Posted: 5/30/03

Texan's musical moves from patriotism to faith

By George Henson

Staff Writer

CARROLLTON–Mike Harland hopes the patriotic musical he took the lead in creating helps its hearers remember God and country–and in that order.

Harland, associate pastor for worship at First Baptist Church in Carrollton, was the creative force behind LifeWay Christian Resources' newest patriotic musical “America, We Must Not Forget.”

The project originated prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that have forged a renewed sense of patriotism across America.

Harland, who has been a part of two previous LifeWay projects and a third for another publisher, was approached about creating a patriotic musical in the summer of 2001.

“Then Sept. 11 happened, and we realized this was going to be a bigger thing than we at first thought,” Harland said.

Despite the immediate connection, LifeWay decided not to accelerate the schedule already in place.

“I'm now glad it worked out that way, because it allowed me to have a deeper, broader perspective, rather than just reacting to one event,” Harland said.

Actual work on the project began with a brainstorming session with Chris Machen of Plano, who collaborated on the project.

“One of the things I noticed in our country's response to the attack on Sept. 11 was 'We must not forget.' Everywhere you looked after Sept. 11, there were posters, bumper stickers, T-shirts, just everything that said 'We must not forget.' Chris and I were talking about how there were other things we must not forget other than the attacks.”

As he and Machen tried to pin down the things that should be remembered, Harland's wife, Teresa, who had been sitting across the room overhearing, said: “We must not forget our heritage, our heroes and our hope.”

“She took all she had heard us talking about and said it in one sentence,” Harland recalled.

Those three areas now form the outline of the musical.

Every song but one and all the narration were written specifically for this project, Harland said. He and singer/songwriter Luke Garrett wrote “Sea of Glory” prior to the musical.

Harland's vocations as songwriter and minister of music meld into one in this project.

“I don't compartmentalize my life,” he said. “I'm never not a songwriter, but I'm never not a minister of music either. I hope the day never comes when I have to make a choice between the two. I would not ever want to not be a minister of music, and I know that God has given me a talent as a writer that needs to used for his glory.”

First Baptist Church in Carrollton is not asking him to make that kind of choice, and neither is LifeWay.

“It takes a lot of understanding on both entities' part,” Harland admitted. “LifeWay knows I'm a minister of music. I rarely if ever have felt any pressure put on me like they might a full-time writer living in Nashville.”

“First Baptist Church has a real impact-the-world mindset, and I think they see this as an extension of this church's ministry–as a way to touch the world,” he said.

The church has supported this project in several ways. The choir presented the musical in San Antonio and San Diego at music conferences and also will perform this summer at Glorieta, N.M. In another show of support, Harland's pastor, Brent Taylor, accompanied him to Nashville for the taping of the project.

Harland is careful to guard against short-changing his church, however.

“I don't write songs every day. I'm more of a project writer, and on projects you know when your due date is. I budget that time. My work here at the church is the pressure I feel every day, and I work on the project as time comes.”

His music ministry enhances his writing ministry, Harland said.

“I love getting to interact on a day-in, day-out basis with people through the music ministry here,” he said. “People who just create choral product don't get to see how it affects people, but I do. I love seeing how it affects lives.”

A number of churches around the state and country are deploying “America, We Must Not Forget” into their music programs. At least seven churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex alone plan to perform the music around July 4.

If people outside the church are drawn to listen because of the patriotic flavor of the production, that's fine with Harland, because he knows they also will get a large dose of evangelism.

“This music probably goes farther from a spiritual standpoint than any patriotic music I've seen,” he said. “We certainly wave the flag strongly, especially in the opening pieces, but it is strong enough scripturally to lead someone to Christ. From the outset, we wanted to do more than wave the flag; we wanted to bring people to the altar.

“We want to honor America, but we want to worship God,” Harland said.

That emphasis was precisely what encouraged Jonathan Aragon, minister of music at First Baptist Church in Duncanville, to join his choir with that of Hampton Road Baptist Church in DeSoto for two presentations of the music.

