MEMPHIS, Tenn.— An update on how the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is helping achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals—a commitment the organization’s decision-making body made last fall—topped the agenda of the CBF’s annual general assembly June 19-20.

During the two-day meeting, almost 2,000 Baptists—including 256 from Texas—also launched a process to discern CBF’s future direction.

Millennium Development Goals

At its general assembly last year, the CBF asked its Coordinating Council to endorse the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2000 to address extreme poverty worldwide.

“The Coordinating Council and staff have found this call to be the very thing we are eager to do,” said Jack Glasgow of Zebulon, N.C., who chaired a task force to explore ways to help meet the goals. Those goals are:

• Eradicate extreme hunger.

• Ensure access to primary schooling for all children.

• Promote gender equality and empower women.

• Reduce child mortality.

• Improve maternal health.

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

• Ensure environmental sustainability.

• Create a global partnership for development, which involved trade, aid and debt.

Following the right path

“This is the right path for missional churches,” said Glasgow, who became CBF moderator—the group’s top elected official—at the end of this year’s General Assembly. “Our focus on the (goals)… has energized us as we move to the future.”

Glasgow said CBF field personnel around the world are engaged in more than 100 projects that collectively address the eight goals. Among those is Water for Hope, a new initiative that “builds on the assets of communities and on partnerships with churches and other groups to overcome the water crisis in places like Ethiopia, Southeast Asia, Thailand and Uganda,” Glasgow said.

In addition, the Coordinating Council has approved a two-year partnership with the Micah Challenge USA, which aims to deepen Christian engagement with impoverished and marginalized communities and to influence world leaders to fulfill their promise to achieve the goals.

“This joins CBF with other evangelical groups in America who support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and want to assist congregations in their own awareness and support of the goals,” said Glasgow.

Fighting global poverty and hunger

The CBF Foundation will soon invest in sustainable economic development by offering small loans to the poor who have no collateral and lack access to capital. These micro enterprise loans will assist churches and partner organizations in alleviating global poverty, Glasgow said.

Another key component of the CBF’s commitment to the goals lies in its 19 state and regional fellowships, most of whom have endorsed the goals or are engaged in ministries that help achieve them, he added.

One CBF partner—Bread for the World, a hunger relief advocacy group—asked all participants at the general assembly to write letters to U.S. senators, encouraging them to vote for the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), a bipartisan bill that engages the United States in reducing poverty. A companion bill passed the House of Representatives last fall. Displays throughout the Memphis Cook Convention Center offered details about the bill, addresses of senators and congressmen, envelopes and collection bags.

Looking to the future

In looking to the future, the CBF is eager to involve all its constituents, said CBF Executive Coordinator Dan Vestal. “Discernment together is more than voting on a strategic plan or projecting goals or trying to reach consensus. It is a spiritual exercise looking at the past, present and future.”

“Whatever the CBF becomes will be determined by Providence,” Vestal said. “But my understanding of Providence is that we are asked to make decisions that have real consequences.”

Though the 17-year-old Fellowship—which receives contributions from about 1,800 congregations—is “young in historical perspective and small in global perspective,” Vestal said the CBF is “significant and strategic within the Baptist family and within the Body of Christ.”

“The congregations and institutions that partner within this Fellowship have great influence and impact in the world,” he said. “And our future is as bright as the promises of God.”

Following his comments participants met in state and regional groups to pray and discuss a survey which asks a variety of questions related to broadening the CBF community; training and development; resource utilization; missional engagement; honoring race, gender and generations; and interacting with the world community. It also asks respondents to rank the six categories in order of importance.

What’s next?

“Now we have come to a time in the life of this movement when we are healthy and strong enough to step back and ask, what is God preparing for us now?” said outgoing moderator Harriet Harral of Fort Worth, Texas. “In what new and improved ways are we now being called to step out on faith to follow Christ and serve God better?”

“We do not yet have answers, but we are excited about the questions we are bringing to this General Assembly for you to pray over so that together we can seek God’s answers,” said Harral.

The next day groups completed the surveys and presented them during a worship session. “These surveys really represent not only your insights and passions and convictions, but also something of an offering to the Lord,” said Vestal. “We are going to offer our best insights and deepest convictions to God as a sort of prayer.”

The responses will be used by leaders as they evaluate the CBF’s future. Ben McDade, coordinator of Fellowship advancement, said he expected the CBF’s Coordinating Council to have a proposal to consider at its October meeting.

The survey will be available on line through June 24 (www.thefellowship.info/discernment).

Taking care of business

In other business, the CBF approved a 2008-2009 budget of $16.5 million, a slight increase over the current budget of $16,480,000. More than $13 million of the total is allocated for global missions.

Participants also endorsed a slate of nominees for top offices and for the Coordinating Council, including a new moderator-elect—Hal Bass, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark.

The also contributed more than $10,000 to the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Offering for Religious Liberty and Human Rights. About one-third of the receipts from the four-year-old offering will be sent to the Baptist World Alliance’s human rights and religious liberty initiatives. Also receiving funds will be the European Baptist Federation, which includes Baptist constituencies in the Middle East and North Africa.

MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Texas Baptists must multiply their efforts to minister to “those the Bible singles out for special attention—widows, orphans and strangers,” Rick McClatchey challenged members of the Texas Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

The Texas CBF chapter met during the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly in Memphis, Tenn., June 19. The Texans chose new state leadership, adopted a 2008-09 budget and heard a call to action from McClatchey, coordinator of the Texas group.

Test of obedience

“The church does not exist to satisfy the demands of spiritual consumers … but to advance the kingdom of God in this world,” McClatchey stressed. “And the test of our obedience is this: How we treat others.”

Since Bible times, widows, orphans and strangers have been oppressed and in need of aid and comfort, he noted.

“Either because of poverty or lack of integration into the community, they were and are easy targets” for oppression, he observed, noting Christians’ unique responsibility to protect and uplift them. “As kingdom people, we are to care for the poor and the powerless in this world.”
 
Lift people out of poverty

About one-quarter of the world’s population live in abject poverty, McClatchey reported, noting their most desperate need is for capital to lift them out of poverty.

He called on Texas churches to underwrite micro-enterprise loans that can make a permanent difference in the lives of the world’s poorest citizens. These loans—which range from $25 to $250 and are payable over six months—provide the funding for families to begin small businesses that enable them to increase their earnings and sustain themselves.

