Posted: 10/13/06

Posted: 10/13/06

2nd Opinion:
Create an alternative caring culture

By Rick McClatchy

My deepest wish is for all Texas Baptist churches to experience significant, sustained growth as they reach people with the gospel of love.

How do we make that happen? Looking at the growth of the early church helps us know what to do.

A remarkable period of church growth took place from the New Testament era through the year 350 A.D. During this time, the church grew about 40 percent each decade. Christianity began as an insignificant group, and by 350 A.D., it included half the Roman Empire’s population.

How do we explain such significant and sustained growth? The best analysis was provided by Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity. He learned one of the major reasons the early church grew was because it created an alternative caring culture.

In a Roman culture of power and cruel domination, Christians did the opposite. They served and loved others. Christians were convinced God loved them and they, in turn, were to love others. The church was an alternative community of love and care for others.

The book of Acts describes how the early church members would sell their belongings to care for those in need (Acts 2:45). In times of famine, they sent relief money to their fellow believers. They humanized and loved all people.

After the New Testament era, the early church continued to carry forth this compassionate alternative society mission. Christians cared for the sick in epidemics rather than fleeing from the infirmed. Christians refused to toss their unwanted infants, especially girls, into the streets. Christians refused to enjoy the bloody gladiatorial contests. Marginalized slaves and women were humanized in the church. Christians cared for their widows and poor.

This alternative caring community was guided not by the values of Roman culture, but by the values of Jesus. People joined this new alternative community because they shared a common dream of the kingdom of God—a kingdom in which care, generosity, love, forgiveness, respect and justice would be lived out by its people.

This kingdom vision was utterly incompatible with the self interest and cruelty that guided Rome. Because Christians were out of step, they were frequent objects of ridicule and occasional persecution.

In spite of this, they lived such compassionate lives that even their critics grudgingly admitted none could match their compassion for others. Thousands and eventually millions found that kingdom lifestyle of love so compelling that they joined Christians.

What would happen if all our churches once again dreamed of being an alternative community of love rather than purveyors of spiritual goods to over-indulged spiritual consumers?

Too idealistic, some say. What if that cynical realism would have been the attitude of the early Christians? They dreamed, and the dream came true.

They saw a vision of a new, caring community that grew rapidly for three centuries in the face of significant cultural opposition. Could we not become a caring community again and draw thousands to our cause?

About one-third of the world’s people, mostly women and children, live in extreme poverty. They live on less than $2 a day. Nearly one-fourth of Texas children live below the poverty line.

What if we said in the name of a loving God that we will no longer allow such realities to exist? We could ease much of the world’s suffering, and thousands would be drawn to Christ and a life of service.

Why? It would prove our faith is real. As Daniel Vestal said, “Worship, devotion, piety is worthless if it is not accompanied by care for the poor.” Many are just waiting for a group of spirit-filled people like us to put feet to our dreams and prove we really believe what Jesus taught.

So where do we begin? First, get your church involved in an international ministry to the world’s poor (one like KidsHeart Africa, where the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Buckner help children orphaned by AIDS). Second, get your church involved in ministry efforts to the poor in this country. Many opportunities exist along the Texas/Mexico border and in our Texas cities. Third, get involved in ministry efforts to the poor in your own community.

What I’m challenging you to consider is this: Can we create an alternative culture of service and sacrifice that challenges a world where everyone is rewarded for looking out for themselves?

If we can, then even our social and religious critics can hurl their barbs but then concede that no one else cares for people like we do. And if this becomes our reputation, then others will come and join us as new Christians joined the early church. May this be our vision and our hope.

Rick McClatchy is coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Texas.

Posted: 10/13/06

DOWN HOME:
Even better than Texas-OU football

This was a voicemail that, any other year, would have made me sing “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You” from the rooftops.

I’d been running Saturday errands and walked in the back door when Joanna handed me the phone and said: “You’ve got to listen to this. It’s your cousin Max.”

Sure enough, Max (not only a second cousin by marriage, but a true friend) left a message. He and Gene Alice had tickets to the Texas-OU football game, but they couldn’t come to Dallas, and he wanted to know if I could use them.

People may debate the exact location of heaven, but on a year when the Longhorns are better than the Sooners, I’d nominate the Cotton Bowl—at least for one Saturday afternoon in October.

