PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (BP)—A blue tarp tied to what is left of Shiloh Baptist Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, serves as a safe haven for some members who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Members of Shiloh Baptist Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which lost four key leaders in the Jan. 12 earthquake, gather outside what’s left of their church building. As church members recount stories of that horrific day, they ask for prayer that God will raise up new leaders to guide their church. (IMB PHOTO/Baptist Press)

A few dozen families who lost their homes are living outside the church under the tarp. The earthquake damaged the building, collapsed the church’s school and took the lives of Pastor Bienne Lamerique and three other church leaders.

One member said that, of the 2,000-member congregation, only 100 have been accounted for since the 7.0 magnitude quake that is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti.

International Mission Board missionaries Dawn Goodwin and Carlos Llambes, Baptists from the Dominican Republic and a missionary from another organization visited Shiloh Baptist and other churches in the area to review damage and encourage members.

Many pews at Shiloh Baptist remain overturned and support beams appear to be damaged. Metal rods in the beams were bent from the shifting weight of the roof during the earthquake. The church building was under construction, so the congregation had been meeting in an open-air auditorium.

Twenty-five-year-old Pierre Anderson and several other church members were in the auditorium when the earthquake hit. A few members were injured, but none seriously, Anderson said. He and the others later learned their pastor and three other church leaders had died in the disaster; Lamerique died of injuries sustained when his house collapsed.

Anderson and a handful of other church members shared their stories with IMB missionary Mark Rutledge Jan. 18. Rutledge, currently on stateside assignment, is in Haiti to help translate for a media team as they report on the damage.

Although some of the walls remain standing, a collapsed roof has made Shiloh Baptist Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, too unsafe to use. Instead, church members gather for daily worship services in a small open lot on the side of the property. (IMB PHOTO/Baptist Press)

“We don’t know where our future leaders will come from,” Anderson told the missionary.

Rutledge paused while translating for Anderson, who speaks French Creole, the heart language of Haitians. He turned and cried for a moment while members of the congregation watched.

“One of their remaining leaders told them that they just need to hold on a little longer,” said Rutledge, who served in Haiti for 26 years.

When Rutledge and his wife, Peggy, began serving as career missionaries in 1987, the couple attended Lamerique’s first church start, which met in a small house in a Port-au-Prince slum. The Rutledges became close friends and prayer partners with Lamerique and his wife.

Anderson also told Rutledge he lost his two sisters in the earthquake. One of the bodies has yet to be pulled from a collapsed building.

His faith is what is getting him through the crisis, Anderson said.

“It’s been the church’s encouragement that has helped give me strength,” Anderson said. The church has been holding services every day outside the building since the quake.

“No matter what happens in life, the only thing that matters is Jesus Christ,” Anderson continued. “If you have faith, he will sustain you.”

“The same God that allowed this to happen can rebuild it,” added Roseman Louis, who lost a cousin and a sister.

For now, the church continues to move forward, but Anderson admits they are struggling for direction and to meet physical needs since water, food and other supplies are limited.

Thousands of displaced people—like members of Shiloh Baptist Church—are living on the streets, in parks and just about anywhere there is open space. Bodies still can be seen lying on the street or partially exposed in the remains of collapsed buildings.

Amid the dire situation, “a revival could happen…,” Rutledge said. “… If the focus is on Jesus, that kind of change can happen … a change that is more than skin deep.

“I think there is huge potential for revival,” Rutledge added. “I believe there is hope.”

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — The head of the Baptist World Alliance has sent a letter of support for the "Baptist family in Malaysia" in light of a rash of attacks on churches since a controversial court ruling that Christians can use the word "Allah" when referring to God.

Malacca Baptist Church was splashed with black paint, Jan. 11. It is one of more than a dozen houses of worship vandalized in the majority-Muslim country since Jan. 8.

"The Baptist World Alliance has learnt, with sorrow, of the difficulties the churches in Malaysia are facing as a result of violent opposition to the use of the term 'Allah' for God by persons who are not Muslims," Neville Callam, general secretary of the global Baptist organization, wrote Jan. 14 to John Kok, a vice president-elect of the BWA and a former president of the Malaysia Baptist Convention.

"We note with concern your government's response to the present crisis and we want you to know that we are joining you in praying for patience and wisdom in the face of the situation in which you find yourselves," Callam said.

Government and religious leaders in Malaysia have roundly denounced the attacks, fearing that increasing political, cultural and religious polarization threaten the nation's reputation as one of the world's most moderate majority-Muslim states. 

Churches of various denominations have been targeted, most hit by Molotov cocktails. On Jan. 12, a Sikh temple had a glass door cracked by stones, making it the first non-Christian house of worship hit. Sikhs also use the term "Allah" to describe God in Punjabi. In apparent retaliation, someone threw a liquor bottle at the outer walls of a mosque in the state of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.

