ORLANDO, Fla.—Supporters of the Great Commission Resurgence task force took a final opportunity to garner votes for their report when they encouraged 1,300 primarily younger pastors attending the B21 conference Tuesday to leave the luncheon and become fixtures in the meeting hall.

“Please get into that hall, sit in a chair and do not leave until somebody prays and we go eat,” said Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler.

Mohler was one of eight panelists who answered questions presented them by Jon Akin and Jed Coppenger, two leaders of B21, a movement intended to help participants discern what it is to be Baptist in the 21st century.

The Great Commission Resurgence task force report was the primary topic of conversation, along with frank discussions about reasons to continue being involved with the Southern Baptist Convention or to support its Cooperative Program missions channel.

Because changes suggested in the task force report would require painful adjustments in some entities’ budgets where priorities would change, David Platt was asked to explain how he made such changes in his church, Brook Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.

Platt’s church determined to shift $1.5 million from its budget that was spent on comfort and convenience for members “to go to urgent spiritual and physical needs.”

“In the end, it’s not really a sacrifice,” Platt said. “We still have much more than our brothers and sisters around the world. … The reality of what we do as a convention is a product of what we do in our churches. When we do that as churches, it informs what we need to do as a convention of churches.”

Mohler called the decades of the 1950s through the 1980s “fat” years in Southern Baptist life when they could put money into good ideas.
Today, “everything’s got to be provisional” and open for reconsideration in the light of gospel scrutiny, Mohler said, because “I don’t think we’re ever going to be there again.”

SBC President Johnny Hunt said the urgency voiced by young pastors has inspired him and his wife to examine how they will commit more of their personal resources to missions. To all preachers, Hunt said, “There’s got to be more emulation to go with our exhortation.”

He is encouraged that no matter the result of the task force vote, “The greatest change that will probably happen has already come and that is that God will change our heart.”

Jimmy Scoggins, pastor of First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Fla., said he resents that “to be considered a good soldier” in Baptist ranks, he has to “cooperate in too many things I don’t believe in” and support departments in his state convention he sees no reason to have, “money spent on good things by good people that should be given to the inner city.”

“Our convention agencies are going to have to compete for mission dollars,” Scroggins said. People seeking missions funds come to his office weekly.

“It is a competitive environment,” he said and he is going to lead his church to give to “networks that are doing the best job.” He said the task force report gives him hope that such a network “will be the Cooperative Program.”

Matt Chandler, who affiliates with the SBC and serves on the Acts 29 network board, said the SBC will not be fixed overnight, but the key to his continued support is to discern that it is “headed in a direction.”

By the same token, Chandler said of Acts 29, “Anybody who thinks that’s a pretty house just hasn’t been inside the house.”

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay research said, “Southern Baptists are not now evidencing a serious commitment to planting churches.”

Southern Baptists plant a lot of churches only because they have a lot of churches already, he said. But per capita, Southern Baptists are low.

Mohler called the Cooperative Program a “great economizer” and “great exercise in stewardship,” when it was created in 1925.

But it is “toxic for a denomination” to “focus on the vehicle rather than on the trip.”

He said Baptists have made the Cooperative Program “worse than a golden calf”—not because they worship the unified budget, but “we simply think we have to defend it.”

"Who wants to sell a product you can only sell if there’s no other option?” he said.

“The CP is worthy of support, but only as a means to get somewhere we need to go,” he said.

Mohler reminded the audience: “We are not in that room as people who love the Great Commission and people who don’t love the Great Commission. … Let’s pray this becomes a model for how Southern Baptists can reason together, and do the right thing and go home and lead our churches to reason together.”

ORLANDO, Fla.—The Great Commission Resurgence is a “natural and spiritual outgrowth of the conservative resurgence,” seminary president Danny Akin told participants in the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference, July 13-14.

Akin, a member of the Great Commission Resurgence task force and president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, N.C., was one of several speakers who either explicitly endorsed the recommendations of the task force or more subtly underscored its importance.

Pastors Conference President Kevin Ezell introduced members of the task force, and its chairman, Ronnie Floyd, pleaded with pastors to support its recommendations. While this was the most overt promotion for the proposals, each session featured a “GCR Challenge” brought by a task force member.

“The conservative resurgence was never just about affirming an inerrant Bible. It was also about getting an inerrant gospel to the nations so that they might be saved,” Akin said.

Preaching from Hebrews 12, he outlined the elements needed and those that need to be discarded to run the Christian race well, whether as individuals, churches or denominations.

“We must guide our people to run in faith unhindered the race God has been put before us,” he said. To run with endurance means staying focused on Jesus, Akin said. Staying focused only on the essentials means “getting rid of any excess baggage, any thing that can weigh you down, even in the denomination.”

“Pride can become a weight about what we’ve done in the past and who we think we are today,” Akin said. “Territorialism can be a weight. God forgive us if we are territorial … if we don’t see the whole world as our missions field.”

While weights can be sinful things, they can also be good things that become bad, Akins told pastors.

Floyd echoed Akins in linking the Great Commission Resurgence to the so-called conservative resurgence, a movement he said was bolstered by the pastors’ conference.

“Historically, the pastors’ conference has played a major directional role in SBC life,” he said. “In recent days, I’ve developed an overwhelming appreciation for the men that have fought for the infallibility of Scripture.

“Where are the leaders for the GCR? It appears we are more into playing it safe than risking it all (and) more committed to keeping our reputations than shouting that we are willing” to proclaim the gospel to the nations.

“We have won the battle over liberalism, but we are losing the fight over lostness.”

