Posted: 12/14/07

TBM sends chainsaws to
Oklahoma, blankets to Iraq

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Texas Baptist Men disaster relief is responding to emergencies and meeting needs from central Oklahoma to northern Iraq.

Four chainsaw crews were dispatched to Oklahoma City to clear away fallen limbs caused by an ice storm that paralyzed much of the Midwest. The crews, who are being housed and fed at Northwest Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, may work up to two weeks.

TBM also is sending 10,000 blankets to Kurds who are migrating from southern Iraq, which historically is more unstable and unfriendly to Kurds, to a Kurdish-controlled area in the northern portion of the war-torn nation.

“We are sending blankets for humanitarian purposes,” said Gary Smith, TBM disaster relief volunteer coordinator. “We have people who are fleeing terrorist activity to somewhere it is safe. They need the blankets to stay warm until they have shelter.”

For information on how to support TBM disaster relief ministries, visit www.texasbaptistmen.org.

Posted: 12/14/07

Texas Tidbits

Group encourages women in Baptist pulpits. Baptist Women in Ministry is encouraging Baptist churches to invite a woman from their congregation, community or a seminary to preach Feb. 3 as part of the Martha Stearns Marshall Day of Preaching. The day honors Marshall, an 18th century Baptist preacher, and is meant to further develop the skills of Baptist women who feel God’s calling to preach. Last year, more than 50 congregations in the United States and one in Japan participated in the day. Baptist Women in Ministry hopes at least 100 churches will participate this year, said Julie O’Teter, a member of the group’s leadership team. For more information, visit www.bwim.info or e-mail Julie.Oteter@bgct.org.

 Texans on New Baptist Covenant program. Two Texas Baptist pastors—George Mason from Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas and Ellis Orosco from Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen—will be part of a miniature preaching festival within next year’s Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant. The homiletics mini-conference is scheduled to take place during the breakout-session times at the conference, Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Atlanta.

Church delays decision on gay couples. Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth postponed a scheduled Dec. 2 decision on whether to include homosexuals as couples in a church pictorial directory. The church referred the matter to its deacons, who are expected to bring a recommendation by Feb. 24. The issue surfaced when some gay church members asked to be photographed as couples and pictured as such in the church directory, scheduled for publication as part of the church’s 125th anniversary celebration. Some members expressed concern that picturing gays as couples would be perceived as the church’s endorsement of homosexual behavior. The Baptist General Convention of Texas—with which Broadway is affiliated—is on record affirming churches that minister to homosexuals but has characterized homosexual behavior as sinful. BGCT practice has been to reject financial contributions from a church that endorses homosexual behavior, thereby essentially cutting ties between that church and the state convention.

Valley Baptist’s cardiovascular care recognized nationally. Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen has been named one of the top 100 hospitals in the nation—and the only one south of Houston—for saving lives and reducing complications in heart patients. The results from the Thomson Top 100 Hospitals awards will be published in Modern Healthcare, and the award will be presented to Valley Baptist at the 100 Top Hospitals Summit in Colorado Springs, Co., next summer. Thomson Healthcare analyzed and scored Valley Baptist and more than 1,000 other hospitals around the country for patient survival rates, preventing infections, and other measures related to heart attack, congestive heart failure, bypass surgery, angioplasties and other coronary interventions.

Posted: 12/14/07

TOGETHER:
Tune your heart to the wait

Rosemary says I am a terrible “waiter.” She says everywhere I go, I have to have a handful of stuff to read or a list of calls to make or a piece of paper to write another list on. I can’t stand to be waiting with nothing to do.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

When we served a church composed of military families in Germany, we learned they know a lot about waiting. Husbands and fathers often were gone for weeks at a time. They accepted the waiting as a necessary part of being in the Army. Soldiers told of being gone from their families during World War II for three, four, even five years without furlough.

Can you imagine that kind of waiting?

While living two years in a German village, we were introduced to Advent, which instantly made sense to me. Here was a way that Christians through the centuries had reminded themselves in a daily way that Christmas is about Christ. Each day in the homes, an Advent calendar with Scriptures and prayers would mark the days of waiting for Christmas.

I learned that the four weeks of Advent begin with a solemn time of darkness in the sanctuaries as the people of God await the coming of the Light. I never could quite carry it off with my congregations. We could not keep it solemn and dark until Christmas when the Light would appear. We Americans (maybe especially Baptists) are very impatient. We don’t like to wait. So, we would sing the plaintive “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” on the first Sunday of Advent, but by the second Sunday, we were singing, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.”

This has been a season of waiting for Rosemary and me.

In just a few weeks, I will retire as your executive director for the BGCT. Frankly, I haven’t had much time to think about it. Several matters still need my attention. I am trying to figure out how to “phase out” my tenure in this office. I have never retired before.

We wait patiently as the search committee for the new executive director does its work. Let me encourage you to wait with eagerness, something like we do for Christmas. We have a great committee at work, and you are praying for them.

God will guide them to the right person to take up this holy task.

I have learned that if you will put away your stuff for awhile and lean into God’s love and joy for you, you will grow bigger of heart and vision.

Your soul will expand.

It may be the Apostle Paul was thinking something along these lines when he wrote in Romans 8, “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. … The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs, … That is why waiting does not diminish us. … We are enlarged in the waiting. … The longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy.”

