First Baptist Church of Clewiston, Fla., under the banner of Southern Baptist Convention disaster-relief services, declined to hand out canned water provided by Anheuser-Busch.

The story was quickly picked up by several Internet weblogs, prompting criticism of Southern Baptists. But the Alabama Baptist newspaper reported the television station's story wasn't entirely accurate.

Keith Hinson, spokesman for the Alabama Baptist State Convention, said: “It is an absolute falsehood to suggest–as many irresponsible bloggers have–that the Baptist volunteers withheld the basic needs of life from Floridians impacted by the hurricane. Contrary to misinterpretations of news reports, no one was denied access to water.”

Southern Baptist feeding units–such as the one set up in Clewiston by Alabama Baptists–typically cook meals that either are distributed on site or taken out into the community by the Red Cross. Such sites often do not serve as distribution locations for water, ice or any commodities other than hot meals.

Vernon Lee, an Alabama Baptist volunteer at the site, told the Alabama Baptist paper the Anheuser-Busch truck arrived and was authorized by Red Cross officials to unload its cans of water, even though the site was not designated for water distribution.

Tim Bridges, pastor of the Clewiston church, said the Anheuser-Busch logo–an eagle inside a capital “A”–was offensive to him and some church members. “I didn't want to send out a mixed message,” he said, the Alabama Baptist newspaper reported.

“All that was said was that First Baptist Church people would not be the ones handing it out,” he explained. “We didn't refuse the water. Others were giving it out. We were handing out (SBC-supplied) water hand over fist.”

Red Cross volunteers, who were working the site with Baptist volunteers, apparently distributed the Busch water. And, the pastor added, Baptist volunteers would have done the same if they had run out of other water.

Baptist workers noted several other distribution stations nearby–including one across the street from the church–were handing out water as well.

“I would have no problem giving the people the (Anheuser-Busch water) if they were thirsty, but they were not thirsty,” Lee said.

Posted: 11/11/05

Brantley Center houses volunteers

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)–What do you do when you run a homeless shelter and the city has evacuated all the homeless? That's the situation facing Tobey Pitman, director of the Brantley Mission Center in New Orleans.

As the city rebuilds from Hurricane Katrina, Pitman is among the many local residents who must adjust to a new sense of normal. “We're retooling our ministry,” said Pitman, 50. “We've gotten out of the homeless business temporarily because there are no homeless.”

Instead, the Brantley Center reopened as a 250-bed dorm for Baptist volunteers coming from throughout the country to rebuild churches and homes. “There's at least a year's work to be done,” he said. “We just hope the interest is not lost in coming to New Orleans.”

Originally housed in a rented gambling hall, the center later relocated to a hotel in the French Quarter before it moved again to its current location in 1962. In the 1940s, it was named for Clovis Brantley, a local pastor and leader of the agency that became the North American Mission Board, who became known as the “father of urban ministries.”

Posted: 11/11/05

Baptist Briefs

Alabama Baptist conservatives declare mission accomplished. Alabama Baptist Conservatives, a network of pastors organized in 1997, officially disbanded recently, saying they accomplished their goal of steering the state's Baptist convention in "a conservative direction." The group–originally known as Southern Baptist Conservatives of Alabama–formed out of concern about Cooperative Baptist Fellowship activity in the state, said former moderator John Killian, pastor of Maytown Baptist Church in Mulga, Ala. "We did not want to go the direction of Texas and Virginia, where there was a split in the state convention and the original convention aligned with the moderate forces," he said.

Hungarian Baptists discover no quake survivors. A Hungarian Baptist Aid search-and-rescue team, who arrived two days after an earthquake hit Pakistan, found no survivors beneath the ruins of schools in northern Pakistan. However, the team attended to almost 400 casualties during their first five days on the scene. As the rescue and recovery work continued, hundreds of victims who had been without food came down from mountain villages carrying the injured with them. The Hungarian rescue team–two medical doctors, two paramedics, two technical-rescue experts, two rescue dogs, a rescue commander and a coordinator–helped search three school buildings and remove several bodies from the ruins. All the team members participated in distributing aid and helped guide helicopters to places of need. The unique work of the Hungarian team is coordinated through Baptist World Aid, the relief arm of the Baptist World Alliance. BWA is supporting the earthquake relief effort with an initial $40,000 grant to Hungarian Baptist Aid.

