President Jimmy Carter had Texas on his mind June 25, 1978, when he stepped to the lectern to lead Sunday school at the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C.

Less than 15 hours earlier, Carter had returned to the White House from a two-day, whirlwind tour of Texas that mixed presidential activities with political.

The official White House Daily Diary documents a jammed schedule starting at 1 p.m. Friday, June 23: a luncheon speech to 5,000 people in Fort Worth; an address to NASA and Air Force personnel in Houston; a pause to greet a centenarian; a short meeting with Hispanic leaders, followed by remarks to 1,200 people at a fundraising dinner. That was just Friday.

Before Carter left Texas Saturday, June 24, he met with Black business and political leaders in Houston; dedicated a post office in Beaumont; and reviewed combat vehicles, weaponry and the troops at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) in Central Texas. He got back to the White House about 7:30 p.m. and had dinner with First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

At 10 a.m. June 25, Carter did what he did on at least 17 Sundays during his presidency. He traveled four minutes by motorcade a mile north to First Baptist Church where he set aside the demands of his day job to teach a Bible lesson. The lesson, drawn from the Genesis, was one of 14 recorded at First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., and recently transcribed for the first time.

Nobody has to be defined by their worst decisions

On that Sunday 46 years ago this month, Carter used the story of Joseph and his brothers to teach a lesson of humanity and redemption, emphasizing that no one has to be defined by bad decisions, whether those are boasting, selling your brother into slavery or prolonging a war.

Supplementing the biblical text, Carter brought up the legacy of a predecessor, President Lyndon Johnson of Texas.

“Since I’ve been in the White House, I’ve read a lot of biographies, long and short, about my predecessors there,” Carter said. “I could go back down the list of presidents, some of whom are condemned ferociously, some of whom [are] looked on as heroes. …

“Some of them are condemned in retrospect because of one incident in their lives as president, over which they had not too much control.”

Having just returned from Texas, Carter said President Johnson came to mind.

“I don’t think there was ever a president who worked harder or who had a greater, more generous heart, or who cared more and did more for people who were persecuted and deprived and who felt the stigma and the punishment of racial hatred and prejudice and discrimination,” Carter said.

“But when you think about Lyndon Johnson now, you don’t think about freedom. You don’t think about an end to discrimination. [You] don’t think about voting rights acts nearly so much as you think about the Vietnam War. But Johnson was always trying to do things to make a better community, better cities, better highways, better life for people.

“And still, he’s not one of those presidents, at least yet, who’s recognized as big-hearted, great-hearted, concerned about others.”

Carter and Johnson never met, according to a news release issued by the LBJ Foundation in January 2016, when members of the Johnson family traveled to Atlanta to present Carter with the LBJ Liberty & Justice for All Award “in recognition of his leadership in public service and his tireless efforts toward peace and human rights.”

Carter is quoted as returning the compliment: “It is a great personal honor to be given the Liberty & Justice for All Award in the name of Lyndon Johnson, a man who helped shape my life and for whom I have the greatest admiration and appreciation.”

Christi Harlan is a former reporter for The Dallas Morning News and former Washington correspondent for the Austin American-Statesman. She is a trustee of the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., where she has been a member more than 30 years. Her new book, Mr. President, The Class Is Yours contains the first-ever transcripts of 14 Sunday School lessons taught by President Jimmy Carter at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. The paperback and ebook are available from Amazon and other booksellers. 

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A volunteer task force charged with implementing abuse reforms in the Southern Baptist Convention will end its work next week without a single name published on a database of abusers.

The task force’s report marks the second time a proposed database for abusive pastors has been derailed by denominational apathy, legal worries and a desire to protect donations to the SBC mission programs.

Leaders of the SBC’s abuse reform implementation task force say a lack of funding, concerns about insurance and other unnamed difficulties hindered the group’s work.

“The process has been more difficult than we could have imagined,” the task force said in a report published June 4. “And in truth, we made less progress than we desired due to the myriad obstacles and challenges we encountered in the course of our work.”

Unfinished work

To date, no names appear on the “Ministry Check” website designed to track abusive pastors, despite a mandate from Southern Baptists to create the database. The committee has also found no permanent home or funding for abuse reforms, meaning that two of the task force’s chief tasks remain unfinished.

Because of liability concerns about the database, the task force set up a separate nonprofit to oversee the Ministry Check website. That new nonprofit, known as the Abuse Response Committee, has been unable to publish any names because of objections raised by SBC leaders.

“At present, ARC has secured multiple affordable insurance bids and successfully completed the vetting and legal review of nearly 100 names for inclusion on Ministry Check at our own expense with additional names to be vetted pending the successful launch of the website,” the task force said in its report.

Josh Wester, the North Carolina pastor who chairs the implementation task force, said the Abuse Response Committee—whose leaders include four task force members—could independently publish names to Ministry Check in the future but wants to make a good-faith effort to address the Executive Committee’s concerns.

Task force leaders say they raised $75,000 outside of the SBC to vet the initial names of abusers. That list includes names of sexual offenders who were either convicted of abuse in a criminal court or who have had a civil judgment against them.

“To date, the SBC has contributed zero funding toward the vetting of names for Ministry Check,” according to a footnote in the task force report.

Earlier this year, the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission designated $250,000 toward abuse reform to be used by the abuse reform implementation task force.

Wester hopes those funds will be made available to the Abuse Response Committee for the Ministry Check site.

The SBC’s two mission boards pledged nearly $4 million to assist churches in responding to abuse but have said none of that money can be given to Abuse Response Committee.

Abuse survivor frustrated by inaction

The lack of progress on reforms has abuse survivor and activist Christa Brown shaking her head.

“Why can’t a billion-dollar organization come up with the resources to do this?” asked Brown, who for years ran a list of convicted Baptist abusers at a website, StopBaptistPredators.org, which aggregated stories about cases of abuse.

