Posted: 4/16/04

Churches and charities slow to feel
effects of economic recovery, analysts point out

By Mark O'Keefe

Religion New Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–A rising stock market and recovering economy have many of the nation's 1.2 million nonprofits feeling optimistic again, but it could take months–even years–before they see big financial benefits.

“Nobody is singing 'Happy Days are Here Again' yet, but they've stopped singing the Chicken Little tune that the sky is falling,” said Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector, a national coalition of nonprofits and philanthropy-minded corporations, based in Washington, D.C. “There is still a cautious attitude of 'let's wait and see.'”

One reason for less-than-unbridled enthusiasm is the seriousness of state budget crises, which can mean less government money for nonprofits. Still, there's plenty of reason to smile as individual donors, corporations and foundations appear ready to write large checks for good causes again.

“The phones are ringing off the hook,” said Stephen Adler, chief executive of JAMI Charity Brands Marketing, which connects companies and causes from its New York City base. “A lot of folks that told us to take a walk last year are starting to call us. We're starting to look at a sunny outlook after a pretty chilly year.”

A financially healthy nonprofit sector is good news for the general public. Historically, nonprofits have addressed societal needs in ways business and government do not, whether with free medical clinics mending bodies, colleges challenging minds, arts organizations stimulating imaginations or religious groups stirring souls. The nonprofit sector also is an important cog in the overall economy, employing nearly 10 percent of the nation's workers.

For many nonprofits, the late 1990s were the happiest of days, thanks to a roaring economy, solid government support and increasingly generous donors. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a bearish stock market, the war in Iraq and state government shortfalls changed the mood from buoyant to downright gloomy.

From the summer of 2000 to December of 2001, the twice-a-year Philanthropic Giving Index, similar to a consumer confidence index for charitable giving, showed three straight declines for the first time since the Great Depression. After a slight spike in the summer of 2002, the index sank again until December 2003.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of investment, and it's also the enemy of philanthropy,” said Patrick Rooney, an economist who is the director of research at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which produces the index. “Part of your economic security is whether you'll be alive tomorrow. When you have heightened fear of war or terrorism, that can have a negative impact on some donors.”

A mood swing appears to have begun last fall. The giving index released last December showed a 15 percent increase from the summer of 2003, bringing it up to a level last seen immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.

The index measures perceptions of senior fund-raisers, not actual giving to charities. That data won't be available for a year or more.

History gives further reason for confidence. Rooney said the best predictor of increased giving is a rising stock market, particularly the Standard & Poors 500 Index, which spiked 26 percent in 2003.

Dorothy Ridings, president and chief executive of the Washington-based Council on Foundations, made the same point. “The fact that the stock market was up about 25 percent at the end of the year means, I would say, that you'll see about an equivalent increase in foundation grant-making,” she said.

The increase won't be immediate, however. In planning how much to give to charities, many foundations use a portion–typically 5 percent–of a rolling three-year average of their stock market portfolios.

But even if they could move quickly, it's unlikely foundations could plug the holes left by state budget woes. According to the New Nonprofit Almanac, governments provide 31 percent of revenues for nonprofits, while foundations provide 2 percent.

“Government spending is not going to zoom back up at the state and federal level,” said Alan Abramson, director of the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund at the Aspen Institute in Washington. “I think nonprofits are in for a few more years of crunch.”

In states where budget crises have been severe, nonprofits are scrambling to make up the difference.

In Mobile, Ala., state funding to the Mobile Child Advocacy Center was reduced from $167,000 to $147,000. To provide the same level of care to children victimized by sexual abuse, the center will have to dip into its reserves. If more money doesn't come in by June, services may have to be cut.

“Last year was very tough,” said Patrick Guyton, the center's director. “We're hoping this year will be better. We're hoping the economy of Alabama will improve, increasing (our) funds, … but we're just not sure yet.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Churches must face up to hard financial truth, speaker says

By Tony Cartledge

Biblical Recorder

BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. (ABP)–Churches, conventions and Christians face a bleak future if congregational leaders do not actively engage cultural shifts and the perils of consumerism, speakers recently told a national stewardship conference.

Loren Mead, founder of the Alban Institute and author of “Financial Meltdown in the Mainline,” said, “We are in bad trouble in the churches,” and “we won't be out of it in your lifetime or mine.”

Churches increasingly depend on a donor base that is getting both older and smaller, he said. Meanwhile, younger adults are racking up more personal debt and giving less to the church.

Funding efforts tend to be erratic and short-term, focused on survival or breaking even, Mead said.

“A lot of churches don't know how to do anything else, and when the church is focused on survival, there is less energy for mission.”

Most churches have no significant financial reserves, he said. Financial planning is disconnected from the congregation, and members who are concerned about financial matters often face resistance from clergy and lay leaders who don't want to deal with it.

“We have lost generations of young adults, youth and children by not teaching stewardship,” he said.

Mead outlined a long list of growing financial challenges for churches, beginning with extensive deferred-maintenance issues, a particular problem for older and larger churches. Churches have put off needed upkeep “because we've had a pinch in our budgets for a long time.”

Churches are increasingly being asked to pay taxes, or fees in lieu of taxes, in order to receive city or county services, he said. A rising number of lawsuits are increasing church liability costs, medical insurance premiums increase annually, demographic shifts often take members away and competition from other good causes continues to rise.

“Nobody in the church is talking about this,” Mead said. “We think one good year will fix it.” The picture looks bleak 10 years down the road, he said, but “we're so focused on getting through this year that we're not looking down the road.”

Mead said churches must start talking directly about finances, training clergy as well as children and youth to appreciate the importance of giving. Pastors must get over their reluctance to understand and talk about financial matters.

“We must stop being amateurs in fundraising” and get professional help, he said.

Annual campaigns should be well-planned and administered, he said. Regular capital campaigns should be planned to deal with routine maintenance. And systematic planned giving efforts should reach every member.

