NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — July 17 marked the 20th birthday of Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service created by and for Baptists interested in a free press during a tumultuous time within the Southern Baptist Convention.

On July 17, 1990, the SBC Executive Committee voted in executive session to fire the two top editors of Baptist Press. The committee chairman said it was because members believed coverage was biased against conservatives that over the course of a decade had gained majorities on most of the convention's boards of trustees.

Upon learning he had lost his job as news editor, Dan Martin, 51, told a crowd of about 200 supporters at the Executive Committee headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., that leaders of the denomination wanted to replace the journalists at the convention's official news service with "their own minister of information."

"They want someone who will be a 'spin doctor,' who's going to put the spin on stories the way they want them," Martin predicted.

R.G. Puckett, editor of Biblical Recorder, news journal of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, called it "a day to live in Baptist infamy." He wrote about it on its anniversary every year until his retirement in 1998.

"Never in my many years in Baptist life have I witnessed something so unchristian and non-Baptistic," Puckett recalled.

Jeff Mobley, a Nashville attorney and member of the city's First Baptist Church, followed the firings with announcement of a new autonomous news service "guided by the highest tenet of professional journalism and the standard of Christian ethics."

Mobley, who at the time had been practicing law for fewer than 10 years, said he was asked out of the blue to help a new Baptist entity that needed to be incorporated in Tennessee. He met with a small group of Baptist state paper editors and others who had set into motion weeks earlier the idea for an alternative Baptist press.

David Wilkinson blows out candles on a birthday cake celebrating the news services 20th anniversary at a reception during the recent CBF General Assembly in Charlotte.

"I can't tell you why, but they decided that I would read the Declaration of Independence on behalf of the organization there in the auditorium of the Executive Committee building," said Mobley, who joined the founding board of directors as legal counsel and was elected as chair in 1994.

Editors defend 'free religious press'

The Southern Baptist Press Association, an organization of Baptists newspapers in state conventions affiliated with the SBC that 44 years earlier had been instrumental in establishing Baptist Press, immediately endorsed the concept.

A month before, at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans, Martin and his boss, Baptist Press director Al Shackleford, were told their services would no longer be required. The men were advised to resign quietly — with severance benefits — or be fired. They chose to announce the threat June 26, 1990, in an article in Baptist Press.

The Executive Committee announced a special called meeting — the first in a quarter-century — to "consider the termination" of the editors. The state paper editors convened an emergency meeting July 6-7 in Dallas, where they adopted a resolution decrying the attempt "to suppress a free religious press."

Later a smaller group met informally to discuss the need for an alternative to Baptist Press. Bob Terry, at the time editor of Missouri's Word and Way and now at the Alabama Baptist, secured Floyd Craig, who owned a communications and marketing business with his wife, Anne, to begin producing Associated Baptist Press issues beginning that fall.

Craig said he was interested because of his longtime friendship with and admiration of W.C. Fields, the longtime director of Baptist Press who built a reputation among the secular journalists establishing the Southern Baptist news service as the nation's best in modeling openness, integrity and professional journalism.

"It really was a no-brainer for us to deal with ABP," Craig recalled. "It was a moment that the integrity of BP was destroyed after years."

A news service is born

The inaugural issue, dated Sept. 26, 1990, announced that the first issue of ABP was being sent to about 50 outlets mostly by fax. Craig, a veteran communicator who had worked for the SBC Christian Life Commission from 1967 to 1979 and for the governor of North Carolina before moving back to Nashville to start his own business, selected Martin as interim news director.

"For 10 years I have had the best journalism job in the Southern Baptist Convention," Martin said after being fired July 17 by Baptist Press. "Even if I had known the outcome, I would have come, because it has been a wonderful ride."

The emotional high was short-lived. By December Craig wrote directors reporting that the results of his fund-raising efforts fell short of the amount he had billed them for hourly fees. That set off a discussion that eventually ended ABP's relationship with Craig and Associates.

"Several of the board members felt the bills we submitted were excessive," said Anne Craig, who worked alongside her husband as ABP's copy editor.

"Nobody believes you when you say it took 'X hours' to do so-and-so," Floyd Craig added.

Directors began looking for a full-time executive editor. They removed "interim" from Martin's news director title, leading him to believe he was being considered for the job.

Even though he had violated their gag order, the Executive Committee gave Martin six months of severance pay, anyway. It was about to run out, so Martin needed a job. After being told he was told he had been too political and vocal in the SBC controversy to be editor, Martin wrote a letter to directors describing the experience as more painful than his firing the previous summer from Baptist Press.

The Warner years

The board turned to Greg Warner, electing the 36-year-old associate editor of the Florida Baptist Witness and award-winning writer as ABP's first full-time employee effective May 1, 1991.

"I am excited about the future of ABP with a journalist such as Greg Warner on board, Charles Overby, the news organization's founding board chair, said at the time. "I am impressed by his ability and attitude."

Under Warner, ABP achieved financial stability, expanded staff and earned a good reputation among secular journalists following the SBC controversy, one of the top religion stories of the 1990s.

Warner left the job in 2008, when chronic back problems forced him into disability retirement at age 53. Last fall the organization honored Warner by naming him first recipient of a lifetime achievement award established in his name.