Brown sees the lack of progress on reforms as part of a larger pattern in the SBC. While church messengers and volunteers like those on the abuse reform implementation task force want reform and work hard to address the issue of reforms, there’s no help from SBC leaders or institutions.

Instead, she said, SBC leaders do just enough to make it look like they care, without any real progress.

“The institution does not care,” she said. “If it did care it would put money and resources behind this. And it did not do that. And it hasn’t for years.”

Lack of authority and resources

SBC leaders have long sought to shield the denomination and especially the hundreds of millions of dollars given to Southern Baptist mission boards and other entities from liability for sexual abuse.

The 12.9 million-member denomination has no direct oversight of its churches or entities, which are governed by trustees, making it a billion-dollar institution that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist outside of a few days in June when the SBC annual meeting is in session.

As a result, abuse reform has been left in the hands of volunteers such as those on the task force, who lacked the authority or the resources to complete their task.

As part of its report, the abuse reform implementation task force recommends asking local church messengers to the SBC annual meeting if they still support abuse reforms such as the Ministry Check database.

The task force also recommends the SBC Executive Committee be assigned the job of figuring out how to implement those reforms—and that messengers authorize funding to get the job done.

Church messengers will have a chance to vote on those recommendations during the SBC annual meeting, scheduled for June 11-12 in Indianapolis.

The task force’s report does include at least one success. During the annual meeting next week, messengers will receive copies of new training materials, known as “The Essentials,” designed to help them prevent and respond to abuse.

Database project left to aggregators

This is the second time in the past 16 years that attempts to create a database of abusive Southern Baptist pastors failed. In 2007, angered at news reports of abusive pastors in their midst and worried their leaders were doing nothing about it, Southern Baptists asked their leaders to look into creating a database of abusive pastors to make sure no abuser could strike twice.

A year later, during an annual meeting in Indianapolis, SBC leaders said no. Such a list was deemed “impossible.” Instead, while denouncing abuse and saying churches should not tolerate it, they said Baptists should rely on national sex offender registries.

Because there is no denominational list of abusive pastors, local church members have to fend for themselves when responding to abuse, said Dominique and Megan Benninger, former Southern Baptists who run Baptistaccountability.org, a website that links to news stories about Baptist abusers.

The couple started the website after the former pastor at their SBC church in Pennsylvania was ousted when the congregation learned of his prior sexual abuse conviction. Before long, he was preaching at another church.

“We were just, like, how does this happen?” Megan Benninger said.

When the couple posted on Facebook about their former pastor, leaders of their home church reprimanded them, telling them in an email that they should not have made their concerns public. Not long afterward, the couple decided to set up a website that would collect publicly available information about abusive pastors.

“Our goal is to share information so people can decide whether a church is safe or not,” said Dominique Benninger.

To set up their site, the Benningers modified an e-commerce website design so that instead of sharing information about products, it shares information about abusive pastors. The website became a database of third-party information, protected by the same federal laws that protect other interactive computer services, like Facebook.

The Benningers don’t do any investigations but instead aggregate publicly available information to make it easier for church members to find out about abusers. That kind of information is needed, they say, so church members can make informed decisions.

The Benningers have recently placed a hold on adding new names to their database while Megan Benninger is being treated for cancer. They wonder who will pick up the slack if the SBC’s proposed database fails. They also are skeptical about claims that having a database would undermine local church autonomy.

“You are just warning them that there’s a storm coming,” said Megan Benninger. “How is that interfering with anyone’s autonomy?”

Members of the abuse task force say the denomination has made progress on abuse reforms in recent years but more remains to be done.

“We believe the SBC is ready to see the work of abuse reform result in lasting change,” the task force said in its report. “With the task force’s work coming to an end, we believe our churches need help urgently.”

Brown, author of Baptistland, an account of the abuse she experienced growing up in a Baptist church and her years of activism for reform, is skeptical that any real change will happen. Instead of making promises and not keeping them, she said, SBC leaders should just admit abuse reform is not a priority.

“They might as well say, this is not worth a dime—and we are not going to do anything,” she said. “That would be kinder.”

A group of Baptist Student Ministry students gathered on the Howard Payne University campus to pray every Thursday for the past year. Nicole de la Houssaye, a senior from Cleveland, is one of the students who initiated the prayer meetings on campus. God increased her focus on prayer after she served with Go Now Missions last summer. She felt a burden for those who didn’t know Jesus and realized there was something she could do about it. So, she discussed the idea of a weekly prayer meeting with Bryan Pate, HPU’s BSM director. From student baptisms in local churches to on-campus gatherings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, students have been transformed by the Holy Spirit, and God is answering their prayers, she said. Nate Penland, HPU’s vice president for student experience, has seen the change on campus, noting: “Howard Payne’s Chapel theme this year was ‘He is Good.’ Our students have experienced this in a real way, and I am praying for it to continue.” Trevor Bowers, a senior from Bangs, said seeing his HPU friends live out the gospel played a big role in his decision to get baptized. Gospel conversations have been at the center of many interactions between students, faculty, staff and alumni on HPU’s campus. What might have seemed like a random conversation at a football barbecue one afternoon turned into a student accepting Christ. What looked like a student struggling with attendance turned into a meaningful conversation about who God is. What started on a mission trip to Uganda continued with HPU students sharing at a local church how God moved in their lives during their trip.

