Posted: 7/23/04

New Literacy ConneXus encourages ministry

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

WACO–Literacy ConneXus, a ministry to encourage churches to reach people by teaching them to read and write, has been launched by the Baptist General Convention of Texas Missions Equipping Center and Baylor University.

The nonprofit group is the latest evolution in a longstanding relationship between the convention and the university centered on literacy ministry. Organizers are looking for other Baptist institutions to partner in the effort as well.

One in five people in the United States is functionally illiterate, said Literacy ConneXus Director Lester Meriwether. In certain groups, the percentage of illiteracy is higher. About 65 percent of immigrants are not literate in English. Seventy percent of inmates are illiterate.

These individuals may be able to read stop signs and simple phrases, but they cannot read prescriptions or contracts, Meriwether explained. Books are beyond their skill level.

The percentage of illiteracy may be high, but finding people who cannot read or write is not easy, he said. Shame often holds individuals back from admitting their problems.

“It's just embarrassing for a person to admit he can't read,” Meriwether said.

Immigrants are more likely to admit they cannot read or write English and enter an English-as-a-Second-Language program, he said. People are more comfortable saying they do not know English than admitting they can speak the language but cannot read or write it, he observed.

Lack of literacy holds individuals down economically, noted Meriwether, who helped develop the Baptist Literacy Center in Waco. Illiterate people cannot hold better-paying jobs where reading and writing are required.

They also suffer a spiritual impact because they cannot read the Bible, he added. A biblical foundation is key to a strong Christian faith. Without it, people can easily fade away from belief, he noted.

But churches can help people on both counts, Meriwether said. Literacy ConneXus can help connect churches with resources to begin or strengthen literacy ministries that both teach people to read and give them spiritual guidance. The new organization also will help with tutoring and English-as-a-Second-Language programs.

“Literacy connects us with being able to read the Bible,” he said. “Literacy connects us.”

Individuals who care fervently about teaching people to read and write must speak up in their churches to get these ministries rolling, Meriwether said, stressing that passion drives this kind of work and can rub off on an entire congregation.

“It usually takes a catalyst to get it going,” he said.

Posted: 7/23/04

Innovative literacy program offers hope to Waco families

By Sarah Farris

BGCT Summer Intern

WACO–The words “Yes You Can, Si Se Puede” frame a large wall at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Waco.

A revolutionary family literacy program operated jointly by the school, Baylor University and Gear Up Waco–a local program designed to help prepare disadvantaged children for college–has begun to turn the statement into reality for families in the largely Hispanic neighborhood.

Eighty-six percent of the students from the 40 blocks of South Waco that feed into Cesar Chavez School are Hispanic.

A Waco-area volunteer at Cesar Chavez Middle School helps a girl improve her literacy skills. Baylor University works with a local group to coordinate the family literacy program.

Randy Wood, director of the Center for Christian Education at Baylor, began working with the school two years ago. He asked Principal Alfredo Loredo for permission to work with the 25 lowest-performing students.

Wood and 25 Baylor education students began one-on-one tutoring. Ninety percent of the children they tutored passed a major standardized test for the first time. Each child came from a non-English-speaking family.

Wood knew the tutoring sessions were making an impact when a woman thanked him for saving her family.

Before her daughter entered the program, she did not understand school and was about to drop out. After two weeks in the program, she began to succeed in school. The mother explained all of this in broken English.

The tutoring program expanded over a year to 50 students taught two-on-one by Baylor students. One factor remained the same–every student in the program came from non-English-speaking families.

Many students may know conversational English, Wood said. They can greet others and ask simple questions, but 10 percent of students at Cesar Chavez lack the English skills need to excel, he noted.

The program's directors realized they could improve their success with children if they helped their parents learn English.

So, they created Learning English Among Friends–LEAF–to serve the parents, and a new family literacy model emerged.

LEAF began with about 30 adults, many of them parents of Cesar Chavez students.

“God has been one step ahead of us the whole way,” Wood said. Heavy rains pelted Waco the first four Thursdays, frustrating Wood and his teammates with the possibility of low attendance. Not only did people come, but Wood learned many of the parents are day laborers and cannot work on rainy days. Without that rain, the base group of people never would have formed.

Today, 200 adults attend LEAF each week. The group eats a dinner provided by Gear Up Waco and briefly hears from a speaker before beginning English lessons in groups based on skill level, Wood explained.

Schoolteachers, Waco Mayor Mae Jackson, city council members, bankers, firemen and other community leaders have spoken to the group. The fire chief spoke about the 9-1-1 emergency telephone system, a service many participants never knew existed.

