D.J. Horton said one of his main “dad speeches” that he gives his kids is this: “Do not let life happen to you; you happen to life.” For him, that idea carries over into the Beatitude he preached on at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference June 12 — “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall […]
I think it was at my very first meal after moving to England that a new friend taught me this about Queen Elizabeth: She owns all the swans. Yes, all the swans. In the country. At least that’s what I was told as we had a picnic in a park on the banks of a […]
Michelle Armstrong’s church — Hillcrest Baptist in New Albany, Miss. — has been part of Night to Shine since the very beginning. The congregation started its special needs ministry — HALOS, which stands for Helping All Love Our Savior — in 2014, the same year the Tim Tebow Foundation started formulating the idea for Night […]
James Carson has watched the church he loves go through a lot in the past two years. When its building went up in flames in August 2018, he saw the smoke from his house across the cow pasture. It was a long process, but they rebuilt. And now he’s watching from home again as his […]
Southern Baptists are at a crossroads — not regarding their doctrine or mission, but regarding “what kind of Gospel witnesses we will be in an age like ours,” said J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. During his president’s address Tuesday morning, June 11, in Birmingham, Ala., Greear gave three defining values he believes […]
A Virginia Baptist church is mourning the loss of one of its own in the wake of a mass shooting that left 12 dead in a Virginia Beach office building on Friday, May 31. Former London Bridge Baptist Church member Herbert “Bert” Snelling was shot and killed as DeWayne Craddock made his way through Building […]
As recent polls put U.S. church membership at an all-time low and anxiety at an all-time high, some Southern Baptist leaders say the numbers are a wake-up call to Christians’ deep need to take the Great Commission personally. A Gallup Poll published in mid-April found that around 50 percent of Americans self-reported as members of […]
After Myra Middlebrook’s mother died in 2010, she found some money her mom had tucked away — and she knew exactly what it was. “I knew it was her Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for that year,” Middlebrook said. “She put money away all year for missions. She always had.” For the years that her […]
Thirteen photos — a wide palette of Russian faces — hang on the walls of Marc Ira Hooks’ office. One is an elderly man in Sochi, the Russian city that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. Another is a young boy more than 5,700 miles away in eastern Siberia, face wrapped in fur. And there […]
Imagine what it’s like to go decades having someone else make all your decisions for you from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed. Then imagine — overnight — having to start making thousands of decisions a day. That’s the reality of inmates released from Alabama’s prisons every year and […]