By Charlie Wetherington
TBCH Coordinator of Communications

Greg McCoy, right, pastor, First Baptist Church, Portland, has been elected president/treasurer of Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes. He stands with Bryant Millsaps, retiring president/treasurer.

BRENTWOOD — Greg McCoy, pastor of First Baptist Church, Portland, has been elected to be the seventh president/treasurer of the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes in its 124-year history.

McCoy, 51, was the unanimous recommendation of the TBCH’s presidential search advisory committee. The committee’s recommendation was presented to a called meeting of the full board of trustees on Sept. 16 which unanimously approved the selection.

McCoy will begin his 14-month tenure as president/treasurer elect on Nov. 1 of this year. Millsaps will continue to serve as president/treasurer of TBCH through Dec. 31, 2015, at which time he will retire and McCoy will assume the full responsibilities of leading the ministry to children and families in crisis. [Read more…]

By Connie Davis Bushey
News Editor, Baptist and Reflector

One of the oldest feeding ministries of Tennessee Baptists is offered by the Briceville Friendship Center of Clinton Baptist Association, based in Clinton. Leading the center, which has been operating for 39 years, are, from left, June
Strunk, retired director who remains a volunteer; Tom Byrge, director of missions of the association; Marcia Ellis, current director; and Becky Burris, volunteer.

BRENTWOOD — Randy Harness started helping around the Briceville Friendship Center in Briceville after June Strunk, then director, met him one day as he walked past. They visited and she learned he was unemployed.

Strunk invited Harness to come back to obtain food and, if he wanted, to help her in the food pantry. He began working in the pantry and as they worked they “had the opportunity to talk,” said Strunk. She learned he had been in prison.

Harness was a Jehovah’s Witness but that didn’t keep Strunk from sharing her faith with him and trying her best to answer his questions. Years went by and other Baptists also got to know Harness at the Friendship Center. [Read more…]

By Chris Turner
Director of Communications, TBC

Lindy May, a senior at the University of Memphis and a member of the BCM, befriended international students there which led her to international missions service.

MEMPHIS — Lindy May stood on a busy street in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and felt utterly alone.

Horns blared as thousands of people shuttled by on bicycles and motor scooters and others hurried by on sidewalks and past storefronts. The rhythmic chaos resembled the movements within an ant colony.

Yet May felt alone, overwhelmed because she knew the semi-ornate storefront just across the street was nothing more than a facade around a doorway to a living hell. The banner hanging outside promoted Pepsi-Cola, but the real commodity inside was women — many of them still girls — enslaved and tangled in the snare of sex trafficking. Their bondage wasn’t just physical, it was spiritual, and May could sense it. [Read more…]

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

BRENTWOOD — To hear the other side tell it, abortion will be illegal in Tennessee if voters approve Amendment 1 of the state ballot on Nov. 4.

There is also a rampant myth that churches can’t legally encourage people to vote for or against public policy issues.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Such statements are “scare tactics” offered by opponents of Amendment 1 to confuse the issues, say leaders in the state who support efforts to pass Amendment 1 in November.

Abortions are now legal in Tennessee and will continue to be legal the day after the election regardless of the outcome of the vote on Amendment 1, observed Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, based in Nashville. [Read more…]

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Randy C. Davis, right, executive director/treasurer of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, stands with newly elected officers of the TBC Executive Board — Roc Collins, center, pastor of Indian Springs Baptist Church, Kingsport, chair; and Michael Crandall, pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church, Ripley, vice chair. — Photo by Connie Bushey

BRENTWOOD — The Executive Board adopted a budget of $34,250,000 for the 2014-15 budget year.

The action was one of several that took place during the Executive Board’s Sept. 9 meeting at Brentwood Baptist Church here.

Board members were informed that the new budget is a reduction of $2,250,000 or 6.16 percent from the 2013-14 budget. The new total is more consistent with income for the previous 12-month period, according to information supplied to board members. [Read more…]