“Every church in Texas ought to make capital available for micro-enterprise loans,” he insisted, noting this would impact a Millennial Development Goal to cut the number of people living in poverty in half by 2015.

Crunching numbers

Doing the math, McClatchey calculated that if a church invested $10,000 in micro-enterprise loans, providing $250 to families of four, it would aid 320 people in one year. And if a church did that for seven years leading up to 2015, that church would help lift 2,240 people out of poverty. Also, the church would receive a return of 5 percent to 7 percent on its investment.

If 200 Texas churches participated, they would change the lives of 448,000 people through $250 investments or almost 4.5 million people through $ 25 investments.

“I don’t want to say it’s a sin if you don’t do this, but it might be very close,” he said.

McClatchey also called on Texas Baptists to minister to the “strangers” in their midst—international students, evacuees who become refugees, and immigrants.

Taking care of business

Texas CBF members elected Tony Gruben, pastor of Baptist Temple Church in Uvalde, as moderator-elect, and Ken Hugghins, pastor of Elkins Lake Baptist Church in Huntsville, as recorder.

Alcides Guajardo, a retired pastor and denominational worker from Mineral, was the presiding moderator, and Jorene Swift, a staff member of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, became moderator for 2008-09 at the end of the meeting.

Participants also elected other leaders.

New members of the Texas CBF coordinating council are Charlie Brown of Mesquite; Kelly Burkhart, Houston; Van Christian, Comanche; Lucy Floyd, Weatherford; James Hassell, Tulia; Brook Holloway, Marshall; JoAnn Hopper, San Antonio; Tommy Hood, Weatherford; Richard Ivy, Early; Angela Key, Nacogdoches; Liz Lively, Salado; and Robert Morales, Beeville.

New Texas members of the national CBF coordinating council are Johnnie Mesquiz of Houston and James Fuller of Beaumont.

Rodney McGlothlin of College Station was elected to the national CBF nominating committee.

The Texas CBF budget for the new fiscal year is $188,396, an increase of about $3,500 over the current budget.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (ABP) — Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the last remaining lions of the Civil Rights Movement, received the Whitsitt Courage Award at a meeting of Baptist historians in Memphis, Tenn., June 19.

The award honors individuals who demonstrate “Baptist ideals of freedom and faith in the force of any and all tyrannies.” The William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society presents the award during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly each summer.

“Fred Shuttlesworth led the fight against racism, bigotry and segregation in the United States. His work, his ministry, has lifted the standing of Baptists,” noted Whitsitt Society president Kirby Godsey, who insisted Shuttlesworth “embodies the very meaning of courage.”

Shuttlesworth worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. to guide the Civil Rights movement. He was pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., which was bombed three times, and the Ku Klux Klan bombed Shuttlesworth’s home on Christmas Day 1956.

“He pushed the United States a little closer to what Martin Luther King called ‘the beloved community’ and Jesus Christ called ‘the Kingdom of God,’” said Andrew Manis, associate professor of history at Macon State College in Macon, Ga., and author of a Shuttlesworth biography, A Fire You Can’t Put Out.

The Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, which helped ensure the equal rights of Americans of all races, would not have been enacted without Shuttleworth’s leadership, Manis said. He presented the keynote address at the ceremony, during the Whitsitt Society’s annual breakfast.

“Nobody put his rear on the line in the black freedom struggle more than Fred Shuttlesworth did in Birmingham,” he said.

Modern-day Daniel

Referencing some of the key crisis points of the Civil Rights Movement, Manis said, “16 sticks of dynamite, the tenacity of [infamous Birmingham police commissioner] Bull Connor…and the occasional timidity of Martin Luther King did not hold him down. He was a modern-day Daniel in the lion’s den.”

The Whitsitt audience watched a documentary that showed a crowd beating Shuttlesworth when he tried to integrate Phillips High School by enrolling his children there. That event took place immediately after the KKK threatened castration and death for “anyone” who attempted to integrate Birmingham schools, Manis said, adding the threat was targeted for Shuttlesworth, the only parent who attempted integration.

Years later, Shuttlesworth sat in on debate about whether to build a museum focusing on slavery in the South. Shuttlesworth did not comment until another participant asked what he thought. “If you don’t tell it like it was, it can never be as it ought to be,” he told the crowd.

“That’s the best advice for preachers and historians, especially for white preachers whose track record for speaking out on race is abysmal,” Manis said.

Shuttlesworth’s “light” illuminated the evils of segregation, the foolishness of idolizing culture and color, and the myriad blights of racism, Manis said, noting Shuttlesworth’s “little light was lit by a fire you can’t put out.”

Long way to go

“We still have a long way to go to reach ‘the beloved community,’ and sin being what it is, we probably never will reach it,” he said. “But…nobility lies in being willing to accept reality” and taking on seemingly impossible challenges.

Shuttlesworth set the standard for Christians who want to eliminate racism by demonstrating courage “both in the pulpit and in the streets.”

Accepting the award, Shuttlesworth said, “I’m here to thank God for using me in moving forward the standards of bravery and courage and for letting him use me. I’m here to say what a great thing it is to stand up for God in a serious thing. Standing up is what God wants us to do.”

The Whitsitt Society and its award are named for an early president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who lost his job in the late 1800s for persevering in his assertion — later widely affirmed by reputable historians — that Baptists date to the 16th century English Separatist movement rather than to John the Baptist, as many Baptists believed at the time.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—As world leaders continue wrestling over what to do about the spiraling global food crisis, the former U.S. ambassador for humanitarian issues says he worries that Americans “have not yet developed the political and spiritual will” to tackle the situation.

“I think the ethical issue is, as a country and as an individual, are we our brother’s keeper? And I think the answer is yes,” former Ambassador Tony Hall told the PBS television program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

From 2002 until 2005, Hall was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations agencies in Rome that deal with food and agriculture. Prior to that, he served nearly 25 years as a Democratic congressman from Ohio. While in Congress, he was a leading advocate on hunger issues.

Hall, an evangelical Presbyteri-an, is frustrated by what he sees as a lack of moral outrage about the current crisis, particularly within many segments of the religious community.