Changing times, changing audience

"ABP's board of directors has tried over the past 10 years to find the appropriate outlet for its objective news coverage of Baptists," said Dan Lattimore, the current chair of the ABP board. "The state Baptist papers had been the initial users of our content. However, most state Baptist papers have become controlled by fundamentalists of their conventions. It has become a much less viable outlet for ABP."

Desiring to expand a reader base beyond its original audience of Baptist and secular newspapers, ABP launched FaithWorks, a lifestyle magazine aimed at young Christians in 1998.

While "a good quality product," Lattimore said ABP lacked resources to market and distribute the magazine widely enough to make it financially feasible. Directors suspended publication in 2004.

Present and future

In 2007 Associated Baptist Press entered into a strategic partnership three historic Baptist state newspapers in an initiative called New Voice Media. Currently the partners — ABP, the Baptist Standard of Texas, Religious Herald in Virginia and Word and Way in Missouri — collaborate on news coverage and design.

Long-term goals include a state-of-the-art multi-media platform including web, print and other media — an "online gathering place for historic and progressive Baptists and other global Christians to share ideas."

"With the increasing use of electronic media by our constituents, we feel this will provide the best outlet for the future," Lattimore said.

In 2008 ABP hired David Wilkinson, a veteran Baptist communicator of 30 years, as executive director, separating the administration and day-to-day news operation that had been combined in Warner's job.

Looking back

Floyd Craig said his original vision for ABP was that it would be a much larger and more influential organization than it has become, on par with Baptist Press during the W.C. Fields era as the news service of record for the secular press. With so many secular newspapers downsizing or eliminating their own religion reporting, however, Craig said a reputable Baptist news service is needed as much today as ever.

"I guess the story is sort of the day the world came tumbling down and they fired [the Baptist Press editors], there were people who rose up and did the right thing and carried on," said Anne Craig. "That was the intent."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The National Association of Evangelicals and Evangelical Environmental Network set aside Sunday, July 18, as a "National Day of Prayer for the Gulf."

Mitch Hescox, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said he realized a national day of prayer was needed after traveling to the Gulf area a few weeks ago and visiting with fisherman concerned about their future.

"Real people, everyday people, will continue to be ravaged in the aftermath of Deep Water Horizon," Hescox said. "We realize that the oil spew may be ending, but the affects will last for decades."

"Today is a beginning, a new day in prayer, thanksgiving and hope for this human caused disaster," he continued. "The beginning starts where it should start by seeking God in prayer in the National Day of Prayer for the Gulf. This day focuses on how, we the American church, came together with God’s children in the Gulf and His creation that is desperately groaning."

"The BP Oil Spill is a slow onset disaster," the National Association of Evangelicals said in a statement on its website. "As oil continues to spew into the Gulf, the ocean currents spread poisons over a larger and larger area. Oil has invaded the marshes destroying entire ecosystems of living organisms. Even attempts to clean up the mess have created new problems. Those hired for the cleanup are being subjected to health hazards. The dispersants used to break up the oil are themselves toxic and may be causing long-term damage to the ocean life — fish, shrimp, oysters, and crabs — on which coastal residents depend for food and livelihood."

"As Christians, we are compelled to respond to those hurting from the disaster, and our first response is prayer," the statement continued. "The NAE asks its churches to observe July 18, 2010 as the National Day of Prayer for the Gulf by setting aside time in their weekend services to pray for the people of the Gulf, the Lord's intervention and deliverance, and the impacts of the oil spill on God's creation."

Hescox also announced "The 100,000² Initiative," a goal to connect 100,000 churches with 100,000 hurting Gulf families. He said a game plan for matching up congregations and families would be forthcoming.

In the meantime, Hescox suggested that Christians with vacations planned for the Gulf not cancel or change their plans. "We encourage you to have a sacrificial vacation in the Gulf to support your brothers and sisters," he said. "They need you."

—Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

RIO GRANDE CITY—What does 48 tons of food look like? To volunteers and families at the Starr County fairgrounds recently, it looked like 4,000 fewer hungry people.

On two consecutive Saturdays, Feeding His Children Ministries International, Harvest Fellowship Ministries and their partners distributed 96,000 pounds of food to people displaced by violence near the Texas-Mexico border.

Phillip Brandon, founder of Feeding His Children Ministries, organized the event and coordinated it with Bob Georgia, founder of Harvest Fellowship Ministries.

Feeding His Children Ministries International, Harvest Fellowship Ministries and other partners distributed 96,000 pounds of food at the Starr County fairgrounds in Rio Grande City to people displaced by violence near the Texas-Mexico border. (PHOTOS/Courtesy of Phillip Brandon)

The food distribution was in response to a call for help Brandon received.

“We had a pioneer family from Rio Grande City that called and said, ‘We have so many people that are fleeing from the violence,’” Brandon said. “I said, ‘If you’re going to get food, we’re going to share the gospel with people.’ They said that was fine, so I drove up and started looking for places to have the event.”

Brandon recruited the help of local people to secure permission to use the Starr County fairgrounds. At the event, volunteers passed out tickets to families as they arrived. Families filled out their tickets, and other volunteers determined how much food to distribute based on the household’s size.

They had a good turnout both weekends—460 families the first Saturday and 550 the second, Brandon said.