Baptists in particular need to get over their prejudice against endowments and actively encourage members to include the church in their estate planning, he said.

Howard Dayton, founder and CEO of Crown Ministries, said money has a spiritual as well as a practical impact on churches. He said 2,350 verses in the Bible deal with money. How Christians handle money has a direct correlation to their intimacy with God, he said, because money is God's major competitor.

American consumer debt is up 20 percent in the past two years, while savings are down by half, Dayton said.

One-sixth of Americans will gamble in a casino this year, and the number of bankruptcies could reach 1.6 million, he said.

Meanwhile, charitable giving as a percentage of income continues to decline, and the younger generation is unlikely to reverse it.

Adults 35 years old and younger have more debt, less savings and are less generous than any previous generation, Dayton said.

Pastors should talk and teach members how to handle all their income, not just 10 percent of it, he said.

Though pastors may feel unprepared or hesitant to talk about money matters, “teaching God's people to handle God's money is a big thing,” he said.

Dick Towner, author of “Good Sense Resources” and affiliated with the Willow Creek Association, said the misuse of money is an evil power that opposes God.

“The failure of the local church to give adequate attention to financial matters prevents the church from fulfilling its redemptive potential,” he said, and is “the largest example of self-marginalization in our history.”

Towner said all the biblical references to money boil down to three truths: God created everything, God retained ownership of all he created and humans are made trustees of part of God's creation. Trustees have more responsibilities than rights and are held accountable for what they do with what is entrusted to them, he said.

Towner also advised churches to institute a ministry of financial stewardship that teaches, trains and supports church members.

An effective financial ministry is both practical and spiritual, assisting people who are “seduced by the gospel of materialism” while “looking in all the wrong places for the contentment that only Jesus can provide,” he said.

Posted: 4/16/04

Pastor Israel Rogriguez encourages one of the families from his church, Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras, as they struggle to clean up after the flood devastated their home. This home is about three blocks from the Rio Escondido that flooded April 4 for the first time in at least 100 years. At right, Baptist University of the Americas students (from left) Cheyenne Solis of Texas, Josue DeAlva of Puerto Rico, Carlos Valencia of Colombia and Paco Perez of New Mexico help clean out the contents of a flood-ruined home in Piedras Negras.

Baptists flood Piedras Negras with assistance

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico–A killer flood shattered the heart of Villa de Fuente on a recent Sunday evening. In the days that followed, Mexico and Texas Baptists worked side-by-side in the Piedras Negras neighborhood to get it beating again.

“At first, the morning after it happened, people were just crying,” said Israel Rodriguez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista, who spent two days driving the church's ambulance while looking for the 100-plus members of his church who were initially reported missing. “But now they are happy because they see a lot of people have come to help.”

Carlos Valencia, a student at the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, talks with a woman in Piedras Negras who has received copies of a Spanish-language New Testament distributed by Texas Baptist volunteers. (Craig Bird Photo)

• See Related Articles: Flood victim calms children with Noah's ark story

It was a task that called for multiple resources after the placid low-water Rio Escondido turned savage. It took only half an hour for the water level to surge from 18 inches to 25 feet–on a night when no rain fell on Piedras Negras.

At its apex, the resulting lake stretched a half-mile on either side of the river, damaging about 600 homes, killing at least 35 people and leaving 20 missing. Practically all the contents of the homes were ruined by the muddy residue the ebbing water left behind.

Though in shock and grieving the loss of family and friends who had drowned or disappeared, residents returned to their homes and began trying to rebuild their lives. Often, they scraped the mud away with bare hands or stray shovels found among the debris. Some attempted to clean the silt from their clothes, but the stench overpowered them. And word soon came that everything the water had touched was likely to be contaminated.

So, while the government opened temporary housing shelters and feeding centers, set up emergency clinics to immunize against tuberculosis and dengue fever, and passed out giant squeegees, shovels and bottled water, Baptists and other volunteer groups began coming to the community's aid.

“My first thoughts (after hearing about the disaster) were for our church members–we had 18 families lose their homes,” Rodriguez said. “But my second thought, when I had time, was to call the National Baptist Convention of Mexico and then Dexton Shores (director of Texas Baptist River Ministry, part of the Baptist General Convention of Texas). I knew Dexton would get the word to the rest of Texas Baptists.”

The morning after the Sunday flood, Shores arrived with a truckload of blankets, clothes and drinking water. Tuesday afternoon, a Texas Baptist Men feeding unit from Bluebonnet Baptist Association crossed the border with a water purification system.

The next morning, two chaplains from the BGCT-affiliated Victim Relief program arrived from Houston to provide trauma counseling.

That afternoon, the first of two trucks from Buckner Baptist Benevolences, loaded with sacks of food and boxes of clothes and toys packed around the primary load of new shoes, pulled into Iglesia Bautista Emanuel in the center of Villa de Fuente.

By evening, four students from the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio were on hand to help wherever they were needed.

Later in the week, seven “mud-out” units operated by Texas Baptist Men joined the effort.

“That was the biggest need after the initial food and clothing was provided,” Shores said. “Every building in the neighborhood was coated with thick, sticky mud, and the power sprayers were really helpful.”

Meanwhile, the Mexican convention gathered monetary support and dispatched a truck loaded with blankets from Mexico City along with teams of volunteers to help residents clean the mud from their homes.

Operating primarily out of Iglesia Bautista Emanuel–the only Baptist church in Piedras Negras to be flooded–and a community social club six blocks away from the church, where Texas Baptist Men set up a feeding center, local Baptists and the Texas volunteers linked up.

Just a couple of hours after the sanctuary of Emanuel was finally clean–all the ruined pews piled in the street–it reopened as a distribution center for the goods donated through Buckner.

“We've been wearing the same clothes for three days–the clothes we had on when we escaped,” one woman said as she waited patiently in line. “My daughter has been barefoot the whole time, and I'm worried she might get sick from the contaminated mud.”

Meanwhile, at another table, the Victim Relief counselor talked with anyone who needed a listening ear and a compassionate heart.

