WASHINGTON (RNS)—Predominantly Black congregations, known for their high levels of community outreach during the COVID-19 pandemic, have remained the most stable in combined attendance—in person and online—compared with multiracial and white majority congregations.

But they are also facing the greatest monetary struggles, with 34 percent reporting their financial health is worse in 2023 than in 2018, compared with 29 percent of majority white congregations and 28 percent of multiracial congregations.

A new report highlights the challenges faced by Black and multiracial congregations, as well as their resilience, in the wake of a pandemic that prompted significant changes in worship and community service.

“As far as opening up as vaccine sites, to actually put in place mitigation measures—so whether that’s shutting down, encouraging masks—majority Black congregations and multiracial congregations led those efforts,” said B. Clarvon Watts, author of Understanding the Pandemic Impact on Black and Multiracial Congregations.

Watts is a sociologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which released the report Jan. 4.

Black congregations—affiliated with mainline, evangelical and historically Black denominations—often were significantly more involved in some responses to COVID-19.

Nearly all those surveyed—99 percent—encouraged vaccinations, compared with 53 percent of majority white congregations and 49 percent of multiracial congregations, defined in the report as those where no one racial group comprises more than 80 percent of the congregation.

Watts said many congregations featuring nonwhites embraced hybrid services as they adapted to the pandemic.

While majority white congregations were the most likely to offer a virtual worship opportunity at least once a week (82 percent), Black majority congregations were the most likely to offer multiple online worship opportunities throughout the week (27 percent), compared with 23 percent of multiracial congregations and 15 percent of white majority congregations.

The community involvement during the pandemic was an extension of the “octopus legs” of Black churches, Watts explained. Historically, these congregations often operated as hubs for providing education, legal and health opportunities for African Americans, who often were unable to access those resources elsewhere due to discrimination and segregation.

“You’re trying to meet multiple, multiple needs,” she said of the pandemic-influenced hybridity, “trying to provide in person and virtual worship, virtual programming, whether that’s education or it’s gathering to pray or gathering to do Communion.”

Likewise, multiracial congregations often sought to use the hybrid model for the range of families in their congregations, from working parents to immunocompromised congregants, she said.

Congregations reported a decrease in their local community activities from before the pandemic to 2023. While majority white congregations said their rate of involvement remained constant, the percentage of majority Black and multiracial congregations agreeing or strongly agreeing they were civically engaged decreased 21 percent and 12 percent respectively.

Congregations of all racial groups saw a significant decline of volunteers by summer 2021. Black congregations, by 2023, reported a return to the pre-pandemic level of about 30 percent of their congregation serving as regular volunteers. However, multiracial and majority white congregations, whose volunteers were near 40 percent before the pandemic, reported just 35 percent in 2023.

Report examined ministerial well-being

The report, which contrasted congregational life today with that pre-pandemic, also looked at clergy well-being over a two-year period.

Watts, who also runs a Black church’s nonprofit in Connecticut, said the pandemic exacerbated the already extensive roles of clergy who marry, counsel and bury congregants.

“I think it’s too big for any one person or any one institution,” she said, suggesting the need for greater partnerships in congregations and the community to support clergy.

In fact, the report notes clergy across the board, regardless of their congregation’s racial makeup, were more likely to have thoughts about exiting their congregations in 2023 than in 2021.

“The decreased well-being among clergy and increased consideration of leaving ministry or one’s faith community is a shared burden among all clergy, yet slightly less dire for Black Christian congregational leaders,” Watts stated in the report.

“Black clergy’s commitment to their call and subsequent congregations’ resilience throughout the pandemic has been and continues to be unwavering.”

The findings are based on data from the Faith Communities Today and the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations study. Sample sizes for Black majority congregations range from 140 in an EPIC study to 774 in a FACT study; for multiracial congregations, from 841 in EPIC to 2,623 in FACT; for white majority congregations, 2,802 in EPIC to 10,073 in FACT.

The estimate for the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“If you build it, they will come.” The catchphrase made popular by Field of Dreams could be used now for a Texas Baptist Men project but in the past tense: “You built it, and they came.”

A TBM team constructed a community center in Antakya, Turkey, last August.

Since construction, the Christian group meeting there is “bursting at the seams, with in excess of 60 folks in attendance,” said Rupert Robbins, associate director of TBM Disaster Relief.

The building was needed after widespread destruction in Antakya caused by the January 2023 earthquake.

Two TBM Rebuild teams worked last year in the city of 400,000 people. The first TBM team built temporary homes in April 2023. The September 2023 team built the community center.

The center is a modular building, “built in two components, with the intention of eventually being moved to a new location,” Robbins explained.

