Posted: 5/19/03

EDITORIAL:
Mission boards' historic steps re-shape Baptist heritage

Led by its mission boards, the Southern Baptist Convention took two significant strides toward creedalism this month.

“Creedalism” has been a painful word in Baptist history. Our Baptist forebears and their cousins from other dissenting Christian groups suffered and died in 17th century Europe for refusing to affirm creeds and declining to bow down to the civil and religious authorities who enforced creeds.

Early Baptists resisted creeds because of their heartfelt understanding of and commitment to the twin concepts of soul competency and the priesthood of the believer. For four centuries, Baptists have championed the concept of soul competency, the idea that God created each person with the innate ability to relate directly to God and to seek God's way and will for her or his life. Similarly, Baptists have believed that each Christian is a priest before God–a follower of Christ who does not need an itermediary, be it a priest or a creed, to stand between the individual and the Lord, and who also has a responsibility for living faithfully in relationship to God and within the community of the church.

“No creed but the Bible” has been Baptists' motto. It reflects the Baptist understanding that each Christian has the right/responsibility to search the Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and within the context of the local church, but that no person or group has the right to impose its theological will upon an individual or a congregation. Since the mid-17th century, Baptists have written confessions of faith. These documents have served a couple of purposes–to declare to others the general beliefs of the Baptists who have adopted them and to guide the training and discipling of growing, learning believers. Generally, the nature of these confessions of faith has been inclusive, intended to help gather together the faithful rather than to exclude some members of the community along the fine points of theological interpretation.

The treatment of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message by the Southern Baptist Convention's International and North American mission boards indicates it does indeed serve as a creed–defining who can and cannot participate in the life of the national convention.

That was true until recently. In 2000, the SBC adopted a new version of the Baptist Faith & Message statement and labeled it an “instrument of doctrinal accountability.” Whereas leaders of the groups who had drafted previous Baptist faith statements had taken pains to stress that those documents should not be imposed upon Baptists, the drafters of the 2000 BF&M called their document an “instrument of doctrinal accountability.” To many Baptists, that sounded like the classic definition of a creed–a statement to which a person must pledge loyalty in order to participate in and be considered a part of that religious group.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas repeatedly declined to affirm the 2000 BF&M. Many Texas Baptists resist it because, as traditional Baptists, they resist creeds. Many also believe it strays far from Baptist heritage by making the Bible superior to God's revelation in Christ, by subjugating women to men and by violating the autonomy of the local church.

SBC leaders have championed the 2000 BF&M but have denied it is a creed. Understandably, they do not wish to be associated with a concept so decidedly un-Baptist as a creed.

However, the treatment of the 2000 BF&M by the SBC's International and North American mission boards indicates it does indeed serve as a creed–defining who can and cannot participate in the life of the national convention.

The International Mission Board's action has drawn the most publicity. Early this month, the IMB board of trustees voted to fire 13 missionaries for refusing to affirm the 2000 BF&M. Some refused, not because they disagree with its theological positions, but because they believe it is a creed and Baptists shouldn't affirm creeds. Others shared that aversion for creeds but also shared some of Texas Baptists' concerns about aberrant theological positions.

Since IMB President Jerry Rankin issued his “request” that IMB missionaries affirm the 2000
BF&M, he sounded uncertain about what that meant. He said they weren't required to sign the BF&M, but to affirm a statement affirming the statement. For awhile, he declined to say specifically what would happen to missionaries whose consciences would not allow them to sign. Even when furloughing missionaries were told they could not return to the field if they refused to sign, IMB spokespersons insisted they were not being terminated. But finally, Rankin recommened those who had not affirmed by May 5 should be fired, and so the trustees acted.

That makes the 2000 BF&M a creed: Affirmation is required for participation and inclusion.

More subtly, the North American Mission Board has required loyalty to the 2000 BF&M. For months, NAMB and the Baptist General Convention of Texas have tried to work out a cooperative agreement to describe how the two groups would conduct joint ministries.

The hangup has been over requiring home missionaries to affirm the 2000 BF&M. Texas Baptists have said they would work with jointly supported missionaries who wished to sign, but they would not require them to sign. Texas Baptists also have said they would fund non-signing missionaries exclusively out of their budget. NAMB has insisted the document state that missionaries it supports must “conform to” the 2000 BF&M. The BGCT agreed to that language. But the BGCT suggested that a statement above the signatures of its representatives indicate they do not affirm or endorse the 2000 BF&M. In response, NAMB has postponed action on the agreement.

