WASHINGTON (RNS)—Having survived a devastating earthquake during a 10-day mission trip to Haiti, Freedom Gassoway savors every minute she spends at home with her family in Beaverton, Ore. But for this 33-year-old mother of two, some of life has also lost its sweetness.

Meals no longer taste good, she said, since she’s always thinking about the thousands of homeless and hungry people in Haiti. Her closet seems filled with “too many clothes,” she said, and she feels a duty—by virtue of her survival—to share Haiti’s suffering with other Americans.

“I didn’t even know where Haiti was before this trip,” Gassoway said. “But now I feel like I have a responsibility for Haiti and helping people be aware of how they can be involved.”

As the dust settles from Haiti’s devastating quake, mission workers of all types are pondering the deeper meanings of their survival. They’re wondering why they survived, why others didn’t and what they’re supposed to do with their new leases on life.

“As long as you’ve got something to occupy your mind, you can keep it off the horror of what’s just happened” in the field, said Randy Strash, strategy director for emergency response at World Vision, a massive Christian relief agency with almost 800 aid workers in Haiti. “But once that (urgency recedes), I think you’ll find that many of them are really struggling—in their families, in their personal lives, in their health and in their theology.”

While theological interpretations vary, missionaries who survived the quake are consistently professing a heightened sense of calling. They speak of feeling new “responsibility,” both to God and to the Haitian people, because they’ve been blessed to live another day.

As one of the world’s poorest nations, Haiti is a magnet for Christian ministries. An estimated 1,700 career missionaries serve in Haiti, according to Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of World Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Hundreds more travel to Haiti each year for short-term trips of a week or two at a time.

For many of Haiti’s surviving missionaries, the distance between life and death was only a few feet when the Jan. 12 quake struck. Tragic episodes left missionaries wondering “why?” and believing that God must have a plan in mind.

“I know that God has our family here for a reason and he kept us alive for a reason,” wrote Leslie Rolling, administrator of the Christian aid organization Clean Water for Haiti, in an e-mail from Haiti. “We now have an even greater responsibility to carry out the work we’re doing.”

On the night of the quake, Rolling’s husband tried to save a young girl named Jacqueline, buried in the rubble of a collapsed school. Unable to reach her, he eventually left the scene late at night to prepare for a work crew’s arrival.

Jacqueline later died. She had suffered such extensive injuries, she likely wouldn’t have survived even if she’d been pulled out alive. But the memory continued to haunt Chris Rolling.

“How could I leave someone who was dying, trapped in a building! That’s so wrong!” Rolling wrote in his blog. “Leaving her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done … I think this is going to trouble me for a long time.”

Kay and Gary Walla of Indianapolis felt similarly helpless after the quake rocked the mountain community where their United Methodist church group was helping repair a school and orphanage. The Wallas, both in their 70s, were in “survival mode”—foraging for wild coconuts and grapefruit by day, huddling close to other missionaries for warmth by night—when they heard scratching beneath a pile of rubble.

Buried alive were a 21-year-old woman who had been training for a religious order and the 18-month-old boy whom she had recently adopted. Unable to save them, the Wallas instead held a memorial service for them two days later.

“My husband and I said, `Why did we survive and all of these Haitians have not?”’ Kay Walla asked. “We know there’s more work for us to do. … God just spared us to help the Haitians.”

World Vision has dispatched a critical incident response team to Haiti to help its aid workers cope with emerging personal challenges. Some may fall victim to survivor’s guilt if they lost colleagues, World Vision’s Strash said. Others may grapple with the raw, unnerving fact that God doesn’t always protect his servants.

And then there’s the challenge of suddenly being seen as God’s ambassadors on a desolate landscape.

Aid workers “are wrestling with (God’s allowance of disaster), but they don’t want to say it out loud,” Strash said. Local “people are relying on the word that (workers) have been passing on to them about God’s care and provision. They search for a way to explain disaster that is consistent with how they’ve been teaching and living up to this point. And it’s a struggle.”

Why God spares some and not others is unknown, some mission workers said, but survivors surely inherit special responsibilities.

“We do owe it to those who lost their lives,” World Vision spokeswoman Maggie Boyer e-mailed from Port-au-Prince, “to commit to building a Haiti that they would be proud of.”

MIAMI (ABP) — Despite crackdowns from the National Football League in recent years that frightened many church leaders into abandoning watch parties for America’s biggest sporting event, experts say churches are free to host viewings of Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7 as long as they follow a few NFL guidelines.

“Churches, ministries and other non-profit organizations are free to show the game on large screens in their public facilities without fear of violating copyright laws so long as the church abides by three simple guidelines,” said attorney David Middlebrook of the Texas-based Church Law Group, in a YouTube video.

First, Middlebrook said. “the game must be showed on equipment the church regularly uses in the course of ministry.”

Second, “churches cannot charge admission for the party. The NFL has stated, however, that churches may take up a donation to defray the cost of the event if they desire.”

And, “Finally, to avoid any copyright infringements, churches may want to call their event a ‘big game ‘party rather than a ‘Super Bowl’ party.”

Middlebrook’s firm consults with churches and ministries on legal issues.

Many churches abandoned long-standing traditions of hosting Super Bowl parties out of fear of legal action by the NFL in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 Fall Creek Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Indianapolis, received a cease-and-desist letter from NFL officials ordering them to stop a “Super Bowl Bash” party they had planned for about 400 members and guests, who would have watched on the church’s wall-projection TV.

The case received significant publicity, and the NFL initially defended its copyright-infringement policy. But in early 2008, members of Congress threatened to alter copyright law to exempt churches — sports bars are already exempt — from provisions prohibiting large-group showings of copyrighted broadcasts.

The NFL then changed its rules to allow churches to show games as long as they followed the guidelines Middlebrook enumerated. According to a press release from the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based Christian legal group, church watch parties are kosher as long as a church shows the game on its own regularly used equipment, in buildings it regularly uses for ministry purposes, and doesn’t charge admission.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said her organization sometimes gets question from churches around Super Bowl time about broadcasts, and that Middlebrook's advice is accurate.

Super Bowl XLIV is scheduled to be played Feb. 7 in Miami. The game broadcast begins at 6 p.m. Eastern time on CBS.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When Switzerland recently voted to ban construction of minaret towers at mosques, some observers interpreted it as an expression of European xenophobia that never would find a home in multicultural America. But to say it couldn’t happen here would be wrong—or at least premature.