My prayer for you is a heart tuned to the wait.

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

Posted: 12/12/07

Bible Studies for Life Series for December 16

Being changed by the Savior

• Luke 1:26-56

By Steve Dominy

First Baptist Church, Gatesville

Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes it breeds complacency, which, I would contend, is a form of contempt. So it is with this story. Most of us know this story so well we don’t really need to read it.

I used to spend a week or two with my grandparents each summer. Every day, they would get up, get a cup of coffee and then read the Bible together and pray. Each of them had read it several times. I remember asking why they would read something again and again when they already knew it. My granddaddy replied, “With the Bible, there is always something knew to learn.”

And so it is, even if we don’t learn something knew, our faith is deepened and our eyes opened more to the majesty and grace of God.

The story of the announcement to Mary of her role in the birth of Jesus divides the story of Elizabeth and the coming of John the Baptist. The story of Mary and Jesus bounces between the story of Elizabeth and John. First we see Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Luke then moves to Gabriel’s announcement to Mary and her sharing this with Elizabeth. He then moves back to the birth of John and finally to the birth of Jesus. Luke tells this as two different stories and one story. The stories are as different as night and day and the same as two peas in a pod.

Zechariah and Elizabeth are established; they are well past the age of childbearing. Mary is the opposite—a young virgin anticipating her upcoming marriage. But the similarities far outweigh any differences we might see. In fact, the differences serve to heighten the similarity. In both stories, God takes the initiative. In both stories, we see God reveal his grace and his power.

They are stories of grace in that through their sons God expresses his grace to the world, and they are stories of grace in that, no matter how faithful Mary and Elizabeth are, God uses sinful people in his work of redemption. Neither Mary nor Elizabeth conceive by their own volition, Luke makes it abundantly clear that God is the power behind the conception and birth of both John and Jesus. Both women expressed dismay, Elizabeth because of her age, and Mary because she was a virgin, but God used both to reveal that, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

The virgin birth is an important part not only of the Christmas story, but of our Christian heritage. It is one of the pointers to the incarnation, that God became flesh. It helps us to grasp that Jesus is both God and human, that in Jesus, God has come to us. This miraculous conception takes place solely by the will and word of God; it takes place purely by God’s initiative.

That Jesus was both God and man is crucial to the Christian understanding of salvation. Many of the heresies throughout the history of the church have their basis in a misunderstanding of the nature of Jesus’ person. They either deny the humanity or deity of Christ. Any belief that denies the deity or humanity of Christ ceases to be Christian. That Jesus was born is evidence of his humanity, but that is not the full story. The Word that became flesh did not originate from human origins. Joseph cared for Jesus, and filled the role of his father on Earth but Christ came from God, and no other.

Not only should we take note of the means of Jesus’ birth, we also should take note of several things about Mary. Mary is told the Lord is with her and that she is highly favored. Mary is the recipient of God’s grace.

We usually understand grace to be God’s unmerited favor, and we should, but the best definition that I know comes from T.F. Torrance: “Grace is not some thing God gives us, it is the way God gives us himself.” To know grace is to know the presence of the Lord in our lives. The grace she knows results in her obedience, her faithfulness and her worship.

Verses 46-55 comprise Mary’s song, or the Magnificat. The song is Mary’s response to the outpouring of God’s grace and the evidence of God’s grace in her life and in the life of Elizabeth. It is a response full of gratitude, praise and assurance proclaiming the goodness, power and grace of God.

In the first section, Mary praises God for the favor he bestows on her. Fred Craddock says that even this section is not purely autobiographical but that through Mary God has begun to reverse the fortunes of the world so that the last shall be first and the first last. The kingdom of God is intruding on the kingdoms of this world and turning them upside down.

What fascinates me most about this song is the tense in which Mary sings. Each time that Mary sings of God she sings of what God has done. Each line begins with, “He has …” and lists the mighty acts of God. There has been some discussion as to how we should understand these acts of which Mary sings. Should we understand them as a recitation of things God already has done? Is Mary singing only in the past tense, or is there more to it than that?

In light of what Mary has been through with the announcement by Gabriel and her encounter with Elizabeth, I think that it is best to read this song in light of what God is doing now. The fulfillment of the promises of God are so certain Mary can sing of them as having already being accomplished. There is no question in her mind God is at work bringing his rule to bear on his world.

That is the kind of assurance we can seek this Christmas. Our familiarity with the story, but more importantly with the Christ who has come should bring us to live in the assurance that God will complete all that he has begun in Christ. May God bring us to live our lives in the recognition that all he is doing is a done deal.

Posted: 12/12/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for December 16

Live the unbound life

• Mark 2:13-17, 23—3:6

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

As Mark establishes earlier in chapter 2, Jesus is set at odds against the religious leaders of his time. Keep in mind Mark’s announcement of this Gospel as the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1). The people in political and religious power (the Jewish scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Sadducees) do not agree with Mark’s definition of Jesus’ identity. Because they don’t see eye-to-eye with Mark about the fundamental nature of who Jesus is, they become more and more offended by all he says and does, because it conflicts with their interpretations and practices of the rules and regulations of the Torah.

These are neither simple nor respectful disagreements over minor points of belief. To the authorities and powers-that-be, Jesus is desecrating everything their Jewish religion holds near and dear. To the Jewish leaders, Jesus is a religious felon who needs to be punished for his crimes against God’s law. He eats with sinners and those who pollute religious purity.