Parents have learned their families “cannot progress economically, socially or politically without English,” Wood said. One man in the program told Wood he is considered very smart in Mexico, but in America is considered dumb only because of the language factor.

Children have attended childcare at the gym during the adults' tutoring time. That could change this year, if the program receives a grant that would allow students to be taught the same things their parents are learning.

The impact on individuals and the neighborhood has been huge, Wood reported.

Some have received job promotions because their English has improved. The families want their neighborhood to look like North Waco–a place people enjoy living and a beautiful place to raise a family.

Amidst the old homes and projects, residents believe a new school facility and the LEAF program are steps to becoming a beautiful community. Residents have begun repainting homes and fixing up yards.

“Pride is developing here,” Wood said.

Because the LEAF program is at the school, many parents who have been skeptical or simply foreign to the education system are now becoming involved in their children's education.

“Before (LEAF), only 10 parents ever came to a school event,” Wood said. “This program is of interest to the parents.”

A computer class has been added, and starting this school year, the last step of the program will be a GED class. The first class is set to begin in the spring, and 33 parents already are enrolled.

Cesar Chavez's mascot is the eagle, and the total program may be called Wings.

“Texas Baptists are doing a good job, but the model needs updating,” Wood said. The neighborhood has a high population of Catholic and unchurched residents who would never go into a Baptist church for English classes.

By doing “God's work” in a neutral environment, Wood and his team are reaching a larger population.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas provide LEAF's initial grant. Wood now is creating a curriculum to be used by Baptist missionaries, churches' Vacation Bible Schools and other BGCT ministries.

Churches and other groups could duplicate the LEAF ministry in other communities, Wood said, offering several suggestions for getting started.

“Churches are filled with educators. We need to find educators to open up their schools,” he said. The use of facilities provided by Cesar Chavez is worth about $40,000 per year. This is the “secular model of literacy, but we are able to show God here,” he added.

Relationships and trust-building are vital to the success of the project, Wood noted. LEAF would not exist without the two years in which work with students helped build bonds with the school and the community.

“People figure out if you're half-hearted,” he said.

Most importantly, the families in the tutoring program must be treated with respect. With “faithfulness to the program, respect will be built,” Wood said.

The LEAF program continually exceeds the expectations of its directors. Wood now has two goals. First is to convince area churches to be involved by donating food for the weekly dinners. Second, Wood would like to see a LEAF program in every city in Texas.

Leaving the school after LEAF, many children ask their parents: “What did you learn tonight? Tell me something English!”

And that is one of the most rewarding sounds for Wood–family literacy at work.

For more information on the program, e-mail at Randy_Wood@baylor.edu or call Cesar Chavez Middle School at (254) 750-3736.

Posted: 7/23/04

Malpractice crisis limits care for patients in free clinics

By Kirsten Pasha

Associated Baptist Press

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (ABP)–High-priced malpractice insurance, which is prompting many physicians across the country to reduce their practices or leave the field, also is limiting health care for patients who use free and Christian-operated clinics.

In Kentucky, a free clinic operated by Green Valley Baptist Association was forced to close in July 2003 due to malpractice insurance costs.

The clinic had been running for three years and treated an average of 600 patients per year.

Many physicians–25 percent to 30 percent by some estimates–are scaling down what they do in their practices in order to dodge insurance costs.

As only “frail humans,” some physicians facing higher insurance rates and growing public mistrust of doctors “can't handle” staying in the medical field, said James Redka, a family physician in Williamsport, Pa. Often they retire early or perhaps go into mission work, he said.

“By quitting the practice, they're hiding behind what's safe rather than what's right,” Redka charged.

“Healing is God's grace, and we (physicians) are to assume a position as servants.”

If the malpractice crisis is creating a loss of practicing doctors, it may be a gain for medical missions.

“As doctors are less satisfied with their daily practice, they look for other places to feel used and to give care to people in Jesus' name,” said Fred Loper, acting executive director of the Baptist Medical-Dental Fellowship.

“This may be one reason they become interested in health-care missions on a volunteer basis.”

Curtis Harris, an endocrinologist and trustee of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, maintains some physicians are leaving the practice five to 10 years early and donating money they would have spent on malpractice insurance to a church.

But Harris, who also is a lawyer teaching at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, said the Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 offers hope and relief.

The act grants immunity from liability for volunteer doctors working for nonprofit organizations. The impact of the act is “understated” because many free clinics are unaware of its implications, Harris said.

While the federal act doesn't protect the clinic or doctors from being sued, it does limit doctors' liability if the claim falls within the act's scope of protection.

Under the 1997 act, doctors must have the appropriate license to practice and must only practice within their area of expertise.

