Starvation stalks millions in Kenya
Starvation continues to stalk millions of Maasai people in Kenya’s Rift valley, and Southern Baptists are launching a new round of hunger relief to help the neediest survive. Almost a third of the people in Kenya’s Kajiado and Narok districts are in dire need of food, and the new round of relief efforts will stave off disaster for about 180,000 people, according to the Southern Baptist missionary coordinating the project. World Hunger Sunday is Oct. 11. Resources for observing World Hunger Sunday are available at www.worldhungerfund.com.
Akin facing colon surgery
An unspecified medical condition that will entail colon surgery prevented Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, from attending the Aug. 26 meeting of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force in Rogers, Ark. A statement released Aug. 26 by the seminary reported: “Dr. Akin is currently under the care of a doctor and is resting at home, but is looking at colon surgery in the near future for a non-life threatening medical condition.”
Prof resigns rather than leave church
A music professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has opted for early retirement rather than leave a church declared out of fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention because of openly homosexual members. Michael Cox, an award-winning professor of music theory and composition who has taught at Southwestern since 1990, chose to remain in membership at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, a congregation with 125-year ties to the SBC and a long history of faculty and seminary leaders in its membership. The seminary requires faculty to be members in Southern Baptist churches.
LifeWay seeks tenants for historic Frost Bldg.
LifeWay Christian Resources is seeking to lease the historic Frost Building in downtown Nashville. LifeWay vacated the building late last year in an effort to use existing office space more efficiently. Built in 1914 as the first permanent structure of the former Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay), and named for founder J.M. Frost, the building was placed on the city’s historical register in 1980.
Huckabee, in Israel, pushes one-state solution
On what Time magazine dubbed his “first 2012 campaign stop,” Mike Huckabee said in Israel Aug. 18 there should be no Palestinian state in the West Bank and expressed support for Israeli settlements there. “The question is, ‘Should Palestinians have a place to call their own?’ Yes. I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That’s what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic,” Huckabee, a former Republican candidate for president, told a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem.
NAMB task force dissolved
A North American Mission Board task force commissioned by former NAMB President Geoff Hammond is being dissolved, but members have been asked to be available for input and involvement as NAMB leaders ask key questions about the effectiveness of the entity’s evangelism and church planting efforts. Hammond announced the task force – originally called the North American Great Commission Task Force – in May, saying it would “study the actions and activities that will impact this continent for Christ in more effective ways.” When members of the task force met for the first working meeting July 28, they decided to change the name in order to avoid being confused with the Great Commission Task Force (also known as the GCR task force), which messengers to the 2009 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting approved in June.
GCR task force calls for input, prayer
Interest is “huge” in the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force and the group wants grass-roots Southern Baptists to share their thoughts and mobilize their congregations to pray for the task force’s work, its chairman said Aug. 27. In an impromptu press conference following the task force’s Aug. 26-27 meeting, Ronnie Floyd said he was very pleased with the Aug. 26 listening session that drew more than 400 pastors and lay leaders from the region around Rogers, Ark. The group’s next meeting will be Oct. 27 in Dallas, at a venue near an airport that has not yet been secured, Floyd said.
Driscoll leadership school features SBC staffers
Three staff members of Southern Baptist Convention entities are among eight leaders of a new leadership school being launched by Mars Hill Church, the Seattle, Wash., mega-church co-led by Mark Driscoll. Bruce Ware, Gregg Allison and Ed Stetzer will join Driscoll, John Piper and Sam Storms on the faculty of the Resurgence Training Center, a 36-hour graduate program in leadership. Driscoll, who also is the founder of the Acts 29 church planting network, was the subject of five proposed motions and one proposed resolution at the SBC annual meeting in June that centered on criticism of his past use of vulgar speech and questionable biblical interpretations and his participation as a speaker in SBC entity programs such as an annual student conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Later, Driscoll thanked critics “for teaching me that I have multiple audiences and that, in addition to the room I speak to, I am often also speaking to the world and need to keep repenting, learning and growing in this skill for the sake of the Gospel. In that way, my critics are helpful, and for them I am grateful.”
World Changers, PowerPlant meet in St. Louis
Nearly 400 World Changers and PowerPlant participants traveled to the Show Me state this summer to show the city of St. Louis the love of Christ. “This is the first time ever that we have had both PowerPlant and World Changers in the same city the same week,” noted Jonathan Wilson, strategy development coordinator for the five-day mission opportunities organized by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. World Changers provides students and adults with opportunities to meet the physical and spiritual needs of others, most often by replacing roofs and tackling other repairs on low-income housing or by holding backyard Bible clubs.