Posted: 12/01/06

Too many Christians fail
to recognize opportunities

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

BROWNWOOD—Christians miss divine appointments because too many churches fail to challenge members to recognize international contacts as missions opportunities, said Mary Carpenter, director of cross-cultural studies at Howard Payne University.

“Christians are traveling and doing business globally, but too often we, as churches, are not training them to think globally,” she said.

Carpenter recalled a Baptist deacon whose business sent him to South Asia, where he addressed 90 students of the Koran. He failed to seize it as an open door for Christian witness because nobody in his church helped him see it that way, she lamented.

“It’s not just a matter of sending people around the world. Our global members already are there,” said Carpenter, who served several years with her husband, David, as a mission worker in Albania.

“Our churches should train, equip and release members to be on mission as they travel anyway. Churches need to catch up to the place where business is already.”

If churches want to make a global impact, they should “tap into” the resources they already have, and that involves conducting a self-inventory and exploring identity, she said.

“The first step for a church that wants to develop a global strategy is to ask: ‘Who has God created this church to be?’”

If a congregation already has a history of church planting locally and a passion for starting new work, it makes sense for that church to be involved in a similar mission globally, she noted.

Likewise, Carpenter noted, a church should ask whom God has placed in their spheres of influence and on their hearts.

For instance, if a congregation is filled with second-generation immigrants or refugees, that church might likely have valuable contacts in their homeland and a passion for displaced people, she said.

“Look at the skill sets in a particular church,” Carpenter suggested. Members with expertise in business, agriculture, engineering, medicine or other fields likely would be best equipped for missions activities that enable them to use their abilities.

Carpenter recommended that churches “shop agencies”—compare the various denominational and parachurch missions-sending agencies to see which is the best fit for a specific congregation. “Ask: ‘Who will our church work best with? Which agency will let the church set strategy, while providing the expertise the church needs?”

At the same time, she suggested churches “think outside the agency box to get the job done.”

As a church develops its strategy and God places a particular people group on the hearts of church members, they must be humble enough to recognize someone of another race, nationality, language or vocational background might be better equipped. In that case, the church assumes the role of enabler and equipper.

“If I can’t go, who can? The church’s calling may be to help send others who will be the best fit for the job that needs to be done,” Carpenter said.

As an educator, she draws encouragement from the missions commitment she sees in the rising generation and from their desire to develop skills that will serve them wherever they serve God.

“This generation is willing to risk all. Out of their brokenness and dysfunctional families, they see missions as having real possibility for healing,” she observed.

They are preparing for missions service by majoring in fields like business, education or political science that will give them entry into countries that may be closed to traditional missionaries, Carpenter said.

“We are actively recruiting cross-cultural studies minors who major in other disciplines,” she noted.

Pastors and church leaders need to help church members already in the workforce think in similar terms, she added.

“On the back row of many churches are people who know how to navigate the world, but they don’t know how to connect that part of life with their life at church,” she said.

“We need to help people make the connections.”

Posted: 12/01/06

Stop inflammatory rhetoric
about gays, theologian urges

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—An evangelical theologian told her colleagues recently they must “cease and desist” publishing materials with “inflammatory language” about homosexuals.

Linda Belleville made the comments in an address to fellow members of the Evangelical Theological Society during the group’s annual conference in Washington.

The gay-rights community “delightfully exploits” such statements, which betray a lack of knowledge, Belleville said. She is a professor of New Testament at Bethel College in Indiana.

She also is the director of the Chicago chapter of Exodus International, a group that believes homosexuals can change their sexual impulses through prayer and therapy and begin living a heterosexual lifestyle. Gay-rights groups and many mainstream psychological groups, however, have condemned such attempts at changing sexual orientation.

Exodus fielded 400,000 phone calls about homosexuality last year, but those calls should be going to churches, Belleville said. She continued that churches often make the mistake of treating homosexuality like alcoholism or an act that can simply be stopped.

One myth among evangelicals is “homosexual today, heterosexual tomorrow,” she said. According to her, too many people call homosexuality a sin and write the sinner off as someone who is struggling.

