Southern Baptist Texan Newsjournal • July 2015

GOV. SIGNS PASTOR
PROTECTION BILL 2
JULY 2015
DISASTER RELIEF TEAMS AID
FLOOD/STORM VICTIMS 3
MORE THAN 1,300 GRADUATE
FROM SBC SEMINARIES 15
Newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention N MORE NEWS AT TEXANONLINE.NET
S P E C I A L R E P O RT:
APOLOGETICS
By Jerry Pierce
Special to the TEXAN
Christianity may have fueled the rise of Western civilization, but it has largely lost legitimacy in American culture.
In a crowded and hostile marketplace of ideas, the gospel
struggles to get a fair hearing.
That’s the bad news, says
Paul Gould, assistant professor
of philosophy and religion at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Take the front-burner issue
of sexuality and gender, for example. Same-sex marriage is
something 60 percent of Americans now favor, a recent Gallup
poll suggests. Meanwhile, Bruce
Jenner, America’s Wheaties-box
hero of the 1970s, adorns news
magazines as he flaunts his feminine alter ego. Jenner is cheered
along the way, while those who
dare suggest he needs help are
scorned as bigots.
To add to the angst, a Pew
Research study in May showed
that Americans are growing less
Christian and more boldly irreligious, especially the younger
generations. Being atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular
has lost its social stigma.
One might conclude the Bible has lost its gravitas. We are
post-biblical.
All is not lost, however, several Christian apologists told
SBC 2015 | COLUMBUS, OHIO
SBC SEEKS AWAKENING,
SUPPORTS MARRIAGE
By David Roach
Baptist Press
COLUMBUS Spiritual awakening, the defense of marriage
and the preservation of religious liberty were among key
themes addressed by messengers at the Southern Baptist
Convention annual meeting
June 16-17 in Columbus, Ohio,
including 319 from Texas.
The meeting was highlighted by a Tuesday night
prayer gathering led by SBC
President Ronnie Floyd, at
which an estimated 7,000
Southern Baptists spent two
hours asking God for a third
Great Awakening in America
and the global advance of the
gospel. The gathering was
watched by an additional
8,000 people online, broadcast on Daystar and archived
online at sbc.net.
See SBC RECAP, 12
LOOK LIKE HEAVEN
INNER-CITY CHURCH REFLECTS MULTI-ETHNIC
NEIGHBORHOOD, EXPERIENCES REVITALIZATION
By Bonnie Pritchett
See APOLOGETICS, 8
TEXAN Correspondent
HOUSTON Faith Memorial Baptist
Church was a small country church in a
large urban area. And it was dying.
Literally.
Within his first eight months as pastor,
Andrew Johnson presided over 14 funerals. Two years later, 14 more died to sin
and death and publicly proclaimed their
Christian faith in a makeshift baptistry in
the church parking lot.
In its almost 75 years of existence, Faith
Memorial has seen the ebb and flow of
membership. At its peak, between the
1950s and ‘70s, the rolls held as many as
1,200 names. But when Johnson arrived
in 2012 at age 22 with a freshly minted
bachelor’s degree from Houston Baptist
University, only between 60-80 people
remained in the half-Hispanic, halfwhite congregation.
See HOUSTON, 6
For the past two years, the membership of Faith Memorial Baptist Church in inner-city Houston
has worked to reflect the ethnic diversity in their community. An adult Sunday School class
(above) demonstrates this diversity as they study the Bible together. PHOTO BY BONNIE PRITCHETT
2
TEXAS
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
T E X A N
sbtexan
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY CONCERNS RAISED AFTER ONLY
ONE BILL MAKES IT TO TEXAS HOUSE, SENATE FLOORS
By Bonnie Pritchett
TEXAN Correspondent
AUSTIN Religious liberty advocates had high hopes going into the 84th Texas Legislative session for passage of
bills protecting pastors, businesses, individuals and the
state’s marriage laws. But at
the session’s final gavel June
1 only one bill had passed
muster while other religious
liberty legislation never made
it out of committees.
Passage of Senate Bill 2065,
the Pastor Protection bill, gives
clergy some legal protection
against litigation should they
refuse to preside over a samesex marriage. But critics claim
the bill was passed as a token
to pastors and their allies while
other legislation that would
have provided similar protection for other Texans and shore
up the existing marriage law
were left to die in committees
or at the bottom of a calendar
without a public debate.
“It is clear that LGBT activists and corporate business
pressure are to blame for the
death of our religious liberty
bills,” said Cindy Asmussen,
SBTC ethics and religious liberty advisor. “The Pastor Protection bill was supported
only after pastors from around
the state faithfully came on
four separate occasions to the
Capitol to rally their support
for this bill.”