In hundreds of communities across the United States where Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other religious minorities have sought to build or expand their houses of worship, private citizens have gone to great lengths to block their construction.

Tactics range from using eminent domain and citing traffic concerns to running pig races and stirring up fears of terrorism.

There currently are at least five such cases, including in suburban Chicago, where the DuPage County zoning board of appeals voted unanimously to deny the Irshad Learning Center a permit to build a mosque in upscale Naperville, Ill.

Decisions on construction permits also are pending for mosques in Piscataway, N.J., and Northville, Mich. A Muslim group in Lilburn, Ga., is threatening legal action after city officials rejected their proposal to expand their mosque, while neighbors in Morada, Calif., filed suit to stop construction of a 13,820-square-foot mosque.

Lawyers supporting religious congregations in land use disputes say the right to build houses of worship is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and amplified in laws such as the 2000 Religion Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act, intended to protect houses of worship from onerous regulations.

Despite those legal protections, the fates of proposed worship spaces often are determined by local regulations, or lack thereof.

States like California, New Jersey, and Illinois are regulated extensively by such laws, requiring that proposed buildings meet strict requirements on noise, traffic, utilities and environmental impact of surrounding neighborhoods.

Worshippers and experts say they take those concerns seriously but argue that much of the opposition is rooted in bigotry. They say the not-in-my-backyard opponents use zoning laws to keep mosques, temples and other houses of worship out of their neighborhoods.

“It becomes a heckler’s veto. It empowers people who might not have a clean motive,” said attorney Eric Rassbach with the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Nobody admits to hating Muslims because they know they’re not going to win that way.”

Amin Mahmood, a member of the Morada, Calif., congregation, said he initially believed opposition to the proposed mosque was based on routine neighborhood concerns, but became doubtful when opponents in the Morada Area Associa-tion didn’t object to proposals for a new Baptist church nearby.

“They didn’t go to court to oppose the church, but they go to court to oppose the mosque?” said Mahmood. “Come on.”

Calls to members of the Morada Area Association were not returned.

While local zoning meetings usually attract just a few interested parties, hearings concerning mosques can attract dozens, and often hundreds, of people on both sides. Wasi Zaidi, a founding member of the 11-year-old Muslim congregation in Lilburn, Ga., said between 400 and 500 people attended the Nov. 18 city council when his mosque was discussed.

“We didn’t get our rights. To get our rights, we have to go to a higher authority,” said Zaidi, explaining his group’s decision to sue.

Zaidi said he believed some opposition was legitimately rooted in noise and traffic concerns, but noted many comments made on local news sites revealed deep-seated anti-Muslim sentiment among Lilburn residents.

“They don’t like Muslims,” Zaidi said flatly. “And they don’t want us in their backyard.”

Scott Batterton, a member of the Lilburn City Council, acknowledged bigotry may have motivated some opponents but said most had legitimate quality-of-life concerns. Lilburn is not a racist town, he said, noting that it’s home to two other mosques and a Hindu temple.

“I can’t say what’s in everyone’s hearts, but the opposition we listened to was based on merit, not religion,” Batterton said.

Some cases approach near absurdity. In Westchester County, N.Y., in 2001, neighbors cited noise complaints to try and prevent Buddhist monks from holding silent meditation services in a private home.

In 2006, when a group of Muslims sought permission to build a mosque on a rural road in Katy, west of Houston, neighbor Craig Baker hosted Friday night pig races. Muslims consider pigs to be dirty, and Friday is a holy day for Muslims.

Undeterred, the local chapter of the Muslim American Society obtained its construction permit for the mosque, and has in the meantime placed two modular buildings on the land for prayer services and community meetings.

Baker did not return phone calls, but Hesham Ebaid, director of the Katy Islamic center, tried to be diplomatic, conceding Muslims could have done a better job in outreach. More recently, the mosque has invited families for open house meet-and-greets.

As for Baker, Ebaid said, the pig races have stopped, and he even hired two Muslims to work at the bath and kitchen business he owns.

“He said, ‘I’m trying,’” Ebaid said. “So, I give him credit for that.”

Sermons on forgiveness often emphasize the Lord’s Prayer—“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

But should Christians always forgive, regardless of circumstances? Is granting forgiveness always appropriate?

“Yes, but …,” four Christians who deal with the concept in different contexts responded.

Strive for justice

For Tarris Rosell, professor of pastoral theology, ethics and ministry praxis at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, justice is crucial to the ability to forgive another.

Rosell relates the story of an international student who had lost his family and several friends to genocide in his home country.

“Basically he said, ‘I cannot be a Christian because I cannot love or forgive the people who killed my family,’” Rosell noted. “That spoke to me about how easy it is to talk about love and forgiveness.”

Talk may be easy, but following through is much more difficult, he acknowledged. In contrast to some theologians, Rosell believes God instilled a natural desire to forgive.

“I think humans are amazingly forgiving, even though I know that goes against the theology of basic depravity. I think the natural tendency is to be forgiving,” he said.

Forgiveness comes more easily when the offender is up front and transparent. Citing former President Bill Clinton’s involvement with Washington intern Monica Lewinsky, “I think we are amazingly prone to forgive, but what we cannot tolerate, I think, is cover-up,” he said.

If Clinton and other politicians caught in immoral situations had been up front with the public, “at that point I think Americans naturally would have fallen over themselves to forgive.”

“I think this is the case in our professional and personal lives. … Somehow ‘I’m sorry’ matters,” he added. “What we cannot tolerate is cover-up and blaming.”

Rosell teaches ethics to and counsels with clergy-in-training and doctors-in-training. He believes openness by the perpetrator can facilitate the victim’s desire to forgive. Studies show doctors and hospitals that admit mistakes or wrongdoing are less likely to be sued than are those that do not, he said.

But, he added, true forgiveness must be rooted in justice. He follows Marie Fortune’s philosophy that forgiveness and justice must go hand-in-hand, often even when justice is not possible.

A United Church of Christ minister, Fortune is considered an expert in clergy abuse and is founder of the Faith Trust Institute, a Seattle-based organization focused on violence against women and children. She teaches there can be no forgiveness without justice.

Accountability and idolatry

Justice requires accountability, Rosell insisted. Ministers and their congregations sometimes act as though the only requirement to forgiveness is to change the victim’s attitude and to simply say: “We forgive you.”

“Sometimes what’s counted as forgiveness is the unwillingness to hold a brother accountable. … That is a sin,” he said.

Part of the problem in churches also stems from “pastor idolatry,” he added. “We make a god of the pastor, and when he sins, we often can’t recognize it because of our idolatry.”

