Posted: 11/14/03

In celebration of the 90th birthday of the missions education program Girls in Action, GAs and GA leaders participated in a processional of world flags.

WMU: Tell the generations

By Teresa Young

Wayland Baptist University

LUBBOCK–Share missions with the coming generations, leaders urged during the 123rd annual meeting of Texas Woman's Missionary Union.

Based on a Scripture passage in Deuteronomy, the theme “Tell the Generations” was carried throughout the program at First Baptist Church of Lubbock. The program featured families in various segments who displayed generations of missions involvement.

Missionary Sheila Mitchell gave her testimony, explaining how she helps tell the generations in her work as executive director of DaySpring Villa, a shelter for homeless women and children in Tulsa, Okla.

Journeyman Kathy McCammon. (Nan Dickson/BGCT Photo)

Mitchell credited adult influence in her decision to serve: “Because adults cared enough to teach me, I answered God's call to serve in Oklahoma. We need to ask God, 'What is it you want me to do?'”

Her work involves meeting physical needs of women and children, many of whom are fleeing domestic violence situations. Through this ministry, she finds opportunities to share God's love and grace with those families, she said.

“They need a home, not only here on earth, but also in heaven. God didn't tell me to take care of everybody, but he told me to do something with the ones he places in front of me.”

In her report, Texas WMU Executive Director Carolyn Porterfield shared the stage with Leo Endel, director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention. Texas Baptists have a long association with Baptists in that region, and Porterfield recently spent nine days there.

Endel recounted that the first Baptist church in Minnesota-Wisconsin was started in 1953 by Texans. “You're really our parents,” he said. “Every one of our 152 churches has a strong Texas connection.”

The northern region first petitioned the Baptist General Convention of Texas for membership as an association in the mid-1950s, and that partnership has helped the area grow in church starts, he explained.

Texas Tech women's basketball coach Marsha Sharp.

However, the needs for evangelization remain great, he said. Currently, 4 percent of the population in Minnesota and Wisconsin is associated with an evangelical church.

“Your resources have allowed us to plant churches we might never have been able to,” Endel said. “Your people have moved here to help lead us. Many of our churches are pastored by Texans.”

In celebration of the 90th birthday of the missions education program Girls in Action, GAs and GA leaders participated in a processional of world flags, and GAs later helped take up the offering for the WMU endowment.

Three generations of one family gathered on the stage to share their heritage of missions. Kelly McCammon, a journeyman who recently returned from two years in Kosovo, said her parents and grandparents played a vital role in her missions interest.

“My family raised me to know that I should go out and share Jesus, from my participation in GAs and onward,” McCammon said.

Her father, Joe McCammon of Mesquite, credited his parents as well. “My parents taught missions and a servanthood lifestyle,” he said. “It was a joy to see that zeal and a joy to pass it on.”

Kelly McCammon first visited Kosovo with her mother, Debra, in 1999 on a mission trip and felt God's call to serve there. She returned in 2001 as an English teacher and worked in lifestyle ministry, building relationships to allow her to share the Christian gospel in the Muslim country.

Texas WMU officers Kathy Hillman, president; Edna Wood, recording secretary; Laura Harris, first vice president; Shirley McDonald, second vice president; and Nina Pinkston, third vice president.

Texas WMU President Kathy Hillman of Waco shared her report time with Marsha Sharp, head coach of the Texas Tech University women's basketball team. Both spoke about the impact of missions education on their lives as young girls.

Sharp shared her earliest memories of missions participation as a child in Roswell, N.M., where her mother served as the Girls in Action leader at South Manor Baptist Church.

Passing the torch to younger Baptists is vital, she said. “There is not one thing we leave the next generation that is as important as what we're talking about tonight. The things we do for those who will follow us should be something we give thought to daily. My career means nothing if it doesn't lead me to a platform to affect people's lives for Christ.”

Hillman closed with encouragement for members to keep spreading the gospel and supporting missions endeavors that “tell the generations.”

“I'm grateful that a generation of Texas Baptists helped me grow,” Hillman said. “Unless we tell the story, the next generation will not be told.”

Posted: 11/14/03

PINSON:
How to make a Baptist

By Marv Knox

Editor

LUBBOCK–Despite their diversity, Baptists are made from the same recipe, Bill Pinson told seminar participants at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session.

Pinson, the BGCT's executive director emeritus, presented 400 years of Baptist heritage, beliefs and polity in 30 minutes during a breakout session at the convention's meeting in Lubbock.

He compared the recipe for making a Baptist to the ingredients in cornbread, noting regional influences may change the precise flavor, but the end result still is cornbread.

The same is true for Baptists, he added, noting seven ingredients are vital for being a Baptist. They are:

The Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus is Lord over all personal and denominational life, he stressed.

“The Bible as the sole written authority for faith and practice.”

“Salvation by grace alone through faith alone–not by baptism, church membership, good works, sacrament or anything else–and the security of the believer.”

The priesthood of the believer. This trait implies individual privilege and responsibility, but it also involves priesthood of believers, corporately exercising this principle as a group.

