Archives
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Cost cutting continues at Baptist Building
Posted: 4/15/08
Cost cutting continues at Baptist Building
By Ken Camp
Managing Editor
DALLAS—To cut costs, five additional Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board staff positions are being cut, the research and development team is disbanding, counseling will be outsourced and the WorldconneX missions network will move its offices to the Baptist Building.
BGCT Executive Director Randel Everett announced April 15 the elimination of five staff positions, adding he expects these to be “the final staff cuts.” Earlier, six positions were cut from the BGCT Service Center.
The BGCT faces a projected $5.3 million shortfall from the approved 2008 budget. • Read the complete text of Randel Everett's statement 04/15/2008 - By John Rutledge
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Texas Baptists minister in wake of raid on polygamist compound
Updated: 4/10/08
Women and children taken from the polygamist ranch in Eldorado, Texas, stand outside their shelter in nearby San Angelo, looking toward other shelters. Texas Baptist Child & Family Services is helping coordinate their care at the request of state officials. (Craig Bird/BCFS) Texas Baptists minister in wake
of raid on polygamist compoundBy Ken Camp
Managing Editor
ELDORADO—When state investigators and law officers removed 416 children and 139 women from the rural West Texas compound of a polygamist sect, Texas Baptist churches, agencies and missions organizations responded by offering ministry to the relocated—and sometimes traumatized—former residents of the YFZ Ranch.
Texas Child Protective Services and the law enforcement officials entered the compound April 3-4 with search warrants, investigating allegations of child abuse by followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The main temple in the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado. Texas Child Protective Services and the law enforcement officials removed 416 children and 139 women from the rural West Texas compound of a polygamist sect. 04/14/2008 - By John Rutledge
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Buckner programs make history in Peru
Posted: 3/31/08
Nine-year-old Elvis greets his new foster parents Vilma and Adolfo Gomez for the first time. (Photo/ANDINA/Carlos Lezama) See Related Articles:
• Buckner programs make history in Peru
• Foster families eager to share lives with children
Buckner programs make history in Peru
By Jenny Pope
Buckner International
Buckner International made history in Peru when officials from the Ministry of Women and Social Work and the Texas-based agency placed eight Peruvian children into the country’s first foster families.
It was the first step of many in an ongoing pilot foster care program. Organizers hope to place 60 orphans and at-risk children into families by the end of the year.
04/11/2008 - By John Rutledge
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Around the State
Posted: 4/11/08
Volunteers from First Church in Allen spent spring break on a mission trip to help complete the new sanctuary at Adamsville Church in Lampasas Association. Some brought their own lodging in RVs, campers or motor homes. Others brought only sleeping bags and bedded down in the church’s fellowship hall, and a few others were welcomed into private homes. Two other mission trips to work on the sanctuary was provided by Volunteer Christian Builders last year. Around the State
• Randel Everett, newly elected executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, will speak at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor April 16 at 11 a.m.
• The Center for Ministry Effectiveness and Educational Leadership at Baylor University will sponsor a symposium on the renewal of congregational song May 8 at 9 a.m. The symposium will include demonstration of various types of congregational song, a panel on theological and pastoral perspectives; and three versions of the practice of congregational singing. A lunch will follow. The symposium is free. For more information, call (254) 710-4677.
• Tickets are on sale for the fifth annual “Singin’ with the Saints” Southern Gospel concert for senior adults sponsored by Howard Payne University. The concert will begin at 1:30 p.m. on May 15 at Coggin Avenue Church in Brownwood. The featured performers are The Dove Brothers Quartet and Gold City. Tickets are $12 and can be ordered by calling (800) 950-8465.
• Hardin-Simmons University has inducted six people into Hall of Leaders. Honorees are Nita Lewallen, one of the university’s first Six White Horse Riders, in 1940; Consuelo Kickbusch, who earned her commission as a second lieutenant through HSU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps and was the first woman commissioned as an ROTC officer in the state of Texas and retired after a 20-year career as a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel; John Clayton, a 1964 HSU graduate, who was the first American ever to be asked by Cambridge University to deliver the prestigious Stanton Lectures in philosophy of religion; Jack Martin, a 1948 HSU graduate who at the time of his retirement was the winningest active basketball coach in Texas and currently is a brigadier general in the Texas Air National Guard; Marion McClure, director of the Cowboy Band from 1934 until his death in 1973, except for his years of military service during World War II; and Moxley Featherston, a 1935 magna cum laude graduate who became a lawyer and federal judge.
04/11/2008 - By John Rutledge
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MLKâs generation of pastors makes way for new vision, new generation
Posted: 4/11/08
Anthony Johnson sits at a monument to heroes of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Ala., including his grandfather, N.H. Smith (left). Johnson said his generation faces different challenges in the fight for civil rights than his grandfather. (RNS photo/Joe Songer/The Birmingham News) MLK’s generation of pastors makes
way for new vision, new generationBy Greg Garrison & Val Walton
Religion News Service
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)—They were pastors and civil rights leaders who broke the back of unjust segregation laws and set in motion the transformation of America into a more racially tolerant nation.
Forty years after the violent death of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, the generation of pastors whose passion and commitment to civil rights rang from pulpits, stirred marches and rallies, and even filled jail cells, is fading.
04/11/2008 - By John Rutledge
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Book Reviews
Posted: 4/11/08
Book Reviews
A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History by Larry Witham (HarperOne)
Sometime in 1630, John Winthrop delivered a sermon to the Puritans. He preached, “We shall be as a city upon a hill … .” Journalist Larry Witham borrows the phrase to title his book, A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History.
Witham chronicles both the positive and negative power of the preacher/pastor and traces the impact of sermons on American life using three divisions: The Colonial Period (1607-1800), National Period (1800-1900) and Modern Period (1900-today).
He indicates that sometimes a single sermon changes the course of history, such as the 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon on Dec. 5, 1955, that led to the Montgomery bus boycott or his later “I Have a Dream” address.
What are you reading that other Texas Baptists would find helpful? Send suggestions and reviews to books@baptiststandard.com. 04/11/2008 - By John Rutledge