Nonprofit senior living provider Buckner Retirement Services completed the acquisition of Fort Worth senior living community, The Stayton at Museum Way, from Lifespace Communities on June 1. Renamed “The Stayton at Museum Way by Buckner,” it becomes the seventh senior living community in Texas owned and operated by Buckner, including Ventana by Buckner in Dallas. The transaction provides for Buckner to assume fully all resident agreements and entrance fee refund obligations and a significant reduction in the Stayton’s bond indebtedness. The Stayton will remain a class one continuing care retirement community, offering levels of living and care as residents’ needs change. Including a rehabilitation center, 188 independent living units, 42 assisted living units, 20 memory care units and 46 nursing units, the Stayton is an 11-story Life Care senior living community located in Fort Worth’s West 7th Cultural District. “We have worked long and hard in preparation for this acquisition,” said Charlie Wilson, president of Buckner Retirement Services. “Our top priority is building relationships with the Stayton’s employees and residents, welcoming them to Buckner, and helping ensure the transition is a smooth and positive experience.”

“Sibling SUCCESS: Supporting Unique Collaborative Care to Encourage Shared Success” is a service model in which siblings of children with autism are included within the behavioral interventions delivered to their brother or sister with autism. The Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities team is offering two opportunities related to siblings of people with autism this summer, in multiple locations: Sibling Workshop: Jessica Akers, associate professor of Educational Psychology and Center affiliate, and her team are offering a one-day, six-hour course for siblings. The workshop will target behavioral strategies to enhance the quality of interactions with their sibling with autism. Participants must live in Texas and have a sibling with autism between the ages of 5 and 17, and the participant must be between the ages of 5 and 17. For their full participation, a participant’s family can earn up to $75 in Amazon gift cards. This course will be held: June 5 in Waco, June 6 in Lubbock, June 10 in Amarillo, June 13 in Rio Grande Valley and June 20 in El Paso. Practitioner Training: This three-hour workshop will equip practitioners to include siblingseffectively in the services they deliver to children with autism. Board Certified Behavior Analysts will receive three free continuing education units. Upon completion, practitioners also will receive a $50 Amazon gift card. This workshop will be held: June 7 in Lubbock, June 11 in Amarillo, June 12 in Dallas, June 14 in Rio Grande Valley, June17 in Austin, June 18 in Waco, June 21 in El Paso and June 28 in Houston. For more information email siblingsuccess@baylor.edu or call 254-710-4444.

Retirement

Ed Young Sr., pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, announced his retirement in a letter shared with the congregation May 26. Young, 87, has been pastor of Second Baptist Church since 1978. He previously served churches in South Carolina and as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1992 and 1993.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (BP)—After meeting with church music leaders, Lifeway Christian Resources announced its commitment to continue operating lifewayworship.com.

Lifeway President and CEO Ben Mandrell said he and the leadership team appreciated the feedback they received over the last several months.

“We’ve held listening sessions with over 200 church leaders from across the country since last fall,” Mandrell said.

 “Worship leaders told us this is their curriculum for discipling the people they lead in their ministries, and they rely on Lifeway Worship for music that has been vetted theologically and that encourages congregational singing.

“Lifeway has decided to continue offering this essential resource and provide new arrangements of music for worship teams.”

Last summer, Lifeway announced it would shut down the website that provides arrangements, charts, sheet music and other music resources for church worship.

In response to concerns from ministry leaders after that initial announcement, Lifeway made the decision to continue the website for another year while conducting listening sessions with worship leaders.

Those listening sessions were a catalyst for Lifeway’s most recent decision to continue operating the website into the future.

More than 200 church leaders from 10 states participated in listening sessions, while many others reached out through email and phone calls expressing how much they appreciate the support Lifeway offers to their worship ministries through lifewayworship.com.

“We underestimated the value this tool brings to a meaningful portion of our churches,” Mandrell said.  “The listening sessions not only underscored the value of lifewayworship.com, but they also revealed other ways Lifeway could come alongside worship leaders in their ministries.

“Lifeway is committed to our long history of serving music leaders, and we want to make sure that continues for years to come as we look for additional ways we can support worship ministry. I’m very excited about the future of Lifeway Worship.”

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)—Final recommendations from the Southern Baptist Convention Great Commission Resurgence Evaluation Task Force address areas of statistical reporting to and from Southern Baptist churches.

Among other things, that means calling on state Baptist conventions and Lifeway Christian Resources to cease any references to “Great Commission Giving”—a category that allowed churches to record all gifts to Southern Baptist causes, including those outside the Cooperative Program.

The task force recommendations also call for a simplified Annual Church Profile and address calls to fulfill a financial pledge to the International Mission Board.

Furthermore, the group urges the preparation for next year’s release of audio from task force meetings held prior to the original passage of the Great Commission Resurgence plan in 2010.

The six recommendations come weeks after the final report issued May 13 by the evaluation task force that studied the impact of the seven original Great Commission Resurgence recommendations adopted by Southern Baptists 14 years ago.

Giving and reporting

The first recommendation calls for state Baptist conventions and Lifeway Christian Resources to “cease using the category of, and any language related to ‘Great Commission Giving,’” a category for reporting gifts outside the Cooperative Program made possible by the original Great Commission Resurgence plan.

The evaluation task force decided the term “was poorly defined and never fully adopted by the broader Southern Baptist family.”

The recommendation calls for the continuing use of language in Article III, No. 3 of the SBC Constitution, which describes the composition of cooperating churches as giving “through the Cooperative Program, and/or through the Convention’s Executive Committee for Convention causes, and/or to any Convention entity” as a way of reaffirming the Cooperative Program as Southern Baptists’ primary method for supporting ministries and missions.

The second recommendation calls for messengers to request state conventions and Lifeway to restructure the Annual Church Profile form so it asks churches to address only six categories and answer only two questions.

Those six proposed categories would ask for the church’s total membership, total number of baptisms, average worship attendance, average Sunday School or small group attendance, total undesignated receipts and total designated receipts.

The two questions address ongoing sexual abuse reporting reforms in the SBC and ask churches about the use of screening processes for staff and volunteers and whether training is available for staff and volunteers to recognize and report suspected instances of abuse.

