GREENSBORO, N.C. (BP)—Three weeks after pleading guilty to a charge of making false statements to federal investigators as part of a sexual abuse investigation stemming from his time as a seminary administrator, Matt Queen has resigned as pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, the church announced Nov. 8.

In a press release, the church said: “Dr. Matthew Queen is stepping down from his role as Lead Pastor at Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, effective immediately. While this has been a challenging season, we continue to trust in God’s sovereignty and remain focused on our mission. As we move forward, we encourage our congregation and the wider community to stay focused on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

Queen pleaded guilty to making false statements to federal investigators on Oct. 16 after he had previously pleaded not guilty to federal charges in May.

Sentencing for Queen is set for Feb. 26, 2025.

Church leaders placed Queen on administrative leave after his initial plea of not guilty in May. After Queen changed his plea in October, church leaders said in a statement that they were “reviewing these recent developments as it works to complete its investigation and submit a recommendation to the church membership concerning Dr. Queen’s status and relationship with Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, all in accordance with the church’s governing documents.”

Prior to being called as pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in February, Queen served as interim provost at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

During Queen’s tenure at Southwestern, the seminary was part of a broader investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct involving the Southern Baptist Convention and its entities.

The investigation included Southwestern Seminary’s handling of a report of an alleged sexual assault by a student. Investigators said Queen provided false information to them in the form of written notes in a notebook during the investigation.

Following Queen’s guilty plea in October, Southwestern issued a statement that said, in part: “From the beginning, Southwestern Seminary has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice in its investigation of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention. We remain resolute in our commitment to continue to do so.”

The statement said the seminary is praying for “victims of sexual abuse and remains committed to doing everything possible to protect all members of the seminary community from sexual abuse and harassment.”

The statement also offered prayers for “Matt Queen and his family, as well as for others who have been involved in this process.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—Some Southern Baptists may have heard of M.E. Dodd, the father of the Cooperative Program, but how many actually have heard him? What about longtime Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Duke McCall or W.A. Criswell, legendary pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas?

Thanks to an ongoing project of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, listeners today can hear them all and many more.

For the past few years, members of the archives staff have been digitizing hundreds of recordings of Baptist radio programs, including the “Baptist Hour” and “Christian Home” series, both of which became popular during the latter part of what’s known as the “Golden Age of Radio.”

“This project captures the voices of distinguished Baptist preachers and leaders,” said Taffey Hall, director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. “In the 1940s and ’50s, the ‘Christian Home,’ ‘Southern Baptist Evangelistic Hour’ and ‘Baptist Hour’ broadcasts allowed listeners to hear prominent, insightful Southern Baptist preachers and scholars through the radio in the comfort of their own homes.”

To access the digital audio-visual resources and other digitized collections of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, click here.

The Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives took ownership of hundreds of recordings when the Baptist Radio and Television Commission was dissolved in the 1990s. They’ve been in storage in the archives in Nashville ever since.

When the digitization project began in 2021, the first order of business was to find a way to play the recordings, which are on “transcription disks”—basically extra wide record albums.

Hall located a machine at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but it didn’t work.

A Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives staffer made the two-hour trek north on I-65 to Louisville to get the machine and bring it to Nashville, where a Music City recording technician got it working.

“When people think about an archive, one of the first things that may come to mind is all the paper materials collected and preserved,” Hall said, adding that the historical library and archives has plenty of that.

“But in addition to those paper materials, we also have a lot of special formatted materials, items such as oversize photographs, glass plate negatives, motion picture films and these 16-inch transcription record disks, that need special storage and preservation.

“Our approach to digitization, and as was the case with this project, is for both preservation and access. Digitizing these early recordings of the Southern Baptist Radio Committee/Radio Commission was important from both the standpoint of long-term conservation of the physical items, and for making the material available to a wide audience of current listeners.”

Baptists on the air

Southern Baptists began discussing the use of radio in 1930. In 1934, Dodd, who was Southern Baptist Convention president at the time, was part of a three-man committee tasked with looking into the idea. In 1936, Southern Baptists adopted a resolution calling for “a joint study of radio opportunities for Baptists.”

Then in 1938, Southern Baptists formed a seven-member committee to look into the possibility of using radio to “broadcast our Baptist message,” as it was put in the motion adopted by messengers. By then, most U.S. homes had radios, and Americans had become accustomed to getting news and entertainment from the medium.

The next year, nine additional members were added to the committee, and the group was allotted $1,200 to promote Baptist broadcasts on powerful radio stations.

The “Baptist Hour” was launched in January of 1941 and proved popular immediately, eliciting 17,500 pieces of mail, according to that year’s SBC Annual.

Over the next few years, the committee’s success grew. It was responsible for getting Baptist content on radio stations covering about half of the United States. Southern Baptists appointed a full-time director of the committee in 1942.

At the 1946 annual meeting in Miami, the name of the group was changed to the Radio Commission, and it became an official agency of the SBC. By 1948, the “Baptist Hour” was aired on 120 radio stations from coast to coast.

Episodes of “Baptist Hour” flow a bit like a worship service. In an episode from May 1945, Dodd preaches from John 3:16 and uses the word “gospel” as an acrostic for the verse: God Only Son Perish Everlasting Life.

The episode begins with choral music, “When I Survey the Wonderous Cross” and “Tell Me the Old, Old Story.”

Next, listeners hear a recorded testimony from a traveling salesman who was saved at a church while on business in Knoxville, Tenn. The man tells of hearing a radio broadcast while traveling. The next day, he happened to see the church where the broadcast he’d heard had originated—City Temple Baptist Church.