According to Kathy Strange of the Green Valley Baptist Association, which operates the Kentucky clinic, administrators received information on the Volunteer Protection Act, but they understood there was an application process, and they didn't get that worked out before they had to close.

“With the climate of malpractice insurance costs, we made the decision to not look more into medical ministries or re-opening our clinic in the future,” said Strange, director of community ministries for the Baptist association.

“We checked on several of our former patients, and they had found health care through an internship program at the emergency room and doctors that worked at our clinic.”

For Christian health care that isn't nonprofit, liability protection costs can cripple clinics' abilities to help patients. At Cornerstone Family Health in Williamsport, Redka said, the yearly increase in insurance costs makes it difficult to hire physicians at the clinic's already substandard wages.

Besides hindering new employment, insurance rates for pediatricians–which will double this year–could cost St. Mark Professional Medical Center its pediatrician, according to Kathi Jackson, director of operations at the suburban Chicago clinic.

"If we lose our pediatrician, we will still be able to send his patients to our family practitioner, but not the kids that need specialized care," Jackson said. "The practice will suffer in the instance that we will have to refer patients outward to receive optimal care if we can't sufficiently treat them here."

Jackson said many pediatricians, neurologists and obstetricians leave Illinois, where there is little insurance regulation, for Indiana, where there is a cap on malpractice damage awards.

Although some states have passed medical malpractice reform bills, the cap rates and extent of regulation varies considerably from state to state.

But, Redka said, more important than finance is the damage to doctor-patient relationships as a result of malpractice issues.

Redka has been named in five malpractice cases–one was settled, two were defended and won, and two were dropped. Discouraged by those cases, Redka blames the public for abandoning God for a "god of science."

The health system is in danger if people believe a fault of nature is a fault of the doctor and they deserve compensation, he said.

Redka encourages Christians to pray for physicians to have wisdom and courage to do what's right, but he said Christians also can help alleviate malpractice issues.

“Scripture says, 'Don't take your brother to court.' Christians need to be challenged to do as Christ would do and be stewards of their health, seeing physicians as an ally,” he said.

“If something goes wrong, it's better to look at how to fix it, not get back.”

The American Medical Association has declared about 20 states–including Texas–to be in a medical liability crisis, lacking adequate reforms and instigating further rises in premiums.

States with reform bills often have a cap of between $250,000 to $350,000 on noneconomic damages and a statute of limitations, according to the AMA.

Harris said many states are looking at reform, and other states are uncomfortable but not in a crisis.

“Short of legislative protection, (free) clinics have no solutions of their own,” Harris said. “They have little legal counsel, and they're low-budget.”

“I would suggest inside the next three years, most states will have to re-look at their situation, and there will be some clinics in different states that just have to close,” Harris said.

Posted: 7/23/04

Judiciary committee sends Marriage
Protection Act of 2004 to House floor

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)–The same day a gay-marriage ban failed to move forward in the Senate, a different approach to opposing same-sex nuptials passed a House committee.

The House Judiciary Committee voted July 14 to send the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 to the House floor. The act is a so-called “court-stripping” provision.

If enacted and signed into law, it would prevent federal courts–including the Supreme Court–from deciding on the legality or constitutionality of cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act.

That 1996 law–passed by a wide margin in Congress and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton–defines marriage in exclusively heterosexual terms for federal purposes. It also says states cannot be forced, under the Constitution's “full faith and credit” clause, to recognize same-sex marriages performed by other states.

The Marriage Protection Act, introduced by Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.), passed the committee on a party-line, 21-13 vote. Republican leaders said they would bring the bill to the House floor the week of July 19.

The act would limit the courts' jurisdiction only over claims against the Defense of Marriage Act's full-faith-and-credit provisions. Hostettler's bill originally would have stripped courts of authority to decide cases regarding both aspects of the law. But the committee set that aside for the narrower substitute, offered by Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).

The recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, coupled with Supreme Court rulings on gay rights, has caused many lawmakers to seek ways to limit what they consider a runaway federal judiciary in the area of marriage law. The bill's proponents feared a federal court could strike down the Defense of Marriage Act unless prevented by law.

“The threat posed to traditional marriage by a handful of federal judges whose decisions can have an impact across state boundaries has renewed concern over the abuse of power by federal judges,” Sensenbrenner told his colleagues in committee debate on the bill.

“No branch of the federal government can be entrusted with absolute power–and certainly not a handful of tenured federal judges who are appointed for life,” he added.

But Democrats on the committee said enacting such a court-limiting provision regarding basic civil rights would set a dangerous precedent and that the bill would almost certainly prove to be unconstitutional anyway.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee's ranking Democratic member, compared previous court-stripping bills threatened by members of Congress in reaction to unpopular court decisions.