So, with great sadness, I called to say I had other longstanding plans, and that in any other year I’d be thrilled to sit in the stands and watch that game.

My sadness dissipated by gameday. I couldn’t attend the Texas-OU rivalry because six friends and I were floating down the Rio Grande in the Big Bend.

We had been planning and anticipating our Big Bend Weekend for months. Three of us still live in Texas. The other four, in their halcyon days, lived in the Lone Star State. Now, they’re “missionaries” to other states, scattered from Virginia to Florida.

Of course, it took almost all day Thursday to get out there. We stayed in Marathon, “Gateway to the Big Bend.” On Friday, we hiked 12.6 miles around the Chisos Basin, up to the South Rim and back. On Saturday, we floated 2o miles down the Rio Grande, including six miles through Santa Elena Canyon, where the cliffs rise 1,500 feet above the river surface.

As much as I love football—and Texas-OU is the zenith—I can’t imagine a better October Saturday than on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend with fast friends.

And speaking of the unimaginable, I can’t imagine how someone could visit those wondrous, ancient mountains and mesas—scarred and burnished by wind and rain and sand and river—and not believe there is a God, or believe the earth is only 6,010 years old, for that matter.

The only thing that tops the euphoria of hiking those trails and taking in splendid scenery from mountain tops or river bottoms is contemplating it all.

The sides of those mountains reveal layer upon layer of sedimentary rock, pushed skyward by earthquakes of incomprehensible magnitude. Once lifted from seabed to mountain peak, they have been eroded, shaped, broken, cracked, strewn and, in many places, polished.

I can’t take in all that geological beauty without thinking about our Creator God, whose divine imagination formed unspeakable beauty framed by indescribable expanse. And when I observe the strata of rock and consider the eons required to prepare those vistas for our viewing today, I marvel at the patience of our Eternal God, whose love and creativity will endure after mountain peaks erode to dust.

–Marv Knox

Posted: 10/13/06

Retired ministers challenged
to keep on serving Christ

By Orville Scott

Special to the Baptist Standard

GLORIETA, N.M.—A record 423 people at the eighth annual Retired Ministers’ Retreat at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center were challenged to keep on serving Christ into eternity.

Speaking to the conference theme of “Carry On…Let’s Go,” Russell Dilday, chancellor of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute and former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the supernatural power of God is unlimited “to carry you through.”

“The reason for your getting this gift is to become part of passing it on. God will put in your pathway others who need it.”

Russell Dilday, chancellor of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute and former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, preached at the Texas Baptist Retiree Ministers Retreat.

Dilday, preacher for the four-day retreat, recalled that Jesus took a little boy’s lunch and multiplied it to feed 5,000. “He will help us to carry on, even into eternity.”

“Where people are separated from God, compassion keeps you carrying on,” said Dilday. “The power supply comes through the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life.”

Noting that every Christian in the New Testament carried out their ministry in the context of the church, Dilday said, “Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it. A good disciple is one who is developing and growing to full potential.

“Who you are is more important than what you do. Be filled with the Spirit. Show the fruit of the Spirit.”

Retired Southwestern Seminary Professor Bill Tolar who led the Bible study at the retreat, also challenged participants to keep on serving Christ into eternity.

Bill Tolar, veteran professor of biblical backgrounds at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, led the morning Bible studies on "Iraq and the Bible."

“If we knew the cure for cancer and did not share it, that would be morally corrupt,” Tolar said. “If we have knowledge of God and do not share it, that is morally corrupt.

“By modern standards of success in ministry, the prophet Jeremiah would be graded F-triple-minus. He was not popular, and he did not have a big following, but real success in ministry is faithfulness, love of the people, integrity and truth.

“My faith is based on the character of God, not on human circumstances. God loved me enough to send his Son to die for me.”

Worship leader at the retreat was composer Dick Baker, former minister of music at Prestonwood Baptist Church, Dallas. Organist was retired dentist Bill Hanson, concert artist/entertainer and former organist at First Baptist Church in Dallas.

The 2007 Retired Ministers Retreat will be at Glorieta Conference Center Sept. 24-28.

Posted: 10/13/06

Coast shares gospel through
over-the-top object lessons

By Leann Callaway

Special to the Baptist Standard

Keith Coast isn’t a typical evangelist. After all, what other evangelist would crawl into a six-foot balloon, light his tongue on fire or ride a unicycle?