Drenched and mud-coated family portraits lie in the foreground as students from the Baptist University of the Americas haul damaged furniture from a flooded home in Piedras Negras. At right, a child in Piedras Negras receives a hot meal provided by Texas Baptist Men volunteers.

“They need to understand that while this flood was certainly not normal, the feelings of fear and anger and loss that they feel are completely normal,” said Don Perkins, associate director of Victim Relief.

Emotions were deep and jagged.

Victoria Aparicio, who with her husband started the church in 1968, returned to clean-up work after attending the graveside service of the only Emanuel member to drown. The 71-year-old man, a new Christian, and his family were clinging to a utility pole. His wife was rescued, but the man, his daughter and a granddaughter all died.

“Please ask Texas Baptists to pray for our people,” she pleaded, wiping tears from her eyes. “We think the death toll is much higher than is being reported.”

Iglesia Bautista Trinidad only had one family flooded out, “but we are hurting because all of us have friends and family and neighbors who suffered a lot,” Pastor Geronimo de la Cruz Mesa said. The displaced Trinidad family was temporarily living in a room at the church.

“They tried to drive out, but the car stalled, so they just ran,” Mesa explained. “Eventually the man, his wife and their 4-year-old daughter had to climb up on a roof. The next day, they found their car exactly where they left it–but there were two other cars piled on top of it.”

The Texas Baptist Men feeding unit was relocated twice–the last time to Villa de Fuente at the request of Guadalupe Morales, the wife of the governor of the Mexican state of Coahuila, who coordinated much of the relief effort. Impressed with the range of assistance Texas Baptists were providing–and the willingness of volunteers to work completely under the direction of Mexican officials, she wanted the Texas Baptist Men to be in the center of the hardest-hit neighborhood.

“Because people try to take advantage even of tragedies to slip things across the border illegally, the procedure called for all aid coming from the United States to be unloaded at the international bridge and then reloaded into Mexican army trucks for distribution,” Shores explained. “But Mrs. Morales got that waived for Texas Baptists so our trucks could come straight through.”

Rodriguez credited the partnership between the National Baptist Convention of Mexico and the Baptist General Convention of Texas with allowing the rapid and efficient relief efforts.

“Thanks be to God that three months ago we started organizing the partnership that was signed last November,” he said. “Certainly we couldn't foresee this, but because we were planning other joint projects already, we were able to coordinate the response of the two conventions quickly.”

Felix Castillo, bivocational pastor of First Baptist Church in Eagle Pass, worked with Rodriguez much of Monday and Tuesday in the church ambulance. One encounter in particular left him deeply shaken.

“Tuesday some people flagged because they had found a body,” Castillo said. “He looked like he was about 3 years old, just lying there, so small. One man took off his shirt and covered him up. We all were crying. That night when I got home, I hugged my children (a 16-month-old son and a 3-year-old daughter) a lot longer and a lot harder than usual.”

Castillo–whose small church collected and donated 50 bags of food and clothing the day after the flood–planned to bring as many volunteers from Eagle Pass as he could over the weekend to help with the cleanup. He sees the work as an opportunity rather than a hardship.

"Some people may say, 'Why should I help those people in Piedras Negras? They aren't my responsibility–I don't know them,'" he explained. "But this is a wonderful opportunity to be faithful to what God told us to do. We aren't merely helping other people. We are being kind and loving to Jesus himself. Remember, he said when we helped people who are weak and hurting, we are doing it to him.

Posted: 4/16/04

Flood victim calms children with Noah's ark story

By Craig Bird

Texas Baptist Communications

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico–As a relentless flood poured through the bedroom windows, Ramona Juarez calmed her terrified grandson with the story of Noah's Ark.

Standing in the kitchen sink as the water–thick with silt–swirled around her thin shoulders, she led her family and neighbors in singing hymns.

Less than 72 hours later, stagger-weary from pulling her destroyed belongings out of her house and struggling to clear the piles of mud from the floors, she stood outside her church, Iglesia Bautista Emanuel, talking with Texas Baptist volunteers who had come to Piedras Negras to help “victims” like her.

Several times tears overcame her, but she quietly turned aside suggestions the story was too painful to complete.

“I want to tell you everything that happened,” she insisted. “Because I want God to be glorified for what he did for us.”

Juarez, a 53-year-old widow, lives with her 30-year-old mentally handicapped daughter. But Sunday evening, April 4, when two of her grandchildren stopped by to visit around 7:30 p.m., the 12-year-old granddaughter, Alduvi Barrios, was agitated by reports that the Rio Escondido, 10 blocks away, was rising. But the stream, which normally runs 12 to 16 inches deep, had not flooded in 100 years.

Less than 30 minutes later, the unthinkable was knee-high and the danger obvious.

“I told everyone we were going to our neighbor's house, but my daughter was frightened and grabbed onto the door,” Juarez said. “Finally, she let go, but then she grabbed my shoulder. It hurt, but I got her and the two grandchildren to the neighbor's.”

Meanwhile, the neighbor went out to crank the car and drive them to safety. But a surge of water swept over the hood, killing the engine and driving him back inside. He and his wife stayed in the kitchen, while Juarez and her three charges went into a bedroom.

“This is God's will. He will take care of us,” she kept assuring the children.

“And they were pretty calm until the bed starting floating” after the water breached the bedroom window, she said. The neighbor yelled he was going to get his boat so they could get out–which gave Juarez the opportunity to tell the story of God saving Noah and his family from the flood with an ark.

Alduvi Barrios rubs mud off a framed prayer on the wall of her grandmother's house.

But when the current swept the boat out of the neighbor's hands, 8-year-old Jorge Barrios panicked.

“What will save us now?” he cried, clinging tightly to Juarez, who was still trying to keep her daughter calm.

“We have another ark that Noah didn't have,” she assured him. “God sent Jesus into the world to save us. He's our ark. He'll take care of us.”