Believer's baptism. Baptists historically have baptized only individuals who have made public personal decisions to follow Christ, he noted. However, unlike Baptists today, early Baptists practiced baptism by sprinkling, not immersion, until they “got it right.”

Symbolic understanding of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Pinson said he is somewhat disturbed when people say these Baptist ordinances are “merely symbolic,” noting: “They're not merely symbolic. They're more than that. But they're not sacramental, either.”

Religious freedom and separation of church and state, which have been Baptist distinctives since their earliest years, both in England and in America.

Baptists also share common polity, or the way they practice church, Pinson reported, citing four items:

A born-again church membership. Baptists insisted on counting as members of the church people who have had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, he said.

For this practice, they were persecuted, he added. Kings and other church leaders despised this Baptist practice because it undermined their control over the people.

Congregational church governance. Baptists' governance isn't exactly democratic, because, although members vote and make decisions democratically, God is the head of the church, he said, calling Baptists' practice “Theo-democratic.”

Local-church autonomy. “Every church is independent,” Pinson said. “Everything (whether it's state or national in scope) relates to the local church.”

Voluntary cooperation. This principle has enabled Baptists to accomplish many things, he said, noting both parts of the term are important. “Baptist cooperation is voluntary; it is not coerced. And it is cooperative; we do together what no one can do separately.”

Because of their beliefs and practices, Baptists have made two significant contributions to the religious world, Pinson stressed.

“Baptists led the way in the struggle for religious freedom,” he said.

For example, Early American Virginia Baptist pastor John Leland was instrumental in working with James Madison to secure guarantees for religious liberty in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, he explained.

“Baptists also led the way in missions advance,” he added.

While many early Baptists believed God would save those people God chose to save and therefore they didn't need to do missions, since 1792, Baptists have been world leaders in taking the gospel around the globe, he said.

Posted: 11/14/03

BGCT program signs, seals and delivers missions emphasis

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–It started with the slow, stirring wail of a single bagpipe. It ended with a pastor-wife team from a 17-member congregation that puts it money and its time where its heart is.

In between, the Nov. 10 evening crowd at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session heard about:

Handing out cold water and prayer at a fair.

Choral tours as evangelism in Spain.

Don Robinson (center) talks with Otis and Christine Cooks about what God is doing through Cornelius Baptist Church in Lubbock, where Cooks is pastor.

Students testing well water in rural villages in Muslim Southeast Asia.

Hauling medical supplies via backpack into the interior of Costa Rica.

Wrapping Christ's love in Halloween candy.

Ministry via chainsaw.

A mission connection among Baptist churches in Duncanville, Lubbock and Rio Bravo.

It was missions night, and the single message was presented in numerous ways: All Texas Baptists are called by God to missions; the myriad options mean there are no valid excuses not to be faithful to that call.

The presentation mixed video clips, orchestral pieces, solos and congregational singing, skits, live interviews, letters and numerous personal testimonies to show the scope of how Texas Baptists are doing missions.

Student summer missionaries told of leading Bible studies in the parks of Vancouver, British Columbia, where Chinese immigrants made professions of faith in Christ and of a water safety project in Southeast Asia that distributed more than 3,000 copies of the Gospel of Luke in 130 villages.

Broadview Baptist Church in Lubbock reported on its Halloween ministry to a mobile-home park that involved church volunteers from youth to an 80-year-old woman. One resident, facing eviction after losing his job, met a Broadview member who was personnel director of a local company and who helped him get a new job. There were 12 professions of faith in Christ among the 300 residents who participated.

Kris and Shelly Riggs, IMB missionaries in West Africa reported on their work via video.

Texas Baptist Men volunteer Bob Mayfield reported on 14 projects ranging from Royal Ambassador camps to work in Iraq, China and Nicaragua.

Sylvia and Richard Magallenas testified to their call to missions with a small church in Rio Bravo while they were members of First Baptist Church Duncanville, how a job transfer took them to Primera Iglesia Bautista in Lubbock and they connected their former church home to their new one in a partnership.

First Baptist Church in Arlington reported on a trip to Costa Rica last summer involving 24 people, each hefting 35-pound backpacks and hiking three days to a remote area to do medical/dental missions.

Wayland Baptist University's choir tour in Spain provided numerous instances where “God arranged it so we could share our faith despite the language barrier,” a speaker said.

Otis Cooks, pastor of Cornelius Chapel Baptist Church in Lubbock, and his wife, Christine, told how “the smallest church in the BGCT” with just 17 members makes significant contributions to the Texas Baptist Cooperative Program. Through cooperative giving, the small congregation helps start churches and do missions far beyond their community, he said. “You can't beat God in giving. Whenever we get more than $500 in offerings, we find somebody to give it to.”

At the conclusion of the missions presentation, messengers and guests gave $12,022 to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions.

Posted: 11/14/03

Lubbock woman challenges MSC volunteers to dream

By Teresa Young

Wayland Baptist University

LUBBOCK–Shirley Madden just smiles when she hears people say her dream facility can't be completed. To her, that's a sure sign God has great things in store.

Madden testified of her work with the Christian Women's Job Corps in Lubbock to fellow Mission Service Corps volunteers at their annual breakfast held in conjunction with the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session in Lubbock.