“The last thing they need is to go into a church service and hear homosexuality preached on and the ‘sin’ word over and over again or to hear people say ‘just stop it,’” Belleville said. “There is a need to transition from a victim to a victor. There is the need to detox from years of repressed anger and pain … and to affirm healthy, strong relationships.”

The Christian community should extend unconditional love and forgiveness to gays when “mistakes are made. And they will be made,” she said.

Girls often pick up on clues on femininity from their fathers, Belleville asserted. If the father regards feminine things as negative, she said, the girl likely will think acting feminine is weak or undesirable.

“What’s necessary is … to help that person through therapy to understand what’s going on,” Belleville advised church leaders. “For lesbians, they have to … literally get their anger out. Once there is recognition (of childhood issues), then they start to work on building relationships. Sometimes if the father’s still living, they start to work on that relationship there.”

Evangelical leaders involved in counseling gays can help resolve past hurt by providing support groups, a Christian community and therapy, Belleville said. But the church should understand that people wanting to leave the homosexual lifestyle operate on a continuum of progress rather than a target of instant success.

“There is a long-term growth process,” she said. “Homosexuality is not a problem but a symptom of unresolved issues.”

Women especially struggle to leave homosexuality for a heterosexual life, she said. Once a woman leaving the lesbian lifestyle enters a church, Belleville said, she should get involved with activities that affirm strong images of womanhood—such as joining a women’s softball team.

“For a gal to get to a point where she feels safe with a male, that’s very, very hard,” she said. “There needs to be a church that stands along, a group that stands along, through this.”

Of course, Belleville continued, the ultimate decision to switch lifestyles comes from the individual.

“I have to say that the key factor, the absolutely key factor, is the person’s will,” she said. “They have to want to change. And they need to have a supportive community and those who can reflect healthy masculinity and healthy feminity to them. Progress will take place.”

Homosexuality as the definitive part of one’s identity reduces people to sex, she said.

“That’s why ministries like ours go back to telling people, ‘No, you are a child created in God’s image … and are someone of value.’”

Posted: 12/01/06

Star Wars Force followers claim
more Jedi than Jews in Great Britain

By Al Webb

Religion News Service

LONDON (RNS)—A pair of London science fiction enthusiasts are petitioning the United Nations to formally recognize the Jedi Knights of Star Wars fame as a legitimate religion.

Umada and Yun-yun—known in real life as John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law—base their case on the results of Britain’s 2001 census in which some 395,000 followers of the Star Wars cult recorded their faith as “Jedi.”

This, they contend in their protest letter to the U.N., makes the Jedi Knights Britain’s fourth-largest religious group, ahead even of Judaism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

“Like the U.N., the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers, and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing of our robes,” their letter said.

Umada and Yunyun also insisted the United Nations change its International Day of Tolerance to the Interstellar Day of Tolerance for its annual observance in November.

“Tolerance is about respecting difference wherever it lies, including other galaxies,” the two worshippers of The Force said.

“Please don’t exclude us from your very important work,” they said, signing their missive, “May the Force be with you.”

In addition to the sizable contingent in Britain, the Star Wars movement claims to have some 70,000 Jedi Knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand and 20,000 in Canada.

But in New York, the U.N. remained unmoved by the force of either numbers or persuasion.

“The United Nations is not in the business of certifying religions—with or without lightsabers,” outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told a news conference.

The spokesman said the secretary-general would not grant the London Jedis’ request. When pressed for further comment, Dujarric replied, “If I could be transported to another planet right now, I would.”

Posted: 12/01/06

Laredo church prays for
release of kidnapped members

By George Henson

Staff Writer

LAREDO—At press time, members of United Baptist Church in Laredo continued to pray for the safe return of the congregation’s treasurer and his son, along with another man.

Librado Pina Jr., United’s treasurer and a Laredo businessman, was kidnapped along with his son, Librado Pina III, two hunters and a cook from a ranch owned by Pina in Mexico near the border. The ranch is leased for deer hunting.

Witnesses told police 30 to 40 armed men took the five men from the ranch Nov. 26.

Mike Barrera, pastor of United Baptist Church, said Nov. 29 that law enforcement officials had told him that one of the hunters, David Mueller from the Sweetwater area, and the cook, Marco Ortiz, had been released on a remote stretch of highway that day.

