Posts tagged Baptist
‘Tis The Season For Missionaries To Connect With Churches

Church Connections is the IMB’s effort to connect, nurture and deepen relationships with the Southern Baptist Convention’s 47,000 churches. Congregations can hear and rejoice over what God is doing around the world. IMB leadership recognized not every church in the SBC has a relationship or contact with a missionary.

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Crews Demolish Texas Church Where Gunman Killed 25 In 2017

The site of the deadliest church shooting in the nation no longer stands, as First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs moved forward this week with a 2021 decision to demolish its former sanctuary. Church members voted 69-35 to demolish the Texas sanctuary after a gunman killed 25 there in November 2017, including a pregnant woman, and injured 20 others before killing himself.

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How Global Religious Freedom Is Being Harmed By Government Lies

Government-fostered misinformation and disinformation are hindering religious liberty in several places globally, USCIRF said in an August factsheet, and spreading societal religious persecution including violence. USCIRF defined misinformation as a claim that is false or inaccurate, and disinformation as a false or inaccurate claim that the government deliberately disseminates.

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How An Oklahoma Pastor’s Ministry Thrives Amid Personal Challenges

When Brad Graves began pastoring Cross Church San Diego in 2007, wildfires forced his evacuation before his moving truck arrived. Afterwards, Graves led the church in disaster relief as San Diego County recovered from a series of wildfires that killed two people. And the adversity he has faced doesn’t end there.

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Pastor Rearrested In Myanmar Just Hours After Being Freed

A Baptist pastor and religious freedom advocate in war-torn Myanmar was rearrested by junta leaders after mere hours of freedom. Hkalam Samson, former head of the Kachin Baptist Convention in Myanmar and a civic activist, had been released April 17 from a six-year prison sentence alongside 3,300 other prisoners in a mass amnesty customarily granted at Myanmar’s New Year, celebrated April 13-16 this year.

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Churches Tap Into Pickleball’s Growing Popularity To Share The Gospel

Some find the constant pop of the wiffle ball batted about by oversized ping pong paddles annoying. Others see a sport encouraging exercise, multigenerational competition, and camaraderie. Regardless, pickleball is here to stay. It’s called the fastest-growing recreational sport in the U.S., although it has been around since 1965.

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Arizona Church Sues After City Halts Ministry That Fed Needy Families

Pastor Manuel Castro was in tears. Sobbing, he recalled his frustration and heartbreak at having to halt Iglesia Bautista Gethsemani’s food distribution ministry after the city threatened his arrest. For 25 years, Castro said he has ministered to the spiritual and humanitarian needs of the agricultural town, near the Mexican border, including many seasonal workers with an unemployment rate of 28.1 percent.

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New York Baptist Church And Pastor Mark 50 Years of Service

When Mark Hui, pastor of Brooklyn Chinese Baptist Church in New York, felt God calling him 50 years ago to start a church for Chinese-speaking people, he thought it would be as easy as opening a restaurant. The actual start was harder and despite the 300 flyers distributed announcing the new church, the first service in March 1974 included only three adults, two of whom were Hui and his wife.

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Global Missionary Partners Advance Gospel In Colombia

Laura Martinez’s letter to her supporters in Mexico is reminiscent of New Testament letters. Recently, she wrote about adapting quickly to the culture, climate, geography and gastronomy of Colombia. She enumerated the differences in seasons and interpretations of certain Spanish words, and she was pleasantly surprised the quality of water in Colombia is higher than where she’s from in Mexico.

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March Madness: Ranking The Tournament’s Religiously Affiliated Schools

Another March Madness is once again upon us. The NCAA’s men’s Division I basketball tournament will enthrall millions with its bracket-busting upsets. It is, for many sports fans, the best time of the year. This year’s 68-team field features seven Catholic schools. In addition, five are Protestant and one Mormon. Here’s a look at how they stack up.

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Georgia County’s First Spanish-Speaking Church Reflective Of Hispanic Growth

Victor Lyons’ work in collecting information for the 2020 Census made it clear to him that Wilcox County reflected the burgeoning Spanish-speaking population of South Georgia. The pastor of First Avenue Baptist Church will officially add another title this Sunday as pastor of Iglesia Vida Abundantè (Abundant Life) Church, which will meet in First Avenue’s sanctuary.

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Two Leaders Of The New US House Could Put Baptist Diversity In The News Spotlight

(OPINION) By coincidence, both party leaders in the U.S. House are now Baptists, a faith that outside the South has generally been underrepresented among the political elite. Catholics — think Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Paul Ryan — monopolized the speaker and minority leader posts for much of the 21st century.

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Why ‘Religious Liberty’ Has Ended Up Inside Quotation Marks

(OPINION) A recent decision requiring Texas to grant a convicted murderer his Baptist pastor’s audible prayers and comforting touch during his execution was a rare moment in which activists on both sides of America’s culture wars cheered for “religious liberty” — a freedom that until recently didn’t require cynical “scare quotes” that suggest uncertainty.

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New Biopic 'Respect' Shows How Gospel Saved Aretha Franklin’s Career (And Her Life)

(REVIEW) New biopic “Respect” shows the trajectory of the life and career of “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin. Through personal strife and career hurdles, Franklin’s Christian faith remained at the center of her life. The movie shows both how it influenced her style and saved her more than once.

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Baylor’s basketball success rooted in Christian motto: ‘Jesus, Others, Yourself’

The secret to Baylor’s success this season wasn’t limited to its great defense and a hail of three pointers. The secret for the Baptist school on the road to the NCAA men’s basketball championship lies in a culture the players and coaches call “Jesus, Others, Yourself.”

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Time for #SBCToo: 'Wrath of God' has fallen on the Southern Baptist Convention

Anger is timely, along with grief, as waves of #MeToo and #ChurchToo messages about sexual abuse and domestic violence have triggered a series of stunning headlines. Most have been linked to the work of Paige Patterson after news about sermons in which he critiqued a teen-aged girl's body, knocked female seminary students who weren't striving hard enough to be attractive, and advised an abused wife to stay with her husband rather than seeking legal help.

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