So, NAMB agrees only when it wins every point of contention and refuses to cooperate when Texas Baptists wish to state their convictions, something Texas Baptists allowed NAMB to do. NAMB's rigid requirement of 2000 BF&M endorsement makes it a creed required not only of missionaries but of state conventions willing to cooperate in order to spread the gospel.

Despite its heritage, the SBC has embraced creedalism.

–Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/19/03

DOWN HOME:
Sky impression, faulty opinions

The skies over Texas have been looking like “a communist country” lately.

That's not a political statement. It's a flashback kid's-eye-view-of-social-studies statement.

When I was growing up–way yonder in the Texas Panhandle, where the wind scrubs the sky clean several times a day (except, of course, when it fills it with dirt from parched farmland)–I couldn't imagine smog.

MARV KNOX Editor

One of my schoolbooks (I can't remember if it was geography or science) had a picture of a layer of gray-brown smog settled nastily amid the skyscrapers and freeways of Los Angeles. “Yeeee-oooow,” I thought. “Who would want to live in stinky ol' California?”

But that wasn't the worst of it.

Seems like every picture I ever saw of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellite puppet-government countries revealed gloomy, cloudy, smoggy skies. Every picture. I don't remember ever seeing a photograph of a sun-dappled landscape anywhere behind the Iron Curtain.

Maybe this was due to slick propaganda by pro-Western editors of social studies textbooks. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe the textbooks featured plenty of sunshiny communist countries, but I didn't pay attention.

Somehow, I grew up thinking the sun never shone behind the Iron Curtain.

So, in addition to feeling sorry for all the Soviet children being raised by “godless communist” parents, I pitied them our Texas sunshine. Not only was everything “bigger and better” in Texas, it was sunnier, too.

Those memories, long hidden by clouds of years, peeked out lately. The “Mexican smoke” that drifted up from the south has blocked out the sun, the horizon and practically anything more than a mile or so away.

“This looks familiar,” I kept thinking. Later, it hit me. “Communist countries. This looks like a picture of a communist country.”

Imagine my surprise when, as a young father, I traveled to Russia. The pristine skies over St. Petersburg delighted my eyes. The sunshine that flooded the northern countryside delighted my soul.

But that was nothing next to the joy I felt as I met, greeted, hugged and worshipped with fellow Baptist Christians. These were the same children I had pitied, imagining them growing up in homes dominated by atheism and pictures of Lenin.

Well, some of them were raised by parents who didn't believe in God or love Jesus. But many of them grew up in loving Christian homes, and all those years we were praying to the same Lord and Savior, me in Texas and they in Russia.

If I'd known the words in Russian, I would have taught them one of my favorite songs from childhood, “Heavenly Sunshine.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/19/03

ANOTHER VIEW:
Look below the surface for answers to global problems

I met a man not long ago. He was a Persian. He was from Iran, between Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Persian looked me in the eye and told me something of which I was already aware: Americans know next to nothing about the history and culture of the Middle East.

Britt Towery

I agreed with him. Americans, as a whole, are not well versed on anything beyond Hawaii on one side and the Bahamas on the other.

The little world history I studied in Brownwood High School and Howard Payne half a century ago had little to say about the world's cultures or how they got that way.

We have been “exposed” to history, but we have learned little. Comprehending varied cultures (beginning with the Iroquois and Cherokees) never has been an American priority.

As I looked at the Persian, I had to remind myself he was not an Arab. Iran is Persian. Iraq, their neighbor, is Arab. These two distinct peoples have contributed much to the advancement of civilization.

Surveys before the invasion of Iraq said few college kids could find either country on the map. Geography is ignored in schools today.

But Arab and Persian history is making a comeback. The attempts by CNN and the TV network newscasts are appreciated, but they are less help than my old textbooks. In network and cable news programs, the maps are nice, but facts are lacking. In between commercials, more questions are raised than answers.

The West (meaning primarily Europe and the United States) does not have a very good track record in the Middle East.

Before any reader takes pen in hand to proclaim me as an American basher, pause long enough to reconsider the record. The man-made national boundaries in the Middle East were drawn by British and French politicians 80-something years ago.

