SBC Archives - Baptist & Reflector

PRE-CONVENTION SERVICE WILL INCLUDE HUCKABEE, PENROD

May 13, 2021

Baptist and Reflector

NASHVILLE — The Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE) will host the annual Sunday Morning Worship on June 13 prior to the beginning of the Southern Baptist Convention, which starts June 15 in Nashville.

This service will be held at Hermitage Hills Baptist Church, Hermitage (3475 Lebanon Pike) where Poly Rouse is senior pastor.

“Hope for the Home” is the theme for the service, which begins at 10:30 a.m.

Pastor/evangelist Jerry Drace, program coordinator for the event, has announced that Mike Huckabee and Guy Penrod will be on the program, along with members of COSBE. [Read more…]

CLEVELAND PASTOR LEADS FORUM FOR SBC PRESIDENT CANDIDATES

May 12, 2021

By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press

The four current candidates for president of the Southern Baptist Convention took part in an online forum on May 4, sharing their testimonies as well as their thoughts on the future of the SBC.

NASHVILLE — The four current candidates for president of the Southern Baptist Convention took part in an online forum on May 4, sharing their testimonies as well as their thoughts on the future of the SBC.

The discussion was hosted by Leadership Pipeline, a fellowship of Southern Baptist pastors under the age of 40. Jordan Easley, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Cleveland, led participants in the forum. Joining him were R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.; Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga.; Randy Adams, executive director/treasurer of the Northwest Baptist Convention; and Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Ala.

Voting for SBC officers will take place June 15, during the Tuesday afternoon session of the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting. The forum, which lasted a little more than an hour, is available at sbcpipeline.com. [Read more…]

JUDSON COLLEGE BOARD VOTES TO CLOSE SCHOOL

May 10, 2021

By Jennifer Davis Rash
The Alabama Baptist

Judson College

MARION, Ala. — The Judson College faithful fought hard for five months trying to save the school, but in the end it just wasn’t enough.

During its regularly scheduled meeting on May 6, the board of trustees pulled the trigger on what they had hoped wouldn’t happen — a vote to close the 183-year-old institution. Eighteen members of the 24-member board voted in favor of suspending academic operations and to move through an orderly closing through Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The board appointed a committee of five executive committee members to work with school officials and bankruptcy counsel going forward.

“New donors did not materialize, student retention is much lower than expected and mounting debt pressures have increased,” Judson president Mark Tew said. “The combined effect of these three items left us no choice.” [Read more…]

NEW INITIATIVE ENGAGES, UPHOLDS SMALLEST SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCHES

April 28, 2021

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

NASHVILLE — Joe Wright expresses a heart for the “smallest of these,” churches numbering 75 or fewer in Sunday attendance and comprising two-thirds of Southern Baptist congregations.

“The time has come for us to step up and decide that the ‘smallest of these’ is not only important but essential for the well-being of our Lord’s Kingdom work,” Wright said. “With our ‘worldly’ definition of success being based on size and notoriety, these churches often go without the necessary resources to allow them to pursue spiritual excellence within their fields of service.”

Wright, executive director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network (BSCLN), is enhancing the network’s outreach with a yearlong series of monthly webinars designed to provide small church and bivocational pastors additional resources to serve congregations under their care.

Willie McLaurin, SBC Executive Committee vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization, described small churches as essential to the Great Commission. [Read more…]

LOTTIE MOON CHRISTMAS OFFERING REACHES CUMULATIVE $5 BILLION

April 28, 2021

By Myriah Snyder
IMB news office

RICHMOND — International Mission Board leaders are celebrating a monumental milestone in Southern Baptist life: On March 31, 2021, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering surpassed $5 billion total gifts since collection to send missionaries to China began in 1888.

The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is an annual offering collected by believers around the world to support international missions. The offering is unique because 100 percent of the gifts are used to provide for missionaries who are spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth.

“I praise God for this significant milestone in giving through the Lottie offering as it indicates that the love of Southern Baptists for the lost has not waned, nor has their commitment to sending and supporting missionaries through the IMB,” said Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board.

“It also reveals the incredible success of the WMU in advocating, since 1888, for every nation, tribe, people and language to have the opportunity to hear the gospel — a partnership for which we are so grateful,” he added. [Read more…]

SOUTHERN BAPTIST EDITORS GATHER VIRTUALLY FOR ANNUAL MEETING

April 20, 2021

By Margaret Colson
ASBP writer

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Emerging from more than a year of communications challenges and innovations as a result of the global pandemic, more than 25 leaders of Southern Baptist media outlets, including the Baptist and Reflector in Tennessee, gathered April 19 for the 2021 annual meeting of the Association of State Baptist Publications.

During the meeting, held virtually for the first time in ASBP’s 125-year history, members discussed the past, present and future of the historic organization. Led by 2020–2021 ASBP President Jennifer Davis Rash, editor-in-chief of The Alabama Baptist, participants voted to appoint a study committee to review the organization’s purpose and develop a proposal for how that purpose can best be realized in today’s changing communications landscape.

In her role as immediate past president, Rash will serve as a resource for the study committee, which will be named in the coming days by incoming ASBP President Brian Hobbs, editor of Oklahoma’s The Baptist Messenger. [Read more…]

2021 SBC ANNUAL MEETING MOVED TO THE NASHVILLE MUSIC CITY CENTER

April 15, 2021

Baptist and Reflector

NASHVILLE — The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee announced Thursday that the 2021 Annual Meeting and Send Conference are being moved to the Nashville Music City Center.

The annual meeting was originally scheduled to be held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center.

Ronnie Floyd, president of the SBC Executive Committee, announced the change in a press release on Thursday.

“I want to thank the city of Nashville, mayor John Cooper, the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp, and the Music City Center for their incredible efforts in facilitating this move,” Floyd said in the press release.

[Read more…]

CHURCH MEMBERS ARE MINORITY IN U.S. FOR FIRST TIME, GALLUP SAYS

April 15, 2021

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON — Church members are in the minority for the first time in at least eight decades, with just 47 percent identifying with a congregation, Gallup said in a poll released in late March. The number was 70 percent in 1999.

A growth in adults with no religious preference and lower rates of church membership among people who do have a religion are major trends driving the decline, Gallup said.

Younger generations hold the highest rates of those with no religious preference, including 31 percent of millennials and 33 percent of adult Generation Z (those born in the mid-1990s to the early 2010s). Concurrently, among those who do affiliate with a religion, declines since the turn of the century were highest among younger generations, with the share of millennials declining from 63 percent in 2000 to 50 percent in 2020.

Ed Stetzer, dean of the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership at Wheaton College, said the trend for people to drop their loose affiliation to religion will only accelerate. [Read more…]

LOTTIE MOON CHRISTMAS OFFERING HITS CUMULATIVE $5 BILLION

April 12, 2021

By Myriah Snyder
IMB senior writer/editor

International Mission Board leaders are celebrating a monumental milestone in Southern Baptist life: On March 31, 2021, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® surpassed $5 billion total gifts since collection to send missionaries to China began in 1888.

PASTORS, CHURCHGOERS TIRED BUT HOPEFUL FOR EASTER 2021

April 1, 2021

By Aaron Earls
LifeWay Christian Resources writer

NASHVILLE — Working through a time of grief. Exhausted from what they’ve been through. Excited about what’s to come.

As pastors prepare for Easter this year, they may have more insight on how Jesus’ followers felt leading up to the first Resurrection Sunday.

And much like those early gatherings of believers, Easter celebrations at church services may not be full of people but will probably be full of hope and optimism for the future. [Read more…]

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