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Yet Jesus says that these are the same people who need to be helped (2:15-17). To add insult to injury, Jesus threatens the Pharisees’ sensibilities about keeping the Sabbath holy. Jesus subordinates the rules of the Sabbath to the needs of the people. He says the Sabbath was made to serve human beings. Human beings were not made to serve the Sabbath.

Perhaps more than anything else, the controversy about the Sabbath sets the context for this series of exchanges between the scribes and Pharisees and Jesus. The reason is that Jesus reveals the compassion of God toward people. He is not arbitrarily “thumbing his nose” at authority. Jesus was not simply opposed to the law per se, he was opposed to the way the law was used to oppress people rather than make them free from the burden of work.

Ironically, the very commandment intended to unburden people from work actually became a burden in and of itself. Jesus was clear that he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Therefore, Jesus wants to fulfill the law by helping people understand the commandment about keeping Sabbath as it was meant to be practiced in the first place. If the Sabbath was intended to help people rest, then surely other practices to help people like healing, saving a life or feeding a hungry person would serve to enrich the Sabbath, not defame it.

To be sure, Mark never portrays Jesus as opposing the law despite his differences with the so-called keepers of the law. Overall, Jesus differed from the scribes and Pharisees over the law being a servant rather than a master. The reality Jesus conveys is that the religious leaders had desecrated the law of God by turning it in to something that burdened people rather than served people.

In his book Jesus Before Christianity, Albert Nolan highlights this: “The scribes had made the Sabbath, like so many other law, into an intolerable burden. They were using the Sabbath against people instead of using it for them. The law as they saw it was supposed to be a yoke, a penance, an oppressive measure; whereas for Jesus it was supposed to be used for the benefit of people, to serve their needs and genuine interests. We have here two different attitudes to law, two different opinions about its purpose and therefore two different ways of using it. The attitude of the scribes leads to casuistry, legalism, hypocrisy and suffering. Jesus’ attitude led to permissiveness whenever the needs of people would not be met by observance of the law, and to strictness whenever this would best serve their needs.”

Said another way, the rub of differences comes when we realize Jesus believed rules and regulations should serve the person; the person is not made to serve the rules and regulations. When those rules and regulations begin to function in a way that burdens people, then those rules and regulations have ceased to serve any beneficial function. The scribes and Pharisees were ready to serve the rules and regulations even if it meant a person’s quality of life would suffer because of it.

The religious leaders of his time reduced the dynamic, personal relationship with God to an impersonal set of moral absolutes and easy-to-remember rules. Likewise today, sometimes we prefer to know what the religious or cultural rules and boundaries are, and then we commit to do our best not to break or bend any of them. We want to know what we can do and what we are forbidden to do and still have God or society accept us. Yet God’s gospel of free grace transcends cold, calculated rules.

When we watch Jesus in these exchanges in Mark, God’s law of love is a holy unruliness that defies a series of black and white technicalities. When rules exist alone, they are the law minus love. Jesus seeks to marry the rule of law with the law of love. In so doing, love keeps the law from becoming oppressive and the law keeps love from becoming licentious. Jesus is faithful to the law by being faithful in loving others, even when it means breaking the rules.

Posted: 12/06/07

Romney: ‘No candidate should
become the spokesman for his faith’

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

COLLEGE STATION—People of faith who value religious liberty “have a friend and an ally in me,” but promoters of the “religion of secularism” who want to strip religion from the public square do not, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential contender and a Mormon, told religious and social conservatives in Texas.

Romney spoke to invited guests at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library on the Texas A&M University campus in College Station.

The venue is less than 100 miles from Houston, where John F. Kennedy spoke to Baptist ministers in 1960 to assure them his Roman Catholic faith would not unduly influence his decisions as president, and Romney alluded to Kennedy’s speech.

“Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president,” Romney said.

“Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”

Like Kennedy, Romney asserted his belief in the institutional separation of church and state. He insisted he would not allow any Mormon church authority to exert influence over presidential decisions, and he would not put any church doctrine above presidential duties.

“If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States,” he said.

However, Romney refused to disavow any tenets his Mormon faith, which many evangelicals characterize as a cult.

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs,” he said, adding that if his personal beliefs damage his presidential hopes, “so be it.”

But just as the Constitution allows no religious test for public office, he expressed confidence that his commitment to Mormonism would not end his candidacy. Rather, he said, the American people rightly would question his character if he turned his back on his personal beliefs to advance his candidacy.

“Americans do not respect believers of convenience,” he said.

Romney specifically affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ as “the Son of God and the Savior of mankind,” but he declined to address the specific doctrines of Mormonism that distinguish it from other faiths.

“Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree,” he said.

“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”

Adherents of all major religion “share a common creed of moral convictions,” he said.

While Romney stressed that religious liberty is “fundamental to America’s greatness,” he affirmed public displays of civil piety such as references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and on currency, and he expressed approval for “nativity scenes and menorahs” displayed in the public square.

The United States benefits from its moral and religious heritage drawn from multiple sources—“our nation’s symphony of faith,” Romney said.

“Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty,’” he said.

Some people have carried separation of church and state too far by seeking to have any reference to America’s religious heritage or its dependence on God removed from public life, Romney asserted.

