Howard Payne University’s Lajeana Long, assistant professor of nursing, was selected as faculty member of the month. Long has served HPU for three years and teaches juniors and seniors in HPU’s nursing program. She is grateful for the way HPU allows her to teach nursing students through the lens of faith. Long’s goal is to teach her students how to treat the whole patient. She wants her students not only to care about their patient’s physical health, but their emotional and spiritual health as well.

Wayland Baptist University has been selected to participate in the Texas Work-Based Learning Consortium, a competitive statewide initiative designed to expand career-focused learning opportunities for college students while strengthening connections between higher education and employers across Texas. Wayland joins a select group of peer colleges and universities in the state chosen for their commitment to preparing students for meaningful careers through innovative academic experiences. The three-year consortium initiative integrates work-based learning projects directly into college coursework, allowing students to collaborate with industry partners, gain professional experience, and build career networks while completing their degrees without delaying time to graduation. The consortium is supported by the Trellis Foundation and the Greater Texas Foundation and represents a growing statewide effort to connect higher education more closely with workforce needs while expanding equitable access to high-impact learning experiences for students across Texas.

East Texas Baptist University recently concluded its annual Spiritual Renewal event, held on campus Feb. 23-25. The three-day emphasis featured guest speaker Josiah Jones, a 2006 graduate of ETBU, and centered on the theme “No Filter: Getting Real about Faith, Hurt, and Hope.” Throughout the week, students, faculty, and staff gathered in Rogers Spiritual Life Center for morning chapel, with additional evening worship services on Monday and Tuesday. Over three days, Jones shared both biblical teaching and personal testimony. Raised in Fort Worth, he was deeply invested in sports and pursued success in every arena he could find, only to discover it left him empty. As a college student-athlete, he surrendered his life to Christ, an experience that reshaped his purpose and direction. By sharing personal experiences and pointing to Scripture, Jones emphasized the importance of being authentic and surrounding yourself with other believers.

The spiritual life team at Houston Christian University gathered students, faculty, staff, and administrators for Spring Ignite, a time of spiritual growth and fellowship centered around the theme “Fully Alive Together.” This year’s event addressed foundational topics critical to the Christian walk, including sexuality, singleness, marriage, and friendship, offering a holistic perspective on how to live faithfully in community. The event included preaching and worship sessions led by Seven Mile Road Church, creating an atmosphere of connection and reflection. Students had the opportunity to engage with peers and faculty in discussions on living “fully alive” together—embracing God’s design for relationships, intimacy, and community.

Hormoz Shariat preaches to a congregation of millions of Iranian Christians around the world, those who have scattered because of repression at home and those who, having stayed, have long been the target of arrest by Iranian authorities, frequently accused of being tools of Western powers.

The Tehran-born, now Texas-based founder of Iran Alive Ministries runs an online ministry that streams 24 hours a day, sharing the gospel in Farsi, the language of Iran. Shariat also organizes a network of Iranian Christian leaders both in Iran and in the diaspora.

In an interview with Religion News Service on Sunday, Shariat said since the news Ayatollah Khamenei had been killed in a strike Saturday, plans for escape and emigration are being put on hold in hopes of a brighter future dawning.

“This is a day of rejoicing and hope for the people of Iran, who have suffered for so long over the years,” Shariat said. “With this death of the supreme leader, everybody is firstly happy and hopeful, but are still asking: ‘What’s next? Is this the end of the regime or not?’ That’s the big question right now for everybody.”

The Islamic Republic acknowledges the ethnic Armenian Assyrian and Chaldean churches, with more than 100,000 members between them, as protected religious minorities, giving them representation in the parliament and allowing the establishment of churches and religious services. 

This is on the condition they don’t operate outside their ethnic communities or conduct services in the Farsi language of Iran’s Muslim majority.

Harsher conditions for some Christian communities 

That’s not true for Protestant and evangelical Christian communities in Iran, who are largely made up of converts from Muslim or at least nominally Muslim families. Yet, it’s the fastest growing religion in Iran, with estimates ranging between 1 million and 3 million believers. 