In a reference to the Great Commission Resurgence presentation, Floyd said: “Tomorrow is an urgent hour, people are lost and dying, and their eternal destiny is hell. And tomorrow is a day about change.

“Will you rise up and will we be the generation that will do all we can will all we have to extend gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth and present the gospel and make disciples of all nations?”

While the conference’s headline preacher, David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., didn’t mention the Great Commission Resurgence or the task force report, he referenced aspects of the debate that has surrounded them.

“We stand at a crossroads, and our participation in the global mission of God hangs in the balance,” he said. “We have a holy obligation to take the gospel to people who have never heard it before.

“The Word of God is calling us to sacrifice. God help us if we cannot sacrifice percentages and programs when he has asked us to sacrifice our lives.”

David Uth, pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, described the convention as facing a defining moment that will determine its legacy.

“We must hand to the next generation a convention that is fully committed to the Great Commission, fully committed to go to the ends of the earth for our Lord,” he said.

“When we hear 4.5 billion do not know Christ … does that bother you?” he asked, noting now is the time for action. “All the pretending and imagining and wishing and wanting doesn’t get you there.”

Andy Stanley, pastor of NorthPoint Community Church, Alpharetta, Ga., said many Southern Baptists merely are flirting with the Great Commission.

“Some of you are married to SBC life, and you flirt with the Great Commission,” he said. “Are you going to continue to be in love with a model of ministry and simply flirt with the Great Commission, or are you willing to fall in love with the Great Commission and let go of the ministries that aren’t making a difference?”

Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., said he is for the Great Commission Resurgence, but what really is needed is “a red hot, Holy Ghost revival from God.”

The church is not excited about its ministry like it once was, and members “dabble instead of do,” he noted. It is time for churches and the Southern Baptist Convention to wake up, Gaines said. It’s not about living off the momentum of the past, he said, noting what once had life is now lethargic and what once was real is now deceptive.

“The passion we once had has been turned into a program.”

Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, challenged pastors to make sure the essence of the gospel is saturating everything they do and say and to preach sanctification along with justification.

“If all you are selling is the law, all you are going to get is a group of young men and women who try to obey the law, fail because they can’t do it and bail,” Chandler said.

Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, challenged the church to remember that it is “a little bit of heaven a long way from home.”
Preaching from Matthew 16:18–19, Evans said the church of Jesus Christ has been operating on the defense when it should be thinking offensively. Jesus is saying that he is building his church, and hell is trying to stop him, Evans noted.

“The way you know that your church is not his church is that you are trying to stop hell, and hell is prevailing,” he said.

Vance Pitman, pastor of Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas, was elected president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference over Troy Gramling, pastor of Flamingo Road Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Dean Fulks, pastor of Lifepoint Church in Columbus, Ohio, was elected vice president and Michael Holcomb, senior pastor of Iron City Baptist Church in Anniston, Ala., was elected treasurer. Neither was opposed.

ORLANDO, Fla.—Participants at the 122nd annual meeting of national Woman’s Missionary Union elected a new president, listened to Sudan’s ambassador, honored Kaye Miller’s five years as WMU president, and heard missions challenges June 13-14 in Orlando.

Debby Akerman of Ocean View Baptist Church of Myrtle Beach, S.C., unanimously was elected WMU president to succeed Miller. A native of Massachusetts, she has led Girls in Action organizations in her church since 1982 and served as WMU director many years.

Debby Akerman, left, of Oceanview Baptist Church of Myrtle Beach, S.C., was elected as the new president of the Woman’s Missionary Union, and Rosalie Hunt of First Baptist Church of Guntersville, Ala., was re-elected as recording secretary for the WMU during the 2010 National WMU Missions Celebration and Annual Meeting. (SBC Photo by Cat McDonald)

Akerman served as WMU president for the Baptist Convention of New England from 1993-97. In 2007, she received the Dellanna West O’Brien Award for Women’s Leadership Development.

Akerman, a nurse for 30 years, and her husband, Brad, share a ministry leading Bible studies at Street Reach, a mission in Myrtle Beach that ministers to the homeless and people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction.

Civil war in Sudan

Akec Khoc, Sudan’s ambassador to the United States, requested prayer for an African nation torn apart by civil war.

“Those in the north and south are trying to bring results through the barrel of a gun,” Khoc said. “But healing can come only through prayer to God. … We are appealing to you to pray to our Heavenly Father for the people of Sudan. Only through him can we find peace. … Pray that north and south can agree on peace and unity and partnership.”

Ken Welborn, North American Mission Board missionary to the United Nations, noted Sudan’s civil war has resulted in genocide. The fight is over oil, he said, but Christians in Sudan are fighting for their homeland. A fragile peace accord had been reached, but current tensions threaten to break it, he reported. Welborn urged the women to join Sudanese Christians in 40 days of prayer, Dec. 1-Jan. 9, for peace in Sudan.

WMU president offers reflections

In her last address as WMU president, Miller followed the program theme, “Unhindered,” based on Hebrews 12:1, speaking of facing challenges in God’s strength despite hindrances.

Miller, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church of Little Rock, Ark., said while growing up as a missionary kid in Thailand, she learned many things try to hinder the work of missionaries on the field.

She recalled how her childhood Thai friend, Sombon, suddenly quit attending school. “She just vanished,” Miller said. Years later, Miller saw her in Bangkok.

“Because there was no money in her family, she had been sold into prostitution … Her father, an opiate addict, sold her services from the time she was about 11 years old,” Miller explained. “My heart broke, partly because I felt guilty for not being able to find her earlier, and for all that she had been through. She looked old and used. She was just a shell of who she used to be. … I never saw her again.”

In November, Miller received a letter from Sombon.