“This musical appealed to me because it is as religious as it is patriotic,” he said. “It calls America to not only remember its patriotic heritage, but its religious heritage as well.” The choirs will perform at the DeSoto church June 29 and the Duncanville church July 6.

A devotional reading of Isaiah 41:20 was pivotal in writing the music, Harland said. In that passage, Isaiah reminds the Israelites that they were not blessed because of their inherent goodness or greatness.

That's a message for America, Harland said.

“God blessed America, not to show the world how great America is, but to show how great he is.”

Posted: 5/30/03

Heritage: Dissenters maintain 'good company'

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

BELTON–Baptists are a dissenting people who have been hated for their dissent–sometimes even by fellow Baptists who found their views disturbingly close to New Testament teachings.

That's what happened to William Henry Brisbane, who went from supporting Southern slaveholders to advocating abolition, according to his great-great grandson Wallace Alcorn.

Alcorn, a Baptist educator from Austin, Minn., told his ancestor's story in his award-winning sermon, “Dissenting Baptists: The Glory of a Hated People.”

He received the top award in the annual Baptist Heritage Preaching Contest and preached the sermon for the annual Baptist History & Heritage Society.

Brisbane became the most hated man in Beaufort County, S.C., for the sake of the gospel, Alcorn said.

“For turning from a pro-slavery position to anti-slavery activities; for selling and then freeing his own field slaves; for freeing his domestic slaves; for becoming a nationally known and strongly influential abolitionist; and for aiding fugitive slaves to escape the country through the underground railroad–for all this he was hated as a traitor to the South,” Alcorn said.

That meant Brisbane was in the long line and “good company” of deeply despised dissenting Baptists, he noted.

“Baptists–if not necessarily by theological definition then at least by historical description–are dissenters, and being hated has been part of our glorious heritage,” Alcorn said.

In addition to recognizing Alcorn for his prize-winning sermon, the Baptist History & Heritage Society also presented its Distinguished Service Award for outstanding contributions to Baptist history to Bill Reynolds of Fort Worth.

Reynolds is distinguished professor of church music emeritus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, former director of church music at the Baptist Sunday School Board, and a prolific historian of gospel songs.

Others honored at the historical society's meeting included Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and Bill Pinson, executive director emeritus of the BGCT. They received the society's officer's award for their commitment to historic Baptist principles, history and heritage.

Posted: 5/30/03

Heritage: Baptists need new ethics 'scouts,'
Tillman tells gathering of historians

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

BELTON–Trails blazed by Baptist pioneers in ethics have grown over from neglect, and new scouts are needed to “beat out the pathways” for this generation, an ethicist told the Baptist History & Heritage Society.

Bill Tillman, professor of Christian ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology in Abilene, participated in a panel discussion on “Frontiers in Baptist Ethics” at the society's annual meeting, May 22-24 at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

Tillman described two 20th century Christian ethics professors–Henlee Barnette of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and T.B. Maston of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth–as “scouts” and “pioneers” in Christian ethics who helped Baptists engage the culture.

“We need them, or their kind, more than ever because, as a friend has insightfully observed, the pathways grow over. The frontiers reappear with each succeeding generation,” he said.

Christian ethics is “on the wane” in Southern Baptist Convention-supported seminaries, Tillman reported. At the same time, he noted, few of the “moderate” seminaries and divinity schools created in recent years have made Christian ethics an educational priority.

“Both Barnette and Maston have understood that the pathways can grow back over. The basic landscape remains the same. Issues of money, sex and power–which cover the landscape–are ever with us,” he said.

“Another point of identification for Barnette and Maston is that human nature is such that ethical matters have to be revisited. Our sense of ethical direction has to be retuned and resharpened from time to time.”

Tillman identified Maston and Barnette as “identifiers of ethical topography” who were able to “communicate the lay of the land” to people in the pews of Baptist churches. They contextualized and interpreted the ethical insights of globally recognized ethicists Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr for Baptists in the South.

Maston and Barnette influenced generations of Baptist leaders not only through their prolific writing for scholarly and popular audiences, but also through their classrooms. Maston taught at Southwestern Seminary from 1922 to 1963, and Barnette taught at Southern Seminary from 1951 to 1977.

