Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835
Baptist and Reflector
FRANKLIN — Tennessee Baptists gave $2,940,444 through the Cooperative Program in August.
After 10 months of the current fiscal year, Tennessee Baptists have given $29,067,556 through the CP giving channel. The amount is just short ($8,940) over what was given over the same time frame last year.
Receipts remain, however, $317,556 or 1.10 percent above budget needs with two months remaining in the 2018-19 budget year. [Read more…]
Baptist and Reflector
FRANKLIN — “By All Means, Win TN” is the theme of the 2019 Summit, scheduled for Nov. 17-20 at First Baptist Church, Concord, in Knoxville.
Summit festivities begin on Sunday, Nov. 17, with the “Tennessee Reunion” at 6 p.m. at First Baptist, Concord. The worship service will feature Rick Barnes, men’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, one of the most decorated and accomplished head coaches in school history.
Also on Sunday night, the All Nations Worship will be held at Black Oak Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville. [Read more…]
David Ward
David Ward has been called as pastor of C3 Cornerstone Cowboy Church in Columbia. He has been in the ministry for more than 20 years and has been in pastoral ministry since 2012. An Army veteran, Ward is the past moderator of Maury Baptist Association, based in Columbia. The cowboy church meets each Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Maury County Park Exhibit Building.
Marty Trivette recently was licensed to preach at Little Doe Baptist Church, Butler.
Jerry Cornett has been called as pastor of Stoney Creek Baptist Church, Elizabethton.
Williston Baptist Church, Williston, has called Chris Pulliam as pastor. [Read more…]
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
Joe and Pennie Wright lead a conference for pastors and wives through their ministry with the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network.
NASHVILLE — Happily wed to his new bride Pennie, Joe Wright didn’t want to travel without her in his role as executive director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network (BSCLN).
“When I interviewed with the BSCLN and they offered me the position, I shared with them, ‘This is a burden on my heart. A lot of ministers are struggling. I’m a newlywed, I’m happy and I want my wife to go with me, ’ ” Wright told Baptist Press in describing a new BSCLN conference for pastors and their wives.
“And they said, ‘Joe, will you buy her plane ticket?’ ” Wright recounted. “And I said, ‘I will, I will.’ They said, ‘Then she goes with you wherever you go.’ ”
The Wrights’ story segues into “The Pastor’s Wife and The Other Woman: Balancing Your Marriage with Your Ministry,” a conference available at no fee to Southern Baptist churches, associations and conventions. The conference, adaptable to a single evening or two days, is designed to encourage and equip pastors and their wives to manage their ministerial and personal lives in harmony.
“I believe the greatest vulnerability for the modern minister is not in his church work, but in his home life,” said Wright, a former Tennessee Baptist pastor and director of missions for Dyer Baptist Association, based in Dyersburg. “And if Satan can injure him at home, he will cripple him at work. [Read more…]
By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
FRANKLIN — Tennessee Baptists gave a record $1,920,733 through the Golden Offering for Tennessee Missions in 2018-19.
The amount is $77,222 over the old record of $1,843,511 which was set during 2016-17.
Tennessee Baptists have come to understand and value that “any way you slice it, Tennessee is a missions field,” said Randy C. Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
“We are excited and thrilled that Tennessee Baptists have given sacrificially to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in our state where more than 50 percent of the residents are unchurched,” Davis continued.
Vickie Anderson, executive director of Tennessee Woman’s Missionary Union, which helps to promote the annual GOTM offering, agreed. “The churches who give through GOTM see that our state is a missions field,” she said. [Read more…]
By Randy C. Davis
TBMB President & Executive Director
I spend a lot of time crisscrossing the state on Interstate 40, so much so that I jokingly call it “Randy Davis Boulevard.” The landscape constantly passes, but rarely changes. It’s the people, however, who make Tennessee special.
And the people change. One way we change is our increasing numbers. Our population is rapidly growing. People are relocating here from around the country and around the world bringing racial, ethnic, economic, religious — and non-religious — diversity. There are more dissimilar people now living in Tennessee than ever before.
However, as significant as our diversity is, it is more important to focus on what we have in common. People need Jesus — to be saved, baptized and set on the road to discipleship. Our population is growing faster than the gospel is advancing. The result is that every year our state is becoming more spiritually lost. The reality: any way you slice it, Tennessee is a mission field.
I’ve been saying that for the past several years. It’s a belief based on what I see as I travel Tennessee’s interstates and backroads. [Read more…]
By Scott Brown
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly
Focal Passage: Ephesians 2:1-10
Paul takes the time here to outline clearly our desperate need of Jesus and the importance of His grace as the root of our salvation. He contends that, apart from Christ, we were not just sick in sin but dead in our trespasses. We were entirely helpless and utterly hopeless apart from Christ.
Being made alive in Christ is not a picture of mere resuscitation but one of total resurrection. Grace is not the spiritual equivalent of the “take a penny” dishes in convenience stores that help you make a dollar out of 98 cents. [Read more…]
By Jerry Price
Retired Pastor, Spring Hill
Focal Passage: Philippians 4:10-20
The late Dr. E. Stanley Jones once wrote: “The art of living is the least learned of all arts. Man has learned the art of existing, of getting by somehow with the demands of life, of escaping into half answers; but he knows little about the art of living, about being able to walk up to life, with all its demands, humbly conscious that he has within him a mastery that is able to face this business of living with adequacy” (from The Adequate Man: Paul in Philippians, Paul S. Rees, (Fleming H. Revell, 1959).
Paul’s adequacy was dependent on the life of Christ within him (Philippians 1:21). His adequacy produced contentment because he knew that everything he needed was already provided by Christ Himself — whether he was in the lap of luxury or the pit of poverty (“well fed or hungry … in abundance or in need”).
Where did Paul make this statement? While in prison. When did he make it? Not long before he faced the executioner.
He was confident that he was in the hands of an omnipotent, omniscient, all powerful God who had and would continue to take care of him in any and all circumstances. [Read more…]
Ashley Perham, a summer intern for the Baptist and Reflector, interviews pastor Micah Creekmore of Living Water Church, Murfreesboro, while writing news articles on City Reach Memphis.
If you have read the Baptist and Reflector regularly over the past few weeks, you have seen the name Ashley Perham quite often.
Ashley is a student at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro who served as an intern for the paper this summer. Though she received college credit for the experience, the B&R was the real winner.
Ashley did an outstanding job. She assisted in writing feature stories, proofing the paper and did some photography. She took on every assignment we gave her and responded with professionalism and enthusiasm. She took every task seriously and always gave her best effort. [Read more…]
By Ashley Perham
Baptist & Reflector intern
Kim Margrave, seated in the center on first row, has helped Tennessee Baptist churches become involved in missions all over the world. She is shown here last December with coordinators of the Guatemalan partnership in Guatemala.
FRANKLIN — In the past 22 years, Tennessee Baptists have been able to partner in missions with ministries in more than 20 states and countries due largely to the work of Kim Margrave, the “Lottie Moon of Tennessee,” as Randy C. Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, describes her.
Margrave, volunteer missions specialist, has been working at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board since 1997. She stepped down from her role Aug. 8 to join the staff of ClearView Baptist Church, Franklin, as missions director. [Read more…]