“That converts to over 4,000 people,” he said. “We sent another 100 families some food into Mexico.”

Brandon asked Raul Hernandez, a longtime friend and member of Yorktown Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, for help at the event. Hernandez and others from the church collected food donations and volunteered their time at the first weekend event.

Hundreds line up to receive food in Rio Grande City. (PHOTOS/Courtesy of Phillip Brandon)

“We took sugar and cooking oil to supplement a lot of canned goods” supplied by Feeding His Children and Harvest Fellowship, Hernandez said. “We took enough for about 700 families that we were able to provide for.”

Brandon received a truckload of donated yogurt that weighed in at about 36,000 pounds. Wal-Mart donated the transportation that delivered the yogurt to the site.  Rick Caywood Ministries Chihuahuan Connection also helped make the food distribution possible by donating transportation services to deliver food to Rio Grande City from FHC’s warehouse space in McAllen.

First Baptist Church in Weslaco served by organizing a worship service at the first Saturday event.

“We did the service that included praising, prayer time and the sermon,” said Guillermo Lopez, pastor at First Baptist in Weslaco. “My estimation was that we had at least 300 people in the service. At the end of the service when we made the altar call, we estimated that around 70 were saved and gave their lives to Jesus.”

The following Saturday, Pastor Jose Cuevas of Escobares Baptist Church in Escobares delivered a message.

“We had 61” professions of faith that day, Brandon said. “There were 60 during the event and then a 14-year-old boy that one of the team leaders for my organization led to the Lord afterward.”

This event was not the first of its kind for Brandon and his organization, but it was his first to organize in the United States. He said he often does similar events in Mexico.

“We’re funded by the Lord,” he said. “There’s really no rhyme nor reason to where the funding comes from. Individuals give. Different churches give. The food is donated by different entities. It’s not donated by any one group, but nonprofits and many sources send food.”

For more information about Feeding His Children Ministries International, e-mail Phillip Brandon at feedinghischildren@yahoo.com. 

Christ’s Great Commission—to share the gospel with people of every language, nationality and culture—calls Christians to find ways to penetrate unreached areas.

Planting new churches in places where none exists, or in specific cultural contexts, can result in changed lives and the expansion of God’s kingdom.

Planting as process

The sheer number of possible interest, age, language and specialized groups means the potential for thousands of models that could be used when starting a new congregation. That’s why the Baptist General Convention of Texas uses a process with specific expectations but with enough flexibility to adapt to each new work’s context.

“The philosophy that drives church planting is that churches start churches. We have truly gone back to that philosophy,” said Paul Atkinson, Texas Baptists’ director of church starting.

That approach requires every individual who wants to plant a church to find a congregation—not a network or a group of churches—but a church willing to sponsor it. Networks and groups of churches can partner with the new start, but the church planter must have one primary sponsor.

Atkinson sees two types of church planters—those who have a vision or a passion for a particular people group and those who have a planting style and look for a group to reach with that style. Regardless of approach, each planter is required to find his or her primary sponsor before beginning a new work with BGCT assistance.

“It’s kind of his first test. If he can’t find one, he’s not going to be able to lead laypeople … and the church is not going to make it,” Atkinson said. “Who we’re really partnering with is the sponsor church. It’s the hardest line we hold.”

The primary sponsor signs a church-planting covenant and is the one responsible for that church start, Atkinson said. A sponsor representative also must attend each strategic planning session.

The sponsor must sign off on all major transitions, such as when a church calls a pastor or other staff member. In the case of a planter of a different nationality, the sponsoring church must hold the immigration papers and is responsible to know the planter’s legal status.

Planting as individuals

The Baptist General Convention of Missouri also stresses the churches-starting-churches process but generally sees more individuals who feel called to begin a new congregation.

“I think churches starting churches is the healthiest way—a church or a cluster of churches starting another church,” noted Owen Taylor, BGCM church planting team leader.

Sometimes a group of people who live in an unchurched area will see the need and feel led to plant a church there, he added.

“But we’re seeing more individuals who say, ‘I want to be a church planter,’” Taylor said. “Even if a church starts the new church, … it still comes down to seeing an individual who acts and who is the leader.”

Planting as matrix

The Baptist General Association of Virginia relies on a matrix or combination of approaches to plant new churches, depending upon context. “Church planting is a means to an end—to impact spiritual lostness,” explained Wayne Faison with Virginia Baptists.

“It is the most effective evangelism strategy in whatever expression,” he added. “Our idea is: What is its (the specific approach’s) effect on spiritual lostness.”

The team works with the church planter and the new work’s partners to understand the area’s needs and the underlying passion for a specific new start.

“We try not to think of it as church planting … but more as launching,” Faison said. “It is not for us to come in as a mothering church … but to figure out how can we get the dream to become reality … launching it out and expanding it.”

The term “church planting” conjures up agricultural images to which many people might not relate, Faison said. While everyone involved in starting a new church understands the hard work involved, his team prefers to use “church launching.”

“We think of it in terms of the Fourth of July,” he added.

The Virginia Baptist convention provides coaching for every planter, association or church that wants to start a new work and assessments of church planters and spouses. The team recruits church starters for unreached areas of the state and provides a variety of training.