“There’s over 2,500 verses in the Bible that deal with the issue of helping the poor, the sick, the hungry,” Hall said. “God set it up that we are to address this issue and that he works through us. His Plan B? Well, I don’t know what Plan B is. Plan A is the way he set it up.”

The potential for mass starvation and an upsurge in food-related violence around the world is “immense,” he said.

“I think you are going to start to see in the next four or five months horrendous stories, more riots. It’s a major, major problem,” he said.

According to the United Nations, 850 million people around the world already are near starvation. Rising costs of oil, seeds, fertilizer and transportation, combined with extreme weather and poor harvests, have sent food prices soaring.

“We think this is going to add another hundred million to this 850 million people,” Hall said. “What we’re talking about right now is … staggering.”

Increasing food prices in the United States also have triggered new concerns about domestic hunger. Hall acknowledged the problem but said that should not override American responsibilities abroad. Right now, he said, only about 5 percent of the U.S. humanitarian budget goes overseas.

“We can do much better,” he asserted.

Hall admitted that for the first time since his retirement from public office, he regrets not having an official platform from which to work on this issue. “I’m frustrated,” he said. “I feel inadequate.”

At such times, he said he tries to remind himself of something Mother Teresa once told him when they were together in the streets of Calcutta surrounded by poverty and desperation.

Rather than getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem, “She said, ‘You do the things in front of you,’” he recalled. “So, I keep hanging on to that.”

DALLAS—Hard work paid off for the winners of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Bible Drill and Speakers Tournament.

Matt Howerton of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Ennis won first place in the high school speakers tournament, and Katelyn Van Deaver of First Baptist Church in New Boston won second place.

Austin Juneau of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cleveland won first place in the senior high school division of the Bible drill competition. Rachel Reeves of First Baptist Church in Farmers Branch won second place.

In the junior high Bible drill competition, Faith Walters of First Baptist Church in Albany won first place. Greg Gaskey of Lamar Baptist Church in Wichita Falls won second place.

First place winners were slated to compete in the national competition in their respective categories June 20 in Duluth, Ga.

Texans inducted into Hall of Faith. Six Texas Baptists garnered spots among 30 heroes of the faith honored as the inaugural class of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists Hall of Faith. The inductees, 12 honored posthumously, were elected by their peers after the conference’s executive committee voted to launch the Evangelists Hall of Faith this year in conjunction with the group’s 50th anniversary. Among those being honored were Billy Graham, George Beverly Shea, Cliff Barrows and the late T.W. Wilson, all of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Texas Baptists inducted were Walter K. Ayers, Manley Beasley, Ron Rudy Hernandez, all deceased, along with Freddie Gage of Euless and Homer Martinez of Dallas.

Evangelists elect officers. New officers for the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists—elected at their annual meeting in Indianapolis—are President Ron Herrod, Grace Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn.; Vice President Phil Glisson, Leawood Baptist Church, Memphis, Tenn.; Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Allen, Edmond's First Baptist Church, Edmond, Okla.; Recording Secretary Braxton Hunter, Two Rivers Baptist Church, Nashville, Tenn., and a student at Trinity Theological Seminary in Evansville, Ind.; Music Director Bob Smith, Farley Community Church in Huntsville, Ala.; and assistant Music Director Reggie Lafaye, Heartland Worship Center, Paducah, Ky.

Lottie Moon cumulative gifts top $3 billion. The $150.4 million Southern Baptists gave to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions in 2007 brought the cumulative total since the offering’s inception in 1888 to more than $3 billion. Gifts in 2007 were more than $231,000 above the record 2006 offering of $150.1 million but fell short of the $165 million goal.

No BGCT reps on SBC nominations committee. Nathan Lorick, pastor of First Baptist Church in Malakoff, and Clyde DeLoach from MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Irving were named to serve on the 2008-2009 Southern Baptist Convention’s Committee on Nominations. Both are members of churches uniquely aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

SBC honors former BWA president. Billy Kim, former president of the Baptist World Alliance, received the distinguished Baptist Statesman Award from Morris Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee at the SBC annual meeting. Kim, a former pastor in South Korea and president of the Far East Broadcast Company, also received a resolution of appreciation from the SBC Executive Committee.

Arlington pastor named conference officer. Newly elected officers for the 2009 Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference are Bruce Schmidt, pastor of Lamar Baptist Church in Arlington, vice president; Ed Litton, pastor of First Baptist Church in North Mobile, Ala., president; and James Peoples, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Keystone Heights, Fla., secretary. Elections took place June 9 at the 2008 Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference in Indianapolis.

Committee approves exhibitors. The Baptist General Convention of Texas Committee on Convention Business approved three additional non-BGCT groups as exhibitors for the BGCT annual meeting, including Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, after they agreed to support the BGCT, its mission and its leadership. This fall’s annual meeting in Fort Worth will be the first BGCT gathering that will include a Southwestern booth since 2003. In 2004, the committee determined the school did not affirm support of the BGCT.

In going through the slightly revamped process of applying to have a booth in the annual meeting exhibit hall, Southwestern Director of Admissions Adam Groza signed a statement agreeing the seminary supports “the Baptist General Convention of Texas, its mission and leadership.” Like all exhibitor applicants, LifeWay and Christians for Biblical Equality also went through the same process and agreed to the principles and qualifications presented to exhibit at the meeting. Both were approved for booths.

LifeWay has had a presence at the BGCT Annual Meeting, but will now have an increased visibility at the meeting. In addition to supporting the BGCT, approved non-BGCT-related exhibitors must “offer unique, positive church-related resources and services that would be appropriate for and of interest to Texas Baptist churches.”  They also must have a letter of recommendation from a BGCT-related entity predominantly identified with the ministry.

Deadline set for nominations. The nomination deadline for the 2008 Texas Baptist Missions Foundation Mission Service Awards is Aug. 1. The Pioneer Award for service in missions goes to a long-time leader in missions or someone who played a key role in beginning mission work that impacted Texas Baptist life. The Innovator Award for creativity in missions is bestowed upon a church or individual who provided a model for missions others can adopt. The Adventurer Award for leadership in missions honors an individual who advanced missions through direction of significant mission activities, outstanding financial support or leadership in ministry opportunities. The awards, selected by the foundation’s council, will be presented during the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation’s luncheon Nov. 10 at the Baptist General Convention of Texas Annual Meeting in Fort Worth. Nominations may be submitted to Bill Arnold at the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation, 333 North Washington, Dallas 75246.