Often clergy abusers aren’t held accountable because some church members will pressure the rest to “forgive” him or her. Lack of accountability opens opportunities for further abuse, he said.

Rosell encourages his ministerial students to view forgiveness as a process, rather than a platitude. “We ought not to press for forgiveness. Forgiveness is discovered, not forced,” he said.

Accountability is the primary issue for Speed Lea, as well. An expert in conflict management, particularly in churches, he is a consultant for the Alban Institute.

“It’s always important to maintain boundaries, and there needs to be consequences for missteps,” he said.

Consequences must be determined fairly, he stressed, rather than used as retribution. “Keep them within limits and avoid the vengeful kinds of responses our primitive brains might want to use to react.”

And victims must avoid becoming victims a second time by loosening or discarding consequences be-cause they fear the perpetrator will see them as being unforgiving—particularly if both claim to be Christians.

He tells the story of a church business manager who stole money from the offering plates and from a checking account during his 10 years of service. The congregation decided not to press formal charges but insisted the manager reimburse the church. And they insisted he find a job that did not involve dealing with money.

“Not all the congregation was happy, but the solution gave the opportunity for the individual to start a new life,” Leas said.

The author of Leadership and Conflict has identified five levels of conflict that can plague relationships. Forgiveness becomes more difficult as disagreement moves from problem solving to unmanageable conflict.

Sometimes finding forgiveness must be done through a third party. “It’s very hard when people are in the midst of the pain … to get to the possibility of repairing a breach,” he said. “Sometime the forgiveness is in the observers who can help until those involved can get beyond the pain.”

An act of obedience

Christians must forgive in obedience to God, said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“It goes back to the Lord’s Prayer—forgive us as we forgive others,” he said.

Jesus added that believers would be forgiven in the same way in which they forgive others, Land stressed.

“Do we really want God to forgive us the way we forgive?” he asked.

Land emphasized that lack of forgiveness “will hinder growth and your spiritual relationship.” Believers should hold those who hurt them accountable, and in cases such as abuse, should remove themselves from the situation. But in every case, Christians must forgive.

“When we realize what Christ has done for us, how can we not forgive?”

And when believers find forgiveness difficult, they should “give it to the Lord,” he added. “Give it to Jesus, and then the power of the person to hurt you is gone.”

Releasing the burden to God

Roberta Damon, retired marriage and family counselor at First Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., and author of two books, believes forgiveness comes much more easily when the perpetrator repents and asks for forgiveness because the wounded individual can choose to forgive or not.

“But there are times when the perpetrator isn’t going to come to you … and there will be no reconciliation,” she said. That’s when the one wronged must release the pain and the burden to God.

“I don’t believe God’s forgiveness hinges on our ability to forgive,” she noted, pointing out that the Lord’s Prayer is sometimes misused to prove that it does.

When no accountability exists—either through the perpetrator’s seeking forgiveness or through the criminal justice system if a crime has been committed—the victim still must decide how he or she will react.

“The question is: What am I going to do with my own heart? The situation must be released into God’s hands,” she said. As a part-time counselor for First Baptist Church and for the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, the former missionary to Brazil asks counselees to visualize Jesus walking the road to Calvary.

“You see him stumble with the crosspiece and fall to one knee. Now visualize yourself placing your burden on that crosspiece,” she tells them.

“Our first reaction is that we feel sorry for him, and we don’t want to add to his burden,” Damon said. “But we know that we must release our burden and our heart into God’s hands.

“Add your burden, and watch him get up.”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS)—The 2008 murder of 35-year-old Mashonda Griffin in her home was a blow to her fellow church members—especially when they learned one of the people charged in her death was a former parishioner whom Griffin had helped in the past.

Griffin’s death—an apparent botched robbery that landed the two suspects in prison with life terms—filled her pastor with anguish.

“It pretty much was the biggest thing I faced as a pastor,” James Stokes said of the woman, who had been a member of Stokes’ congregation 16 years.

Stokes said he would have wallowed in grief longer had it not been for an e-mail he received two days before Griffin’s funeral from John Smith, national and regional director of PastorCare, The National Clergy Support Network, who asked to meet with Stokes.

Smith fast-tracked his level of credibility with Stokes because of a similar tragedy the PastorCare leader faced when, as pastor of a church in Long Island, N.Y., a member of his congregation committed a brutal murder.

Smith infused Stokes with some much-needed solace.

“I was able to talk and release a lot of emotions, release a lot of things I was going through as a result of the murder,” Stokes said. “John was there for me in every sense of the word.”

Helping ministers get through their rough patches has been PastorCare’s mission since Filbert Moore founded the nondenominational ministry in 1995 on the campus of Peace College in Raleigh, N.C. Smith now runs the ministry from his Grand Rapids office.

From the start, the intent has been to provide confidential, Christ-centered ministry nationwide for pastors and their spouses, with the primary plan of helping them stay in ministry.

It’s a mission that regularly requires Smith to make the initial contact with ministers who sometimes are reluctant to reach out because of a compelling desire to keep their problems private, or because they are unsure who they can trust.

“What I’ve learned is many times, pastors are not good at seeking help themselves,” Smith said.

“There’s a fear of how this will be used against them. We always give them a choice of where we will meet.”

The ministry uses the term “coaching” instead of counseling, since its staff members are not licensed therapists. One-on-one sessions and small-group seminars are available.

The bulk of pastors’ problems are related to burnout—packing too many hours in a workweek that cuts into personal time with their spouses and family, Smith said.

Others have experienced some sort of moral failing, while still others wrestle with marital problems.

Perhaps the thorniest heartache ministers face is when they’re ousted from their pastorates, Smith said.

It’s often a double whammy for ministers who not only find themselves without a job, but also cut off from church friends and spiritual confidants.

That’s the quandary David Korsen and his wife, Joanie, found themselves immersed in when they relocated from Bellingham, Wash., in 2004 to serve a Reformed congregation.

On the surface, several visits to the church before accepting the call indicated a good fit, Korsen said.

Initially it was, Korsen said. His first year as pastor saw his new church add 60 people to its roster and another 40 the following year.

But those early victories hit a snag when a group of people Korsen calls “the gang of six” didn’t care for new outreach programs, or his stance that women are equally qualified to be ordained ministers and lay leaders.

“I didn’t quite grasp the church had a history with a certain group of people of power who weren’t real thrilled with some of the new innovations,” Korsen said.