Planting as partnership

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship focuses on partnership—with a state CBF body, a local church and a core group with an identified leader. “We believe that church planting is part of a missional expression of what it means to be church,” said Bo Prosser, coordinator for congregational formation.

“It takes all of us to nurture and grow a new work. We partner with these groups, sharing mentoring roles, sharing responsibilities for support and pooling our resources.”

Partnership encourages churches to participate in God’s mission, CBF’s understanding of being “missional.”

“We believe God calls churches to start churches. We believe CBF’s role is to partner with churches to help them catch this vision,” Prosser added.

Planting as discipleship

The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board offers materials and assistance to set up church planting centers in areas or regions to help create “environments where multiple disciples are intentionally selected, developed and sent to make disciples which results in new churches,” according to its website, Church Planting Village.

NAMB stresses building relationships and generally works through its state conventions and NAMB-appointed missionaries for its church planting efforts.

Its process may evolve as changes are implemented under recommendations made by the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence task force and adopted at the convention’s annual meeting in June. One of those changes may allow the convention’s International Mission Board to minister to international people groups residing in the United States.

ROCKWALL—Andrew Daugherty sees success where others might only have glimpsed failure when Christ Church Baptist in Rockwall ceased to exist as a congregation four years after it launched.

Should the death of a new church be considered a failure? That depends on the definition of success. Estimates of church plant failures range from less than 2 percent to as great as 80 percent, depending upon the study.

“I think we have to really define ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in context,” Bo Prosser, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship coordinator for congregational formation, explained.

“If success is simply replicating what we already have, very few of us will mirror success. The times are too fluid and the contexts too diverse.

“If failure is when the church no longer meets, that is simply too narrow. The new work is impacting the faith of those who’ve been alienated from organized religion. It is engaging those who for too long sat dormant in a pew.”

Wayne Faison, leader of the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s Courageous Churches team, defines success in terms of relationships. The new church has a stronger chance of becoming a planting church itself if it concentrates on building relationships first.

“The main thing is not to launch a church in isolation. Provide a support system that includes money, training, relationships, being sensitive to the context and being aware of the changes in the expression of church,” Faison said.

When church leaders and members—even in a new work—recognize the organized expression of their faith must end, they can do so with “dignity and class and grace” just as Christ Church Baptist did, Daugherty believes. “We truly believed (that) as a church, we had fulfilled the mission God gave us.”

Daugherty, who had been a pastoral resident at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, served as founding pastor for the new church with Wilshire as the sponsoring congregation. The plant targeted church dropouts in an area overshadowed by a megachurch and several smaller Baptist congregations.

“It’s an area with no church presence like we brought to it,” George Mason, Wilshire’s senior pastor, explained. “In the shadow of a big megachurch … and with the other churches almost all conservative in nature, we thought there might be a vein of moderates. There are moderates, but a lot had given up on church.”

The new church’s God-given mission, Daugherty believes, was to reach those who felt some Christians had judged them or had reacted with spitefulness. Many left their churches because of the demands of committee and other responsibilities, and others because of poor pastoral leadership.

“We were able to connect with so many of these open-minded and open-hearted people who found community again. It was real grace,” he said.

Christ Church began with a handful of people meeting in Daugherty’s living room and help from Wilshire Baptist, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the CBF. And it grew, eventually outgrowing the living room and moving to an elementary school cafeteria and then to a local private music studio.

But it could not keep pace with economic realities. Daugherty described it as a “locally owned Mom and Pop” restaurant trying to keep pace with a franchised place.

“And of course, the Great Recession had a real impact on us the past year or so,” he said.

Members committed the last 10 weeks of the church’s life to using its resources to love God, grow in faith and serve others.

“If there’s a good way to close a church, I think we did it. And the other miracle of it is that we were able to end well and all walk away as friends who loved each other to the very end. That sounds like gospel to me,” Daugherty said.

“Failure would have been not having the courage to plant a church in the first place.”

The missional church and emergent church movements are sweeping through many aspects of religious life—including church planting. While both most often are tagged as movements, they also function as foundations for birthing new congregations.

“It’s easier to start with missional DNA than to transition an established church,” said Milfred Minatrea, director of the Irving-based Missional Church Center.

Most of the literature about the missional church movement seems to focus on transitioning—usually focusing on established congregations seeking to become more relevant and develop a more outward focus. Minatrea spends about 85 percent of his time working with transitioning churches.

But, he believes, the missional movement’s strength is in new church plants. “They have a greater chance of success. … They are more adept at getting new believers to see themselves as God’s missionaries,” he said, which is the missional DNA—focusing outward.

Minatrea points to NorthWood Church for the Communities in Keller as a church that started with missional DNA and birthed several congregations. The church also is a training ground and network for church planters.

NorthWood’s pastor, Bob Roberts, has written several books, including The Multiplying Church, and is recognized as a leader in church multiplication. Roberts repeatedly emphasizes throughout the book that churches start churches.

He notes that as the movement has become popularized, the word “missional” has lost its original intent. In a blog post that also appears in his book, Roberts wrote, “When it (‘missional’) first came around, it communicated ‘missions is who I am and who we are as a people. …’

“A better word for ‘missional’ today is ‘relevance.’ Most people using this are saying we are living incarnationally in our community. …

“So what is ‘missional’? It’s living incarnationally beyond your own culture. … Living in your own culture is a given. I don’t think you are really missional unless you are four steps removed from your own culture.”