“It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America—the religion of secularism. They are wrong,” he said.

“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone.”

Posted: 12/10/07

Executive Board may vote on
short-term interim executive director

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board may bring in an interim executive director—at least for a short time.

BGCT Executive Board leaders are examining options for short-term leadership of the board’s staff in the likely event the next convention executive director will not be on the job before BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade retires at the end of January.

Ken Hugghins, chairman of the BGCT Executive Director Search Committee, noted that even if a nominee is brought to the Executive Board in early January and approved, that person most likely would not start until mid-February. The candidate would need to give at least a two-week notice and take another couple weeks to relocate, creating at least a month-long gap between being voted on and assuming the new position.

Wade is set to retire Jan. 31. Assuming the next executive director starts in mid-February, there will be at least a two-week window where the convention would not have a chief executive officer or chief operating officer. BGCT Chief Financial Officer David Nabors would be the only executive leader remaining on the convention’s Executive Board staff.

BGCT Executive Board Chairman John Petty said the board will vote on a short-term leader for the convention’s staff—probably by e-mail ballot—if the next executive director cannot start before Wade retires. He indicated there are qualified candidates who could fill this short-term role. That person would not be someone who currently works on the convention staff, he specified.

“We’re very confident we can address that situation without any major gaps in leadership,” he said.

The search committee is making progress, having narrowed the field to fewer than nine candidates, Hugghins said. It is wrapping up the first round of candidate interviews and has interviewed one candidate twice.

Jerry Carlisle, pastor of First Baptist Church in Plano, has resigned from the search committee and allowed his name to be consideration for the executive director position.

In a letter to his congregation, Carlisle indicated search committee members asked him to submit his resume, which he reluctantly did after praying about the situation. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, Carlisle resigned from the search committee.

God “made it clear that I needed to make myself available for the committee’s consideration, so I have,” Carlisle wrote. “I do not know what the committee will conclude. Regardless, I do not know what God is calling me to do. I only know I want to obey him.” 

Carlisle’s resignation does not mean he will be the next executive director, Hugghins said. Carlisle has been interviewed by the committee.

“We are being led a step at a time,” Hugghins said. “It’s not a conclusion, but a step. We’re not always sure how the next step is connected to the step before or how it is connected to the next step. But we are sure we are being led.”

The search committee will nominate an executive director candidate to the Executive Board, which will then vote on that person.

Posted: 12/07/07

CYBER COLUMN:
Merry Christmas, Ross Wolfe

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking about Christmas and wondering in the spirit of the season about Ross Wolfe. Where are you, dear brother? Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas.

You sent me a letter, and I lost it while moving to a new town. If you had seen the 6,000 pounds of stuff, file cabinets and hundreds of books and papers stacked high that the movers moved to my new office, you would understand. I dug deep for your letter, but to no avail. In fact, you have, through the years, sent me letters.

You once sent me a letter that began, “I’m fine, and it’s really been a blessing in jail.” Were you the Apostle Paul writing your epistles from jail and naming them your prison letters? Were you Dietrich Bonhoeffer writing “Letters and Papers from Prison,” glorious words like Bonhoeffer’s own, “Jesus does not call men to a new religion, but to life”? Or were you in prison, because as you once stated, “I messed up again”? Ross Wolfe, I hurt for you and long to see you and thank you for your letters, and I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Your last two letters stated the same things to me, that you aimed be free again, of alcohol’s demon pain, of jail, and of a clouded past to sing again at Rinky Tinks, a small ice cream parlor on the square of a small Texas town. Are you writing songs and singing again?

Oh, dear brother, you can sing. I will never forget you once told me you played piano for the opening act for Ray Charles. “For Ray Charles?” I quizzed you as I could think of only one thing: “Georgia On My Mind,” which, incidentally, was the name of one of your friends. Your face glowed like an angel as you shared the Ray Charles good news, happiness nipping your nose like you were a child who had unwrapped a toy at Christmas.

I will never forget that twice you gave me CD recordings of your melodious music, “Ross Wolfe in Memphis” and “Every Day I Praise the Lord, ” a CD which has the picture of a beautiful white church with a tall steeple and trees with green leaves and a price tag still on it of $18.48 plus $1.52 tax. How did you arrive at the price? Did I ever pay you the $20.00? Are you attending a tall-steepled church that sings Christmas hymns during this season? Are you still singing “Every Day I Praise the Lord”? Do you know it is almost Christmas, Ross Wolfe? 

Ross Wolfe, I will never forget your sweet grandmother Opal, sweetest lady this side of the Jordan and Brazos Rivers, this side of the moon and the earth. She prayed for you and told me so with a crinkled forehead of concern and prayed that you walk the narrow road, and she yearned for you to sing the songs of God’s amazing grace. She begged God that you would live with the Christ tune of joy vibrating and making rhythm in your heart. She loved you, and how wonderful it is to have people praying for you with hearts pouring out love. She prayed that the devil’s hand would not strangle you, but that God’s hand would guide you and keep you free.

I will never forget you sent me another letter about your new song, one that I believe you wrote in jail, titled, “Bump it on Down, Devil.” In another letter, you stated that you were in “my lowest time” and longed to “think about COMING HOME.” I noted you put “coming home” in capital letters and felt you lived on the edge of despair and hope, on the edge of homelessness and wanting to go home. Despair filtered in your soul, in the words of the Psalmist, “I cried out to God with my voice—to God with my voice; and he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted” (Psalm 77:1-2).