Interns on the job. Kaitlin Chapman, a Texas Tech student and former National Acteens Panelist, and Carrie Joynton, a recent Trinity University graduate and National Merit Scholarship finalist, are serving as Texas Baptist communications interns 10 weeks this summer in a cooperative venture involving the Baptist Standard and the Baptist General Convention of Texas communications office.

Veteran dorm mother leaves estate to Hardin-Simmons. Aileen Culpepper, who served 59 years as a dormitory director at Hardin-Simmons University, left her entire estate—estimated at about $400,000—to the university. The fund will create an endowment for the maintenance and renovation of Behrens Hall, one of the student housing facilities where she served. “Miss Cul,” as students referred to her, was a member of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene.

• Chris Cooley to First Church in Cameron as pastor.

• Mark McBride to Knobbs Springs Church in McDade as pastor.

• Lane Renfro to First Church in Saginaw as pastor for youth from First Church in Abilene.

• Former staff and residents of Texas Baptist Children’s Home will gather July 26 for the home’s alumni reunion. Festivities will begin at 9 a.m. with cottage tours. At 11 a.m., alumni will gather in front of the chapel for a group photo. A barbecue lunch will be served from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m., and the cottages will be open for tours during the afternoon. The alumni association also will award scholarships to graduating seniors. For more information or to RSVP, call (512) 246-4248.

• The B.H. Carroll Theological Institute honored four graduates at its spring convocation. Diplomas in ministry were presented to Abraham Barberi and Christopher Ward, both of Houston. Matthew Killough of Grand Prairie and Scott Venable of Denton both received master of arts degrees in Christian education.

• The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor awarded 285 bachelors degrees, and 24 students were presented master’s degrees during the school’s spring commencement ceremony. Among the students earning awards were Austin Fischer of Belton, Christina Hammond of Houston, Chelsea Schilling of Temple and Christa Wright of Georgetown, who were presented the Alpha Chi Award for maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average.

• Howard Payne University bestowed its highest honor, an honorary doctor of humanities degree, upon university chancellor Don Newbury during spring commencement ceremonies. An HPU graduate, Newbury served the school as president from 1985 until 1997.

• Dallas Baptist University has named Shirley Mitchell, secretary in the College of Business, as the staff member of the year. She has served the school almost 20 years. She and her husband, Bill, are members of Northway Church in Dallas.

• Three members of the San Marcos Baptist Academy graduating class were honored at recent graduation ceremonies for their outstanding overall achievement and performance. Michelle Deschner of Wimberley and Aaron Abugaber of San Marcos were presented with the President’s Cup, and Kimberley Beakley of Lake Charles, La., was awarded the McNiel Cup.

• East Texas Baptist University’s nursing department honored several students with awards at the spring pinning ceremony. April Phillips of Tulsa, Okla., was honored with the Carroll Wilson Award for the most professional behavior; Stacey Mitchell of Porter received the Nightingale Award for most demonstrating the spirit of Florence Nightingale; Patrick Evans of Orange received the Nursing Leadership Award; and Kelli Shipley of Longview was given the Spirit of Nursing Award. Students inducted into the ETBU Nursing Honor Society were Evans, Phillips, Nicole Malone of Hallsville, Elizabeth Miller of Allen, Kim Self of Friendswood and Bethany Spears of Houston.

• Charles Bacarisse has been named vice president for advancement at Houston Baptist University. He will oversee alumni affairs, church relations, development and communications.

Anniversaries

• Jerry Royal, 15th, as minister of students at First Church in Wichita Falls, June 1.

• Rusty Waller, 15th, as pastor of First Church in Gordonville, June 9.

• Danieldale Church in Dallas, 60th, July 6. The morning service will feature special music and testimonies, followed by a luncheon. A special afternoon anniversary service will begin at 1:30 p.m. Todd Mabie is pastor.

• Primera Iglesia in San Antonio, 120th, July 20. The date will also mark the beginning of a revival led by Rolando Rodriguez, director of Hispanic ministries for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The revival will conclude July 23. Alfonso Flores is pastor.

• First Church in Petersburg, 100th, Aug. 2-3. The church will have a float in Saturday’s Peterburg Day Parade, and at 6 p.m. will hold a brisket dinner. Sunday will begin with a fellowship breakfast at 9:45 a.m., followed by the service at 10:30 a.m. and a chuckwagon lunch. Don Raney is pastor.

Retiring

• Bruce Scofield, as pastor of First Church in The Colony, June 1. He had served the church since 1996. He previously was pastor at two Missouri churches.

• Roy DeBrand, as professor of homiletics at Campbell University Divinity School in North Carolina, where he has served the last six years. Among his previous ministry positions were stints as associate pastor of Broadway Church in Fort Worth and as pastor of First Church in Richmond. He was ordained at Second Church in Corpus Christi.

Deaths

• Red Midkiff, June 3 in Tyler, after a battle with cancer. He was a member of Holly Brook Church in Holly Lake Ranch, and was a deacon who loved helping with church construction projects, cooking at the monthly men’s breakfast and being a sound operator during worship services. After his retirement from Halliburton Services, he and his wife, Joan, went on many mission trips. He helped the Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief Team serve meals in the Beaumont area after Hurricane Rita. He is survived by his wife of 48 years; son, Mike; daughter, Jaye Hansen; and six grandchildren.