At that time, there was no word of the location or condition of the other men.

The other hunter has been identified as Fidel Rodriguez Cerdan, a Mexican citizen.

The church prayed for strength during the ordeal, Barrera said.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways, and, of course, this has been devastating,” he said. “But we had an all-night prayer meeting and to hear the beautiful prayers and the beautiful music—it’s been helpful for the church and family.”

Posted: 12/01/06

MySpace lets youth ministers
peek into teenagers’ lives

By Chansin Bird

Religion News Service

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (RNS)—Youth minister Lara Blackwood starts her day the same way most of the young people at her church do. She signs on at MySpace.com.

“Any time they post a new blog, I get a message in my e-mail and cell phone that such and such has posted a new blog,” said Blackwood, youth minister at First Christian Church of Fayetteville, Ark., and a regional youth minister for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

“If the title tells me, ‘Gosh, prom was fun,’ I’ll read it within a couple days. If it says ‘I hate my life; I want to die’—which I’ve read some similar to that—I’m on immediately.”

More youth ministers are discovering the promises and pitfalls of social networking websites such as MySpace.com as they use them to stay connected with their students. It’s a place where students can be honest about their lives and keep an open dialogue with their ministers.

MySpace is one of the hottest sites on the Internet. New York-based hitwise.com rated it No. 1 for the week ending Nov. 11, accounting for about 5 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic. Alexa.com, another ratings website, put it in the No. 3 spot among U.S. websites. Either way, MySpace has more than 100 million accounts with a demographic that is dominated by teens and 20-somethings.

While the site has allowed ministers to advertise activities and keep in touch with students, youth ministers and students alike can be bombarded with pornography, and teens can be subject to predators.

“Social networking is what being a teenager is about,” said Kenda Creasy Dean, associate professor of youth, church and culture and director of the Tennent School of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. “For people my age (in their 40s), technology is a tool. For kids, technology is the air they breathe. It’s social glue.”

Students in Blackwood’s previous youth group in Abilene initially encouraged her to get an account so she could read their blogs. Her involvement grew from there.

She keeps in touch with her former students, encouraging them and offering advice when asked, on MySpace more than anything else. She currently is working on building her roster of “friends” with the students in her new youth group so she can send out mass announcements about upcoming events.

“They’ll get the word faster if I post it as a MySpace message than if I try to call them,” she said. “Most of them check their profiles so many times each day.”

Julie Richardson Brown, minister of youth and young adults at Beargrass Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., also has used social networking sites to promote church events. Part of the appeal of MySpace for students is the community aspect, she said.

“I think they long to be part of something bigger than themselves and desire to be part of a community,” she said. “My hope is to make them part of a Christian community.”

Among some Catholic youth workers, MySpace is approached with caution.

“I would encourage our youth ministers to set up their own websites connected with their parishes but to also monitor MySpace,” said Eileen McCann, a consultant for youth and young adult ministries at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I would advise them to get on MySpace for information but not communication.”

Ministers might be surprised at what they find on their students’ profiles. Some teenagers present themselves online in a different way than they present themselves at church.

“It’s definitely something you can talk about, though,” Blackwood said. “They’ve opened the door to that conversation. It’s easier for me to have a conversation about drinking if on MySpace they’re talking about it all the time. We can actually have a conversation that’s real.”

Some youth ministers serve as watchdogs as they scan their students’ sites. Students post full names and even personal calendars on their profiles. Blackwood says it’s her responsibility to help students be aware when they’re posting too much personal information.

“It can definitely be a dangerous thing for them to have a profile,” she said. “They do it without even thinking about it. They may not say they go to such and such high school, but if they post a picture from homecoming and they’re wearing a letter jacket, you can figure out what high school they go to. It’s easy to hone in on someone with things like that.”

Michael Davison, an associate regional minister for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky, said he is concerned young people see the Internet as far-reaching but think there is still anonymity in it.

“They are surprised when I say, ‘I saw your MySpace page.’ They’re shocked that an adult might see what’s on their site,” Davison said.