The pastors’ testimonies held
little sway over lawmakers as
their voices competed with
those of LGBT proponents and
their advocates in the Texas Association of Businesses (TAB).
Adding to the bills’ demise were
hyperbolic protests in Indiana
following passage of that states’
Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) in April.
“I definitely think what happened in Indiana and Arkansas
tainted the issues that we were
pushing in Texas,” said Rep.
Matt Krause, R-Ft. Worth, told
the TEXAN. “Regardless, I think
it’s unfortunate that Texas did
not take the opportunity to debate the issue more thoroughly.
If we had done so, I think Texas
could have been a leader and at
the forefront of the discussion
instead of a bystander.”
Krause, who hails from a
family of Southern Baptist
pastors, sponsored legislation
that would have established
a Texas RFRA amendment.
Texas has a RFRA statute that
can be repealed by the legislature. Amendments must be
voted into and out of the Texas
Texas Gov. signs Pastor Protection bill
By Bonnie Pritchett
TEXAN Correspondent
AUSTIN Passage of the only
surviving religious liberty bill
in the 84th session of the Texas
Legislature gives pastors some
legal protection against litigation should they refuse to preside over a same-sex marriage.
Senate Bill 2065, the Pastor
Protection bill, passed overwhelmingly May 21 and was
signed into law by Gov. Greg
Abbott June 11.
SB 2065 passed the House of
Representatives 141-2 on its second reading, garnering even the
support of two gay representatives. On its third reading the
next day, it passed unanimously, 142-0, earning the votes of its
two earlier opponents.
The bill ensures clergy and
churches cannot be compelled
by the government to solemnize or facilitate a wedding that
is in conflict with their deeply
held religious convictions. The
law also provides legal standing for them if sued for refus-
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (seated) makes comments before signing the
Pastor Protection bill, June 11. Standing behind him, left to right, are Attorney
General Ken Paxton, Rep. Scott Sanford, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Sen. Craig
Estes. The bill gives legal protection against litigation should pastors refust
to preside over a same-sex marriage. PHOTO COURTESY OF OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
ing to perform a wedding.
During the second reading
of the bill May 21 questions on
the House floor to Rep. Scott
Sanford, R-McKinney, sponsor
of the Pastor Protection bill,
reflected some misunderstandings of the problems SB 2065
seeks to forestall.
Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburgh, repeatedly asked Sanford if any clergy, to date, had
been forced, against their religious convictions, to marry
anyone or if they had been
prosecuted for failure to do so.
His questions indicated he saw
no immediate threat to clergy.
Canales, along with Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, voted against the bill May 21.
“Rep. Canales, I would certainly say there are repercussions that pastors are experiencing today,” said Sanford, a
pastor at Cotton Creek Baptist Church. “Pastors came in
droves to the capitol to testify
for this bill because they sense
a need for it.”
The Pastor Protection bill received the support of two gay
lawmakers and other supporters of same-sex marriage, but
their support was not without
affirmation of same-sex marriage and nuanced statements
aimed at their ideological and
political opponents.
Cecelia Israel, D-Austin, one
of two gay lawmakers to support the bill, said she supported
it as a reiteration of the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “which is a respect
for religion,” not because of the
legal cover its authors believe
is needed in a post-marriage
culture.
Constitution by the voters.
Krause’s bill never made it out
of committee.
House Bill 4105 by Rep. Cecil Bell, Jr., R-Magnolia, was
an attempt to maintain state
sovereignty over marriage
law should the Supreme Court
rule in favor of same-sex marriage. Rep. Scott Sanford, RMcKinney, offered HB 3864
that would have protected the
rights of conscience for faithbased adoption and foster
agencies if they refused service
to same-sex couples. Both bills
were offered, unsuccessfully,
as amendments in the waning
days of the session.
NUMBER OF TEXAS
ABORTION CENTERS
EXPECTED TO DROP
FROM 49 TO 8
By Sharayah Colter
NEW ORLEANS Contested
portions of a Texas pro-life
law passed in 2013, which has
been challenged continually in
court by abortion advocates,
were upheld June 9 in the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals. The
decision to uphold the law as
it was passed will likely mean
that 49 licensed abortion clinics in Texas will be reduced to
eight, as Texas House Bill No. 2
(HB 2) requires abortion facilities to comply with ambulatory
surgical center standards.
The court’s decision to
uphold this challenged portion
of the law will mean that
centers performing abortions
must adhere to the same
safety standards as other
surgical centers in Texas.
The challenged portion of
the law upheld in this most
recent court decision joins
another provision challenged
and upheld in court regarding
the requirement that doctors
performing abortions must
have admitting privileges at a
hospital within 30 miles of the
location where an abortion is
performed.
