Baptist Briefs: Tax Guide

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GuideStone releases Ministers Tax Guide. Ministers can find additional help in preparing their 2008 federal income tax returns from GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. The annual Ministers Tax Guide for 2008 Returns details recent changes to tax laws and their effect on ministers. An overview of the tax change highlights was written by Richard Hammar, a CPA, attorney and widely published author who specializes in legal and tax issues for ministers. The guide is edited by GuideStone’s legal and compliance staff to address the tax issues that affect the greatest number of Southern Baptist pastors. The tax guide can be downloaded from the GuideStone website, www.GuideStone.org. Printed copies or a CD version also can be obtained by calling customer service at (888) 98-GUIDE (984-8433) between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. CST Monday through Friday.

 

New Baptist Covenant focuses on reconciliation. Former President Jimmy Carter went to a shrine of the Civil Rights Movement to drive home a point about racial reconciliation among Baptists, stepping up into the pulpit of the Birmingham, Ala., church where four African-American girls died in a 1963 bombing. The first of several planned regional New Baptist Covenant celebrations was held in the city’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Besides being the site of the bombing, the church is famous for hosting many meetings where black Baptist leaders—including Martin Luther King Jr.—rallied thousands to risk their lives in the fight against segregation. With a racially mixed crowd of about 1,200 people packing the sanctuary, filling the balcony and lining the walls, Carter preached against separation among Christians. “I hope in the future the barriers will be broken down,” Carter told the southeast regional meeting of the New Baptist Covenant.

 

Missouri Baptists name executive. David Tolliver, who served as interim executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention the past 22 months, has been named executive director. The convention’s Executive Board voted overwhelmingly to call Tolliver during a special called meeting. Tolliver, 58, joined the state convention staff in 2005 as Cooperative Program specialist and an associate executive director to David Clippard, whom the board fired in 2007. A pastor for nearly 20 years before coming to the state convention staff, Tolliver holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Dallas Baptist University and master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a fourth-generation Missouri Baptist pastor.

 

Crusade soloist Shea turns 100. George Beverly Shea, the legendary soloist who ministered alongside evangelist Billy Graham for decades, celebrated his 100th birthday Feb. 1 at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, N.C. Graham, music director Cliff Barrows and gospel music icons Bill and Gloria Gaither attended the private event in Shea’s honor. After greeting friends, Shea sang “The Shadow of a Cross” and was presented a Rodgers organ that eventually will be used at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, where the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association donated funds to build a chapel following a Franklin Graham Prison Festival in 2006. Shea, a Grammy award winner and a member of the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame, began singing with Graham on the Chicago radio hymn program Songs in the Night in 1943.

 


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