This past week, I’ve been sad, angry, and, dare I say, hopefully glad. Let me explain.

I am heartbroken by a recent school shooting, a young Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on public transit, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in broad daylight. These tragedies remind us that we are fallen people living in a fallen world — within broken families, towns, and cities. Sin, not mental illness or societal constructs, is the root of our brokenness. It alienates us from ourselves, each other, and the Triune God. Romans 1:18-32 describes the foolishness and consequences of sin, which can manifest as mental illness but remains sin at its core.

I am angry that a refugee escaping violence in her war-torn country loses her life in what should be the freest, most peaceful nation. I am furious that children dropped off at school are murdered or traumatized for life. I am outraged that Charlie Kirk, exercising his constitutional right to free speech on a Utah college campus, was assassinated, leaving behind a wife and two children. This week, as we marked the 24th anniversary of 9/11, the weight of these events feels even heavier. [Read more…]

Shawn Hendricks

After the twin towers fell 24 years ago, President George W. Bush stood on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero with a megaphone in hand and told a crowd of weary rescue workers “America today is on bended knee in prayer.” The country had suffered the worst terrorist attack on American soil, claiming nearly 3,000 lives, and was shaken to its core — but it also was shaken to prayer.

Reports soon surfaced of a surge in church attendance and people seeking God for answers. While some say that surge was short-lived, times of terror often turn people toward God and prayer.

Becoming numb

Today, as many Americans seem to have become numb to reports of horrific mass shootings and violence around the world, the call for prayer still resonates among Christians. It also sadly draws its share of sneers from those who mock people of faith who find comfort in crying out to the Lord. [Read more…]

Editor’s Note: Below are the comments of Randy C. Davis, delivered Sept. 9, 2025, during his executive director’s report to the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s Board of Directors. Comments have been edited for space. Click HERE for a story about the board meeting.

Randy Davis

What I want to share with you today is not a motion or a recommendation. It’s a vision. We’ve concluded three years of intense evaluation, planning and strategy formulation with grassroots Baptists from across Tennessee, and: [Read more…]

Nancy Duggin

Editor’s note: This is the first of three articles on praying for and sharing the gospel with those without Christ.

When you pause long enough to seriously consider what it means to be lost — to be without Christ — what comes to your mind? What emotions stir within you?

When was the last time you wept over lost souls? If you know those without Christ, are you committed to praying for them daily? Have you experienced the death of a dear friend or family member who stepped into eternity without Jesus as their Savior and Lord?  There are no second chances once someone dies. [Read more…]

Dooley

Every church has a unique story of how God birthed and blessed them over the years. The congregation I lead, Englewood Baptist in Jackson, was the fruit of heartfelt prayer and a compelling vision.

In 1944, a woman named Emma Weaver lost her husband at the tender age of 44, forcing her to move closer to her eldest son in the northern part of our county.

As a devout Christian, Mama Weaver (as she was called) quickly noticed that there was no church in the area for her and her three children to attend. She began to pray, “Lord, I need a church for my family.” [Read more…]

I just wanted to know when dinosaurs lived.

That’s it. That was the most profound biblical mystery swirling in my head when I began seminary. I landed in the survey class of a professor considered one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s foremost Old Testament scholars at the time. Surely, he’d know about dinosaurs.

About 15 minutes into the first session, he paused and, with a condescending, exasperated tone, said, “And every semester I have somebody who asks me when dinosaurs lived.” About 50 students guffawed.

Not me. I sat frozen. Shocked. I felt exposed as a fraud. How could he have known I was going to ask that? I shut down and moved to the back row for the next 16 weeks. My one takeaway from that class is the memory of silent humiliation. “How could I be in seminary,” I thought back then, “and not know something so apparently basic as when dinosaurs lived?” Did God call the right person? Was I even saved? [Read more…]

Randy C. Davis

Three men. Three vocations. One shared calling.

Nathan is an emergency room nurse in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His nursing job provides for his family. His calling is to plant a new church in the area, hopefully with some he connects with at the hospital.

Bob spends his summers as a long-haul trucker transporting explosives to northern Alaska. The trips provide his family’s annual income because Bob, a 60-year-old Master of Divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, also serves as pastor of a Baptist church in LaGrange, Kentucky.

Amos, in the Bible, was a farmer. He owned sheep and grew figs near the village of Tekoa, about 12 miles south of Jerusalem. Like Nathan and Bob, Amos worked a marketplace job while answering the calling to preach, serving as God’s prophet. His book is worth reading. [Read more…]