Since construction, “the local response has been overwhelming, with standing-room-only crowds,” Robbins said.

“The impact of that facility has led the local believers to purchase property in the nearby neighborhood where the structure will be relocated and plans for expansion have already begun,” he said.

“It is amazing to see how God works when his people are given a place to worship and minister. It changes a whole community.”

HARTSELLE, Ala. (BP)—Junior Hill, a sought-after evangelist among Southern Baptists for more than 50 years, died Jan. 3 at his home in Hartselle, Ala. He was 87.

Hill conducted more than 1,800 revivals and preached at pastors’ conferences, state conventions and evangelism meetings across the country. He also spoke in various camp meeting, seminary and college settings and engaged in numerous overseas campaigns.

In 1989, he was elected as first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the SBC annual meeting in Las Vegas. The first of his many messages at the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference was in 1981 in Los Angeles.

In his 2005 autobiography, They Call Him Junior, Hill noted that the “most delightful joy of life on the road is the overwhelming honor of seeing so many precious souls come to faith in Christ.”

Yet, he never tallied the number of professions of faith during his 68-plus years of ministry, writing, “Only the dear Lord in heaven knows those facts, and I am perfectly content to await his final report.”

Hill entered full-time evangelism in 1967, after 11 years in pastorates at three Alabama churches and one in rural Mississippi.

At the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference in November 2021, Hill was honored with the inaugural Fred Wolfe Lifetime Pastoral Ministry Award, named for a longtime Mobile-area pastor and former president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference who had died from COVID-19 complications earlier in the year.

Hill’s rise to SBC-wide recognition began with his preaching at the 1980 Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference when he met Bailey Smith, who had been elected SBC president in June. Smith subsequently invited Hill to preach at his church in Del City, Okla., and at the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s evangelism conference.

The invitation to the 1981 Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference was extended by its president, Jim Henry, then-pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla., who had been one of Hill’s classmates at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Soon came invitations to preach to additional thousands at the Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference and First Baptist Church in Dallas, followed in the mid-1980s by the annual evangelism conference of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.

Ministered to pastors

From the outset, Hill promised never to preach about money and never to solicit funding from any church member after a revival. Widely known as a “pastor to pastors,” that dimension of Hill’s ministry emerged from the trauma of being fired in 1962 as pastor of the Mississippi church he had led for 18 months while a seminary student.

Asked during a men’s Sunday School class whether Black visitors should be welcomed, Hill said all churches should be open to anyone regardless of race or color. He then noticed “a strange somberness in some of their faces.”

The church’s deacons voted mid-week to fire Hill, who didn’t learn about the action until returning the following Saturday.

“I can still remember how humiliating it was to walk past those laughing men, go back to the car, and sadly tell Carole what had happened to us,” Hill wrote in his autobiography.

Yet, “one of the sweetest and most far reaching of all the lessons God taught me … was the importance of loving his preachers,” Hill wrote.

Hill recounted that “after having my own heart so deeply crushed and broken, I immediately began to sympathize with other pastors who were going through similar dark valleys. … I wrote them letters, called them on the phone, and went out of my way to befriend and encourage them. … I sensed that they knew I loved them, understood how they felt, and that I was not talking down to them nor accusing them of failure.”

Even before his first sermon in April 1955, Hill had sensed a call to evangelism since coming to faith in Christ a year earlier. Nearly 19 years old and the youngest of five children, he set forth 18 points “with a pitiful absence of Biblical content,” as he described it.

Even so, his parents, William Lawton and Fannie Velma Hill, who had never talked about God in their home, responded to the invitation to turn to Christ, as did his older sister, Ruth.

Hill, whose given name was William Junior Hill, wrote 20 books largely of anecdotes and lessons from his ministry. After graduating from Samford University in Birmingham where he played two years of football, he earned a Master of Divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1962, later receiving an honorary doctorate from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

Hill calculated for his 2005 autobiography that he had been on the road 20-plus years, accepting 40 to 42 engagements a year. He regularly returned home each week, and he called daily, sending the family’s phone bill soaring.

His wife Carole never downplayed the challenges that she, their daughter Melanie and son Mark faced over the years, but once wrote to an aspiring evangelist, “… were it not for the hand of God constantly holding our right hand, we could not have made it. The blessings far outweigh any trouble, heartache and inconvenience we’ve encountered.”

In addition to his wife of 66 years and two children, Hill is survived by five grandchildren.

Baptist churches around Suceava, Romania, continue to care for and feed Ukrainian refugees almost two years after the Russian invasion, and Texas Baptist Men has come alongside the congregations to help provide the meals.