“No less a liberal icon than Barry Goldwater battled court-stripping bills on school prayer, busing and abortion, which were the big issues in those days,” Nadler said. “I trust that, decades from now, these debates will find their way into the textbooks next to the segregationist backlash of the 1950s, the court-packing plan of the 1930s and other attacks on our system of government.”

Posted: 7/23/04

Churches minister to isolated Mexican Indians

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

GUAGUACHIQUE, Mexico–Three Texas churches have their mission eyes looking steadily southward, and they've banded together to reach a people group that years ago fled to the isolation of Mexico's mountains.

The Tarahumara Indians live high in the Sierra Madre Mountains a day's drive south of El Paso. Many of them never have heard of Jesus Christ.

They worship multiple gods and hold a wide variety of spiritual beliefs that include some hints of Christianity but nothing of personal salvation available through the life and death of Christ.

“It is a different world,” said Tony Garza, a member of First Baptist Church in San Marcos, who has ministered to the Tarahumara people.

Since a smattering of Texas Baptists started reaching out to them a few years ago, about 100 of 50,000 to 70,000 Tarahumara have become Christians, Garza estimated.

Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock and the First

Baptist churches in San Marcos and Athens are leading the missions effort.

In early June, 40 people from those three churches and First Baptist Church of New Braunfels spent several days with the Tarahumara people.

Steve Akin has been minister of music at all three of the lead churches, and he now is at Athens. The churches asked him to act as informal coordinator of the effort.

Akin first learned of the Tarahumara while at Bacon Heights Church several years ago. He contacted Garza at San Marcos and Alan Johnson, and the three of them contacted Southern Baptist missionary Ron Witt in Chihuahua, Mexico.

He, in turn, led them to a Mexican Baptist pastor, Ernesto Santiago, who lived in Creel, Mexico, and ministered to the Tarahumara.

Through Santiago's guidance, Akin and Garza began taking small groups of Baptist volunteers to minister in the mountains.

When Akin moved to Athens, his concern for the Tarahumara people remained behind at Bacon Heights and spread to the Baptists in Athens, as well.

“Steven is the one who got all of this started,” said Brad Pettiet of Bacon Heights. “And it's infectious.”

Bacon Heights became involved because “there wasn't anybody else working with this people group within the Southern Baptist Convention,” Pettiet said.

And, at a practical level, volunteers who cannot take longer, more expensive trips overseas–including teenagers–can participate in Mexico missions.

A Tarahumara woman and child in Guaguachique village were among the people with whom Texas Baptist volunteers sought to demonstrate God's love. (Rex Campbell Photo)

The Lubbock church eventually began to support and financially sponsor Santiago, and the goal is to establish churches in the scattered villages and to train indigenous pastors.

Ministry to the Tarahumara seems to draw these Texas Baptists southward as surely as a magnet draws metal.

The Tarahumara seem to come from a time long forgotten by Americans just a few hundred miles to the north. Women sit unmoving for hours in the sun, staring with the steady gaze of a statue, Garza said.

The Texas group divided and worked in four villages–Samachique, Pamachi, Baborigame and Guaguachique. They provided a variety of services–eye exams and glasses, medical treatment, dental work, construction materials and manpower for a school bathhouse, haircuts, a Vacation Bible School and hot meals for everyone.

The villages vary in size, but they basically are gathering places for the people who walk in from the surrounding mountainsides and the caves where many of them live.

The 18-mile drive on a rugged road from Samachique to Pamachi requires three hours. There, the road ends. It gives way to foot trails.

The Tarahumara Indians have lived there for hundreds of years. Their ancestors fled from pillaging armies to the isolation of the high country of the Sierra Madres, Garza said.

They are not accustomed to outsiders. At first, they kept their distance. But the ministries and the food brought them closer. A drama illustrating the history of God's relationship with humanity and the “Jesus” film conveyed the message behind the Baptists' ministry.

The Texas Baptists wanted to offer a spiritual invitation. But Mayra Rivera, a Mexican missionary nurse who lives in Pamachi, advised otherwise.

“Among the Tarahumara, you have to do your discipleship before they ever get to that point, because they don't understand anything,” said Margaret Gowan, a retired missionary and member of First Baptist Church in Athens.

Rivera has planted her life among the Tarahumara. She lives alone in a two-room building that has no electricity. One room is her clinic.

“Her dedication and commitment to what she's doing and what the Lord has called her to do just overwhelmed me,” Gowan said. “It reminded me of how the Lord can get a hold of a person's life.”