Report on church starting, honor pledge to IMB

The third recommendation asks the North American Mission Board to “conduct an annual survey of the status of churches planted, revitalized, or otherwise assisted using CP funds 10 years out from their launch.”

The original Great Commission Resurgence fundamentally remade Southern Baptists’ missions-sending agency for North America, where cooperative agreements with many state conventions were exchanged for a focus on church planting.

Specific data requests in the recommendation include the percentage of churches still in existence 10 years from their launch and the percentage of churches still contributing through the Cooperative Program and ACP.

The 2010 Great Commission Resurgence called for a restructuring of the Cooperative Program allocation budget formula to allow for 51 percent to be sent to the International Mission Board, up from 50. That directive was fulfilled only partially.

The fourth recommendation asks messengers to strongly request the Executive Committee to meet that goal beginning with the 2026-27 budget year.

Transparency and accountability

In preparing its report, the evaluation task force petitioned for “limited and confidential access” to audio recordings of meetings by the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force that will be released on June 16, 2025. Those requests were ultimately denied.

The fifth recommendation asks messengers to request that the Council of Seminary Presidents direct the staff of the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives, where the recordings are stored, to “begin the process of indexing” those resources in anticipation of their release for those wanting prompt “navigable access.”

From the evaluation task force’s perspective, only two of the original Great Commission Resurgence’ seven recommendations “were ever fully implemented.” The rest appeared to receive little to no attention in the ensuing years.

The group’s sixth and final recommendation calls for the addition of a fourth point under Bylaw 26.

The recommendation is for messengers to request the Executive Committee “to consider and propose changes in the appropriate governing documents” that would “require entities, institutions, committees, or commissions of the Convention to report” on actions taken regarding messenger-approved recommendations from a special work group or task force.

In the task force’s proposed language, those reports would be required within two years of adoption by messengers and included in the Book of Reports, as well as in the entity’s report from the platform at the subsequent annual meeting.

Encouraging words

In a separate section titled “Words of Encouragement,” the evaluation task force thanked NAMB for “addressing organizational challenges” leading up to 2010, while encouraging the entity to “expand evangelistic cooperative efforts by collaborating with state convention evangelism leaders and associational mission strategists.”

Those steps should include building healthy relationships with pastors, associations and churches as well as providing “clear feedback avenues” to NAMB leadership and an “increase in transparency in the use of church planting funds.”

The Executive Committee was encouraged to focus its efforts on Cooperative Program advancement and promotion “as our best and most effective means of cooperating together through shared stewardship.” The task force noted that 2025 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program.

Two final encouragements were directed at the “cooperating churches of the SBC.” The first was to complete the ACP each year in order to “accurately track patterns and important trends.” The other urged churches to focus on the Great Commission as well as the importance of working together for the sake of the gospel.

Jay Adkins, pastor of First Baptist Church in Westwego, La., and current SBC first vice president, served as chair of the evaluation task force.

He was joined by Robin Foster, associational missionary for Trinity Baptist Association in Trumann, Ark.; Adam Groza, president of Gateway Seminary; Luke Holmes, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Duncan, Okla.; Chris Shaffer, chief of staff and associate vice president for institutional strategy at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; and Jeremy Westbrook, executive director for the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio.

In accordance with SBC polity, all six recommendations are directed to messengers attending next week’s SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis.

The Great Commission Evaluation Task Force Report is scheduled to be delivered to messengers at 6:50 p.m. during the June 11 session of the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The chief ethicist for the Southern Baptist Convention wants the federal government to clamp down on in-vitro fertilization, saying it causes harm to children and their mothers.

Many infertile couples who undergo IVF treatment are unaware of the moral danger it poses, Brent Leatherwood, president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Senate last week.

“We urge legislators to develop and implement a system of federal oversight that protects and informs women and ensures embryos are treated with care, even as we oppose the general practice of IVF,” Leatherwood wrote.

Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court made national headlines with a ruling frozen embryos created during IVF were protected by the state’s wrongful death law.

The state’s chief justice went even further, saying in a concurring opinion that “embryos cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

That ruling, in a case where embryos were destroyed in a freak accident, shut down Alabama’s fertility clinics, leading Kay Ivey, the state’s Southern Baptist governor, to sign a new law protecting clinics by limiting their liability.

“I am pleased to sign this important, short-term measure into law so that couples in Alabama hoping and praying to be parents can grow their families through IVF,” Ivey said at the time.

Focus on frozen embryos

During the IVF process, doctors often fertilize more eggs than can be implanted at one time. The excess embryos are vitrified—a freezing process that turns them glass-like—and stored in liquid nitrogen for future IVF attempts. By some estimates, more than a million embryos currently are frozen in storage.

While conservative Christian groups like the SBC have long opposed abortion, saying life begins at conception, they’ve been largely quiet about IVF.

Any criticism of the process has been limited to concerns about the fate of frozen embryos created during IVF, especially if those leftover embryos were used for research or discarded.

That’s in part because of what Dena Davis, an emerita professor of religion at Lehigh University who taught bioethics, calls the “IVF problem.”

Unlike abortion, which is intended to end a pregnancy, the goal of IVF is for more children to be born—something religious people generally approve of, Davis told Religion News Service in an interview earlier this year.

“That is at the heart of conservative religious understanding of how the world works,” she said. “You get married. You have kids.”

Davis also suspects abortion foes are more likely to know someone who needs help conceiving and are likely more empathetic with someone using IVF than they are with someone who chooses abortion.

Southern Baptists passed a series of resolutions, starting in 1999, opposing the use of embryos for research, genetic editing of embryos, cloning or other technology that would involve destroying embryos—for the same reasons Southern Baptists oppose abortion, believing life has already begun in the frozen embryo stage.

Moving closer to Roman Catholic position

While Southern Baptists have raised ethical concerns about IVF in the past, the denomination’s leaders have not opposed the practice.