“The churches in and around Suceava have been an important lifeline for the refugees,” said Mickey Lenamon, TBM executive director/CEO. “They asked if we could help. We could. So, we did. Our generous financial donors made this possible.”

Suceava is about 28 miles south of the Romanian-Ukrainian border. TBM funds sent to the churches are providing rice and bread, among other food items.

“When the world’s attention has moved on to other world events, the war and displacement of families continues,” said Rupert Robbins, associate director of TBM disaster relief.

“It is humbling and amazing to see how God continues to use TBM and these partners in Romania, as well as others in the region, to make a kingdom and eternal impact in the lives of the hurting.”

Pastor Cătălin Croitor, who is president of the regional Baptist association, expressed his gratitude to TBM in an email to Robbins.

“I would like to take this opportunity in order to express my thanks to you for the generous donation that Texas Baptist Men have made towards helping the Ukrainian war refugees,” Croitor wrote.

“Your sacrificial giving is not taken for granted and it is very much appreciated by us. It is an answer to prayers, a great encouragement to us and a blessing to many.”

Towels mop up sweat from foreheads after another successful workout. Several gym members finish stretching, while others arrange the benches and Plyo workout boxes in a church-pew formation in preparation for that evening’s church service.

The gym is an unorthodox location for a church, but that’s what it is—a growing body of believers and seekers who gather to worship and hear the Bible preached each week.

The men and women who attend the gym in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai are each other’s community—family, even—going on annual camping trips, white water rafting together and taking vacations to the beach.

They’ve traveled to Bangkok to cheer on members as they compete in a CrossFit tournament. Baby showers, weddings, funerals, baptisms and holiday celebrations all have taken place in the gym.

Nathan and Stephanie Crandall serve as IMB missionaries in Chiang Rai. Nathan joined the gym to relieve compounding stress and lower elevated blood pressure caused by his intensive language study.

After his first workout, he told his wife: “It’s horrible. I go, and I die, and I sweat. It’s horrible. You should come too.”

Building on an existing sense of community

The Crandalls got involved in the gym and quickly saw how gym members were not just workout buddies. They were a tight-knit community who loved spending time with one another both inside and outside the gym. It was a perfect place to share the gospel and plant a church, the Crandalls realized.

Nathan Crandall said they’d invited some of their friends to a house church, but their Buddhist friends felt uncomfortable, and the Christian vocabulary was difficult to comprehend.

“We saw that as they came through the doors of the gym … their heart, their ears, their mind was just more open,” Crandall said.

The owner of the gym is a Christian and opened the gym with the hopes of starting a church. He realized the need for someone devoted to the church-planting side of the gym. The Crandalls stepped into the role of church planters.

They decided to have church on Wednesday evenings after people finish their exercises.

“They’re going to be sweaty. They’re going to be in their workout clothes. They’re going to smell. But that’s how they like to hang out,” Crandall said.

Before the service, they eat dinner and fellowship. Stephanie Crandall and others are involved in Sunday School for the children. Her husband and several believers rotate who preaches, and someone shares a testimony in each service.

Reaching people for Christ

The gym-based church is reaching people like Net.

When Net’s life started to go downhill, his older brother suggested he go to the gym.

Nathan Crandall worked out with Net one day, and the twosome sweated and slogged through the workout. Even though he doesn’t usually like to open up to people, Net said he was drawn to Crandall because of his sense of humor.

Net’s cross earring led to a gospel conversation and an invitation to church. The first time Net attended, he prayed silently, “Is that you God, who was taking care of me since I was young?”

The sermon that evening was on the prodigal son. Pausing, as tears welled in his eyes and emotion caused his voice to waver, he said it was like God was sitting next to him.

Net said God didn’t bring up the things he’d done or his sinful ways. God invited him in like a son.

“He said he loved me so much. He just was waiting there for so long,” Net said. “I know this is God. God is real. I just want to come back for him.”

Net accepted Christ that night.

Ministry doesn’t take place only amid the dumbbells and pull-up bars. The church celebrates all holidays and hosts gospel-centered events for the community. The church’s fall festival drew around 250 children. Gym members gave away bags of treats with the story of Jesus in comic-book form.

The story of Jesus resonated with Hannah, a 9-year-old girl who attended. She asked her mother, Aoy, whether she’d heard the story before.

Hannah felt the message was true. She asked her mom if she was free to make her own decision of faith. Her Buddhist family might have forbidden such a decision, but Aoy said  she’d support Hannah in whatever she decided.

Aoy, who is friends with Stephanie Cradall, asked to learn more so she could be supportive of her daughter. She began attending a Bible study and church in the gym. Hannah and her younger brother, Keith, committed their lives to Christ during one of the services.

