WASHINGTON (RNS)—Janine Winkler loves reading books to her 2-year-old grandson Judah. But instead of sitting on her lap at her home in Michigan, he’s usually half a world away in Nigeria, where his father works for Wycliffe Bible Translators.

What connects them is Skype, the free online telephone and video service that has made expensive phone calls and lengthy periods of no contact a distant memory for many missionaries abroad and their families back home.

“I’ve told people that I think God waited to send them until … the technology got to where it was,” said Winkler, who never had a camera on her computer or used Skype before her son left the country. “I couldn’t imagine just waiting to get letters from them.”

Missionaries say the new technology can bridge the thousands of miles between home and the mission field, often for free and in real time.

A recent survey of more than 800 Wycliffe missionaries showed about one-third use e-mail daily to communicate with family and friends back home. More than half said Internet connections have made it possible for them to stay in the field longer.

Wycliffe President and CEO Bob Creson recalls the days when he was a missionary in Cameroon in the 1980s, when a staff of 200 would sign up to use the one landline to call home on weekends. Now texting, Facebook and Twitter are available to his employees.

“The world really has flattened out so that people in these very, very remote areas have contact,” he said.

Aid workers and missionaries from other organizations also report improved ability to work abroad and stay in touch with family.

“It certainly does allow … instant and constant communication, where before the ability to communicate with family was limited and expensive,” said Wendy Norvelle, a spokeswoman for the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board.

Jim has served as a Southern Baptist missionary in Asia 15 years and cannot be identified by last name because he “serves in a place where there are government gatekeepers in religious matters,” IMB officials said. Technological advances have allowed him and his wife to keep in better touch with their children, who returned to the United States as adults, he said.

When his granddaughter recently started walking, his son in Virginia alerted him that it was time to get on Skype.

“Actually, she walked very poorly because she was distracted by Grandma and Grandpa talking to her,” Jim said.

Bwalya Melu served in Zimbabwe as interim national director for the Christian aid organization World Vision for most of 2009. Video communication proved difficult, but he was able to send text messages to his teenage sons after their football games.

“That was important to them,” he said. “They wanted me to know … how the game went, if they lost and how they felt.”

Despite technology’s benefits, some experts say there’s a downside, especially with young missionaries.

“I know of several cases where young missionaries have been asked to spend much less time online, especially in the first year,” said Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

“They’re supposed to be doing language learning and being out among the people, and they’re spending like 50, 60 hours online” a week.

Norvelle said there is “supervision and accountability” for Southern Baptist missionaries, but said there are no specific rules on the number of hours spent online.

Chad Phillips, who manages the missionary kids program for the Assemblies of God, said the capability of technology varies greatly, from unlimited reach in Europe to Internet access in some parts of Africa that is “sparse and not user-friendly.”

When it is available, he said, the technology—including phone services like Vonage—has been particularly helpful when missionary kids leave a foreign country to head to the United States for college.

“No longer are Mom and Dad separated as they were 10 years ago, but now the parents can be much more involved while their kids are at college,” he said.

Blogs, Facebook and videoconferencing are key for connecting everyone, from aging parents back home to growing families overseas, missionaries say.

Chris Winkler alerted his parents back in Michigan that a second grandchild was on the way by having Judah wear a shirt with the words “Big Brother” as they talked on Skype.

“It really closes the gap and makes it seem like Nigeria really isn’t that far away,” Winkler said.

HARRISON, Ark.—With just the click of a mouse, Doug Hutchcraft and Jon Taylor are pointing teenagers and young adults to Jesus.

Desiring to communicate the gospel to a generation that has grown up on the Internet, they have developed a one-of-a-kind website known as the “Doug and Jon Show.” 

The site’s interactive format provides a safe haven for young people to laugh, share thoughts, open up about their challenges and be introduced to Jesus Christ. 

“Young people under the age of 25 make up the largest mission field right now,”  Hutchcraft said. 

“The majority of this age group has no idea who Jesus Christ is. They feel hopeless and feel completely disconnected from their parents and friends. When we were thinking of ways to effectively reach them, we realized that this age group spends most of their time on the Internet—communicating with friends, checking e-mail and getting all of their information. 

“We realized that if these young people are searching for information on the Internet, then Christians have to be there to point them to the truth, hope, forgiveness and love found in a relationship with Jesus.”

Based out of Harrison, Ark., Hutchcraft and Taylor desire to connect students to Christ through a variety of ways with this platform, including sharing their own testimonies and life experiences. Their site also showcases humorous videos designed to break down barriers, build relationships and allow the truth to enter. 