When World War I began in 1914, the Turkish Ottoman Empire joined with Germany. The only way the British could get Arab help in defeating the Turks was to promise them freedom when it was all over. This was where Lawrence of Arabia came on the scene and helped the Arabs and allies to defeat the Turks. Lawrence was much in favor of the Arabs ruling themselves.

The British and French politicians agreed as long as they could appoint the kings and draw the boundaries–thereby keeping their hands in the oil.

The lands of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq have lived the nightmare ever since.

Our America has done great and unheard of things in its short time among the nations of the world. But we are still young as far as a world power.

More importantly, we must learn that humility in dealing with others is not a sign of weakness. I think John F. Kennedy said that.

Humility is a sign of strength. I said that.

But, back to my Persian friend: He thought I was visiting with him just to convert him to Christianity. Even when I assured him I would be glad if he became a Christian but I was not in the proselytizing business, he found it difficult to believe. When a person is of another religion, I respect that.

Once the 19th century evangelist Dwight L. Moody and a friend were walking down a city street late at night. The friend noticed a drunk clinging to a lamppost and commented to Moody, “Isn't that one of your converts?” Moody replied, “He must be one of mine; God's converts don't look like that.”

So when I left the straight-talking Persian, I was determined to do a number of things.

Here is my to-do list:

Look below the surface and the politicians' spin.

Learn some basics about the people of Islam, the culture of Arabs, Persians and Kurds. Learn how they got to where they are today.

Try to walk in their shoes and discover the merit in their views.

I am convinced if the Western Christian experience is to be meaningful to people of the Middle East and the rest of the world, it will be because of our actions, not our words.

Britt Towery of San Angelo is a retired Southern Baptist missionary

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/19/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
Amish Baptists

By Brett Younger

My parents, my church and most of my friends called them selves Baptist, but in reality we were, in most of the ways that mattered to a teenager, Amish. We not only didn't drink or sleep around; we didn't personally know anyone who did. We saw those people. They went to the grocery store that sold beer. Everyone at our church went to the store that didn't sell beer. We knew where the pool hall was, where most of the drinking reportedly took place, but no one in my youth group had ever been there.

Brett Younger

Not only had alcohol never passed my lips I had never seen it pass anyone else's lips either. We knew that there were seventeen-year-olds who slept around, but we didn't know any of them–though I tended to imagine such girls. I imagined those women wore bright red dresses or tight-fitting blue jeans. They had long painted fingernails and were always looking for young Baptist/Amish victims to lure into depravity. (The Amish kids may have been less sheltered than I was.)

Before I went to Baylor a deacon who was concerned that I was going some place more worldly than Bob Jones University pulled me aside and said,”When you get to college, you will face temptations that you have never imagined. There will be hard drinking, loose living women. You need to decide right now that you will have nothing to do with them, because if the devil gets hold of you she doesn't let go.”

As a freshman I was constantly on the lookout out for wild women with drinking problems, but I couldn't find any. After a while I let my guard down. While taking Introduction to New Testament I was distracted by a Lutheran pastor's daughter who sat right in front of me. Yvonne was attractive enough to frighten me, but she seemed like a nice person. After a couple of weeks she said “hi” and I said “hi” I was thrilled that we were hitting it off. After a few more weeks of waiting for her to say”hi" again I finally asked if she would like to go out to eat and to a G-rated movie. We went to a nice family friendly Mexican restaurant. We talked about our churches and how wonderful it is to be a preacher's kid, but when our food came, she said, and I'll never forget this, and for a long time I tried,”Isn't it strange to have Mexican food without beer?" I tried to keep breathing but couldn't. She might as well have said,”Isn't it strange to eat enchiladas without crack cocaine sprinkled on top?" or”Isn't it strange to have tacos without small children as an appetizer?

I realized who she was. She was temptation. The devil had finally arrived and she was wearing blue jeans. She was a hard drinking, loose living woman planning to lure me into the depravity that I had been warned about.

I spent the rest of the evening terrified, but apparently she recognized my spiritual strength, and the invisible armor of God I was wearing, and to my disappointment, made no further attempts to steal my soul.

What I've learned since then, also to my disappointment, is that for most ministers most of the time temptation doesn't wear a red dress or tight-fitting blue jeans. Temptation is not usually flashy, frightening or obvious. The temptations that are most likely to steal ministerial souls are quiet and boring. They are the temptations to be dull and apathetic, and they are more dangerous than Lutherans.

Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/23/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
Pastors & Mavericks

By John Duncan

I am sitting here under the old oak tree, pondering the powerful playoff run of the Dallas Mavericks and the precipice upon which pastors stand.

Do basketball and pastors coincide? Like coaches in today's society, pastors live on the edge of a precipice, ready to step into the glorious promised land, or they gingerly step toward the not-so-ready dangerous fall into oblivion. Pastors possess the joy of a higher calling, but for many, pressures mount.

Not long ago after a draining playoff game, Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson talked of Los Angeles Lakers' coach Phil Jackson, who had a medical procedure after heart trouble. Pastors work with people who have heart troubles of numerous kinds.

JOHN DUNCAN

Nelson remarked that on a scale of 1 to 10, the job of a coach is a 10 on the stress meter. Nelson followed his remark with a telling statement: “It's not just the pressure you put on yourself, although that's the most of it. It's the whole environment, the competition, the press, the radio talk shows-for nine months of the year, everybody's killing you. And if they're not, you're killing yourself.”

I have pastored only three churches, which may not completely qualify me to stake my claim, but pastors today face pressures like coaches in a playoff run. I remember and appreciate with fondness the churches that I have been privileged to pastor–the country church of my college days, my first full time church and the growing church I now pastor, a church where God amazes me daily by his grace.

I also think of the precious people–Merle Taylor, who taught this city boy the difference between sheep and goats; Earl and Emma, who defended their 19-year-old peachfuzz preacher as not some “little preacher boy” but “our preacher” and served me pecan pie; Mack, with his winsome spirit of encouragement that carried me on low days; Cooter, who laughed and forgave me the day in which I plowed over a water pipe while mowing the church yard; Elsie, who appreciated my trips to the nursing home; an unnamed East Texas lady, who once served up these words: “You young! The Laud done gone and sent you out early”; the Lees and the Smiths, who invited us over for games and fun; Sam, who allows me to be myself whether good or bad; and a host of other unnamed saints at Lakeside Baptist Church, who have helped me hold on to Jesus in the joyous roller coaster ride of 16 years here at Lakeside in Granbury.

The struggles, the mostly highs, and the joys of 16 years in the same place and two other churches still cause me to appreciate God's work, his call, and pastors on the edge of a precipice in the pressure.

I remember through the years numerous pressures and a few not-so-precious saints–a couple of anonymous letters; the guy who once declared, “You'll never make it as a preacher”; church financial pressures; people and personality pressures; growing pains and the pressures of growth; lectures from my parishioners; saints worried about bathroom toilet paper supplies and worship temperatures (Too hot! Too cold! All on the same Sunday!); crowded parking lots; watching the sails rip off of families falling apart; families in other crises like job layoffs; and the ever present joys of music and worship in this complex 21st century, to name only a few. I learned the pastor's greatest challenge–knowing what to accept as truth and what to ignore or dump into the File 13 of life. Satan often comes cloaked with shining wings.

I often ask, “What is the greatest pressure pastors face?” Is it sneaky spiritual warfare, which aims to destroy? Is it crises like death and marital straits, which aim to rip the sails off marital lifeboats? Is it people who stir trouble in the church? Is it a lack of experience or a lack of knowledge about a church's particular history? Is it a lack of Bible knowledge or spiritual discipline? Is it not enough of Emma's pecan pie?

Or do pastors get beat up by incipient competition between churches? After all, Eugene Peterson once quipped of the dangers of always wishing for “something bigger,” or, in his own words, that eternal quest for the perfectly desirable church of the pastor's imagination, “a tall steeple church with a cheese cake congregation.”

I think Don Nelson must have been preaching at a pastors' conference. Preachers, pastors and staffers sometimes get beat down, but if the truth be known, most spend a lot of time beating up on themselves.

For all this talk about coaches and preachers and playoff run by the Dallas Mavericks, two things must happen in the boiling pressures of ministry. Eugene Peterson himself admits: “Hang around (the church) long enough, and sure enough there are gossips who won't shut up, furnaces that malfunction, sermons that misfire, disciples who quit, choirs who go flat-and worse. Every congregation is a congregation of sinners. And if that weren't bad enough, they all have sinners for pastors.” Peterson calls for God's servants and his people, albeit all sinners, to develop two things–holiness in relationship with God and a passion for his calling. These two essentials appear to be missing among pastors and people today amid life pressures.