The gym helped Nathan Crandall with his blood pressure and stress and helped him reach the language level he needed. More than that, it opened the door for the Crandalls to do what they came to Thailand to do—share the gospel and help plant healthy churches.

Hunter Brown to First Baptist Church in Abilene as youth minister from First Baptist Church in Muleshoe, where he was youth minister.

Robby Kirby to Old Time Baptist Church in Riesel. The church closed its doors in mid-2021 but relaunched under Kirby’s leadership. He previously was pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Riesel.

The annual Christmas Store at Mission Arlington benefited 7,551 families—more than 30,000 individuals—last month, allowing parents and other caregivers to “shop” for free gifts for their children. It marked about a 15 percent increase over the number served in 2022. More than 7,800 volunteers from throughout North Texas—including some from as far away as Denton and Anna—helped adult family members who visited the store select one large gift and two small stocking-stuffers for each child in their household. More than 1,000 people made spiritual decisions, including 354 adults who professed faith in Christ—a 32 percent increase over the previous year—and 678 who either rededicated their lives to God or asked for someone to visit their home to tell them more about what it means to follow Jesus. Tillie Burgin is founding executive director of Mission Arlington.

A Houston Christian University cyber engineering student team won first place at the 2023 Capture the Flag competition in the annual Alamo Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association chapter event in San Antonio. The victory by students Ethan Thomas, Ashley Huynh, Olachi Ajawara, Leonardo Yerena, Krzysztof Turski and Alicia Martinez marked the second time a team from HCU won the top award at the annual conference. The competition featured both undergraduate and graduate students solving challenges related to cybersecurity such as reverse engineering, cryptography, web vulnerabilities, memory forensics, network vulnerabilities and data analytics. In addition to garnering a first-place win at the NCL, two HCU teams finished within the top 10 percent during this nationwide event involving more than 10,000 students.

Howard Payne University’s Model United Nations team competed at a conference at the University of Santa Barbara, Calif. Model United Nations is a simulation in which students from various schools participate as delegates of assigned countries who advocate for their country’s perspective on an issue. The goal is for students to experience how countries with different viewpoints would attempt to reach peaceful solutions to international issues. David Claborn is team coach and professor of government at HPU. Team members are freshman Joshua Daugeault of Monahans; junior Michael Eckert of Temple; junior Alec Hughes of Brownwood; junior Hannah Parnell of Idalou; senior Madison Tuck of Edgewood, N.M., and junior Sadie Willie of Florence. The team’s next competition is scheduled April 19-21 in Amsterdam, Holland.

A Baptist pastor and his wife were among nearly 200 Nigerians killed in a series of coordinated attacks that began Christmas Eve.

Militant Fulani militia targeted more than two dozen predominantly Christian communities in Central Nigeria’s Plateau State, starting at about 10 pm. on Christmas Eve and continuing into the early hours of Christmas morning.

Nine members of the Nasara Baptist Church—including Pastor Solomon Gushe and his wife—were killed in the assault on Dares in the Bokkos local government area. Convention leaders cancelled a planned Dec. 27 Christmas celebration in response to the attacks.

“In Nigeria, the bells of Christmas turned into wails of mourning as Baptists and Christians faced the reality of attack and persecution,” said Elijah Brown, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance.

“We mourn with these faithful families. We join with the Nigerian Baptist Convention in calling upon the Nigerian government to launch an immediate and thorough investigation that holds those responsible to judicial accountability.”

The Nigerian Baptist Convention issued a public statement condemning “the wanton killings of Christians and the destruction of churches by the Fulani militia.”

Israel Adelani Akanji, president of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, called on security agencies to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice, and he urged President Bola Tinubu to “provide necessary security to all Nigerians.”

The statement from the convention noted Akanji believed the Fulani militia “decided to strike during the Christmas celebration when people are in the mood of giving thanks to God for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Musa Ashoms, commissioner of information and communication for Plateau State, reported 195 deaths due to the attacks. Amnesty International Nigeria reported more than 190 killed, while the Nigerian Red Cross confirmed 161 deaths and more than 32,000 people affected. At least 300 people were injured.

Caleb Mutfwang, governor of Plateau State declared a week of mourning from Jan. 1 to Jan. 8, encouraging “all citizens to use these days for intense prayers to seek the intervention of the Almighty God in defending our territories against wicked men that have risen against us.”

While some groups have dismissed the violence in Nigeria as a “herder-farmer clash,” the governors of the nation’s north central states disputed that characterization, said Dawari George, director of the 21Wilberforce Global Freedom Network Africa, who is based in Rivers State, Nigeria.