In a “Life Video Blog” section, they address serious issues young people face—peer pressure, loneliness, bullying and sex. Taylor’s wife, Kara, offers a female perspective in a section called “Café de Kara.” 

“It is amazing at how young an age people can throw their lives away,” Hutchcraft said. “These days, young people face so many heartbreaking problems tied to family, school and peer expectations. Our goal with TheDougAndJonShow.com is to provide a refuge for them—a place where they can be entertained or discuss tough issues … or even choose to hear about the hope that only Jesus can offer.”

Taylor agreed, adding:  “We want to reach the teen who may not feel comfortable stepping through the doors of a church or attending a youth group event but is surfing the Web for answers to life’s difficult questions. We share our life struggles on the site in hopes that it can be an encouragement to teens going through the same thing.”

In addition to making a significant impact on teenagers, Hutchcraft and Taylor have made quite an impression on parents, as well.

“There are things that only parents can do, and we can’t take the place of that,” Hutchcraft said. “But what we can do is try to help teenagers understand where parents are coming from, and say: ‘Hey, give your parents a break. They’re trying to connect with you. They’re trying to understand.’ Hopefully, we can encourage teenagers to build relationships with their parents and communicate with them.”

Taylor added: “We’ve had parents ask us how we’re able to share these messages with teenagers. Parents realize the value of that and appreciate us addressing issues very bluntly, sincerely and authentically—but still in a way that teens will listen to. We hear it over and over again from parents saying, ‘My child needs this.’”

Since the site’s founding in 2009, more than 11,000 teenagers from 48 countries have indicated they have committed their lives to Christ as a result of the resource.

“People talk about viral videos and messages now,” Hutchcraft said. “But the ultimate viral message happened on the day of Pentecost—when thousands came to know Jesus.  That same thing is happening on the Internet today as teenagers are watching these videos, accepting Christ and then passing it on to their friends. That’s the beauty and power of the gospel right there. A young believer might have a hard time knowing how to share their faith, but they don’t have a hard time saying: ‘You should go check out this website or video.’”

When it comes to digital communication, children are natives, and their parents are immigrants. And that puts parents at a distinct disadvantage in protecting children from online danger, according to the president of a nonprofit advocacy group devoted to guarding children from Internet pornography and predators.

“Children are native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet, and many parents have not been able to develop digital proficiency. Parents are often left feeling overwhelmed, uninformed or ill-equipped to adequately protect their kids online,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough is Enough.

About 93 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 are online, she reported. And too often, their parents lack either the skills or the awareness required to monitor their online activities effectively, she added.

Enough is Enough recently produced a new video, “The Perfect Storm,” as part of its Internet Safety 101 program, created in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice. The educational video is posted on YouTube.

“Despite the Internet’s many wonderful benefits, a perfect storm has emerged for the online victimization of children. Kids have free and easy access to pornography, and sexual predators have easy and anonymous access to kids. Law enforcement limitations and challenges abound, and naive kids are engaging in risky online behavior,” Rice says in the video.

Enough is Enough also posts multiple resources for parents at internetsafety101.org, including tips such as:

• Supervise the use of all Internet-enabled devices.

• Know your child’s online activities and friends.

• Monitor the online communities your children use—including social media and gaming sites—to see what information they are posting.

• Supervise the photos and videos your children post and send online.

• Discourage the use of webcams and mobile video devices.

• Teach your children how to protect personal information posted online and follow the same rules regarding the personal information of others.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—With the Internet closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news, churches increasingly are viewing social-networking applications like Facebook as ministry tools.

“Social networking tools have become an integral part of most people’s daily lives and relationships,” said Curtis Simmons, vice president for marketing and community at Fellowship Technologies. “If churches desire to connect with their congregation and community in meaningful ways, then they need to establish a strategy for actively engaging in the social media conversation.”

The rising popularity of social networking is changing the way people communicate. One in five Americans used social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace to connect with a campaign or some other aspect of the 2010 midterm elections. eHarmony, an online dating service that matches singles based on compatibility factors like religion, claims 542 people a day get married because of the service, accounting for nearly 5 percent of all marriages in the United States. The latest uprising in Egypt reportedly began with a call for civil revolt on Facebook and Twitter.

A search for “Baptist” on Facebook found more than 700 pages. That’s in addition to dozens of Christian social-networking sites that have cropped up with names like ChurchSpeak, HolyPal, Oikos, YourChristianSpace and Be Linked As Believers, also known as BLAB.

“While some people are considering editing their lives to have more time for real face-to-face communications, many people are desperately searching for ways to connect with others and develop meaningful relationships amidst the harried state of their current situations,” writer Lauren Hunter said in a 2007 article for Church Solutions Magazine.