“Something told me I should go in,” the man says. “So, I went on in and asked for the pastor.” The pastor listened to him, read the Bible with him and led him to faith in Christ.

“Since then I have had a new life and joy of living,” the man says.

After the testimony is a prayer, another choral piece (this one based on John: 3:16), followed by Dodd’s sermon.

“John 3:16 is the greatest verse in the greatest book in the greatest volume on the greatest subject about the greatest Person or the greatest object in all the universe,” preaches Dodd, who was pastor of First Baptist Church of Shreveport, La.

And later: “God loves because the primary essence of His character is love.”

‘Christian Home’ focused on family topics

The “Christian Home” series featured practical messages on family topics as well as dramatizations of family life situations.

An episode from 1956 follows a father, mother and son through the son’s life from babyhood to young adulthood. It depicts the son taking after his father in the worst ways and the tension between mother and father.

Hall says the recordings are an example of Southern Baptists’ desire to stay relevant and to share the gospel by any means possible.

“Many of the sermon titles and broadcast series productions of these recordings addressed the concerns and issues facing Americans during that time period,” she said. “These were topics of everyday and contemporary importance to Southern Baptists—topics of marriage life, family life, home life as well as challenges of wartime.

“The ‘Christian Home’ series in particular captures an image of home life, what Southern Baptists wanted to present, in dealing with home issues, and documents a time of how Baptists viewed family, marriage and raising children. …

“On almost all of the programs, Southern Baptists talked about how the gospel can change people’s lives and make their lives more joyful.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—A defamation trial involving the Southern Baptist Convention that was supposed to begin next week has been delayed indefinitely, while another is set for 2026.

Johnny M. Hunt v. Southern Baptist Convention, et. al., has been ongoing since March 2023, when former SBC president Johnny Hunt sued the SBC, the SBC Executive Committee and Guidepost Solutions for defamation

Hunt claimed Guidepost and the other parties used him as a “scapegoat” in an investigation of alleged mishandling of sexual abuse claims by the SBC Executive Committee.

Parties failed to reach a settlement in September, and the case had been scheduled to go to trial Nov. 12.

But in a court-sponsored teleconference Oct. 31, the parties agreed to meet “after the beginning of May 2025” to “confer about trial dates.” At issue is a disagreement over whether to reopen discovery in the case.

The May 2022 report from Guidepost’s investigation included allegations from an unidentified woman who claims Hunt sexually abused her in 2010, shortly after his two-year stint as SBC president.

Hunt resigned from his position as senior vice president of evangelism at the North American Mission Board, a position he’d held since 2018, days before the Guidepost report became public.

The lawsuit has been a major contributor to the dire financial situation of the SBC Executive Committee, which has spent more than $12 million in three years on legal fees.

The contract governing Guidepost’s initial investigation stipulates Guidepost would have indemnity in any lawsuit resulting from the investigation, and the Executive Committee would foot its legal bills.

Sills suit set to go to jury in February 2026

The other trial—former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills’ defamation lawsuit against the SBC—will go before a jury Feb. 10, 2026, in Nashville.

An order from Chief U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. announced that counsel for all parties will meet on Feb. 2, 2026, for a pretrial conference to discuss the case’s undisputed facts, expert witnesses, proposed testimony, jury instruction and other issues. Campbell is the same judge presiding over the lawsuit Hunt filed against the SBC.

Sills filed suit in November 2022 alleging “defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and wantonness concerning untrue claims of sexual abuse.”

Sills carried on a long-term sexual relationship with a former student, Jennifer Lyell. Lyell alleges the relationship was abusive. Sills claims it was consensual.

Sills was named in a May 2022 report from Guidepost Solutions based on its investigation of alleged mishandling of sexual abuse claims by the SBC Executive Committee.

Guidepost is also named as a defendant in the suit, as are Lyell, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and its president Al Mohler, former SBC presidents Ed Litton and Bart Barber, and former SBC Executive Committee representatives Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade.

DALLAS (BP)—Registration for next summer’s Crossover Dallas evangelistic outreach emphasis is open.

Crossover, which will run from June 2 to June 8, 2025, is the annual evangelistic emphasis preceding the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in the host city. Events such as block parties and personal witnessing opportunities have become ingrained in the outreach effort.

Churches and groups can register online through the Crossover website, which is also available in Spanish.

Participation happens two ways. The first is hosting a Crossover event. Churches in Dallas, Denton, Collin, Hunt, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Johnson and Tarrant counties are eligible to host, in an effort to make a mark on their community.

One option for hosting is partnering with students and faculty from Southern Baptist seminaries for door-to-door evangelism. Churches also can host a multi-day event such as Vacation Bible School or a block party outreach limited to one day. Another single-day event, Harvest Sunday, would take place June 8.

The second track for Crossover registrants is to serve at an event. Southern Baptists both in the target area and outside of it are welcome to serve with local churches.

The North American Mission Board will report the number of gospel conversations, salvations, volunteers and other figures to messengers at the annual meeting. More than 185 people responded to the gospel delivered by more than 1,400 volunteers during Crossover Indianapolis in June.

“We would like to encourage churches in that target area to host an event and individuals and groups, especially if you are already coming for the annual meeting, to serve alongside these host churches,” said JJ Washington, NAMB national director of personal evangelism, who is overseeing Crossover’s planning.

Benefits for host churches include learning evangelism best practices and using the event as a catalyst for establishing an evangelistic culture in the congregation. Volunteers will gain experience in starting an evangelism movement in their own church as well as the experience of partnering with other Southern Baptists.

A cooperative effort

Washington said NAMB is working with leaders from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and Baptist General Convention of Texas, as well as regional and state networks. Local Baptist associations also featured prominently in Crossover’s planning.