Without the right to peaceably assemble, their religious expression often takes place underground and in home churches or, more often than not, online.

“The fastest growing segment of our ministry is online churches, even though we have been helping underground churches, and we do have underground churches, as we have done for over 20 some years,” Shariat explained. 

“When an Iranian comes to Christ, they say, ‘I’d rather be online and watch you and get your teaching, and not go to a house church,’ even though we encourage them,” Shariat said. 

“The reason they give me is very convincing. They’re saying: ‘Why should I go to a house church and put my life in danger? Because if one of us is not careful, the rest of us get in trouble; attending a house church is a crime.’”

He noted those arrested for gathering in or running underground churches have received long prison sentences, as much as 15 or 20 years. Human rights watchdog groups focused on Iran noted prosecutions of Christians jumped sixfold between 2024 and 2025, with over 300 cases in Tehran alone. 

“The Christian community in Iran is facing a crisis. The Iranian authorities are abducting growing numbers of Christians and throwing absurd national security charges at them in order to imprison them for years for doing nothing other than peacefully practicing their faith,” Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in a 2025 press release. 

“The Islamic Republic is terrified of its growing Christian convert community and is trying to crush it the way it crushes all perceived threats: through sham prosecutions in kangaroo courts, violent brutality, and years locked behind bars.” 

“Sometimes I feel the government of Iran believes in the power of the church more than we do, because they are so alarmed when Christians get together,” Shariat added. 

Emigration increasingly dangerous 

For those reasons, among others, converts to Christianity have been among the first looking for escape from the Islamic Republic, but it’s no easy task. 

“Leaving Iran is not easy. … They know leaving Iran means years of suffering,” Shariat said. 

Though some have made it to North America and Europe, where Iranian immigrant communities have largely found freedom and economic success, others have spent years in transitional countries like Turkey and Pakistan under threat of deportation back to Iran. 

Even for those who have made it to the U.S., more recently they have been under threat of deportation as the Trump administration has sent hundreds of Iranian asylum seekers back to Iran, putting them at greater threat than if they had never left. 

“Even those who were planning to leave Iran, they’ve put their plans on hold to see what happens. I am not hearing of a mass exodus right now,” Shariat said. “The mood is basically: ‘Let’s wait and see. Maybe this is the end.’”

Connection difficult due to restrictions

Nonetheless, contact with his flock has become difficult in the last few days, with the internet and communications shut down all over the country. 

“The connection is very hard. We only have a few people who can contact us through Starlink,” he said. “Not many people have Starlink, and having a Starlink dish is punished by execution.”

“We have many believers and leaders inside Iran we haven’t been able to have continuous connection with since Thursday,” he added.

Nonetheless, his organization and others in the U.S. have been working to support their community leaders and Christian families in Iran—as they supported those who had lost loved ones in the recent Iranian protest crackdowns. 

They’ve also been working to find new satellite avenues to continue broadcasting into Iran for as long as the conflict continues. 

Louisiana and Texas attorney generals can proceed in requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a federal court has ruled, as Arkansas and Ohio wrangle over similar laws.

It would be premature to judge Louisiana and Texas plaintiffs’ contentions that such laws violate the U.S. Constitution, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Feb. 20 in a 12-6 ruling, clearing the way for the laws’ enforcement.

“Simply put, we cannot evaluate ‘how the text is used,’ … because we do not yet know—and cannot yet know—how the text will be used,” the court wrote.

“And ‘[i]n the absence of this evidence, we are not able to conduct the fact-intensive and context-specific analysis required by’ the Supreme Court’s Ten Commandments cases.”

Results of the recent ruling

The ruling from the full court vacates a June 2025 ruling from three Fifth Circuit judges who deemed the Louisiana law unconstitutional.

Since that ruling, Texas joined Louisiana in defending the requirements that various courts had approved for some Texas school districts but prevented in others.

“Don’t kill or steal shouldn’t be controversial,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said of the ruling.