While a Web ministry cannot take the place of face-to-face connections, Hunter wrote, “It can enhance and foster growth in relationships that already exist, as well as develop new relationships and provide unique ways to reach out to other nonbelievers.”

A study by LifeWay Research revealed nearly one-half of Protestant ministers now say they use social networking in some aspect of their church’s ministry. Three-fourths use Facebook to interact with their congregation, while 62 percent use social networking to interact with individuals outside the congregation.

“Churches are natural places of interaction,” LifeWay Research Director Scott McConnell said. “Congregations are rapidly adopting social networking, not only to speed their own communication, but also to interact with people outside their church.”

LifeWay Research discovered:

• The most popular use of social networking (73 percent) is interacting with the congregation, followed closely with 70 percent who use it only to distribute outbound news and information.

• Church staff members also are turning to mobile devices like smart phones to access e-mail (53 percent), access calendars (33 percent) and update and respond to Facebook posts (32 percent). Fifteen percent each said they use mobile devices to blog and tweet.

• Three-fourths of churches (78 percent) maintain a website. Most (91 percent) use the website to provide information to potential visitors, while eight in 10 (79 percent) use it to provide information to members of the congregation.

• Fewer than half (43 percent) use their websites to obtain and distribute prayer requests, and 39 percent allowed people to register online for events and activities.

• Four out of 10 churches (42 percent) update their websites once a month or less frequently. Forty percent post new material at least once a week, and 15 percent more often than that.

• One church in four (26 percent) uses blogs in online ministry, but 33 percent said they expect to be blogging this time next year.

• A quarter of churches (26 percent) said they proactively look for new technology. Half (47 percent) are open to new technology but don’t go looking for it. One in four (24 percent) admits to being slow in considering new technology, but 3 percent avoid it altogether.

Steve McCoy, a Chicago-area pastor who blogs as Reformissionary, said in an online discussion on Christians and the Internet that he uses both Twitter and blogging, but mostly to connect with other church leaders outside of his area.

“I need like-minded friends in ministry,” McCoy said. “I can’t fully explain the benefit and blessing of being connecting to hundreds of church leaders through my blog and Twitter. It is truly a kind of community. It doesn’t replace true community. It compliments it and expands it.”

According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials—adults ages 18 to 33—still are significantly more likely to use social networking sites, but the gap for older adults is closing. The fastest growth in Internet usage has come from users ages 74 and older. Social networking site usage for this age cohort has quadrupled since 2008, from 4 percent to 16 percent. Searching for health information, once the primary domain of older adults, is now the third-most-popular online activity for all adult Internet users.

“Human beings are inherently multimedia creatures,” said Quentin Schultze, professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College. “So, networking takes many forms across all media, including in-person, print, electronic and digital media.”

Schultze insists the challenge for churches is to find appropriate means of communication in tune with the purposes of the church. Social networking has implications for church governance, as leaders sort through a groundswell of information about innovations and ideas, he added.

Wise preachers use social media to gauge how their sermons and conversations are being applied, Schultze maintains, and social networking is becoming the medium of choice for sharing ideas about topics like worship renewal among others across denominational lines interested in the same issue.

Schultze cautions that the starting point for faith-oriented social networking is recognition that the only “producer” of the sacred is God.

“We begin with a sobering truth, namely, that Christian spirituality is not about what human beings do but about what God does,” Schultze said.

“As I tell my students, we need to keep in mind that Christian spirituality is all about attending to what God has done, is doing, and has promised to do. In other words, God is already at work. Our job—really, our calling—is to attend to the Spirit’s movement here, and there and everywhere, often where we least expect to see God at work. We can’t move ahead faithfully in a Web 2.0 world by pretending to play God.”

McConnell at LifeWay Research agreed that social networking has limits. “Biblical community requires feet and faces, not only retweets and fan pages,” he said. “But clearly social networking is a helpful tool to build and maintain community.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Drew Dyck didn’t lose the Christian faith of his childhood when he became an adult, but he noticed lots of others did.

Drew Dyck

Dyck, an editor of online publications for Christianity Today, talked to some of those who’ve left the faith for his recent book, Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith … and How to Bring Them Back. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What prompted you to write about ex-Christians?

A: My friends began leaving the faith. The first was a friend from high school. We had grown up in the church; both of our fathers were pastors. A few years after high school, he informed me that he was no longer a Christian. That got my attention. As I moved through my 20s, I witnessed other friends “de-convert.” I realized that these experiences were not unique.

Q: Are a lot of young people really leaving the faith? Won’t they just come back when they’re older?