GuideStone offers dental plan choices. GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention will offer a choice of three dental plans through CIGNA Dental beginning Jan. 1. Southern Baptist ministers, denominational employees and seminary students are eligible to participate in the dental plans available through GuideStone. Dental plans for 2006 will include two plans available in all states and a dental HMO plan available in 35 states. A list of dentists participating in the CIGNA Dental network can be found at www.cigna.com or by calling CIGNA at (800) 244-6224. For rates and a summary of benefits, visit www.Guide Stone.org or call (800) 262-0511.

Posted: 11/11/05

Transforming Community:
Buckner helps Broadway
Church minister to homeless

By Jenny Pope

Buckner Benevolences

FORT WORTH–"I'm an addict. I'm addicted to crack cocaine," Johnny admitted. It's a short, truthful declaration that establishes the reason for Johnny's motivation–and torment.

”I'm trying to kick this dope habit,” he said.

“I was off of it for six years, but then I had a bad breakup and some other things, and I got back on it in 2000. I'm clean this morning. That's all I can hope for.”

Johnny (left), a crack cocaine addict, helps load groceries at the North Texas Food Bank for delivery to the Baptist Center food pantry, a Buckner Children and Family Services and Broadway Baptist Church collaboration located south of downtown Fort Worth. (Photo by Russ Dilday)

It's a bright, cloudless morning, but the sun hasn't warmed the streets Johnny has called home for three years. He's in line for a sack lunch at the Baptist Center, a daily ritual that lands him a lunch much like the one he receives today–a can of Vienna sausages, a bag of chips and a small package of animal crackers.

Included in his sack is a reminder of why the Baptist Center, a collaboration between Broadway Baptist Church and Buckner Children and Family Services, ministers daily to about 150 of the homeless in the area around the church. On a small photocopied piece of paper is John 3:16.

“This is my breakfast every morning,” he said. “It's a help and an uplift to know somebody cares about us. I see a wonderful smile from everybody up here.”

Johnny found Broadway Baptist Church to be a place where no one cares if your clothes are dirty, where boxcar word-of-mouth is always appreciated, and friendly, familiar volunteers never fail to lend a listening ear.

For nearly eight years, Broadway Baptist Church has collaborated with Buckner Children and Family Services to provide more than 14 social ministries to the steadfastly growing homeless and mental health/ mental retardation community in downtown Fort Worth.

“There's no way to separate the community ministries that are done here from the central identity of the church,” said Dan Freemyer, Buckner/Broadway director of community ministries.

“Our work is due in part to Buckner's focus on children and families and preventative and proactive programs, but its foundation is the leadership of our pastor and other church leaders who challenge the congregation to be the body of Christ, to be hospitable to folks that are usually forgotten.”

Adrain Blackwell, Buckner Lead Life Skills Specialist at Broadway Baptist Church, plays basketball with youth at the Buckner/ Broadway after-school program. (Photo by Russ Dilday)

Ministries include a food pantry and daily sack-lunch distribution, clothing closet, after-school program, Bible studies, a Straight Talk ministry with youth from the Bridge Youth Emergency Shelter, and Agape meal, which serves a first-class dinner to more than 200 homeless people every Thursday evening. On average, Broadway meets the needs of more than 1,000 people each week, said Scott Davis, director of the Baptist Center.

“We're located just south of downtown, a couple of blocks from the Homeless Day Resource Center, where a couple of night shelters are, and just down the street from the Hanratty apartment complex, which is primarily for MHMR clients,” Davis said.

“Missions is a big part of what this church is all about,” said Dan Reed, chairman of the missions committee for Broadway. “This is a low-income area where there are all kinds of places in the general vicinity for those who want to camp out–close to the railroad tracks, under the bridge, wherever.

“I asked a man once how he heard about us, and he said that he was in a boxcar in San Antonio headed toward Fort Worth. Another man told him, 'Hey, there's a church near the railroad tracks with a huge steeple. They'll serve you a good meal there.'”

But it's much more than just food. In addition to the daily sack-lunch and grocery distribution, more than 30 people receive a new pair of shoes, blue jeans, shirts or jackets and hygiene kits through the adult and children's clothing closet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And many more receive financial assistance every day of the week.