“Most of them don’t equate the website with the fact that everyone in the world has access to them. The young people I work with understand I’m Internet-savvy, and yet they’re surprised when I mention I stopped by their MySpace.”

The church needs to recognize MySpace can be used in good and bad ways, Dean said.

“It’s more helpful for parents, youth ministers and churches to become aware and conversant with MySpace than to spend all our time railing against it,” she said.

Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth is trying to familiarize parents with MySpace.

When Wes Black, a professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theologi-cal Seminary, led an instruction session there for parents recently, 30 attended, along with some teenagers enlisted to teach.

“Most of the questions dealt with (parents) struggling with the technology,” Black said.

“They brought laptops, and we met in a room with wireless access.”

Princeton professor Dean thinks few parents will be able to keep up with their tech-savvy kids and said it’s more likely for a youth minister to be on MySpace.

“By definition, youth ministers are people who want to connect with teenagers,” she said. “We all can be conversant in it. And we need to be. This is the world we live in.”

Posted: 12/01/06

On the Move

• Harvey Abke to First Church in Fresno as pastor.

• Steve Akin to First Church in Athens as minister of missions, where he was minister of music and missions.

• John Barnard to First Church in Brenham as student minister.

• David Beirne to Travis Church in Corpus Christi as pastor from Fox Avenue Church in Lewisville.

• Josh Broughton to First Church in Center as minister of youth and activities from Little Flock Church in Long-view.

• Linda Sue Caster has completed an interim as children’s minister at First Church in Granbury.

• Alan Cox to First Church in Athens as associate minister of worship.

• Blain Craig to Oak Crest Church in Midlothian as pastor.

• Allison Eyre to First Church in Bellmead as minister to youth.

• Pat Githens to Westside Church in Corsicana as pastor.

• Genoa Goad to Cisco Association as director of missions from First Church of Howardwick in Clarendon, where he was pastor.

• Dago Gonzales to First Church in Smithville as music minister.

• Julian Gonzales to Jerusalem Church in Runge as pastor.

• Brady Herbert to Park Meadows Church in Waxahachie as youth pastor.

• Everett James to Pleasant Olive Missionary Church in Waco as interim pastor.

• David Kello to Calvary Church in Weimar as pastor from First Church in Andrews, where he was minister of education and administration.

• David Kirkpatrick to First Church in The Woodlands as interim pastor.

• Craig Klempnauer to Old Time Church in Riesel as pastor.

• Lisa Law to First Church in Granbury as associate pastor of childhood education.

• Joe Loughlin to Western Heights Church in Waco as intentional interim pastor.

• Rick Mayberry to Freeman Heights Church in Garland as minister to students.

• Dan McClinton to First Church in Waxahachie as minister of Christian education.

• Clair MacPherson has resigned as pastor of Water Street Church in Waxahachie.

• Rusty Mott to Freeman Heights Church in Garland as minister of worship.

• Larry Newberry has resigned as minister of worship at Tabernacle Church in Ennis.

• Dwight Reagan to First Church in LaGrange as interim pastor.

• Bryan Saffle to Utopia Church in Utopia as pastor from Belmont Church in Odessa.

• Sean Torrence to First Church in Ovilla as youth pastor.

• Jonathan Tripp to Mildred Church in Corsicana as minister of youth/students.

• Dave Wilkerson to Ranchhouse Cowboy Church in Maypearl as pastor.

Posted: 12/01/06

Fisherman finds letters sent to God

By Wayne Parry

Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS)—A fisherman who found a bag of 300 letters to God floating in the ocean off Atlantic City will give most of them to the daughter of the dead minister for whom they were intended.

Bill Lacovara, an insurance adjuster, said he plans to give the letters to Vanessa Cooper, the daughter of Grady Cooper, a former associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City who died nearly two years ago.

Lacovara found the letters in a shopping bag in the surf under a pier in October. About 150 of the letters were too damaged by the water to be legible. He placed the remaining ones up for auction on eBay but canceled the auction after more than 25 people pushed the price past $550.

Lacovara and his family have received many hostile letters and phone calls from people upset that the letters were put up for auction, but he said it never was his intention to profit from them.