By 2008, for the first time in his life, Korsen found himself unemployed following an evening phone call that ordered him not to set foot on church premises, despite John Smith’s attempts to represent Korsen as his advocate.

“John was at the door the next day at 9 a.m.,” Korsen said. “One of John’s great abilities is to listen and provide a safe place when there’s no safe place for pastors to process.”

Since then, Korsen said he and his wife are on the mend. He works part-time as PastorCare’s national communications director and has rolled up his sleeves to launch a new Reformed congregation in the Kalamazoo area.

“If people would understand the power and value of encouragement, a lot of pastors’ problems would be different,” Smith said.

“Too often they only say something when they have a complaint. They’re too self-focused and too self-absorbed.”

At age 8, Chris Carrier was abducted, stabbed multiple times with an ice pick, shot in the left temple at pointblank range and abandoned in the Florida Everglades.

Miraculously, he survived the ordeal, although the bullet to his head severed an optic nerve and left him blind in one eye. But perhaps the greater miracle occurred 22 years after the attack.

A police officer involved in the criminal investigation found the primary suspect, David McAllister—who never was convicted of the attack on Carrier—bedridden and blind in a nursing home. After the policeman told him he no longer needed to fear punishment, McAllister confessed to the crime.

When Carrier met the man who kidnapped and assaulted him, he told McAllister he had forgiven him many years earlier. In the week that followed, Carrier visited McAllister daily and ultimately led him to faith in Christ.

Carrier credits his ability to forgive his attacker to the faith commitment he made to Jesus Christ at age 13.

“That’s when my security issue was settled,” he said. Before he accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, Carrier confessed, he lived in fear, not knowing where his attacker was or when he might strike again. But that changed when he placed his trust in Jesus Christ.

“There’s no fear factor any more,” he said. “If Jesus is my Lord, what do I have to fear? Security’s no longer an issue.”

Ministry of reconciliation

But a former youth minister with whom Carrier reconnected to make the visit to McAllister challenged him to move beyond forgiveness. He urged Carrier to attempt reconciliation with his attacker, who had at one time been dismissed from a job by Carrier’s father.

The police artist's rendering of a suspect in Chris Carrier's disapearance.

Through his faith, Carrier saw himself as no different from McAllister—a man who apparently carried out a grudge against a father by attacking his son. Likewise, Carrier saw himself having been in rebellion against God the Father and guilty of the crucifixion of the Son of God. But from his cross, Jesus asked God to forgive those who crucified him.

In Carrier’s mind, he could do no less.

“It has to be bigger than forgiving because it makes me feel good about myself or forgiving in order to have closure,” he said. “It’s a calling to be involved in what 2 Corinthians 5 calls ‘the ministry of reconciliation.’”

Today, Carrier—a Bible teacher and interim campus minister at San Marcos Baptist Academy—volunteers in prison ministry. During weekend events, he spends the first couple of days just building relationships with inmates, who often tell him they are “too bad, with no chance of forgiveness.”

After he builds a rapport with the prisoners, then Carrier tells his story.

“I’m able to tell them miracles happen, and they have happened over and over in my life,” he said. “The greatest miracle is that God gave me the chance to go to the man (who assaulted him)… and say, ‘I want to be your friend, and I want that friendship to be eternal.’”

But if forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel and all Christians are called to a ministry of reconcilation, why is Carrier’s experience the exception rather than the norm?

Fuzzy understanding of forgiveness

Some theologians suggest many Christians struggle with forgiveness and reconciliation in interpersonal relations because they fail to grasp exactly what those concepts mean in terms of their relationship to God.

Chris Carrier is now a Bible teacher and interim campus minister at San Marcos Baptist Academy.

Varied views on Christian forgiveness came to light recently when veteran television journalist Brit Hume spoke on the Fox News Sunday program about whether Tiger Woods could recover from the revelations of his marital infidelity.

“He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith,” Hume said. “So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

Those comments by Hume—who reportedly made a deep faith commitment to Christ following his son’s suicide 11 years ago—prompted a firestorm. Some comments focused on the appropriateness of the remarks, or the chosen platform for delivering them, or whether Hume accurately portrayed Buddhism.

But the second-generation fallout of the controversy—the comments made about the comment—caused some Christians to raise concerns about a perceived cheapened view of God’s forgiveness that portrays it as a free pass based on easy belief.

For example, conservative commentator and provocateur Ann Coulter called Christianity “the best deal in the universe.” Crudely summarizing the incarnation and atonement, she concluded: “If you believe that, you’re in.”

Understanding distinctions

Coulter’s explanation illustrates the muddied understanding many Christians have regarding the related—but not synonymous—subjects of forgiveness, grace, repentance, reconciliation and redemption, some theologians insist.

God’s forgiveness of sinners is not based on anything humans do but on what God already has done, said Randall O’Brien, author of Set Free by Forgiveness.

“Contrary to popular opinion, forgiveness precedes repentance,” said O’Brien, president of Carson-Newman College, a Baptist school in Jefferson City, Tenn. “Repentance is the result of God’s forgiveness—not the cause of it. God does not love and forgive us because we repent. We repent because God loves and forgives us. That’s the radical gospel of the cross.”

Chris Carrier, accompanied by his daughter, Amanda, visits David McAllister, who had abducted and attacked Carrier 22 years earlier. Carrier befriended McAllister and ultimately led him to faith in Christ. (FILE PHOTO/Miami Herald)

Jesus demonstrated unconditional love on the cross when he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Nobody had repented of his involvement in his crucifixion before Jesus freely forgave, O’Brien noted. But God’s universal forgiveness of sinners does not mean universal salvation, redemption and reconciliation, he explained.

“Forgiveness is a necessary but insufficient condition for reconciliation,” said O’Brien, a former religion professor and administrator at Baylor University. “Reconciliation is always conditioned upon the response of the forgiven.”

What’s true in the relationship between God and sinful people also holds true in human relationships, he explained.

“Forgiveness is a one-way street. Reconcilation is a two-way street,” he said.

Jim Denison, theologian-in-residence at the Baptist General Convention of Texas and president of the Center for Informed Faith, agreed.

“Forgiveness makes reconciliation possible but does not ensure that it is achieved. Both parties must be willing to restore their relationship before reconciliation is accomplished,” Denison said.

The example of Christ—and the grace Christians receive from God—demands action on the part of the person who has been hurt, O’Brien insisted.

“The victim has the task of initiating reconciliation,” he said. “That sounds crazy. But it’s the gospel.”