“My office has issued clear guidance to our public schools on how to comply with the law, and we have created multiple examples of posters demonstrating how it can be applied constitutionally. Louisiana public schools should follow the law.”

Opposition and response

Plaintiffs, including religious leaders, advocacy groups, and parents of school students, argued the laws impose religion upon students in an environment where attendance is mandatory, violating First Amendment rights.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith,” Heather L. Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in 2025 when a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit blocked the law.

In Arkansas, Attorney General Tim Griffin is fighting in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a November court ruling that blocked enforcement of Arkansas’ law.

There, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in April 2025 requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed not only in all public school and college classrooms, but also in all state and local government buildings.

Arkansas’ law was designed as “an effort to educate students on how the United States was founded and framed its Constitution,” NPR quoted bill sponsor Rep. Alyssa Brown, a Republican from Heber Springs, Ark.

“Every day, as members, we stand on the House floor, and we take a pledge of allegiance to one nation under God. We have the ‘In God We Trust’ motto in those same classrooms,” Brown was quoted.

“We’re not telling every student they have to believe in this God, but we are upholding what those historical documents mean and that historical national motto.”

In Ohio, the General Assembly is considering a bill requiring public classrooms to display four out of 10 select historical documents, with the Ten Commandments among the choices.

The state Senate approved the bill in November 2025, and it is currently in a House committee, according to the state legislative website.

Among other states that have tried to enforce Ten Commandments displays in public schools, a bill in Oklahoma stalled in a legislative committee in 2025.

Santiago “Jimmy” García III, longtime Hispanic ministry leader for the Baptist General Convention of Texas and pastor, died Feb. 18. He was 76. He was born July 17, 1949. García was licensed to preach by Primera Iglesia Bautista of Del Rio in 1967 and ordained to the gospel ministry by Primera Iglesia Bautista of Miles in 1971. In the same year, he graduated from Howard Payne University with a Bachelor of Arts in Bible and psychology. He later earned a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed additional graduate studies at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. In 2001, he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Howard Payne University. García led Hispanic work for the BGCT for 18 years, working with churches, pastors, and leaders across Texas. Following his retirement from the convention, he served as pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana in Dallas from 2004 to 2007. Over the course of his ministry, he served as pastor of Iglesia Bautista Calvario in Fort Worth, Iglesia Bautista Calvario in Corsicana, and Iglesia Bautista Immanuel in Miles. He also served at First Baptist Church in Duncanville. In addition, he served as director of missions for the Del Rio-Uvalde Baptist Association and as associate director of missions for the San Antonio Baptist Association. García also invested in theological education. He served as an adjunct instructor at Dallas Baptist University and Mountain View College and lectured at Truett Theological Seminary and Baptist University of the Américas. He also served on the board of directors for BUA and Valley Baptist Academy. In 2018, he received the Dr. José Rivas Distinguished Service Award for his ministry leadership. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Dolores García; his children, Laura, Matthew, and Anna; and his grandchildren. Visitation will be Wednesday, March 4, at Laurel Land Funeral Home, 6300 S. R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., followed by a funeral from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Santiago and Delia García Scholarship Fund benefiting Howard Payne University students.