Nancy Galassi, 20-year member of Broadway, volunteers with different Baptist Center ministries every day of the week but finds the most fulfillment through her work befriending troubled youth at the Bridge youth shelter close to the church. Every Tuesday night, Galassi and others gather with the children to play games and share their stories, but mainly just “be a friend,” she said.

“We try to just encourage them, give them hope. A lot of times they're not open. They'll say, 'I don't believe in God.' If anything, they're angry. But I think once they see and hear what he's really like, you'll see a change in the course of even a few weeks in their attitude.”

Another way Broadway impacts youth is through the after-school program with Pennsylvania Place apartment complex, where a Buckner community ministry program is located.

Tanisha Adams, mother of six and New Orleans evacuee, found refuge at Pennsylvania Place after surviving Hurricane Katrina and seeing her family scattered around the country. Without a car, the after-school program has been an answer to prayers and helped make her life “less hectic,” she said.

“When you're going through something that's so terrible, and you've got people who want to be there and help you get yourself together, and genuinely from their heart want to help, that really matters,” Adams said.

“A lot of (the kids) know what's out there,” said Yolanda Vallecillo, Southside Community Center employee who helps with the after-school program at Broadway. “We hope that coming here will help them know how to handle their lives better and learn to appreciate people and help others.”

Broadway is making changes to be more “preventative and proactive” by developing additional long-term programs, like the after-school program, to have a “big impact on a smaller group of people,” Freemyer said.

One such effort is collaborating with Family Pathfinders, a statewide welfare-to-work initiative that matches families in transition with mentoring teams to become more self-sufficient. Broadway is recruiting church members to serve on these teams and also is developing their own program to work with those who have even greater barriers to self-sufficiency.

“We want to combine the mentoring team approach with more extensive services, like providing rent and job training for those that we've identified through the Baptist Center and Agape meal,” Freemyer said. “We want to focus our time and resources on just a few individuals so that we're doing everything possible to help ensure their success and make a dramatic impact in their lives.”

Another program in the works is a citywide initiative to provide shelter to more homeless people through churches and places of faith. Similar to the Room in the Inn initiative in Nashville, Tenn., the second-largest homeless shelter provider in the city, this project would require extensive collaboration and planning but little investment, Freemyer said.

“It's a vision that extends the ministry of hospitality that we have with the Agape meal and with the Baptist Center,” he said. “It reinforces the idea of the church as a place of refuge.”

The latest attempt to provide a venue of refuge and hospitality was kicked off Oct. 31 as members of Broadway hosted a morning coffee hour with the homeless. Music, cinnamon rolls and tables were set up in coffee-shop style so that people stopping by the Baptist Center for sack lunches or financial assistance could come in and enjoy food and fellowship, Davis said.

“Some of the people who come here are starved for relationships with other people,” Reed said. “They're afraid of the relationships on the street and in shelters. I'm sure this will catch on.”

Building relationships with the community they serve is a huge part of Buckner and Broadway's ministry, which is why so many faithful volunteers give hours of their time to make a difference in someone's life.

From volunteers like Eloise Coffey, who has flawlessly packed lunches in the food pantry twice a week for a year like she's packing them for her own children to Peggy Mitchell, who has set up the Agape meal tables every Thursday for more than three years to create a “safe place” and help others “feel like human beings,” it is evident the members of Broadway are called to missions in action to transform their community.

“I like to think of it as love in action,” Galassi said. “In James it says, 'Faith without works is dead, and what good does it do to tell a brother who's in need of food and clothing to go in peace?' It's only when we really help them that the word carries a message. I've been blessed to be brought up in a home that shared that love, and it's only right to give it back out.

“It's a neat thing to see. It's not just one person. No one person could do all of this. It's a community of people who care and share in what all it entails.”

Posted: 11/11/05

Donation enables church's
enhanced community ministry

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DALLAS–Buckner Children and Family Services and Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas are partnering together to better meet the needs of the people living near the church.

Jeannette Sadler, a member of Cliff Temple, made a $1 million donation to Buckner to finance construction of a community center that will give residents in the community immediate access to a number of services.

“Her dream for years has been to help those in our community who are less fortunate by providing both the physical facilities and the programs to help them,” said Cliff Temple Pastor Glen Schmucker.