Shirley Madden

Madden, a member of First Baptist Church in Lubbock, said she first got the vision for service in her hometown while working at a government agency and encountering a young mother with a frustrated, crying child.

“I told that girl her baby was crying out for peace and comfort, and as I said that, I became burdened that she didn't know (about Christ), and she didn't know she didn't know. No one was telling her.”

Through Christian Women's Job Corps, a welfare-to-work program started by Woman's Missionary Union, Madden found a means to teach valuable life skills and share her faith. But challenges still loomed for those with whom she worked.

“We'd love on them and encourage them all day and build them up, and then send them home at night to hell,” she said. “We really believed that they really could 'go and sin no more.' I began to dream about his place of peace and solace where women could come and rest.”

The result was My Father's House, a 45,000-square-foot facility currently under construction in southwest Lubbock. Built in great part by Texas Baptist Men, the facility will feature 18 apartments where women will reside while completing the Job Corps program, all the while learning culinary, housekeeping and laundry skills through a partnership with the Texas Tech University department of restaurant, hotel and institutional management.

Although many have doubted the facility would become reality, Madden said her faith has remained strong.

“I began to pray that what God would do in this place would be so off the wall that no one would think any one of us could do it,” she said. “Ask for the impossible; that's the only way he gets the glory.”

Jim Young, director of the Missions Equipping Center of the BGCT, encouraged Mission Service Corps volunteers to tap into the power of the Holy Spirit to do good works and advance the kingdom of God.

“If the church of today is to reach the world of today, it'll be through amateurs, not professionals,” Young said, noting the word amateur means “for the love of.”

“I pray we never lose our amateur status and become professionals doing it for the money, the institution or the status.”

Mission Service Corps has 2,753 volunteers nationwide, with 1,281, or 46.5 percent, coming from the BGCT.

Posted: 11/14/03

Reyes looks to the future for TBC breakfast

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–Baptist University of the Americas is positioning itself to be an integral part of the shifting geographic center of Christianity, President Albert Reyes told Texas Baptists Committed Nov. 11.

Reyes spoke at the annual breakfast meeting held during the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session. At the BGCT meeting, messengers gave final approval for changing the name of Hispanic Baptist Theological School to Baptist University of the Americas.

Albert Reyes

Experts anticipate the majority of Christians to live in the Southern Hemisphere rather than the Northern Hemisphere in the near future, Reyes said, noting Protestantism is growing faster in Latin America than it expanded in Europe during the Reformation.

About 1.7 million people, including 1.2 million Hispanics, will come to Texas in the next 10 years, according to demographers. By sometime after 2020, more than half the Texas population will be Hispanic.

With the increased population of Hispanics comes greater challenges for Texas Baptists' only school tailored for ministerial training for Hispanics, Reyes said. Among those challenges: Currently, only 20 percent of Hispanics ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in college, compared to 37 percent of Anglos the same age.

Further, only 8 percent of Hispanics nationwide hold an associate of arts degree, 5.6 percent a bachelor of arts degree, 3.8 percent a master of arts degree and 4.5 percent a doctoral degree, Reyes added. “Once Hispanics get to college, they face financial, academic and social hurdles that keep them from finishing their degrees. Most institutions of higher learning are not poised to provide solutions for these issues.”

But helping overcome these educational barriers “is our responsibility,” Reyes insisted.

That's why Baptist University of the Americas makes provisions for those who have not finished high school or cannot speak English, he explained. Ninety percent of the school's students are Hispanic, and pupils come from 15 countries.

English as a second language classes are offered, and the program assists students who want the graduation equivalency diploma. Through the BGCT school, a student can move from a high school-equivalency diploma to a bachelor's degree and be prepared for further studies on the graduate level, even earning a doctorate, he said.

This is essential to train Hispanics who feel called to the ministry but lack adequate education, Reyes said, explaining that God calls people to ministry regardless of education level.

Even so, the demand for trained Hispanic Baptist ministers far outstrips the number of graduates Baptist University of the Americas currently can produce, he reported.

“With only 40 graduates per year, we don't stand a chance of filling the 100 vacant Hispanic pulpits in Texas today. If we could graduate 375 students and send them to El Paso to plant churches, we could reduce the church to population ratio (there) to 1 to 4,000, the current Texas average, from 1 to 21,000. If we could graduate 500 students next May, we would be able to place every single student in a church-planting situation across North America.

“This is why we have set a goal to have 1,000 students enrolled by 2012,” Reyes said. “To dream for less is to dream for a Texas you would not want to imagine.”

Albert Reyes explains the future role of Baptist University of the Americas in an address to several hundred people attending the Texas Baptists Committed breakfast in Lubbock.John Hall/BGCT

Posted: 11/14/03

Woodlawn youth go to school on BGCT annual session

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–Teenagers' passions run strictly toward pizza and paintball, not Baptist polity and practice, right?

Not necessarily, according to Bryan Hall, youth minister at Woodlawn Baptist Church in Austin.

Eleven high school and college students from the church attended the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session in Lubbock last week. And they came away from the two-day meeting energized by the idea that their church can have a part in worldwide missions and they individually can have a voice in setting the direction of the state convention.

