SBC Archives - Baptist & Reflector

‘BIBLICAL DIVERSITY DISCUSSION AT IMB WILL CONTINUE,’ CHITWOOD SAYS

March 5, 2021

By Catherine Finch
Baptist Press

Adeola Adelere (right) and Mary Ruth Davis served as journeymen in Uganda. Adelere, from Nigeria, now serves as an IMB student mobilizer.

RICHMOND – As part of its February emphasis on racial diversity in missions, the International Mission Board hosted a panel discussion called “The Future of Missions: Why Biblical Diversity Matters” Feb. 25.

The conversation, which was streamed on Facebook and through the IMB: Advance the Kingdom app, will be ongoing, as it is vital to IMB’s vision, IMB President Paul Chitwood said.

“The diversity discussion at the IMB will continue because the Word of God is clear. We need churches who reflect the people of this world,” Chitwood said. “These are not singular discussions. We are making a long-term commitment to support a more racially diverse missions force around the world.”

The event opened with testimonies from IMB missionaries and IMB student mobilizer, Adeola Adelere, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in South Carolina. [Read more…]

CONSERVATIVE BAPTIST NETWORK RESPONDS TO SBC PRESIDENT’S REMARKS

March 4, 2021

Editor’s note: Coverage of Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear’s speech — which is referred to by the CBN in the story below — can be found HERE.

From the Conservative Baptist Network:

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear’s needlessly divisive speech to the Executive Committee meeting, Feb. 22, makes painfully clear that the mission of the Conservative Baptist Network is more important now than ever.

We join President Greear in decrying division and Pharisaism. Indeed, those who insist that secular philosophies and fallen ideologies must be accepted as “useful analytical tools” have wrongly added to the Word of God, bringing needless division to a people that firmly believes in the sufficiency of Holy Scripture.

Further, we join President Greear in repudiating “closet racists and neo-confederates” who would make anyone feel unwelcome in Southern Baptist churches. And today, there is no more culturally-prevalent racism than that of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, which require us to view all people through a racial lens, not as individuals made in the image of God and made one by the blood of the Lamb.

Such teachings are not merely incompatible with the Baptist Faith and Message as our seminary presidents have unanimously said; they are inherently racist, divisive at every level, and antithetical to the gospel itself. [Read more…]

GREEAR DECRIES DIVISION, REPUDIATES PHARISAICAL SPIRIT IN SBC EC ADDRESS

February 23, 2021

By Timothy Cockes
Baptist Press

JD Greear

NASHVILLE (BP) – Saying the global pandemic didn’t cause the crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention, but revealed “a deeper, more insidious crisis,” SBC President J.D. Greear challenged members of the SBC Executive Committee to “repudiate” a pharisaical spirit and unite for the sake of the Gospel.

“The last year has revealed areas of weakness in our beloved convention of churches,” Greear said Monday (Feb. 22), during the president’s address to the EC at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. “Fissures and failures and fleshly idolatries. COVID didn’t produce these crises. It only exposed them.” [Read more…]

FLOYD URGES ‘RETURN TO GREAT COMMISSION COOPERATION’ IN VISION 2025 RELAUNCH

February 23, 2021

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

Ronnie Floyd

NASHVILLE (BP) – Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee President Ronnie Floyd urged Southern Baptists to return to unified Great Commission cooperation as he lamented “a sound of war in the camp” of Southern Baptists and issued an updated Vision 2025 tonight (Feb. 22) at the EC meeting in Nashville.

Before laying out the details of Vision 2025, Floyd urged EC members to put aside pride, anger and personal independence and to “lead the way in helping create a Bible-based, Christ-centered and Spirit-controlled culture in the SBC.”

The keys to Vision 2025 are its five strategic action steps, economic support anchored in a level of Cooperative Program giving not seen since the 2008 recession, and cooperation fueled by the fruit of the Spirit among SBC leaders, entities, state conventions, associations, churches and laypersons. Spreading the Gospel throughout the world – reaching every person for Jesus Christ in every town, every city, every state and every nation – is Floyd’s goal. [Read more…]

NAMB APPEALS TO SUPREME COURT IN MCRANEY CASE, CLAIMS FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS

February 17, 2021

By Jonathan Howe
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON — The North American Mission board has filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States in its ongoing case involving a lawsuit against the board filed by a former Southern Baptist state executive director.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2017 by Will McRaney, former executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCMD), alleges NAMB had intentionally defamed him and wrongfully influenced his 2015 termination by the BCMD after a dispute over collaborative missions efforts in the region. NAMB legal counsel George McCallum called the allegations “unfounded” in a statement to Baptist Press in November of last year, adding that NAMB has “consistently denied” McRaney’s claims.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a lower court in April 2019 because of the judge’s concerns over the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which prevents the government from interfering in church or religious matters. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision in July 2020. [Read more…]

LONG DAYS FOR LEADERS

February 17, 2021

Pastors express ‘decision fatigue’ and ‘ministerial frustration’ as COVID-19 pandemic lingers

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

Members listen to Pastor Richard Bray’s sermon via an FM transmitter while sitting in their cars in the parking lot of Rock Hill Baptist Church in Lexington, Tenn., in April 2020.