Santiago “Jimmy” García III, líder del ministerio hispano de Baptist General Convention of Texas y pastor durante muchos años, falleció el 18 de febrero. Tenía 76 años. Nació el 17 de julio de 1949. García obtuvo su licencia para predicar en la Primera Iglesia Bautista de Del Río en 1967 y fue ordenado al ministerio evangélico por la Primera Iglesia Bautista de Miles en 1971. Ese mismo año, se graduó de Howard Payne University con una Licenciatura en Biblia y Psicología. Posteriormente, obtuvo una Maestría en Divinidad de Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary y completó estudios de posgrado en Truett Theological Seminary de Baylor University. En 2001, recibió un Doctorado honorario en Divinidad de HPU. García dirigió el trabajo hispano de la BGCT durante 18 años, trabajando con iglesias, pastores y líderes en todo Texas. Tras su jubilación de la convención, se desempeñó como pastor de la Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana en Dallas de 2004 a 2007. A lo largo de su ministerio, se desempeñó como pastor de la Iglesia Bautista Calvario en Fort Worth, la Iglesia Bautista Calvario en Corsicana y la Iglesia Bautista Immanuel en Miles. También sirvió en la Primera Iglesia Bautista en Duncanville. Además, se desempeñó como director de misiones para Del Río-Uvalde Baptist Association y como director asociado de misiones para San Antonio Baptist Association. García también invirtió en la educación teológica. Se desempeñó como instructor adjunto en la Dallas Baptist University y Mountain View College y dio conferencias en Truett Theological Seminary y la Universidad Bautista de las Américas. También formó parte de la junta directiva de BUA y Valley Baptist Academy. En 2018, recibió el Premio al Servicio Distinguido Dr. José Rivas por su liderazgo ministerial. Le sobreviven su esposa de 54 años, Dolores García; sus hijos, Laura, Matthew y Anna; y sus nietos. El velatorio será el miércoles 4 de marzo en Laurel Land Funeral Home, 6300 S. R.L. Thornton Freeway en Dallas, de 9 a.m. a 10 a.m., seguido del funeral de 10 a.m. a 11 a.m. En lugar de flores, la familia ha solicitado que se hagan donaciones al Fondo de Becas Santiago y Delia García en beneficio de los estudiantes de Howard Payne University.

Keenan Stringer to First Baptist Church in Richmond as senior pastor, from Arcadia First Baptist Church in Santa Fe, where he was student pastor.

Felix Treviño to Blanco Baptist Association in Beeville as director of missions, from First Baptist Church in Mathis, where he was pastor.

Black Americans are more likely to consider people not related to them by blood or marriage part of their families, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. Religious affiliation, Pew found, is a key factor in forming these alternative family networks.

Pew’s 93-page report, based on a survey of 4,271 Black adults and 2,555 adults of other races, examines how Black Americans define and experience family, and how people support one another. Overall, 77 percent of Black Americans said their family includes at least one nonrelative, compared with 63 percent of adults of other races.

Kiana Cox, the senior researcher of the survey, noted the research examined the trope of Black Americans’ referring to people who are not relatives as cousins. “It’s sort of tongue in cheek,” she said. “We use the term ‘play cousin,’ because that’s the term some Black people might be familiar with.”

Cox said one of the key findings is the extent to which relatives and nonrelatives serve as sources of financial and emotional support, as well as how widespread the extended family networks are.

Religion plays a part in nonrelative “adoption”

Respondents who said they are religious were more likely to include a nonrelative in their family. About 60 percent of Black Christians reported having more than one nonrelative they consider family, compared with 53 percent of religiously unaffiliated Black adults, while 62 percent of Black adults who practice other religions said so.

Cox said Pew was limited to broad religious categories, Christian, non-Christian, and unaffiliated, because of the small sample sizes of Black non-Christians. Some 70 percent of Black adults identify as Christian.

“Because of sample size, we can’t break apart those other religions any further,” Cox said. “So, we have a three-way break: Christian, non-Christian, and unaffiliated.”

The survey also found 72 percent of Black adults whose family included a nonrelated member said the nonrelatives shared their religious or spiritual beliefs, as opposed to 56 percent of adults of other races.

“Religion is a basis of connection, or a basis of definition, for these nonrelative family members because they share religious and spiritual beliefs,” Cox said.

Racial identity shapes religious views 

While the study, conducted June 16–25, 2025, did not directly examine how faith traditions shape racial identity, Cox said previous Pew research, including Pew’s “Faith Among Black Americans” survey from 2021, shows race is central to how many Black Americans understand religion.

“From our previous work on race and religion, we know that ideas about race are crucial to how Black people think about faith,” Cox said.

“Opposing racism is an essential part of faith for many Black people,” Cox continued. “While I can’t make a direct connection between these findings and those studies, racial identity, opposing racism, and racial equity help form the foundation of faith for Black people.”