• Louis Vannatter, 71, June 7 in Medina. He was the retired pastor of First Church in Bandera, where he served five years. He was a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a machine gunner, aircraft electrician, a training instructor, curriculum writer, and as a briefer of VIPs, including the vice president of the United States and many generals. One of his most exciting jobs was to work on the crew of a C-130 that penetrated typhoons for weather readings in the Pacific. He ministered in many Texas communities including Bulverde, Fredricksburg, San Antonio and Chacon Lake. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Sandra; daughters, Deena Pate, Rhonda Patchett, Shannon Carbery and Alex Wooldridge; sons, Grant, Nathan, and Jordan; brothers, Bill and Wilburn; sisters, Jeane Bannister and Patricia Ross; 10 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

• Bryce Sandlin, 82, June 10 in Birmingham, Ala. He served in the Western Pacific during World War II, and that was when he was baptized by an Army Air Corps chaplain. Following his military service and while attending Howard Payne University, he was ordained in 1949. His first full-time pastorate was at University Church in Portales, N.M. After serving as a Bible instructor and director of the Baptist Student Union at New Mexico State University, he became director of student ministries with the Baptist Convention of New Mexico. He later served with the Home Mission Board before coming back to Howard Payne in 1974 as professor of Bible and Hebrew. He was made dean of the School of Christian studies in 1984 and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1988. He also served as a trustee of New Orleans Seminary eight years. After his retirement, he moved to Levelland, where he was interim pastor in churches scattered around the South Plains and a men’s Sunday school teacher at First Church in Levelland. He and his wife moved to Birmingham in 2007 to be close to some of their children and grandchildren. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, LaVerne; sons, Allan, Mark and Woody; brother, Doral; seven grandchildren.

• Lois Rogge, 83, June 14 in Midland. A Hardin-Simmons graduate, she began her teaching career at Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas, and then worked several years at Coggin Avenue Church in Brownwood and taught school in Rotan. She moved to Midland in 1955, and continued to work with children. After retiring from the Midland school district, she became minister of childhood education at First Church in Midland, where she established the Child Development Center and helped design a wing of the children’s building.

Events

• Comunidad Casa de Alfarero in Houston will recognize Pastor Leopoldo Mata for his 21 years of service July 3.

• Cass County Cowboy Church in Atlanta will celebrate the National Day of the Cowboy, July 26, with a full day of western activities. Included is a western trades day with all manner of goods from bits and spurs to leather goods, saddles and western decor on hand. A jackpot barrel race also will be held. At 2 p.m. ranch rodeo teams will begin a competition in four ranch events. A live concert will begin at 7 p.m. Throughout the day there will be a working chuckwagon and many other foods from the church kitchen. A bucking machine also will be available. For more information, call (903) 799-SPUR. Frank Locke is pastor.

Revivals

• First Church, Como; June 29-July 2; evangelists, Billy and Winky Foote; no pastor.

• First Church, Hull; June 29-July 2; evangelist, Paul Cherry; music, The Cherry Family; pastor, Cliff Gravitt.

• Friendship Church, Pecan Gap; July 6-9; evangelists, Billy and Winky Foote; pastor, Curtis French.

• Cornerstone Church in Raywood; July 6-9; evangelist, Paul Cherry; music, The Cherry Family; pastor, Chuck Fountain.

MEMPHIS, Tenn.—The struggle for civil rights is not over, and so-called moderate Baptists must carry the cause, speakers exhorted participants at the annual Associated Baptist Press dinner June 19 in Memphis, Tenn.

On various levels and in numerous locations, the cause of Christ demands that people of faith and goodwill stand up and speak out for the poor, the disenfranchised and the weak, speakers said during the ABP event, held each year during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.

“We all know race plays out in (political) campaigns, and we know this is going to be a really important one for America,” Christine Wicker said of the 2008 presidential election, referencing the contest between the first person of color likely to be nominated by a major party, Barack Obama, and John McCain.

Wicker, a former Dallas Morning News religion reporter, is the author of a new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church.

Fundamentalists' failure

Wicker’s topic was “Race in the 2008 Elections,” but she set the context of her remarks by referencing her new book explaining how progressive Christians—the profile of Baptists who relate to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship—face a vital opportunity to provide moral leadership.

For years, Wicker was “wowed by megachurches,” Wicker acknowledged, explaining congregations that regularly draw more than 2,000 worshippers not only are huge, but they’re typically well-run and efficient, and their ministries help huge numbers of people.

As she set out to write a book on the gigantic congregations, several pastors of those churches ironically complained to her about their ineffectiveness, she said. One pastor told her, “We can’t save anybody.”

Another suggested, “Stop looking at the front door and look at the back door,” admitting the megachurches’ huge numbers of converts are offset by the people who leave those churches every year.

Ultimately, Wicker realized she was on the wrong track when the Southern Baptist Convention’s campaign to baptize 1 million people in 2005 failed colossally.

“They not only didn’t baptize 1 million people, but they baptized less that year than the year before,” she recalled.

Wicker pored over statistics from the SBC, the Church of God and other conservative evangelical groups. She found denominations in decline.

For example, she cited Tom Ascol, a Florida pastor and Calvinist leader who has been challenging Southern Baptists to cleanse their church roles and only count “regenerate” church members: “They (Southern Baptists) say they have 16 million members, but the FBI couldn’t find 8 million of them.”

“The more I tracked, the more I saw (evidence of evangelicals’ dominance) wasn’t there. It was a façade,” she said. “I realized this isn’t bad news; this is the best news of my lifetime. The jig is up.”

For years, “fundamentalists were hiding behind the Bible, authority and marketing strategy,” trumpeting their dominance and labeling other Christian groups as losers and just plain wrong, she noted. They were so successful in their proclamations that others believed them, even when their statistics were wrong.

Opportunity for progressive Christians

Turning to the 2008 presidential race and other political campaigns, Wicker observed that progressive Christians have an unprecedented opportunity to articulate their understanding of the gospel.

Because of the presidential showdown between Obama and McCain highlights race, it’s not a new issue in American politics, she said.

“Richard Nixon played the race card with his ‘Southern Strategy’ in 1968,” she remembered, noting race has been used to divide American voters ever since. Sometimes, the appeal is subtler, camouflaged in issues such as crime and law-and-order, but it’s still present, she insisted.

“I don’t know if we should vote for Obama,” Wicker said of the current contest. “What I do know is you have been on the front lines,” she said, noting moderate or progressive Christians have rolled up their sleeves and served the poor and disenfranchised and suffering people of America, and those Christians have more influence than they realize, in part because fundamentalists have less influence than they claim.

“You have been helping people,” she said. “People are going to call on you.”

Wicker called on progressive Christians to be expansive and inclusive in their service, urging them not only to minister to like-minded Americans, but to reach out to those for whom race remains a bitter, divisive issue in U.S. politics.

“You can do it,” she affirmed. “The world is watching.”

Free press and Civil Rights

In other speeches, Associated Baptist Press editors emphasized the high calling of journalists—particularly Christians practicing their faith—to combat racism.