He certainly has gotten hold of Texas Baptists from three churches. They saw a need and moved to meet it.

“We just began out of ignorance,” Akin said. “In our ignorance, God has worked. The Lord has blessed our efforts, and we're excited about the future.”

As they've worked and learned, they've involved others.

“My dream and my prayer for the Tarahumara people is that Texas Baptists will combine with the Baptists of Mexico in a more coordinated effort than ever before to tell these people about Christ,” Akin said.

“I hope and pray that Texas Baptists will use their vast resources” to reach these people.

Posted: 7/23/04

STEVE MUNSON:
Frontline ministry

By George Henson

Staff Writer

FORT WORTH–Steve Munson doesn't feel comfortable in his bed just yet, but his pulpit fits fine.

Munson recently returned to the pastorate at Grace Fellowship Baptist Church in Fort Worth after 14 months in Iraq, where he was an Army chaplain.

The move to Iraq came in short order. His reserve unit's alert came on Saturday, and activation followed the next day, with orders to report to Fort Hood by Wednesday.

And both the timing and the duration of his tour took him by surprise.

“Right after 9/11, I was sure we would be mobilized, but it didn't happen then,” Munson recalled. “And when we were alerted, I didn't think it would be more than six months.”

But while the call-up may have been a surprise, Munson and his congregation were not left without a plan for his extended absence.

Chaplain Steve Munson baptizes an American soldier during the first week of combat in Iraq. Grace Fellowship Baptist Church of Fort Worth, where he is pastor, refused to accept his resignation when he left to serve in Iraq as an Army chaplain.

“We had a mobilization plan put in place after 9/11, and we put that plan to work,” he said.

Oscar Pruitt, the church's associate pastor and administrator, did much of the preaching during the time Munson was out. He received help from a few others who also took turns in the pulpit.

“There was nothing to unravel when I came back,” Munson said of the church's condition when he arrived home from Iraq.

“They did a good job. I thought I would be swamped, but everything was as it should be, and the church told me to kick back and take a couple of months to reacclimate. It was a nice way to come back home,” he said.

“We had people come to know the Lord, and everything moved right along. I guess we proved I wasn't all that needed,” he quipped.

Grace Fellowship put the issue of whether Munson was important to its ministry to rest before he left for the Middle East. Feeling uncomfortable about leaving the congregation without a pastor for the expected six-month stint, he tendered his resignation in advance. But the church refused to accept it.

While in Iraq, Munson ministered to a far-flung congregation.

As chaplain to the 607th Military Police Battalion, the men and women he served were stationed not in one place but over a wide expanse. His troops worked in central Iraq and Kuwait, and served as border guards and soldiers all along the supply route. He routinely made a 935-mile circuit accompanied by his assistant/body guard. After three or four days' rest from the journey, he would do it all over again.

He shared his experiences as a chaplain on the front lines through a weekly column published in the religion section of the Dallas Morning News.

Munson also served in the Gulf War, but he said this was a different kind of tour.

During the Gulf War, hundreds of troops made professions of faith in Christ, but few showed any outward change. In Iraq, 23 conversions to Christianity were outgrowths of his chaplaincy, 16 of which followed through with baptism.

“Most of those people have now integrated into a local church, and that's what it's all about,” he said. Many of the new converts also have contacted him to discuss their spiritual walk.

Munson acknowledged times in Iraq when he was afraid for his safety, but he added, “You get used to it after awhile, and if the Lord wants you in Iraq, that's where you need to be.”

He could say the same for his pastorate in Fort Worth–it must be God's call, because it sure isn't the money.

Munson, Pruitt, Minister of Music Bill Jackson, Secretary Susen Pruitt and Staff Counselor Frank Rike all draw no salary. They all are bivocational, but their secular jobs provide 100 percent of their income.

That changes the way the congregation looks at the staff and might be one reason the congregation refused Munson's resignation.

“They have a commitment to us,” he stressed. “In the last five years, we've lost three or four members–that's all. It's just a good bunch of people. I can't imagine pastoring a traditional church again. This is a family.

“Being in a bivocational setting, there is a different attitude toward the staff. When people take on responsibility, there is a seriousness about carrying those things out.”

The multi-ethnic staff also is beginning to make inroads into reaching the multi-ethnic community that has grown to surround it.

“We're seeing lots of visitors,” he said. “Sometimes in churches you feel things are going to bust loose–that's where we are now.”

And he's glad to be back in the pulpit to see it.

Posted: 7/23/04

New churches most effective in
reaching people for Christ, experts insist

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

The need for more congregations can be summed up in several ways, but the bottom line is new churches mean more people come to know Christ, according to Texas Baptist leaders.