A: The answer to the first question is “yes.” In the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey, 18- to 29-year-olds were found to be the least religious age group: 22 percent claimed “no religion.” That was up 11 percent from 1990.

Whether or not they will return is where the scholarly consensus breaks down. Some view the exodus from the church as a hiatus, a matter of young Americans “slapping the snooze” on Sunday mornings. They see the trend as a reversible life-phase phenomenon. I’m not so sure.

Q: What’s the main reason they give for leaving?

A: Most cited intellectual doubts, but there’s often more to the story. One young woman had attended a prominent Christian college, where she’d suffered a mental breakdown after feeling ostracized by the community and betrayed by Christian friends. But it was only in subsequent years that she constructed her elaborate system of doubt. Her intellectual doubts may have prevented her from returning to Christianity, but they were almost certainly not the reason she left in the first place.

My challenge was to watch for those underlying experiences that often push people from the faith. It sounds more credible to say you left on intellectual grounds. But more often, the head follows the heart.

Q: What interesting things did you learn during the interviews?

A: I encountered some surprising signs of spiritual life. In the interviews, I asked the ex-Christians whether they ever still prayed. Most still did pray. They were angry, conflicted prayers but beautiful in their honesty and desperation.

Q: You have some interesting categories of unbelievers in your book: Can you ex-plain what these terms mean?

A: No two “leavers” are exactly the same, but some patterns did emerge.

“Postmodern leavers” reject Christianity because of its exclusive truth claims and moral absolutes. For them, Christian faith is just too narrow.

“Recoilers” leave because they were hurt in the church. They suffered some form of abuse at the hands of someone they saw as a spiritual authority. God was guilty by association.

“Modernists” completely reject supernatural claims. God is a delusion. Any truth beyond science is dismissed as superstition.

“Neo-pagans” refers to those who left for earth-based religions such as Wicca. Not all actually cast spells or participate in pagan rituals, but they deny a transcendent God and see earth as the locus of true spirituality.

“Spiritual rebels” flee the faith to indulge in behavior that conflicted with their faith. They also value autonomy and don’t want anyone—especially a superintending deity—telling them what to do.

“Drifters” do not suffer intellectual crises or consciously leave the faith; they simply drift away. Over time, God becomes less and less important until one day, he’s no longer part of their lives.

Q: Has the church played a role in causing this trend? If so, how can it stem the tide?

A: Over the past couple of decades, business thinking has affected the way many churches minister to youth. The goal has become attracting large numbers of kids and keeping them entertained. … There’s nothing wrong with video games and pizza, but they’re tragic replacements for discipleship and catechism. Many young people have been exposed to a superficial form of Christianity that effectively inoculates them against authentic faith.

Q: What role does contemporary American culture play?

A: A lot of Christians fear the corrupting influence of “the world,” but when it comes to the spiritual plights of young people, what happens inside the church matters most.

Q: You’re a part of the generation you’re writing about. What is different about those such as yourself who didn’t leave?

A: Young people who have meaningful relationships with older Christians are much more likely to retain their faith into adulthood. I had those connections and have no doubt they were instrumental in my life. I also sought out the intellectual resources to understand and defend my faith. …

The difference between me and my friends whom I now describe as “ex-Christians” may be a matter of degree, rather than kind. We all have the tendency to stray. But God, in his mercy, keeps drawing me back.

POTTSBORO—Excitement grips the congregation at Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro—not only because a huge debt has been paid, but also due to expectation of God’s next blessing.

When Pastor Bobby Hancock came to lead the congregation three years ago, the church owed $900,000 on a recreation building built in 2004.

Dennis Hulsey (center), a deacon at Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro, holds up the note on a building the church burned after retiring the debt. Looking on are (left to right) Marshall Cathey, finance committee chair; Diana Williams, president of Landmark Bank; Pastor Bobby Hancock; trustee Jeff Jeffers; deacon David Tidwell, chairman of the original Together We Build campaign; and trustees Claude Henderson and Lawrence Kennon. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Georgetown Baptist Church in Pottsboro)

“We’re just a small church in a small community. We knew we wanted to shed that debt as quickly as possibly, but we were limited in our resources,” Hancock said.

Still, through the sacrificial giving of many in the congregation, the debt had been pared to $450,000 by last October.

Then a family in the community presented a challenge to the church—a matching gift of up to $230,000 with a Dec. 31 deadline. The church only had two months to raise the funds required to secure the match.

“A lot of people were skeptical, and I’m sorry to say, I was one of them,” Hancock acknowledged.

Rather than being paralyzed by the size of the task, the congregation moved into action. Three young couples who didn’t have a lot of disposable income but had some items they weren’t using anymore held a garage sale that raised more than $2,000.