“They had ways of getting into your convictional DNA,” Tillman said. “They operated as encouragers, inspirers, investors in the future. They stirred in others the passion they felt.”

David Stricklin, associate professor of history and chairman of humanities at Lyon College in Batesville, Ark., described the contributions of Martin England on what he called “the far frontiers” of Baptist ethics.

“In the annals of Southern Baptist history, few persons covered themselves with more distinction in the areas of racial justice, civil rights and peace activism than Martin England. And few labored in these areas with greater anonymity,” he said.

England and his wife, Mabel, served as Northern Baptist missionaries in pre-World War II Burma. After the Japanese army overran Burma, they returned to Louisville, Ky. There England met Clarence Jordan, a Southern Baptist New Testament scholar and civil rights advocate.

“The two of them realized they shared a dream of creating an intentional community in the southern United States based on modern agricultural economy, a commitment to biblical ethics and a dream of racial reconciliation for the South,” Stricklin said. “They and their wives moved to Sumter County, Ga., bought some land and started Koinonia Farms (an interracial community) in 1942.”

The Englands left Koinonia to return to Burma, but they were forced to return to the United States due to health concerns in 1953, and England went to work for the Northern Baptists' Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board. Technically, his job was to serve as American Baptist field representative meeting the needs of Northern Baptist ministers and missionaries who retired and were living in the South.

“His covert assignment was to be a minister to persons who got into various kinds of trouble as part of the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans in the South in the 1950s and '60s. He often appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to visit people in jail, help their families and do whatever he could to help without calling attention to himself,” Stricklin said.

England secured a life insurance policy for Martin Luther King Jr. when he was considered a bad risk, and England carried the policy in his coat pocket for months before one of King's aides convinced the civil rights leader to sign it.

The central theme of England's ethics–learned from the Kachin people of Burma as they left the worship of tribal chieftains to follow Jesus–was “the ongoing requirement of believers to avoid ceding spiritual authority to earthly figures instead of to God,” Stricklin observed.

Estelle Owens, professor of history and chairwoman of social sciences at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, examined the racial justice commitment of Bill Marshall.

Marshall became president of Wayland in 1947. In May 1951, he led the school to admit African-American students into its classes, dormitories and dining hall. “Wayland thereby became the first four-year liberal arts undergraduate college–public or private–in the former Confederate South to be so integrated,” Owens noted.

“Throughout his life, Bill Marshall fought racism and bigotry. He stood up to be counted when the easiest course would have been to go along with the prevailing mores of his day. A true Christian pioneer in the area of race relations, he was one good man who would never stand idly by and allow evil to triumph.”

Posted: 5/30/03

Heritage: Baptist women can thank
pioneer pair for opening doors

By Ken Camp

Texas Baptist Communications

BELTON–A pair of Texas Baptist pioneers opened doors for women in missions and education, according to panelists at a recent meeting of the Baptist History & Heritage Society.

Rosalie Beck, an associate professor in the religion department at Baylor University in Waco, and Portia Sikes McKown, administrator at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, participated in a panel discussion about Baptist women on the frontier.

Beck examined the contributions of frontier missionary Mina Everett, and McKown described Elli Moore Townsend's role in providing educational opportunities for women–particularly poor young women–on the Texas frontier.

“Mina's life was filled with firsts,” Beck observed. Everett's time in Brazil marked her as the first single woman missionary appointed by the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board for service in the western hemisphere.

She went on to be appointed the first paid missionary in Texas to work with Hispanics and the first female missionary employed by the state missions arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

In 1889, she became corresponding secretary and organizer for the Baptist Woman's Mission Workers in Texas, the first paid woman staff worker for Woman's Missionary Union in any state. The SBC's mission boards and the BGCT jointly provided her salary.

“Mina's employment with the state and Southern Baptist Convention boards ended because of her willingness to speak to mixed audiences in an effort to raise support for and consciousness of missions. Through her time as a BGCT employee, some powerful pastors criticized her 'forwardness' in speaking to both men and women,” Beck said.