So here is to all pastors whose sermons have misfired and whose ministry passion has fizzled: Develop holiness in relationship to God again. Ask Christ to renew his joy in you. Beg for his Spirit to rekindle the flame of his passion and calling in spite of the pressures.

So here is to all the people of churches all over the globe: Trust God in your own pressures. Recognize the pressures your pastor faces, even amid the beating up of the inner self. Encourage your pastor today. And, by all means, stop looking for cheesecake congregations. Invite your pastor over for pecan pie. It will do you wonders, and it sure will bless your pastor. I sure miss Emma and Earl and that piece of pecan pie of shared fellowship in Christ.

Finally, to Don Nelson, I say, “Go Dallas Mavericks!”

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/30/03

Panhandle church steers
toward a witness with car show

By George Henson

Staff Writer

AMARILLO–Pastor Dana Moore's driving passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ recently steered his congregation to sponsor a car show in the church parking lot.

"It's that age-old idea of how do we get the gospel to people who won't come to church," he said.

About a dozen members of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Amarillo helped the pastor put on the car show that wheeled in 40 entries in its second year.

Joey Porter, son of Pleasant Valley members Paul and Lori Porter, takes a spin in his pal Noah Conger's VW Beetle that's just the right size.

“We wanted to provide something for our community,” Moore explained. “A lot of people around here like to look at old cars, and this was a way to reach out to them and the people who own the cars too.”

Moore owns a 1963 Thunderbird.

“I've had this one about two years, but my first car was a 1963 T-Bird,” he explained. “My uncle turned me on to T-Birds early in life, and 1963 is my birth year, so that makes it special for me.”

Moore admits his baby blue T-Bird with white ragtop was completely restored when he bought it. “I'm no handyman,” he said. “My kids are impressed when I change a light bulb.”

Even greater than his interest in cars, however, is Moore's interest in bringing people into the church.

“We probably had 200 come through, and a lot of people came to our church parking lot on Saturday who probably never thought they'd be standing in a church parking lot.”

To widen the appeal, the church, which averages about 300 in Sunday morning worship, not only had the cars but offered food and an inflatable house for children.

Prizes were awarded in conjunction with the car show. All the money raised from entry fees and food sales was donated to the Pleasant Valley Elementary School across the street from the church.

Moore has been pastor of the Amarillo church nine years.

“These are just wonderful people in this church,” he explained. “They are open to trying innovative things like this to spread the gospel.”

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/30/03

Campolo, Campbell to headline CBF meeting

ATLANTA–Tony Campolo, Kate Campbell and Marjorie Thompson will lead worship and prayer sessions at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's general assembly June 26-28 in Charlotte, N.C.

Campolo, professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern College in St. David's, Pa., and a prolific author and speaker, will speak during the assembly's opening session.

Campbell, a Nashville recording artist and daughter of a Baptist pastor, will provide music for the sessions. Thompson, an author on Christian spiritual formation, will lead guided prayer times.

The assembly also will feature a commissioning service for CBF global missions personnel and more than 100 ministry workshops.

Other highlights of the assembly include:

CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal will bring a message on “CBF Being the Presence of Christ in the World.”

Church growth expert and author Brian McLaren will lead the CBF Congregational Leadership Institute.

CBF-endorsed chaplains and pastoral counselors will be recognized.

A business session will include election of Coordinating Council members and adoption of CBF's 2003-04 budget.

Jubilate!, a youth choir from CBF churches in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, will perform Thursday.

Alabama pastor Sarah Jackson Shelton will preach Friday evening.

Retired North Carolina pastor Jack Causey will lead a time of communion and commissioning on Saturday morning.

More details and pre-registration information may be accessed online at www.cbfonline.org.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/30/03

Team charts new missions territory in rural China

Editor's note: The names of the Baptist mission workers in this story have been changed for security reasons.

RURAL CHINA (BP)–Wearing the same pair of socks for a week, dining on soupy Chinese noodles and veggies for breakfast, shampooing in a creek and snacking on energy bars are only a few of the many unique aspects of hiking through China's countryside.

Doug McTavish and Stephen Faulkner know this first-hand.

McTavish, 24, and Faulkner, 30, are not on an expedition but a two-year assignment to share the gospel of Christ. They are part of a team of six backpackers who trek cattle paths looking for the isolated villages of the people group among whom they work.

