Media buy to aid gospel presentation
As Easter Sunday approaches, state conventions have ordered or produced 17 million pieces of literature to be placed on doors in neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada in an effort to touch every household with the gospel through “God’s Plan for Sharing.” In addition, the North American Mission Board has coordinated the purchase of more than 25,000 television ads, more than 7,000 radio spots and additional exposure through newspaper ads, billboards, yard signs and banners. NAMB sent $1.2 million to state convention partners for the purchase of airtime and print space. State partners have contributed more than a half-million dollars to the purchases, bringing the total media buy to more than $1.7 million.
Goal: 150,000 food buckets to Haiti
Organizers of the “Buckets of Hope” initiative for Haiti relief estimate that 150,000 food buckets, including 5,000 from South Carolina, will be shipped to Port-au-Prince to help combat hunger in the earthquake-devastated country. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, also is supporting the project by encouraging individual store managers to cooperate with Southern Baptists who come in to buy buckets and items to go in them.
Cooperative Program behind 2009 pace
Year-to-date contributions through the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program are 1.64 percent below the same time frame last year. As of Feb. 28, the year-to-date total of $83,896,187.33 for Cooperative Program (CP) missions is $1,396,902.07 behind the $85,293,089.40 received at the end of February 2009. Designated giving of $91,075,221.88 for the same year-to-date period is 2.08 percent below gifts received at this point last year.
Retirement contributions may rebound
Many employers plan to resume matching retirement contributions in 2010. A recent survey found that 80 percent of for-profit employers intend to restore their matches to employer-sponsored retirement plans. While no similar study has been conducted for churches and ministries, GuideStone Financial Resources president O.S. Hawkins is encouraging churches and ministries that can to do the same. GuideStone provides a resource for determining appropriate compensation and benefits: “The Planning Financial Support” workbook, which can be accessed at www.GuideStoneRetirement.org/ToolsandEducation.aspx, then selecting Church Resources and then Employer Resources.
IMB trustees seek prayer for pres. search
The International Mission Board’s presidential search committee continues to narrow down its field of candidates to select the organization’s 11th president. Though search committee chairman Jimmy Pritchard preferred not to specify the number of remaining candidates the committee is considering, he said they have come to the “most crucial” time in the search for the next leader of IMB. “The choices will be very difficult from this point on,” said Pritchard.
Report: Millennials ‘less religious’
Young adults today are considered less religious than previous generations, according to a study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The report is part of a series that focuses on the values and behaviors of teens that make up the millennial generation – those who were born after 1980. Although faith tends to increase with age, the report shows a steady decline of religious affiliation in recent generations. “If you think of religion primarily as a matter of whether people belong to a particular faith and attend the worship services of that faith – then millennials are less religious than other recent generations,” said Alan Cooperman, associate director of research for the Pew Research Forum.
Study: Cohabiting common but harmful
Cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first co-residential union formed among young adults, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics has found, but those who practice some facets of marriage without the foundation of commitment are harming their relationship. The data, collected in 2002, showed that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent. Half of couples who cohabit marry within three years, the study said, but the likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by 6 percentage points if the couple had lived together first.