IMB committee seeks recommendations
A team of International Mission Board trustees met Oct. 6 in Richmond, Va., and announced they will begin accepting recommendations to bolster their search for the IMB’s next president. The 15-member search committee was appointed in September following Jerry Rankin’s announcement that he will retire as IMB president in July 2010. Recommendations can be sent to imbpresident@fbcforney.org or to P.O. Box 97, Forney, Tex. 75126. The deadline for submissions is Dec. 31.
American Samoa deaths include 6 Baptists
While American Samoa’s overall death toll from the one-two punch of an earthquake and tsunami remains at 31, six of the victims were Southern Baptists, Elise Tafao, pastor of Happy Valley Baptist Church in Pago Pago, reported. “The South Pacific Baptist Association lost six members in three different churches – the Samoan-Korean Baptist Church, the Chinese Baptist Church of American Samoa and Faleniu Baptist Church,” Tafao said. The church he has pastored 17 years, Happy Valley Baptist, is located in Pago Pago’s international airport area, which was not impacted by the tsunami. Tafao’s home also was spared.
SBC: Below budget 2.87%; CP down 2.32%
The Southern Baptist Convention finished its Oct. 1-Sept. 30 fiscal year 2.87 percent below budget, while Cooperative Program receipts for the year were down 2.23 percent and combined CP and designated giving for the year was down 3.65 percent. “Some might tend to focus on our not meeting the same level of giving as last year,” said Morris Chapman, president of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. “However, I see the committed efforts of so many faithful members of our churches to provide for Cooperative Program budget needs this year as a tribute to the sacrificial giving by individual Southern Baptists and to the faithful support by local congregations.” A total of $199,822,090 in CP gifts was received by the Southern Baptist Convention during the fiscal year from Oct. 1, 2008, through Sept. 30, 2009 – down by $4,563,502 (2.23 percent) from the previous fiscal year’s $204,385,592.
Most Americans marry just once
Most Americans marry just once, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The American Community Survey, an ongoing statistical portrait of the characteristics of the nation’s population, found that of 3 million people, 76 percent of those who had ever married have married only once. Also, nearly 20 percent of Americans have been married twice and 5 percent have been married three or more times, according to the survey, released Sept. 21. Less than 11 percent of the population is currently divorced, and the average marriage, the Census Bureau said, lasts 18.2 years. Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the Census Bureau research points to the respect people have for the institution of marriage.