“Despair,” Victor Frankl once wrote, “is suffering without meaning.” Despair gave way to fear for you because, in your lowest state, maybe you were losing all hope. You feared the devil would strangle your soul, and you wrote a song, “Bump it on Down, Devil,” as if to say: Despair cannot win; I long to go home; life has meaning.

Can any place be better than home at Christmas? Can life possess meaning in the Christ of Christmas? Ross, are you writing a song of hope?

Ross, one of your letters stated that you wanted people to see Jesus in you. I know you struggled, and maybe still do. We all do from time to time. It’s called life, a series of events that add up to the sum of all our parts, the misery and mercy, mess that imprisons us and the glory that sets us free, and the fear and joy. Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas and know, deep in the fiery depths of my soul and yours, that what you really long for is joy. “Joy comes in the morning,” the Bible says, and after the pain of childbirth. It is birth I am thinking about now, Mary’s birth and the joy of Christmas. Did you know it is almost Christmas?

I love Christmas. While the world seesaws on the edge of great fear in a world of terror and great joy in a world where people long to go home for Christmas, I think of Mary’s great fear and her great joy in bringing Jesus into the world; of Mary’s great pain and yet the joyful celebration of Christ’s birth; of Mary when the devil and Herod tried to do all they could to keep Jesus from living and legions of angels when they showed up time and time again in the Christmas story, like Clarence in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” declaring, “You can live again! You can live again!”

I love Christmas! Ross Wolfe, have you written any songs about Christmas? Hey, did Ray Charles like Christmas? Did he ever write an unpublished song, “Christmas on My Mind?”

When I think of Christmas, I think of hope, for people to be free and full of joy and love and peace on earth that comes from heaven and good will towards men. When Saint Matthew announced the birth of Jesus in his Gospel, the encouraging word was one of hope—for God’s presence to lead us home; for salvation from sins and when we mess up; for a star that would shine and lead us to Christ who desires to be worshipped. When Luke recorded the message of angels, their wings glistening like glitter, his Gospel proclaimed an angelic announcement of hope that lights up the dark sky. When John philosophically introduced the child born in Bethlehem as the Word becoming flesh and blood among us, his words became a song of hope for all the nations to sing. Hope reigns at Christmas. Hope sings. Hope shines. Hope hums in the heart. Remember, Ross, your grandmother prayed sweet prayers for Christ’s hope to hum in your heart.

Ross, it is almost Christmas. I cannot wait. I hope it snows, snowflakes on Christmas Eve trickling out of the sky like cotton balls floating in midair racing to the ground to see which one gets to earth first to blanket it with a carpet of snow so that boys and girls and men like me can build snowmen in their yards. Yes, I hope it snows, my dear brother Ross. But even if it does not, this Christmas I think of you and am reminded that Jesus washes our sins as white as snow. The prophet Isaiah said that. And this Christmas I sing the songs of Christmas joy like angels with God’s glory, dazzling onlookers to vibrate my soul with peace and love and hope. And this Christmas, I remember that I need not live on the edge of fear because great joy has come in Emmanuel, “God with us.” And this Christmas, I guess a lot of people, Ross, will think, like you did that day in prison, of “COMING HOME.”

Pliny the Elder in the first century said, “Home is where the heart is.” North Carolina writer Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” But I have found you can go home again, and that home fills the heart and that the heart can make a home for Jesus, Emmanuel, and if it does, despair goes away, peace comes, joy soars and love flourishes like flowers coloring a mountain and filling the air with a fresh smell.

Love, God’s love, Christmas peace, and Christ’s joy is what I send to you this Christmas, Ross Wolfe. Are you in Memphis? Granbury? Georgetown, Texas? Maybe one day I can see you and your bright smile. Maybe, big man that you are, you will give me a teddy bear hug like once you did when you got out of jail and we met with some men from the church at Jack in the Box. You were so happy on that day.

Maybe, just maybe, you will write a Christmas song and send the words to me in a letter. Write a song about Christmas, despair surrendering to hope, fear bowing to joy, and love finding a way in the bitterness of life in the person of Emmanuel.

Oh, Ross, write a song about snow, star-like flakes falling from the sky like glittering stars streaking from the heavens to paint the earth white. I miss your grandmother Opal. And, Christmas joy, oh boy, I wish I had thought to tell you to say hello to Ray Charles for me before he died.

And to you, Ross Wolfe, I say, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men. Emmanuel, God be with you.” I pray you are happy, dear brother, like the day at Jack in the Box. I pray you are free. I pray that Christmas joy hums in your heart, the dazzling glory of God’s grace vibrating your heart with the hum of Christ’s hope. Ross Wolfe, I wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope you think of COMING HOME and that you make it home. Christmas joy, oh boy! Merry Christmas!

P.S.: This will be my last cybercolumn. I would like to express my appreciation to Marv Knox and the Baptist Standard for his outstanding leadership and editing and for the privilege of writing. With future changes in the web design of the Standard and changes in my own life, I look forward to reading the Standard and to writing projects that I am planning for the future. Stay tuned in future days. Thanks for reading, for the privilege of writing, and, like my words to Ross Wolfe, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” Christmas joy!

