SBC giving down for 2009-2010
The Southern Baptist Convention finished its Oct. 1-Sept. 30 fiscal year 6.18 percent below budget, while Cooperative Program receipts for the year were down 4.03 percent and combined CP and designated giving for the year was down 2.52 percent, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee president and chief executive officer Frank S. Page. Page, in a statement to Baptist Press, nevertheless noted that “much great work is occurring even in difficult circumstances” through cooperative outreach by Southern Baptists in their communities and around the world. For the SBC Cooperative Program allocation budget, the year-end total of $191,763,152.87 was $12,622,439.76 (or 6.18 percent) below the $204,385,592.63 budgeted to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America.
‘Covenant of trust’ for SBC is Page’s goal
On his first day in the office as president of the Executive Committee, Frank Page emphasized a desire to build relationships and establish a covenant of trust among Southern Baptists. “I know these are days of transition and days of challenge for Southern Baptists in many different settings and many different ways,” Page said Oct. 4 at the Southern Baptist Convention building in Nashville, Tenn. “We need to have a renewed trust in our Lord and his precious ability to pull things together.” Referring to the multitude of opinions about the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention, Page said, “I am trying to build relationships and trying to establish a covenant of trust to say, our old ship is in trouble. But with relationships and the power of the Lord, we can turn it around. Without relationships, we’re sunk.”
Hankins’ CP stance draws board’s support
In a show of solidarity with Louisiana Baptist Convention executive director David E. Hankins, the LBC Executive Board Sept. 28 overwhelmingly adopted a resolution supporting the Cooperative Program as the convention’s primary funding method and praising Hankins for his unwavering and passionate defense of the 85-year-old channel of missions giving. Hankins told Executive Board members he is willing, if necessary, to play “the skunk at the tea party” in challenging the idea that the Baptist state conventions are “the bottleneck preventing mission dollars getting to where they need to be.”
Largest, fastest-growing churches tallied
The Southeast led the way, but churches from coast to coast are on the 2010 list of America’s largest and fastest-growing churches, according to Outreach Magazine, based on research from LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. This year’s Largest list features churches from 31 states across the nation. The highest concentration of largest churches is in the Southeast, with 33 of the top 100 spots. Rounding out the regional representation: Churches in the West captured 22 of the top spots; churches in the Midwest and Southwest each earned 21 spots; and churches in the Northeast garnered three placements. Lakewood Church in Houston tops the Largest list with an average attendance of 43,500.
Promise Keepers broadens to women
Promise Keepers is synonymous with large groups of men, but in October, organizers invited women to a gathering in Dallas. “We realized the time had come for Promise Keepers to expand its vision beyond ministry to just men,” Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach who founded Promise Keepers in 1990, said in a news release. “This shift is in keeping with the biblical precedent of understanding the current times, and Promise Keepers recognizes that nearly half of all U.S. homes are led by single women,” the news release said. “In order to fulfill the ministry’s vision to transform homes for Christ, it has become clear that these women need to be included.” Promise Keepers will continue a ministry specifically for men during its PK Classic events. One was held in Denver this summer, and three more are scheduled for next year.
Mohler on cover of Christianity Today
Southern Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. is featured on the cover of the October issue of Christianity Today, which, in a 5,000-word story, tells how he changed from being a theological moderate to a conservative and then helped return the school’s faculty to a belief in biblical inerrancy. The cover story calls Mohler “the reformer” and says he “transformed a seminary, helped change a denomination, and challenges a culture.”
See You at the Pole marks 20th year
An estimated 1 to 2 million students participated in the annual See You at the Pole prayer event in schools around the nation and in as many as 20 other countries Sept. 22. The movement began in 1990 when a small group of teenagers in Burleson, Texas, were burdened for their unbelieving friends and drove to three different schools to pray around flagpoles. Each year now, students gather around flagpoles before class on a designated morning to pray for their schools.
Implosion scheduled for church buildings
Five buildings of First Baptist Church in Dallas will be imploded Oct. 30 to make way for a $115 million campus plan to recreate the downtown church’s facilities. The 143-year-old church raised more than $115 million in a six-month capital campaign in what consultants said is the largest ever pledged for a Protestant church building program in the United States. Highlights of the new campus will include a 3,000-seat worship center, a new education building, a fountain plaza with a water tower topped by a cross, hundreds more parking spaces, and a sky bridge that will tie together different parts of the new campus.
Guidestone bond fund gets Bloomberg nod
The GuideStone Funds Extended-Duration Bond Fund ranked No. 6 among U.S.-based bond funds as of June 30, according to Bloomberg. “We believe that our funds rank and compare favorably against the largest and best-known names in the mutual fund industry,” said Rodric E. Cummins, GuideStone’s chief investment officer. The Extended-Duration Bond Fund, along with the other 24 GuideStone Funds, is available to participants in retirement plans provided by GuideStone, including employees of Southern Baptist and like-minded churches, colleges, universities, seminaries, children’s and retirement homes, and affiliated institutions, such as hospitals and mission-sending entities.
Silsby: God had purpose for time in jail
The Idaho Baptist woman who spent more than 100 days in a Haiti jail this year says God taught her to embrace life’s trials as an opportunity to know him better, and she says God used her prison experience to save guards and other prisoners. Laura Silsby, who was arrested in January along with nine other Baptist volunteers for allegedly not having proper documentation to take orphans out of Haiti, says although her time in jail was “in some ways a valley experience,” she was able to share her faith with more than 150 prisoners and guards and see many of them accept Christ. Silsby was released from prison May 17, weeks after the majority of her teammates were released.