The unrest stems from a Dec. 31 ruling by a judge striking down a three-year-old government rule banning a Catholic newspaper from publishing the word "Allah" to refer to the Christian God.  Judge Lau Bee Lan said Malaysia's Constitution forbids Christians from using the name to proselytize but permits them to use it in their own educational materials.

Callam

The government said the ban was needed to prevent churches from confusing Muslims and enticing them to illegally convert to Christianity. The 60 percent of Malaysia's 28 million people who are Muslims are governed by Sharia law. Non-Muslims, including a 9 percent Christian minority, are governed by civil laws.

The Herald of Malaysia newspaper argued that Malay-speaking Christians have been addressing God as Allah for more than 400 years and that it is the only suitable word for "God" in the language. In other predominantly Muslim countries like Indonesia, Egypt and Syria, Christian minorities freely use the Arabic word to refer to God.

Father Lawrence Andrew, who edits the newspaper, said that in the Christian context, "Allah" refers to the "God the Father" aspect of the Trinity and not to the "one and only God" used by Muslims. 

The ban is the most recent of a number of religious disputes that cause observers to believe the country is adopting an increasingly polarizing interpretation of Islam that could restrict the rights of religious minorities. In 2009 the government confiscated a shipment of 10,000 Bahasa Malaysia-language Bibles from Indonesia because they contained the word "Allah."

The government, meanwhile, has accused Christian church newsletters of delving into politics and degrading Islam. The Herald, for example, received a show-cause letter in 2008 questioning whether an article on America and jihad was derogatory toward Muslims.

The ban on use of "Allah" applied only to the Catholic newspaper's Malay-language edition, read mainly by indigenous tribes who converted to Christianity decades ago. Malaysia's population is about 50 percent Malay, 24 percent Chinese, 7 percent Indian and 11 percent indigenous and others.

Isaac Yim, president of the Malaysia Baptist Convention, told BWA leaders that tensions had calmed somewhat since most of the attacks took place between Jan. 8 and Jan,. 15.

Established in 1953 with five churches, the Malaysia Baptist Convention joined the BWA in 1957. Today it has more than 22,000 Baptist members in 163 congregations as well as a seminary.

"We continue to monitor the situation and we pray for the restoration of peaceful relations among all who seek to honor the call to be children of God," Callam said in his letter to Kok. "We pray God's wisdom on you all as you forge ahead."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

In the wake of last week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, Texas Baptists are mobilizing for service and seeking to multiply efforts when the country’s infrastructure is rebuilt to the point that widespread relief efforts can take place.

Individual Texas Baptists have found a few ways to serve in Haiti. Vivien Ingram, a member of Shiloh Baptist Church in Dallas and recent college graduate who has been home schooling the children of missionaries in Haiti and working in a medical clinic for women, continues meeting needs in Port-Au-Prince.

Despite difficulty moving through cracked roads and a lack of supplies, Ingram and the group she is serving with continues conducting a clinic. At one point in e-mails sent back home, she describes being awake three straight days and suturing wounds until 2 a.m. In a nearby soccer field, people were lying on the ground moaning. Some people were gathered in prayer.

“God continually provides for us and answers specific prayers,” she wrote three days after the earthquake.

“We were running out of fuel and missionaries from a village outside Port brought a five-gallon tank of diesel yesterday afternoon. We have plenty of food and clean water. None of us are injured or sick.

“My group is so blessed beyond measure. We all got together this morning for the first time since Tuesday and just started singing praises to Christ and sent up so many prayers of thanksgiving. We are so grateful to be here and wrapped in God’s comforting love.”

Ingram's latest prayer e-mails are posted here.

Ben and Katie Kilpatrick, who are connected to First Baptist Church in Richardson and are serving two years in Haiti, blogged Jan. 19 that aid groups are slowly surveying the needs and working through logistics.

“It’s slowly untangling — please pray for it to move faster and better,” the post reads.

“Lives depend on it. On the way home, we saw the tent cities for the first time in the light. The hundreds of thousands of homeless are camping out on every spare bit of land- mostly in city parks. No security, no water, no food, no toilets — just making homes out of whatever you can.”

The Kilpatricks' blog postings can be found here .

Gaining access to the nation continues to impede widespread relief efforts, including those by Texas Baptist Men, Buckner International and Baptist Child & Family Services, each of which is seeking to send in supplies.

Texas Baptist Men continues trying to get 5,000 water filters into Haiti. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missionaries requested the water filters — each of which will provide clean water for a family of four — following the earthquake.