Comforted, the child calmed down again.

But still the water rose, and when the mattress was saturated, it started to sink–starting with the corner where Juarez's daughter, the heaviest of the four, was sitting. She grabbed Jorge by the neck, choking him until Juarez “talked hard” to her and got her to let go. Then, clinging to each other and wading through waist-high water, they forced their way into the kitchen.

Hoisting her daughter and two grandchildren atop free-standing cabinets that reached nearly to the ceiling, Juarez and the two neighbors stood on the stove and sink, the husband nervously checking the water level with his flash light and calling out reports as it steadily climbed. Juarez held her daughter's head, and the neighbor held her feet to keep her from rolling off into the water.

But before the water reached Juarez's chin, the flood halted. Alduvi recognized it first and called out in the darkness for the neighbor to check again. “It's down about an inch,” he agreed.

That was good enough for Juarez. “Let's all give thanks to the Lord,” she announced. “God has shown us that the water will not rise any more and that it will go back down the same way it came up. We're safe now. Let's sing.”

So they did, joining in on a song whose title literally translates as “On the Other Side of the Sun” but has the meaning of “Just Over in Glory Land.”

Soon they discovered the water level was higher inside the house than outside and, once the neighbor was able to pry a door open, the last of the water rushed out into the night. The group huddled together and began making their way toward higher ground, meeting friends and neighbors who also had survived and who, like them, were among the 2,000 people now homeless in their neighborhood of 6,000.

“It was really cold, and we felt it more and more as we walked, but after six or seven blocks, we came upon a rescue team,” she explained. It was now 2:30 a.m.–six hours since the ordeal had started.

The rescue team had been digging people out of the mud and helping them down from roofs and trees. When Juarez and the others appeared, they asked them, “Did you escape all by yourselves?”

“No,” Juarez answered confidently. “We didn't get out by ourselves. God saved us.”

Later, at the emergency shelter, radio and newspaper reporters asked her where she learned the survival skills that kept her and her family alive.

“I haven't had any experiences with things like this,” she explained. “But I have a really strong God.”

Posted: 4/16/04

Evangelicals oppose gay marriage, but not a 'litmus test'

By Rob Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–A landmark study of American evangelical Christians released this month determined, among several findings, that evangelicals oppose gay marriage but are lukewarm in their support for a constitutional amendment to ban it.

The survey of more than 1,600 respondents found that, while 85 percent of evangelical Christians oppose gay marriage, only 41 percent of those who oppose the practice felt the Constitution should be amended to do so. Instead, 52 percent of evangelical gay-marriage opponents said it was enough for states or non-constitutional federal laws to prohibit same-sex marriage.

Support for such an amendment among evangelicals was only slightly stronger than among the general population, 35 percent of whom preferred amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage over legislative bans.

The survey, conducted in late March and early April by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, was commissioned by U.S. News & World Report magazine and the PBS television show “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.”

Anna Greenberg, a vice president of the firm that conducted the study, said the gay-marriage response and some others on the importance of certain moral issues to evangelicals surprised her.

“We fully expected that evangelicals would be opposed to gay marriage,” Greenberg said, in a press conference announcing the study's release. However, their opposition doesn't translate into majority support for a step as significant as amending the Constitution to ban it.

Greenberg also noted that “evangelical elites”–such as television preachers and Washington activists–have been emphasizing support for the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment as an important issue in the 2004 elections.

But the survey showed that, of rank-and-file evangelicals, “less than a majority said they had a litmus test” on the issue of gay marriage for political candidates.

In fact, while 46 percent of evangelical respondents said they would not vote for a candidate who disagreed with them on legalizing gay marriage, 42 percent said they could back a candidate who disagreed with them on that issue but agreed on most others.

The survey also showed that evangelicals had levels of concern for the moral direction of the country that were similar to those of the general population, and that evangelicals had similar levels of worry about various social ills as the general population.

“This is a very sophisticated survey,” said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron (Ohio) and an expert in the study of evangelicals and politics. “It's been a long time since anybody has looked at the evangelical community in this much detail.”

Green noted the survey reflected an ideological diversity in the evangelical community that opinion-makers in the media and government often overlook. For instance, evangelical respondents gave relatively high unfavorable ratings to some of their own self-appointed spokesmen.

Asked to rate certain personalities on a 0-100 scale of minimal to maximum favorability, Baptist pastor and television personality Jerry Falwell only scored a 44 percent rating among white evangelicals. Christian Coalition founder and broadcaster Pat Robertson fared slightly better, at 54 percent.

Meanwhile, Christian psychologist and Focus on the Family head James Dobson scored a 73 percent approval rating among evangelicals. Even the Roman Catholic pontiff, Pope John Paul II, got a higher favorability rating among evangelicals than Robertson or Falwell, with 59 percent.

Posted: 4/16/04

Ministers use high-tech tools to capture
attention of media-savvy children

By Barbara Neff

Religion News Service

GRAYSLAKE, Ill. (RNS)– Six years ago, Dan Huffman abandoned his lucrative career as a software development consultant to become a full-time youth minister.

“I don't have any formal religious training,” he said, “but I believe that when God calls you, he will equip you.”

For Huffman, part of that equipment turned out to be his computer science background.

Huffman, the pastor of children's ministries at The Chapel, a non-denominational church in Grayslake, Ill., belongs to a growing group of youth ministers using technology and other innovations to attract today's multimedia-savvy kids to biblical teachings.

The ministers rely on tools like PowerPoint, videos, rock music and interactive exercises to make their lessons relevant to kids.

“The messages don't change, but the methods do,” said Dale Hudson, children's minister at First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark. “Churches can't teach in the way they did in the 1950s or 1960s.”

Both Hudson and Huffman instituted dramatic changes to the existing Sunday school programs when they took over their churches' youth and children's ministries.

Huffman recalled watching three fifth-grade boys sit with their arms crossed over their chests as their teacher stood in front of the classroom singing a hymn.