But Coast has a method behind his madness. By using over-the-top object lessons, Coast shares the gospel with children and their families.

“It always amazes me how people just need to laugh sometimes,” he said. “I had a young man share with me that his dad hadn’t really smiled since his mother had passed away, and he thanked me for squeezing myself into a balloon because it made his dad crack a smile for the first time in a long time.

Keith Coast inside of a six-foot balloon.

“I’ve had several grandparents come up to me and thank me for such an enjoyable time. It reminds me that no matter how old we are, we’re all big kids at heart.”

Because of his distinctive blend of humor, illusions and stunts used to teach valuable lessons, Coast has become a popular Christian entertainer for sports award nights, children’s programs, summer camps, fall festivals, retreats, and evangelistic crusades.

“I focus on providing churches with a high-quality experience for large outreach events, camps, retreats, and whatever they can dream up,” he said.

“I bring a message that is simple enough for a child to understand, but enjoyable for the whole family. I’m not just a comic or an illusionist, and I’m not an ordinary preacher. I’m just a guy who believes that Christians should have more fun than anyone else because of the joy we have in Christ.”

Before Coast established this creative evangelistic ministry, he was youth pastor at Central Baptist Church in Baytown. The son of a pastor, Coast said he was influenced greatly by his father using visual illustrations in his sermons.

“I always used object lessons in my teaching because the messages that I remembered the most growing up were the ones that had visual illustrations,” he said. “When I became a youth pastor, my object lessons really took a turn because you get to be a little crazy and fun with this age group.

“One day, I walked into a magic shop and was introduced to the world of illusions. I started using close-up tricks to get to know the kids coming to church, and then used an illusion to illustrate a biblical message. They loved it, and I started to work harder on making the message come alive.

“The Lord also brought me to another place in my walk. Instead of complicating the gospel and trying to impress people with how much I knew about a subject, I tried to make the message as simple as possible. To take a simple principle and illustrate it the best way possible became my goal.”

Then, four years ago, Coast felt God leading him in a new direction.

“I had served in different ministries since I was 15, and I really felt the Lord calling me out of a full-time staff position into evangelism,” he said.

“I had nothing on the calendar or any idea of how we would pay the bills, but I knew God was leading me into this area. My wife and I had a passion to help reach elementary-age kids and give them a foundation to build on. We felt like children’s ministry had been overlooked and pushed into the shadows for way too long.”

Today, he lives in Lawton, Okla., and keeps a busy schedule performing at children’s ministry events around the world—as far away as Iceland. During the summer, he performed at eight camps, including Mount Lebanon Baptist Encampment.

As for his upcoming plans in ministry, Coast said: “I honestly don’t know where this ministry will be in 10 years, five years, or even tomorrow. … I rely on the Lord to open doors and to close them. All I know is that I will be serving the Lord, however he sees fit. This ministry is not about me, but me allowing the Lord to use the gifts he gave me for the purpose he created me for. Until he directs me otherwise, I’ll just keep using creative and unique ways of sharing his message.”

Posted: 10/13/06

Kirk Franklin’s music,
message focus on God’s power

By Mary Colurso

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Kirk Franklin’s speaking voice sounds thick and fuzzy, but let’s not get any rumors started about throat problems.

Actually, the gospel triple-threat—performer, songwriter and producer—said he just rolled out of bed and picked up the phone. This is his morning voice—his 9 a.m., “haven’t-brushed-my-teeth-yet” voice.

Franklin, 36, promises that his vocal cords will be pushing out something quite different on his latest tour.

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “My voice is doing great.”

Although Franklin’s latest shows don’t have the multimedia trappings of his previous tours, which resembled Broadway theater, he emphasizes the music and the message remain as powerful as ever.

“It still comes with the same kind of passion, the same kind of ministry,” he said. “It still has the same focus and energy, even if you don’t have 20 dancers on the stage.”

Special effects may come and go, he said, but a church boy’s focus on God? Change that, and everything falls apart.

“It’s a heart issue, not an external issue,” Franklin said.

That’s why he points to the integrity of the old-fashioned, shout-it-out choir, while maintaining that a street ministry may require other tools—the use of hip-hop rhythms, for example, or a more contemporary brand of showmanship.