The organization has pulled together supplies to build the water filters and is tracking a number of ways to get them into the country. At this point, the country’s infrastructure is so damaged that it is difficult to get aid in.

Joe Detterman, who is coordinating TBM’s relief effort, encouraged people to pray God will open a way for relief supplies and efforts to enter Haiti. Needs for medical care and clean water are critical at this point.

“The biggest thing is to pray for the safety of the folks and that these supplies can get there,” Detterman said.

To support Texas Baptist Men disaster relief efforts directly, visit www.texasbaptistmen.org or send checks designated for disaster relief to 5351 Catron, Dallas, TX 75227.

Buckner International is attempting to send four large cargo containers of medical supplies and humanitarian aid items such as new clothing, shoes, socks, tents, blankets, baby food, toiletries and unopened first aid kits to Haiti. Buckner plans to ship the containers to the Dominican Republic where they will then be trucked into Haiti.

“One of our biggest needs is for hygiene kits,” said Matt Asato, director of humanitarian aid for Buckner International.

Aid will be sent to support Gladys Thomas’s Hope Hospital, which is receiving many casualties from the quake. Dillon International, Buckner’s international adoption affiliate, has worked with Thomas for 25 years and places children from her orphanage into adoptive families in the United States.

Buckner is asking volunteers to fill two-gallon sized Ziploc bags with specific hygiene items and mail or drop the kits off at the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid, located at 5405 Shoe Drive, Mesquite, Texas 75149. To view a list of items needed in the hygiene kits or to financially support Buckner efforts, visit www.buckner.org.

Randy Daniels, Buckner Vice President for Global Operations, reported Jan. 21 the first container could arrive by air as early as Jan. 26 if there is room on the flight, or on the next plane the first week of February if there is no room. The aid is prioritized by need, so the first container will solely include medical supplies donated in-kind by UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Later shipments will include medical supplies, shoes, emergency rations and hygiene kits. The shipments will drop in the Dominican Republic and be taken overland into Haiti.

To support Texas Baptist disaster response efforts, visit www.texasbaptists.org/haitiearthquake and click on “give now” or send a check marked for disaster response to the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation at 333 N. Washington, Dallas, TX 75246.

With additional reporting by Kaitlin Chapman

WACO (ABP) — A jury in Waco found former Baptist minister Matt Baker guilty of murder after more than seven hours of deliberation Jan. 20.

Prosecutors called 28 witnesses, including Vanessa Bulls, who identified herself as Baker's former mistress. She testified that Baker planned to murder his wife, Kari, and make it appear to be a suicide. 

The defense called a single witness, an expert who discussed DNA evidence. Matt Baker, who gave several high-profile media interviews before the trial proclaiming his innocence, did not testify in his own defense.

The verdict by a jury of seven women and five men ended a six-day trial. The penalty phase is scheduled to begin Jan. 21. Baker could receive life in prison.

SAN ANTONIO—The father of a Baptist University of the Americas student died in last week’s Haiti earthquake, and other family members remain missing.
 
The whereabouts of Yamiley Augustin’s brother and nephew are unknown.
 
BUA President Rene Maciel said the school is rallying around the student, praying for her and for all people affected by the Jan. 12 earthquake.
 
“The BUA family is loving, praying and wrapping our arms around Yamiley today,” he said. 

“She came back to school because she could not go back to the country. She did not have the funding to start back this semester, but we are providing a scholarship to keep her going.  We are also raising money to send her home when they allow her to enter.  She has been in contact with her aunt twice. Please keep her in your prayers as she grieves for her dad and brother and her country.”

WACO—Nobody can predict with certainty what the next 400 years hold for Baptists—or for any religious denomination, church historian Martin Marty told a gathering at Baylor University.

But Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, offered general observations based on history and trends as he spoke on “The Future of a Denomination: Baptists in the Next 400 Years.” The event was scheduled as part of Baylor’s recognition of the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement.

Marty characterized denominations—as distinct from a single state church—as a “four century-old Anglo-American invention” and noted Baptists were “present at the creation.”

While some observers ask if denominations in their present form are dead or dying, Marty asserted that “structurally, functionally, something would likely fill its role.”

What’s true for denominations in general undoubtedly would prove true for the Baptist movement, he suggested, but he cautioned against making confident predictions.

He cited as a guiding text a line from a speech by Abraham Lincoln: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it.”

“This means cautious projection and the describing of alternative scenarios for life in the future,” he said. “The latter must relate to the Baptist visions and embrace of Christian faith, hope and love. Praxis follows.”

Marty offered a series of “where and whither questions” followed by “what and how” application on a variety of subjects:

• Identity. Regarding the essence of the distinctive Baptist tradition, Marty confessed, “I have not found the essence of baptisthood.”