“This is truly cooperation at its finest,” he noted.

Luis Antonio Gonzalez, Spanish pastor for Lamar Baptist Church in Arlington, is helping mobilize other Spanish-speaking churches in the area.

“We are providing resources and encouraging them to participate,” he said. “Our prayer is to develop an evangelistic culture in the churches and bring a fire to fulfill the Great Commission.”

First Baptist Church in Garland, where Greg Ammons is pastor, will host a Harvest Sunday and door-to-door evangelism.

“We’re looking at having a block party as well,” said Ammons, who is also helping mobilize churches in the area. “JJ and [NAMB Vice President for Evangelism] Tim [Dowdy] led evangelism training last week. We had a good turnout and are now signing up churches for hosting.

“We’re hoping to see a lot of people come to Jesus, to plant a lot of seeds. We want to establish an evangelism culture.”

On a warm Florida day, Eunice eats lunch with her neighbor, Jackie. They laugh and smile as they tell jokes and stories, some going back 38 years to when Eunice first moved onto the block. The scene oozes joy.

It’s hard to believe Eunice had difficulty speaking a couple of weeks earlier because of shock in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The storm flooded the neighborhood, and she and Jackie escaped neck-deep water by climbing atop a rescue truck.

“You just don’t know what to do,” Eunice said. “You sit in shock for a couple of days with your mouth open, not knowing what to do. What do I do? Who do I call?

“Then you guys show up, with the goodness in your hearts and your service to God. And you get the process started. It’s a blessing. We’re so grateful you are here. Words cannot express.”

Volunteers from a St. Petersburg disaster relief site Texans on Mission is helping coordinate were in the middle of “mudding out” Eunice’s home—removing wet sheetrock, flooring and cabinets. When they finished, they went to work on Jackie’s house.

Cooperative efforts

The On Mission Network site has brought Christians from across the country together to deliver help, hope and healing in Christ’s name. Teams from Ohio, Florida, Texas, Virginia, California, Maryland and Alaska are slated to minister in communities that have been overlooked since the storm. Charis Fellowship, Texans on Mission and Virginia Baptist Disaster Relief are working together on the site.

Piles upon piles of sheetrock and flooring line the streets where the teams are ministering. Working a home or two at a time, teams are catapulting people forward in their recovery since the hurricane.

“This is the body of Christ in action,” said Rupert Robbins, Texans on Mission disaster relief associate director who is coordinating the site.

“Our connection to Christ connects us to fellow believers and God’s call to minister to the hurting. The Bible tells us to love our neighbor, and that’s exactly what we are doing. We’re meeting needs. We’re sharing the gospel. We’re seeking to glorify God in all we do.”

Surveying damage and visiting with residents, it’s clear where the teams are working. Where they go, recovery goes with them. People’s spirits are high. They’re helping each other out. The community is pulling together.

Two disaster relief volunteers sit down to join Eunice and Jackie for lunch. Hugs go around a small patio table. Friends—new and old—come together.

“This has never happened before,” Jackie said. “When they say this storm is historic, it is historic. Our parents, our grandparents never experienced anything like this.”

OXFORD, Fla. (BP)—As Chaplain Major General Randy Kitchens thinks back over more than 30 years of chaplaincy ministry in the U.S. Air Force, it’s the opportunities he had to share Jesus that stand out.

From combat zones to counseling sessions, Kitchens often found himself in moments where faith became an anchor for the airmen he served. One such moment came early in his career when a young woman walked into his office looking for answers.

Kitchens shared the love of Jesus with her, offering the gospel message he had heard his father proclaim over and over again as a bivocational Southern Baptist pastor. She turned her life over to Jesus on the spot. In a spontaneous act of celebration, Kitchens arranged to baptize her at the base fitness center later that day.

“My dad was a bivocational pastor, and I grew up thinking that was how every pastor served,” Kitchens said. “I thought they were following the Pauline model, having a vocation along with ministry.

“I watched my father, and he essentially taught me. He would take me on visitations, and I learned a lot about ministry from him. He modeled what lifestyle evangelism is really about—no matter where he was or what role he was in, he always found opportunities to share Christ or what Christ was doing in his life with others.”

That gospel message was the cornerstone of Kitchens’ 30-year ministry. He retired in August as the U.S. Air Force chief of chaplains, overseeing all spiritual and ethical matters in the branch.

Kitchens was pastor of Big Coppitt First Baptist Church in Key West, Fla., when God began to open his eyes to the possibilities of military chaplaincy. The church’s location near a large Navy base brought several Navy couples into the congregation, allowing him to see firsthand the distinct spiritual needs of those serving in the military.

Kitchens’ mother-in-law worked as a civilian at an Air Force base and suggested he consider becoming a chaplain. In the early 1990s, right after the first Gulf War, that transition seemed unlikely. The U.S. Defense Department was closing a number of military bases.

‘Lord, open the door, and we will follow’

In October 1990, he began serving as a reserve chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, but he was still praying for an opportunity to serve full-time in the Air Force.

During this time, Kitchens and his wife Sherri prayed, “Lord, open the door and we will follow.”

God answered that prayer in February 1993 when he became a chaplain at Loring Air Force Base in northeastern Maine. For the next three decades, Kitchens served in military bases and war zones worldwide before retiring as the Air Force’s highest-ranking chaplain.

One of his most memorable moments during this period came when he was deployed to Afghanistan. He vividly remembers a night when a young airman, terrified by ongoing attacks, reached out to him. Kitchens spent the next hour talking and praying with him.