That appears to be changing. Along with Leatherwood’s letter to federal regulators, the ERLC published a resource against IVF, arguing the practice separates conception from sex between a man and a woman and turns children into products. It’s a position that echoes Roman Catholic teaching on IVF.

“Though we should be hesitant to call it sin, it is morally ambiguous enough to be problematic and should be discouraged as a matter of wisdom and prudence,” according to the ERLC’s resource.

The ERLC’s position on IVF falls short of Roman Catholic teaching that contraception is immoral. However, it does say “it is theologically problematic to separate procreation from the sexual union of the man and woman in the marriage covenant.”

In 1934, the SBC passed a resolution opposing a proposed federal law that would have made it legal to publish information about birth control, saying such a law “would be vicious in character and would prove seriously detrimental to the morals of our nation.”

During their annual meeting in Indianapolis next week, Southern Baptists likely will vote on a proposed resolution that raises ethical concerns about IVF but falls short of condemning it. Instead, the resolution encourages Southern Baptists to adopt leftover embryos and to think about the ethics of IVF.

The proposed resolution, written by Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southern professor Andrew Walker, instead encourages infertile couples to consider “the ethical implications of assisted reproductive technologies as they look to God for hope, grace, and wisdom amid suffering.”

TEMPLE—The sky grew dark with threatening clouds shortly before 6 p.m. May 22, but the eight people gathered for the midweek service at Dyess Grove Baptist Church, southeast of Temple, decided to go ahead as planned.

“All of a sudden those warnings on our phones went off” at about 6:20, said Pastor Steve Goode.

“We said, ‘Let’s cut this short.’”

Members fled the church building. Moments later, a tornado ripped off the wall that formed one side of the church worship space.

The end of the building remained open to the elements until a Texans on Mission temporary roof team arrived to close off the structure as much as possible.

“The insurance company put a tarp on the roof” initially, said Larry Cooksey, a lifetime member, treasurer and deacon of the church.

“But they wouldn’t tarp the end, and so, we had our roofer come out. They were going to put a tarp on the end, but the way those boards are sticking out, … they said it’s going to tear a tarp.”

The Texans on Mission team, with volunteers from Georgetown and Abilene, arrived a few days later. After studying and discussing the various challenges of tarping the open end, they shored up the partially fallen vaulted ceiling, then tarped the end.

“I have never done a job like this before—quite unique in just one wall being sucked off and the structure still standing,” said Mike Pickel of Crestview Baptist Church in Georgetown. “We weren’t able to close off the wall, because there is no structure to hold the tarp. The tarp would just blow right off.

“So, we went in and tarped it from the point of the vault down to the floor to try and mitigate as much water as possible from getting to the pews and the piano inside. It’s not going to keep it completely waterproof, but hopefully God’ll provide.”

God surely provided on the evening of the tornado. As the people scattered, the pastor and his wife, Linda, went one way, and other members went the other.

Less than five miles down the road, the Goodes saw the tornado. They “flipped back around and tried to get out of its path.

“We got thrown into ditches” first on one side of the road then the other as they drove to outrun the approaching twister, the pastor said. It lifted the passenger side of the pickup off the ground.

‘It was nuts’

“We were going side to side. It was nuts. … There was no holding the steering wheel straight,” the pastor said. “My wife was screaming, ‘God save us.’ I was trying to be as calm as possible.”

They drove fast past the church building and pulled their truck in behind two water towers to block the wind as the tornado skirted off to their right.

“Our church members made it home safe,” the pastor said.

Cooksey visited the building the next morning. “We noticed that the roof was gone, the whole south side of the building was gone, over 20-something tombstones knocked over, fence tore up in three or four places, stuff scattered for a quarter of a mile.

“It was just a very terrible thing, because this church was established in 1895. I’m not sure when the building was built, probably soon after that. We’ve tried our best to take care of it, but storms, they tear stuff up.”

Cooksey said about 25 people worship together on Sunday mornings “when all the regular members are here, … maybe a little more. We have a lot of people that are elderly that can’t come out in bad weather, can’t come out if it’s too hot and stuff like that. So, we livestream the service on Facebook. … We try to take care of everybody we can.”

As for the church building, the insurance adjuster said it would be a few days before they had a final financial loss figure.

Coming to tears after tarping the structure, Pickel of Texans on Mission said: “We just pray that God’s Spirit will continue to grow this church for another hundred plus years. He doesn’t need a building. He needs a people.”

The people of Dyess Grove Baptist Church scrambled away from the building that Wednesday evening, but Pastor Goode said the tornado “hasn’t shaken our church’s faith.”

Four days after the storm, the church gathered on a concrete slab beside the building. Twenty-two people attended, and most were visitors, he said.

“No matter what happens, … the glory of God is going to shine through the people. … The church is going to be a beacon” to the surrounding area, Goode said.

“We know we’re going to be all right, but we just don’t know how God’s going to work it out yet.”

Kyle Henderson felt a clear calling from God to resign the pastorate of a church he loves to step out by faith and raise his own financial support to help churches to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission by 2033.

Earlier this year, Henderson stepped down as pastor of First Baptist Church in Athens, where he served 27 years, to become director of strategic planning for the 2033 initiatives at the Baptist World Alliance.

“I am raising my own support. The BWA doesn’t have this in its budget,” Henderson said.

He devotes about half of his time to working directly on his BWA responsibilities and the other half on a closely related task—serving in a volunteer capacity with Rick Warren’s Healthy Church Teaching Network and its Finishing the Task initiative.

Both Warren’s ministry and the BWA have set their sights on challenging and equipping churches to achieve measurable goals for evangelism and discipleship by 2033—arguably the 2,000th anniversary of the church’s birth at Pentecost.