“I knew this wasn't working, so I looked to see who was communicating well with kids,” he said.

Hudson said his church also fell short of connecting culturally with the children before he moved to a fast-paced “Nickelodeon style” that incorporates high-energy, sloppy games and numerous visual devices, broadcast on large screens with music and graphics.

“You have to let kids be kids,” he said. “We make church a fun, exciting place.”

Hudson's program, which serves 600 children in first through fifth grades each week, takes place on elaborate sets known as Toon Town and Space 45. He said the children's worship program was held in a chapel also used for funerals when he started in Springdale.

“The first radical thing we did was change the environment,” Hudson said.

Searching the Internet, Hudson connected with Bruce Barry, a set designer who previously worked for Universal Studios, Busch Gardens and the Rain Forest Cafe.

“You can't stick kids in a room with beige walls,” Hudson said. “We tried to look through the eyes of a child when we created our rooms.”

Huffman's program, called The Great Adventure, currently operates in a theater-in-the-round at the local high school, serving about 400 kids in two sessions every Sunday. He said the move from a classroom to the theater meant he could do more elaborate teaching.

Huffman had heard that children have an attention span of one minute for each year of age but knew they watched television for long periods of time.

“I kept coming back to 'Sesame Street,'” he said. “It moved fast and kept the kids' attention, and it always had a common thread, like the letter E and the number 9, with everything revolved around that theme.”

Huffman breaks each week's lesson into segments of no longer than five minutes. A recent lesson, which focused on jealousy, played out in a diner, with a cash register, high chrome stools lined up at a counter and a video screen.

Minutes before about 200 kids poured down the aisles to their plastic-molded seats, several adults and fifth-grade children squeezed in more rehearsal for the puppet show segments.

“I don't want any dead space,” directed Huffman, dressed in blue jeans and a striped rugby shirt.

The 45-minute lesson included scenes in a continuing puppet story, broken up by video clips, interactive time when the children offered personal experiences with jealousy, a Bible teaching, a rollicking worship song and a lesson review game.

This is not your father's Sunday school, but Huffman and Hudson said they've encountered little resistance to their ideas.

“Every once in awhile, you may have an extremely conservative family, but 99 percent of the people love the changes, and you have to program for where the majority of people are,” Hudson said.

Still, the new approaches are not without their critics, who complain that the methods emphasize entertainment over education and say popular culture has no place in a ministry.

Huffman agrees that the teaching is the key component of the children's ministry but said the kids won't come back if they don't enjoy the lessons.

"Why do they make Gummi Bear vitamins these days?" Huffman asked. "Critics say you're just making them attractive to kids. Well, yeah–the end result is they're getting their vitamins." Similarly, the new children's ministry programs teach God's word to kids in the most digestible way, he said. "We do have a lot of fun, but we don't compromise the message."

The Chapel and First Baptist both appear to be thriving, with construction under way for new facilities.

The Chapel is building a $9 million permanent facility, including an interactive children's area called Adventure Avenue that uses the entire lower level.

“The children's facility will look like Main Street U.S.A. at Disney World,” Huffman said.

Hudson declined to predict how his children's ministry would look in five years.

“That'll be dictated by the culture,” he said.

“This culture is so fluid that we just take it year by year. Our message won't change, but the methods are up for grabs.”

Posted: 4/16/04

TEXAS BAPTIST FORUM
Baptists & Pentecostals

“What can Baptists learn from Pentecostals, and what can Pentecostals learn from Baptists?” asks Professor Roger Olson of Truett Theological Seminary (April 5).

While I respect Christians who are Pentecostals and have friends among them, I cannot find much common ground with them doctrinally.

Baptists can teach Pentecostals that salvation is by grace, and if by grace then not of works (Romans 11:6, Ephesians 2:8-9). Since salvation is by grace, the correlating doctrine is “once saved, always saved” (John 10:27-30). Pentecostals claim these doctrines are dangerous and even heretical.

They teach sinless perfection, which is an erroneous doctrine (1 John 1:8). They teach that it is God's will for all believers to have perfect health and much wealth. If a believer falls short of the blessing, then he is “living beneath his privilege.” God's word teaches no such thing (2 Corinthians 4:16, 1 Timothy 6:5-10).

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit misses the mark of Bible truth. Where is the common ground that the good professor sees?

His statement that Baptists are adopting Pentecostal forms of worship is sadly true. Bringing in rock bands and hootenanny music is fostering a generation of Bapticostals that know not Dr. George W. Truett. Emotionalism and experience are leading Baptists away from speaking sound doctrine (Titus 2:1).

Baptists do not need Pentecostal doctrines or worship.

C.T. “Pete” McGuire

Shreveport, La.

Ministers' kids

I would like to respond to the article on “preacher's kids'” rejection of church (March 22).

I was pastor of four churches as our children grew up. They never asked to miss worship. I said this to say many preacher's kids serve the Lord wonderfully.

Our oldest son is with the North American Mission Board. He speaks to young people and youth ministers all over the nation. His wife helps with the women's ministry in the church. Our other son is a deacon in First Baptist Church in Abilene. He sings in the choir, plays in the orchestra and serves on several committees. His wife signs for the deaf in worship. Our older daughter and her husband serve in their church, where he is a deacon. They both teach in the public school and live their Christian example. Our younger daughter and her husband work with youth at First Baptist in Abilene. They both served as staffers for Super Summer for several years. They both teach in public schools.

Yes, there are some who go astray. Don't blame the dads or moms. Every one of them has a choice. Life is not easy in any profession. Ministers' children may be in the spotlight more often. Let's give praise to the Father for all who serve.

Thanks to John Hall for the follow up about ministers' children in ministry. Good job!

By the way, tell your minister you love him and his family.

Kenneth Flowers

Kingsland

Revealing decision

While I am saddened by the Southern Baptist Convention's proposed withdrawal from the Baptist World Alliance, the decision is very revealing.