New churches statistically have proven to reach more people for Christ per member than larger churches, and each new church is eligible for Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions support for up to three years. The 2004 Mary Hill Davis Offering budget allocates $1.25 million to support new churches.

In 2003, the Baptist General Convention of Texas Church Multiplication Center facilitated 160 church starts with the help of Mary Hill Davis funds.

BGCT staff facilitated church starts in 12 cultures last year, including African-American, Hispanic, Brazilian, Argentine, Indian, Laotian, Korean and Vietnamese.

The staff also works with the Emerging Church Network to minister to younger generations that may not feel comfortable in traditional congregations.

In all, new congregations witnessed more than 7,200 professions of faith last year. Churches originally started through the BGCT reached thousands more.

But church starts have a larger effect, said Abe Zabaneh, director of the BGCT Church Multiplication Center. These congregations are the future of Texas Baptist work.

“These churches will probably last 50, 100, 150 years,” he said. “It's not just an impact now, it's an impact on eternity.”

The offering also aids more than 200 “key churches” designed to start other congregations. These churches account for about half the church starts each year.

“Key churches have a vision for transforming their communities, and Mary Hill Davis funds are used to start ministries in those communities,” said Milfred Minatrea, director of the BGCT Missional Church Center.

The 2004 Mary Hill Davis budget allocates $300,000 to key churches. That money will be used strategically where there are the fewest number of key churches but the highest population, Minatrea said.

The budget also marks $25,000 to encourage and accelerate church starting efforts along the Rio Grande River through BGCT River Ministry.

Church starting efforts are needed to keep pace with the expanding Texas population, Zabaneh said. Convention leaders want to have a church for every 1,000 Texans. Currently the ratio is closer to a congregation for every 3,750 people.

By creating congregations that start churches, leaders are looking to narrow the gap. New churches commonly state one of their goals is to start another church within five years, Zabaneh explained. After the church starts its first congregation, it tends to launch others.

The Cowboy Church of Ellis County has started several congregations since it was started. The Sudanese Community Church of Dallas has started churches in Austin, Bedford and Australia in its first year of existence.

“They themselves start churches,” Zabaneh said. “And our language churches start churches around the world.”

The Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions
supports the following ministries through several BGCT offices:

Provides temporary financial assistance for church starts

Helps churches connect with emerging people groups in their community through the Emerging Church Network

Supports “key churches” that are congregations designed to start other congregations

Supports seed churches that reach population segments in unique ways

Facilitates and accelerates church starting efforts along the Rio Grande River

Funds the Baptist University of the Americas Border Missions and Church Planting Symposium and scholarships church planters attending the university

Posted: 7/23/04

New Orleans Seminary trustees will
weigh sole membership alternatives

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary trustees apparently will weigh alternatives to sole membership during their October meeting, according to comments by the trustee chairman reported in the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper.

Messengers to the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis voted this summer to ask seminary trustees to adopt sole membership. Sole membership seeks to clarify–in legal language–that the convention owns all of its entities.

The other five seminaries previously have adopted sole membership, as have the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, LifeWay Christian Resources, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Annuity Board.

But New Orleans Seminary representatives have held out, saying they support the convention but that sole membership violates Baptist polity and also is incompatible with Louisiana law.

In a Times-Picayune article, trustee Chairman Tommy French, pastor of Jefferson Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, was quoted as describing the messengers' vote at the SBC annual meeting as a “request.”

“They didn't say we had to do it. … They requested; they didn't demand,” French said. “We'll come back and say we heard the request, and this is what we recommend.”

He set two options alongside sole membership:

The seminary could reincorporate in Georgia, where it has an Atlanta-area extension center, in order to give the SBC sole membership under Georgia law rather than Louisiana law, which seminary leaders have described as uniquely unfavorable toward sole membership in the state.

Both the SBC and the seminary could revise their charters in a way that would bind the two together without using sole membership language.

“We're not a bunch of renegade trustees,” French told the newspaper. “We're trying to protect both the (seminary) and the convention.”

In February 2004, seminary President Chuck Kelley said that if convention messengers asked for the adoption of sole membership, “the discussion's over.”

However, in response to the messengers' vote, Kelley said: “The messengers did not vote on sole membership. They voted on a request for our trustees to consider sole membership, and our trustees will consider it very carefully.

“However, next year will be the actual vote on a charter change. The messengers heard this before they voted. The result of that vote will be implemented immediately as I promised.”

Responding to Kelley, Gary Smith, pastor of Fielder Road Baptist Church in Arlington and outgoing chairman of the Executive Committee, disagreed.