One member sold a motorcycle and another a four-wheeler to raise money for the effort. After prayer, one couple gave 10 percent of the goal.

About 90 percent of the church gave something—a statistic Hancock finds most satisfying.

And while a bit of doubt might have scratched at Hancock, he also knew God was capable. He carries in his Bible a Baptist Standard clipping about a church’s almost-inconceivable one-day harvest offering.

“It reminds me that if God did it somewhere else, he can do it here,” Hancock said.

By the deadline, the church family’s gifts and few outside contributions totaled $240,000. With the matching gift, the church found itself debt-free.

Throughout the fund-raising effort, budget giving never lagged, Hancock noted.

“The big thing it did for us is give us an excitement to say: ‘What’s next? What’s God want to do next?’” he said.

Members created a display at church to commemorate the ef-fort.

They don’t want what God did there to be forgotten by this generation—or the next.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Dirt at an ancient holy site in Chimayo, N.M., reputedly cures a woman’s rare bone cancer. In North Carolina, a 14-year-old girl stricken with pneumonia is removed from life support but survives after an angelic image appears on a security monitor outside her hospital room. A Texas man lives despite being cut in half after being run over by a train.

Were these acts of God, or is there a scientific explanation for events that seem to defy reason?

For an hour every Wednesday night, that divisive question is the focus of Miracle Detectives, a prime-time television foray into exploring the miraculous.

The show features two investigators—one a believer, the other a scientist—who seek answers to “mysterious incidents that seem to transcend logic.” It’s one of 17 programs on the new Oprah Winfrey Network that debuted New Year’s Day.

In a society less devout than the United States, and in an era of near daily scientific breakthroughs, such a show might seem a waste of valuable air time. But polls in the United States consistently show 80 percent of Americans believe miracles occur, and slightly more than half believe in guardian angels.

Miracle Detectives may be preaching to the converted: An online survey found more than 92 percent of the program’s viewers said they believe in miracles; nearly 3 percent said they do not; and almost 5 percent said they “need proof.”

Each week, hosts Randall Sullivan, who says he experienced a miracle himself, and Indre Viskontas, a neuroscientist who sings in her church choir but approaches the supernatural with skepticism, visit the sites of reported miracles to hear first-hand accounts.

Interviewing experts and conducting experiments, the duo gathers information and attempts to answer the question: Miracle, or not?

Sullivan, 59, said there is no conflict being an evidence-hungry reporter while also believing in supernatural signs and wonders.

“A journalist’s role is to explore,” he said. “Yes, you’re certainly seeking truth, but you’re also exploring. First thing I want to know is, what happened to people? What did they experience? I want it from the inside out, from them and from me.”

Viskontas, 34, holds a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience, but also calls herself “a very spiritual person,” who was raised a Roman Catholic and is a soloist in her church choir.

“I identify as a scientist,” she said. “A scientist is interested in trying to understand the phenomenon in front of them. They’re trying to get at what is actually happening.”

An expert in how memories are formed and retrieved, Viskontas said she’s in a unique position to discover what someone remembers, what actually happened and how circumstances led them to believe there is a supernatural force at work.

That doesn’t mean she denies the possibility of the miraculous. In fact, she struggles with it.

“One of things I struggle with the most is the idea that an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God would choose to use miracles in which to operate,” Viskontas said.

“There are so many instances in which those miracles don’t happen. It’s very hard for me to believe that God would act in such a direct way, and it seems to me if that were true, then he’s kind of an underachiever.”

Sullivan had a life-altering experience while covering the war in Bosnia in the 1990s for Rolling Stone magazine.

Raised in an irreligious family, he found himself “skeptical and guarded” in the village of Medjugorje, where visions of the Virgin Mary have been reported, drawing pilgrims by the busload.

“I was there to observe, not to be a pilgrim,” he recalled.

While climbing the Mountain of the Cross, the central feature in the village, Sullivan was caught up a violent thunderstorm and feared he might die.

He encountered a group of nuns, singing in French and kneeling in prayer.

“For the very first time in my life, I got down on my knees in the mud and stone and prayed with them and felt an immense sense of release and uplift,” he recalled. “It was like a cork had been pulled out of a bottle.”

A young woman draped a cloth on his shivering shoulders. “I felt instantly warmed and comforted. But when I opened my eyes, the nuns and the woman were gone.”

No one else had seen or heard the nuns, Sullivan said. “The only thing that made me feel I wasn’t completely insane was that I still had the cloth in my hand.”

After struggling with the experience, Sullivan decided to embrace it and concluded it had been a gift from God.