What this decision reveals is the SBC leadership is itself publicly acknowledging that they have moved so far away from “Baptist” beliefs and polity they now admit they no longer feel comfortable in fellowship nor cooperation with the rest of the Baptists of the world. This is the point that should not be missed!

The reason for this discomfort is not that the member groups of the BWA are no longer Baptist, but rather that the new polity, arrogance, exclusiveness and authoritarianism of the SBC are not recognizable as Baptist in nature.

The indictment that flows from this decision is not against the nature of the member groups of the BWA, but rather a self-indictment of the SBC by the SBC. It is the SBC that now admits that they have become so unbaptistic that they no longer feel at home in the larger Baptist family.

The SBC's actions and motives regarding the BWA are wrong, but the SBC's new awareness that they no longer sense a kinship among the free Christians in other countries who are called “Baptist” is accurate.

It is the SBC that has changed, not the BWA. I pray God's richest blessing on the faithful Baptists holding fast to our Baptist identity within the BWA all around the world!

Ed Jordan

Pocatello, Idaho

Wasted efforts

I have tried to stay out of the battle in Southern Baptist life, but I must respond to Dolan McKnight's suggestion of possible new names for the Southern Baptist Convention (March 22).

He was witty. But what is most humorous is the implications he made. Everything he was accusing the convention of is evident in his accusations: The Baptist General Convention of Texas did not want to cooperate with the majority of the SBC, he was slinging mud while he wrote, and since you didn't vote the way we wanted, we are going to hit the highway.

How long is it going to take us to see what the devil is doing? We need to wake up, for it is later than we think. The stage is set for the coming of our Lord, and our efforts are being wasted on differences and not being used to reach a lost world for Christ.

Jerry Smith

Paris

Beloved name

In regard to changing the name of the Southern Baptist Convention, I have a few words to say about that.

Why would we want to change our convention's name? It has served us well for all these years. It means something and stands for something.

When you think of the Southern Baptist Convention, you think of a people of the book, a group of Christians who are conservative and who stand for something and who are against some things.

They are a people who use the Bible as their guidebook, a people who have preached from the King James Version and have seen millions of people saved, not only in the U.S.A., but also in many foreign countries.

Some maintain that we should change our name because we minister to people who do not live in the South. Our name does not indicate our location but the message we proclaim. If Bro. South moves to a northern state from a southern state, does he change his name to Bro. North?

One other thought: If we should change our name, some other Baptist group would quickly pick up the name “Southern Baptist” and use it as their own.

Please, fellow Southern Baptists, let us keep our beloved name!

Wayne R. Williams

Lubbock

Alcohol deaths

Every red-blooded American shares the grief and loss of hundreds of young men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq during the past year. Regardless of what our political positions may be, we are all grateful and indebted for these noble, patriotic acts of service and commitment on our behalf.

During 2000, 2001 and 2002, our nation averaged losing 17,593 of our family members, friends and fellow citizens who were senselessly killed each year in alcohol-related accidents on the highways in our country. In less than two weeks, 12 days to be exact, 579 human lives will be destroyed on our American highways in accidents related to alcohol abuse.

Where is the outrage? Where is the outcry? Where are the political tirades? Where are the demonstrations? Where is new legislation?

We will kill more people on our highways in two weeks in alcohol-related accidents than the number of troops who died in the first year in military service in Iraq.

Alcohol-related highway deaths average 48.2 per day.

Carl Hudson

Jackson, Miss.

Parental choice

Apparently you think that if parents are given the right to choose where their children are educated, they will pick an inferior school over a good public school (March 22).

I would give parents a little more credit than you do, and I would give parents a choice. If parents do abandon public schools, perhaps that says more about the schools than the poor judgment of parents.

Melissa Beck

Katy

Faith-based initiative vetoed in 1811

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits government funding of “religion,” including “activities or institutions,” according to Everson vs. Board of Education.

James Madison wrote, “Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by ecclesiastical bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.”

In February 1811, President Madison vetoed two faith-based initiative bills.

Feb. 21: “The bill exceeds the rightful authority, to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates, in particular, the article of the Constitution of the United States which declares, that ‘Congress shall make no law … .’

“The bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of poor children of the same; an authority which … would be a precedent for giving to religious societies, as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”

February 28: “The bill, in reserving a certain parcel of land of the United States for the use of said Baptist church, comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States, for the use and support of religious societies; contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that ‘Congress shall make no law … .’” (Papers, Presidential Series, 3:193).

Gene Garman

Pittsburg, Kan.

Posted: 4/16/04

Learn power of speech and silence, Gordon urges students

By Marv Knox

Editor

ABILENE–Christians fight because they don't understand the “power and poison” of both speech and silence, Carolyn Gordon told participants at Logsdon School of Theology's Maston Christian Ethics Lectures.

“As Christians, we struggle with communication,” insisted Gordon, associate professor of church and community at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kan.

“We live by the cellphone, but we still cannot figure out what to say,” she told packed audiences on the Hardin-Simmons University campus in Abilene.

In creation, God blessed all that had been made, only cursing it after Adam and Eve sinned, Gordon noted.

Much later, “Jesus, 'the Word,' came forth blessing,” she said, but noting the New Testament book of James acknowledges “we still have a problem with this tongue.”

“Because we are God's, some life force should come out of us because we are blessed,” she said. “We've got a problem, because we continue to curse. We've got to understand the power we have (in speech) and use it for good.”

Cursing is different from “cussing,” Gordon pointed out. “Cussing is using profanity, … four-letter words that are not in our Sunday school books. It only has power when you, the listener, give it power.”

Cursing, on the other hand, is more powerful, she said. “Cursing is a matter of the heart–a profane wish, wishing evil on someone. We say words and bring harm to someone. We don't realize what power we have, otherwise we wouldn't curse others.”

As an example of cursing, she told about a schoolteacher who predicted the teenaged Billy Graham “won't amount to anything.” While that curse failed to harm him, and he went on to become the most powerful evangelist of the 20th century, similar curses have harmed countless young people, she said.