One of Everett's most outspoken critics was B.H. Carroll, pastor of First Baptist Church in Waco and later the founder of the Baylor University religion department and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“Although First Baptist Waco had women deacons, in Carroll's public statements he did not support women in ministry,” Beck noted. Carroll was chair of the BGCT state missions board in 1895 when that body voted to forbid Everett from speaking in public meetings “because such action was unseemly for a woman.”

Leaders among Baptist women in Texas convinced Everett to leave the state so they could argue in principle for a permanent Texas Baptist staff position for women's mission work, without getting entangled in personality conflicts.

“Mina Everett succeeded in many areas of her frontier work, but she crashed on the ministry barrier between genders in Victorian Texas. She always believed that one day, no barriers would separate God's people in their work for and worship of the Lord,” Beck said.
Likewise, Elli Moore Townsend opened up new vistas educationally for “girls of ambition and limited funds,” McKown observed.

She served as “lady principal” and presiding teacher for 12 years at Baylor Female College, now the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. In the early 1890s, she launched Cottage Home, where poor but deserving students could live while working their way through school by milking cows, tending the garden and keeping house in exchange for college tuition and expenses.

When money for Cottage Home ran short in 1893, she sold a silver box of heirloom jewelry to buy groceries for the girls who lived there. After she married E.G. Townsend, dean and Bible teacher at the school, together the couple developed a cottage system of seven homes.

“Elli Moore Townsend was certainly an incredible lady who was a legend in her own time,” McKown said. “Strong-willed and determined from youth, she set out to help educate young women of her time and those to follow through the Cottage Home System, considered a forerunner of the modern work study program in college.”

Posted: 5/30/03

Evangelical group urges
temperance in talk about Islam

WASHINGTON (RNS)–While affirming their right to proselytize, leaders of the evangelical Christian community issued guidelines last month to foster better relations between Christians and Muslims and criticized some prominent evangelicals' strongly negative generalizations about Islam.

The guidelines were issued at a half-day forum sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Institute on Religion and Democracy. The forum was attended by 50 representatives of mission, advocacy and educational evangelical organizations.

It is dangerous to oversimplify Islam by labeling it, said Clive Calver, president of World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“As evangelical Christians, we disagree with Islam, and we are allowed to disagree, but how we disagree is important,” he said. “The question is: How do you disagree without being disagreeable?”

Although not mentioned by name, participants were acutely aware of the public scrutiny of evangelical groups since Franklin Graham, head of the aid organization Samaritan's Purse, called Islam a “wicked” religion. Similar views have been voiced by evangelical broadcasters Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as well as former Southern Baptist Convention President Jerry Vines.

SBC officials, through a release in Baptist Press, criticized the national media for drawing a connection between the conference statements and the previous firestorms created by Graham, Robertson, Falwell and Vines.

At the conference, NAE President Ted Haggard warned that everything evangelicals say is public rhetoric now.

The Washington-based IRD, a conservative think tank that monitors religious freedom issues, released guidelines authored by IRD Vice President Alan Wisdom on what is appropriate and inappropriate in Christian-Muslim communication.

The document's first recommendation called on evangelicals to “seek to understand Islam and Muslim peoples.”

Paul Marshall, a fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, a Washington organization that promotes global human rights, noted that Muslims “know much more about the West than we know about them,” pointing out that many Muslim extremists obtained advanced degrees in Europe or America.

But sometimes understanding can go too far and “attempts to meld Christianity and Islam” by overemphasizing commonalities is damaging, according to Wisdom.

While dialogue, both locally and abroad, is a good start, it must have a goal, Marshall said, asserting that communication could stimulate cooperation between Muslims and Christians on relief work, religious freedom and human rights issues.

However, IRD President Diane Knippers noted that evangelicals “always want to talk about Jesus.”

A spokesperson from the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said it's OK for evangelicals to want to spread their faith.

“That's something that is not particular to evangelicals, and in the marketplace of ideas, that's fine,” said Hodan Hassan. “The problem is when the line gets crossed and leaders within any faith begin to demonize another faith.”