Clifton McClain (left) and J.T. Mackey attend a BGCT workshop.

“It's not just about advancing Texas Baptists. It's about spreading Christ around the world. It's not just about making Texas better, but about making sure the world knows Jesus. That's not what I expected, but it's what I've experienced here,” said Benjamin Young, a college freshman.

Several years ago, when the BGCT was meeting in Austin, Hall brought to the convention a couple of young people who had committed their lives to vocational Christian ministry. The students ended up eating lunch with then-Executive Director Bill Pinson.

That experience was so encouraging for the young ministers, Hall started bringing one or two young people to the convention each year.

“The three who went last year developed such a passion for the convention, they started talking it up and encouraging others to come this year,” Hall said.

Those three brought home a copy of the humorous theme interpretation video, “We Don't Dance.” They used it as the centerpiece of a Wednesday evening youth-led worship service focusing on Baptist polity and practice.

“We had such a good time and learned so much, we opened it up for others to come,” said Josh Smith, a high school junior. “I didn't know all the resources for missions that are available. It's just huge what our churches can do when they all come together.”

Nine of the 11 Woodlawn students at the BGCT were Jason Baker, J.T. Mackey, Ben Young, Ryan Wood, Chase McClain, Ashley Miller, Tammy Smith, Amanda Vasquez and Josh Smith.

The teenagers enthusiastically embraced the idea of learning more about how Baptists make decisions corporately, and they were eager to attend workshops on Baptist heritage, history and doctrine.

“One of the coolest things about it was finding out that the convention exists to serve the churches, not the other way around. And with the church autonomy thing, we can make our own decisions under God,” said J.T. Mackey, a high school senior.

Two-thirds of the young people attending the BGCT from Woodlawn were not brought up in a Baptist church, but they came to faith within the last few years.

“If we are going to be future leaders, we need to be able to tell others what we believe and why we believe it,” Smith said.

The students also enjoyed visiting the exhibit hall–particularly the booths from the Baptist universities, which some of the teens hope to attend–and attending the workshops on various BGCT-related ministries.

“It really opened my eyes to the passion the people have for their different ministries,” said Tammy Smith, a high school senior.

The Austin teens–who received an excused absence from school to attend the BGCT–expressed enthusiasm about the future of Texas Baptist missions and ministry. And they were touched by the reaction of other messengers to their presence at the convention.

“We were walking by the registration booth,” Young said. “I noticed some of the people were kind of watching us as we went by. Then I heard one older lady who was working turn to the person next to her and say, 'That's our future.'”

Posted: 11/14/03

WorldconneX introduces itself; Parks also named

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–WorldconneX, the Baptist General Convention of Texas' new missions network, stands “between a dream and a prayer,” according to network leader Bill Tinsley. And he hopes it always stays there.

“We are attempting to do something new in missions as Baptists, to take what never changes–God's vision for his world–and connect it to circumstances that are always changing,” he said during a workshop at the BGCT annual session in Lubbock.

Tinsley also announced the appointment of Stan Parks, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship worker in Southeast Asia, as the second WorldconneX staff member. Parks, the youngest son of Keith and Helen Jean Parks, will be associate director and international coordinator.

Missions network leader Bill Tinsley speaks to BGCT messengers about the role of WorldconneX as a conduit between local churches and missions opportunities.(Eric Guel/BGCT Photo)

Keith Parks is former president of both the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's global missions office.

Tinsley said Stan Parks brings experience and insights from international missions work that will complement his own experience in local, national and short-term partnership missions.

In a formatting change this year, the convention's plenary sessions did not feature reports from agencies and institutions. Instead, more detailed information was presented in more than 60 breakout options.

One of those served as an opportunity to introduce the concept behind the new missions network.

“We do not intend to duplicate traditional missions-sending agencies or to compete with anyone,” Tinsley explained. “Whatever shapes that may take, WorldconneX's task will be to remain true to the dreams and visions God sends and to prayers for his leadership. It will always be a learning process, finding answers as we move toward where God is calling us.

“We don't have a roadmap about how to help churches and individuals carry out their own mission calls, but we are not without clues,” he added. “There are mission networks all around us already that we are just beginning to recognize.”

Texas Baptist churches are filled with people involved in international and global businesses, he pointed out. “Our Baptist universities have international student bodies, Buckner Baptist Benevolences is partnering with orphanages in 25 foreign countries, partnership missions is working with hundreds of congregations to make short-term mission trips a reality. We can start by helping everybody know what other Baptists are doing so we can take advantage of natural partnerships.”

Beyond that, WorldconneX can be a bridge between Baptists and other Christians and other mission organizations around the world, he said.

“The church is the source and the goal of missions,” Parks added. “We've gotten away from that, but WorldconneX's aim is to restore the local church to the center of the mission-sending activity, to introduce Texas Baptists to Christians in other places as equal partners.

“To be faithful to Acts 1:8, we have to do missions everywhere. That verse doesn't say we are to be God's witnesses first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and then in Samaria. It doesn't say to be God's witnesses in Jerusalem or in Judea or in Samaria. It says we are to do that in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and in the remotest part of the earth at the same time.”