Washington, D.C.-based News Editor Robert Marus—a native of Little Rock, Ark., who completed his undergraduate degree at Rhodes College in Memphis—noted the unique context of the region. Little Rock made global headlines a little more than 50 years ago when black students integrated Central High School, and Memphis became a focal point for race in America 40 years ago when Martin Luther King was assassinated there.

“Journalists were the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Marus. “They stood at the apex of what our profession does best, … comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.”

The articles and photos journalists produced about the Civil Rights Movement—particularly from Little Rock and Memphis, but also from other communities, like Selma, Birmingham and Washington—turned the tide of public opinion toward integration, he reported.

“They showed Americans what they were doing to their own people,” he explained. “Americans didn’t like what they saw.”

Tragically, “one of the saddest ironies of the Civil Rights Movement” was that Christian ministers, on the whole, were nowhere near as exemplary as journalists.

“The bearers of the gospel of light” often supported segregation, Marus lamented, while practitioners of the secular craft of journalism championed the cause of African-Americans.

First American Civil Rights martyr

In fact, a former seminary student who turned to journalism became the first American martyr for civil rights 130 years before Martin Luther King died in Memphis, ABP Executive Editor Greg Warner noted.

In 1833, Christian businessmen in St. Louis approached Elijah Lovejoy about starting a newspaper to “advocate for morality” in the booming Mississippi River city, Warner reported.

So, that year, he launched The Observer. But within two years, Lovejoy championed a kind of morality his financial backers didn’t have in mind. In 1835, he started opposing slavery and gradually advocated complete abolition of slavery.

Lovejoy’s supporters and readers turned against him, calling for his lynching. He relocated his newspaper across the river, to Alton, Ill., Warner said. First, his former readers from St. Louis followed him, chopped up his printing press and threw it into the Mississippi.

Lovejoy remained undeterred, Warner reported. He bought another press and continued his assault on slavery, believing 2.5 million fellow humans should not be oppressed.

In time, his enemies destroyed more presses, and Lovejoy replaced them until, on night just before his 35th birthday, a mob in Alton shot him five times, killed him and threw his last printing press into the Mississippi.

Although the crowd took Lovejoy’s life, the newspaper editor who battled slavery because of his Christian beliefs actually won the battle, Warner said. The bullets that killed Lovejoy became the first shots of the Civil War, more than 20 years before Union and Confederate troops looked across a battlefield.

“Elijah Lovejoy was the first American martyr for freedom of the press” and freedom of all people, Warner insisted.

Civil Rights issues today

“The mid-19th century, like our day, was plagued by many Christians whose God was too small,” he said, noting “the evil today” for most Christians is apathy and complacency in the face of crying needs and oppression around the world.

“Where is our great cause? Are there no issues worth dying for?” Warner asked.

“There are civil rights issues today,” he answered, citing human trafficking and sex slavery in Thailand and racial genocide in Darfur. And issues of equity of all people should dominate the concerns of Christians who love people for whom Christ died, he added.

“We should say, ‘Let’s expand our world … by making room for other people and new ideas.’ … Let us contend with the cobwebs of complacency,” he urged, challenging Christians to see that all people have access to “safe water, clean earth and the dignity of a job.”

Associated Baptist Press is an independent news service that works with religious and secular news outlets nationwide. It is a founding partner of the New Voice Media Group, a collaboration with the Baptist Standard in Texas, the Religious Herald in Virginia and Word & Way in Missouri.

MEMPHIS, Tenn.—An estimated 1,500 Baptists launched a process June 19 to discern the future direction of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship on the first day of the organization’s annual General Assembly here.

Participants also heard an update on how the CBF is helping achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals—a commitment the Atlanta-based organization’s top decision-making body made last fall.

Discerning future direction

CBF executive coordinator Dan Vestal told participants “discernment together is more than voting on a strategic plan or projecting goals or trying to reach consensus. It is a spiritual exercise looking at the past, present and future.”

“Whatever the CBF becomes will be determined by Providence,” Vestal said. “But my understanding of Providence is that we are asked to make decisions that have real consequences.”

Though the 17-year-old Fellowship which receives contributions from about 1,800 congregations is “young in historical perspective and small in global perspective,” Vestal said the CBF is “significant and strategic within the Baptist family and within the body of Christ.”

“The congregations and institutions that partner within this Fellowship have great influence and impact in the world,” he said. “And our future is as bright as the promises of God.”

Following his comments participants met in state and regional groups to pray and discuss a survey which asks a variety of questions related to broadening the CBF community; training and development; resource use; missional engagement; honoring race, gender and generations; and interacting with the world community. It also asks respondents to rank the six categories in order of importance.

On June 20, the groups will complete the surveys and present them during a worship session. The responses will be used by leaders as they evaluate the CBF’s future direction.

“Now we have come to a time in the life of this movement when we are healthy and strong enough to step back and ask, what is God preparing for us now?” said CBF Moderator Harriet Harral of Fort Worth, the group’s top elected official. “In what new and improved ways are we now being called to step out on faith to follow Christ and serve God better?”

CBF Moderator Harriet Harral of Fort Worth spoke to the assembly June 19.

“We do not yet have answers, but we are excited about the questions we bringing to this General Assembly for you to pray over so that together we can seek God’s answers.”

Millennium Development Goals

At its General Assembly last year, the CBF asked its Coordinating Council to endorse the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2000 to address extreme poverty worldwide.

“The Coordinating Council and staff have found this call to be the very thing we are eager to do,” said Jack Glasgow of Zebulon, N.C., who chaired a task force to explore ways to help meet the goals. Those goals are:

• Eradicate extreme hunger.

• Ensure access to primary schooling for all children.

• Promote gender equality and empower women.

• Reduce child mortality.

• Improve maternal health.

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

• Ensure environmental sustainability.

• Create a global partnership for development, which involved trade, aid and debt.

“This is the right path for missional churches,” said Glasgow, who will become CBF moderator at the end of this year’s General Assembly. “Our focus on the (Millennium Development Goals) … has energized us as we move to the future.”

Glasgow said CBF field personnel around the world are engaged in more than 100 projects that collectively address the eight goals. In addition, the Fellowship’s global missions initiative team is partnering with the Micah Challenge USA, which aims to deepen Christian engagement with impoverished and marginalized communities and to influence world leaders to fulfill their promise to achieve the UN goals.