LEXINGTON — For the second time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Rock Hill Baptist Church in rural west Tennessee was resuming onsite worship. Then, Pastor Richard Bray was exposed to the virus and the church had to transition once again to remote worship while Bray waited weeks for his test results.

Bray became a one-man worship service team – preaching, leading music with his guitar, recording the service on his phone, handling the sound equipment, broadcasting the service via an FM transmitter to worshipers who listened in their cars in the parking lot, and uploading videos to YouTube, Facebook and the church website after service ended. That was his routine from mid-July to mid-September.

“I think I was tired, just physically and mentally,” Bray said months later. “Tired of dealing with all the issues, the stress of COVID, the stress of trying to do the right thing, the stress of the church members who see things differently than you do. It does take its toll.”

Joe Wright addresses the struggles of many pastors as executive director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network designed to serve about 83 percent of Southern Baptist churches. [Read more…]

TRUSTEES: NAMB TRUSTEES SEE HEARTACHE AND HEALING FIRST-HAND IN NEW ORLEANS

February 12, 2021

By Mike Ebert
Baptist Press

North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell introduces church planting missionary Bobby Williams and his wife LaKeisha to NAMB trustees at their New Orleans Celebration Dinner Monday (Feb. 1). —NAMB photo by Alexandra Toy

NEW ORLEANS — Trustees with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) met Feb. 1-2 in New Orleans and visited with missionaries who are planting churches and meeting the needs of people in desperate situations.

At Connect Church in Algiers, trustees heard from church planting missionary and pastor Ryan Rice who came to the church as a re-plant pastor after its membership had dwindled to just a handful of people. Almost immediately after re-launch, the church turned outward, focusing on meeting needs in the community and began to baptize new believers. Today it hosts a residency program for church planters who will one day step out and start their own churches in the city.

Missionary Brandon Langley’s church, also a re-plant, has seen rebirth and growth.

“One lady from our neighborhood began attending,” Langley told trustees. “She came out of a background in witchcraft. Eventually she and her entire family came to faith in Christ.” [Read more…]

PANDEMIC DIVISION CAUSING PASTORS TO LEAVE MINISTRY, PASTORAL MENTOR SAYS

February 11, 2021

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Brian Croft jokes that masks are the new “color of the carpet argument” in churches, with similarly poor outcomes. Pastors are resigning from the stress “kind of in a way I’ve never really seen.”

The founder of Practical Shepherding transitioned from fulltime pastoring to lead the shepherding outreach fulltime in January, pulled by a need for coaching and counseling that has steadily increased among pastors over the past decade.

Then came COVID-19.

“I know of pastors who are quitting just over the stress of this issue and what it’s causing in their churches, and I know churches splitting over whether you should wear a mask or not,” Croft said. “COVID has impacted every pastor to some degree. Usually it has brought more challenges and more difficulty.”

Pastors are pulled by conflicting views among congregants over whether to mask or not to mask, whether to meet in person or virtually, or whether social distancing is even necessary. A divisive political year has compounded the issues, Croft said. [Read more…]

IMB APPOINTS 30 MISSIONARIES

February 10, 2021

Seth Polk (left), trustee chairman, joined the virtual IMB board of trustee meeting from West Virginia. IMB President Paul Chitwood participated from IMB’s studio in the Richmond home office.
-IMB photo

RICHMOND — International Mission Board trustees unanimously approved the appointment of 30 full-time, fully funded missionary personnel during their Feb. 3-4 meeting, and trustees applauded a report that cumulative international mission offerings have nearly reached a historic $5 billion.

The new missionaries will be sent to eight of IMB’s nine global affinities. A recent Sending Celebration recognized the 30 new appointees, plus two missionaries previously appointed, and one sent in partnership with the Canadian National Baptist Convention. Both the Sending Celebration and trustee meetings were held virtually due to COVID-19 safety considerations. [Read more…]

AFRICAN AMERICAN MISSIONARIES HONORED BY IMB

February 8, 2021

IMB staff

IMB missionary Troy Lewis plays with children at Streams of Living Waters School in Lusaka, Zambia. — IMB photo

RICHMOND — The International Mission Board is celebrating the ongoing and indelible legacy of African Americans who have served and are serving on the mission field.

IMB President Paul Chitwood says as the organization reflects on its history, Southern Baptists must be quick to confess the organization began with roots in slavery.

“Only God’s redeeming love and the reconciling power of the Gospel could result not only in repentance from that but in a convention of churches today, that is among the most diverse in the world and whose membership includes thousands of African American churches, as well as many other ethnicities,” Chitwood said.

“That diversity from such a regretful beginning is not only humbling, but it causes us to celebrate what God is doing through Southern Baptists today with even more joy to think that He would use us.” [Read more…]

Pastors express ‘decision fatigue’ and ‘ministerial frustration’ as COVID-19 pandemic lingers

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