No excuse for offense

Forgiveness does not “look the other way” and pretend no harm as been done, O’Brien added. It does not minimize the damage caused or the offense committed.

“Forgiveness is not a substitute for judgment. Forgiveness is judgment. It is saying, ‘I judge you guilty, but I forgive you anyway,’” he said.

Forgiveness involves choice—choosing not to punish an offense, Denison observed.

“It is not pretending that the person was not harmed or excusing harmful behavior. When a governor pardons a criminal, she does not deny the reality of the crime, but rather chooses not to inflict the punishment prescribed by the law. God forgives our sin in the same way and calls us to treat others as he treats us,” Denison said.

Forgiveness does not mean enabling future bad behavior or imperiling innocent people. O’Brien cited the example of a woman who has been physically abused by a spouse. Forgiveness does not mean placing oneself—or others who are vulnerable—in a position that facilitates future abuse.

“Forgiveness is not a synonym for foolishness,” he said. “We’re not called to cast our pearls before swine. We’re not called to put our own safety or health—or that of our children—on the line.”

Forgive and forget?

When God forgives sinners, he “will remember their sins no more,” according to Jeremiah 31:34. But some Christian theologians and mental health professionals question whether that is either possible or advisable for human beings.

“God possesses the ability to forget all he forgives. … Such capacity is beyond most humans,” Denison said.

Denison points to the example of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who offered a prayer of forgiveness for people who were beating him to death with stones.

“Had Stephen survived the stoning he forgave, it is unlikely that he would have forgotten the experience,” he said.

Psychologist Dan McGee of Arlington, who administers counseling services for Texas Baptist ministers for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, agreed.

“I doubt that Jesus forgot his excruciating suffering and death by Roman crucifixion, perhaps the most humiliating and painful means of dying ever conceived by depraved minds,” McGee said. “However, most of the pain we experience at the hands of others, friend or foe, is not the result of willful intent to harm us.”

McGee recalled a personal experience, when he asked a friend how a former colleague could be so cruel in his behavior toward people with whom he had worked. His friend advised him not to take it personally and said, “When people are motivated by fear, they will run you over with no thought of the body count in their wake.” 

“I discovered that it is far too egocentric of me to think they did what they did with my demise in mind,” McGee said. “What I am able to do in (Christ’s) strength is remember, not forget. Remember that what they did makes some kind of sense to them, and try to understand the circumstances they were dealing with to behave as they did. And when I find myself in such circumstances, think carefully of the impact my behavior could have on those God loves.”

Healing power

Forgiveness liberates the person who does the forgiving, O’Brien stressed.

“To refuse to forgive is to live life backward,” he said, noting the person who rejects the possibility of forgiveness can become “a pain junkie” who draws his or her identity from the hurtful experience.

“Only forgiveness sets us free to a brand-new future. The only thing harder than forgiving is the alternative of living in bitterness.”

Forgiveness possesses healing power for the person doing the forgiving, and it holds the potential of broader healing through reconciliation, McGee noted.

“Forgiveness is always appropriate because of what nonforgiveness does to us and what grace expressed has the potential of doing for those who have harmed us,” he said.

“Forgiveness frees up the energy it takes to bear the burden of anger indefinitely. Psychologists know that anger suppressed—conscious blocking—or repressed—unconscious blocking—creates and sustains depression.”

But at the relational level, reconciliation moves to the next level, he added.

“Forgiveness is the healthiest response, but reconciliation is a celebration,” McGee said. 

“And there is no bond as tight as that one that emerges from two friends, lost in conflict, recovering through reconciliation.”

–With additional reporting by John Hall of Texas Baptist Communications

ST. LOUIS (RNS)—Three hundred evangelical Christian college students sat in a dark, packed downtown hotel ballroom, the projected glow of a movie the only source of light.

Students in the room, however, would have argued the real sources of light were the movies’ subjects—missionaries bringing the gospel to what they believe to be the darkest corners of the world for Christians: China, Burma, India, Africa.

In watching examples of such films, these missionaries-to-be are participating in an artistic renaissance of sorts within the Christian community. The potential of narrative filmmaking as an evangelical tool has grown rapidly in recent years, as the technical tools used to make movies have become cheaper and available to more—and younger—people.

Christian film director T.C. Johnstone, seen here (right) shooting Hearing Everett, screened part of his movie at the Urbana film forum in St. Louis. (RNS PHOTO/Courtesy of Jon Beck)

“Film is ingrained into our culture, and Christians are using it more and more for God’s kingdom’s purposes,” said Drew Mason, a 19-year-old sophomore film major from San Diego State University who attended the film screening.

The screening was part of the Urbana conference, the largest gathering of mission agencies in the world. Its purpose is to connect more than 16,000 young, idealistic, energetic college students with the 280 mission organizations and seminaries that staffed booths for the five-day event.

Urbana is organized by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA every three years. The conference moved to St. Louis in 2006 after nearly 60 years on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But this was the first year Urbana organizers decided to tap into the younger generation’s interest in movies in a big way.

“At Urbana ’03, there wasn’t a peep about film or filmmaking, and in ’06 there were two discussions that brought in about 50 people,” said Nathan Clarke, 34, a documentary filmmaker with Fourth Line Films who organized the Urbana Film Festival and Forum.

At the recent event, organizers devoted three formal sessions to the subject, screening six movies. The festival drew more than 1,000 students to the sessions, and also to smaller workshops, roundtables, lectures and one-on-one meetings in which students could get critiques on their film pitches.

“Today there’s a community of Christian filmmakers out there who have access to the technical tools, but many of whom need to learn how to tell a story,” Clarke said.

Probably the most popular evangelical movie ever made, the Jesus film, was produced 30 years ago by the late Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International. The two-hour movie features the familiar biblical story of Jesus’ life and, according to its website, has been translated into 1,000 languages and has been seen by 6 billion people.

But younger filmmakers are turning away from using their craft as an element of the conversion process itself. Instead, they are taking the skills they’ve learned in film schools and using both documentary and fictional narrative techniques to change the direction in which their movies find an audience.

Rather than making a movie that shows the story of Jesus to a Third World nonbeliever, as the makers of the Jesus film did, today’s Christian filmmaker might target an American audience and dramatize the dangers for those leading the underground church in China or examining the role of the prosperity gospel in Ghana.

Christian movie director T.C. Johnstone, 36, screened part of his movie Hearing Everett at the Urbana film forum, and he explained the movie’s genesis was as a promotional video for Rancho Sordo Mudo, a home and school for deaf children in Mexico.