Regarding his new role, Henderson said, “It’s overwhelming, exciting, scary and fun.”

‘Step into the dream’

On March 2 last year, Henderson woke early, recalling a vivid dream in which he was talking with Warren—whom he never had met—about “finishing the task” of making disciples of all nations. Henderson began trying every avenue he could imagine to contact someone at the Finishing the Task movement.

Eventually, he was invited to attend a meeting at Saddleback Church in Southern California, where he met Warren, who invited him to serve as a volunteer pastoral adviser to the movement. His task was to represent pastors of congregations that are not megachurches, to discover ways they can become involved.

“The idea is to localize the Great Commission,” Henderson explained. “We have outsourced the Great Commission to agencies and institutions for a long time.”

Before he succeeded in contacting Finishing the Task, Henderson texted Elijah Brown, general secretary and CEO of the Baptist World Alliance, to tell him he felt God calling him to help churches fulfill the Great Commission by 2033. If BWA was interested, he offered to serve.

Brown responded quickly to the text, saying he had spent the previous week talking about developing strategic goals for 2033.

“It was a God-inspired connection,” Henderson said.

At the BWA annual meeting in Stavanger, Norway, last summer, Henderson spoke about Finishing the Task. He challenged Baptists globally to “step into the dream” of discipling every people group on the planet.

At Brown’s invitation, he also agreed to represent BWA on the volunteer planning team for Finishing the Task.

‘I was being torn apart’

For several months, Henderson tried to juggle volunteer responsibilities with Warren’s ministry and BWA, along with his pastoral duties at First Baptist Church in Athens.

In October, Warren asked Henderson to lead a training conference in Africa, but Henderson declined because he felt his responsibilities in Athens wouldn’t allow him to take time away from the church.

“It was like God said to me: ‘I called you to this. I need you to say, ‘yes,’ the next time you receive an invitation,’” Henderson said.

In January, Warren was leaving to take a church group on a tour of biblical sites in Turkey when Warren called again, asking him to lead a conference in Hawaii for Pacific Rim church leaders.

“This time, I said, ‘yes,’” Henderson recalled.

At the same time, he told his wife Cindy in order to be obedient to God’s call and not do a disservice to First Baptist in Athens, he felt like he needed to resign from the pastorate.

After the couple prayed about it, he initially made tentative plans to resign after Easter. However, he had no peace about waiting.

“I was being torn apart. I was trying to be a good pastor and do this other thing God had called me to as a side gig,” Henderson said. “God made it clear, I had to take the faith leap.”

Henderson was so troubled, he was hospitalized with extremely elevated blood pressure at one point.

“The day I told the first person I was going to resign, my blood pressure dropped 25 points immediately,” he said.

‘Never felt more biblical’

Since joining the BWA staff as a volunteer—and accepting greater responsibilities with the Healthy Church Teaching Network—Henderson has hit the ground running.

He is working with other BWA leaders to craft the 2033 vision and goals, including meeting with pastors to get their feedback. BWA will present the 2033 goals to participants at its annual meeting in Nigeria in July.

For example, one goal will focus on Baptists globally engaging in intentional acts of service that can open doors to evangelism.

“Acts of service are at the heart of who we think we are as Christians, but it’s not necessarily who the world thinks we are,” Henderson said.

At the Healthy Church Teaching Network, Henderson will be involved over the next few weeks in leading one-day conferences for church leaders in Kenya and Peru.

Moving forward, the Hendersons plan to continue to live in Athens.

“Our house is paid for. Our vehicles are paid for. And right now, we’re looking at ways to cut expenses, not take on new ones,” Henderson said.

Cindy Henderson, who has been on staff at the church more than two decades, will continue to serve as pastor of administration until after the church calls its next senior pastor.

First Baptist Church of Athens has a search committee in place. Todd Still, dean of Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, and Larry Parsley, former pastor of Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Coppell and now a professor and director of mentoring at Truett Seminary, will serve as interim co-pastors.

“God has been faithful. God has led us,” Henderson said. “Our church has been supportive. A lot of the people at our church feel like they are on the journey of faith with us.

“It’s hard to explain. I’ve never felt more biblical.”

History can hang in the balance at unsuspecting times. A congregation of four or five gathered 20 years ago in Vincent to vote on whether or not to disband as a church. One woman cited Scripture: “Where two or more are gathered, God is with us.”

“That was a historic moment,” said Pastor Walter McCall, who has led Vincent Baptist Church since 2002. The church kept going. No matter their size, church members believed they were called to bless others by sharing the gospel.

What has unfolded over the years since is a beautiful picture of what it looks like to live by faith, said Rand Jenkins, Texans on Mission chief strategy officer.

“Vincent Baptist Church faced an uncertain future that in some ways mirrors what the people we serve after disasters face,” he said. “They had a choice: They could cling to their faith and press forward or close their doors.

“Because they chose to faithfully follow God’s call, God has blessed thousands of people through them. People have come to faith and received the help they desperately need. It’s simply amazing.”

‘We want to bless others’

Much has happened with Vincent Baptist since the 2004 vote to stay open. Church attendance fluctuated, climbing as high as 40 on a consistent basis, McCall said. The COVID pandemic punched a hole in that, dropping it to the 15 to 25 range, but the church had already taken a generous approach in giving to help people in crises.

About 10 years ago, “anytime something would happen, a crisis anywhere,” a local rancher would “speak up and say, ‘I believe we need to send some money to Texas Baptist Men,” now called Texans on Mission,’ the pastor recalled. “That’s really what led the church into that on a somewhat regular basis.

“Finances were still really not good at that time,” McCall said. “That was before the oil boom took place in the area around the church. But Mr. Autry kind of set the pace for our giving.”

Since oil royalties began coming in, “church members are much better off financially,” the pastor said. And “they are generous to a fault,” he added.