However, he suggested, a clue to the historically central feature of the Baptist movement lies in its name.

“Believers’ baptism by immersion was the most visible mark of being a Baptist,” he said, pointing to its “branding” nature. But the commitment to following religious convictions and living those convictions out with integrity preceded the mode and method of baptism. Separatists and others “backed into” their understanding of believers’ baptism, he asserted.

“It was so exceptional, unsettled and branding that it became central to the story and provided the name,” he said.

Marty observed less attention today given to the meaning of believers’ baptism among Baptists—particularly as it relates to daily living and ethics—than in some places and times, as well as a decline in baptisms, even in congregations where attendance has increased.

• Community and autonomy. Baptists long ago “took the risk” in terms of emphasizing individual decision-making in matters of religion, Marty noted. However, he added, historic Baptist convictions about soul liberty and soul competency have been balanced by “the integral tie to community in voluntary association.”

The challenge for the future lies in the “pick and choose” nature of individualized spirituality that does not find direction from a religious community, he asserted.

• Church polity. Observers of church life recognize that regardless of a denomination’s official polity—hierarchical, episcopal, presbyterian, congregational or whatever—“the local wins out,” Marty observed, and “Baptists should be theologically most ready to profit from the trend.”

At the same time, individual Christians, churches and denominations have unprecedented capacity to be involved with other Christians globally through communication technology, he added. Through the Internet, “distance has disappeared,” he noted.

• Church and state. In some circles “long-held Baptist views on separation of church and state have appeared to be compromised or obscured—or even abandoned,” Marty said.

“The moral crisis, the security crisis, the pluralism crisis—all have led some to conclude we are so far gone that even Baptists have been willing to call on the state to help us do our work,” he said.

How Baptists—“and Baptist-like traditions”—respond to church-state issues in the future has fateful consequences for their witness in society, he observed.

• Peoplehood. Baptists, like other Christians, tend to congregate and allow their lives to be shaped to a large degree along lines of social class and race, Marty noted.

“Some largely white Baptist groups do better than others at reaching beyond historical bounds, but all confess that they have a long way to go,” he said.

The role of women in the church—particularly in ministry—remains a crucial issue with which Baptists likely will grapple in the future, he noted.

• Witness and pluralism. Few Baptists waver in devotion to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, Marty said, but they struggle with how that faith relates to other world religions.

“We can’t settle for a casual universalism that says we’re all in different boats headed toward the same shore,” he observed.

At the same time, some Baptists want to avoid holding to the kind of exclusiveness that would cause non-Christians to write them off as narrow bigots more focused on “denouncing each other than hearing each other,” he said.

• Sex. Baptists’ response to issues such as abortion, contraception and homosexuality do not relate specifically to Baptist history and impulses—except the Baptist tendency to fight, Marty observed.

• Conflict. “Baptists as creative dissenters were born in conflict and produce conflict,” he said.  But Baptists also possess the capacity to provide “a rich and warm home,” he added. “And there are plenty of biblical texts to find direction for that.”

An African-American, Hispanic and British Baptist each offered responses to Marty’s presentation.

David Goatley, executive secretary-treasurer of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention and president of the North American Baptist Fellowship, offered cautious words about a tendency toward disunion in Baptist life, but also described the calling toward communion.

“The centering role of denominations is no longer needed in the same way it once was,” Goatley noted.

Churches can access information by Internet that denominational publishing houses once provided, and they may connect with missions opportunities globally without the intermediary of a denominational mission board, he said.  

Rather than make a utilitarian argument for denominational entities—“We can do more together than we can do working alone”—Goatley suggested looking to the need for communion and fellowship.

“There is a calling for communion, a call to be family,” he said. “Denominations create the table around which we gather.”

Nora Lozano, associate professor of theological studies at Baptist University of the Americas , described the way her early understanding of Baptist identity was shaped in reaction to Catholics, and later charismatics and Pentecostals.

“We defined ourselves in a negative way,” she said. “What they did, we didn’t do.”

Later, she gained an understanding of Baptist identity formed by what church historian Walter Shurden has called “four fragile freedoms”—Bible freedom, soul freedom, church freedom and religious freedom.

Lozano voiced hope that Baptists will find the freedom to become more inclusive—particularly of racial minorities and women—and more trusting of fellow Christians who may differ on emphases or worship styles.

Nigel Wright, principal of Spurgeon’s College in London , challenged Baptists to look not just at the future that can be calculated based on trends, but also at “the imaginable future” as projected by the biblical prophets and by the heavenly vision in Revelation 7.

That vision of a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language gathered to worship the exalted Christ means “everything about Baptist life is provisional,” Wright said.