Franklin has become famous for his innovations in that regard. Evidence of rap, funk, soul and R&B can be heard on CDs such as Hero, The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin and The Nu Nation Project.

“The way I look at it, we’re all connected, one body with many parts,” Franklin said. “I can relate to the choir but also to the corner. A man who’s a missionary to China can be doing the same work as a man on stage at Radio City.”

Ask Franklin if he is 50 percent preacher and 50 percent musician, and he declines to divide the inspirational pie.

“I’ve never sat down and tried to break down the formula,” he insisted. “Self-evaluation is dangerous for me. Everything I do has a spiritual reference point. But I think that every Christian should be able to take his tie off and put his baseball cap on.”

Millions agree and have turned Franklin into a success story with a string of No. 1 albums on the Billboard charts, three Grammy Awards and an entire pew full of Dove and Gospel Music Association awards.

For Franklin, all of this is evidence that “God can be cool; God can fit into our culture.”

He admits to being as human as anyone—tempted by the material possessions money can provide and the hip-hop world’s emphasis on bling.

“The flesh is always wanting to run to those things,” Franklin said. “But God’s No. 1 priority is not platinum or ice. It’s to develop character and for us to be people of integrity. God’s primary motive is for us to be more beautiful inside.”

Franklin has been vocal about his human flaws—too vocal, some say—admitting during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show to a lifelong struggle with an addiction to pornography.

He and wife, Tammy, talked about the issue on television, Franklin said, because they were asked to do so and because he had overcome the addiction and wanted to help others who might be struggling with it.

“I had been open in Christian magazines, talking about it,” he said. “If I’m going to be honest about something, I’m going to be honest across the board. Once God gave me victory over it, I had a burn and a passion to tell people, ‘Here’s what God did for me.’”

Franklin also is directing his energies at trying to heal the residents of hurricane-devastated New Orleans. He has participated in benefit concerts for Katrina relief, saying no committed evangelist could do otherwise.

“I expect to find lots of angry people, lots of skeptics, lots of people who are not ready to hear my message,” Franklin said. “But you serve where God wants you to serve. We should be able to look back in history and see that black folk took the initiative to be connected with black folk. This American tragedy speaks volumes about being our brother’s keeper.”

Mary Colurso writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.

Posted: 10/13/06

Texas Baptist Forum

God and war

Our Sunday school director made us aware of a spread in the Baptist Standard regarding Muslims (Sept. 18). One source noted their God is the same as our God. That may be true for him, but it certainly is not for me.

My God is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“When you withhold forgiveness, it’s like swallowing the poison you intended for your worst enemy.” Al Meredith Pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, describing how members of the church have been able to forgive Larry Gene Ashbrook, who massacred seven people in the church’s sanctuary in 1999 (Dallas Morning News) “We will forgive you.” An unnamed Amish neighbor Embracing the father of Charles Carl Roberts IV, the gunman who killed five Amish schoolchildren and injured five others before taking his own life (Lancaster New Era/Sojourners) “Neither Jesus nor Paul ever intended to blend the person of Christ with the patriotism of a nation. Nor did they intend for the sovereignty of a nation over its borders to be equal with the sovereignty of Jesus over his creation.” Thom Rainer President of LifeWay Christian Resources, discussing God and politics (Facts & Trends) “Faith convictions, moral values and defining religious experiences of life sustain the vitality of the whole society. We never stand alone, disconnected, uprooted—at least not for long.” Donald Wuerl Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington (RNS)

I dare him to go up to a Muslim and suggest this is the true God. He would be lucky if the Muslim didn’t whack his head off even with his shoulders.

Get your heads out of the sand. We are at war, and it’s just stuff like this that is going to help us lose.

This reminds me of the frog in a pot of warm water. Someone sat it on the stove, and the water boiled and killed the frog. Go ahead and sit in the pot of warm water, but when it begins to boil, then it will be too late to get out.

May God protect America and our president.

Hazel Sims

Graham

Different Gods

Thank you for the series of articles on Islam. However, I am disturbed by those who equate Allah with God.

Professor Ron Smith of Hardin-Simmons University is wrong when he says, “We worship the same God. … There is a different understanding of God in Islam but not a different identity. He is the same God. We have different understandings of God.”