“After I saw her, something had stirred in her soul and she knew she had to get out of the life she was living. A Southern Baptist missionary woman who felt called to minister to these trapped women often came by her club to talk with her, … to share about Jesus,” Miller said, noting that missionary felt called to missions as a GA.

“Sombon escaped from the life of prostitution to a life in Jesus Christ and was able to make a life for herself and her family. She was redeemed in Christ. … Sombon is now teaching young girls that they too can be all they can be through Jesus Christ.”

Human exploitation “is not just happening on the other side of the world,” Miller said. “Right where you live, young girls are being trafficked for prostitution or some form of exploitation.”

She encouraged the WMU annual meeting participants to open their eyes and hearts, learn about the issues and seek out ways to help.

Reflecting on her term as WMU president, Miller said: “These have been five incredible years of serving the Lord through Woman’s Missionary Union. There have been many hindrances along the way, but the Lord continues to have his hand upon WMU and continues to guide and greatly bless us as we continue to be radically involved in his mission to reach the world.

“I pray the fire for missions never goes out, never dims as you serve our risen Lord.”

Noting Wanda Lee has completed 10 years as WMU executive director, Miller told the assembly WMU is renaming its Joy Fund—which meets pressing current needs and secures the organization’s financial future through the WMU Foundation—as the Wanda Lee Joy Fund.

New Executive Committee chief speaks

In his first public address after being elected president of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee, Frank Page challenged participants at the WMU annual meeting to guard against complacency. Citing Luke 13:1-9, he shared the parable of the fig tree and said the sin of uselessness is paralyzing Southern Baptist churches.

While God has a plan, Satan also has a plan—to move Christians from their initial excitement over salvation to becoming useless, like the fig tree that did not bear fruit, to being a negative influence in the church, he said.

“It is a satanic strategy to destroy the Great Commission work in the church,” Page asserted. “But the reality of grace is that Jesus is interceding on our behalf  … to give us another chance, another opportunity to do what he called us to do in the first place.”

Chaplain describes challenges

Major General Doug Carver, Army chief of chaplains, addressed how he remains unhindered as he carries the Great Commission “in a somewhat restricted environment.”

Carver said he feels total freedom in Christ, “unhindered, uninhibited and unrestrained.”

Noting 300,000 soldiers are deployed, many in harms way, he said everywhere troops are “there are chaplains bringing the presence of God.” Soldiers “are stretched and stressed” in a “destructive environment” that sometimes results in suicide, divorce, and alcohol and drug abuse, he said.

Chaplains play a unique pastoral position, Carver said, supporting the U.S. Constitution with “close attention” to the First Amendment, allowing exercise of total freedom of worship for all religions, while they “look for ways to share the hope we have in Christ.”

Missionaries, author address theme

A missionary couple who serves in South Asia and cannot be identified for security reasons, told of the billion and a half spiritually lost people in South Asia. They shared stories of movements of God among Hindu and Muslim people groups, and they asked WMU to pray that Muslims “will have a holy curiosity about the Bible and about Jesus.”

Author Jennifer Kennedy Dean challenged her audience to put aside any hindrances to Christian service, just like elite athletes do what is necessary to give themselves an advantage in a race.

“They shave themselves from head to foot and diet so they don’t have any lumps causing drag, and they will wear clothing that pokes in anything that might stick out and create wind resistance. That’s how it is with us,” she said. “Let us do the same thing they do. Lay aside anything that hinders.”

Monica Allen, a missionary in Swaziland, described her call and of the needs of that African nation. “Over 40 percent of our adult population has AIDS,” she said. “We may become the first nation to wipe itself out through the AIDS epidemic.”

Sharon Fields-McCormick, a NAMB missionary, addressed the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the United States. Painting descriptive word pictures of the tragedies each girl endures, she challenged WMU to do more to bring justice to these children.

Texas Baptist from Amarillo honored

Mary Lou Serratt of Amarillo received the 2010 Dellanna West O’Brien Award for Women’s Leadership Development. Serratt has served in church, associational and state WMU leadership, including serving as vice president of Texas WMU and a volunteer multiethnic consultant.

She has been involved with Laotian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Sudanese, Burundian, Iranian, Iraqi, Korean, Liberian, Burmese Chin and Karen people through First Baptist Church in Amarillo.

Other business

Joy Cranford, a member of First Baptist Church of Fort Mill, S.C., received the Martha Myers GA Alumna of Distinction Award, given annually to recognize a GA alumna who influences the lives of others for Christ and serves as a positive role model for girls.

Cranford has served as GA leader and director in her church, GA director for the York Baptist Association and GA consultant for South Carolina WMU. She served on the first advisory council for the Christian Women’s Job Corps of York County, S.C., during the pilot year and was one of the first to serve as a mentor. She remained an active volunteer in the CWJC ministry all 13 years of its existence in the association.

Angela Kim of Houston and Lee reported growth in missions education among Korean Baptist churches in the United States. In 2007, national WMU and Texas WMU partnered for a special, three-year project to provide Korean-English bilingual missions curriculum for preschoolers and children. With these materials, the Korean leadership team, comprised of Korean pastors’ wives across the United States and led by Kim, began missions education in more than 10 percent of Korean churches in the first year of publishing.

“WMU has long embraced the importance of equipping and involving every church of every language and ethnic group in the Great Commission,” Lee said.

ORLANDO, Fla. (ABP) – The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention voted in executive session June 14 to elect former SBC President Frank Page as the organization’s next president and CEO, replacing Morris Chapman, who retires Sept. 30 after 18 years.