“There is no ambiguity,” he said. “The messengers asked NOBTS trustees to name the convention as sole member in the seminary charter, and Dr. Kelley has repeatedly given assurances that if the convention made that request he would respond accordingly.”

Posted: 7/23/04

On the Move

Mike Acker has resigned as minister of youth at College Heights Church in Cleburne.

Mike Auten to First Church in Clyde as minister of education and administration.

David Brackett to First Church in Randolph as pastor from Parker Grove Church in Ravenna.

Buddy Burton to First Church in Briggs as pastor.

Ryan Connell to First Church in Clyde as minister of youth.

Jason Daniels to First Church in Seagraves as youth/music minister.

Michael Eaton to Holiday Hills Church in Abilene as pastor.

Rene Floyd to Baker Church in Weatherford as youth director.

Jimmy Hatcher to Tye Church in Tye as pastor from Arrowhead Church in Henrietta, Okla.

Shirley Jones to First Church in Denton as minister of preschool education from Lakeside Church in Dallas, where she was minister of childhood education.

Dave Lucas to Baker Church in Weatherford as pastor.

Jay Miller to First Church in Clyde as worship pastor.

Peter Murrell to First Church in Waxahachie as interim youth minister.

Luis Olan to Iglesia Trinity in El Paso as pastor.

Butch Perkins to First Church in Lometa as pastor.

Jack Ridlehoover has completed an interim pastorate at Tye Church in Tye and is available for supply this summer and interim in the fall.

Jane Roberts to South Side Church in Abilene as preschool ministry coordinator.

Morris Robbins to Trinity Church in Bonham as interim pastor.

Tom Satterwhite to Oplin Church in Clyde as interim pastor.

Posted: 7/23/04

Texas cowboy churches successfully rounding up lost strays

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

Open Range Cowboy Church is one of the latest rapidly growing ventures in an expanding Baptist General Convention of Texas cowboy church starting effort, where the extraordinary is becoming commonplace.

Many of the 27 cowboy churches started since 2000 are experiencing growth like Open Range. One of the first, the Cowboy Church of Ellis County runs 1,100 in attendance. The Cowboy Church of Atascosa County averages 500 people weekly.

Hundreds of people have been baptized in cowboy churches, including many adults who have not gone to a church for years.

“Western heritage people represent a large pool in Texas that not many are seeking to evangelize. (As a result), they have written the church off,” said Ron Nolen, the BGCT Church Multiplication Center consultant who works with these congregations. “Now Baptist people are reconnecting them.”

The key to the congregations' successes has been a strong movement of God coupled with a lay-led model for the church, Nolen said.

Christians who are immersed in the cowboy culture come forward to lead these efforts, increasing their effectiveness, he explained.

“It is grassroots Christianity,” he said. “It is taking the church to the pagan world.”

The Church Multiplication Center plans to continue helping to plant cowboy churches across the state to reach the estimated 4 million Texans staff believe will best be served by cowboy churches.

Leaders hope to have 75 such congregations by 2008.

The BGCT recently purchased a trailer that will be used to haul several cowboys and their horses around the state probing areas for western heritage individuals.

At the request of an associational director of missions, the unit will travel the area and report whether there are enough western heritage people in an area to start a cowboy church, Nolen explained.

The director of missions and the BGCT Church Multiplication Center can then deem where it would be best to locate a cowboy church.

Nolen's efforts are reaching beyond Texas as well.

He has trained leaders in Florida, Wyoming, Montana and Washington to start these churches through the Ranchhouse School of Cowboy Church Planting.

In an upcoming session, Aug. 29 at the Cowboy Church in Ennis, Nolen expects to train some Guatemalan leaders.

“There is a tremendous interest growing,” he said.

Posted: 7/23/04

Worshippers saddle up for
new life at Open Range Church

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

WHITNEY–Cowboys and cowgirls are finding new lives on the open range.

Farmers, ranchers and horsemen–and those attracted to that lifestyle–are encountering Jesus at the eight-week-old country and western-driven Open Range Cowboy Church.

Nearly 180 people came to the opening service of the church. On July 18, attendance had grown to a building-packed 280. In the first month, 14 individuals were baptized in a horse trough that sits near the altar.

The church attracts worshippers because it connects with their lifestyle, said Rick Pinner, one of the church's first members.

A country-western praise band leads the service, and many church leaders set the example for the rest of the congregation with Stetsons, jeans and cowboy boots.

Ushers do not pass a plate for an offering; they let worshippers drop off an envelope at the back of the church.

The invitation at the end of the service is a preacher leading a prayer of confession of sins, asking for forgiveness and inviting Jesus into a person's life.