Often described as missional, All Souls Church, a Baptist General Association of Virginia-affiliated congregation in Charlottesville, has grown from its start as a house church in 2009 to include several “small communities,” said Winn Collier, one of the church’s founders. Those small communities are embedded contextually in several communities.

“I think All Souls could be viewed as a missional church, and many would describe us that way,” he said.

Although they do not use the description themselves, they want to be part of God’s redemptive mission. “God is always on mission to love and restore. We hope we are joining in that,” Collier said.

The church sees its context as “all sorts of people” but particularly is drawn to “cultural creatives … people who are artistic, progressive, socially conscious and spiritually open, though at times antagonistic toward organized church,” it notes on its website.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship expresses and acts on its missional imperative to be the presence of Christ. “From a missional perspective, we encourage every church to be part of a new work,” explained Bo Prosser, CBF coordinator for congregational formation.

“Participating in God’s mission is our understanding of being missional. We believe God calls churches to start churches. We believe CBF’s role is to partner with churches to help them catch this vision.”

The missional movement as an approach to church planting has gained momentum for three reasons, Minatrea said.

First, younger church planters see the missional approach as more relevant. “They naturally have an affinity…to gravitate toward it,” he said.

Second, “churches that start as missional churches value reproduction,” he added.

And third, it crosses denominational lines.

“What was heavily Baptist and Presbyterian early on has spread across to other denominations. … Others are seeing the heartbeat,” he said.

Although most often characterized as an emergent movement, the Acts 29 Network calls itself a “trans-denominational peer-to-peer network of missional church-planting churches.”

While it emphasizes churches planting churches, its training and networking focus on church planters. The network also partners with congregations that want to begin new work, assisting them with training and resources.

The network focuses on church planting across denominational lines but partners only with church planters who agree with its theological position—Christian, evangelical, missional and reformed.

The Acts 29 Network offers assessment of individuals who believe God is calling them to become church planters, and its training “boot camps” are open to the public.

It reaches across global boundaries as well, providing “boot camps” and other training and assistance in other countries.

Regardless of the method or process used to start them, all new church plants have one thing in common—the need for money.

Sometimes a church planter will raise enough money through individual donations or start with a handful of people who are able to contribute enough financially to meet start-up needs.

Some Christian organizations and networks offer loans, partial funding or help in finding sponsors or ministry partners. For example, the Acts 29 Network helps connect church planters with churches or individuals who want to assist financially.

But for Baptists, many new starts rely on denominational resources, either through partner churches, the local association or the state convention. Some, such as the Baptist General Association of Virginia, provide salary assistance for a determined period. Others help with resource costs, such as Sunday school or other training literature or music. Some offer low-cost loans or other assistance for facilities.

Build in giving

Some organizations and denominational entities are building a “giving gene” into their new work’s DNA as they help start the congregation.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship trusts the new church to develop as an affiliate from the beginning. “We enter into (a) covenant asking the church to support CBF missions and to work within the mission and vision of the Fellowship,” Coordinator for Congregational Formation Bo Prosser explained. “We try to instill the CBF DNA, our core values, into the new work from the very beginning.”

Virginia Baptists offer several types of grants to new starts, but it primarily takes a 50-50 matching approach. The church is required to help fund itself through member contributions and/or other partners. As the church becomes self-supporting, the state body can use funds for other new work, and the new church is encouraged to help start another.

“We are looking for multiplication,” Wayne Faison of the Baptist General Association of Virginia noted.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas requires the new work to give to the Cooperative Program. “We teach percentage giving,” explained Paul Atkinson, Texas Baptists’ director of church starting.

The BGCT usually receives what it invests in a new church launch, except some language or other targeted work, within three years. “It’s kind of like teaching tithing to a child. When he’s older and has a career, he’s still giving 10 percent,” Atkinson said.

Bo Prossor

According to its facts page, the Acts 29 Network asks each affiliated new congregation to give 10 percent of its general tithes and offerings to other church planting efforts. Instead of sending the money to the Acts 29 Network, churches are asked to use the funds to assist one or more church planters.

The covenant that each church planter must sign encourages new congregations to designate 1 percent of the tithe to the Acts 29 Foundation to be used to expand the network. All giving is voluntary.

Accountability

What happens if a new work accepts money from an entity and then breaks the partnership? The answer depends on how the partnership is established and the relationships developed.

The BGAV requires a church that received grant funds or some other types of resources, such as equipment, to return the money or to make restitution. The BGCT requires any loans to be paid back. The CBF has not faced the issue, Prosser said.

But leaders with all three organizations emphasized building and maintaining strong relationships increases the chances of a new church’s continued affiliation and long-term success.

The BGCT has personnel in the field to meet with and assist church planters. “Proximity leads to contact, which leads to relationship, which leads to partnership, which leads to future funding,” Atkinson said.

Prosser pointed out that regardless of the degree to which CBF assists a new plant, the autonomy of the local church is respected.

“Church planting is kingdom of God work, not a growth campaign,” he said. “We are about facilitating the new work to grow and develop…. We don’t plant a church and then ignore it. We encourage the church planters, … resource the new work, … and mentor and coach the leaders.”