Page, 57, becomes president/CEO-elect July 1 and takes office Oct. 1. He currently serves as vice president of evangelization for the SBC North American Mission Board, a post he took in October 2009 after serving as a local-church pastor for more than 30 years.

Frank Page

Randall James, chairman of the Executive Committee, requested deliberation about Page’s election be discussed in executive session as a “personnel matter.” He said  several members of the committee expressed a desire to close the session. One member, Stephen Wilson of Kentucky, objected that the Executive Committee should conduct its business in the open, but a large majority supported the recommendation to ask non-members, including media, to leave.

Executive Committee members questioned Page, who as SBC president in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 was an ex-officio member of the committee, in private for more than an hour before dismissing him for prayer and the vote.

Reportedly, some Executive Committee members objected to the process used to select Chapman’s replacement and questioned Page’s involvement as a member of a Great Commission Task Force bringing recommendations that include reducing the Executive Committee’s budget by nearly a third.

Page told reporters outside the meeting room that various members of the Executive Committee saw his involvement on the task force as both a positive and a negative. “Some said I wasn’t supportive enough of the GCR,” he said. “Others said ‘I can’t believe you support any of it.’”

Page also said he believes both his brief tenure at NAMB, after eight years as pastor of Taylor’s First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., and appointment to the Great Commission Task Force were providential.

“I think God gave me that time to see the inside of a denomination better than I would have as a pastor,” he said. “I think he let me go to NAMB to see some of the inside. I like some of it. Some of it I don’t, as I’ve looked on the inside of the denomination.

“Secondly, I think being part of the GCR at the same time helped me to provide a perspective to say NAMB has a unique missiological need. I think that was an encouragement to some on the committee to see that NAMB does have a place separately than the International Mission Board.”

Page said he believes the  biggest reason God brought him to NAMB was to draw attention to a 10-year effort nicknamed GPS, short for “God’s Plan for Sharing” the gospel message.

“God brought that to my heart when I was president of the SBC in 2006,” Page said.” So I was just delighted that I got to kick it off, because in 2010 is when the kickoff occurred, and we saw over 15,000 Southern Baptist churches involved in soul winning. We saw between 37 and 38 million people touched with the gospel through GPS. As some have said, my coming there helped in some small way to motivate and encourage and legitimize the GPS process. Even though I may not be there to see it come to fruition as long term, if I were at the Executive Committee, I would be one of the greatest supporters of GPS you could ever see.”

A native of Robbins, N.C., Page is a 1973 graduate of Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C. He earned the M.Div. in 1976 and Ph.D. in 1980 from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

His previous pastorates include Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., 1991-2001;  Gambrell Street Baptist Church in Fort Worth, 1987-1991;  LaFayette Baptist Church in Fayetteville, N.C., 1981-1987; and Live Oak Baptist Church in Gatesville, 1979-1981.

He is the author of books including The Nehemiah Factor and The Incredible Shrinking Church published in 2008 and Trouble With Tulip, a critique  of Calvinism published in 2000 and reprinted in 2006.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

BELTON—The body of a 22-year-old graduate student was found on the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor campus the evening of June 12. 

He was identified as Adarsh Johnson Don Basco, a student from India pursuing a Master of Science in Information Systems degree at the university.

Known to his friends as “Johnson,” he recently had been recognized as the MSIS Outstanding Graduate Student for 2010 and was scheduled to graduate from the master’s program in August.

Friends reported to police he left a gathering at his home near the edge of the UMHB campus in the early morning hours June 11.

His friends became concerned when he did not return and reported him missing to the Belton police the following day.

“The university is deeply saddened by the loss of this wonderful young man,” said UMHB President Randy O’Rear.

“Johnson was an outstanding graduate student and was dearly loved by our faculty, staff and his fellow students. Our prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.”

Officers at the scene said there appeared to be no signs of foul play. 

Based on information available at this time, university officials believe his death was accidental and are awaiting official confirmation. The investigation is being handled by the Belton Police Department. The body has been sent to Dallas for autopsy.
 

DALLAS—Religious liberty in China is expanding, and the Chinese Christian community is growing, but American observers continue to hope for more progress.

Bao Jiayuan, associate general secretary of the China Christian Council, the registered church of Protestants in China, recently visited Texas. He said religious freedom in China is a matter of perspective. During the country’s “cultural revolution” of 1966-1976, many churches and religious institutions were forcibly closed and destroyed. People who practiced their faith openly were persecuted.

Bao Jiayuan

Since the end of the revolution, Bao noted the church has grown by leaps and bounds, and freedom has been expanded. Two churches opened every three days during the 1990s. Congregations are expanding, but outsiders seem to harp on what they see as a lack of religious liberty, he insisted.

“We feel it’s quite happy now,” Bao said. “Society is transforming. But it takes time.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has named China has a “country of particular concern” each year since 1999, citing the country’s restrictions on religious expression and practice. Religious organizations must be registered by the government before worshippers can practice their faith, leading to conflicts between the government and unregistered faith groups.

Last year, almost 400 unregistered Protestants were detained and “the Chinese government stepped up efforts to destroy churches and close ‘illegal’ meeting points,” according to the commission’s 2010 report. The Chinese government remains particularly concerned about the role outsiders play in religious institutions.

Residents can worship and proselytize inside the walls of registered churches, but they cannot conduct either activity outside them. According to multiple reports, the ability of unregistered groups to exercise religious liberty varies from region to region.

Despite the restrictions, the commission reported in May that “religious adherence continues to grow rapidly in China.” People continue coming to faith. At this point, Chinese Christians outnumber the membership of the country’s communist party. Some government leaders have applauded the role religion has played in Chinese society.

Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs , recently wrote that change in China takes time. Chinese culture historically has been focused on community and hierarchy as opposed to individual rights. It may always be more interested in promoting a “harmonious society” over individual rights. But people are working within the government structure to improve religious liberty.

“China has been working on religious liberty for only about 30 years. In this country, we have been at it for nearly 300 years and still do not always get the church-state equation right,” he wrote.

Derek Davis, director of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s Center for Religious Liberty , said assessing the status of religious liberty in China is a matter of perspective. While the country has a way to go before reaching the levels of Western countries, it has made progress in the past several decades.

“In the last 30 years, China has made great strides in opening itself up to other religious groups,” he said. “You still have to register, which to us sounds like something out of the Dark Ages. But they have moved from legal to registered, which is progress.”

Bao understands there are rules requiring churches to register with the government and some choose for a variety of reasons not to register, making those congregations illegal. But Chinese Christians can freely worship if they work within the framework the government has outlined, he insisted.

A delegation from the China Christian Council recently completed a tour of several cities through the United States, scouting locations for an extensive Chinese Bible exhibit and networking with Protestant leaders. Bao pointed out the China Christian Council wants to connect with believers around the globe and is free to do so.

Through networking, Bao hopes Chinese leaders can grow in administrative and outreach skills. Leaders want to underscore common ground with other Christians and minister together.

“Churches here are very strong,” Bao said. “That’s history. That’s tradition. That’s the Bible belt. There is much to know. The Chinese church is young.”
At the same time, Bao hopes American Christians come to better understand the needs and ministries of Chinese Christians. China needs seminaries and expanded ministries.

“America can know the true face of Chinese churches,” Bao said.

Davis believes strengthened relationships with Chinese leaders could aid the cause of expanding religious liberty in the country. There is a need for people to report religious liberty abuses, but it may be more important to continue dialogue between Western leaders and Chinese officials, he said. Through those ties, religious liberty may grow in the nation.

“There is a great potential for increased religious liberty in China, but we need to be patient while at the same time closely watching and monitoring what they do, offering a hand of friendship more than a hand of criticism,” Davis said.

Walker wrote that relationships with Chinese Christians and government officials are key to expanding religious liberty in China.

“We need to continue to build relationships with the Chinese—religious leaders and government officials alike,” he wrote.

“We should press for more religious liberty. The message that I promoted in China is that when religious people are a demonstrable threat—splitist, terrorist or otherwise harmful to the well-being of others—then government can legitimately take steps to rein it in, but carefully and not before. In the end, full-fledged religious liberty will actually promote a ‘harmonious society’ more than divisive governmental intervention into the religious demography—favoring some, disfavoring others and persecuting many.”

DALLAS—When a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in mid-January, Arab Christians in Israel reached across the world to offer help and hope. In spite of the challenges they faced themselves, the churches collected $3,500 for Haiti relief through Baptist Global Response.

“They were really struck by the tragedy in Haiti,” said Steve Thompson, director of the Center for Global Missions, a Dallas-based church planting ministry that has been working among Druze and Arab Christians in Israel seven years.

“They wanted the people of Haiti to know Arab believers in Israel were praying for them and willing to help them with relief ministry.”

Thompson said six or eight churches in Galilee contributed to the gift. The churches form part of a 28-church organization called the Convention of Evangelical Churches of Israel, which Thompson estimates includes 4,000 to 6,000 Arab Christians.

The donation was added to BGR’s Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, and Thompson said the receipt from the gift will be shared with the Arab churches to encourage them in their giving.

“They have a history of giving,” Thompson said. “During the Iraq wars, they gave money to the churches in Iraq to help them when things were really bad.”

In addition to sending the money gift, the Arab congregations also are setting aside time each week to pray for Haiti and its people.

Jim Brown, the United States director for Baptist Global Response, is confident the Arab churches’ concern for Haiti will be a great encouragement to people affected by the earthquake.

“When people are struggling, it helps to know that other people care and are willing to help,” Brown said. “It’s especially meaningful when you know the people helping you face significant challenges of their own.

“Our Haitian brothers and sisters will rejoice, knowing of the love for them coming from so far away,” he said. “It’s a powerful testimony to the love of Christ, when people who care connect with people in need.”

June Lucas is a collegiate correspondent with Baptist Global Response.

ATLANTA (ABP) — The presidents of five historically African-American Baptist denominations have presented a check for $500,000 to Habitat for Humanity International to help rebuild homes destroyed in Haiti by January's earthquake.

The contribution, the largest single donation given by a faith community to Habitat's earthquake relief efforts, is part of an ongoing commitment by the African-American Baptist Mission Collaboration, a four-month-old partnership representing 40,000 church congregations and 10 million Christians nationwide.

Presidents from Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention; National Baptist Convention, USA; National Baptist Convention of America; National Missionary Baptist Convention of America; and the Progressive National Baptist Convention were on hand for the presentation June 8.

"We are inspired to invest in this ministry for housing solutions, because we are following the teachings of Jesus who said that when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give shelter to those without shelter that we do this for him," said Stephen Thurston, president of the National Baptist Convention of America. "We do this for Jesus, and we do this for those who suffer in Haiti." 

Mike Carscaddon, executive vice president of Habitat for Humanity International, said the gift would build 630 homes in the town of Cabaret, where Habitat hopes to build a total of 3,000 homes.

"Our overall goal is to serve approximately 50,000 families in Haiti," Carscaddon said. "This significant gift from the AABMC will be used for our work in Cabaret to help 630 families have shelter."

Announced Feb. 8, the coalition linking resources for relief and recovery in Haiti is the largest joint effort of its kind for five distinct groups that evolved around various organizational and philosophical differences that divided African-American Baptists during the 20th century.