Questions from the crowd of about 150 ranged from the philosophical to the political, from the specific to the general. Among them:

Q: “What would you do with a single woman I know who would like to work with her hands but putting her with a bunch of retired men is like oil and water?”

A: “First we'd try to find out more specifics about her call, if it is to a specific people group or place. Then we'd connect her with opportunities that matched.”

Q: “How would you screen people? Surely you wouldn't just help anybody who wanted to be a missionary go someplace.”

A: “We would expect the sponsoring church or group of churches to do the screening, but we would provide some guidelines and methods of making sure a person was healthy to go where they want.”

Q: “What will be your relationship with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the SBC International Mission Board?”

A: “We have been in contact with CBF, the IMB and the SBC North American Mission Board, asking to meet with their leadership to talk about how we can best cooperate. If a Texas Baptist church asks us for help in doing missions with one of the established missions-sending agencies, then we see our task as helping them do that.”

Q: “Do you see WorldconneX ever becoming a sending agency?”

A: “That would be a major step backward. There is a continuing need for missions-sending agencies, and the existing ones are doing a good job. Becoming a sending agency would go against our vision.”

Q: “Our church has voted to support one of the IMB missionaries fired for refusing to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, but we don't know anything about liability insurance and work visas and things like that. Can you help?”

A: “Yes.”

Posted: 11/14/03

Around the State

Joe Walton has been certified as an intentional interim pastor. He also is director of missions for Double Mountain Area.

Anniversaries

Barry Rock, 10th as minister of music at First Church in Arlington Nov. 10.

First Church in Georgetown was one of 15 churches comprising a 52-member team that ministered in Acuña, Mexico. Ministries include medical and dental and optical clinics, Vacation Bible School activities for teens and children. More than 300 individuals were seen in the clinics, and the Vacation Bible Schools averaged more than 200 present each day. Above, dental hygienist Pam Woodruff of Georgetown works on a patient at the clinic held at Templo Bautista El Calvario in Acuña.

Randy Mitchell, 20th as associate pastor and minister of recreation at Westbury Church in Houston Nov. 16.

Retiring

R.B. Cooper will be honored with a celebration of his retirement from ministry with a reception at First Church in San Antonio Nov. 23 at 7 p.m. The reception will be preceded by a sermon by Jimmy Allen at 6 p.m. Cooper has been minister of church and community ministries at the church 34 years.

Events

Betty Criswell, widow of W.A. Criswell, will be honored for 70 years of teaching the Bible by the 300 members of her class Nov. 23. A reception will be held in Coleman Hall of First Church in Dallas at 3 p.m., and will feature special guests, refreshments and entertainment. Her husband, the long-time pastor of the church, died in 2002. Mac Brunson is pastor.

South Oaks Church in Arlington will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 23. Dan Curry is pastor.

Recording artist Sandi Patty will take part in First Church in Conroe's “A Christmas Evening 2003.” Tickets are $10. Performances will be at 8 p.m. Dec. 5 and at 4 and 7 p.m. Dec. 6 and 7. For more information, call (936) 756-6601. Rusty Walton is pastor.

The Heights Church in Richardson will present its Christmas production at 7 p.m. Dec. 6 and at 3 p.m and 6:30 p.m. Dec. 7. The two-hour program will feature a 130-voice choir and full orchestra. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at www.theheights.org or by calling (972) 231-6047, ext. 292. Free childcare for children under three is available with reservations. Gary Singleton is pastor.

Licensed

Phil Baker, Floyd Joseph, Karen Martin, Shelly Morrison, Brace Potthoff and Chris Ward to the ministry at Westbury Church in Houston Oct. 26.

William McMullen to the ministry at Miori Lane Church in Victoria Nov. 16.

Deaths

Wanda Allen, 73, Nov. 13 in Big Canoe, Ga. Her husband, Jimmy, is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and former head of the Southern Baptist Radio & Television Commission. A graduate of Howard Payne Unversity, she taught in Dallas and San Antonio public schools for 23 years. A significant chapter of her life sprung from the death of two grandsons, Bryan and Matt, who died of HIV/AIDS following contaminated blood transfusions. Bryan's House, the first pediatric agency for children with AIDS in the nation, was named for her grandson, the first baby of record to die of HIV/AIDS in Dallas. She is survived by her husband of 54 years, sons, Michael, Skip and Kenneth; and sister, Wilma Durtschi.

Posted: 11/14/03

African American Fellowship hears plea
for ebony and ivory in harmony

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

LUBBOCK–If shouting offends you, don't sit too close to Jerry Dailey when it's time to worship. And if you think African-American churches and the Baptist General Convention of Texas aren't a match made for heaven, then stay out of earshot.

Because Dailey, pastor of Greater Macedonia Baptist Church in San Antonio, preaches about a God worthy of enthusiastic praise and advocates a mutually beneficial relationship between black Baptists and the BGCT.

The choir from First Progressive Baptist Church in Lubbock sings during the African American Fellowship rally held in conjunction with the BGCT annual session in Lubbock. (Craig Bird/BGCT Photo)

“You don't get the best music from a keyboard by playing only the white keys or just the black keys,” he said. “The sound that most pleases God is when you play them all together to his glory.”