It is Jesus Christ who set the two apart. If you don’t get Christ in the picture, then you really don’t understand who God is.

The Koran says: “God forbid that he should have a son!” (Surah 4:171ff)

The Bible says: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:3) and “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Siegfried Enge

El Paso

Peaceful & radical Muslims

So why have all the peaceful Muslims allowed the radicals to have their way with “peaceful” Islam without any serious opposition? It is becoming more obvious that the radicals will be “defeated” or be put “at rest” only when the peaceful Muslims come out of their closets and confront these Islamofascists, as President Bush would call them. Unless the peaceful Muslims do this, the responsibility will fall on countries like the United States, England, Spain, Germany, etc., all who were directly attacked by the radicals, where thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered.

It is obvious the peaceful Muslims fear losing their own heads in their opposition to the radicals. Not all Germans were Nazis, but to oppose the Nazi movement would mean that many Germans would be slaughtered because of their opposition.  Why not let the Americans and the British die in their efforts to defeat the Nazis for Germany?

Can you see peaceful Muslims rising up against the radicals?  I don’t!  So, are we at a stalemate?  I ceased being an idealist years ago; today, I consider myself a realist.

Bill Simpson

San Antonio

Posted: 10/13/06

Relief efforts in North Korea
not affected by political tension

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—The political uncertainty surrounding North Korea in the wake of an apparent nuclear test should not adversely affect Baptist hunger-relief ministry there.

U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea performed nuclear testing in recent days, prompting the United Nations Security Council to consider sanctions against the country.

Yoo Yoon, who recently returned from his 11th trip delivering large amounts of food to North Koreans for Texas Baptist Men, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Korean Sharing Movement of Dallas, said the unfolding political standoff between North Korea and the United Nations should not stop future relief efforts in the country.

The relief effort is driven by a desire to meet the needs of North Koreans and spread the gospel, not by politics, said Yoon, pastor of Glory Korean Church in Dallas.

Many people are starving, because governmental food rations are not adequate, he said. During his recent trip, Yoon delivered $34,000 in flour, milk and cloth to make hospital gowns to Hwe Ryong City in northern North Korea.

“We want to share our love of Christ at the same time,” he said. “We want to share our blessings. We want to share the gospel.”

Posted: 10/13/06

On the Move

• Kyle Clayton to First Church in Farwell as pastor, where he was youth minister.

• Kenneth Flanagan to Memorial Church in Marshall as pastor.

• Marc Gerona to BridgeWater Church in Katy as minister of worship and students.

• Seth Hickman to First Church in Muleshoe as youth minister.

• Sam Huse to Pioneer Church in Valley View as pastor.

• Ken Laney to Tri-Rivers Area as director of missions.

• Ron Maxfield has resigned as minister of education at First Church in Seguin.

• Vicky Mitschke to First Church in Wimberley as children’s director.

• Johnny Morris to First Church in Roaring Springs as pastor.

• Kyle Morton to First Church in Ropesville as pastor.

• Roy Reyna to Coastal Bend College as Baptist Student Ministries director.

• Donald Robinette to Clearview Church in Marshall as pastor.

• Kenny Robinson to Memorial Church in Denton as pastor, where he had been interim.

• Mauro Tovar has resigned as pastor of Primera Calvario in San Saba.

Posted: 10/13/06

Rodriguez to be nominee
for BGCT 2nd vice president

By Marv Knox

Editor

DALLAS—Robert Rodriguez, a veteran bivocational pastor from the Rio Grande Valley, will be nominated for second vice president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas this fall.

Rodriguez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista and chaplain with Heart of the Valley Hospice in Harlingen the past 15 years, will be nominated by Ellis Orozco, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen.

The BGCT will hold its annual meeting in Dallas Nov. 13-14. Rodriguez is the third announced candidate for convention office. Steve Vernon, the BGCT’s current first vice president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland, will be nominated for president. Joy Fenner, executive director emeritus of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, will be nominated for first vice president.

“Robert Rodriguez is a good, solid pastor—a strong leader in the Valley. He’s been there for a long time,” Orozco said.

“I want people to know we have good, strong leaders to offer from the Valley—strong supporters of the BGCT. Robert is an example of that. He’s fluent in both cultures and languages. He represents the small-church pastors and Hispanic pastors, and he also has a great relationship with the Anglo pastors. He lives well in both worlds.