Posted: 5/30/03

Nigerian e-mail scams taking on language of faith

By Mark Wingfield

Managing Editor

Mrs. Sikiratu Seki Adams of Nigeria doesn't really want to donate $6 million to your church.

In fact, the e-mail that says she does probably wasn't sent by anyone with that name. It's just another variation on one of the most prevalent frauds perpetrated over the Internet, according to the FBI, Secret Service and a host of other scam-watcher groups.

Last year, Nigeria ranked first among all countries beyond the United States as the source of Internet scams, according to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, a joint effort between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Most were variations on what law-enforcement officials call a “419 scam,” a reference to the section of Nigerian law that covers advance-fee fraud.

One of the latest variations begins by offering “Calvary greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The writer then claims to be a new Christian convert dying of breast cancer and the widow of a former military official killed in the Gulf War. She wants to donate $6 million of her late husband's money to your church or ministry to further evangelism and ministry to the poor.

Another new version claims to be from the legal adviser to a Nigerian Christian couple who died in a plane crash last year and left him $20 million to distribute to Christian ministries. If you will use these funds “honestly for things that will glorify God's name,” then he would like to give you the money.

Previous versions of the Nigerian scams have outlined a person's urgent need to get money out of the country before it is seized. The writer wants to deposit millions of dollars in the recipient's bank account for safekeeping and pledges to pay 10 percent to 15 percent to the recipient.

The scam-busting website Urban Legend Zeitgeist (www.urbanlegends.com) explains the set-up: “If you take the bait, you'll be contacted by the perpetrators, who'll attempt to establish their credibility as government officials, businessmen or bankers. They will offer you apparently valid bank accounts and documentation. But before you can collect your money, some problem arises. A bribe must be paid to an official or a fee or tax must be paid so the money can be transferred. And you as the victim will be asked to pay up in order to receive the promised big payoff. There is no end to the fees, bribes, even outright blackmail, that will be extorted from you.”

In some cases, those caught up in the scam have traveled to Nigeria or other African or European countries to try to collect their money and have met with violence, the website reports.

The Internet Fraud Complaint Center reports that Nigerian scams like this produced the highest median dollar losses among all Internet fraud last year. The median loss of all reported cases was $3,864, higher than reported cases of identity theft ($2,000) and check fraud ($1,100).

The FBI warns Internet users to “be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as Nigerian or other foreign government officials asking for your help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts. Do not believe the promise of large sums of money for your cooperation.”

Further, the FBI warns, do not give personal information about savings, checking, credit or other financial accounts to people who solicit you by e-mail.

For more information, visit the Internet Fraud Complaint Center at http://ifccfbi.gov/ strategy/nls.asp.

Posted: 5/30/03

Layman's whodunit book takes on
the case of Jesus' empty tomb

By George Henson

Staff Writer

MIDLOTHIAN–It's a classic whodunit. Only the mystery isn't in the murder–scores of people witnessed that–but in who took the body.

The stage is set for a private eye with an attitude to strut in, follow the clues and finger the culprit.

That's the setting for “Jake Palestine P.I. and the Case of the Empty Tomb,” the latest effort by Robert Nix to expose people to the gospel in a creative way.

“My goal is to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ who might not have that great an interest and in a creative way that will make them pay attention,” Nix said. The novel portrays the hard-boiled detective being hired by Pilate and Jewish religious leaders to find the body of Jesus before rumors of a resurrection gain steam.

“Jake Palestine” is the Texas Baptist layman's first book, but he has written a number of humorous plays and skits that are available through Parable Ministries, which he founded. “The book is targeted toward a younger audience, but truthfully I think more older people have actually read it,” Nix said. “No matter how old they are, the goal is to reach people who may not read another type of religious book.”

He wanted the story to be entertaining so people would read it, but the crucial part is that “the tomb was empty,” he said. “There is not a more important message in the world than that.”

A Sunday School teacher at Longbranch Community Baptist Church in Midlothian, Nix and his wife teach kindergarten through fourth grade. He also works full time in technology sales.

To prepare for writing the book, Nix studied not only Jewish history, but Roman history as well.