John Duncan, formerly pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, recently moved to Georgetown, Texas, where he is pastor of First Baptist Church.

Posted: 12/05/07

Brothers find home for Christmas

By Bill Martin

Children at Heart Ministries

ROUND ROCK—For one of the few times in their young lives, Trey and Derek Atkins will have a real home for Christmas, thanks to Charlie and Cindy Goble, a Burnet couple who thought their childrearing days were behind them.

“To see God working and then be allowed to be right in the middle of it is an amazing and humbling experience,” Cindy Goble said.

When Derek, 11, and Trey, 12, arrived at Texas Baptist Children’s Home—part of Children at Heart Ministries—last February and moved into a cottage with house parents Marta and Robert Brock, it was an all-too-familiar environment.

After their mother died a few years ago, their father tried to raise them on his own, but severe health problems made that difficult.

Seven times they were placed in a children’s home in Louisiana. Seven times they were taken out.

“He would place them in the home when he got sick, then take them back out when he got better,” Jason Schmidt, their case manager at Texas Baptist Children’s Home, explained. “Then he would get sick again and put them back in. He really wanted the kids with him, and he was fighting tooth and nail to keep them.”

Eventually, he moved to Dripping Springs where an older daughter was living. As his health deteriorated, he tearfully asked Texas Baptist Children’s Home to care for the boys. A third brother, a little older, elected to stay with his father.

“They are the most delightful little boys you have ever met,” Schmidt said. “Everyone fell in love with them.”

As part of their counseling, last summer they attended Camp Agape, a Christian bereavement camp near Lampassas for youngsters who have lost a loved one. It was a chance for the boys to deal with emotions stemming from the death of their mother.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Cindy Goble, having raised three children and becoming grandparents, were settling into life as empty-nesters. They even downsized to an 880 square foot, two-bedroom, one-bath home on several acres near Burnet.

The Gobles, members of First Baptist Church in Burnet, had been praying for a ministry in which they could become involved. When they heard about Camp Agape, Mrs. Goble began to make gifts for children at the camp.

At camp, each boy is paired with an adult “buddy.” But during the week before Derek and Trey were to arrive, the camp director e-mailed the Gobles to say they were one buddy short for the next session.

“Charlie said he would love to do it,” Mrs. Goble recalled. “But he has his own business and had two clients waiting for some work that had to be done by that Friday, and he just couldn’t get out of it.”

The day before camp started, the Gobles drove out to deliver their gifts and meet the staff. When the camp director asked Mrs. Goble if she had talked to anyone to find another buddy, before she could respond, her husband volunteered. At the last minute, his clients had informed him that they wouldn’t have the information he need to do his work. He was at camp at 8:30 the next morning.

“We knew it was God opening a door to allow him to go to camp,” Mrs. Goble said. “But at the time, we thought it was just to be available for the boys. Now we know that it was more than that. It was part of the plan.”

Goble was the camp buddy to Derek, and they bonded immediately. On Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Goble attended an afternoon luau at the camp.

“I was probably there for an hour, and Trey sat right across the table from me,” she remembered. “There weren’t many words spoken, but something clicked when I looked into his eyes.”

After that, the Gobles became host families through Texas Baptist Children’s Home for the brothers, having them in their home one weekend a month.

“We really began to pray about how we could keep a relationship with these boys,” Mrs. Goble said. “We really felt led by God, that the Holy Spirit was giving us an opportunity, telling us we needed to have the boys in our home permanently.”

The Gobles told Schmidt if the opportunity ever presented itself in the future, they would be willing to adopt the boys. The boys weren’t told anything about it, but two weeks later, when Marta Brock picked up Trey from school, looking very serious he said he wanted to talk to her about something.

“I’ve been thinking,” he told Mrs. Brock. “I would like someone to talk to my father to see if he would let us be adopted.”

“I called the Dad and asked him what he thought,” Schmidt said. “He said that was what he had been praying for. The older daughter said that was what she had been praying for, too. And their grandmother in Louisiana, who had lost contact with them, called me and said she had been praying for years that this would happen.”

“Their father said he had mixed emotions, but he felt like God’s hand was in it,” Mrs. Goble said. “He felt like we had been sent their way to make sure the boys would have a permanent home.”

In a matter of days, the Gobles picked up Trey and Derek, and they were enrolled in school in Burnet. Their father signed a power of attorney, and the process of a legal adoption is underway. The boys have totally adjusted to their new home.

And at each step in the process—from a last minute change that allowed Charlie Goble to take part in Camp Agape, to long-term prayers being answered, to an unexpected windfall of money needed to pay the attorney’s fees for the adoption, to much more— everyone involved sees the fingerprints of God.

“We know without a shadow of a doubt that this is God’s hand at work,” Mrs. Goble said. “You look at every little instance in this, and you see how God has already laid it out. I’ve experienced God in several ways, but not on this level.”

Then there’s the matter of adoption from the Texas Baptist Children’s Home in the first place. Practically speaking, it just isn’t done.

“We do not have a formal program for adoptions and do not facilitate them,” said Kip Osborne, Campus Life Supervisor at TBCH. “Almost all of the families of children who are placed here would not agree to give up parental rights.”