“He was just petrified,” Kitchens said. “We talked about fear, we talked about faith, and we talked about God’s leading. Many times, as chaplains, we don’t always recognize the significant impact we have just by being there, listening and walking with people on their journey.”

‘God prepared me for this time’

In 2020, when Kitchens became the U.S. Air Force chief of chaplains, he also became the chief of chaplains for the newly created U.S. Space Force. While the position was new, Kitchens understood some of the uniqueness of the role. His experience at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, where he witnessed satellite launches, and later at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, helped prepare him for the unique challenges of ministering to Space Force Guardians.

“I believe God prepared me for this time,” Kitchens said. “My second assignment was serving at a space wing, where they launched satellites into space. Understanding that mission helped me be ready for the role of Space Force chaplain.”

As the chief of chaplains, Kitchens not only oversaw more than 2,000 Air Force chaplains and religious affairs airmen, but also provided administrative oversight and served as a religious and ethical adviser to Air Force leadership.

“Throughout his military career as a Southern Baptist chaplain, Randy never lost his passion to preach the gospel, sharing unapologetically that faith in Jesus Christ was the key factor to maintaining the spiritual readiness and morale of our troops and their families,” said Doug Carver, executive director of chaplaincy at the North American Mission Board.

Kitchens and his wife, Sherri, have two children and five grandchildren. He retired near his family in Oxford, Fla., where he awaits his next ministry assignment.

“I’m just thankful that the Lord called me to chaplaincy and allowed me to serve,” Kitchens said. “I’m just praying that the Lord will now show me what’s next for the next chapter in my life.”

CONETOE, N.C. (RNS)—Congregants at Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church thought their pastor was crazy when he suggested his rural community take up farming as a way to improve their health and become more self-sufficient.

The small, predominantly Black community, about 80 miles east of Raleigh, is surrounded by vast, fertile farmland but has no grocery store for miles around. According to figures from the Census Bureau, 67 percent of the residents of Conetoe (pronounced Kuh-NEE-tuh) live below the poverty line.

It turned out, Pastor Richard Joyner was prophetic. The venture—which in 2007 was spun off into its own nonprofit, the Conetoe Family Life Center—now produces 1,500 boxes of vegetables a week on land it either bought or leases.

It partners with multiple outfits including public schools, hospitals, the North Carolina Food Bank and local churches to plant, grow, harvest and package the produce, some of which is sold, but most of which is donated.

Funerals—which Joyner used to conduct too many of—are less common, and the health and wellbeing of his congregants who partake of the vegetables, grown without any synthetic chemicals, has improved, he said.

God is not to blame

But now Joyner has another problem. Last month, Hurricane Helene flooded some of his fields, wiping out the late August plantings of salad greens, radishes and beets. The soil already was wet from weeks of rain when the hurricane blew in, dumping 17 inches of rain over a two-week period.

Back in 2016, Hurricane Matthew also flooded the nonprofit’s fields. Members of Joyner’s congregation, about 100 people, have suggested maybe God is trying to tell him something.

“We’re in the Bible Belt,” Joyner said. “When my farm floods, people go: ‘Well, God don’t want you to do that. That’s why he keeps flooding it, and you need to stop being hard-headed.’”

Joyner’s new rejoinder: “God is not flooding the land. Our behavior is destroying the environment. That’s what flooded the land.”

Over the last few years, the 71-year-old pastor has become not only a farmer but a climate change activist. Last month, he lent his name to a new group, Extreme Weather Survivors, which provides trauma-informed support for people harmed by natural disasters.

Some of the group’s members, including Joyner, participated in a Climate Week forum in New York City earlier this month intended to convey the message that extreme weather should not be labeled an “act of God” but an “act of man.”

Speakers such as Delta Merner, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, testified that in North Carolina, studies have shown climate change significantly has increased heavy rainfall.

In other spots, such as Arizona, she said, science can now show a connection between climate change and record-breaking heat waves, which have become more frequent and intense.

Merner, who studies “attribution science,” a field that aims to determine how much human-caused climate change has influenced extreme weather events directly, said researchers are able to trace climate change back to major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers.

Explaining this to church members has not always been easy, but Joyner now sees it as his calling.

Farming and environmentalism late-comer

Joyner himself was a late convert to both farming and environmentalism. He grew up on the outskirts of Greenville, N.C., one of 13 children to parents who worked as sharecroppers.

His father, who always kept a garden and some livestock, loved to farm and was especially good at it. But the landowners always cheated him of his earnings, and that soured Joyner on farming.

When he finished high school, Joyner joined the U.S. Army and later the National Guard. He studied chaplaincy at Shaw University and started working as a chaplain at WakeMed in Raleigh and at Nash General Hospital in Rocky Mount.

He initially worked with patients who had HIV, the AIDS virus, and later with mothers in labor and delivery. Finally, he worked as a hospice chaplain, and that’s where he said his own sense of spirituality was cultivated.

In 2004, he became the pastor of Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church at the prodding of his mentor, who in his dying days transferred the leadership of the small church to Joyner.

Many of the church’s members were suffering from preventable diseases, including diabetes and high blood pressure.

At the time, Joyner still was working in hospice care, while he watched their slow demise and later presided over their funerals.

Convincing members to change their diets and begin exercising was not easy. He said he came to it reluctantly after learning there was no chance a major grocery chain would locate in such a small town, population 671, a classic example of a food desert.

In 2005, Joyner found three property owners willing to let him use their land for a community garden. The first garden was on two acres located a quarter mile from the church.

Resistance turns to advocacy

Church members resisted the idea. Those with painful personal memories of the legacy of Black exploitation working the land were especially suspicious of farming.