The church may look different, but “we're basing this on something that is very powerful and that is God's word,” Pinner said.

The congregation is a new ministry facilitated by the Baptist General Convention of Texas Church Multiplication Center and First Baptist Church in Whitney and is partially supported by funds from the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

Organizers said they watch people slowly become more involved in the congregation despite some initial skepticism. Visitors start out standing by the door.

After a few weeks they are sitting in the back of the church. Eventually, they are getting baptized and sitting in the middle of the congregation.

All ages are responding to the church's efforts. Babies through later generations attend the services. Many of those who were baptized are adults.

The church holds trail rides where members can get to know each other better and is looking to relocate to seven acres with a roping arena, where they can hold events. Mike and Gail Warren donated the land before the church started.

“It's getting to a particular group of people that other churches are not ministering to,” said Edwin Snelgrove, the band's drummer. “It's like it says–this is a cowboy church. We just want to get you in. We'll let the Lord clean you up.”

Posted: 7/23/04

Looking for a morality play? Pull out the popcorn

By Kristen Campbell

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)–Stories of epic struggles between right and wrong are coming–and not just to a pulpit near you.

From “Spider-Man 2” and “King Arthur” to “Troy” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” themes of good and evil abound at the multiplex this summer.

“Movies are modern parables,” said David DiCerto, media reviewer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' office of film and broadcasting. “Christ used the mass medium of his time. I think storytelling has always been the most effective way of getting the message across.”

DiCerto's office issues movie reviews each week, not just when there's an explicitly religious film like “The Passion of the Christ” breaking box office records. Other faith-minded organizations critique popular movies as well, with some even offering questions for consideration by discussion groups.

Such action may seem surprising, given that religious communities may be better known for protesting pop culture than analyzing it. But some Christians believe there's something to be gained by taking a deeper look at Hollywood's offerings.

Theology is now “being done” outside churches in popular culture, DiCerto said, adding, “I don't think the church can stand on the sidelines.”

Robert Jewett made a similar case more than 10 years ago in his book, “Saint Paul at the Movies: The Apostle's Dialogue with American Culture.”

“Many contemporary Americans are shaped much more decisively by popular culture than by their formal education or their religious training,” Jewett wrote.

“Paul's method was to place himself where other people were, to communicate the gospel on their turf. In our day, that clearly should involve the movies, which are a primary arena for discovering and debating important moral, cultural, and religious issues.”

At Christ United Methodist Church in Mobile, Ala., Rob Couch said he uses movies to teach biblical truths during Sunday morning summer services.

“We use movie clips as illustrations in the messages that I preach,” said Couch, who said he used a segment from “Finding Nemo” recently and plans to discuss “Chariots of Fire” in an upcoming sermon.

“I believe that movies more and more are dealing with spiritual themes,” Couch said.

So far this summer, DiCerto said, much of the cinematic fare taps into a sense of national anxiety. Some films offer moviegoers a release, an opportunity to laugh in the midst of worries about war and fear of terrorism, while others serve up heroes.

Spring and summer releases such as “Troy,” “Spider-Man 2” and “King Arthur” show viewers a society in ruins and someone who's going to come and restore order, DiCerto said.

“I think most fear is a response to the unknown,” he added. “It's a response to the order as we know it crumbling and losing your sort of moral bearings. You don't know which direction the world's going.”

In the midst of such uncertainty, figures like Peter Parker's Spider-Man swing into action, setting things right.

Some have speculated that Spider-Man has been an especially meaningful hero to Americans after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

While Superman is the indestructible Boy Scout, DiCerto said, Spider-Man is everyman, a working-class hero.

“He's wrestling and struggling with the same doubts and fears and insecurities as everyone who's shelling out the money to buy the tickets,” he explained. “Spider-Man doesn't have all the answers. And I think that that's attractive to moviegoers in post-9/11 America. …

“We want heroes who … tap into that same sense of uncertainty. But he's still a hero. He still offers viewers that cathartic sense of hope.”

Humans are drawn to hope, he said. “That's part of who we are. We're wired for optimism.”

One summer blockbuster that has provoked debate is Michael Moore's record-breaking “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The documentary explores issues of morality within the Bush administration and early on raked in $60 million.

After topping the box office on its opening weekend, it fell to No. 2 July 2-5 behind “Spider-Man 2”

“If the popularity of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is any indication, people are serious about what's going on right now and want to engage issues in a fairly unrestrained way,” said Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at Columbia University's Barnard College.

“Perhaps some of the escapism is not greatly characteristic of moviegoers this summer. We live in perilous times, I think.”