“He’s been second vice president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas and has proven his leadership. It would be a good thing to have someone representing South Texas in (BGCT) leadership.”

Rodriguez is willing to take on the office because he has been a beneficiary of the convention and because he has something to offer, he said.

“One of my pride and joys is I’m a product of Vacation Bible School,” he explained. “I was saved at the age of 10 years old in VBS.”

Rodriguez comes from a family of 12 children who were reached by a small church in San Benito.

“We all came to know the Lord through VBS,” he recalled. “Then our parents became curious and came to the church and came to the Lord, too.” His father, Emiliano Rodriguez, eventually became an evangelist and still preaches the gospel.

Rodriguez is “an example of the great work Texas Baptists have done,” Orozco added.

“I would like to be able to bring trust and healing to the convention,” Rodriguez said. “I’m known in the Valley as one who brings people together.

“I also can bring clarity and straight talk—to be able to communicate well with our convention about the needs we are experiencing as a convention.”

Of those needs, Rodriguez said: “My heart goes out to pastors, some who feel they are by themselves. I want to keep them informed.

And I would like to see, especially in the Hispanic community and among ethnic groups, more resources for leadership skills—that they know someone is available to them.”

Rodriguez himself has benefited from the availability of leadership resources. He’s a graduate of Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio and Howard Payne University, through its extension center in Harlingen.

The challenges ahead of Texas Baptists are significant, but solvable, Rodriguez stressed. “I know Texas is a big state, but we want to reach every church, every pastor. I think we’re doing it with the new restructuring,” which placed congregational strategists, church-starting consultants and affinity-group specialists across the state, he said. “We’re doing it, but we need to put a little bit more manpower out there. …

“Something wonderful is going on in our state—the church starts and many ministries. I can contribute to what is now happening in the state.”

At Heart of the Valley Hospice, Rodriguez works with terminally ill patients.

Before joining the hospice and becoming pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista, he was pastor of Iglesia Bautista Calvario in Harlingen for six years.

In addition to serving as a vice president of the Hispanic convention, he has been moderator of Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association, and he currently is a trustee of the Valley Baptist Missions/ Education Center and a member of the BGCT president’s council, which promotes the Cooperative Program unified budget.

Primera’s resident membership is about 300, he said. The church’s total receipts were $74,000, and it contributed $5,240 to missions, according to the latest BGCT Annual.

Rodriguez and his wife, Sylvia, are the parents of three children—Kayla, 20; Isaiah, 12; and Jeremy, 9.

“I’m happy to be part of the BGCT,” he said. “We want to move forward. I think God has wonderful things for us.”

Posted: 10/13/06

A yellow tarp fends off rain in the middle of the monsoon season at the dedication of the two houses by the Baptist Child & Family Services foster care program in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. At right, the ministry cares for 150 children orphaned by the tsunami.

Sri Lanka ministry continues
in spite of ethnic violence

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

Continued ethnic clashes in Sri Lanka have complicated—but also expanded—Baptist Child & Family Services’ work with children in that country.

The Texas Baptist agency’s practice of putting Sri Lankans in charge of programs instead of imposing projects from the outside helps target resources for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, said Baptist Child & Family Services President Kevin Dinnin.

“Our foster care program in Batticaloa, right on the edge of the worst fighting, continues to care for 150 children, orphaned by the tsunami, in increasingly difficult circumstances.

One of five fishermen (right) who have returned to work after the ministry bought boats to replace those destroyed in the tsunami.

“Our staff reports that at least 20,000 families fleeing the killing have swamped the small port city,” said Marla Rushing, Children’s Emergency Relief International’s executive director for Southeast Asia and Latin America. CERI is the overseas arm of Baptist Child & Family Services.

News reports estimate 800 people died the first eight months of this year after a ceasefire in a 20-year-old civil war began unraveling—and another 1,000 have died in just the past four weeks.

The increasing violence between government troops and Tamil separatists forced a CERI mission trip in August to relocate completely across the country from Batticaloa.

“We were disappointed we could not work with our foster children and the families, but the unexpected positive was that we established a new working relationship with Sri Lankan Baptists in another area,” Rushing added.