Virginia Baptist leaders first ask themselves: If we take the money off the table, what do we have to offer? “We start with the relationship first,” Faison said. “We establish the relationship before talking about funding.”

ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS)—Lynn Thompson quit paying the mortgage on her investment property—not because she couldn’t afford the payments, but because she thinks walking away is better for her long-term financial health.

Thompson bought the property here for $175,000 in January 2007, just as the housing market began its slow downward slide. At the time, she planned to rent the house and eventually sell it for a profit.

Today, she estimates the house is worth $85,000, maybe less.

Unable to find renters to help cover the mortgage, she tried to convince her lender to allow a “short sale”—selling below the loan amount, with the lender forgiving the balance. When the lender declined, Thompson decided to walk away.

“I would have basically no money left every month if I made the payments,” said Thompson, a single 39-year-old pharmacist. “If I tried to sell the house in, say, 10 years from now, I still would have to come up probably with, say, $75,000.”

Desperate homeowners like Thompson have raised an ethical debate: Is it ever OK to walk away?

Nationwide, up to 25 million homeowners—about one in four—are “underwater.” Like Thompson, their mortgages are worth more than their homes. Those who do walk away face an array of financial consequences, from damaged credit to the prospect of a lender suing to recover the balance. Yet for many, the question fundamentally is a moral one. Is it the right thing to do?

It’s unclear how many homeowners, like Thompson, are opting for strategic defaults—allowing their homes to go into foreclosure even when they can make the payments. Many feel their homes are decades away from regaining value, and they see no other options.

But especially in hard-hit places such as greater Orlando, where 55 percent of homeowners are underwater, the question is nagging at more homeowners, and the number of strategic defaults appears to be rising.

Strategic defaults accounted for 31 percent of all defaults in March, up from 22 percent the year before, according to an April report by Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago.

That doesn’t mean, however, homeowners are walking away without feeling like they violated some ethical or moral code about not buying something they can’t afford. Some are left with a deep sense of debtor’s shame.

Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona whose writings include The Morality of Strategic Default, said more than 80 percent of homeowners still think defaulting on a mortgage is immoral, and those who do it usually make the decision not for financial reasons but emotional ones, he said.

In other words, it takes more than a dismal financial reality to push homeowners to default. Often underwater homeowners feel angry, depressed or hopeless, he said.

“People walk away because they’re angry at their lenders,” he said. “They have been unable to work with them, and the government hasn’t done anything to help underwater homeowners who are trying to make their mortgage payments. If people were acting purely on a rational basis, they would walk away much sooner than they do.”

At the heart of the question are biblical concepts of promise-keeping and neighborliness, said James Childs, theologian and ethicist at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He noted one neighbor’s default can sink another neighbor’s property values.

“The simple answer is we make certain promises when we move into a neighborhood that we’re going to be good neighbors,” said Childs, author of Greed: Economics and Ethics in Conflict. “If my greed … is realized at the expense of my neighbors and I say I’m free to do that, then I’ve missed an ethical point entirely.”

Yet in an economy that rose and fell on the backs of unaffordable mortgages, homeowners aren’t the only ones to blame, ethicists say.

Law professor White believes the housing market and economy could recover more quickly if homeowners could rid themselves of negative equity, allowing housing prices to hit bottom faster. The longer homeowners remain underwater, the longer they feel poor and spend less money. What’s more, a job loss or medical illness could be even more devastating.

For now, Mike Booth will remain in his home in suburban Orlando. He and his wife bought their first home in 2008, two years after they married, for $205,000—a bargain since the house was appraised at $240,000.

Today, he estimates the house would sell for $165,000, but the 30-year-old engineer is taking the long view on what he and his wife call “our little castle.”

“We’ve entered into a binding moral contract,” said Booth. “Really, we don’t think about it being underwater. It’s kind of like being in a long-term investment, and tracking it daily doesn’t make sense.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—As Jaime Jamgochian performs concerts and leads worship around the country, she communicates to teenage girls messages about modesty, purity and self-worth.

“I really want young girls to be who God created them to be and to believe that they are fearfully and wonderfully made,” Jamgochian said. 

“That really comes out of being true to who Christ says we are and our identity in him. Modesty, purity and self-worth really come into the light when we really know who Jesus says we are, and we experience the hope and love that he has to offer through a relationship with him.”

Musician Jaime Jamgochian designed the popular "Modest is Hottest" T-shirts and started a conference that focuses on teaching young girls how to dress in the latest styles while maintaining modesty.

During Jamgochian’s junior year at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., her life completely changed after a classmate explained what it meant to have a relationship with Christ.

“At the beginning, I kind of thought she was crazy. But I got to see the life that she lived. She had this joy and peace without surrounding herself with the typical college party scene,” she said.

After she graduated, she felt a calling to ministry—to lead worship, write songs and minister to young girls.

“The Lord was restoring so many areas of my life and renewing hope, and I really wanted to share this with others,” she said.

As Jamgochian began leading worship and telling how God had transformed her life, she was asked to team with the Girls of Grace conferences, hosted by the musical group Point of Grace. 