But he was able to win over the children and eventually the adults, too. The gardens grew to encompass a wide range of crops, in addition to 30 beehives, whose honey is sold locally.

Joyner won several awards for his burgeoning community farm, including a 2014 Purpose Prize, which recognizes social innovators older than 60.

The farm partnered with several universities to study whether food-as-medicine interventions work on people with chronic diseases. It also started a health kiosk on the farm where people can contact health providers online.

CNN did a feature story about the enterprising pastor and his community farm. More recently, the Conetoe Family Life Center built a kitchen on the farm where people can learn to prepare plant-based nutritious meals, and church members caught on.

Now, Joyner is studying how to change farm practices in a time of climate change.

He’s now considering different ways of farming. He recently learned tractors can compact soil and increase the risk of flooding by making the soil less porous. He also knows high tunnels—unheated, plastic-covered hoop-house structures—can provide some protection from rain and include some anti-flooding drainage systems.

One such high tunnel on the farm saved rows of peppers—banana peppers and habaneros—from being ruined. He now wants to build more.

But finally, there’s the job of advocacy—getting people to understand they live in relationship with creation and if they abuse and manipulate that relationship, there will be consequences.

Living in relationship to the earth and to other human beings and sharing that bounty is now the core of his spiritual journey.

“I’ve been in Christianity all my life,” Joyner said. “But, these fields have become the most powerful place of worship I’ve ever been on.”

It’s a lesson his parents and grandparents knew and one he hopes more people can recover.

“My grandma would always say, ‘This is God’s beautiful earth, and you have one responsibility—to leave it better than when you got here,’” Joyner said. “I take that seriously.”

(RNS)—A former professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary pleaded guilty Oct. 16 to lying to the FBI during an investigation into sexual abuse.

Matt Queen, the pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., had pleaded not guilty earlier this year when charged with obstruction of justice for actions taken when he was a professor and interim provost at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth

As part of an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention and its entities, federal officials have been looking into alleged sexual abuse that occurred in 2022 at the seminary. School officials were required to turn over any documents related to abuse to the Department of Justice.

However, an unnamed seminary official, known as “Employee-2,” allegedly ordered that a report on the 2022 abuse case—which detailed that the seminary had known about the alleged abuse but failed to act on it—be destroyed.

According to federal officials, Queen heard Employee-2 order “Employee-1,” the staffer who wrote the report, to destroy it and then allegedly lied to federal officials about it. Queen was also accused of creating fake notes about the conversation surrounding the report.

Queen’s story changed under oath.

“On or about June 21, 2023, MATTHEW QUEEN, the defendant, testified under oath that on January 26, 2023, he had in fact heard Employee-2 instruct Employee-1 to make the Document ‘go away,’” according to a court filing.

On Oct. 16, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York filed court documents charging Queen with falsification of records and providing false information to law enforcement. As part of an arrangement with federal officials, Queen pleaded guilty to the second charge.

“I understand that if my plea is accepted, my sentencing will take place before the United States District Judge who is assigned, or who is to be assigned,” Queen said in a court filing.

A trial on the earlier charges had been scheduled for November.

Queen’s attorney said that the guideline for this offense is zero to six months and hopes Queen will not be incarcerated. Sentencing currently is set for February.

Sam Schmidt said prosecutors approached Queen about a plea deal and said his client admitted to making a false statement.

“And for the past year and a half, he has regretted, repented and tried to make himself a better person for making that mistake,” he said.

Since 2022, the Department of Justice has been investigating the SBC and its entities, in response to the Guidepost report that year, which found SBC had long mistreated abuse survivors and downplayed the issue of abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

But aside from the charges filed against Queen, few details about the investigation have been made public.

The SBC admitted the investigation—along with other lawsuits filed in the wake of the Guidepost report—has led to a fiscal crisis for the SBC’s Nashville-based Executive Committee. That committee recently announced plans to put its office building on the market in part because of its strained finances.

The identity of the seminary official who ordered the report destroyed has not been made public. However, Terri Stovall, the seminary’s dean of women, has come forward as the person who wrote the initial report on the 2022 abuse case. Stovall, according to school officials, refused to destroy the report.

“I am grateful for the diligence of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for holding Queen accountable for his criminal actions while serving as interim provost at Southwestern,” Stovall said in a statement.

“My hope is that the full truth and extent of his actions—and the actions of others who are no longer employed at Southwestern—will one day come to light.”

Southwestern officials said they will continue to cooperate with the DOJ investigation.

“We pray for victims of sexual abuse. Southwestern Seminary remains committed to doing everything possible to protect all members of the seminary community from sexual abuse and harassment,” the seminary said in a statement.

“Our prayers continue for Matt Queen and his family, as well as for others who have been involved in this process.”

After he was charged this past spring, Queen was placed on leave by Friendly Avenue Baptist Church. Church leaders currently are working on a response to his guilty plea, according to a statement on the congregation’s Facebook page.

“We stand firmly against any behavior that undermines trust and integrity,” the church said in its statement, which noted that Queen, who has been on leave since May, had admitted to a “serious crime.”

“Our church leadership is reviewing these recent developments as it works to complete its investigation and submit a recommendation to the church membership concerning Dr. Queen’s status and relationship with Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, all in accordance with the church’s governing documents.”

LITHIA SPRINGS, Ga. (BP)—Charles Owusu, a Ghanaian pastor and seminary adjunct professor, appreciates the diversity among the many churches stemming from the African diaspora, including not only African American, but Haitian/Caribbean, Liberian, Nigerian, Ethiopian, Egyptian and others.