Baptist mission workers in China hike a trail in the nation's interior.BP photo

The team pinpoints locations on handheld global positioning systems, takes pictures, counts houses and draws maps of communities. All the information eventually gets coordinated into trekking routes and compiled into notebooks for use by future prayerwalking, evangelism and ministry teams.

“What they do is so important,” says the worker who supervises them and coordinates strategy. “I feel it is my responsibility that these people have a chance to hear the gospel in a way they can understand it. I thought, 'How are we going to do that?' The people are so spread out. The task appears overwhelming, but we decided that if we knew where they were, we could reach them with the gospel.”

The process of locating villages often provides humorous antidotes to strenuous travel. For instance, McTavish recalled the time they were invited to eat with one family.

“Dude, she pulled out a hog's head–everything from the ears forward–and put it on the fire, turned to us and asked, 'Can you stay for supper?' We figured a way to gracefully get out of that one.”

The people they encounter are traditionally animistic–worshipping trees, rivers and mountains–but openness to the gospel continues to grow.

When they enter a community, McTavish and Faulkner regularly have their own followers as children gather in their wakes. Spontaneous games of soccer or basketball often endear the two to villagers. Both are mildly conversant in the Mandarin language.

“We take very seriously the idea of being salt and light wherever we go,” Faulkner said. “We know others will be coming behind us with the gospel.”

Faulkner felt compelled to build God's kingdom instead of his own by anonymously preparing the way for the gospel. He felt that God said, “You don't need Mountain Dew and Papa John's to survive.”

Circumstances during their travels have forced these young men to lean on God for guidance. Once, they literally asked God for direction when they were faced with a fork on their trail.

“Out of nowhere these guys came out of the fields and told us which direction the village was and that we were almost there,” Faulkner said.

“All this changes your perspective,” McTavish said. “When we come to an isolated village and I pray for some guy who is 80 years old, and then I know that I am probably the first Christian to ever pray for him, that is a pretty awesome thought.”

A byproduct of surviving the smell of five-day-old socks also has been an immense friendship.

“We are with each other 24/7,” Faulkner said. “We even hang out together when we don't have to. Our interests are so similar that–from the very start–we got along well.”

McTavish and Faulkner recount the story of how God might be preparing a man to profess faith in Christ.

“This guy on a tractor was pulling a trailer with a bunch of logs on it, but they'd all fallen off down a slope,” McTavish recalled. “We dropped our packs and helped him load them all back on his trailer.

“He went on ahead, but later we caught up to him. He was trying to get up a muddy slope but couldn't because of the weight of the logs. We unloaded all the logs, carried them up the hill, then loaded them back on the trailer.”

The grunt work garnered an invitation to dinner and a place to stay that night.

“That guy's wife hooked us up with some serious good food that night,” McTavish continued. “He also told us we had a place to stay any time we came back.”

McTavish and Faulkner only hope the next time they go back that dinner will precede a worship service with that family.

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

Posted: 5/30/03

Ministers offered free counseling

DALLAS (BP)–Too often, Christian leaders have personal problems but feel they have no place to turn, Mac Brunson says.

But the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas has helped put together a ministry to some of those hurting leaders. This year's Southern Baptist Convention Pastors' Conference, headed by Brunson, will join with Focus on the Family and Hope for the Heart to offer free Christian counseling to pastors, staff members, missionaries and their families Sunday and Monday, June 15-16.

To ensure anonymity, the counseling will take place away from the Phoenix Civic Plaza. Focus on the Family's H.B. London Jr. and Hope for the Heart's June Hunt will lead a team of counselors.

Confidential appointments can be made by calling Hope for the Heart at (800) 488-HOPE (4673) between 8:30 a.m. and 10 p.m. Central time. Names are not required; registration numbers will be assigned. Appointments will be made in the order they are received.

The ministry adds to what was already a family-oriented event. The theme of the conference will be “Building Kingdom Families,” and the first-ever Kingdom Family Rally will take place Monday night, June 16.

“It adds a dimension that I've never known the convention to have before,” Brunson said.

Both Hunt and London say Christian leaders are dealing with a variety of problems. London said the key issues fall into five categories: marital issues; family issues; contention in the local church; the balance between ministry and home life; and addictive personalities and perversions (Internet addiction, television addiction, etc.).

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