Working with Sri Lanka Baptist World Alliance Women’s League, the volunteer team provided free medical clinics, offered trauma counseling and taught English in two refugee camps, helped build houses for two young families who lost everything in the tsunami, put five fishermen back to work by buying the boats and got a baker back in business by replacing his lost ovens.

A year and a half after the killer waves, emotional health still is fragile for many.

The medical teams ran out of medicine after treating 550 people in three days.

“I felt like Lucy’s ‘Psychiatrist: 5 cents’ booth,” Rushing, one of four certified counselors on the trip, explained. “As soon as one person got up from talking with me, another one would sit down, but there was no privacy, so we were talking about their traumas with at least five of their neighbors standing around listening.”

The American counselors also trained 11 Baptist women in basic trauma counseling.

The medical teams ran out of medicine after treating 550 people in three days, and the other team members dug septic tanks, hauled heavy stones to build walls and made friends with scores of neighborhood children who followed their every move.

The highlight was the dedication of the two houses in the middle of the monsoon season.

“One house still didn’t have the roof completed, so we were standing in ankle-deep water, huddling under tarps and umbrellas while the traditional Sri Lanka ceremony was held,” Rushing said. “Outside the home, Buddhist monks had hung their blessing baskets, but when we asked if we could ask God, in Jesus’ name, to bless the houses and families, they did not hesitate to say yes. One place, after we finished, the husband said, ‘Praise God.’ But he used the Christian word for God rather than the Buddhist one.

“From the first moment we arrived, everyone knew we were Christians come to share God’s love, and the response was unfailingly gracious. Sri Lankan law forbids direct evangelism but allows you to respond to spiritual questions if you are asked—and we were asked a lot.”

Posted: 10/13/06

TOGETHER:
Attend Texas Baptists’ ‘family reunion’

Please accept this as a very special invitation to join other Texas Baptists for our “family reunion” Nov. 13-14 in Dallas. This event officially is called our annual meeting, and some call it our convention. But it’s more like a family reunion.

Evangelistic events called “City Reach Dallas” will be conducted the entire week before the reunion. Cowboy churches will meet in Ellis County on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 10-11. And Saturday evening, young Christian bands from across Texas will play in the Battle of the Bands at the Dallas Convention Center.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

On Sunday morning, the family will gather in churches across the Metroplex, and later on Sunday, there will be gatherings that celebrate our unity in diversity as the Hispanic and African-American members of our family gather for worship and praise at Cockrell Hill Baptist Church in Dallas and Westside Baptist Church in Lewisville, respectively. Wow! I go every year to both and am thrilled and blessed each time.

Three missions celebrations will take place on Sunday, as well—Texas Baptist Men, Texas Woman’s Missionary Union (both at the Dallas Convention Center) and a missions rally at First Baptist Chuch in Arlington. There will even be a Family Fun Fest that afternoon at the convention center.

And that is just the “ramp up” to the main event on Monday and Tuesday. We will sing and praise God together.

We also are going to have workshops that will help you, whether you are a pastor, staff minister, minister’s spouse or lay leader. The workshops will be listed again in the next issue of the Baptist Standard and are on the Internet at www.bgct.org/annualmeeting.

If I still were a pastor or a minister in charge of helping my lay people grow, I would go over the list of workshops and enlist key leaders in my church to be involved in Dallas. It wouldn’t matter to me how many official messengers my church could send to the family reunion. I would get as many people in those workshops as possible, because my church would grow and be blessed by what they would bring back to the congregation.

The only thing elected messengers can do that other family members can’t do is vote on the business of the family. Otherwise, everyone can attend every time the family gathers in large meetings, and they can participate in all of the workshops.

If I were a new or longtime Christian, I would go over this list myself and find the workshops that deal with questions I have or with skills I would like to develop, and I would make my way to the family reunion.

If you would like to be a messenger, talk to your pastor and ask to be elected by your church. If you can’t be a messenger, come to the reunion anyway. You’re part of the family.

The president of our Texas Baptist family this year is Michael Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth. He is urging at least 6,000 of us to gather in Dallas for this incredible event.

You don’t want to miss this gathering. You will see “brothers and sisters” you have known and loved for a long time, and you will meet some you never have seen before. What a time we will have! See you in Dallas.

We are loved.

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