Owusu is among a core group of four pastors tasked with organizing the Black Church Collective. The collective is seeking to create a collaborative evangelistic and missions table for the larger National African American Fellowship of 4,000 churches and the smaller fellowships and numerous other contingencies from the African diaspora outside NAAF members.

“Otherwise, people might think that it’s only NAAF that is involved in [Southern Baptist Convention] outreach in the Black community, said Owusu, senior pastor of Word of Life Baptist Church, a Ghanaian congregation in Lithia Springs, Ga.

“But the collective is to sensitize all the other groups, the various groups, to know that SBC has a very strong outreach program to all the Black community. And so, we should all get involved, and that’s what we’re working on.”

Charles Grant, SBC Executive Committee associate vice president for convention partnerships, is launching the group to strengthen efforts to advance the gospel among African diaspora people groups.

He hosted a preliminary organizational meeting in September, aided by Mark Croston, national director of Black church partnerships for Lifeway Christian Resources of the SBC.

Among Grant’s goals is for the group to become a self-governing work of African diaspora pastors, whom he has charged with solidifying four gatherings per year, forging three accomplishments, and communicating the essence and work of the collective.

Gathering place for fellowships within African diaspora

The group is especially a gathering place for established fellowships within the African diaspora, with the goal of coalescing others to join the 25-plus fellowships of various ethnicities that account for 11,000 Southern Baptist churches, 22.7 percent of the total.

“The Black Church Collective’s value will create greater cohesion, collective representation and collective celebration of African diaspora ministry and mission work in and through the SBC,” Grant told Baptist Press.

“While these Black church fellowships have different cultures, I am grateful to the fellowship presidents that desired to come together for kingdom advancement. I am grateful to the Lord to witness the joy of their efforts to work together while simultaneously giving attention to their individual fellowships.”

NAAF President Greg Perkins, also a member of the core organizing group, looks forward to the collective’s impact in coordinating the work of African diaspora Southern Baptists.

“This coordination will ensure that we are properly positioned to have the maximum kingdom impact,” said Perkins, lead pastor of The View Church in Menifee, Calif.

“I hope it will facilitate oneness of mission that will support and undergird the work of the Black church within the SBC through coordinated and connected opportunities for joint missions, church planting/revitalization and evangelistic pursuits.”

The first organization meeting is set for this month, said Daryl Jones, a North American Mission Board church planter and Miami pastor tasked with leading the core leadership team the first year. The pastor of The Rock Fellowship Church in Miami is a member of NAAF and is active as a Black Church Emerging Leader.

“I want to be able to bring all these different expressions together when it comes to the African diaspora,” Jones said, “for us to able to gather together to cooperate, to coordinate and then also to be able to share resources and experiences and expertise so that we continue to grow when it comes to the mission.”

Amid the diversity, Jones said, is the shared mission.

“I think we’re all in the SBC going forward on one mission, this mission Jesus has given us to make disciples,” Jones said. “And I think this collaboration gives us a unique opportunity to let nothing fall through the cracks.”

Each ethnic group represented, Jones said, brings unique gifts that can be utilized in reaching particular people groups, gifts that might be overlooked were it not for cooperation.

Rounding out the core group is Keny Felix, president of the Southern Baptist Convention National Haitian Fellowship and senior pastor of Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church in Miami.

FAIRVIEW, N.C. (BP)—Cane Creek starts as a trickle up in the mountains from Stacy Harris’ home. Garren Creek and Flat Creek are there too.

Typically, they create the small, crystal-clear pools trout love and cascading waterfalls that are favorites of Smoky Mountain tourists.

Their appearance began to change when heavy rain saturated the area. Then Hurricane Helene arrived on Friday, Oct. 4. People in Fairview Township, where Harris is pastor at Trinity of Fairview Baptist Church, hunkered down. Their homes lost power at 3:23 a.m. that night.

‘We couldn’t go anywhere’

“It was around noon on Saturday before we could venture outside,” said Harris. “There was even some blue sky because Helene was gone. But we couldn’t go anywhere.”

The mailing address for his church is in Fletcher, a bedroom community about 20 minutes south of Asheville. Fairview is further into the mountains. Those who ever attended a conference at Ridgecrest and took a side trip to Bat Cave or Chimney Rock drove through Fairview on Highway 74.

Helene had turned small valleys into funnels for the branches feeding those creeks. The water built into the kind of torrent that swept away lives and homes in areas throughout western North Carolina, contributing to a death toll of more than 230 across several states.

Like others working through loss, however, Harris and his community are finding ways to look for positives.

The creek running in front of his home wasn’t big enough for a name, but Helene turned it into something capable of ripping through his driveway. Others were in the same predicament.

Neighbors feast and fellowship on deck

When the waters receded, they had left a sizeable amount of gravel washed down from the mountain. Someone with a skid steer shaped it into a crossing good enough for a four-wheel-drive. That, and the need to be around others, would soon lead others to join Harris in his backyard.

“I have a little back deck and was fortunate enough to have a generator strong enough to pump water from my dad’s well,” he said. “We kept everybody in the valley with water and still are. We don’t expect to have water for another week.”

His generator runs from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. People get as much as they need to take home.

Fellowship and feasting became common due to eating food that would otherwise spoil. There have been hamburgers, but also the 40-or-so pork chops from a pig someone had just slaughtered. Harris smoked an 8-lb. ham that provided days of sandwiches.

“Our neighbors had never spent time like that together,” he said. “This brought people out of their houses and into their yards. Even in the middle of such disaster, it’s beautiful to see that human connection.

“We just feed, sit around and talk, telling stories and encouraging each other while the kids play,” Harris said. “It’s become our gathering time.”