“Baptists are not the last word, but just a step on the journey—a journey we share with God and with people of many communions,” he said. “There is no one way of being the church.”

Wright called for a “corrective ecumenism” that recognizes the true church does not yet exist, but the many Christian communions have insights they can offer to other members of the Christian family.

While Baptists can learn from Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican Christians something about the historical continuity of faith, other parts of the Christian family can learn important principles about freedom from the Baptist movement, he noted.

“We need to care about other parts of the church,” Wright said, “because our future is bound up in their future.”


ATLANTA (ABP) — Baptist groups in the United States have launched urgent funding appeals for earthquake relief in Haiti.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has directed more than $15,000 in funds designated for "Haiti Earthquake Response" raised through a website appeal, Chris Boltin, short-term assignments and partnerships manager for the Atlanta-based CBF reported Jan. 16.

Steve James, a missionary jointly appointed by CBF and American Baptist Churches USA, ministered to earthquake victims Jan. 18 at a mission clinic located about two miles outside the epicenter near the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

James' wife, Nancy, said missionaries were treating wounded people on tables outdoors until they could find a building safe enough to bring them inside. She said her husband counted nine aftershocks during the course of the day, one strong enough to shake medicines off of the pharmacy shelves.

The Jameses were in the U.S. when the 7.0 magnitude quake struck Jan. 12. They made it back to Haiti Jan. 14, where they decided that he would head into the damage zone with an initial fact-finding team while she went to their home in Haut Limbe, outside the damage zone, so she could answer e-mails and keep in touch with him by phone.

She said her husband and other volunteers with him appreciate prayers and thoughts for them and for the people of Haiti. "It is a time of stress but also they are so glad that they are there able to be of help," she wrote. "Please pray for food, fuel and medicines to arrive soon as their supplies are low. Pray for so many still suffering." 

Julius Scruggs, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc, called on the convention's auxiliaries, boards, commissions, ministries, churches, state conventions and district associations to "work together under the leadership of the Parent Body" for disaster relief.

"By working together, our impact will be multiplied," Scruggs wrote in an open e-mail. 

Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., said National Baptists were following the recommendations of the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse, of which the convention is part, to wait until infrastructure is established before sending in untrained volunteers.

"As the situation in Haiti becomes clearer and more stable over the next several days and weeks, the convention will develop and execute a disaster-relief plan with measureable goals and objectives," Scruggs said. "In the meantime, we must focus our efforts on raising funds which ultimately will determine how much assistance we will be able to provide."

Scruggs said more plans for disaster response would be announced to those attending the convention's Mid-Winter Board Meeting scheduled for Jan. 18-22 in Nashville, Tenn. The convention has also established a Haiti Disaster Relief fund for online donations.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., issued an urgent appeal to member churches for financial contributions to support earthquake victims. The PNBC has been involved in mission work in Haiti since the 1960s. PNBC president DeWitt Smith and PNBC General Secretary Tyrone Pitts said contributions to the Haitian Relief Fund "will be sent directly to our partners in Haiti and those who are suffering from this horrible tragedy."

John Raphael, director of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., prepared to travel to Haiti for a first-hand look at the devastation. "We believe our mission sites have been destroyed," convention president Stephen Thurston said in an appeal for donations to the NBCA Relief Fund.

"I am appealing for an immediate response on behalf of your church, associations and state conventions to give dollars for the Haitian disaster," Thurston said.

Thurston said supplies would be transported to Haiti and distributed as part of a joint effort with the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, another historically African-American group. Scruggs said he and the heads of the other major black Baptist conventions would be visiting Haiti as a group in the near future.

Over the years organizational and philosophical differences divided America's black Baptist community into four main organizations. In recent years those groups have held joint meetings, not in view of a merger, but to build relationships for cooperation on common concerns.

Two years ago they were part of a broader movement called the New Baptist Covenant, which seeks to unite all Baptist groups — black, white and brown — in North America around consensus concerns.

The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention is receiving funds to support families affected by the tragedy in partnership with the Strategic Union of Baptist Churches in Haiti, a network of 22 churches and one of Lott Carey's global partners.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

A number of Texas Baptist agencies and organizations offer avenues for giving to help victims of the earthquake that devastated Haiti Jan. 12. Click on any of the links below to find a way to donate.

Texas Baptist Men has arranged to send 5,000 water purification systems to Haiti. TMB is requesting donations of medical equipment such as portable X-ray machines. Donations of equipment should be directed to Dick Talley, TBM State Disaster Relief Director, at the address below or 214-707-4780.

To support Texas Baptist Men disaster relief efforts directly, visit www.texasbaptistmen.org or send checks designated disaster relief to 5351 Catron, Dallas, TX 75227.