While leading worship for these conferences, Jamgochian was inspired to design a T-shirt with the slogan “Modest is Hottest” to help young girls remember the valuable lessons taught at the conferences. 

Not long after, the overwhelming support and response from both students and parents prompted Jamgochian to establish her own conference, which would focus on instructing girls on how to dress in the latest styles while maintaining modesty.

“After I started selling those shirts, I realized that girls weren’t just buying it because they wanted a cute T-shirt or a souvenir,” Jamgochian said. “They really wanted to support that it’s possible to live a life of modesty that pleases God and still look cute and trendy.”

As Jamgochian leads worship and speaks at the Modest is Hottest conferences, she desires to share the gospel with teenage girls in a fun and relevant way.

The conference is offered as a one- or two-day event and includes praise and worship music, teaching sessions, a fashion show and a concert. During the teaching sessions, Jamgochian talks to teenage girls about how to have discernment in dating situations, family relationships, self-esteem and a personal relationship with God.

“As a teen girl, I was very insecure,” she said. “I was tall with red hair and freckles. I never felt beautiful. It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized true beauty comes from our relationship with Christ.

“I think it’s so easy for young girls to get led astray by the lies of this world and to place their hope in all the wrong areas. I really want to help them realize that there is nothing in this world that will satisfy or compare to having a relationship with Christ. I strongly feel if that relationship is intact, then teen girls won’t be reaching out to the wrong areas to find acceptance and approval.”

At the conferences, Jamgochian and youth leaders spend a great deal of time off the platform, interacting with teenagers and hearing about how God is working in their lives.

“Girls open up and share all kinds of things at these events,” Jamgochian said.  “I’ve heard from girls who lost their virginity at the age of 13 and are asking if God can forgive them. Others have shared about eating disorders, and they are wanting to get to the root of the reasons they are starving themselves or binging.

“At one of the conferences, there was a girl who was struggling with cutting and had been sexually abused as a child. It was remarkable that this girl shared that despite all these terrible things she had been dealing with, she heard a message about the mercy, grace and forgiveness of God.

“She heard the words that she had been desperately searching for—that God loved her and was there for her in the midst of all that pain. It caused her to walk out of that conference so free and understanding who God created her to be. …

“I really stand in awe that God can use someone like me who didn’t grow up in church and didn’t make a lot of right decisions growing up. It shows how the Lord can restore and how he desires to use each and every one of us to bring hope to other people.”

ABILENE—In the front yard of their home on Abilene’s north side, Bill and Janis Altom sprinkle their favorite rub on 75 pounds of brisket, as neighbors several blocks away notice the smoke—and the fragrant aroma of barbecuing beef. Before long, participants in a Bible conference at First Baptist Church will sit down to enjoy the meal the Altoms are preparing.

And at the beginning of the fall semester, the Altoms again will fire up their smoker—this time near the pond at Hardin-Simmons University, cooking hamburgers for a Baptist Student Ministry welcome party.

The Altoms open their home to all Hardin-Simmons University students any time, day or night. Many evenings, students simply drop in to wash clothes or bake a cake at their house.

Bill and Janis Altom both graduated from Hardin-Simmons University—he in 1971 and she in 1969. They live close enough to the campus that students have been known to go to their home just to watch television.

But the Altoms also have a way of bringing their home to the campus. Since 1983, they have baked chocolate-chip cookies for HSU students, delivering them to a cookie jar that now sits in the Connally Missions Center on campus. Next to the cookies is another jar for students to drop in their change when they help themselves to cookies. That change supports BSM summer missions.

In the very first year, the Altoms delivered 1,300 dozen cookies to HSU students, and they have continued to do so the last 28 years.

The practice stated in part because business slows down for the Altoms in the winter, and they have more time.

“Back in 1983, Janis suggested that there might be some volunteer opportunities at the HSU campus,” he said.

Bill Altom delivers to Hardin-Simmons University President Lanny Hall the 10,000th dozen plate of chocolate-chip cookies he and his wife, Janis, have baked for students. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Hardin-Simmons University)

They started helping students who were involved in BSM by going with them on mission trips. That, in turn, sparked the idea for the cookies as an ongoing fundraiser.

The Altoms have been known to turn out as many as 300 dozen cookies in just eight hours.

One year, when the BSM convention was coming to Abilene, the Altoms and 40 HSU students got together to bake enough chocolate chip cookies to give to every student who lived on campus as a reminder to participate in the activities.

The Altoms have kept up with the cookie count on a calendar. Every new month, they put the total number of dozens from the last month at the top of the new month. In April, they delivered their 10,000th dozen to HSU President Lanny Hall.

Ask the Altoms why they have baked cookies for HSU students for so many years, and either will say, “It’s one of the most enjoyable things we do.”

As for the cost, Bill Altom takes it in stride. “I don’t think we’ve suffered for it,” he said. “The Lord just continues to help us stretch our dollars.”