“I apologize to anyone who was insulted,” he said. “It was never my intention to offend anyone. I was looking at these more like antiques.”

Lacovara said he heard from individuals and churches across the country who were interested in obtaining the letters so their own congregations could pray over them.

Many of the letters were addressed to Cooper, but many more simply said “Altar.” According to the text of several of the letters, they were intended to be placed on a church’s altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

It’s still not clear how the letters, some dating to 1973 and most unopened, ended up in the ocean. Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper’s former home found the letters and, instead of tossing them in the garbage, set them out to sea as a sort of final tribute to the authors.

Posted: 12/01/06

Studies shed light on
religion’s role in American life

By David Briggs

Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS)—Who’s speaking in tongues? Do chastity pledges work? What do religious consumers buy?

Exploring a world immersed in faith and mystery, religious research scholars provide hard sociological data to give some practical answers about the role of religion in American life.

More than 500 researchers who attended a joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association reported these findings:

• Chastity pledges

Studies by scholars at the University of Texas at Austin found religion and chastity pledges have “robust protective effects” on the incidences of premarital sex, and their restrictive influences may improve marital and health outcomes for young adults.

A lot of kids are not virgins on their wedding day, including a majority of religious individuals and abstinence pledgers, researchers Jeremy Uecker and Mark Regnerus said. But religion plays an important role for many people who abstain.

Nearly 40 percent of 15-year-old to 25-year-old virgins said their primary motivation for abstinence was that premarital sex was against their religion or morals. Twenty-one percent, the next highest group, said they abstained because they had not yet found the right person. A study of married adults who were virgins until their wedding day revealed 48 percent were consistent pledgers, compared with 9 percent who never pledged.

The study also throws cold water on the growing popular legend that teens who take chastity pledges are more likely to practice oral sex—or other forms of sexual substitution—to remain “technical virgins.” The opposite is true, researchers found.

• What would Jesus buy?

A lot, if a growing religious marketplace is any indication.

Nearly half the respondents to the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey reported spending money on religious goods in the past month. Twelve percent reported spending $50 or more, while 22 percent spent less that $25.

Religious greeting cards were the No. 1 product, followed by religious nonfiction books and religious music. Religious-themed clothes and religious bumper stickers were the least popular categories.

Of interest, slightly more people bought religious jewelry than purchased devotional material or sacred texts.

• Wealthy Jews, poor Adventists

Remember when mainline Protestants were at the top of the nation’s economic ranks?

Episcopalians still are up there, but a study shows Jews are No. 1, with a median household income in 2000 of $72,000. Episcopalians are second, with a median household income of $58,000, followed by two groups on opposite sides of the theological spectrum—Unitarian-Universalists at $55,000 and evangelical born-again Christians at $54,000.

Rounding out the Top 10 in rankings reported at the conference and in the new book Religion in a Free Market by Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar are Hindus, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, unspecified Protestants and Catholics. The median household incomes of all these groups were at least $5,000 above the $42,000 median household income in the United States in 2000.

On the lowest end of the scale were groups such as Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, with household incomes of $30,000 or less.

• Church growth

Worshippers’ race, gender and personal income don’t matter much in determining factors of congregational growth. Nor does it matter whether the pastor is male or female or the congregation is theologically conservative.

What does help a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation grow, even when the church overall—along with most mainline denominations—continues to decline, is sharing authority, welcoming new members and making children’s and youth ministries a priority.

In a study combining membership data with the results of a random survey of 523 congregations, denominational researchers Perry Chang and Ida Smith-Williams found churches that empower lay leaders were more than twice as likely to grow as churches that did not share authority.

Being able to welcome new members and make them feel part of the community and to care for young people also were factors associated with growing congregations.

Looked at from the other side, churches with large numbers of older worshippers were least likely to attract new members.

• Speaking in tongues

A national study of U.S. congregations found speaking in tongues is not limited to traditional Pentecostals. Researcher Keith Wulff of the Presbyterian Church (USA) found 8 percent of respondents reported having spoken in tongues.

Twenty-one percent of people who reported speaking in tongues were conservative Protestants, but 5 percent were Catholics and 3 percent were mainline Protestants, according to Wulff’s research.