George joined in calling for a thorough investigation into the attacks and for the Nigerian government to take firm and decisive action.

“This is one attack too many. It is an attempt to stifle a people’s means of livelihood, wipe out a people, their history, religion and identity,” George said.

“The attack was premeditated, with intelligence on the imminent attack known to authorities, and with no action taken until the attack occurred. This requires an investigation by unbiased international organizations and the Nigerian government.

“The impunity of the perpetrators and the kid-gloves response of the government sets the stage for future occurrences if left unchecked.”

‘Cycle of impunity’

Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a statement Dec. 28 urging government officials in Nigeria to stop the “devastating violence” in its central region and hold perpetrators accountable.

“I call on the Nigerian authorities to investigate this incident promptly, thoroughly and independently, consistent with international human rights law, and to hold those responsible to account in fair trials,” Türk said.

“The cycle of impunity fueling recurrent violence must be urgently broken. The government should also take meaningful steps to address the underlying root causes and to ensure nonrecurrence of this devastating violence.”

Mervyn Thomas, founding president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, likewise deplored the “appalling violence” and urged Nigerian authorities to ensure “the security and welfare” of their nation’s citizens.

“We extend our deepest condolences to those bereaved in this appalling violence, which was timed to disrupt the festive season in predominantly Christian areas,” Thomas said.

“The fact that such enormous loss of lives and property occurred before security forces responded in sufficient numbers is indicative of the lamentable ongoing failure of successive federal and state authorities to uphold the Nigerian Constitution by ensuring the security and welfare of citizens as their primary purpose.

“CSW concurs with High Commissioner Türk’s call for the cycle of impunity to be broken and urges the Nigerian authorities, once again, to prioritize the pursuit, arrest and prosecution of these terrorists, seeking international assistance when needed. It is also vital that members of the international community significantly increase their efforts to assist Nigeria in this endeavor, and to hold the authorities accountable for any failure to protect its citizens.”

Not the first attack during the Christmas season

Last month, more than two dozen faith leaders and human rights advocates sent a letter to Congress encouraging U.S. lawmakers to take action regarding religious persecution in Nigeria.

They noted 5,000 Christians in Nigeria had been killed for their faith in 2022, and about 17,000 churches had been burned or attacked since 2009.

The faith leaders joined the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in calling for the State Department to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and to appoint a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region. The CPC designation is reserved for nations that engage in or tolerate “systemic, ongoing and egregious violations” of religious freedom.

Frederick A. Davie, vice chair of the commission, expressed concern in mid-December about the frequency of violence in Nigeria and the potential for escalation around Christmas.

“This momentum is not stopping, and we cannot stand by and watch more Nigerians being targeted on the basis of their faith, especially as we near the holiday season, where we have seen this escalation in the past,” Davie said.

In 2020, at least a dozen Christians were killed and several churches burned on Christmas Eve. The previous year, terrorists released a video of 11 hostages being executed on Christmas Day.

About 30 Texas Baptist Men volunteers brought gifts and helping hands to the lower Rio Grande Valley for Christmas.

The gifts and resources came from countless TBM supporters who gave toward the second annual Christmas in the Rio Grande Valley Mission Trip. And TBM Rebuild volunteers worked on a community center for Iglesia Bautista Horeb in Brownsville.

Volunteers from the Longhorn Baptist Student Ministry from the University of Texas in Austin provided much of the labor for the building project. It marked the second year a Longhorn BSM group worked with TBM Rebuild.

TBM collected and distributed gifts for children and adults—toys, blankets and food—living in colonias, unincorporated communities of about 100 families living in extreme poverty, said Jorge Zapata, founder of Hearts4Kids, TBM’s partner in the effort.

The mission trip volunteers included five student missionaries with Texas Baptists’ Go Now Missions program.

 “What we’re doing here with Texas Baptist Men, we’re meeting people’s needs, especially with the children,” Zapata said. “So, all of these toys are going to be a blessing.”

Easing the burden for families

The volunteers went to colonias near Donna. The toys naturally thrilled the children, but they gave the parents joy, too.

“A lot of these parents have four or five children in a home. So, they can’t afford to buy toys for each child. So, this will bless mom and dad,” Zapata said.

Sabrina Pinales, TBM director of missions and discipleship, coordinated the statewide collection. In addition to the toys, volunteers distributed blankets for the coming winter months and hygiene kits, Pinales said.

“This is a fun time to ease the burden for the families that maybe can’t provide the gifts they would like to for their families,” she said.

The volunteers also delivered and set up 15 twin beds in colonia homes.

“We have hundreds of children sleeping on the floor, because they don’t have a bed,” Zapata said.