“As Christians, we spend time reading the Bible and studying the Bible, but we lose sight of the impact of the Romans,” he explained. “They would not have rested, could not have rested, until the body was found–if it could have been found.”

He readily acknowledges, however, that his book is a fictional work inspired by the truth of the Bible.

“Not every page is historical, but I've tried to place a context that is historical,” he explained. “Why was Pilate frightened of the Jewish leadership? I tried to place a very accurate historical background along with actual biblical references and then insert a fictional character into all of it.”

Along with the dramas, the book is just one more way Nix hopes Parable Ministries can help churches and youth groups “illustrate the gospel creatively.”

Currently, he is creating a study guide to go along with the book.

Dramas published by Parable Ministries center on the lives of Jesus, Noah and David.

In the dramas and the book alike, his goal is evangelistic.

“I think there will be some who read the book and decide if Jesus isn't in the tomb, he's someone they need to get to know more about.”

Posted: 5/30/03

AMY NOBLES:
Woman of worship

By Leann Callaway

Special to the Standard

At an age when most children make music by banging on pots and pans, Amy Nobles began setting herself apart by tackling the piano.

Today, Nobles still distinguishes herself from the world as a worship leader.

She graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary this spring with a master of divinity degree, but she got her start in the family living room.

“I began playing the piano around age 3 or 4,” Nobles explained. “My dad told me that I crawled up on the bench and picked out 'Jesus Loves Me' at that young age, and he immediately knew God would use music in my life.

“I never set out to make my own music ministry or be a worship leader. I have tried to follow the Lord where he leads, and, as a result, he has cultivated the opportunity to lead worship and bless people with that. The Lord has been training me as a musician since the age of 5, and he has given me more than a song; he has given me a message.”

Nobles began leading worship while attending Texas A&M University. She was asked to sing with a college praise team at church and there began to sense God's call on her life.

“During those years, the worship movement among college students was new,” she explained. “I remember going to Choice, a Bible study at Baylor led by Louie Giglio–this was long before people even knew who Louie Giglio was. I will never forget those nights of worship in Waco and the two tapes I got with all the worship music from that Bible study. Those songs gave me a deeper reason to sing. For the first time, I felt like I was singing songs that matched my thoughts about God.

“In a sense, that Bible study and the music there gave me a passion for worship music. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be involved with worship.”

A desire to be available to serve anywhere has taken her from small Texas towns like Giddings to Bonn, Germany.

Her first worship album is titled “To the Ends of the Earth.” It features songs that focus on God's heart for every nation.

After graduation, she plans to find more ways to serve the local church and the church abroad.

“I have met many Christian workers from around the world as a result of these mission opportunities,” she explained. “It has been a privilege to encourage them by leading worship for them. I have led worship for people who are persecuted in their countries for open displays of religion. To serve them in worship is quite humbling and amazing. I thank Jesus that he has opened my eyes to see all he is doing in the world. God is so much bigger to me now, and as a result, worship is sweeter.”

Posted: 5/30/03

On the Move

Walter Allen to Simpsonville Church in Pittsburg as pastor.

Jason Edwards to First Church in Waco as youth minister.

Greg Gasaway to Central Church in Pampa as minister of youth/music from Second Church in Levelland, where he was minister of youth/education.

Brad Jurkovich to Southcrest Church in Lubbock as pastor from First Church in Lavaca, Ark.

Larry Lormand to North Orange Church in Orange as minister of education from Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Fla.

Robert McKenzie to Good Shepherd Church in Lubbock as pastor from Bethel Church in McAllen.

Geoffrey Nance to North Orange Church in Orange as minister of youth and recreation from New Beginnings Church in Ponte Verde, Fla.

David Speegle to Colonial Hill Church in Snyder as minister of music from First Church in Mineral Wells.

Roy Taylor to Westview Church in Slaton as pastor.

Posted: 5/30/03

Project frees physicians from debt for missions

By Deann Alford

Religion News Service

TEMPLE (RNS)–Africa needs doctors, and in 1997 Tracy and Patty Goen were Christian physicians ready to respond to the need as medical missionaries. But like most medical school graduates, the couple was saddled with student debt. Together they owed $100,000.