• Congregational satisfaction

A national survey of Catholics in the pews found churchgoers generally were satisfied with life in their parishes.

Ninety-four percent of several hundred church members surveyed said their pastor or pastoral administrator is well liked, while three-fourths said their parish is close to ideal or ideal.

Adult education and outreach ministry to the community were two areas active Catholics reported could use improvement, sociologist James Davidson of Purdue University said.

• Pastoral satisfaction

Studies comparing Eastern Orthodox and Catholic clergy show what many spouses could confirm: Marriage can be a blessing and a significant source of support, but it also can be a source of stress in a profession that demands long hours.

Researchers from the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute of the Graduate Theological Union and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., found the greatest source of clergy satisfaction reported by 95 percent or more of both groups was in celebrating the liturgy and administering the sacraments.

Differences emerged in their personal lives. On the question of where they received strong support for their ministry, 90 percent of the Orthodox priests said it came from their wives. In response to a separate question, 79 percent said they saw their wives as partners sharing in their parish ministry.

While celibate Catholic priests also said they appreciated family support, that support declined over time as parents died. Seventy-two percent of priests younger than 45 said their family was a strong source of support, compared with 59 percent of priests age 65 and older.

Orthodox clergy, however, also reported stresses related to family life. Thirty-seven percent said providing financially for their family was a great problem, while two-thirds said having more time to spend with their family would be helpful to their ministry.

David Briggs writes for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.

Posted: 12/01/06

Poverty trumps hot-button issues with most voters

By Hannah Elliott

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—”Kitchen-table” issues like poverty and greed were more important to voters in this year’s midterm elections than issues usually trumpeted by religious groups, recent surveys revealed.

Commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, the survey reported that faith groups who told voters to consider kitchen-table issues when voting had a 20 point higher national favorability rating than religious groups that told people to vote for candidates according to views on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Poll organizers agreed the results demonstrate a growing trend among religious groups to rally around issues like peace in Iraq and poverty rather than more polarizing topics like abortion.

And the findings could help determine voting priorities for people of faith in 2008.

The post-election poll tallied responses from 16,477 voters nationwide, including 4,186 Catholics, 3,807 “born-again” Christians and 6,032 frequent church participants. It was conducted Nov. 7-10 by Zogby International.

Katie Barge, director of communications strategy for Faith in Public Life, said young voters, even those who attend religious services each week, consistently embraced kitchen-table issues over the more traditionally conservative issues.

That represented a narrowing of the “God gap” in voting patterns—a gap that reached its peak in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections.

In those elections, voters who attend religious services regularly—and particularly white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics—voted overwhelmingly for Repub-lican over Democratic candidates.

However, the percentage of such voters who said they voted for Democratic candidates in 2006 increased significantly.

“Overall, it’s interesting to note, too, that abortion really declined as the most important issue among moral voters,” Barge said.

“More than twice as many voters named poverty, greed and economic crisis as the biggest moral problems in the United States than abortion.

“When voters hear from groups that are emphasizing these issues, they like what they hear.”

According to the poll, 62 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 said the most important crises in America are economic justice, poverty and greed or materialism.

Not surprisingly, Iraq was a top issue for voters. Barge and her fellow pollsters found almost 46 percent of voters said the war was the most important issue on the docket. That’s up 4 points from 42 percent in 2004.

By comparison, less than 8 percent of voters said abortion was the top moral issue, and roughly 9 percent said same-sex marriage was the top moral issue.

Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, said the results about Iraq show that religious people want to address the issue head-on.

“On Iraq, clearly … many of us are going to call for a national debate,” he said.

“We hope the administration participates. Their leadership is important here, but the debate has to occur with or without the current administration.”

The narrowing of the “God gap” occurred because of broader political agendas nationwide, Wallis said.

It was a “moral-values election,” he said, adding that “When someone says it wasn’t, they’re just wrong.”

Corruption has become a big issue. Republicans led the way with several recent scandals, he said, which made their base feel betrayed.

And since voters are so concerned with economic crisis and poverty, that apparent betrayal has caused them to reconsider where they place their votes.