Meeting needs, building relationships

At Iglesia Bautista Horeb, Pastor Olber Roblero addressed the volunteers.

“I didn’t expect to have all of these amazing people,” he said, noting “all this effort, leaving their families and to be here. … I’m grateful.”

Roblero has been pastor of the church three years, and the congregation established relationships by meeting needs, especially of the children who attend a nearby school.

“There’s about 2,500 kids around this area,” Roblero said, so the church began providing backpacks, shoes and clothing for those in need.

The goal of the community center at Iglesia Horeb is to aid that ministry to children and their families, as well as providing space for English as a Second Language and GED classes.

“This is a blessing for us,” Roblero said. “So, what I see is amazing. We couldn’t do this by ourselves, and I offer this building to the glory of God.”

Rafael Muñoz, TBM Rebuild coordinator, organized the volunteers at Iglesia Horeb.

“When we were looking at how we could come out and support [Roblero’s] ministry, we realized that he was already on the go. He was doing a lot,” Muñoz said. “He’s doing work in the community to reach the four schools that are surrounding this facility. So, there’s a big vision.”

Addressing spiritual and physical needs

Both TBM efforts in the Valley centered on local ministries—Iglesia Horeb and Hearts4Kids—that are committed to long-term efforts to address spiritual and physical needs.

Hearts4Kids is working with churches in the colonias and starting new Bible study and house church groups where there are no existing churches.

Before distributing toys, the volunteers set up tables on a cul-de-sac without houses. They organized the toys by age and gender groups. They grilled hot dogs for the community. They parked a pickup truck filled with blankets just past the food tables.

Zapata instructed the volunteers to “be friendly, have big smiles and a lot of love” as they distributed the gifts.

Then he prayed: “Father, we ask you to take every gift, put your hand on each gift. … We ask that your Holy Spirit start moving right now in this area, in every home, that when people arrive they will feel your presence, the power and the love and the joy. … Bless this place. … This is your house… Let your presence be felt right now.”

Joy reigned as the kids and their parents steadily worked their way along the tables, selecting appropriate gifts.

And the volunteers did as Zapata instructed—being friendly, smiling and loving, all toward the hope that Christ would be honored in the community.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The Southern Baptist Convention has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit against one of its prominent leaders who had been accused of allegedly molesting young men for decades.

Retired Texas Judge Paul Pressler was one of the architects of the so-called conservative resurgence that took control of the SBC in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2017, Pressler’s former assistant, Gareld Duane Rollins Jr., sued the lay leader and conservative activist along with the SBC and several of its entities, alleging Pressler had begun abusing him while he was a teenager in a Bible study at a Houston church.

The suit accused SBC leaders of knowing about Pressler’s alleged abuse and covering it up. Pressler and SBC leaders long have denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier in 2023, former SBC leader Paige Patterson, a close ally of Pressler, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Patterson was president until he was fired by the school’s board of trustees, settled with Rollins.

Confidential settlement agreement reached

On Dec. 29, a special counsel to the SBC and its Nashville-based Executive Committee announced the Pressler suit had been settled.

“The Southern Baptist Convention and the SBC Executive Committee, Defendants in Rollins v Pressler, entered into a confidential settlement agreement with the Plaintiff. The Southern Baptist Convention and its Executive Committee were each fully prepared to proceed to trial,” the special counsel said in its statement.

“However, several factors ultimately made settlement the more prudent choice. Chief among those factors was the horrendous nature of the abuse allegations, the likelihood that counsel for the SBC and Executive Committee would have to confront and cross-examine abuse survivors, the Executive Committee’s current financial condition, and the willingness of multiple insurance carriers to contribute to the terms of the settlement.”

No details of the settlement, first reported by the Texas Tribune, were made public.

The lawsuit against Pressler initially was dismissed due to the statute of limitations, but an appeals court allowed the suit to go forward after Rollins’ attorneys successfully argued trauma from the alleged abuse had led to the delay in reporting the alleged abuse.

Multiple allegations against Pressler

During the legal battle over the lawsuit, a number of men also went public with allegations that they, too, had been abused by Pressler. One of the allegations was made by a former member of a youth group at a church in Houston in the 1970s, where Pressler had been a youth minister. Pressler lost that job after an incident involving a member of the youth group he led.

In 2004, leaders at Houston’s First Baptist Church in Houston learned of allegations against Pressler and sent him a letter warning him that getting naked with a young man was morally inappropriate and asked him to stop any further such behavior. That letter became public as part of the lawsuit.

Along with his religious activism, Pressler was an influential member of the religious right through his involvement with the Council for National Policy. In 2012, Pressler hosted a meeting of conservative Christian leaders at his ranch, aimed at finding an alternative candidate to Mitt Romney for president.