In conversations with church members, the word “blessed” comes up often.

“We’ve been blessed around here with the oil drilling and stuff, and that’s helped a lot,” said Terry Shafer. “I’ve just always felt like giving a tithe was important. It’s not just me. Others here enjoy giving. We’ve been blessed, and we want to bless others.”

Kent Holmes sees blessings all around. “We started off as an agricultural community years ago and gradually went to an oil/agricultural one,” Holmes said. “Many good blessings have happened with us. … It’s a blessed little church, and it’s been here over a hundred years. … It’s a good country to live in and a good place to go to church.”

When wildfires struck the Panhandle this winter, church members asked Pastor McCall how much he thought they should give. He suggested $15,000.

“One of the deacons raised his hand and said, ‘Preacher, I think we ought to send $30,000.’ So, that’s what we ended up sending” to Texans on Mission, McCall said.

The church also sent gifts directly to three individual Panhandle ranchers whose land and operations had been destroyed by the fires.

“I can’t stress enough how much we trust y’all (Texans on Mission) to do the right thing, to benefit people and to bless them in God’s name,” McCall said.

‘Its about bringing glory to God’

Tanya Shafer echoed those thoughts. “We just want to serve where God has called us to serve, and we feel like [Texans on Mission] are good stewards of our money,” she said.

“The simple truth is we are predominantly an older congregation. There are only a couple of families in the church younger than me,” said McCall, who is 69. “Some of us are not physically able to do things. … God has blessed us, and we choose to bless others.”

He approved sharing information about the $30,000 gift and the church’s leading role in giving but said: “I don’t want it to be bragging about us. I want it to be bragging about what God does through people who are obedient to him—not just our church. It’s about bringing glory to God ultimately.

“God could do it without us, but he invites us to join him. And I am convinced that we, as a small church, get a far greater blessing than what we send. That’s not the reason we do it, but it’s God’s blessing on obedience.”

Josh Thompson led the music on a recent Sunday when Texans on Mission was represented in the service. He sang a solo, “I Want to be a Worker for the Lord.”

Thompson said he chose the song because it describes what Texans on Mission does. “Y’all are very well spoken about, and … y’all are definitely workers for the Lord.”

A spokesperson for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board asserted “nothing has changed, and nothing is new” regarding its policy to grant church-starting funds only to state conventions that have affirmed the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

However, the Baptist General Convention of Texas—which never endorsed the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message—received $300,000 annually for at least each of the last four years, with $200,000 per year earmarked for evangelism and $100,000 each year designated for church starting.

Ward Hayes, BGCT treasurer and chief financial officer, said, “NAMB has told us that these funds have no restrictions beyond those designations; however, we have only utilized the church-starting funds in support of Texas Baptist church sponsors that have adopted the 2000 BF&M.”

But on May 20, Executive Director Julio Guarneri reported to the BGCT Executive Board: “I have learned that NAMB will no longer fund any church starts of singly aligned BGCT churches in Texas. They will only fund churches in Texas who are affiliated with SBTC [the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention], either singly or dually.”

Guarneri noted BGCT-affiliated churches contributed $3.3 million to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions and $2.2 million to NAMB through the Cooperative Program.

Regarding the relationship between the BGCT and NAMB, the NAMB spokesman stated: “NAMB has a long-standing policy of only planting churches in partnership with state conventions that have affirmed the Baptist Faith and Message BFM 2000. NAMB has enjoyed a good relationship with BGCT for many years. Nothing has changed, and nothing is new about our policy.”

The agency spokesperson did not respond to an email request to clarify the seeming discrepancy between NAMB’s “long-standing policy” and its practice.

He did express appreciation for the financial support of BGCT churches, stating: “NAMB is grateful for what BGCT churches give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and to the Cooperative Program. This is a way BGCT churches can impact the North American mission field beyond Texas. These funds are used to plant churches where they are most needed, fund compassion ministry efforts and to equip missionaries and churches with evangelism resources.”

Flat grants and Send Network agreements

Currently, NAMB provides church-starting funds to state conventions both through a flat grant and through Send Network agreements.

“In order to move more funding to regions outside the South, NAMB reduced funding to South state conventions in 2013 and began providing an annual $300,000 grant,” the NAMB spokesperson stated in an email to the Baptist Standard.

“Several South state conventions still receive funding through this model today. The funding can be used for evangelism, church revitalization and church planting.”

As a point of comparison, the adopted 2013 BGCT budget endorsed by the BGCT Executive Board and approved by messengers to the annual meeting anticipated $600,442 in funds from NAMB.

“NAMB has a long-standing policy, though, of only planting churches in partnership with state conventions that have affirmed the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. So, that restriction applies to our partnership with the Baptist General Convention of Texas,” the NAMB spokesperson stated.

From 2021 through 2024, the BGCT helped start 128 churches at a cost of $4.18 million—a bit more than $32,600 per church.

“We have used the $300,000—$100,000 per year over three years—from NAMB within the overall $4,180,090.92, which is the support for about nine churches,” said Tom Howe, associate director of Texas Baptists’ Center for Missional Engagement and director of church starting.

“All are singly aligned with BGCT. They are also SBC, but we do not plant SBTC churches or churches that are dually aligned with SBTC.”

NAMB partners with a reported 47,600 churches in its Send Network.

“Some South state conventions have asked NAMB to become more involved in church planting in their states, and this led to the development of Send Network church planting agreements,” the NAMB spokesperson stated. “Each of these agreements is customized to meet the specific needs of each state convention.”

Does NAMB count all BGCT church starts?

Last December, NAMB reported it had surpassed the 10,000 mark in terms of church planting since 2010, with 639 launched in 2022.

“Churches plant churches, and to help Southern Baptists have an accurate measure of their impact, NAMB tabulates the number of churches Southern Baptists plant every year,” the NAMB spokesperson said.