Among adults who have at least one nonrelative they consider family, Black adults were more likely than adults of other races to say those family members share one of their identities, including religion (85 percent vs. 75 percent), are longtime family friends (83 percent vs. 70 percent), and share their religious or spiritual beliefs (72 percent vs. 56 percent).

“I think our data does suggest religion is one of the bases that people are using to define who gets included, or at least who is in their close network,” Cox said.

Kinship systems rooted in African traditions 

The report includes a brief history of Black family networks, citing the role of extended kinship systems rooted in African traditions, in which family terms were applied broadly within the community.

It also notes the effects of the transatlantic slave trade, which forcibly separated Black families and led to the formation of kinship bonds among enslaved people on plantations.

Though other Americans have open family structures, Cox said Black families’ relationships with their extra members tend to be closer. “They are unique in terms of the breadth of them and the closeness of them, and those networks do have connections to African kinship systems,” Cox said.

Cox said the report highlighted the connection many Black Americans feel to their community at large, even those outside of nonfamily relative systems.

Again, Christian respondents proved more likely, at 60 percent, to consider Black people in the U.S. to be their brothers and sisters. Slightly more than half of religiously unaffiliated Black adults said the same.

“That definition of brothers and sisters and feeling a responsibility to look out for one another extends to Black people in the country, and not just the family unit,” said Cox.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board approved the creation of three new task forces and approved committee and board nominees and two relationship agreements.

In addition to a task force to study possible updates to the BGCT constitution and bylaws and a task force to promote prayer, a Cooperative Program task force will conduct a comprehensive study of the funding mechanism.

The study will include how the Cooperative Program is promoted, how funds are allocated, how churches decide to participate, what is contributing to the ongoing decline in giving, and potential solutions to improve giving.

Keith Warren, executive pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Weatherford, will chair the task force. Other members include:

• Debbie Potter, BGCT president and children’s pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio.
• Pete Pawelek, Executive Board member and senior pastor of Cowboy Fellowship of Atascosa County in Jourdanton.
• Delvin Atchison, Executive Board member, African American Fellowship of Texas president, and senior pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Lewisville.
• Tim Eng, Executive Board member and lay member of Chinese Baptist Church in Houston.
• Victor Castillo, Texas Baptists River Ministry missionary and pastor of Rio Grande Bible Church in McAllen.
• Michael Gossett, Executive Board member and lead pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler.
• Del Lopez, lay member of Iglesia Bautista Hispana in Lubbock.
• Maria Bridwell, lay member of Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen.
• Dillard Fisher, Executive Board member and pastor of Cross Bearers Church in Copperas Cove.

Committee and board recommendations approved

The Executive Board approved the following nominations to fill vacancies on the Committee to Nominate Executive Board Directors:

• Dana Moore, Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi.
• Monica Followell, First Baptist Church in San Marcos.

The board approved the following nominations to fill Executive Board vacancies:

• Tedrick Woods, Living Word Fellowship Church in Dallas.
• Michael Gossett, Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler.

Annual meeting location

When a reservation at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio could not be secured in time, the Committee on Annual Meeting recommended the 2028 Family Gathering be held at Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in Round Rock. The board approved the recommendation, sending it to messengers for a vote during the 2026 BGCT annual meeting.

Every fifth year, the BGCT annual meeting is held in July and is called the Family Gathering.

Relationship agreements approved

The Executive Board approved a new relationship agreement between the BGCT and Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas. Under the new agreement, the BGCT representation on the BHSET board decreases from 50 percent to 30 percent, which is in line with BGCT agreements with other Baptist hospitals.

The board also approved Baptist University of the Américas’ restated certificate of formation, bringing this agreement in line with other educational institution agreements.

Dustin Slaton, chair of the Institutional Relations Committee, explained the change is from a sole member corporation to no member corporation, which “clarifies legally [BUA is] not owned by the BGCT, run by the BGCT, managed by the BGCT,” though the BGCT still elects BUA trustees.