Texas Baptist Men received a $10,000 Texas Hope 2010 care grant for disaster relief. The money comes from gifts to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger. To give to the offering, visit www.bgct.org/give. 

To support BGCT disaster response efforts, visit www.texasbaptists.org/haitiearthquake and click on "give now," or send a check marked for disaster response to the Texas Baptist Mission Foundation at 333 N. Washington, Dallas, TX 75246-1798.

Individuals and churches can list skills, resources and desired method of service through Church2Church partnerships by visiting www.texasbaptists.org/ haitirearthquake and clicking on “register now” under the partner label.

Baptist Child & Family Services, based in San Antonio, prepared to deploy a 1,000-bed medical facility to Haiti.

Baptist World Aid has sent an emergency rescue team to Haiti and pledged $20,000 in emergency funds. BWAid director Paul Montacute said grants of $10,000 each were committed to the Baptist Convention of Haiti, a group of 110 churches and 82,000 members established in 1964, and the Haiti Baptist Mission, a network of 330 churches and schools founded in 1943. Donations can be made directlky to BWA or through the website of NorthHaven Church in Norman, Okla. (affiliated with the BGCT)

Buckner International is preparing four containers of humanitarian aid already on hand–new shoes and emergency food items–to send to Haiti. Also needed from the public are new socks, tents, blankets, toiletries and other personal care items, and new, unopened first aid kits. Shipping each container costs $5,000. For in-kind donations, Buckner is taking deliveries of requested items from 8:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. weekdays. In-kind donors are encouraged to contact the Buckner Center of Humanitarian Aid to schedule drop-offs by calling (214) 367-8080. The Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid is located at 5405 Shoe Drive, Mesquite Texas 75149. To give financially, donors may call the Buckner Foundation at (214) 758-8050 or online at www.buckner.org.

The Southern Baptist relief and development organization Baptist Global Response has sent a five-member response team to Haiti.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has directed more than $15,000 in funds designated for "Haiti Earthquake Response" raised through a website appeal.

The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention is receiving funds to support families affected by the tragedy in partnership with the Strategic Union of Baptist Churches in Haiti, a network of 22 churches and one of Lott Carey's global partners.

Gifts can also be made through the National Baptist Convention and the Progressive National Batist Convention, Inc.

TEMPLE, Texas (ABP) — The 70-year-old sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Temple appears to be a total loss after a fire consumed it in the early-morning hours of Jan. 19.

Reports on the church’s website and in several local news outlets said the fire began around 5 a.m. local time in the sanctuary building. The building’s roof collapsed. It was unclear, as of mid-morning, whether other buildings on the church’s campus had also been destroyed.

According to the history section of the church’s website, the sanctuary that burned Jan. 19 was itself the result of a fire. Completed in 1939, it replaced an 1895 building that burned in 1938.

The church’s day-care center was closed Jan. 19 as firefighters continued attempts to put out remaining hot spots and assess the causes of the blaze. The church has scheduled a special prayer meeting in the congregation’s youth center for 7 p.m. on Jan. 19.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Obama addressed how his faith guides him and the importance of hard work as he marked the birthday of the late Martin Luther King Jr. at a Washington church.

“Folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm,” he said at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, a historic congregation King had visited.

“I have a confession to make here. … There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts. But let me tell you during those times, it’s faith that keeps me calm. It’s faith that gives me peace.”

The president spoke for almost half an hour in the usual spot for the sermon on the church’s program, addressing about 500 people gathered in the Family Life Center of the congregation founded by freed slaves in 1866. At times he spoke like a preacher, opening his speech with “Good morning. Praise be to God,” and concluding with “through God all things are possible.”

He spoke of holding the kind of “faith that breaks the silence of an earthquake’s wake with the sound of prayer and hymns sung by the Haitian community,” as the congregation applauded in agreement.

King visited the church in 1956, Obama noted, “as a 27-year-old preacher to speak on what he called the challenge of a new age.”

At the time of King’s visit the Supreme Court had ruled that the desegregated bus system in Montgomery, Ala., he opposed was unconstitutional. The high court had also ruled in Brown v. Board of Education against school segregation but schools and states had “ignored it with impunity,” Obama recalled.

“Here we are more than half a century later, once again facing the challenges of a new age,” he said. Even with “fits and starts,” he said there has been progress over bigotry and prejudice.

“It’s that progress that made it possible for me to be here today, for the good people of this country to elect an African-American the 44th president of the United States of America.”

The civil rights movement in particular and the country in general have been successful when all Americans are responsible and work hard, he said.

“In this country, there’s no substitute for hard work,” Obama said. “No substitute for a job well done, no substitute for being responsible stewards of God’s blessings.”