However, NAMB did not respond to a question about how many church starts in Texas it includes in its count—or a breakdown of how many are in partnership with the BGCT and how many are with the SBTC.

“NAMB does not release state-specific church plant information. We refer inquiries back to the particular state convention,” the agency spokesperson said.

“While we do not share financial information about our Send Network church planting agreements with specific states, the funding amount varies from year-to-year based on how many churches a state convention is involved with planting and how each of those plants assess on our Planting Projector, which helps determine the annual funding a NAMB-endorsed plant receives.”

He also noted: “NAMB can partner with a BGCT church to plant a church outside of Texas in collaboration with a state convention that affirms the BFM 2000. All NAMB-endorsed church planters must affirm BFM 2000.”

FORT WORTH (RNS)—Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary released more details about the attempted cover-up of a report about a sexual assault on campus that landed a former seminary staffer in federal court, charged with obstruction of justice.

In a statement May 29, David Dockery, president of Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, said Terri Stovall, the school’s dean of women, learned in November 2022 about an alleged sexual assault by a student.

She reported the assault to campus police—who took no action on the report, according to Dockery—and kept a record of her response.

A few months later, the student accused of the assault was arrested by an outside police department.

Make the report ‘go away’

Heath Woolman, then Dockery’s chief of staff, learned about Stovall’s document from November and allegedly told her to make it “go away,” according to Dockery’s statement.

At the time, all staff had been informed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating the Southern Baptist Convention’s handling of sexual abuse and any documents about sexual abuse had been subpoenaed, Dockery said. The alleged assault was not reported to federal officials.

Dockery said Woolman denied telling Stovall to destroy the document, a claim initially backed up by Matt Queen, another seminary staffer.

“In a follow-up conversation concerning what was said to Stovall, Woolman provided me assurance that he did not instruct her to make the document ‘go away,’” Dockery said.

When Queen changed his story in the summer of 2023, he was placed on administrative leave. He has been charged with allegedly lying to the FBI and creating false notes to back his initial claim that he knew nothing about an order to destroy the document.

Woolman left the seminary in the spring of 2023 and is now pastor of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in St. Johns, Fla.

Queen, who was suspended by his church this weekend, has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. Woolman did not respond to a request for comment at Fruit Cove Baptist.

Dockery commends Stovall

Dockery praised Stovall for her actions and said the school is continuing to cooperate with federal officials. He also said the school’s chief of police from 2022 is no longer at the school.

“This episode is a matter of deep regret to me. I am, however, grateful that several employees in whom I placed great trust acted responsibly, especially Terri Stovall,” Dockery said. “I commend the service and integrity of these employees.”

Woolman’s alleged actions were first reported by The Tennessean newspaper. The Tennessean reported Woolman had boasted about the thoroughness of his church’s vetting of him as a candidate when he was first hired in 2023 as pastor.

“They have looked for every skeleton in every closet,” Woolman told the congregation, according to The Tennessean. “I don’t have any skeletons in any closets, and I was still scared they would find skeletons in closets.”

In his statement, Dockery said he had recommended Woolman as a pastoral candidate last year.

“If asked to provide the same recommendation today, and based on information received subsequent to that time, I would not be able to provide the same recommendation,” he said.

Latest episode of bad news for seminary

Few details have been made public about the scope of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the SBC and its entities. That investigation was launched after the release of a report from Guidepost Solutions showing SBC leaders had mistreated abuse survivors for years, denied responsibility for the actions of local churches and downplayed the number of sexual abuse cases in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

SBC leaders have pledged in the past to cooperate with the investigation. The denomination’s Executive Committee also cited the Justice Department investigation for helping drive up its legal costs in recent years.

Earlier this year, the SBC’s Executive Committee announced the Department of Justice investigation into the committee was ended, leading to confusion. The Executive Committee later issued a statement saying the DOJ’s investigation into the SBC and its entities remains open.

Queen’s indictment and Dockery’s subsequent statement are the latest episodes of bad news for Southwestern, once one of the nation’s largest seminaries and now a struggling institution.

The school’s former president, Adam Greenway, is currently suing the school for defamation.

Greenway’s predecessor, Paige Patterson, was fired in 2018 after allegedly mishandling sexual abuse at another school.

Last year, officials at the Fort Worth seminary announced past leaders had overspent by $140 million over two decades, putting the school’s finances in a precarious spot.

Nancy Layne Russell, longtime Texas Baptist church musician, died May 24 in Lubbock after a two-year battle with cancer. She was 76. She was born Aug. 13, 1947, in Bellmead. After graduating from La Vega High School, she went on to Baylor University, where she graduated in 1969 with a degree in secondary education. She served as the director of curriculum and instruction for Dublin Independent School District and was a beloved high school English and speech teacher at Pecos Barstow Toyah Independent School District and Bellville Independent School District. She served as organist and pianist at multiple churches, including First Baptist Church in Lubbock, First Baptist Church in Stephenville and First Baptist Church in Pecos. For more than two decades, she also was organist for Paisano Baptist Encampment. She found great joy in raising monarch butterflies in her backyard, which was a certified Monarch Waystation, teaching piano to her grandchildren and creating jewelry. She also delighted in serving as a volunteer at Covenant Health, sharing her culinary creations and staying in touch with friends on Facebook. Her daily walks around Miller Park were a cherished routine. She was preceded in death by her parents, Dudley and Lora Lee Layne, and her siblings, Bobbie Layne Alleman and Sara Jo Watkins. She is survived by her husband of 52 years, Roger Russell; sons Sean Russell and Alan Russell; and grandchildren Noah and Lilly Russell. A celebration of life service is scheduled at 11 a.m. on June 1 at First Baptist Church in Lubbock. In lieu of flowers, the family requests gifts to the Joe Arrington Cancer Center.