Other business

The following distributions from J.K. Wadley Endowment earnings were approved, for a total of $475,000:

• BSM campus missionaries, $150,000.
• BSM building maintenance, $150,000.
• Muslin and refugee ministry, $100,000.
• Western Heritage, $50,000.
• MinistrySafe, $25,000.

The board approved updates to a set of personnel policies to bring their language into compliance with current statutes and to better care for staff. The policies relate to background investigations, eligibility for benefits, time away from work, flexible spending accounts, and health savings accounts.

Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board members approved a new board structure to align with recent Texas Baptists’ staffing changes. The board also heard updates on the Texas Baptist Indemnity Program and Cooperative Program receipts, as well as BGCT President Debbie Potter’s first address to the board.

Committee restructuring

With constituent parts of the Center for Cultural Engagement reassigned, a corresponding committee is no longer needed. The Executive Board approved two new committees and a reestablished committee to take its place.

The Christian Life Commission once again has its own committee. Chaplaincy will temporarily fall under the associate executive director.

Affinity Ministries, which includes African American Ministries, Texas Baptists en Español, Western Heritage, and Intercultural Ministries, falls under the purview of the Relational Development Committee. Sergio Ramos, senior director of relational development and GC2 Strong, is the staff liaison.

Texas Baptist Communications and the Cooperative Program office fall under the purview of the Resource Development Committee. Joshua Minatrea, senior director of resource development, is the staff liaison.

The Audit Committee will now fall under the Finance Committee.

Texas Baptist Indemnity Program

Since its start, Nov. 1, 2025, at least 113 churches were enrolled by the end of January in the Texas Baptists Indemnity Program, which partners with KingsCover Insurance Services to provide church property insurance. The total insured value is about $900 million, BGCT Associate Executive Director and TBIP President Craig Christina reported.

The average premium savings has been between 15 percent to 35 percent, Christina said. In addition to reduced premiums, coverages have increased, he added.

The total 2026 premium savings to churches currently enrolled was reported at $1,277,644. These same churches gave $1,646,609 to the Cooperative Program in 2025. Sixty-four of the 113 churches “saved more in premiums than they gave to [the Cooperative Program] in 2025,” Christina reported.

About 600 churches are currently in the application process.

Additionally, Covenant Solutions/Texas Baptists Indemnity Program reimbursed the BGCT around $600,000 of the 2025 start-up costs, Christina said. TBIP partnered with Covenant Solutions, located in South Carolina, to make the church insurance program available nationally.

Cooperative Program

Elaborating on BGCT Executive Director Julio Guarneri’s remarks to the Executive Board on Feb. 23, BGCT Treasurer and CFO Ward Hayes shared an update on Cooperative Program giving.

Cooperative Program giving in 2025 was 97.2 percent of 2024 receipts, or down about $721,000. The shortfall in giving was partially offset by expenses being about $699,000 under budget.

Giving to special mission offerings—Mary Hill Davis, Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon, and Texas Baptist Hunger Offering—also declined in 2025.

The total decline in Cooperative Program receipts since 2015 is $5 million, or a 17 percent decrease in Cooperative Program giving, averaging a 2 percent decline year over year. Inflation was a compounding factor during the same 10-year period from 2015 to 2025, Hayes said. What $100 could buy in 2015 took $135 in 2025.

In 2015, BGCT endowment income contributed 7 to 8 percent of annual revenue. By 2025, endowment income made up 23 percent of the BGCT’s revenue. Up until last year, investment earnings covered the gap in Cooperative Program decline but are no longer covering the drop, Hayes said.

“Ministry organizations move at the speed of trust,” Hayes said, stating the information shared is not to instill fear but to understand the reality faced by ministry organizations nationwide.

“The Cooperative Program is still the perfect engine to run this cooperative ministry that we share,” Hayes said.

Clay in the potter’s hand

BGCT President Debbie Potter exhorted Executive Board members to stay open to being shaped by the potter, citing Isaiah 64:8: “We are the clay, and you [Lord] are our potter.”