But what began as a simple fundraising tool eventually became a feature-length telling of the story-behind-the-story—part documentary, part narrative history—of how an American missionary family left the comforts of home and began teaching deaf children in the Mexican desert.

Churches are the intended venue for free Hearing Everett screenings, after which members may take up a collection for Rancho Sordo Mudo.

But for Johnstone and, increasingly, other Christian filmmakers, the screening itself isn’t the end of the movie experience. Hearing Everett ends with an “action step” directed at the viewer. Pastors can request a tool kit that includes a small-group study guide Johnstone hopes will lead others toward church service projects.

Other Christian filmmakers have become activists for social-justice issues that both make good sources of drama and mesh with the tenets of their faith. They are unsatisfied just telling a story of injustice and letting an audience decide how to act. For many, their faith propels them to set up nonprofit organizations.

John Shepherd, president of Mpower and producer of last year’s controversial The Stoning of Soraya M., said a new generation of Christians is embracing the arts in a way their parents never did.

“If the body of Christ doesn’t get involved in film as a mission field, it’s missing a phenomenal opportunity to have their message heard by the world,” Shepherd said. “And this young generation gets it. The church had abandoned the arts, but young people are taking it back.”

Tim Townsend writes for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in St. Louis, Mo.

Sydney bishop dresses down casual clergy. An Anglican bishop in Australia’s largest city has dressed down his clergy over their lack of sartorial style. “Why are our clergy the worst dressed people in church?” wrote Bishop Robert Forsyth of South Sydney on a website for the city’s Anglicans. Forsyth, writing in his regular column, “The Grumpy Bishop,” said he is concerned the casual wear of some clergy sends a bad message to “unbelievers and outsiders.” Forsyth says the idea of “Sunday best” does not exist any more. Still, he continued, “There is a way of dressing casual that looks really good … (and) there is a way that looks positively … scruffy.”

Jordan files complaint over Dead Sea Scrolls. Jordan has complained to a United Nations agency after Canada refused to seize the Dead Sea Scrolls at a recent exhibit in Toronto. Jordan asserts the ancient manuscripts, on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, were stolen from a museum in East Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War of 1967. Some of the earliest biblical and religious writings ever found, the 2,000-year-old scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in caves overlooking the Dead Sea. Seventeen of the approximately 900 scrolls had been on display in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum since June. After Canada declined to seize the scrolls, Jordan announced it had complained to UNESCO—the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict.

American faithful disapprove of marriage to atheists. Most Americans accept interracial marriage, but many people of faith say they would be troubled by a family member’s decision to marry an atheist, the Pew Research Center reports. Seven in 10 Americans associated with a religion said they either would be bothered but come to accept such a marriage (43 percent), or they would not ever accept (27 percent) it, the poll found.

Charges of religion-related job bias hits record. Incidents of alleged religion-based workplace discrimination hit record highs in 2009, along with complaints of bias based on disability and national origin, according to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission. Charges of religion-related bias in private-sector jobs have increased steadily from fiscal year 1997, when they amounted to 2.1 percent of workplace discrimination complaints, to fiscal year 2009, when they were 3.6 percent. The overall number of charges filed during the most recent fiscal year—93,277—was the second-highest ever. Victims received monetary relief of more than $376 million during the time period studied, which ended Sept. 30, 2009. Of the 3,386 religion-based charges received by the EEOC, 2,958 were resolved. About 60 percent of resolved cases—both overall and specifically religious ones—were found to have “no reasonable cause” based on evidence obtained during an investigation. Those bringing charges still could challenge their employers through private court action.

When Colt McCoy of the University of Texas expressed his faith in an interview following the Longhorns’ BCS championship game loss to Alabama Jan. 7, the quarterback placed himself in a growing cadre of Christian athletes becoming increasingly vocal about their commitment to Jesus Christ.

“I always give God the glory,” said McCoy, who was knocked out of the game—the last of his college career—by a shoulder injury, probably contributing to his team’s defeat. “I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life. And I know that if nothing else, I’m standing on the Rock.”

Highly publicized expressions of faith have become standard fare in college and professional sports at least since 1977, the year running back Herb Lusk dropped to a knee after scoring a touchdown for his Philadelphia Eagles. The end-zone prayer often is cited as the first to be televised across the nation.

Many Christians find those high-profile testimonies encouraging, prominently featuring evangelical sports figures in worship services and evangelistic conferences. The trend prompted writer Tom Krattenmaker to call big-time sports “one of the most outwardly religious sectors of American culture.”

In part, the prominence given Christian athletes can be attributed to American Christianity’s addiction to celebrity culture. But some observers believe sports figures offer a more distinctive appeal than mere fame.

Christian athletes appear more demonstrative and outspoken in testifying about their faith than celebrities in entertainment or business in large part because they understand what it means to be on a team and share credit, said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.

“The simple answer is that as committed Christians, they know from where their strength comes and recognize the source of their talents and gifts,” he said. “As team players, they know they didn’t get this far alone, and they want to give credit.”

That same attitude extends to athletes who compete in individual events, he added.

“They understand they have been trained and developed, and they have been blessed with somebody who helped shape that raw talent,” Teaff said. “Unless the person is unusually self-centered, athletes know they don’t win alone. And Christians, especially, should have that tendency not to be self-centered but to want to share credit.”

That not only means thanking coaches, trainers and teammates, but also giving glory to God, he explained. But most Christian athletes understand the distinction between praising God for allowing them to perform to the best of their ability and believing God plays favorites in athletic competitions and determines their outcome, Teaff insisted. “God loves the players and coaches on the other side. God loves the officials. He loves—period,” he said.

Some sporting fans find such public expressions of faith discomfiting. In his book, Onward Christian Athletes, published last year, Krattenmaker warned that vocal expressions of faith in stadiums risks alienating an increasingly pluralistic society.

“There are many secular fans who really feel annoyed by that kind of religious expression,” Krattenmaker, a Portland, Ore., specialist on religion in public life, told the Associated Press. “Even people who are religious themselves often resent this situation where athletes talk about God in this big moment of victory, sometimes seeming to imply God gave them the victory.”

But others, like University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who famously writes Bible verses in his game-day eye black, say it’s simply a part of who they are. And focusing on one’s faith keeps athletes’ priorities in order, Tebow says.