Now that Democrats have a congressional majority, they will have to prove themselves to religious voters by making policies friendly to blue-collar workers, Wallis said.

Religious voters aren’t a “cheap date,” he said, and now that they’ve voted in new leadership, they’re going to want results.

“Trust and outreach both count,” Wallis said. “One of the next steps you’re going to see religious voters supporting, for example, are the minimum-wage initiatives.”

Many of the voters who switched allegiances this year were religious voters, researchers said. Catholics who voted for Democrats were up by 12 percentage points since 2004. More than 47 percent of Catholics named Iraq as their most important moral issue, up 6 points since 2004.

Experts like Tom Perriello said the data shows not that Catholics are turning Demo-cratic, but that they have established themselves as true swing voters.

“This was not a suggestion that the Catholic vote is moving to the center,” the co-founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good said.

“There’s nothing particularly moral about the center. There’s a sense that the Catholic vote did shift this year, but that was driven by moral priorities … and the Catholic message.”

Indeed, when Catho-lics named the most important value guiding their vote, 67 percent said “a commitment to the common good.” Twenty-two percent said “opposing policies such as legal abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem-cell research.”

Perriello said his group, a non-partisan organization that promotes Catholic issues in public policy, got solid results in appealing to mainstream Catholic groups about kitchen-table issues. And he plans to employ the same methods for 2008.

“The 2004 election was dominated by conservative Catholic groups with a very narrow agenda,” Perriello said.

This year, he said, “it’s about treating Catholic voters as independent. And the response (in the polls) was to the conviction of that message.”

Posted: 12/01/06

Program gives poor families reason to give thanks

By Miranda Bradley

Children at Heart Ministries

ROUND ROCK—Shontoya Watt works hard to provide for her family, but living in a low-income housing complex, she hasn’t always found it easy to give thanks.

This Thanksgiving was different, due largely to Texas Baptist Children’s Home’s HOPE program.

“Sometimes you know you are going to make it, but you still need that little bit of encouragement,” Watt said, adding the children’s home ministry “has given me that over and over again.”

Watt—who has three children, ages 3, 11 and 16—works as a substitute teacher in the Pflugerville Independent School District.

After she leaves school each day, she reports to her second job as director of the activity center for the housing complex where she lives.

To assist Watt and her neighbors, middle-school students involved in HOPE’s youth leadership groups delivered turkeys with all the trimmings to their homes just in time for Thanksgiving.

“I think I’m going to cry,” she said as she was presented with the basket, which included a turkey, stuffing, side dishes and a six-pack of soft drinks.

HOPE, a community outreach program that assists families in at-risk environments during difficult times, also sponsors after-school programs for children in low-income housing throughout the Round Rock area. The turkey delivery project was the first outreach experience for the youth leadership group, who often are on the receiving end of such generosity.

“It was cool to give someone something so special,” one of the students said. “My friends think it’s a good thing, too.”

Watt, who has spent a lot of time interacting with the HOPE program staff, said she sees tremendous improvement in the children involved with the children’s groups.

“You just see everything about them change,” she said. “HOPE takes them on outings to go swimming in the summer and on special trips in the winter. These are kids who don’t get to do that sort of thing. It’s amazing what a difference it makes in their lives.”

Watt began work at the activity center just one month before HOPE launched its children’s group in her community. Since then, the children have grown in more ways than she can count. Sarah Eubank, HOPE program supervisor, credits some of that with Watt’s involvement.

“She has a real heart for kids,” she said. “The sacrifices she makes to help these children means a lot to us. That’s why we wanted to surprise her with this Thanksgiving dinner today, so she would know we are thankful for her.”

Watt, a fourth-generation product of low-income housing projects in Mississippi, said her main goal is to give the children something better to shoot for. Just as she left her home state because she set higher goals for herself and her family, she hopes these children will do the same.

“I wanted to break that cycle of bondage,” she said.

“I know these kids want that, too. The most important thing I teach them is love. Today, they can see that someone cares about them and that God is smiling on us.”