Potter grew up as a “Nazarene pastor’s kid.” She loved being a pastor’s kid and knew at a young age she wanted to marry a pastor because she wanted to be in ministry. She attended a Nazarene college to find and marry a “nice Nazarene man” who would become a pastor.

But it didn’t turn out as she planned. She did meet and marry a “nice Nazarene man” who became a banker. Potter became a public school teacher and administrator. Then, her father lost his ministry, and her family lost their church. She felt lost herself until she and her family found a church home at Parkhills Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Potter discovered her call to children’s ministry there. Parkhills also called her into her first ministry position. She has been a children’s pastor for the last 30 years, now serving at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, and is grateful for Texas Baptists who took her in and gave her a home, she said.

Seeing herself as an unlikely candidate for ministry in a Baptist church, Potter said to “look for the outliers. Always remember, God can and will do extraordinary things with ordinary people if we let him.”

Potter also urged Executive Board members to “stand up for the voiceless.” She thanked those who stood up for her as a woman in ministry. She also expressed her gratitude for the child protection policies in place among Texas Baptists and the Christian Life Commission’s work in Austin.

“God’s design takes time. Stay on the wheel,” Potter concluded.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church are among 33 Black churches receiving millions of dollars for preservation of their sacred and historic buildings.

They are recipients of the fourth annual round of grants from the Preserving Black Churches program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

The program, a $60 million initiative of Lilly Endowment, also announced $5 million in grants for five churches on Martin Luther King Day.

It has supported 170 churches across the United States with a total of almost $34 million to provide funding and technical expertise to protect the assets and legacies of historically Black churches.

Civil Rights Movement churches

The Birmingham church, which was bombed in 1963, will receive $300,000 for organizational and capacity building.

Theodore (Ted) Debro, campaign chair for 16th Street Baptist Church, said the grant will allow the church to hire a director of development and fundraising for the building where four young Black girls were killed when members of the Ku Klux Klan set off dynamite as the children were preparing for the Sunday morning worship service.

“As a site of deep historical significance—central to the Civil Rights Movement and a living symbol of resilience, faith, and community—16th Street Baptist Church deserves strategic, professional capacity to preserve its physical fabric, sustain its ministries, and protect the stories it holds for future generations,” Debro told Religion News Service in a statement.

“This grant addresses persistent inequities in preservation funding that have left many Black churches under-resourced despite their outsized cultural and historical importance.”

Ebenezer Baptist, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was baptized and went on to co-pastor with his father in the 1960s, will receive $100,000 for programming and interpretation.

Ebenezer Baptist hosted the early meetings that led to the start of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization King co-founded.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, of Georgia, is now the church’s senior pastor.

The funding will support a graduate fellow from a historically Black college or university to design the “Preserving the Oral History Tour of Ebenezer Church” program.

Puerto Rico to Connecticut

Capital project grants were awarded to help restore edifices from Puerto Rico to Connecticut.

Iglesia San Mateo de Cangrejos, or “Church of Saint Mateo de Cangrejos of Santurce,” in San Juan, was constructed in 1832 by free Black people, freedom-seeking maroons and migrants from nearby Caribbean islands.

The Catholic church, whose building was damaged in 2017 during Hurricane Maria, will receive a $500,000 capital project grant to help repair its parish house and chapel.

Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ in New Haven, founded in 1820, is one of the first Black churches established in Connecticut and the oldest formally recognized Black Congregational United Church of Christ in the world.

A $400,000 grant will aid in the restoration and preservation of its historic stained-glass windows.

Significance of grants

“America’s 250th anniversary is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable legacy of our nation’s historically Black churches,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the fund and strategic adviser to the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a statement.

“They are essential civic institutions that have anchored democracy, community leadership, and collective care for generations. By investing in their preservation today, we are safeguarding not just historic buildings and architecture, but a living legacy of resilience and social progress for the future.”