Christians also ought to “shun vain babbling,” Gordon warned, noting babbling includes gossiping and back-stabbing, but also continual focus on negative issues.

To illustrate, she pointed to Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest Baptist preacher of the 19th century, whose reputation was damaged by his unrelenting emphasis on the Downgrade Controversy, in which some Baptists tried to downgrade the significance of the gospel.

Although his position was correct, his negative focus was harmful, she said.

“Our words are always to be seasoned with grace,” Gordon urged. “If you don't have love, it's nothing. We are called to bless and not curse.”

Cursing should not come from “the same mouth out of which we tell others about Christ.”

But just as Christians should guard what they say, they should be mindful of what they don't say, Gordon stressed.

“We have yet to figure out we cannot not communicate,” she said. “Whether you speak or remain silent, you say something.”

Like speech, silence can both curse and bless, Gordon reported, identifying three ways in which silence is poison and three ways in which it is powerful.

The first kind of poisonous silence is passive-aggressive silence, or “the silent treatment–withholding words to manipulate,” she said.

“Somewhere in the process, somebody stops talking,” she explained. “They don't want you to stop talking, but they don't want to talk to you. It's a very loud silence.”

This abuse of silence is poisonous because it's used to control and manipulate, she said.

A second type of poisonous silence is the Code of Omerta, often called the Code of Silence, Gordon added.

The code, most notably affiliated with the Mafia, began in Sicily, where the peasants were poor and oppressed and felt they couldn't trust the government, she explained. So, when crimes were committed, the people refused to tell government officials.

“Crimes were considered personal, not for the government,” she said. “A wounded man shall not reveal the identity of his assailant. If he gets better, he will kill his assailant.”

This kind of silence enabled the widespread abuse by priests within the Roman Catholic Church, Gordon said. The church response was to move the priest to another parish, not report the crime to police.

But other congregations shouldn't feel superior, she admonished. “Many times in our churches, we feel a need to protect the abuser or the sanctity of the church. This silence festers. It is poisonous.”

The third way Christians allow silence to become poisonous happens when they embrace silence out of fear of breaking the status quo, she said.

Martin Luther King called this “the appalling silence of good people,” when Christians failed to speak against racism, she noted.

“Everyone has to choose to speak or be silent,” she said. “Sometimes when we remain silent, we cause others harm.”

But silence also can be powerful, Gordon advised, pointing to four ways silence reflects strength.

Contemplative silence, “the silence we use to connect us to what is sacred, what is holy,” is the first type of powerful silence, she said.

Christians can draw strength from “sitting in God's presence” in an act of adoration and utter self-surrender.

“Sit and be still,” she urged.

Second, aggressive silence “claims peace in the face of chaos and unrest,” she said, citing two examples from the life of Jesus.

When religious leaders brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery before him, Jesus silently wrote something in the dirt before saying, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Later, when Jesus was brought before Herod the king, Jesus refused to speak to the corrupt monarch.

In both moments of silence, “chaos was brought under control,” Gordon said. “Every now and then, have you thought of just smiling and not saying anything?”

Third, “when there is nothing to say,” a silent reply is powerful, she said.

On many occasions, “we don't have to have anything to say,” she stressed. “Just the power of being present is enough.”

This is a kind of power contributed to the group by people who are shy and often silent, she observed, noting, “If we all spoke, we'd be in trouble.”

Finally, the sacred trust of confidentiality is a powerful form of silence, Gordon said.

“The power of keeping sacred secrets is a gift we give to people we love who trust us.”

She quoted an essay on speech by Stuart Vail, which concludes, “Life is a fine balance of releasing the right words in the right order in the right time and deciding which words are truly better left unsaid.”

The Maston Lectures are named for T.B. Maston, who taught Christian ethics more than 40 years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and pioneered in biblical ethics, race relations, family life, the Christian and vocation, church and state, and character formation.

Posted: 4/16/04

Louisiana College considers textbook policy

PINEVILLE, La. (ABP)–Louisiana College trustees, whose December decision to screen all classroom materials was criticized as a violation of academic freedom, will consider an even stricter textbook policy when they meet this month.

Trustee Leon Hyatt is proposing a policy that would bring the college–and specifically classroom materials–in line with “the principle that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God.”

The policy also would prohibit any “approval or portrayal of profanity, sexual activity outside of marriage, homosexuality, pornography or other illicit sexual expressions.”

Violation of the policy would subject faculty and staff members to dismissal, and trustees would consider “compliance or non-compliance on the part of any and all personnel” as a standing agenda item at each board meeting.

Hyatt also is seeking to replace the current trustee officers, which in effect would disband the search committee looking for a new college president. Hyatt announced his plan in an e-mail to selected trustees, according to two Louisiana newspapers.

Current trustee Chair Joe Nesom said the faculty and textbook policy would be addressed during the trustees' previously scheduled April meeting, but Nesom implied the issue of trustee officers would not.

Hyatt declined to comment to reporters and referred all questions to Nesom.

College President Rory Lee and Academic Vice President Ben Hawkins announced in mid-March they are leaving to take other jobs. Both Lee and Hawkins said their resignations were not in response to the new policies. But some faculty and alumni worry the resignations will only speed changes at the college, which is affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

Thomas Howell, chair of the college's history department and a critic of the textbook policy, said the new proposal would make teaching even harder.

“'Portrayal of sexual activity outside of marriage?' That would include various parts of the Bible,” Howell told The Town Talk. “I think this proposed resolution, if applied broadly and aggressively, would make a liberal arts education impossible.”

But trustee Kent Aguillard disagreed. “Fundamentally, I don't think the board is trying to alter the face of this school,” he said. “The board does not want to turn it into a Bible school. We want students to get a liberal exposure to the arts and sciences. But it's going to be in the context of what the Baptist Faith & Message says. That doesn't mean you can't teach things that are taught somewhere else, but you teach it in the context of what the Baptists believe.”