The swollen creek had trapped Harris, his wife Tammy, and Harris’ parents—who live nearby—for a couple of days. Time with them and neighbors was precious, but he still had many other people on his mind.

“As a pastor, the hardest thing was a lack of communication,” he said. “I didn’t even know through the storm if my parents or other people were OK.”

Trinity of Fairview is a mix of white- and blue-collar folks. Harris knows them and the area well.

Invested a lifetime in congregation

He may be the only pastor who joined his church at 5 years old. Harris, 56, became associate pastor 30 years ago with ministry responsibilities over children, students and worship. The church called him as lead pastor 14 years ago.

“I think I’ve done everything there is to do there,” he said. “The Lord has been so good to me, to be here with these people.”

Trinity has joined other churches in becoming a distribution hub for materials. But there is also its presence as a light in an otherwise dark time.

A generator powers its family life center in those efforts. Recently, everyone there was treated to sloppy joes and burritos that had been in the freezer of Juicy Lucy’s—a local joint known for cooking the cheese inside its burgers.

That event accompanied Trinity of Fairview’s first post-Helene worship gathering on Oct. 6, held in its parking lot.

“Yesterday was a banner day, to have everyone here for praise and worship,” Harris said. “We shared a little bit of the word [of God] and the gospel with people.

“It was tremendous. It was good for my spirit and good for my soul.”

YAZOO CITY, Miss.—Owen Cooper wasn’t a Baptist when he left for college, intending to be a Presbyterian as was his mother. But Bible-reading led the young Mississippian into a faith journey that helped shape Southern Baptists during the latter half of the 20th century.

He did so as a layman who founded a large-scale fertilizer plant.

Fifty years ago, Cooper ended two terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention—among only a few laymen ever elected to the office. His legacy includes casting a vision for the SBC-wide Bold Mission Thrust initiative that aimed to share the gospel with every person in the world by the year 2000.

Emphasized importance of laity

Owen Cooper regularly underscored the importance of laymen as he visited every state in the union during his SBC presidency, along with an array of mission fields.

In his presidential address to the 1974 annual meeting in Dallas, he asserted, “The greatest apostasy” of the past century was “the perpetuation of the nonbiblical concept that the burden for evangelism and missions lies only with the full-time Christian worker and that the ‘layman’ has little responsibility.”

“Lay people are expected to occupy the church pew, to fill the offering plate, to teach a Sunday School class, to attend Church Training [the former Sunday evening discipleship hour] but otherwise are seldom challenged by the church program,” Cooper said.

In his 1974 book The Future Is Before Us, published by the convention’s Broadman Press, he insisted, “You will never know the abundant life, you will never find fulfillment in your church membership, and you will never know the peace that passeth understanding until you minister even as you are ministered unto.”

Cooper brought a layman’s demeanor to his presidency, as noted by the SBC Executive Committee’s lead administrative assistant, the late Martha Gaddis.

“The other presidents and their wives I called ‘Dr. and Mrs. So and So.’ From the very beginning the Coopers said: ‘We’re Owen and Beth. Don’t call us anything else,’” she recounted in a 1992 book about Cooper, The Thought Occurred to Me by the late Don McGregor, editor emeritus of the Baptist Record in Mississippi.

Humble beginnings

Cooper grew up as a farm-boy near Vicksburg, Miss., chopping cotton and milking cows. While a student at Mississippi State University, preparing to teach high school vocational agriculture and paying his way by beekeeping and delivering newspapers, he was elected as president of the statewide Baptist Student Union.

As a vo-ag teacher in his early 20s in the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, Cooper became the Sunday school superintendent at First Baptist Church and served on its pastor search committee.

After earning a master’s degree in economics and political science at the University of Mississippi, he pursued a law degree from the Jackson School of Law (now part of Mississippi College, a Baptist school). As a member of Jackson’s First Baptist Church, he became the Baptist Student Union director at two colleges in the state capital, Belhaven, affiliated with the Presbyterians, and Millsaps, affiliated with the Methodists.

Cooper moved to Yazoo City, 50 miles northwest of Jackson, while working to establish the nation’s first farmer-owned nitrogen fertilizer plant, Mississippi Chemical Corporation, which opened in 1951, in a cooperative venture involving the Farm Bureau, farmers and their banks throughout the South and federal loan officials.

He joined First Baptist Church in Yazoo City, taking on the role of Sunday school superintendent and knocking on doors in weekly home visitation and revival campaigns. He was moderator of the Yazoo Baptist Association before becoming president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention. As a longtime member of the SBC Executive Committee, he was elected as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1972.

Call to engage in evangelism

Cooper’s advocacy for Baptist laymen typically was voiced alongside an insistent call for evangelistic fervor throughout the SBC.

In his 1973 presidential address on the “Share the Word” theme at the SBC annual meeting in Portland, Ore., Cooper said Baptists must witness “in our kitchen, in our dining room, in our den and in our living room … in our front yard and across the fence in our backyard.”

“It means we should witness to our neighbors next door and to our neighbors who live around the world,” he said. “It means we should witness where we work, where we shop, where we bank, where we play and where we make our social contacts … when we travel, when we are on vacation, when we are on a business trip, attending a conference, at the civic club, at the country club, at the hunting club, at the social club and at the garden club.”

He continued: “We should also witness to the uttermost parts of the earth …to the rural settlement, to the village, to the town, in the city, and in the metropolis. We should witness in the townhouses, and in the ghetto, in the single-family residence, and in the high-rise, in the row house and in the tenant house.”

As SBC president, Cooper initiated a 21-member Missions Challenge Committee in 1974 that brought a report to the 1976 annual meeting in Norfolk, Va., calling Southern Baptists into a 25-year Bold Mission Thrust effort encompassing numerous international and home missions initiatives.