The lawsuit against Pressler inspired a major investigation into abuse in the SBC by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, according to the Texas Tribune. That “Abuse of Faith” report led the SBC to hold a litany of lament for abuse in 2019 and eventually to authorize a third-party investigation by Guidepost Solutions into how SBC leaders dealt with abuse.

A Guidepost report published in 2022 found SBC leaders had downplayed the scope of abuse in the denomination for years, mistreated abuse survivors and sought to deny any liability at all costs.

That same year, the SBC at its annual meeting passed a series of reforms meant to address abuse, including setting up a database of abusers and creating resources to help churches do a better job in preventing abuse and caring for survivors of abuse.

However, the SBC put a volunteer committee in charge of implementing those reforms. The denomination has no long-term plans to fund the reforms or to make them stick.

A year and a half after announcing the “Ministry Check” website to track abusers, no names of abusers have been added to the public database.

The SBC also faces a great deal of uncertainty about how to move forward. The SBC Executive Committee lost its permanent leader as a result of the Guidepost investigation, which went forward despite opposition from prominent leaders.

The Executive Committee, which oversees the denomination’s business between its annual meetings, also has rapidly spent down its reserves due to legal costs from the abuse crisis.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Storeé Denson settled onto the organ bench at Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, a historic Black church a few miles from the White House, placing his hands on the electronic instrument’s manuals, his feet on its pedals, ears attuned to the choir he accompanies on Sunday mornings.

Like any other organist, Denson has been playing and preparing for numerous services in the weeks before Christmas. He warmed up for the season in November when he got the chance to play the august instrument at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Md., at a “Pedals, Pipes and Pizza” event sponsored by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

“I always wanted to play it,” he said of the organ in the monumental chapel at the academy. “That was one on my checklist.”

As he’s done with many other of his accomplishments at the keyboard, Denson, age 14, checked off that item early. He is one of a small corps of young musicians who took to the organ at a young age, providing promise at a time when the number of instruments and the professionals who play them are in decline. They’ve become modern-day evangelists for the instrument that is more than 2,000 years old.

“I believe if more people start to realize that the organ can be used in contemporary worship, I think we will have an increase of organists,” said Denson, a ninth grader who also sings tenor in the chamber choir and plays piano in the jazz band at his Catholic high school across the Maryland state line.

On the second Sunday in Advent, he accompanied the Nineteenth Street choir as it sang Richard Smallwood’s setting of “Psalm 8” (“Oh, Lord, how excellent is thy name”), as well as “Jesus, the Light of the World.”

Denson, whose parents are both ministers, has been studying organ since he was 9 and credits organists at various Baptist churches for introducing him to the instrument and teaching him to play.

Some organists who start at an early age are veterans of the American Guild of Organists’ “Pipe Organ Encounters” programs, which bring young people to hear and play organs at nearby houses of worship and universities over the course of a few days to learn about the instrument. The program includes their first year of membership in the organists’ guild.

Overall decline in organ use

Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, said data from the Faith Communities Today studies shows a decline in organ use, with fewer respondent congregations reporting that their organ is played “often and always” and more saying “never” over time.

The American Guild of Organists’ current total membership is 11,516, including professional organists, people who play the instrument as an avocation and those who just like the organ. A decade ago, there were about 17,000 members, and the group reached its apex of about 20,000 in the 1990s.

Eric Birk, the AGO’s staff liaison to the Pipe Organ Encounters program, said the AGO attributes the drop to the deaths of organists who were baby boomers or members of older generations and to the downward demographic shifts in worship attendance.

Nevertheless, Emily Amos, who runs the AGO’s committee for young organists, said she thinks organs are bound to interest some young people.

“I mean, it’s loud, it’s massive, it’s got cool gadgets,” said Amos, 21, who is pursuing a master’s degree in organ performance at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. “It’s got everything that you would want to try out.”

Inspire by example

Potential organists may not always find their way to the instrument via churches, said Amos, who has played the famous Wanamaker organ at Macy’s Philadelphia.

“If young people aren’t as interested in going to church or fewer young people are going to church, we need to think, where are they going and how can we get the organ to them there?” said Amos, who is also an organ scholar, or apprentice organist, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston. “Because even if, say, they find the organ somewhere else, they may end up in a church.”

Amos, who favors Duruflé’s “Prelude and Fugue on the Name Alain,” hosts a holiday party via Zoom for organists under 30, where they play games, build camaraderie and share “horror stories” from the Christmas season—Advent wreaths catching fire during a service and ciphers (stuck pipes that sound at unwanted times)—and commiserate about the grueling seasonal schedules.