Obama, who attended with first lady Michelle Obama and his daughters Malia and Sasha, sat up front with the pastor, singing along when the congregation broke out in “We Shall Overcome” and joking with the pastor about how he might permit his new nephew to meet the pastor’s new granddaughter in about 30 years.

It was obvious that this was not a typical service at Vermont Avenue, with Pastor Cornelius Wheeler offering warnings to worshippers before it began about not leaving the area of their seats for exuberant worship or photos.    

In the last year, Obama has visited three other Washington churches—the Washington National Cathedral for his inaugural prayer service; St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House on the day of his inauguration and on Easter; and Nineteenth Street Baptist Church the Sunday before his inauguration. Last July he said he may attend “a number of different churches” and enjoys “powerful” sermons from the chaplain who leads services at the chapel at Camp David, the presidential retreat.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — A Baptist World Aid Rescue24 team has arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and has begun work in a local clinic, according to a news release from the Baptist World Alliance.

The BWAid team, consisting of members from Hungary and North Carolina, has come up against horrific scenes.

"The situation is terrible, I have never seen anything like this," said Bela Szilagyi, head of Hungarian Baptist Aid, who has been working in major disaster zones for more than 10 years. Szilagyi is one of the leaders of the BWAid Rescue24 team in Port-au-Prince.
 
They came across "immense chaos, confusion, and the terrible smell of dead bodies."
 
Members of the team flew to a location close to the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, and were escorted into Port-au-Prince by "blue helmets," United Nations peacekeeping soldiers. They will remain in Haiti for one week providing emergency medical services.

When Colt McCoy of the University of Texas expressed his faith in an interview following the Longhorns’ BCS championship game loss to Alabama Jan. 7, the quarterback placed himself in a growing cadre of Christian athletes becoming increasingly vocal about their commitment to Jesus Christ.

“I always give God the glory,” said McCoy, who was knocked out of the game—the last of his college career—by a shoulder injury, probably contributing to his team’s defeat. “I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life. And I know that if nothing else, I’m standing on the Rock.”

Highly publicized expressions of faith have become standard fare in college and professional sports at least since 1977, the year running back Herb Lusk dropped to a knee after scoring a touchdown for his Philadelphia Eagles. The end-zone prayer often is cited as the first to be televised across the nation.

Many Christians find those high-profile testimonies encouraging, prominently featuring evangelical sports figures in worship services and evangelistic conferences. The trend prompted writer Tom Krattenmaker to call big-time sports “one of the most outwardly religious sectors of American culture.”

In part, the prominence given Christian athletes can be attributed to American Christianity’s addiction to celebrity culture. But some observers believe sports figures offer a more distinctive appeal than mere fame.

Christian athletes appear more demonstrative and outspoken in testifying about their faith than celebrities in entertainment or business in large part because they understand what it means to be on a team and share credit, said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.

“The simple answer is that as committed Christians, they know from where their strength comes and recognize the source of their talents and gifts,” he said. “As team players, they know they didn’t get this far alone, and they want to give credit.”

That same attitude extends to athletes who compete in individual events, he added.

“They understand they have been trained and developed, and they have been blessed with somebody who helped shape that raw talent,” Teaff said. “Unless the person is unusually self-centered, athletes know they don’t win alone. And Christians, especially, should have that tendency not to be self-centered but to want to share credit.”

That not only means thanking coaches, trainers and teammates, but also giving glory to God, he explained. But most Christian athletes understand the distinction between praising God for allowing them to perform to the best of their ability and believing God plays favorites in athletic competitions and determines their outcome, Teaff insisted. “God loves the players and coaches on the other side. God loves the officials. He loves—period,” he said.

Some sporting fans find such public expressions of faith discomfiting. In his book, Onward Christian Athletes, published last year, Krattenmaker warned that vocal expressions of faith in stadiums risks alienating an increasingly pluralistic society.

“There are many secular fans who really feel annoyed by that kind of religious expression,” Krattenmaker, a Portland, Ore., specialist on religion in public life, told the Associated Press. “Even people who are religious themselves often resent this situation where athletes talk about God in this big moment of victory, sometimes seeming to imply God gave them the victory.”

But others, like University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who famously writes Bible verses in his game-day eye black, say it’s simply a part of who they are. And focusing on one’s faith keeps athletes’ priorities in order, Tebow says.

Tebow, who grew up the son of missionaries in the Philippines and has seen desperate poverty at close quarters, told the Washington Post he couldn’t imagine getting stressed out over something as inconsequential as a BCS national championship game.

“Pressure is not having to win a football game; pressure is having to find your next meal,” he told the Post last year before the Gators’ win over the University of Oklahoma.

