CP 1.92% below previous year’s pace
Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee are 1.92 percent below the same time frame last year. As of May 31, gifts received by the Executive Committee for distribution through the Cooperative Program allocation budget totaled $130,314,404.44, or $2,545,288.04 behind the $132,859,692.48 received at the end of May 2010. Designated giving of $147,289,329.48 for the same year-to-date period is 6.78 percent, or $10,719,812.29, below gifts of $158,009,141.77 received at this point last year.
Church envisions 50 new church plants
Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, has a three-year vision for “Greater Things,” an ambitious church-planting and missions mobilization campaign now underway. Floyd challenged the people in Cross Church’s three campuses to plant 50 new churches over three years and, in 2012 alone, to mobilize at least 1,000 church members to experience a cross-cultural missions experience outside northwest Arkansas. “To God’s glory, 2,000 members of Cross Church have committed to undertake a cross-cultural missions experience … somewhere in North America or the world. The ultimate goal is to reach 10,000 people in the world for Jesus Christ in 2012,” Floyd said.
Warren, Piper talk doctrine
Rick Warren and John Piper, two pastors with different beliefs and practices, talk to one another for more than 90 minutes in a new video that spotlights Warren’s book “Purpose Driven Life.” The video, recorded May 1 and posted May 27, was recorded at the invitation of Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church. Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, quizzes Warren about the book in what Piper calls an “appreciative critique.” Much of the discussion focuses on doctrine. “Frankly, I’m appalled at the kinds of slanders that have been brought against this book by people whose methods of critique, if they were consistently applied to the Bible, would undo it as the word of God,” Piper says at the beginning. The video can be viewed at RickWarren.com or DesiringGod.org.
TVGuardian teams with Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family has teamed up with TVGuardian to make the TVGuardian filter, a device that eliminates objectionable language on television and DVD movies, available to more families. The partnership means the units will be sold through Focus on the Family’s website. TVGuardian introduced a model last year that works with HD television. “Parents are continuously bombarded with media messages that are at odds with how they are raising their children,” Rich Bennett, vice president of Focus on the Family’s family strategy office said. “Many are at a loss as to how to combat this as technology advances and objectionable entertainment content increases.”
Ethridge to be Pastors’ Conference nominee
Grant Ethridge, senior pastor of Liberty Church in Hampton, Va., will be nominated as president of the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference at its June 12-13 meeting in Phoenix, Louisiana pastor Fred Luter Jr. has announced. “Dr. Ethridge has been a pastor for over 27 years, serving churches in Georgia, Arkansas and Virginia,” Luter, senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Church in New Orleans, said in a statement to Baptist Press May 20. Ethridge is a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Chitwood nominated as Kentucky exec.
Kentucky pastor Paul Chitwood was to be nominated as executive director-treasurer of the Kentucky Baptist Convention at a special meeting of the KBC Mission Board June 2 in Louisville. If elected, Chitwood, 41, pastor of First Baptist Church of Mount Washington, would begin his duties July 1, succeeding South Carolina native Bill Mackey, who retired as executive director May 31 after 13 years of service. Chitwood told the Western Recorder newsjournal: “Michelle and I are honored and humbled that the search committee will be recommending me to the mission board as the next executive director.?- Should the mission board confirm that it is God’s will for me to serve in this role, I will accept the challenge of building on the good work of Bill Mackey.”
New Orleans DOM dies after stroke
Duane McDaniel, executive director of the New Orleans Baptist Association, died May 30 after suffering a massive stroke on May 21. He was 54. McDaniel is survived by his wife Kathleen; four children, Mallory, 15; Matthew, 14; Keanu, 8; and Abby, 7. Since 2009 at the helm of the urban Baptist association still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, McDaniel set in place what he called “a holistic missional strategy for glorifying God by proclaiming the gospel in word and deed,” said Jack Hunter of the associational staff.