“That core belief inside is so deeply set that I really do believe there are miracles, and I approach most of these cases (on the program) wanting to believe,” he said. “But I’m certainly willing to check it out. If it’s true, there’s nothing to be lost challenging it.”

No policy changes for military chaplains. The pending repeal of the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay members will not change policies related to chaplains, the Pentagon stated. “There will be no changes regarding service member exercise of religious beliefs, nor are there any changes to policies concerning the chaplain corps of the military departments and their duties,” reads a six-page memo about implementing the repeal of the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy. It notes that chaplains will continue to be required to “care for all,” and their First Amendment freedoms will remain unchanged. “When chaplains are engaged in the performance of religious services, they may not be required to engage in practices contrary to their religious beliefs,” it reads. In November, the military issued a comprehensive review of the planned repeal and concluded “special attention” should be given to the chaplains corps because of sharp differences on the issue. But that report also concluded existing rules protecting chaplains’ First Amendment rights were “adequate” for the ban’s repeal.

More than 6 million U.S. Muslims projected by 2030. The Muslim population in the United States is expected to double over the next 20 years, fueled by immigration and higher-than-average fertility rates, according to a new report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The number of Muslims in the United States is projected to rise from 2.6 million, or 0.8 percent of the U.S. population, to 6.2 million, or 1.7 percent in 2030. That rate of growth would make Muslims about as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians in the United States today. Researchers found nearly two-thirds (64.5 percent) of Muslim Americans are immigrants, while 35.5 percent were born in the United States—a figure projected to rise to almost 45 percent by 2030.

Judge upholds law preventing guns in churches. A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by gun rights advocates who claimed a Georgia law prohibiting weapons in a house of worship was unconstitutional. GeorgiaCarry.org, an organization that supports gun owners’ rights, and two of its members filed suit against state officials saying the law placed an undue burden on them. However, Judge Ashley Royal of the U.S. District Court in Macon, Ga., said any burden on worship attendance was “tangential” because the law requires that people not carry the weapon in services, leave it in their cars or surrender it temporarily to security officers.

Russian Orthodox leader urges dress code. A Russian Orthodox archbishop has called for an official dress code to encourage propriety after previously suggesting provocatively dressed women provoke immorality and violence. “Vulgar external appearance and vulgar behavior is a straight path to misery,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said in an open letter. Chaplin, who is in charge of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department on church and society and is known for his provocative statements, was responding to a petition protesting comments he made several weeks earlier when he suggested immodestly dressed women invite rape.

—Compiled from Religion News Service

College Station-based missions innovator, a Houston pastor and an Abilene physician are recipients of the 2010-2011 Texas Baptist Ministry Awards, presented by Baylor University and the Baptist Standard.

The awards were announced during the Winter Pastors’ School at Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary and its Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching.

James W.L. Adams

James W.L. Adams of College Station is recipient of the W. Winfred Moore Award for Lifetime Ministry Achievement. Moore was longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo and a president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Adams has been in ministry six decades, from his student days at Baylor University to service as an interim pastor in his retirement years.

Thirty years ago, when he served as pastor of Beech Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Ark., Adams founded International Baptist Ministries as a volunteer. He began taking groups overseas on “friendship weeks” to participate in evangelistic events, lead training opportunities and undergird the work of indigenous churches in about two dozen countries.

Since its beginning, 100 percent of the contributions to International Baptist Ministries have been used for mission work, with no funds expended for organizational or administrative expenses. Through three decades, Adams consistently has told potential donors any gifts to the global ministry should be above and beyond tithes and offerings to their own churches—not in place of them.

Adams’ pastorates included First Baptist Church of Navasota, First Baptist Church in Madisonville, First Baptist Church of South Houston and First Baptist Church in Victoria. While he served the Navasota congregation, he also preached each Sunday afternoon at First Baptist Church in Anderson when that historic congregation was without a pastor, saving the church.

Denominational service included terms as moderator of Guadalupe, Bowie, Southwest Arkansas and Creath-Brazos Baptist associations, as well as a period as interim director of missions for Creath-Brazos Associa-tion. He also has served on the executive boards of the Texas and Arkansas Baptist state conventions.

Marvin Delaney

Marvin Delaney, pastor of South Park Baptist Church in Houston, has been honored with the George W. Truett Award for Ministerial Excellence, which recognizes a Texas Baptist minister for a singular ministry achievement in the recent past. Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas from 1897 to 1944, was widely recognized as a world Baptist leader.

In 1978, Delaney hocked his pickup truck for $2,400 to buy four Radio Shack laptop computers and begin teaching computer programming in his community—a program that later spread to several campuses in the Houston Independent School District and at South Park Baptist Church.