David Emmanuel Goatley, executive secretary-treasurer of the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, called five groups making such a large gift in such a short time "a sign of the movement of the Holy Spirit."

"Our harmonious work is a testimony that, as Jesus prayed, we are one," Goatley said.

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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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African-American Baptists collaborate to help Haiti

Haitians need help, and they need it fast. 

Robert Shehane recently returned from a four-week stint in Haiti seeking missions opportunities and potential Church2Church partnerships on behalf of Texas Baptists in the first of what will be several trips to the region.

Haitian children gather at a church. At least 160 children on the streets of Grand-Goâve can’t afford their school tuition. Texas Baptists are being encouraged to provide funds for tuition and school supplies. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Robert Shehane)

Homelessness is just one of many problems caused by the January earthquake that devastated Haiti. There are 200,000 people throughout the country currently living in the floodplains in tents, under tarps and in makeshift shelters. Food is scarce. Clean water is even scarcer.

“When I was there, it would get up to 130 degrees inside my tent during the day,” said Shehane, a retired Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board missionary. “When I went to bed at night, it was about 105 inside the tent.”

The biggest concern right now isn’t the scorching heat, but the coming rains. Haiti’s mountain ranges collect water, causing flash flooding and even mudslides, he said.

“Rainy season comes into full force in July or August, so there’s a real time crunch,” Shehane said. “We need to get these houses up and get people in decent shelter before the rains start. The people are also vulnerable to hurricanes, and hurricane season is just around the corner. When hurricanes hit, what’s going to happen to them? There is a definite sense of urgency to get these people into homes.”

Shehane has identified two main areas where Texas Baptists’ help is needed. The first is Grand-Goâve, about 40 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, and the nearby Petit-Goâve. The second is Delmas, a major city near Port-au-Prince. 

Building homes is the first among several priorities for volunteers in Haiti. In Grand-Goâve, part of the reconstruction plan provides work for local church members by hiring them to do reconstruction of destroyed and damaged homes.

Mission teams can plug into the work that’s already going on, and when they leave, construction doesn’t have to come to a halt.

The second priority is rebuilding the school owned by Grand-Goâve Baptist Church. About 200 students are now attending classes under tarps while Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and International Ministries American Baptist Convention USA work to rebuild. These two organizations are already partnering with the Haitian Baptist Convention.  Texas Baptists are joining into this partnership with the Haitian Baptist Convention, CBF and American Baptists on this project.

“The school’s needs are so great,” Shehane said. “Their budgets are in shambles. The other day I was talking with someone at the school and I overheard a teacher telling a little girl that she had to bring 60 gourde, which is $1.54, for her month’s tuition the next day or she couldn’t come back to school. And you know what? I bet she didn’t get it.”

There are at least 160 children on the streets of Grand-Goâve who can’t afford their school tuition.

“Texas Baptists can help with this project,” Shehane said. “We want to provide tuition for one year for as many street kids as possible who can’t afford it. They need backpacks, basic materials, textbooks and uniforms.”  An annual gift of $160 would help a child in Grand-Goâve be able to attend school for one year and receive supplies.

Other construction opportunities for Texas Baptists include rebuilding churches, the third priority Shehane has identified. The Baptist church in Petit-Goâve was completely destroyed. The church in Grand-Goâve is missing a roof and has unsafe walls and a cracked foundation.

“What we’d really love is to find enough Texas Baptist resources to rebuild the churches for them,” Shehane said. “The Grand-Goâve church is the one spearheading the efforts to rebuild their members’ homes. They don’t have any resources left over to repair their own building at this time.”

Thirty-seven miles away in Delmas, Shehane identified three churches that could benefit from Church2Church partnerships. At one church, 125 members were injured, 10 were killed including their pastor, 200 homes were destroyed, 250 were damaged and the church building was severely damaged.

Members of Salem Baptist Church of Delmas also lost their pastor in the earthquake. Sixty church members were wounded or injured, 30 homes were destroyed and 50 homes were damaged.

Martissant Baptist Church in Delmas lost eight members to the earthquake. One hundred and thirty people were wounded or injured, 130 homes were destroyed, 45 were damaged and the church building was damaged. Four children in the congregation were orphaned. Martissant has asked for a Texas Baptist partnership to help rebuild its members’ homes.

Shehane said he hopes partner churches will meet needs where they are able, but also act as networkers on behalf of their Haitian partners.

“The church partners might not meet the need directly, but they can connect with the people who can meet the needs,” Shehane said.

In addition to construction projects, there is a need for nurses, doctors and ophthalmologists to go Haiti in the upcoming months. There is a mobile medical clinic in place on the church grounds in Grand-Goâve staffed by one part-time nurse.

“We would like to plug in some Texas Baptists nurses to go and work for a week at a time,” Shehane said. “We also need general practitioners for neglected people who have never had that type of care.”

“We need ophthalmologists to come to Haiti and give eye exams and do cataract surgery,” Shehane said. “We would love to take 1,000 pairs of glasses on the next trip in all different kinds, all different prescriptions, to match them up with people as best as we can.”

Texas Baptists also are coordinating with Texas Baptist Men in the construction of two wound care clinic—one in Grace Goave and one in Delmas 28, which is part of Port-Au-Prince. These clinics will provide follow-up care for people who were injured in the earthquake and for other on-going health care needs. In addition, the medical professionals who staff the clinics will train some of the local people in proper wound care so this assistance can continue eve after there are no medical staff on site.

“The needs are just so immense,” Shehane said. “How do you decide what to do? You can’t do it all. Even together, we can’t do it all. You just have to take your slice and decide: ‘This is what we’re going to work on. This is where we can help to make a difference.’”