“There was one Christmas Eve where I played three different services at two different churches. So, I had to race from one to the other, then go eat, take a nap and then come back for the midnight,” said Amos, a Roman Catholic who plans to play at St. Paul at some of this year’s five services and sing in the choir at the others.

Birk said the number of young organist members—defined as younger than 30—in the AGO totaled 863 in November.

Beyond the organist guild’s efforts, others are hoping to inspire young artists by example. The Diapason magazine, dedicated to church music, has a biennial “20 under 30” list of young people known for performing on the organ and harpsichord or building the instruments.

Build-your-own miniature pipe organ kits

Peter Scheessele, a 10th grader in Corvallis, Ore., helps his mother, Erin, run Orgelkids USA, a nonprofit that seeks to literally build interest in the instrument by distributing miniature pipe organ kits that allow children and adults to build and then play their own organs.

Designed by a Dutch company, the U.S. kits are created by craftspeople in Oregon. More than two dozen organizations, mostly churches and AGO chapters, have commissioned them at $7,000 apiece.

“I like to show them how the whole thing goes together,” Peter Scheessele said of the children and teens who attend Orgelkids demonstrations at churches and conventions. The kits contain 133 interlocking wood pieces that fit together without glue or screws. “And then they love the moment when it starts to play and they’re able to play it.”

Jim Roman, the organist and artist-in-residence at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston, says his church has the sole Orgelkids kit in Texas. He builds it with the church’s day school students at least once a year and holds camplike sessions with older children in the summer.

“Organists today need to be proactive about getting the instrument in front of people, especially since fewer people attend church now and get exposed to it as a result,” he said in an email.

“We can’t just hope that people will pay attention on Sunday mornings or randomly decide to show up to a concert and suddenly develop an interest,” said Roman, 32.

Scheessele, 15, plays a full-size organ at his own congregation, First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis. He also recently performed a prelude and fugue by Vincent Lübeck at a local Presbyterian church whose organ has often sat silent.

On Christmas Eve, Scheessele hoped to play variations on a German Christmas carol about Joseph and Mary, part of a grander range of organ music he and other young organists say they prefer to play.

“I think the organ is a very interesting instrument—very complex—and I feel like it’s not represented as well as it should be in society,” he said. “Often, the only time you would hear it in a movie would be dark, foreboding music when that’s not all that the organ can provide,” he said.

“There’s a huge range of repertoire across the country that’s written for organ,” he added. “And I do like to play it all.”

Two months after Hurricane Otis slammed the area surrounding Acapulco, Baptists in Mexico—with help from Texas Baptists—continue to rebuild damaged church buildings, provide financial support for pastors and supply food to families in need.

Hurricane Otis made landfall at 1:25 a.m. on Oct. 25 near Acapulco as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 165 mph. It claimed at least 50 lives and caused more than $10 billion in property damage—including significant damage to churches in the state of Guerrero.

Baptists in areas of Mexico unaffected by the hurricane responded quickly to meet needs in hard-hit communities.

Regional Baptist conventions—the equivalent of associations of churches in the United States—worked with the National Baptist Convention of Mexico to mobilize volunteers and provide aid.

Baptists throughout Mexico supplied food for people in need and began helping churches rebuild damaged facilities. The Baptist General Convention of Texas provided financial assistance.

David Hernandez Nuño, legal counsel for the National Baptist Convention of Mexico, wrote a Dec. 20 letter to Josué Valerio, director of Texas Baptists’ Center for Missional Engagement, expressing appreciation and reporting plans for the immediate future.

“The offering you have sent has been invaluable in the supply of provisions like a community feeding center, materials and tools needed to rebuild church buildings, and financial aid for pastors whose income has been greatly impacted by the natural disaster. Your offerings have been a blessing for our brothers and sisters in Guerrero,” he wrote.

Baptists in Mexico viewed the gifts from Texas Baptists as coming “from the goodness of God’s hand,” he continued.

“Your generosity is a living testimony of love and the solidarity that characterizes our communities of faith, and it is an encouragement to us to continue collaborating, so that in every difficult circumstance God’s love is manifested,” he wrote.

Over the next three months, the National Baptist Convention of Mexico will provide financial aid to 19 pastors in communities affected by Hurricane Otis, he reported. The Mexican Baptist convention also will supply food for community feeding centers.

“Baptist regional conventions in Mexico are helping in this effort of provision and rebuilding,” he wrote.

“On behalf of all the members of the National Baptist Convention of Mexico, we express our sincere gratitude to Texas Baptists for your generosity and love. May God’s grace guide your efforts and that we’ll continue to collaborate in the work that has been entrusted to us.”