The CBF Foundation will soon offer small loans to churches interested in investing in sustainable economic development, said Glasgow, and most of the CBF’s 19 state and regional fellowships have endorsed the goals or are engaged in ministries that help achieve them.

Another CBF partner—Bread for the World, a hunger relief advocacy group—asked all participants at the General Assembly to write letters to U.S. senators, encouraging them to vote for the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), a bipartisan bill that engages the United States in reducing poverty. A companion bill passed the House of Representatives last fall. Displays throughout the Memphis Cook Convention Center offered details about the bill, addresses of senators and congressmen, envelopes and collection bags.

In other business, the CBF’s coordinating council introduced a 2008-2009 budget of $16.5 million, a slight increase over the current budget of $16,480,000. Assembly participants will consider the budget, which includes more than $13 million for global missions.

Also on Friday, participants will be asked to endorse a slate of nominees for top offices and the coordinating council, including a new moderator-elect—Hal Bass, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark.

[Editor’s Note: The text of this address may deviate from the actual remarks delivered June 19 at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly.]

In 1997, Alban Institute published a book entitled, Discerning God’s Will Together: A Spiritual Practice for the Church. I want to begin today with a quote from that book.

“Today is an in-between time for the church, between the past, when the church was firmly established in Christendom, and an unclear future for the church. Today is a time for redefinition; it is a time for the church to listen to its stories, to talk about its direction and identity, and to patiently discern the shape of its future life and ministry. Yet people are weary from church business as usual, from church gatherings that do not connect with the deeper meanings of their life and faith. The church must draw on its best traditions of faith and practice in order to find new ways of interacting and deciding. The process of prayerful spiritual discernment draws on the best of the church’s practices and offers a depth of faith and life uncommon in the church today.”

* This is what we are attempting this year as a fellowship of Baptists Christians and churches– to discern God’s leadership for the future.

* And we are attempting to do it together.

Earlier this year I heard Cliff Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the PCUSA, a Kenyan leader who said, “If you want to go someplace quickly, go by yourself. But if you want to go a long distance where it is difficult and where there will be many obstacles, go with others.”

* Our exercises today and tomorrow are aimed at an experience that is described in Acts 15.

* Acts 15 records that historic Jerusalem council where the early church faced a crisis of what to do with the Gentiles who had come to faith in Christ.

* I love that verse which says, “Then the Apostles and leaders with the whole church decided,” later they wrote a letter which said, “It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit…” That’s discernment together.

* Discernment together is more than voting on a strategic plan or projecting goals and action plans or trying to reach consensus.

* It is a spiritual exercise looking at the past, the present and the future.

Discerning the Past: The Providence and Presence of God

1. Perhaps a good place to start would be to remember, rehearse and recite what we have experienced and reflect on the providence and presence of God in our shared story.

* This morning Harriet did a remarkable job in reminding us of the past 17 years in CBF

* There are times when I can hardly believe what has happened and how God has blessed us.

* But let me suggest that discerning needs to reach beyond those 17 years.

2. The reason Cecil Sherman’s book is so important is not that it is just a personal memoir but it is an historical record that chronicles our beginning.

* It is, I believe, important for us to acknowledge our roots in order to give thanks to God that, “through many dangers, toils and snares, we have already come.” Some would like to ignore our heritage, others reject it, and still others would like to re-interpret or revise it to fit their own prejudices.

* I suggest we embrace it for what it was and is, a mixture of good and bad and then thank God for his providence and presence in it.

3. Why is this important?

* Because we cannot discern the present and future without reflecting on the past.

* There are some among us who would like to “reproduce the past, i.e. to make CBF into the image of a reorganized SBC.”

* There are others among us who would like to forget the past, i.e. to make CBF “exnihilo” as if it had no connection to history or heritage.

* There are some who would like CBF to have little or no organizational structure and simply collect and distribute money to institutions with no connectionalism.

* There are some who would like for CBF to become an all encompassing denomination giving identity to individuals and congregations.

* There are others whose vision for CBF is simply to be a missionary-sending society or to be subsumed into some other Baptist organization.

4. Whatever CBF becomes will be determined by Providence. But my understanding of Providence is that we are asked to make decisions that have real consequences.

* We help shape the future by our actions and choices.

* And those actions and choices should be informed by serious reflection on God’s providence and presence in our past.

Discerning the Present: The Mission of God

1. But spiritual discernment also requires us to reflect on the present and on God’s redemptive mission to this beautiful but broken world.

Just a few weeks ago, I received a letter from a young seminary professor in one of our partner schools:
“In 1993 I was at Southern Seminary about to enter the PhD program when Al Mohler was installed as president. My wife and I sat together that night and asked ourselves if we could still be Baptists in light of the pain that was going on. I went to bed that night…and I was unsure. I remember a dream I had, as though it were last night. I remember sitting at a kitchen table — the old metal kind, with a red metal top, and I remember someone sitting across from me and simply saying, “no need to worry, no need to run, there is room for you at another table.” And I remember the feeling of peace and joy I had sitting at that new table. When I found the CBF, I found that red metal table, and I found that peace and joy I remember sensing in that dream. That is why I am in CBF and why it matters so much to me. If there is anything I could ever do for the CBF, please know of my deep commitment to this group and my willingness to help move us all forward in Missio Dei.”

* That last phrase is what captured me, “the mission of God.”

* Gathered at this event are scores of institutions, ministries and organizations that have been born in the past 25 years. All see themselves as servants of God’s mission.

* CBF exists to further the mission of God.

2. But at the center of God’s mission in the world is the local church and historically the local church has been the center of Baptist life.

· In the Baptist vision, the local congregation is at the center, not the convention, the association, the fellowship or the institution but the local church. · And though this has always been our rhetoric, I can remember a day when it was not so. · I can remember a day when most saw the local church as existing to serve the denomination or institution. · But deep down we know that institutions exist to serve and extend the local church because Christ founded the church.

3. I stand before you today to say that there are churches across this country and around the world who are discerning God’s mission in the world and discovering their participation in it.

* They are what I call missional churches, i.e., they are defining their identity not by their style of worship, their programs, their buildings, their denominational affiliation, but by their participation in the mission of God.