Church attendance inches up, Gallup says. A new Gallup Poll found Americans’ self-reported church attendance has increased slightly since 2008. When asked how often they attend church, synagogue or mosque, 43.1 percent of Americans in 2010 said they attended “at least once a week” or “almost every week.” That’s up a fraction from 42.8 percent in 2009 and 42.1 percent in 2008. Conservatives, non-Hispanic blacks and Republicans demonstrated the highest participation, with 55 percent of each group reporting frequent church attendance. The poll is based on more than 800,000 interviews since February 2008, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Religious groups see slight decrease in giving. Religious organizations reported a 0.7 percent decrease in donations last year, according to a study by Giving USA Foundation, a marked contrast from the 5.5 percent increase in giving reported in 2008. Total donations for all charitable groups in 2009 were down by 3.6 percent. Religious congregations accounted for 33 percent of the total $303 billion in contributions in 2009. This is the third year in a row religious donations have exceeded $100 billion. Donations to public organizations fell by $22.7 billion—a 4.6 percent decline—while international aid organizations received about $9 billion, a 6 percent increase.

Armed security OK in Louisiana churches. Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill that allows guns to be carried into Louisiana houses of worship by members of a congregation’s security force. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Henry Burns, authorizes people with concealed weapons permits to bring firearms to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of an approved security force. The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed and designated as members of the security force. Participants have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year. The bill also allows a house of worship to hire off-duty police or security guards to protect congregants. A state Senate committee killed Burns’ original bill, but later it was tacked on to a related gun-rights bill. The bill is scheduled to take effect Aug. 15.

Jesus will return by 2050? Four in 10 Americans believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth by 2050, while a slightly larger portion—46 percent—don’t believe they’ll see a Second Coming by mid-century, according to a new survey. As part of Smithsonian Magazine’s 40th anniversary issue, 1,546 adults were asked to guess the forecast of war, energy, science and religion in the next 40 years for a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press. Evangelicals were most likely (58 percent) to predict a Second Coming, followed by 32 percent of Catholics and 27 percent of mainline Protestants. Fifty-two percent of people living in the South and 59 percent of people without a college degree expected Christ’s return more readily than their counterparts, according to the survey. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

RICHMOND, Va.—Responding to disasters with immediate and long-term assistance has become a well-established practice of American religious groups, including Baptists, who frequently are almost as visible following devastating earthquakes and hurricanes as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross.

Baptists have developed a sophisticated—and highly regarded—disaster response infrastructure federal and state governments could hardly live without.

But relief workers acknowledge the close working relationship between government and religious agencies may blur the lines of church-state separation, especially when the desperation of victims pushes such concerns to the back burner.

“There may be separation of church and state in government, but in a disaster, we all work together,” FEMA administrator Craig Fugate said.

Baptist disaster relief administrators say they strive to balance appropriate relations with government relief agencies with their commitment to church-state separation, and they work hard to avoid using federal or state funds to proselytize.

“Among both leaders and volunteers, there is a motive and desire to share faith with other people, and that should be a natural outcropping,” said Dean Miller, who coordinates disaster relief for the Baptist General Association of Virginia. “But for most religious organizations that are utilizing any type of federal or state funds, the response to the disaster comes first.”

Most American religious groups participate in Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, a coalition of nonprofits that respond to disasters as part of their overall mission. National VOAD includes as members the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Southern Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches in the USA and the National Baptist Convention, USA. Many Baptist state conventions, including those in Virginia and Texas, affiliate with state VOAD chapters. Mickey Caison, a disaster relief official at the SBC’s North American Mission Board, currently serves as president of VOAD’s 13-member board of directors.

VOAD aims to avoid wasteful duplication of disaster relief efforts and, following a disaster, communication between it and FEMA is a key component of the federal agency’s national response plan.

Last year, VOAD’s membership ratified a set of principles that promises, “Disaster response will not be used to further a particular political or religious perspective or cause.”

“VOAD’s values keep the issue (of church-state separation) on the table,” Miller said. “What I have witnessed at disaster sites, if there’s a prayer or some kind of spiritual sharing, it’s usually at the request of victims. They‘ve come over and said, ‘Will you have a prayer with me,’ or have asked why the volunteers are there. I don’t see any groups making disaster relief a quid pro quo for listening to a sermon or Bible study.”

Charles Ray, one of two disaster relief coordinators for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said he reflects on the question each time the CBF gears up to respond to a disaster.

“One place that I differ with many of our partners is in the distribution of religious tracts during a disaster response,” said Ray. “We do not do it. It is not a question of who paid for the literature, but why are we there?”

Miller acknowledged there will always be “exceptions to the rule.” But he said careful guidelines for allocating federal funds help avoid the worst offenses. Religious groups receive reimbursement for food distribution units from the Red Cross, although the agency receives money from federal agencies, as well as private sources.

“I don’t know of religious groups getting funding directly from government,” Miller said.

Ray is convinced religious groups can maintain a robust neutrality in providing disaster relief, while at the same time accomplishing their mission.

“The beauty of disaster response is that we can leave our theological differences back at the church and find common ground in helping others,” he said. “We can also learn from each other. I am reminded of responding to a major event a few years ago and working beside a non-CBF group of Baptists. On Saturday, I asked the leader of the other group where they would be on Sunday. The quick answer was, ‘In God’s house.’ Then he asked me where we would be and I explained that we would be here helping the folks that had lost everything.

“Early Sunday morning as our team gathered to begin work, I was surprised to see the other group coming down the debris-covered road. I was brought to tears when the leader hugged me and said I had convinced him that this was God’s house. We had a prayer with the bewildered victims and went to work.”