While Derek’s and Trey’s father has agreed to do what appears to be best for the boys, the Gobles have promised that the boys won’t lose touch with their father or with their other siblings. In addition to the brother who still lives with the father, an older brother and two younger sisters previously were adopted into Christian homes in Louisiana.

This year, Derek and Trey finally will be home for Christmas. Of course, it’s a bit cramped, since the Gobles moved into a two-bedroom, one-bath house. But they have already started thinking about an expansion.

“No doubt God will take care of that too,” Mrs. Goble said.

Posted: 12/07/07

South Texas Children’s
Home names president, CEO

BEEVILLE—Todd Roberson has been named president and chief executive officer of South Texas Children’s Home, where he has served 15 years in a variety of administrative posts.

Roberson becomes the fifth president of the children’s home, succeeding Jerry Haag, who resigned earlier this year to become president of Florida Baptist Children’s Home.

Roberson has served as interim president of the children’s home since July 1.

He joined the South Texas Children’s Home staff in 1992 as assistant business administrator. He went on to hold two vice presidential posts—first for business administration and later for development—before becoming chief operating officer.

Roberson’s history at the agency offered the board of directors ample opportunity to get to know him, said Chairman John Weber.

“We have had an opportunity to observe the quality of his work, and his dedication to children, to the Lord, and to the South Texas Children’s Home,” Weber said, noting the board unanimously elected Roberson.

As Roberson takes the helm of South Texas Children’s Home, he said he wants to continue its legacy of reaching hurting children and families in Christ’s name.

“We must treasure our heritage, celebrate today and focus on tomorrow,” Roberson said. “We must always be sensitive to where the Lord is leading us to minister. And by following the Lord’s direction, we can effectively help those in need and provide others with an opportunity to serve their fellow man.”

Roberson is a member of First Baptist Church in Beeville where he is a high school Sunday school teacher, deacon, trustee and serves on various committees.

He is a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He and his wife, Jill, have two children—Lindsey Brooke and Parker Ross.

Posted: 12/06/07

BaptistWay Bible Series for December 9

A Faith Worth Acting On

• Mark 2:1-12

By Andrew Daugherty

Christ Church, Rockwall

The Gospel of Mark continues with the main idea stated in the opening verse that this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1). Just as his identity as Christ is linked to his baptism as the beloved Son of God, Mark now adds another dimension to his divine identity: the authority to forgive sins.

This is a radical moment in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus stops right in the middle of what he is doing to direct his full attention to the hole in the roof. Maybe Jesus’ carpentry skills would be put to good use later, but for now, he tends to more important matters than a potential leaky roof. Persistence pays off for the friends of this paralyzed man. As soon as Jesus’ sees them carrying their friend on a stretcher, he says, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (2:5). The extraordinary resolve on the part of the paralytic’s friends results in his being forgiven. Notice that it wasn’t the paralytic’s faith that Jesus saw. Jesus saw “their” faith (2:5). Thus, the faith of his friends moves Jesus so deeply that he offers the free gift of forgiveness to the paralyzed man. He didn’t ask any questions nor did he request patient information. Jesus was moved with compassion by what he saw and his immediate reaction reveals his compassionate instincts.

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This pronouncement of forgiveness sets him at odds with the religious leaders of his time. Ultimately, it would bring the charge of blasphemy against Jesus, which would lead to his death. Yet to deny compassion and forgiveness to this utterly helpless son of God would have been to deny his unique identity as the Son of God. So instead Jesus does not flinch in the face of the paralyzed man’s critical need. In fact, his pronouncement of forgiveness is so all-encompassing it affects a medical outcome: the paralyzed man slides off the stretcher and walks home!

The spectacle of this miracle may have led some in Jesus’ day to speculate about the circumstances and life choices surrounding the paralyzed man. After all, many made a close connection between illness and sin. This is not the point of Jesus’ pronouncement. He is not snidely making an example of this man who suffered a physical affliction.

Remember again Mark’s opening sentence: this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1). That Jesus forgave sins was a sign of his ultimate authority over the source of all human pain, woundedness, and suffering. Jesus pronounces his forgiveness, because Jesus wanted him to be freed from every burden that kept him from knowing his own identity in God as a beloved son. What Jesus heard at his baptism is what he desired for this paralyzed man to hear, too.

Think about the points of view represented in this scene. Have you ever felt as helpless as the paralyzed man lying on the stretcher? Have you ever gone to great lengths to help someone in serious need? Have you ever, like Jesus, been moved to the depths with compassion by watching someone else assist someone in a dire circumstance?

Of course we are moved when we witness the extraordinary sacrifices people sometimes make for people in serious need. We may think of the firefighters and police officers in New York on 9/11 running up stairs and through the fires to save a life. Perhaps we are moved with compassion by the way we watch a husband or daughter care for a spouse or parent during an illness or injury. Nursing homes are full of geriatric physicians and chaplains and physical therapists that tenderly assist the aged with spiritual, physical, and medical needs.

What lies underneath all these tender acts of compassion may be the healing balm of forgiveness. No matter who a person is or what a person has done, if the source of all our suffering is rooted in the brokenness and sin of this world, then forgiveness surely is the cure. As Jesus shows, the power of forgiveness can affect every dimension of our lives.