* These churches have a vision to be the presence of Christ to one another and to their community and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

* These churches have a passion, both for the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

4. And I stand before you today humbly and gratefully to say that CBF is being used by the Spirit to help these churches be captured by that vision and compelled by that passion.

* CBF is coming along side these missional congregations to serve them, to connect them with other churches and to extend their ministry among the most neglected.

* This year we will give more than $700,000 in grants to churches that have completed the It’s Time study and are initiating transformational ministry within their community.

* This year we will appoint 17 new field personnel, missionaries, that are going out from your churches to serve in the most difficult and dangerous places in the world.

* This year we will complete our sixth year in our 20 year commitment to the 20 poorest counties in America involving individuals from your churches in transformational community development.

* This year we have adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a framework to address global poverty and have become a part of the Micah Challenge to help churches engage in the struggle for global justice.

* This year we have begun a fund for Micro Enterprise Lending to poor people, a fund that will attract the endowment dollars from institutions and churches.

* All of this and much more is to come alongside local churches to extend God’s mission in the world.

5. And God’s mission continues. As long as there is one lost soul, as long as there is one wayward prodigal, as long as there is one hungry child, as long as there is injustice and inequality, God’s mission continues.

It is fitting that we are meeting this year in Memphis, Tennessee where 40 years ago, Martin Luther King was assassinated.

* I remember 1968 very well. In fact it was a pivotal year for me.

* The death of Dr. King was the event that awakened my social conscience.

* I remember his funeral as if it were yesterday and remember realizing (for the first time) that I bore responsibility for the racial and economic injustice in this nation.

* Yet in the past 40 years the disparity between rich and poor has widened and the gap between rich and poor nations has increased.

* Extreme global poverty is a scandal. Domestic poverty in this nation, the richest nation in the history of the world, is a shame and a tragedy. So the mission of God continues.

6. Also there are so many who do not know of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ, who do not confess Jesus as Lord and who do not believe that God raised him from the dead.

Last fall I spent several days with Sam Bandela in India. We visited villages ravaged by the tsunami, giving away sewing machines to young girls who had completed training. After one graduation ceremony, a young man stood before me (probably about 20 years old). His mother was standing beside him and she said, “My husband was killed in the tsunami and my son is crippled with polio and mute. Would you pray for my son?” I knew what she wanted me to do, but I said to her straightforwardly, “I don’t have the power to heal your son but I do have a message of good news to you.” So I began to share the Jesus story with him. I kept asking him, “do you understand?” And he nodded his head. Finally my interpreter interrupted me to say, “He understands.” We prayed together and he walked away into his village.

Earlier this year I was leading a prayer retreat and was making the point that our experience and practice of prayer is tied to our understanding of God. I asked the question, “Who has influenced your understanding of God?” One middle-aged woman responded with tears in her eyes, “When I was a young girl, I had the pastor who told me I was going to hell, ever since then I have had difficulty praying.”

7. As long as there is one person who does not know God’s love revealed in Christ the mission continues. The mission continues until God has brought all things in heaven and earth together under one Lord, even our Christ.

* The mission continues until the lion lies down by the lamb.

* The mission continues until the glory of God covers this earth like the waters that cover the sea.

* The mission continues until the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

* God’s mission continues to this very moment.

Discerning the Future: God’s Abiding Promises

1. Finally, I believe we should discern together as we reflect on the future and God’s abiding promises.

I confess to you that I have little confidence in predictions and prognostications that people offer about the future. Whether they be secular, scientific, spiritual or sociological.

* What I’ve experienced so far is that a great deal of our lives is determined by what happens to us that we had absolutely no idea was going to happen.

* We are then shaped by how we respond to those events and circumstances, the surprises and serendipities, the crises and chaos, the pain and pleasure, the disruptions and developments that we simply didn’t know were coming.

2. But whatever comes, God’s promises are abiding. They are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

* This means that in an ever changing world, we can anchor ourselves in those promises.

* In uncertain times, we can face the future with confidence and hope.

* We don’t need to be afraid of the future or of failure.

* We don’t need to be overwhelmed by the obstacles in front of us.

* We don’t need to be overcome by the odds against us.

* We don’t need to be controlled by the shadow side of our nature, our inward demons or our false self.

* Why?

3. Because the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.

* Because God is able to do exceeding abundantly of all that we ask or think.

* Because Christ, indeed, has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep.

* Because God’s grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in our weakness.

* Because God is able to make all grace abound toward us.

4. These promises center us, secure us, anchor us, strengthen us and preserve us.

* So as we discern together let us reflect on these promises, hold to these promises and let them hold to us.

* One particular promise has come to my mind of late. 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now abides faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.” (Say this with me)

5. I would like for this verse to center us and guide us in the discerning process. In the changing world and in uncertain times this is a place where we can find both stability and strength.

* Faith connects us to a God we cannot see but who is nearer to us than the breath we breathe.

* Hope connects us to a future that is secured in the grace and goodness of this God.

* Love connect us to one another and creates community.

* These three abide, i.e., they remain, they last.

* These virtues bind us together in ways that no creed or organization can.

* We trust in the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

* We wait upon this God in anticipation.

* We love this God and we love one another because God loves us all.

* Other gifts and experiences may fade or pass away, but these remain.

6. And of these three virtues, love is the greatest because love best defines the nature and character of the God revealed and incarnated in Jesus Christ.

* Within the Holy Trinity there is a love and communion that creates and redeems.

* God creates out of love and God redeems out of love.

* We love because God first loves.

* Love fulfills the law. Love reflects the life of Christ. Love is the evidence of community and love creates community.

* And love last, it remains, it abides. It is forever because God is forever.

Conclusion:
1. I owe so much of my spiritual formation to this Fellowship.

* I can honestly say that I am grateful to God for all the pain and struggle that created this Fellowship and for the way God has created a new witness within the Baptist family.

* We are surely not perfect and in many ways we are still forming and becoming the organization, the ministry, the movement, the Fellowship that God wants us to become.

2. In historical perspective we are young and in a global perspective we are small.

* But we are significant and strategic within the Baptist family and within the Body of Christ.

* Our voice is important, our cooperative mission is vital.

* The congregations and institutions that partner within this Fellowship have great influence and impact in the world.

* And our future is as bright as the promises of God and our willingness to believe those promises and act upon them.