Nevertheless, outspoken Christian athletes like Tebow—who Sports Illustrated writer Austin Murphy called “the most effective ambassador-warrior for his faith I’ve come across in 25 years” at the magazine—continue to feature prominently in evangelistic outreach.

For more than a year, billboards across the Dallas-Fort Worth area and spots on local broadcast media have presented sports and other celebrities—and a few regular folks with a story to tell—proclaiming the message, “I am Second,” and directing people to the iamsecond.com website. Recently, a commercial featuring Texas’ McCoy launched nationally prior to the BCS National Championship.

Tony Dungy, a former NFL coach who led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory in 2007, has testified publicly about his evangelical Christian faith. (RNS FILE PHOTO/Brett Duke/The Star-Ledger )

Athletic figures such as Jason Witten of the Dallas Cowboys, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, and former NFL coaches Joe Gibbs and Tony Dungy figure prominently in the campaign, which also features Jason Castro of American Idol, Michelle Aguilar of The Biggest Loser and other celebrities.

A Plano-based church-planting ministry, e3 Partners, developed the media campaign, and Norm Miller, chief executive of Dallas-based Interstate Batteries, provided key support.

On its best day soon after the campaign was launched in December 2008, about 15,000 people visited the ministry’s website—many to view the testimony of Brian Welch, formerly of the heavy metal rock band Korn, said Nathan Sheets, vice president of e3 Partners and team leader for the “I am Second” campaign.

But when the campaign featured quarterbacks McCoy and Sam Bradford of the Oklahoma Sooners prior to the Red River Rivalry match-up at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, their videos attracted 33,000 visitors in one day to the website and prompted “a tremendous amount of forwarding,” said Sheets, a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

Athletes draw attention, and they often are more open about sharing their faith than some other public figures, he noted.

“Athletes in general are not reliant on continuing relational development for their success,” Sheets said. Actors or recording stars might put future contracts in jeopardy by being outspoken about their faith, but athletes tend to be judged almost exclusively by performance in competition, he explained.

Of course, any public figure invites scrutiny. And sometimes athletes who have cultivated a straight-and-narrow image may find themselves losing lucrative endorsements if personal frailties come to light, as golfer Tiger Woods discovered when his marital infidelity became known.

Tim Tebow, who famously writes Bible verses in his game-day eye black, says religious expression for athletes is simply a part of who they are. And focusing on one’s faith keeps athletes’ priorities in order. (PHOTO/Marc Seroto/Getty Images)

But how well-known Christian athletes handle themselves when they stumble can be instructive. Last August, a website posted photos from an incident in Arizona nearly eight months earlier where Hamilton—a recovering substance abuser—was seen in a bar, visibly drunk and in compromising poses with women other than his wife.

But once the photos came to light, Hamilton apologized publicly, telling reporters, “It just reinforces to me that if I’m out there getting ready for a season and taking my focus off the most important thing in my recovery, which is my relationship with Christ, it’s amazing how these things creep back in.”

He also reported that the day after the incident, he contacted his wife, the Texas Rangers organization and Major League Baseball to confess his lapse in sobriety. After Hamilton’s public confession, his wife, Katie, subsequently posted her own statement of support on the Dallas Morning News sports blog.

The “I am Second” campaign received “very positive response” from Christians who rallied around Hamilton, Sheets noted.

“It endeared him even more to Christians who could look at him and say, ‘He struggles just like I do, and he has to depend on the grace of God,’” he said.

Athletes at every level—and to some degree, any celebrity who makes his or her faith public—find themselves subject to close scrutiny, Teaff observed. “There’s a segment of society that has negative feelings about people who achieve success. They love to see them tumble and to fall short of what they proclaim themselves to be,” he said.

Grant Teaff (San Angelo Standard-Times Photo)

Teaff, who coached football at Baylor University from 1972 to 1992 and led the Bears to a Southwest Conference Championship, noted he always spent three days with freshmen student athletes at the beginning of each year to provide them a solid foundation to help them deal with the temptations they would face.

“My philosophy for student athletes was to develop the total person—physically, mentally and spiritually—and help them grow in all three areas,” he explained. “I explained it in terms of a three-legged stool. If any one of the legs was weak, it would not stand.”

As the coach at a Christian university with a strong Baptist heritage, Teaff noted he required participation in team devotionals prior to each game. He also used every opportunity to coach student athletes not only in their physical development, but also in terms of how they learned to handle personal relationships, classroom assignments and spiritual development.

“We talked about the importance of reading the Bible, about their prayer life and about attending church. The first thing each year, we would attend church together as a team one Sunday at the beginning of each season,” he recalled.