Mission agencies, however, insist that candidates be debt-free before sending them into the field. For the Goens, that would mean a five-year delay to work and repay the money before they could move to Africa.

That is, unless somebody paid their debt.

Enter David Topazian, a missionary and retired oral and maxillofacial surgeon on Yale University's medical school faculty. He knew if doctors such as the Goens had to go into private practice to repay their debts, chances are they would get settled into comfortable lifestyles and never make it to places that desperately need them.

So in 1994, he and Daniel Fountain founded Project MedSend. The next year, MedSend made Nepal-bound missionary physician Martha Carlough its first grant recipient. In 1997, MedSend accepted the Goens.

The deal: Project MedSend would partner with a mission agency–in the Goens' case, the South Carolina-based evangelical SIM International–and take over their monthly student loan payments for as long as they remained in the field–potentially adding years of service to a missionary's career.

MedSend has given grants to 185 other physicians, nurses, dentists, physician assistants and other health professionals, each of whom serves under the authority of one of 49 mission boards that now collaborate with MedSend. These medical missionaries work in more than 55 countries, many of which are “creative access,” or restrictive of missionary activity.

Half the world's people have no access to health care, yet dozens of church and mission hospitals have closed in India and Africa–including one in Egbe, Nigeria, that the Goens have reopened–in part because of a lack of medical professionals to staff them.

Diseases once thought to be virtually eradicated, such as tuberculosis, are on the rise. AIDS has killed 20 million people, and experts note that the worst of its death toll has yet to come.

Topazian, who has served as president of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, said the association's missionary members took note of the crisis in the mission field–the dearth of caregivers.

“We started receiving reports from missionaries in the field who were overworked, who were due for furlough and couldn't come home on home assignment because there was no one to replace them,” Topazian said. The rising costs of health education and the need to pay that off before going into the mission field were shrinking the replacement pool.

The association asked Topazian to look into the issue. He surveyed mission boards with health ministries, hospitals or health-development ministries. From the 33 mission boards that answered the survey, he learned that 49 physicians were partly through the candidate process but had been told to go work off their debt and then return. Meanwhile, 30 clinics and hospitals represented in that group of missions had no health professional in charge. “They were empty and closed,” Topazian said.

Topazian and some CMDA members asked those same mission boards to tell them what type of organization could best help relieve what he terms the “increasing educational debt barrier” for those wanting to be missionaries. What he and the others learned at the meeting laid the groundwork for Project MedSend.

MedSend isn't a sending agency, but rather partners with Christian ministries that send medical professionals. After a ministry pays MedSend a one-time participation fee, MedSend looks at the candidate's qualifications and financial situation. MedSend assumes the debts for as long as they're in the field. The average grant is $30,000, but grants for physicians can be more than $100,000. Most donors are Christian doctors.

So far, two families aided by Project MedSend have left mission work for health reasons, but no one has left to pursue a more lucrative career once MedSend repaid their loans.

“We're picking people who have an open-ended calling to a career in the mission field, and they just stay,” Topazian said.

Egbe Hospital, where the Goens practice–he as a surgeon and she as a pediatrician–offers the only health care available for nomadic Muslim Fulani cattle-herders in southwestern Nigeria. At first, the Fulani had nothing to do with the hospital because the Goens are openly Christian. They did, however, take up an offer by Tracy Goen–who had finished part of a veterinary medicine degree before he switched to human medicine–to vaccinate and treat the cattle, which are key to the Fulani's culture and livelihood.

But not long after the physician couple arrived in the area, he saved the lives of a snake-bitten boy and a teenager bleeding to death from a sword slash that had almost severed his arm.

The boy turned out to be the grandson of a powerful Fulani leader. After saving the teen's life and arm in a five-hour surgery, Goen learned that he was a prince. His father was the new king, who then invited the Goens to share their Christian faith as they wished among the Fulani.

Now on weekends, Tracy Goen travels the area to vaccinate cattle and show a film on the life of Christ dubbed in Fufulde, the Fulani language. Although Nigeria is embroiled in violent Muslim/ Christian conflict, Goen said he's never afraid of attack for his Christian faith because the Fulani are so grateful to them.