Trustee Chair Nesom was not one of the 22 board members who received Hyatt's e-mail calling for his replacement. Nesom did not comment on Hyatt's effort to replace the officers, all of whom serve on the search committee.

This is not the first time Hyatt has attempted to enact conservative reforms at Louisiana College. In 1995, before he was elected a trustee by the Louisiana Baptist Convention, Hyatt was part of a group that accused four professors of using inappropriate class materials and failing to use their classes to spread the gospel.

The four professors sued Hyatt for defamation. The lawsuit was settled in 1998, with Hyatt agreeing to pay the professors $40,000 in legal fees and to write letters of apology to each.

Meanwhile, Carlton Winbery, chairman of the college's religion department, recently was elected by his peers to serve as the faculty representative on the search committee. Winbery was one of the plaintiffs in the defamation suit against Hyatt. The committee is comprised of the seven trustee officers, a faculty representative and a student representative.

Posted: 4/16/04

BGCT, Hardin-Simmons acquire
noted historian's books, notes, manuscripts

Hardin-Simmons University and the Baptist General Convention of Texas have acquired rare books, manuscripts, notes and other materials on Baptist heritage gathered by Texas Baptist historian Leon McBeth.

“I am pleased that this collection of materials that represents a large part of my life's work will be available for use in the years to come,” said McBeth, who recently retired as distinguished professor of church history at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

The entire "general inventory" of the extensive collection is almost 300 pages long, said Alan Lefever, director of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection in Dallas.

The collection will remain as a unit but will be housed in different locations.

Most of the materials will be at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and at the Texas Baptist Historical Collection in Dallas.

Additional items will be housed with the Texas Baptist Heritage Center in Dallas.

Several Baptist entities expressed interest in housing the collection, but McBeth agreed to it being placed with Hardin-Simmons and the BGCT, said Bill Pinson, executive director emeritus of the BGCT and volunteer director of the Texas Baptist Heritage Center.

Tommy Brisco, dean of HSU's Logsdon School of Theology, said: “As entities focusing on Baptist heritage, mission and ministry, Hardin-Simmons and its Logsdon School of Theology are delighted to make resources available to utilize this collection.”

Leaders from the BGCT and Hardin-Simmons worked with librarians Teresa Ellis from the university and Naomi Taplin from the Texas Baptist Historical Collection to evaluate the best location for the various items in the collection. The process began in summer 2003.

For the most part, bound printed matter is at HSU in Abilene, while McBeth's personal papers–such as correspondence, sermon notes and outlines, research for publications, subject files, class notes and his student papers–are in Dallas.

Persons interested in using materials in the collection may contact Brisco at the Logsdon School of Theology, Hardin-Simmons University, HSU P. O. Box 16235, Abilene 79698; phone 325-670-1287 or e-mail tbrisco@hsutx.edu. Lefever may be contacted at 4144 N. Central Expressway, Ste. 110, Dallas 75204; phone 972-331-2235 or e-mail lefever@bgct.org.

Posted: 4/16/04

Miracle Farm not tied to bikers' rally,
boys' ranch ministry leaders explain

Promotional materials for the upcoming Dawgs on Hawgs bikers' rally at Somerville claim its proceeds will support charities including “Miracle Farm.”

But the beneficiary is not the boys' ranch in Brenham, said Jack Meeker, Miracle Farm executive director.

"As a nonprofit Christian-based boys' ranch program promoting positive values and restoration for at-risk teenage boys struggling to turn their lives around, our mission simply does not coincide with the activity currently being promoted by Dawgs on Hawgs," Meeker said. "We would not choose that activity as an avenue to raise support for our organization."

Miracle Farm boys' ranch is a ministry of Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services, affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Posted: 4/16/04

On the Move

Butch Allen to LaWard Church in LaWard as pastor.

Debi Arnold to Southmont Church in Denton as youth minister.

Ron Boswell to First Church in Linden as interim pastor.

David Carrington to First Church in Granite Shoals as pastor.

Billy Chambers has completed an intentional interim pastorate at First Southern Church in Garden City, Kan., and is available for interims and supply at (817) 595-3750.

Drew Dabbs Jr. to Spring Creek Church in Iredell as pastor.

Jeff Evans to First Church in Venus as minister to youth.

Dwight Foster to Primera Iglesia in Goliad as pastor, where he had been interim.

Jason Horine has resigned as pastor of First Church in South Bend.

Matthew Jeffries to First Church in Woodson as pastor.

Royce Kinsey to Bethel Cass Church in Linden as pastor.

Cody Lain to Caps Church in Abilene as youth pastor.

Wilbert Long has completed an interim pastorate at Lackland Church in San Antonio.

Greg Matte to First Church in Houston as pastor, effective August.

Kevin Miles has resigned as youth leader at First Church in Morgan.

Chris Moore to First Church in Edmonson as minister of music.

Bill Nichols to Woodland Church in San Antonio as associate pastor from First Church in Gonzales, where he was pastor.

O.D. Oliver has completed an interim pastorate at Faith Church in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and has returned home to Gilmer. He is available for supply and interims.

Larry Reeves has resigned as minister of music at First Church in Rosebud.

Chuck Sargione has resigned as minister of small groups at Lakeway Church in The Colony.

Richard Shahan to Calvary Church in Bastrop as pastor from Conway Avenue Church in Mission.

Josh Simpson to First Church in Hico as minister of music.

Buddy Starnes to Bethlehem Church in Douglassville as pastor.

Kenneth Stevens to Lake Whitney Church in Laguna Park as pastor.

Mike Sutton to Mayfield Park Church in San Antonio as pastor.

Bret Thurman to College Avenue Church in McGregor as youth minister.

John Tunnell to Calvary Church in Abilene as pastor.

Robert Whitchurch has resigned as pastor of Cedar Lane Church in Cedar Lane to accept a pastorate in Ponca City, Okla.

Carl Whitworth to Mount Pleasant Church in Kosse as minister of children.