Posted: 12/01/06

TOGETHER:
From Thanksgiving on to Christmas

This season always comes as a special gift to me. Caught up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my spirit begins to soar a bit more, like a bird riding the updrafts of sun-warmed air rising from overheated fields of freshly plowed earth or miles of urban asphalt.

Some of the exhilaration is purely family and memories. I have been blessed with family trips, warm welcomes and slowed-down schedules that hover around me like benedictions.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

One snowy day, we piled into our Volkswagen Beetle to hurry from my folks’ home to Rosemary’s folks’ home so we could spend part of Christmas day with both families. Racing across Oklahoma’s rolling hills, suddenly the front hood sprung loose and flew back against the windshield.

Three children were riding in the tiny backseat and “cubby space.” They squealed in amazement and then concern. “Daddy, don’t let the presents fall out!”

We had stuffed that front trunk so full of suitcases and presents that the latch simply couldn’t hold it tight. I had been upset because the radio kept going in and out on the reception of the Cowboys’ playoff game. And now this!

First, I had to find a way to stop safely while not being able to see the road in front of me. Second, I had to calm the children and a wife who had warned me the trunk was too full. Third, we had to be sure not one toy was lost. Fourth, I had to find a way to repack so the trunk lid would stay shut. Fifth, I still wanted to hear the game. And sixth, we had only two hours to cover a hundred miles and get to our second Christmas dinner by evening.

I don’t remember how, but we made it to Rosemary’s family gathering in plenty of time and, to the delight of all the children, added still more to the treasure trove of gifts that make children’s eyes beam in unabashed delight.

Across the years, God has blessed my family with blessings and joys that stretch our capacity to carry them all home. The salvation that has found us has united us with God and one another in a love that truly sustains us.

But there is more. Doesn’t it somehow seem just right to you that Thanksgiving rolls right into Advent and Christmas?

Advent is the season of waiting, of anticipation. We give thanks for all God has done in creation, redemption and in his personal encounter with us. And then we pause on the journey to the Christmas birth to consider how dark our world would still be if not for Jesus. And we journey, as it were, to Bethlehem’s stable with Mary and Joseph, and we still are amazed that it could be so ordinary a thing as a baby being born and so extraordinary a thing as a baby being born.

We sing for joy, and we kneel in wonder and praise for God. Everything can be different than it was. We don’t have to go on the way we were. Jesus calls us to follow him.

I have never gotten over it. Thanksgiving is how I prepare for Christmas. Or as the Apostle Paul would say, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

Posted: 12/01/06

Wade to release Valley probe
to law-enforcement officials

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

MCALLEN—Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Charles Wade will give law-enforcement officials complete copies of a BGCT-commissioned investigative report and all relevant exhibits regarding alleged misuse of convention church-starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley.

BGCT leaders are attempting to schedule a meeting with law-enforcement officials in an effort to gauge their interest in the documents.

“I have made the decision with the advice of counsel to ask the legal authorities to consider making a thorough investigation of the allegations that have surfaced,” Wade said during a trip to the Rio Grande Valley.

The BGCT-commissioned report is 42 pages long and contains the names of people accused of wrongdoing. Investigators examined more than 10,000 pieces of evidence in their efforts.

The report indicates a portion of $1.3 million in BGCT church-starting funds was misused between 1999 and 2005 by three pastors in the Rio Grande Valley—Otto Arango, Aaron de la Torre and Armando Vera.

BGCT President Steve Vernon, who is accompanying Wade on his trip, said convention leaders want to address this alleged misuse of church-starting funds thoroughly and return to their focus on expanding God’s kingdom.

“We want to address this situation, learn from it, and then we want to go about our business,” he said.

Convention leaders are considering options to recover funds that were allegedly misused.

“We’re going to seek restitution,” Wade said.

Wade and Vernon are visiting pastors throughout the Rio Grande Valley, including a stop at Iglesia Bautista Getsemani in McAllen, where Arango formerly was pastor. Wade expressed his appreciation for the congregation’s commitment to missions. The church gives more through the BGCT Cooperative Program than any other Hispanic congregation.

Wade affirmed the congregation and its leaders as individuals who are committed to growing God’s kingdom. They should not be associated with any wrongdoing, he insisted.

“This church itself did not do anything wrong,” Wade said.