How far would you go to be baptized? Down the street? Across town? To a neighboring county? To a local lake or river? A teenager from Orchard Park, N.Y., a few miles southeast of Buffalo, recently traveled with his father to Mullins, S.C. — a trip of more than 700 miles — to be baptized […]
A longtime South Carolina pastor, Eddie Leopard, and his wife, Dawn, have launched a ministry together devoted to helping couples who love each other learn to like each other again. While they’ve heard some spouses say, “I love him or her, but I just don’t like them,” Dawn noted, “Well, at some point you had […]
While most people think of babies and abortions, Tom Turner also sees senior adult care as being connected with a holistic understanding of the Sanctity of Human Life. “In Job 12:10, it says that the life of everything is in His hands as well as the breath of all humanity,” he explains. “And so, as […]
Chip Mixon was helping his son build a house, lost his balance, and tumbled off of a scaffold. The fall from a height of more than 10 feet fractured a vertebra in his spine, leaving his legs paralyzed. On that Saturday, Aug. 6, and every day since, Mixon, who leads the praise team at First […]
What is being in Bethlehem at Christmas like today? Well, it’s not exactly how a Hallmark card makes it out to be, as one tour host put it. A high point of a recent trip to the Holy Land for me was the opportunity to visit Bethlehem. But everything was not as I expected. Bethlehem […]
Messengers to the annual meeting at Irmo’s Riverland Hills Baptist Church took time to honor Executive Director-Treasurer Gary Hollingsworth for his seven years of service to South Carolina Baptists. Hollingsworth has set his retirement date as April 30, 2023. Calling his years at the state convention’s helm the pinnacle of his 48 years of ministry, […]
Meeting at Riverland Hills Baptist Church Nov. 14 in sessions featuring the theme of “Hope and Encouragement,” Pastors Conference attendees heard messages from their retiring state executive, two pastors from Easley, and another from Greer. South Carolina Baptist Convention Executive Director-Treasurer Gary Hollingsworth opened the conference with a message from the book of Nehemiah. “Our […]
With “Wake Up!” as their theme, messengers to the annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention approved a report from their Sexual Abuse Task Force, honored their retiring executive, and elected a Columbia pastor as president-elect. Gathering at Riverland Hills Baptist Church in Irmo, Nov. 14-15, the 703 registered messengers also adopted a $26.5 […]
Bethany Westville Baptist Church near Camden may be a small church, but its members have big servant hearts that are committed to making an impact in their community. When Craigen Blankenship came to Bethany Westville in 2006, the congregation had gone through “a pretty rough patch,” and attendance was waning, he recalled. Searching for a […]
Shane Pruitt, national Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board, believes churches now more than ever have the opportunity to step into the brokenness of Generation Z with the hope of the gospel. In a recent video interview with Baptist Press, Pruitt said the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create new problems for Gen Z […]