And on boisterous worship, he said: “We can't be quiet because God has given us so much to shout about.”

Dailey spoke to the African American Fellowship of Texas Nov. 9, the day before the BGCT annual session in Lubbock.

He urged the crowd of 250 to be “visible in your presence” at the annual session, “because what we have to offer they need.”

Dailey preached from Mark 8:22-25, which tells of Jesus healing a blind man who at first could see only “men who looked like trees walking.” Atypically, he noted, Jesus wasn't successful on the first attempt, and he asked a strange question: “Do you see anything?”

“Jesus didn't ask that question for his benefit, but because the man needed to answer. And it's a question we all need to answer as well,” Dailey said. Voicing a wariness for people “who go to bed at night dressed in their pajamas of wickedness but get up the next morning robed in righteousness,” he warned that such “microwave Christians” too easily become judgmental, “not of their sins but of the sins they see in others.”

Rather, the Christian walk is a process, “and there is no graduation ceremony this side of heaven,” he said. “The bottom line on earth is, 'I once was, but I'm not all the way where God wants me to be yet. But I'm headed the right direction.'”

And as a result, “the Jesus in me sees the Jesus in you because God touches me one more time and one more time and one more time,” he said.

Another danger is of choosing to remain “in between” where things are not clearly seen as either trees or people, Dailey said. “It is better not to see anything than to see things that aren't reality. But you know the type–not really bad but not really good either; not really outside the church but not really involved; not really for the BGCT but not really against it. Jesus said something about that. He had something against a church that wasn't really hot but wasn't really cold either.”

African-American Baptists must let Jesus touch them again and again and again so they can see clearly and know best how to be God's people, he urged.

Working in partnership with the BGCT is a part of that, he added. “God can do some great things if we all work together.”

BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, invited to make a few remarks at the end of the two-and-one-half-hour service, celebrated the fact that African-American churches' contributions to the BGCT Cooperative Program “continue to lead the convention in percentage increase each year.”

Texas Baptists of tomorrow “will look much different” from Texas Baptists of today as African-American, Hispanic and other ethnic groups continue to contribute and influence the BGCT, Wade added. “If we are going to be the people of God, then we've got to start looking like the people of God, and I thank you for helping us do that.”

Posted: 11/14/03

Rudy and Micaela Camacho, Ron Durham and Chris Seay received this year's Texas Baptist Ministry Awards.

Baylor & Standard honor four with ministry awards

LUBBOCK–Ron Durham, Rudy and Micaela Camacho, and Chris Seay received the second annual Texas Baptist Ministry Awards from Baylor University and the Baptist Standard Nov. 10.

They accepted the awards during George W. Truett Theological Seminary's alumni and friends dinner, held in conjunction with the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session in Lubbock.

Durham received the W. Winfred Moore Award for lifetime ministry achievement.

His long-term tenure at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco embodies vision, patience, endurance, commitment and the value of a lifelong investment in one church. He also has influenced the lives of thousands of Baylor University students through three decades of ministry.

Durham joined Columbus Avenue in February 1973, when he became college minister and associate pastor. In December 1980, the church called him as its pastor, and he has guided the congregation for almost 24 years.

Since he became pastor, about 1,300 Christians have been baptized at Columbus Avenue, which has experienced spiritual and physical growth.

It has constructed the Children's Building, renovated the Educational Building, completed the Fellowship Hall and educational space for college students, renovated the Sanctuary and purchased and renovated a building formerly owned by the YMCA, which functions as the Family Life Center and Mission Outreach Center.

In addition, Columbus Avenue also sponsors two mission congregations–Amistad, which primarily ministers to Hispanics, and Living Witness Missionary Baptist Church, which serves African-Americans.

Durham is a Waco native and graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Prior to serving Columbus Avenue, he was pastor of Willow Grove Baptist Church near Moody, First Baptist Church in Eddy and Taylor's Valley Baptist Church in Temple, and a Baptist Student Union campus minister.

Durham and his wife, V. Beth, have two children, John and his wife, Jennifer, and their children, Hannah and Caleb; and Rhonda and her husband, Brett Bunce, and their children, Brandon and Reagan.

The Moore Award recognizes a Texas Baptist minister in any area of specialization for a lifetime of achievement in ministry. Each recipient will compile a cumulative record of service that exemplifies commitment, stability and effectiveness.

The award is named for Moore, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, who exemplifies lifetime achievement in ministry because of his presence, perseverance, preaching and practice of the Christian faith.

The Camachos accepted the Marie Mathis Award for lay ministry.

They are widely known throughout Texas because they have poured themselves into Texas Baptist causes and advanced the kingdom of God throughout the state.

As a lay preacher, he has filled pulpits across Texas, and they have spent their lives encouraging growth and development of Hispanic Baptist churches.

He is past first vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, secretary of the Howard Payne University board of trustees and a member of the BGCT Executive Committee and the Truett Seminary advisory council.

She is third vice president of the Hispanic Baptist Convencion of Texas, coordinator of the Convencion implementation team and a trustee of Hispanic Baptist Theological School.