Other historic churches

A total of $8.5 million in grants was awarded, ranging from $50,000 to $500,000, for capital projects, programming and interpretation, or project planning. The other recipients are:

• University African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Palo Alto, Calif.
• Shorter African Methodist Episcopal Church (New Dance Theatre d.b.a. Cleo Parker Robinson Dance), Denver, Colo.
• Third Baptist Church (Church of the Advent Anglican), Washington, D.C.
• Trinity Episcopal Church (DC Trinity Development Corporation), Washington, D.C.
• Bethel Baptist Institutional Church, Jacksonville, Fla.
• First African Baptist Church, Savannah, Ga.
• Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, Chicago, Ill.
• Wayman Chapel, Princeton, Ind.
• Fifth Street Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky.
• Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (d.b.a. The DuBois Freedom Center; The W.E.B. DuBois Center for Freedom and Democracy), Great Barrington, Mass.
• Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church, Harlem, N.Y.
• First Baptist Church of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Zion Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pa.
• Mark’s Episcopal Church, Charleston, S.C.
• Shiloh Baptist Church, Alexandria, Va.
• John Wesley Community Church (Waterford Foundation, Inc.), Waterford, Va.
• New Jerusalem Baptist Church, Tulsa, Okla.
• Pilgrim Baptist Church, Chicago, Ill.
• Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church (Banneker-Douglas-Tubman Museum Foundation), Annapolis, Md.
• Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Rochester, N.Y.
• New Congregational Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, Calif.
• Good Shepherd Episcopal Church (Episcopal Diocese of Georgia), Brunswick, Ga.
• Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lafayette, Ind.
• Union United Methodist Church, Boston, Mass.
• Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
• Historic Spring Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Tupelo, Miss.
• Bethany Baptist Church, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Oklahoma City, Okla.
• John’s Reformed Episcopal Church, Charleston, S.C.

Howard Payne University named five students as Currie-Strickland scholars during the 18th annual Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics in February. The event featured guest lecturer John Litzler, director for public policy at the Christian Life Commission and general counsel for Texas Baptists. Students recognized were: Cate Gramling, a senior double majoring in practical theology and elementary education from Rowlett; David Newman, a junior Christian education major with an emphasis in cross-cultural ministry from Brownwood; Elsa Leake, a senior business administration major with a minor in youth ministry from Georgetown; Tori Petersheim, a graduate student in the youth and family ministry program from Flower Mound; and Biak Sang, a junior Christian education major with an emphasis in ministry leadership from Garland.

Hardin-Simmons University celebrated its 135th anniversary on Feb. 18, marking more than a century of Christ-centered higher education. As part of the celebration, the Student Government Association’s sophomore class hosted a birthday event in Moody Lobby, distributing free cake to members of the campus community. Founded in 1891 as Abilene Baptist College by the Sweetwater Baptist Association, the university was created to prepare students for lives of faith, leadership, and service.

Houston Christian University’s Society for Human Resource Management student chapter hosted the Energy Summit on Thursday, Feb. 18, with the theme of “Empowering Business Excellence.” Elizabeth Killinger, former executive vice president of NRG Home and former president of Reliant Energy, was the keynote speaker. Breakout sessions focused on people analytics and AI, human energy, international business, global strategy, and HR digital strategy. The summit offered Christ-centered professional development and strengthened connections among business professionals from the energy sector, human resources, business leadership, and the HCU campus.

Dallas Baptist University announced the groundbreaking of the Don and Linda Carter School of Business building. University leadership, faculty, students, alumni, and supporters gathered on campus Feb. 18 for a day of worship, celebration, and fellowship. The building is 55,000 square feet across five levels and will be state-of-the-art, featuring modern classrooms, faculty and administrative offices, student study and collaboration rooms, conference and meeting rooms, auditoriums, a simulated stock exchange trading floor, and other innovative learning environments.

Wayland Baptist University held a student panel event, “Black History Month Talks: More than a Month,” inviting students, employees, and community members to hear conversations featuring diverse experiences and reflections on history. Bashir Easter, associate dean of the School of Business and assistant professor of business administration, moderated the event. After the panel discussion, the audience was encouraged to participate in dialogue. The event was livestreamed on Wayland’s YouTube channel.