That passion for teaching continued, as Delaney has been instrumental in leading South Park to address the educational needs of at-risk youth through University Park Academy.

Since 1996, the secondary school has graduated more than 2,000 students, all of whom previously had failed TAKS. More than 150 either have graduated from college or are currently enrolled in a university.

Under Delaney’s leadership, South Park Baptist also has become involved in international ministry. Last year, the church focused on Nigeria, restoring a hospital in Ogbomoso, providing financial support  to Bowen University in Iwo and helping to modernize the publication house in Ibaden. 

At the same time, South Park built a church and children’s home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and has been involved in a project to provide fresh water in Gantier and Tube, Haiti.

Delaney has been involved deeply in denominational activities, serving as a director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board and as an officer in the Texas Baptist African-American Fellowship.

George Dawson

George Dawson of Abilene is recipient of the Marie Mathis Lay Ministry Award, which recognizes a Texas Baptist layperson either for singular or lifetime ministry achievement. Mathis directed Baylor’s Student Union 25 years, served as president of both the state and national Woman’s Missionary Union and led the women’s department of the Baptist World Alliance.

Dawson became a medical doctor and his wife, Dorthy, became a nurse out of a sense of calling. After their daughter, Nan, was born with cerebral palsy, they found themselves unable to pursue their desire to serve as career medical missionaries. But for nearly 50 years, they have found other ways to fulfill God’s calling.

In 1964—long before short-term international mission trips became commonplace— Dawson spent one month as a volunteer in Kontogora, Nigeria, providing the Baptist medical missionary who served a 35-bed hospital there a much-needed res-pite. That journey marked the first of four similar trips to Africa in the 1960s. In the years that followed, he served in Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and India.

He also was instrumental in starting the first medical clinics along the Rio Grande as part of Texas Baptist River Ministry.

Dawson, a longtime member of First Baptist Church in Abilene, helped that congregation launch its counseling center in the 1970s—one of the first church-based counseling centers in the state. He also helped launch the first charity clinic in Taylor County and helped First Baptist start a medical clinic at what later became Ambler Baptist Church.

Even after he retired from Abilene Family Practice—and gave the medical building to Hendrick Medical Center as a charitable trust—Dawson continued to serve area residents as medical director of the Hospice of the Big Country.

SAN ANTONIO—Christians curious about apologetics first need to understand what apologetics is not, Jim Denison, theologian-in-residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, told a conference.

“Apologetics isn’t apologizing. … We’re not here to teach you how to apologize for your faith. Apologetics is simply defending your faith—explaining why you believe what you believe. It’s what the Gospels were written to do,” said Denison, president of the Center for Informed Faith.

“If you sell anything, you do apologetics. If you try to convince anybody of anything, you’re doing apologetics. Christian apologetics is simply learning ways to defend our faith in Jesus.

“These days, on a new level, you’re going to be asked by skeptics why it is that you believe what you believe and whether or not a thinking person can possibly believe what it is that you claim to believe.”

The need for apologetics has increased in recent decades with the growth of other world religions and the rapidly expanding number of people who have no faith claim.

“So, we find ourselves engaged in interreligious dialogue where we have to explain what we believe and why we believe it,” he continued.

Also on the rise is postmodern thought, which challenges the notion that any truth is absolute and applicable to everyone, he said.

“It’s now conventional wisdom, if you’re under 40 years of age, that truth is personal, individual and subjective. No one has the right to force their beliefs on you. As long as I am sincere in my faith and tolerant of yours, we’ll all get along,” Denison said, explaining the postmodern mindset.

“Whether the issue is homosexuality, or it’s abortion, or it’s euthanasia, or if it’s a religious kind of defense, whatever your conversation might be, the postmodern mind says: ‘I can’t know the thing in itself. I can only know my experience of it. And my experience may not be your experience. So, there really isn’t such a thing as truth,’” he said. “This postmodern turn is killing established, institutional, traditional Christianity in Western Europe and North America. In a postmodern culture that says the Bible is irrelevant and faith is whatever you say it is, how do we respond to that?”

The postmodernist claim of no absolute truth has a foundational problem, Den-ison observed.

“To say there is no absolute truth is to make an absolute truth claim: There is no absolute truth, and I’m sure of it,” he said.

Christians should remember when defending faith that God changes lives—arguments do not, Denison said.

“Apologists, like all believers, must depend on the Holy Spirit. Human words can’t change human lives. The good news is that it’s not on you.”

Denison outlined four approaches to apologetic thought.

• Logic. The rational approach says the biblical worldview is reasonable. Following two premises that are true lead undeniably to a conclusion that can’t be disputed.