The Baptist General Convention of Texas is coordinating mission trips to the Grand-Goâve area of Haiti, 2.5 hours from Port-au-Prince. Chaplains, counselors, builders, doctors, nurses, eye doctors and any willing hard workers are needed for rebuilding projects and other mission opportunities.

Trip dates are June 26-July 3, July 10-17, Aug. 21-28, Sept. 4-11, Oct. 9-16, and Nov. 13-20. Trip costs are $40 per day, plus airfare, and include meals, water, tents, showers and toilet facilities. The BGCT is offering grants to assist with airfare to Haiti. Contact Marla Bearden at (888) 244-9400 for more information.

MIDLOTHIAN—Crystal, a high school senior trying to juggle classes and living on her own since she was 15, was exhausted from working late hours at a fast-food restaurant and was ready to drop of school until an adult mentor came her way.  

In August 2009, Crystal agreed to participate in Movement Towards a Future, a mentoring program at Midlothian High School. The initiative was started through First Baptist Church and a partnership with Texas Baptists made possible through the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

The program enlisted adults from eight Midlothian churches to spend one hour a week with students at risk of not completing high school, encouraging them toward graduation, holding them accountable for grades and helping them dream about their future and see their potential.

Crystal was paired with Pam Poole, a member at First Baptist Church. At their first meeting, Poole discovered they shared a distant relative, a connection that put Crystal at ease and enabled her to open up to Poole.

“I could see how God had gone before her,” Poole said. “Immediately, we were connected and bonded.”

As Poole spent weeks with Crystal, she began to see how many students have no one to speak truth to them, to show them that they are capable of a better future and let them know they are loved and special. This realization pushed Poole to do whatever it took to help Crystal graduate from high school and to help her see that she is valued.

“You don’t realize how many children are out there with no covering,” Poole said. “They have no one to get them breakfast, help them with homework and encourage them.”

For Dena Petty, director of the Movement Towards a Future, loving students and helping them through their struggles—whether anger issues, drugs, lack of motivation or a rough family life—is living out the hope of Christ before the students’ eyes.

“I really feel that mentoring is the gospel,” Petty said. “It is one soul caring for another soul, one-on-one. It is giving someone hope each week, consistently showing up. I am only here to love you unconditionally and show you how to have a better life the best way I know how.”

Alyssa Threatt spends time with her mentor, attorney Susan McMillon.

Although the mentors were not allowed to share their faith openly unless a student directly asked since the initiative was coordinated by the school system, mentors had many opportunities to live out their faith. Many did this through being consistent in their presence and speaking words of hope to each student—words many at-risk students hadn’t heard before.

“On Sunday mornings at church, we are told to get out there and make a difference but many of us don’t know how,” Petty said. “Many (students) will not step foot in our churches. So, this is a way to show them who Christ is and meet them where they are. “

More than 60 mentors committed to meet with their assigned student for an hour during a school day for 28 weeks. As the bond between the mentor and student continued, many invested more time out of their love for the students.

“Two hours of my week changed a girl’s life for a lifetime,” Poole said. “Eight hours a month—one workday a month—made a difference in someone’s life.”

In the process of helping the students, Petty discovered 11 students in the program were homeless. Soon. she and the mentors not only became encouragers, but also resource connectors, helping the students find places to live, food to eat, jobs to provide for themselves and the necessities to survive and complete high school.

On May 4, more than 120 mentors, students and teachers gathered at Midlothian Conference Center for a luncheon and entertainment by the Midlothian High School hip-hop club to celebrate the 50 students who completed a year of mentoring. Through the program, the students completed another year of school, with nine of the 12 graduating seniors making plans to attend a community college or university, something they had not thought possible in the past.

“We had stories of one kid making Fs and Ds. His mom was drunk by 3 p.m. every day. Then he had an older brother who dropped out. Then just all the sudden, he decided to take the direction that the mentor showed him and he is making all As and Bs now,” Petty said.

Above all, Petty said, she and the mentors don’t get involved just to see students succeed in their high school careers. They get involved because they love Christ and they are called to share his hope with others.

 “We don’t do this to make a difference in the lives of others,” Petty said. “Otherwise, we will be extremely frustrated. We do this because we are called. Love the students right there where they are and let God do the rest.”

The mentoring program will continue next year through the support of First Baptist Church and the Mary Hill Davis Offering. Petty hopes to expand the program by recruiting 25 more mentors as next year the program will include any high school students instead of just upperclassmen. One Midlothian middle school already has asked to be added to the program, but Petty is still searching for funding for this expansion.

“I would love for this to grow and be in every school,” Petty said. “The people who mentor, they are so blessed. The students involved, they are so blessed. It is the way God intended it. All the doors are open in the schools for this to happen, we just need to get in there.”

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (ABP) — For most of the globe outside the United States, it’s like the Super Bowl plus the NCAA Basketball Tournament plus the World Series plus the Olympics, all in one event.

And Baptists in South Africa and elsewhere are preparing for ministry opportunities surrounding the FIFA World Cup, which begins June 11 in South Africa. The 32-team tourney is scheduled to last a month, with a championship match July 11 in Johannesburg.

South African Baptists have planned a host of ministry opportunities around the quadrennial international soccer tournament — from screenings of matches in local churches to sponsorship of children’s soccer tournaments to the publication of a special outreach-oriented newspaper at World Cup events, according to the Baptist World Alliance.

Eastside Community Church in Pretoria, South Africa, sponsors a year-long internship program for young Christian leaders called Ignite the Flame. The program focuses on developing the outreach of smaller and under-resourced congregations through the interns, and in 2010 it has had a special focus on developing ministries and partnerships around the World Cup events.