While plans have not been finalized, Felipe Garza, vice president and chief operating officer of Buckner Children and Family Services, said the building will house a variety of services. Possibilities include English as a second language, health and immunization clinics, technology and job training, and nutrition and parenting classes. Other social agencies also may be housed there. A substation of the Dallas Police Department is another possibility.

A community-needs assessment currently being conducted will decide what ministries will be housed in the community center, Garza said.

Preliminary plans call for the building to be between 6,000- to 8,000-square-feet.

The building for certain will be the home of Mission Oak Cliff, the nonprofit agency set up by Cliff Temple to meet the food and clothing needs of the community. Mission Oak Cliff was housed in a building behind the church until recent weeks when two arson incidents within a two-week period resulted in damage that required the building be leveled.

“We didn't miss a day of service, though,” said Jerry Spivey, Cliff Temple minister of education and administration. The food part of the ministry was moved across the street to a new location within Cliff Temple, and the clothing was sent to another church in the area with a clothes closet ministry.

The community center is the next step in a partnership that began earlier in the year. It began with a Buckner employee, Sandra Martinez, joining the Cliff Temple staff as director of community ministries. Buckner continues to help the church by paying her salary.

“We've been active in recent years in partnering with churches so that together we can better minister to the people in their communities,” Garza said.

Schmucker said Sadler's contribution to Buckner is a outgrowth of that partnership.

The building will be owned by Buckner on land leased to the agency by the church, he said. Buckner will provide staff, programming and pay for the upkeep of the building.

“There's just no way we could have handled these ongoing costs,” he said.

Buckner also will take ownership of Mission Oak Cliff and Ascend, the church's after-school program for children. The church will continue to support the programs with the same level of financial commitment, and church members will continue to be involved as volunteers in the ministries, Schmucker said.

The next step in the process is to decide exactly where the footprint of the building will be located. Plans are for the building to open in 12 to 18 months.

At its completion, the building will be called the Cletys and Jeanette Sadler Community Center, after the center's primary donor and her late husband, who was a teacher and East Texas rancher.

“It is a pleasure to give back something that I've been given in this holy place over 84 years,” said Jeannette Sadler, longtime member of the Oak Cliff church. “I was practically born in the basement (of Cliff Temple Baptist), and now I teach the oldest Sunday school class in the church.”

Posted: 11/11/05

BGCT leaders discuss bylaws changes

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Baptist General Convention of Texas leaders recently wrapped up more than 30 sessions across the state, where Texas Baptists discussed proposed changes in the convention's constitution and bylaws.

BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade facilitated 17 discussion groups across Texas. Pastor Doug Evans of First Baptist Church in Laguna Park led 15 additional groups. More than 1,000 Texas Baptists–ministers and laypeople–participated in the discussions.

The question-and-answer sessions helped convention leaders formulate the best way to divide the state into sectors from which BGCT Executive Board members will be selected, Wade said.

“We promised to be available to our Texas churches to help explain the provisions of the constitution and the proposed bylaws,” he said. “I've been encouraged by the questions raised and the consensus that has been gained.”

The proposed constitution and bylaws are meant to give the Executive Board more direct involvement in the decision-making process, he noted.

The documents reduce the number of BGCT Executive Board members and eliminate several of the convention's boards, commissions and committees.

The discussion sessions are a result of a request from last year's BGCT annual meeting. Messengers asked convention leaders to provide forums to discuss the proposed changes that will take effect if affirmed during this year's annual meeting in Austin.

Pastor Jon Becker of First Baptist Church in Weslaco said the discussion sessions allowed individuals to express their feelings about the proposed governance changes. He added that he went away from the meeting he attended feeling the BGCT was attempting to strategically place resources throughout the state and cut down on bureaucracy.

“There is a sense that the restructuring is taking place to help churches,” he said.

In addition to the discussions, the BGCT sent each church a copy of the new bylaws and constitution, and the bylaws appeared as a special insert in the Baptist Standard. A copy of the proposed bylaws and constitution is on the BGCT annual meeting web site at www.bgct.org/2005annualmeeting.

BGCT leaders–including Wade and Associate Executive Director/ Chief Operating Officer Ron Gunter –have continued talking with individuals about the changes via telephone and e-mail.