Jesus used this type of argument with the Pharisees when they confronted him about healing the man’s withered hand on the Sabbath, Denison noted. He asked if it were permissible to rescue a sheep from the ditch on the Sabbath. After their tacit affirmation, he then pointed out a man is more valuable than a sheep. Therefore, it if is permissible to help a sheep, it is permissible to help a man.

• Evidence. Jesus used this approach when he told John’s emissaries to return and tell him of what they had seen and heard. “Look at what I’ve done. Look at what’s happened. On the basis of the evidence, make your decision. … Look at what Jesus did, and you’ll know who Jesus is.”

• Experience. Jesus invited people to follow him. Once they followed, then he commanded them to be his witnesses.

“Tell your story. Somebody can certainly disagree with your logic, they can take issue with your historical data, but I can’t tell you, ‘That didn’t happen to you.’ I have no right to say, ‘No, you didn’t have that experience,’” Denison said. He pointed to the biblical example of the healed man who testified, “I was blind, but now I see.”

• Fideism. This faith-based, Spirit-led approach uses whatever method fits the current need best—the right tool for the right job.

“Let’s not decide that every application needs a hammer. Let’s use all the tools in the toolbox. I believe each method has value depending on the conversation we want to have,” Denison said.

SAN ANTONIO—America’s culture needs dramatic change, but it won’t come about through any program, said Jim Denison, theologian-in-residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Rather, change results from the lives of Christians sold out for Christ, he insisted.

Denison reminded participants at a San Antonio apologetics conference Jesus called them salt and light. The comparison to salt constituted a great compliment, he noted.

“Salt was worth more than gold was in Jesus’ day. Salt preserved, it purified, it cleansed, it seasoned,” he said. “You are the salt—definite article. You are the only; you, all of you—if you were there, he’d be pointing at you—you are the salt of the earth. The only purifying, cleansing, preserving, seasoning influence in this fallen world.”

As light, Christians are called to be conspicuous, he added.

“You can’t hide who you are. You can’t hide what you are. People are watching every moment of every day to see who you are and what you are. You don’t have to put a fish sticker on the back your car for people to know you are a Christian,” Denison said.

Throughout history, the church has reacted differently to culture, sometimes separating itself completely and sometimes taking so much of culture on that the church, not the world, experienced change. Biblically, the church should transform culture, he insisted.

“I’m here to argue that the best biblical model is to see us as salt and light transforming the culture we have been assigned to influence with the good news of God’s love,” he said. “I believe with all my heart that the great need of the day is for Christians to be change agents—culture-changing believers, salt and light where they are.”

Culture resists frontal attacks, Denison noted.

“But the culture is enormously susceptible to salt and light. … Christians who are simply loving people and living for Jesus at the highest level of influence they can achieve,” he said.

“God cares more about the lost world even than you do. He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all may have eternal life. He wants all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He has a plan—a plan to prosper you and not to harm you, a plan to give you a hope and a future. He has a good, perfect and pleasing will for your life.

“So, put it in his hands. Ask him how you can be salt and light at your maximum place of influence. And leave the results with him. And you will be faithful; and therefore, you will be successful.”

SAN ANTONIO—Postmodern thinking supposes it unethical for Christians to put forth Jesus as the only way to heaven, but the opposite is true, Mike Licona, apologetics coordinator for the North American Mission Board, told a conference in San Antonio.

“It’s like saying, ‘There is no truth, and that’s the truth.’ … Or, ‘You’re being intolerant, and we’re not going to tolerate it,’” Licona said.

Those who think no one should make exclusive truth claims are themselves making an exclusive claim of truth, he said. So, when they say it’s unethical to do so, they indict themselves, Licona said.

“In the postmodern culture, you have to not only tolerate another viewpoint, you have to recognize it as equally valid with yours,” Licona said.

“If someone tells me I’m wrong, I can handle that. My skin isn’t that thin.”

Also, to say that an exclusive claim for Christ as Savior is unethical ignores truth, Licona said. He told how his mother had gone to doctors after discovering a lump, and she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. The doctors told her it was bad news and gave her a bleak outlook for what the next year held as she went through surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

“What they gave her was truth, and it was tough truth, and it’s what a person needs to hear in that situation,” Licona said.

It would have been unethical to follow up that diagnosis with an addendum that some people thought vitamins and positive thinking would effect a cure and perhaps she might want to try that route, he insisted.

“If it would have been unethical for a medical professional to do that with a person when their life is on the line, I submit to you that it is far more unethical when a person’s eternal soul is on the line for us to compromise truth because we are afraid of offending them,” Licona said. “What is being ethical? It’s being truthful, especially when the stakes are high.”