The late Albert McClellan, the Executive Committee’s associate executive secretary, wrote to Cooper in 1977: “I remember quite vividly that the whole concept of the Missions Challenge was your idea. You stirred it up in the [former] Committee of Fifteen and fixed it so that it would become clear to Southern Baptists that we needed to go forward in missions.”

Passion for missions

Reflecting his passion for missions and his entrepreneurial spirit, Cooper took an interest in India, leading several U.S. fertilizer companies and the U.S. Agency for International Development to pioneer large-scale fertilizer plants in the populous Asian nation.

He then launched an organization to support Indian evangelists, naming it Universal Concern.

He also raised funds to rehabilitate the cemetery where missions pioneer William Carey is buried.

Creating an Agricultural Missions Foundation, Cooper worked with farmers to nurture their missions involvement by shipping beef and dairy cattle, hogs, rabbits, seed, tools and a tractor to Southern Baptist agricultural stations in Ecuador, Liberia, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the Philippines and other locations.

Promoted race relations

In civic affairs, as executive director of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation in the 1940s, he led an effort in the state legislature to create the Mississippi Commission on Hospital Care, which he then chaired, approving the construction of more than 100 rural hospitals.

During the 1960s, Cooper bridged racial lines, accepting the chairmanship of an organization to lift the state’s Head Start program from bankruptcy. Called the Mississippi Action Project, the board consisted of an equal number of whites and blacks, including the NAACP state chairman.

Cooper acknowledged to friends that his Head Start involvement would derail his long-held goal to someday run for governor of Mississippi.

Within the SBC, Cooper often voiced concern about race relations, drafting a 1972 resolution, for example, expressing “gratitude to God for the progress being made in an increasing number of our churches where persons of other races are welcomed into all areas of church life and fellowship.”

Cooper never was shy about tying an evangelistic exhortation to his Mississippi roots as well as his business interests, noting in The Future Is Before Us: “We need to be challenged by the fact that as Christians it is our responsibility, not our privilege, it is our obligation, not our wish, it is our duty, not our desire to see that the gospel is preached throughout the world.”

Cooper died in 1986 at age 78.

MORGAN CITY, La.—“Stop,” urged Chaplain Leslie Burch of the Texans on Mission Deep East Texas flood recovery team. “Can everybody stop and pray with me?”

She asked her fellow team members to halt their work as they tore out flooring in the home of Troy and Angel in Morgan City, La.

The couple’s home had been flooded during heavy rains that hit the Mississippi Delta town the week before as Hurricane Francine landed in southern Louisiana.

“Troy and Angel are talking about accepting Christ, and we need to pray for God’s Spirit,” Burch explained.

It was all she needed to say. The group left their scrapers, shovels and wheelbarrows, gathered in the living room, now an empty space with bare concrete floors, held hands and prayed for the young homeowners and their children.

The Texans on Mission team was one of two that responded to Francine’s aftermath, joining partner groups from several other states to provide flood recovery and tree and debris removal after the violent storm.

Like many Texans on Mission teams, the Francine volunteers represented a mix of churches and backgrounds from throughout southeastern Texas.

Burch, a member of First Baptist Church of Orange, said the team came to “serve the needs” of the flood victims.

Team leader Mike Petigo of First Baptist Church in Nederland explained the team had been assigned to do flood recovery.

“We’re taking out sheetrock and disinfecting their homes so that survivors can get ready to put new sheetrock back in,” Petigo said.

For Steve Hammer of Covenant Church in Willis, the recovery efforts were about “getting it all cleaned out so these people can get on with their lives.

“We’re here today, about a week after the hurricane came through, and it’s important,” Hammer added. “We’re cleaning out houses now, because it gets nastier and nastier and nastier as time goes on.”

Pastor on the receiving end of ministry

Homeowners Tracey and Marci Smith were grateful for the team, who removed the lower two feet of their home’s sheetrock to ready it for replacement after flood waters seeped in and posed a mold danger.

It was especially meaningful for Tracey Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church of Morgan City, where the combined relief teams camped in Bible study rooms and ate in the fellowship hall.

Smith has been involved in Louisiana Baptist disaster relief in previous hurricane recoveries, but after Francine flooded his home, he found himself on the receiving end of disaster response.

Taking a break from helping the Texas team tear out lower walls and treat for mold, he offered his perspective on the recent storm.

“Well, we’ve been through this before. We’ve been through Hurricanes Laura and Delta back in 2020. But we didn’t have flooding like this,” Smith said.

Smith rode out the flooding in his truck outside his home. Marci Smith said that as the water rose and came closer to their house, Tracey “sat in the truck with the two dogs” near his fishing boat in case he needed to “help our neighbors escape.” It was not needed, but he was ready to help.

The Smiths’ own home became surrounded by an unbroken sea of water.

“It’s just kind of a hopeless feeling not being able to stop or prevent that from happening,” Tracey said.

The day after the storm, he said, the couple noticed the water “was migrating more and more throughout the house.

“So, we didn’t know to what degree we were going to have to remove the flooring or walls or anything like that,” he said. “It pretty much changes your routine and most definitely changes your way of life. You know that it’s not going to be back to what you would consider normal anytime soon.”

Tracey Smith has responded to other disasters, including Hurricane Ian in 2022 when he worked with Texas volunteers. So, he knew what to expect from the volunteers when they arrived.

“We knew the quality job” they would do, Tracey said. “We knew that they were going to be more than willing to do whatever we needed. And we were just glad to have them. … This is a good bunch.”