He has been president of Convencion and a member of the BGCT executive director search committee, Howard Payne University presidential search committee, BGCT Effectiveness & Efficiency Funding Committee and 10 other BGCT and Tarrant Baptist Association committees and boards.

Howard Payne University has awarded her the doctor of humanities degree and honored him with the HPU Medal of Service and the Dr. Jose Rivas Distinguished Service Award. Convencion has named its scholarship program for them.

He is a retired investigator with the U.S. Postal Service, and she is a retired principal with the Fort Worth Independent School District. They both attended Howard Payne, and she is a graduate of Howard Payne and Texas Woman's University. She also attended Texas Christian University, where she taught.

They are members of Iglesia Bautista Genesis in Fort Worth. They have three sons, Rudy, Ron and Robert, and a granddaughter, Espi.

The Mathis Award recognizes a Texas Baptist layperson or laypersons for recent singular or lifetime ministry achievement. Candidates' achievements combine and exemplify imagination, leadership and effectiveness.

Mathis, a staff member at First Baptist Church in Dallas and for more than a quarter-century director of Baylor's Baptist Student Union, was the first woman elected to a Southern Baptist Convention office. She also was president of Texas and SBC Woman's Missionary Union and the Women's Department of the Baptist World Alliance.

Seay took home the George W. Truett Award for ministerial excellence.

As a minister, Seay defies stereotypes. He doesn't sound like a preacher and doesn't look like a pastor. Yet Seay has developed a reputatian as one of the most effective church planters focused on reaching emerging cultures.

A church member, Aminah Al-Attas, described him: “If you're looking for preachy, you're not looking for Chris. If you're looking for black-and-white answers to gray mysteries, don't ask Chris. If you're looking for a suit and tie and Christian buzzwords, … look somewhere else. If you want to keep your faith neat and tidy and compartmentalized to Sunday morning, you better run. …

“Chris challenges us to think of how being a Christian oozes even into areas of our life that seem unconnected–like how we shop for our groceries. He lets the person of Jesus explode the box we've tried too often to put God in. It's messy. It's challenging. It's more orthodox than you'd first think. And it's real.”

Seay is founding pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco and Ecclesia in Houston, where he now ministers.

He has written four books, including critiques of “The Sopranos,” “The Matrix” and the Enron scandal. He's a graduate of Baylor University and studied at Truett Theological Seminary.

He regularly appears on radio and television as a Christian voice who speaks in contrast to contemporary cultural warriors.

Seay and his wife, Lisa, are the parents of Hannah, Trinity and Solomon.

The Truett Award recognizes a Texas Baptist minister for singular ministry achievement in the recent past. Achievements meriting consideration combine and exemplify imagination, leadership and effectiveness.

Truett was the legendary pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas for the first half of the 20th century–an outstanding preacher, denominational statesman and champion of the faith.

Posted: 11/14/03

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS:
Bragging rights

By Marv Knox

Editor

LUBBOCK–Bob Campbell sounded like the stereotypical long, tall Texas pastor when he delivered his Baptist General Convention of Texas president's address Nov. 10.

He bragged on his church.

“I am here tonight to tell you that my church–Westbury Baptist Church in Houston–is doing greater things than Jesus did during his earthly life,” Campbell proclaimed.

BGCT President Bob Campbell illustrates the impact of cooperative giving through the Baptist General Convention of Texas by telling all the things his Houston church does through the BGCT. (Nan Dickson/BGCT Photo)

Such a claim “sounds almost blasphemous,” he admitted. “How could anyone ever do more than God?”

Yet that's exactly what Jesus intended for churches to do, he stressed, citing a litany of Westbury's accomplishments in the past year.

Those feats included providing $100,000 to start churches in Amarillo, praying for all the 1,800 employees at Baptist St. Anthony's Hospital in Amarillo, buying medicine in Guatemala, sending medical personnel to Bulgaria, placing shoes on Latvian orphans' feet, writing legislation for foster care in 27 nations and holding hands of 150,000 medical patients in Dallas-Fort Worth.

“You might be saying to yourself about now: 'I have heard preachers tend to exaggerate, but this is ridiculous. How could one church do all that?'” Campbell conceded.

“Well, … Westbury Baptist Church in Houston takes seriously the fact that Jesus said: 'Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these.'”

Campbell's church accomplishes Jesus' challenge by working with 5,717 other BGCT churches to support the convention's Cooperative Program budget, he said.

Last year, for example, those churches contributed $25 million to 23 BGCT benevolence and education ministries that operate across Texas and around the globe and have combined budgets of $4.3 billion.

In Texas alone, those schools and benevolence agencies minister in more than 100 locations, Campbell said, noting they directly served 2.5 million Texans, not counting their family members.

“That is one out of every 10 Texans,” Campbell reported. “This does not include what was done in partnership ministries and in these institutions reaching out to work for Christ around the world.

“These are Baptists … doing what Jesus did–BGCT Baptist work. And Christ wanted it to happen. He wanted us to do more than he ever did while he was confined to his earthly body.”

For a large part of his address, Campbell illustrated how churches that support the BGCT Cooperative Program fulfill Jesus' audacious desire through the convention's institutions. He named every one, including hospital systems, child-care agencies, facilities that care for the elderly, an academy, universities, seminaries and other ministry-training institutions.