Tebow, who grew up the son of missionaries in the Philippines and has seen desperate poverty at close quarters, told the Washington Post he couldn’t imagine getting stressed out over something as inconsequential as a BCS national championship game.

“Pressure is not having to win a football game; pressure is having to find your next meal,” he told the Post last year before the Gators’ win over the University of Oklahoma.

Nevertheless, outspoken Christian athletes like Tebow—who Sports Illustrated writer Austin Murphy called “the most effective ambassador-warrior for his faith I’ve come across in 25 years” at the magazine—continue to feature prominently in evangelistic outreach.

For more than a year, billboards across the Dallas-Fort Worth area and spots on local broadcast media have presented sports and other celebrities—and a few regular folks with a story to tell—proclaiming the message, “I am Second,” and directing people to the iamsecond.com website. Recently, a commercial featuring Texas’ McCoy launched nationally prior to the BCS National Championship.

Tony Dungy, a former NFL coach who led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory in 2007, has testified publicly about his evangelical Christian faith. (RNS FILE PHOTO/Brett Duke/The Star-Ledger )

Athletic figures such as Jason Witten of the Dallas Cowboys, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, and former NFL coaches Joe Gibbs and Tony Dungy figure prominently in the campaign, which also features Jason Castro of American Idol, Michelle Aguilar of The Biggest Loser and other celebrities.

A Plano-based church-planting ministry, e3 Partners, developed the media campaign, and Norm Miller, chief executive of Dallas-based Interstate Batteries, provided key support.

On its best day soon after the campaign was launched in December 2008, about 15,000 people visited the ministry’s website—many to view the testimony of Brian Welch, formerly of the heavy metal rock band Korn, said Nathan Sheets, vice president of e3 Partners and team leader for the “I am Second” campaign.

But when the campaign featured quarterbacks McCoy and Sam Bradford of the Oklahoma Sooners prior to the Red River Rivalry match-up at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, their videos attracted 33,000 visitors in one day to the website and prompted “a tremendous amount of forwarding,” said Sheets, a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

Athletes draw attention, and they often are more open about sharing their faith than some other public figures, he noted.

“Athletes in general are not reliant on continuing relational development for their success,” Sheets said. Actors or recording stars might put future contracts in jeopardy by being outspoken about their faith, but athletes tend to be judged almost exclusively by performance in competition, he explained.

Of course, any public figure invites scrutiny. And sometimes athletes who have cultivated a straight-and-narrow image may find themselves losing lucrative endorsements if personal frailties come to light, as golfer Tiger Woods discovered when his marital infidelity became known.

Tim Tebow, who famously writes Bible verses in his game-day eye black, says religious expression for athletes is simply a part of who they are. And focusing on one’s faith keeps athletes’ priorities in order. (PHOTO/Marc Seroto/Getty Images)

But how well-known Christian athletes handle themselves when they stumble can be instructive. Last August, a website posted photos from an incident in Arizona nearly eight months earlier where Hamilton—a recovering substance abuser—was seen in a bar, visibly drunk and in compromising poses with women other than his wife.

But once the photos came to light, Hamilton apologized publicly, telling reporters, “It just reinforces to me that if I’m out there getting ready for a season and taking my focus off the most important thing in my recovery, which is my relationship with Christ, it’s amazing how these things creep back in.”

He also reported that the day after the incident, he contacted his wife, the Texas Rangers organization and Major League Baseball to confess his lapse in sobriety. After Hamilton’s public confession, his wife, Katie, subsequently posted her own statement of support on the Dallas Morning News sports blog.

The “I am Second” campaign received “very positive response” from Christians who rallied around Hamilton, Sheets noted.

“It endeared him even more to Christians who could look at him and say, ‘He struggles just like I do, and he has to depend on the grace of God,’” he said.

Athletes at every level—and to some degree, any celebrity who makes his or her faith public—find themselves subject to close scrutiny, Teaff observed. “There’s a segment of society that has negative feelings about people who achieve success. They love to see them tumble and to fall short of what they proclaim themselves to be,” he said.

Grant Teaff (San Angelo Standard-Times Photo)

Teaff, who coached football at Baylor University from 1972 to 1992 and led the Bears to a Southwest Conference Championship, noted he always spent three days with freshmen student athletes at the beginning of each year to provide them a solid foundation to help them deal with the temptations they would face.

“My philosophy for student athletes was to develop the total person—physically, mentally and spiritually—and help them grow in all three areas,” he explained. “I explained it in terms of a three-legged stool. If any one of the legs was weak, it would not stand.”

As the coach at a Christian university with a strong Baptist heritage, Teaff noted he required participation in team devotionals prior to each game. He also used every opportunity to coach student athletes not only in their physical development, but also in terms of how they learned to handle personal relationships, classroom assignments and spiritual development.

“We talked about the importance of reading the Bible, about their prayer life and about attending church. The first thing each year, we would attend church together as a team one Sunday at the beginning of each season,” he recalled.

SHERWOOD, Ore. (RNS)—The wooden box, not quite big enough to hold a pair of shoes, sits on the reception desk, just inside the Sherwood YMCA. Once a day, Roger Button empties the box, finds a quiet place to sit and prays over the slips of paper he finds inside.

Requests vary. Someone’s son struggles with drug addiction. A friend needs a job. Somebody wants more blue, figure-8 rubber exercise bands.

“Sometimes people mistake the prayer box for a suggestion box,” Button said with a shrug.

As the first ordained chaplain to serve a single branch of the Portland-based YMCA of Columbia-Willamette, Button gradually is trying to replant the Christian values at the heart of the YMCA.

The regional Y is reminding people who think of it as a good place to work out or find dependable child care that the “C” in Young Men’s Christian Association still means broad Christian values inspired by Jesus’ life.

“My role here is to minister to the staff and members who call the Sherwood YMCA their home,” Button said. “I feel blessed to be able to be here and be a listening ear.”

The United States is home to YMCAs. They operate autonomously, interpreting their common charter according to the needs of their communities, said Mamie Moore, a spokeswoman for the YMCA’s national office in Chicago.

No one keeps track of how many Ys are reclaiming their Christian heritage, she said. But an October conference in Colorado for YMCA chaplains drew about 90 people from 40 Ys.

“We’re not a church. We’re not a denomination,” said Bob Hall, president and chief executive officer of the regional YMCA. “We’re not in the business to replace churches, but many people who step inside a YMCA may never set foot in a church.

“Our mission, our purpose, our reason why is to teach, train, equip and see people taking responsibility for their own physical, mental and spiritual well-being. We believe in the whole person.”