Without MedSend, the couple would have been working to pay off their loans until last year, when MedSend finished repaying them.

Tracy Goen says he has zero desire for the fruits of the lucrative private practice he was poised to build. Today, he and his family live with no electricity, phone or television. A teacher from their Temple church recently joined them to educate their five children. That freed Patty Goen, who had been home-schooling them, to serve more hours in the hospital.

“We've never felt like we're in need of anything,” Tracy Goen said. “God has met our needs.” In addition to an appreciative clientele, their practice has other perks: no lawyers and no insurance.

“We had built a house in the middle of a cousin's ranch in College Station,” Goen said. “We'd have lived happily ever after. I really don't think we'd have gotten to the mission field had I gone into private practice to pay off the debt. MedSend made it possible.”

Posted: 5/30/03

Fort Worth program places
ministers alongside police officers

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

FORT WORTH–Some Baptists are known for stands against dancing and drinking and smoking, but Randy Austin wants to let Fort Worth know Baptists also will take a stand against crime.

The chief of security at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is one of 37 ministers across faith lines participating in Ministers Against Crime, a federally funded initiative in Fort Worth. It enables ministers help connect police officers to the community and minister to the needs of residents. The effort is one of 13 faith-based partnerships with police departments around the nation.

Ministers are trained through the police academy so they can better understand the work and stresses of police officers. The training also involves understanding the mindset and needs of crime victims.

The police department furnishes ministers with pagers, cell phones and credentials so the clergy can be contacted to help at the scene of an incident.

While many people in high-crime areas distrust police officers and refuse to speak to them, officers found community residents easily open up to pastors, said Sgt. Mark Thorne, liaison between the Fort Worth Police Department and Ministers Against Crime.

Officers also noticed people responded better to pastors' words than rebukes by police, Thorne explained at a Baptist General Convention of Texas-sponsored session during the Texas Crime Victim Clearinghouse Conference in Austin. Ministers are connected to entire families and are credible in the neighborhoods, he continued.

By partnering law enforcement with ministers, officers have found it easier to connect with the neighborhoods they serve, Thorne noted. People are more willing to speak with them, and trust has increased.

People who are initially rude with officers often become very friendly when they see a minister standing beside the lawperson, Thorne said. Because of this, ministers have helped resolve issues people have with officers.

“We are out there to help build bridges to the community,” Austin emphasized.

But the ministers' work does not stop there. Thorne commonly calls on them to pray for specific situations and times of need. The ministers then enlist their congregations to pray for God's help.

Specifically challenged one day by a non-believer to “see what your God can do,” Thorne quickly asked the ministers to start praying over an area. The church leaders did, he said, and the crime rate dropped 50 percent that month. Prayer has calmed riotous vibes in the community as well, he said.

“We have tapped into a resource in Fort Worth that is changing our community,” Thorne happily declared.

Posted: 5/30/03

VMI's prayers ruled unconstitutional

RICHMOND, Va. (RNS)–An appellate court has ruled that the Virginia Military Institute's tradition of prayer before evening meals is unconstitutional.

“In establishing its supper prayer, VMI has done precisely what the First Amendment forbids,” a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled April 28.

The decision upheld a lower court ruling.

The panel rejected arguments that the prayer is voluntary because the cadets are adults. It emphasized that the high level of obedience expected from VMI cadets doesn't give them the freedom to choose whether to take part in what has been called a voluntary, non-denominational dinner prayer.

“Put simply, VMI's supper prayer exacts an unconstitutional toll on the consciences of religious objectors,” wrote Judge Robert King.

Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said the prayers are “part of the fabric of our country,” and he plans to appeal the decision to the entire appeals court.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, welcomed the ruling.

“No Americans should be forced to sing for their supper or pray to get it either,” said Lynn, whose organization filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the two cadets who sued.

“It's a sweeping decision that means public universities have no business promoting religion at mealtimes, bedtimes or any other times.”

In light of the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland suggested the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., review its practice of leading students in lunchtime prayer. Academy officials did not comment, but a Navy official said the service will review the decision.