According to the church’s website, they include developing a soccer academy, ministry to local schools and helping churches around South Africa implement a soccer-themed Holiday Club (the term often used for Vacation Bible School-like ministries in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire) program.

“With the prospect of hundreds of thousands of international visitors arriving for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in June 2010, the South African church is uniquely placed to impact many for Christ,” according to a statement from the church. “Not only can the lives of international visitors be touched, but also locals, particularly those who love ‘the beautiful game.’“

Among the Ignite interns are a group of Virginia Baptists who will help lead soccer clinics and direct other children’s-ministry events with a soccer theme.

Brazilian Baptists have sent a team of approximately 180 volunteers, led by Marcos Grava, the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s sports-ministry coordinator. They’ll work as part of the Africa Connection 2010 program — a partnership between the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s World Missions Board and the Brazilian Coalition of Sports Ministry, in cooperation with the Baptist Seminary of Theology in Sao Paulo.

Members of the Brazilian team will serve in several ministry roles near many of the stadiums around the country hosting World Cup matches. They include leading sporting events, personal evangelism, directing Vacation Bible Schools, seminars and evangelistic meetings in local churches and providing medical and dental care.

BMS World Mission, the missions arm of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, already sponsored a Nicaraguan team in a soccer tournament, held in March in South Africa, for street children. The Deloitte Street Child World Cup was designed to call attention to the plight of the world’s poverty-stricken children, often forced to fend for themselves when they lose their parents or guardians.

During the World Cup festivities, BMS is offering a series of soccer-related video resources — including testimonies from Christian soccer stars — to churches to use as outreach devices. Called Onside 2010, the stars interviewed include famous footballers Kaka, Marcos Senna, Cyrille Dormoraud and legendary British soccer broadcast commentator John Motson.

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

Related resources:

Eastside Community Church Ignite the Flame trailer

BMS World Mission Onside 2010 promotional trailer

ATLANTA (ABP) — As part of its ongoing earthquake response efforts in Haiti, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has signed a memorandum of understanding — representing an official partnership — with the Convention Baptiste d’Haiti .

Emmanuel Pierre, general secretary of the Convention Baptiste d’Haiti, and CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal, sign a memorandum of understanding representing an official three-year partnership between the Convention and the Fellowship. Gedeon Eugene, standing, is the Haitian group’s executive director and was also present for the signing. (CBF/Carla Wynn Davis)

CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal signed the agreement with leadership from the Haitian convention in Atlanta in May. The organizations agreed to a three-year development strategy, including partnerships in medical ministry, restoration and development and micro-enterprise.

“I'm grateful for all that God is doing to meet the needs of our Haitian brothers and sisters as CBF works in concert with our partners at the Haiti Baptist Convention,” said CBF Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash. “We're committed to ministry in Haiti over at least a three-year period of time, understanding that real healing can only occur as we move beyond a band-aid approach to work that truly transforms the lives of the Haitian people.”

A base camp for Fellowship relief efforts has been established in the community of Grand Goave, southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and among the worst hit by the devastating Jan. 12 quake.

Tim Brendle, a retired Virginia pastor and former missionary to Haiti, has been coordinating CBF’s relief efforts in Grand Goave and has been joined by Tori Wentz, one of the group’s medical field personnel. In the northern areas of the country, CBF field personnel Nancy and Steve James, who are co-appointed with American Baptist Churches USA, are continuing their medical ministry.

Since the quake, more than $1.18 million has been given to the Fellowship’s Haiti earthquake response, which includes new initiatives such as counseling earthquake survivors.

Recently Reid Doster, a pastoral counselor and coordinator of CBF of Louisiana, and David Lane, counseling program coordinator and professor of counseling at Mercer University, traveled to Haiti to lay groundwork for a new program to train Haitians to provide post-traumatic-stress counseling to earthquake victims. Ultimately, Lane hopes to develop a training model that can be easily taught by Haitians to Haitians.

“Essentially, we would train trainers, who can teach fellow Haitians lay counseling,” Lane said. “We see this as something that can be very meaningful for a group of hurting people.”

Haitians build the foundation and walls for one of the houses being built through CBF partner Conscience International. (CBF/Tim Brendle)

Mercer’s Ha Van Vo, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is also working with the Fellowship in Haiti, designing and fitting low-cost prosthetics for earthquake victims. More than 20 people have been measured for prosthetics and have begun the fitting process.

Other ongoing CBF recovery efforts in Haiti include:

–Meeting needs for food and temporary shelter, including distributing food and tarps through CBF partner Conscience International. Near Cap Haitien, where the Jameses minister, His Nets donated 1,000 family-size mosquito nets to Haitian families.

–Rebuilding orphanages.

–Developing low-cost ways to harvest and treat water, making it safe to drink and use in agriculture. A specialized drilling unit has been purchased and is being transported to Haiti, where it will allow local residents to drill for water.

–Micro-enterprise efforts including savings and credit associations, vocational training for women and business development. Key leaders will be trained to use a successful micro-enterprise model from Ethiopia.

–Building earthquake-resistant housing through Fellowship partners such as Conscience International and the Fuller Center for Housing, which can construct a single family home for $3,000. Already, Conscience International and local residents have laid the foundation for the first house.

More than 100 volunteers have served in Haiti through the Fellowship, ABCUSA and Conscience International. Though medical and construction teams are scheduled through the end of the year, more volunteers are needed. To volunteer for a medical or construction team in Haiti, send an e-mail to engage@thefellowship.info.

–Carla Wynn Davis writes for CBF communications.