Hall likes to say he’s trying to “illuminate the C” in the Young Men’s Christian Association. He has reactivated the chaplaincy—there hadn’t been one for decades—hiring a minister, Bob Reichen, as vice president for mission advancement. Reichen ministers to staff, volunteers and members across a five-county region.

“We were founded on Christian ideals,” Hall said—love, respect, honesty, responsibility and service. “They’re in our DNA,” he said.

The YMCA was founded in Britain in 1844, at a time when the Industrial Revolution drew young men to London for work. George Williams and a group of businessmen wanted to offer a Christian alternative to the sordid street life. The first YMCA offered beds, Bible studies and wholesome activities. By 1854, there were 397 YMCAs across seven countries, claiming 30,369 members.

Since the Portland YMCA opened in 1868, attention to its core values has been more profound at some times than others. But the time is right to reclaim them, Hall said.

Last year, the local YMCA served 86,000 individuals with early childhood centers, before- and after-school programs, youth sports and teen development programs, three health and fitness centers, and a camp founded in 1926.

“These are all tools for building character,” Hall said of the facilities and programs. Someone can build muscles or strength at any fitness club. But at the Y, “we offer an opportunity to exercise, challenge your mind and encourage your spiritual life.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—While working on songs for a new album, most songwriters don’t read the book of Revelation over and over again for inspiration.

But that’s exactly what singer/songwriter Phil Wickham did to prepare for the release of his third album, Heaven and Earth.  

Over the last year, Wickham felt led to create a project that would take listeners on a musical journey through the Bible—starting with the first track, “Eden,” to the last track, “Heaven Song.”

“After listening to these songs, I hope that people will want to know more about the message they have just heard,” Wickham said.

“The first song on the album tells about sin coming into this world, and then the album progresses to telling about how Christ’s great love and sacrifice has made things right for those who ask him to be their Savior. My desire is that these songs are effective in leading people to Christ.”

During its first week of sales, the album claimed the No. 2 spot on the Christian/Gospel album chart on iTunes, and Wickham’s song, “Safe,” which features a duet with Bart Millard of MercyMe, topped the Christian/Gospel singles chart at No. 1.

But the accolades and achievements aren’t what motivate Wickham.

By sharing the gospel through music, he has been given many opportunities to share the plan of salvation at his concerts.

“My priority at concerts is to share the reality of the gospel, the importance of the cross and about the excitement and hope that we have in heaven. By the end of a concert, I hope that people are thinking about God’s grace, love and mercy, and I hope that they are also thinking about the sacrifice that has been given to us through Christ,” he said.

“My prayer is that people will want to follow Christ and to live a life that will honor him.

As a teenager, Wickham learned how to play the guitar from his father. After a few months of lessons, he started leading worship for his youth group at church.

“From there, doors started opening for me to play at different events and eventually led me to where I am today,” he said. “For a while, I was really hesitant to pursue music on a full-time basis because I knew it was a huge responsibility to lead people in worship and to write songs that would convey the right message. I didn’t want to mess it up, and I didn’t want to take things in my own hands.

“So, I spent a long time praying that my desires and musical abilities would always remain focused on the Lord and that these gifts would be used for his glory. That continues to be my prayer today, as I’ve found that one of the best ways of connecting with people is to share the truth of God’s word by putting it in a song.”

AUSTIN—Todd Agnew’s musical journey has taken many twists and turns. But Agnew sees that journey as the fulfillment of his dual calling—to lead Christians into meaningful worship and to engage nonbelievers in asking the right questions.

“First and foremost, we make sure that our goal is to lead people to the throne of God,” he said. “God is larger than any words we can use, and music is something beyond words. Music is a gift that God has given us, and it allows us to express beyond what we can actually say.

“As I’m writing songs, I’m always thinking about the tough questions that will challenge people to take the next step and move forward in their walk with the Lord.”

Todd Agnew wants to challenge both Christians and nonbelievers to take steps toward a closer walk with Christ through his music.

When preparing for an event, Agnew carefully selects songs he feels best suit the target audience, with the goal of leading others to Christ.

While leading worship at events, his set list includes traditional hymns and contemporary songs. He enjoys sharing the history of the hymns with teenagers and helping them understand their rich meaning.

“I’m not someone who just gets up on stage and starts playing songs. When I’m leading worship, I really try to teach about what worship is and also teach the songs—not just musically, but conceptually. I’ll break down the phrases in hymns so teenagers can understand the meaning, and I’ll share about how the song was written. I think it makes the songs so much richer when people know the story behind the song.”

Agnew, who was adopted as a baby, grew up at Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving and was involved in a variety of ministries. Agnew credits his adoptive parents for his strong foundation in faith and knowledge, for his musical upbringing and for his understanding of “adoption by grace.”

“I’ve come to understand that the concept of adoption on earth is a parallel to the concept of being adopted into the family of Christ, which is an incredibly powerful story of love and grace,” he said.

While studying music composition at the University of North Texas, he began leading worship for local youth ministries and summer camps. He also performed at a variety of venues including senior adult breakfasts, coffee houses and secular clubs, which gave him many opportunities to plant seeds in the lives of non-Christians and share the gospel.

After 13 years of being an independent artist, Agnew signed a recording contract with Ardent Records/INO in 2003. As a result, many doors began opening for performances at larger venues around the country.

“I was at a point where I had many different avenues I could have gone down in my ministry,” he said.

“I feel like God took his time molding me, because I could not have handled this platform earlier in my life. God basically took my heart, refined it and sculpted it. Then he said: ‘This is who I want you to be. I want you to be somebody who wants to be serious about reaching as many people as possible for my glory.’ Once I really had a grip on that, those doors started to open.”

For Agnew, the musical journey has come full circle—leading worship on a regular basis at Austin Stone Community Church and recording albums that not only are relevant to believers, but also spark conversations and pose questions with non-Christians.

Agnew has garnered numerous hit radio singles, including two No. 1 hits, “Grace Like Rain” and “This Fragile Breath.” He maintains a busy schedule, performing more than 150 dates each year and has sold more than 500,000 recordings. In recent months, he released a new album, Need.

“Seeing people come into a relationship with the Lord is so special, it’s beyond words,” Agnew said. “We all have a need to be loved, to be rescued, to be redeemed, to be restored, all these things. Those are the universal needs, and they are all met in Jesus. I love sharing truth with people and helping them connect with God. Our goal each night is to step back while God works in people’s hearts and begins to change their lives.”