Texas Baptist churches, like Westbury, have a hand in all these ministries because they contribute to the BGCT Cooperative Program, he reiterated.

Because church members believe in and want to support these ministries, Westbury contributes to the BGCT Adopted Budget, which channels 79 percent of receipts to state convention causes, Campbell said.

In addition, the church allows individual church members to decide where they want the additional 21 percent–the “worldwide” portion–of their missions contribution to go, he added. According to BGCT practice, that portion can be allocated to the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the state convention or selected other causes.

“The members–not the pastor, not the finance committee, not the deacon body, not even the church itself–decide where he or she wants that 21 percent to go. Under the Holy Spirit, they can decide that,” he noted. “I challenge you to practice priesthood of the believer. Let your people decide; stop deciding for them. Trust God and trust your people.”

Some churches have not chosen to participate in the convention's Adopted Budget and consequently allocate less than 79 percent of their Cooperative Program gifts to the BGCT, Campbell said.

“That is hurting every ministry I have spoken about,” he lamented.

Campbell challenged those churches to compare how they allocate Cooperative Program gifts between state and worldwide causes to how they divide their church budget between local and Cooperative Program causes.

“You feel it is wrong for Texas Baptists to keep 79 percent of their mission offering for use in Texas and in its worldwide ministries,” he said. “Does your church send 21 percent (of its budget) to worldwide ministries and missions through the Cooperative Program? Why not?

“Do you think you need more than 79 percent of your budget offerings to do ministry in and around your local church? Does that seem like good Christian practice to you?

“Then it is not wrong for Texas Baptists to spend 79 percent here in Texas and in its worldwide ministries.”

During the past two years, since the BGCT Adopted Budget established the 79/21 division between state and worldwide causes, the Southern Baptist Convention has “criticized and complained” about the decision, Campbell said.

However, those complaints ignore several important factors, he said.

First, 10.5 million Texans “have no religious affiliation at all,” he said, noting, “That is 45 percent of Texans who need Christ.”

Second, the SBC “remained totally silent” when other state conventions reduced their gifts to the SBC, “but they openly criticized the BGCT for trying to retain enough money to reach the 10.5 million unchurched Texans.”

Third, the BGCT already doesn't have enough money to start churches. For example, when Westbury tried to start its fifth mission congregation, it was told the BGCT doesn't have enough money to help with the church start, he said. Meanwhile, Union Baptist Association has told Westbury it needs to start three Hispanic congregations.

“Tell your church about all you have seen here these days,” Campbell told about 3,000 participants in the BGCT meeting. “Plead with them to help increase the giving so that we can continue this work that reaches all over Texas and beyond our borders to other states and countries around the world.

“Ask your people to give 79 percent of their Cooperative Program dollars to the BGCT. God will thank you for it. You can be sure that by doing so, your church will be advancing the kingdom of God.”

Posted: 11/14/03

BGCT child-care agencies describe state's needs

By Miranda Bradley

Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services

LUBBOCK–When a beautiful little girl shows up at South Texas Children's Home with 6-inch cigarette burns all over her body, it causes Christi Haag to shudder a little, despite the fact she has been around the ministry 28 years.

“At one point, you think you've seen and heard it all, then you discover another way someone has abused a child. You think I'd get used to it, but I cry all the time,” said Haag, sponsor director at the children's home.

But these stories are all too common among the institutional ministries serving troubled children and families across Texas. Whether in San Antonio or in the Panhandle, each ministry continues to strive to meet the growing needs of a needy population, speakers said during a breakout session at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session.

In 2001, reports from the United States Health and Human Services Department showed 45,000 children were abused and neglected, and 60 percent of those were under the age of 7. And of the 1 million children reported to be victims of maltreatment in the United States, 80 percent were abused by one or both parents.

“The needs of troubled families and children are tremendous,” said Jerry Haag, president of South Texas Children's Home.

That fact was echoed by Don Cramer, vice president at Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services.

“No matter what a parent has allowed to happen to a child, that parent is the most important person in that child's life,” he said. “They will go back to missing meals and receiving abuse just to be with that parent.”

So Texas Baptist Children's Home in Round Rock decided in the 1970s to mend the child through the family. The BGCT ministry offers counseling and parenting classes for the entire family unit to bridge the gap and deter future neglectful or abusive behavior.

“Sometimes we will have the mom and stepdad working right alongside the dad and stepmom during the family weekends, all for the good of the child,” Cramer said.

Other full-service children's homes, like Baptist Child & Family Services in San Antonio, are moving in other directions as well, speakers said.

Prevention has become the cure, according to Nanci Gibbons, executive vice president of Baptist Child & Family Services. Instead of waiting to be asked for help, the institution's mobile medical unit takes help to the Lubbock community.

“This mobile unit has everything you can possibly need for prenatal care,” she said. “We could even deliver a baby in this thing if we had to.”

The unit is equipped with sonogram technology, exam table and a staff who have the necessary expertise to guide low-income mothers to healthy deliveries.

Whether the care is given over days or years, the impact can be lifelong, no matter where the help is received, she said.