A recent documentary film profiles this power, too. The Power of Forgiveness, a documentary film directed by Martin Doblmeier, presents several short stories related to the spiritual practice of forgiveness. Stories are told about people’s struggle to forgive in the face of unspeakable tragedies. From Belfast to Beirut to Ground Zero to the Amish countryside, real life stories are told about the human need to offer forgiveness and receive forgiveness amidst the ongoing process of God’s redemption in the world.

What led Doblmeier to make this film was a result of attending a conference where scientific researchers, psychologists, and physicians were presenting findings of their studies in forgiveness. These scientific minds were coming together in the health care world to give critical attention to the virtue of forgiveness. Though religious researchers and biblical scholars have talked about forgiveness for hundreds of years, the burgeoning scientific fascination with the subject stirred Doblemier to bring together both scientific and faith perspectives.

These scientific studies reveal the effects of un-forgiveness on a person’s physical and psychological health. Re-living a painful experience from one’s past can trigger damaging physical consequences including difficulty breathing, high blood pressure, increased heart rate, and sweating. Furthermore, the pleasure pathways of the human brain light up when we feel the biological urge to get revenge on someone who has wounded us deeply. This growing body of scientific evidence says that holding on to grudges is harmful to physical health. Forgiveness can be good for health!

What we don’t have in this story from Mark are the specific details of the paralyzed man’s life. Was he deeply hurt in some way in the past? Did he simply have a physical disability or illness from birth? Did he really believe that his illness was a result of some sin in his life? What kind of personality did this man have that made dealing with his physical affliction easier or more difficult?

We are not given such information. What we are given is a preview of who Jesus is and the daring lengths he will go to make forgiveness a real possibility in the world one precious life at a time.

It is so important to him that he will eventually risk his own precious life by practicing it shamelessly in front of people who have the power to put an end to this forgiveness business altogether.

Posted: 12/03/07

Adams provides pastoral care to
HIV/AIDS community in New York

By Patricia Heys

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

NEW YORK—In the mid-1980s, as the growing prevalence of AIDS began to capture the attention of Americans, Ronnie Adams attended an educational session about the disease. The lesson he learned—not from the presenter but from the people seated next to him—changed the course of his ministry.

At the time, Adams served as the minister for singles adults at First Baptist Church of Plano, and he decided it would be important for a minister to learn more about the epidemic. But he wasn’t prepared for the reaction he received when he introduced himself at the training session.

“When I introduced myself as a Baptist minister, the two people beside me actually moved their chairs away from me,” Adams said.

“I realized they feared that I would judge them, so I just said, ‘I’m here today because I feel like if Jesus were walking the earth that he would want people living with AIDS to know that God loves and cares for them.’

“There was a sigh of relief, and people began to have tears in their eyes as they told me how they had been kicked out of their churches because they were infected with AIDS.”

Two decades later, Adams is still carrying the message of God’s love to people living with HIV/AIDS. Since 1995, he has served as one of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s field personnel in New York City, where every 18 minutes someone in the city is infected with the disease.

“My passion and what I love the most is providing pastoral care to that community,” Adams said. “It’s been a difficult journey, but an incredible journey. I’ve ushered many people into the kingdom in their last days.

“So many of the people I work with have had a faith connection, but they’ve been condemned or judge out of it. They come to realize it was not God, but a religion that did that. So, as I begin to share with them God’s love, God’s compassion and God’s mercy, they get reconnected.”

While treatments exist to help ease the effects of AIDS, there is still no cure for the disease. Adams’ ministry also focuses on building awareness and educating people about prevention, treatment and how they can be the presence of Christ to those living with the disease. He is part of the Fellowship’s HIV/AIDS Network, which resources individuals and congregations involved in HIV/AIDS ministries.

Adams partners with several housing communities that serve the HIV/AIDS community, including Housing Works, the nation’s largest provider of housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. Each week he travels to three communities in different neighborhoods of the city, leading Bible studies, building relationships and providing pastoral care.

“The Bible studies give me the opportunity to meet people and develop relationships, and usually that leads to counseling and hospital visitation, educational opportunities and unfortunately memorial services,” said Adams, a Dallas native.

“To me it’s the most open community to the gospel that I work with. They are so open for the love of God. I’ve probably seen more people come to know Christ through that ministry than all the other ones combined. It’s really been incredible.”

Adams has met people like Frank, a resident of Housing Works, who learned in his late 50s he was infected with AIDS. Frank attended a weekly Bible study and rarely spoke, but something changed after he participated in a spiritual retreat and was encouraged to tell his story.

“There was something about that pathos of sharing his story. Frank opened up, and he became this whole new person,” Adams said. “He realized that God was not against him, but that God was for him. And through accepting that belief that God was with him, he became more outgoing.

“It just shows what the love of Christ and other people can do for someone. It radically changed this man. He was still a very humble, quiet man, but he became a leader in the group.”

In September, Adams was at Frank’s bedside at 2 a.m. as his fight with AIDS came to an end.

“I said to him: ‘Frank, you’ve lived great the last year and done well. God loves you and cares for you. You tried hard to beat this, but it’s time to rest. And God is going to be there with you,’” Adams said.

“I prayed for him, prayed with him and kissed him on the forehead. Two minutes later he was gone. It was one of those sweet moments, and I’ll never forget it as long as I live—to watch this man go into eternity, when just a year before he didn’t think he had a chance of being with God.”