JULY 2015
TEXAS
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
3
DISASTER RELIEF VOLUNTEERS WORK TOGETHER TO
SERVE HOUSTONIANS AFFECTED BY HISTORIC FLOODS
By Joni B. Hannigan
TEXAN Correspondent
HOUSTON Lifting a corner of
foil aside to peer at a pan piled
high with neat stacks of mouthwatering burgers, pausing briefly to insert a meat thermometer
inside a perfect patty, Geraldine
Bishop and Mildred Fuller consult briefly about raising the
temperature to comply with
safety standards.
Cooking for disasters is serious business.
Just a week following devastating and historic Memorial
Day weekend floods in Houston, disaster relief ministries for
the Southern Baptists of Texas
Convention turned on their
stoves to serve 5,000 meals a
day for those hardest hit.
Bishop and Fuller, members of Harmony Hill Bap-
tist Church in Lufkin, led the
kitchen team that began cooking in a large outdoor kitchen
area June 2 in the parking lot
of Braeburn Valley Baptist
Church in Houston.
Fuller said about 20-25 volunteers cook and clean for
about 12-14 hours a day.
The warm meals are taken
to shelters, personal residences, neighborhoods and nursing homes— anywhere murky
floodwaters invade homes and
businesses, creating chaos.
Southern Baptists work in
partnership with the American Red Cross to prepare
meals that are placed inside
about 20 official emergency
response vehicles (ERVs) dispatched to locations throughout Houston.
“It’s amazing what these volunteers do,” Fuller said.
SBTC disaster relief ministry
volunteers Geraldine Bishop and
Mildred Fuller from Harmony Hill
Baptist Church in Lufkin check on
burgers in the kitchen set up in
the parking lot at Braeburn Valley
Baptist Church in Houston, June
5. SBTC volunteers joined with
American Red Cross volunteers
to provide 5,000 meals a day to
those in need following the historic
Memorial Day weekend flooding.
PHOTO BY JONI HANNIGAN
Fuller knows how much a
hot meal can mean to a person
who has gone for days without one. She served alongside
her husband as he pastored in
Montana for 39 years before
they returned to Texas to set
up a disaster relief ministry at
the Lufkin church. She and her
SBTC disaster relief
team deploys to Nepal
By Jane Rodgers
TEXAN Correspondent
EULESS A team of five Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) disaster relief volunteers departed June 7 for
the Sindhupalchowk district
of Nepal to minister to victims
of the earthquakes that devastated the country in April. The
SBTC team will work alongside
representatives from Baptist
Global Response (BGR).
A special commissioning
dinner and service was held at
Saviano’s Italian Restaurant in
Euless, June 6. Team members
met with Sam Smith*, a Nepali
national who plans to join the
SBTC workers in Nepal.
After dinner, SBTC DR director Scottie Stice led a briefing
session for the team, who questioned Smith regarding conditions and cultural issues they
might encounter in Nepal.
SBTC volunteers going to
Nepal include Stice’s wife,
Judy; Glenda Watson of First
Baptist Church, Leonard; and
Wally Leyerle of First Baptist
Church, The Colony, who expect a two-week deployment.
Garry and Sherry McDugle
of the Dogwood Trails Baptist
Association will serve as team
coordinators and are expected
to remain in Nepal through
November. All are veterans of
international DR deployments
or missions.
The McDugles spent four
months in the Philippines in
response to 2013’s Typhoon
Haiyan. A former photojour-
A Southern Baptists of Texas Convention disaster relief team meets for
dinner and prayer before leaving for Nepal to minister to victims of the
earthquakes that devastated the country in April. PHOTO BY JANE RODGERS
nalist and now minister of music at Bois d’Arc Baptist Church
near Palestine, McDugle and
his wife consider disaster relief
their calling.
“God is working,” Garry said.
“We just say, ‘Yes,’ and show up.”
“We are actually living the
Bible when we deploy,” Sherry added. “Many whom we
meet do not know Scripture.
I tell them the stories from
the Bible.”
For Glenda Watson, deployment to Japan following
the 2011 tsunami prepared
her for Nepal.
“The Lord has a plan for everyone on this team,” Watson
said. “I don’t want to be a Jonah
and say no.”
When asked what he hoped
to accomplish in this deploy-
ment, Leyerle said, “Sharing
the gospel.”
After thanking team members for their service and a
question and answer period
with Smith, Stice read from
Acts 13:2-3, the commissioning of Barnabas and Paul. He
then asked Dewey Watson,
minster of senior adults at FBC
Leonard, to close the meeting
in prayer.
“We hope people will pray
for the Nepal team as they seek
to minister to the needs of the
Nepali people,” Stice said. “We
also ask that God guide them
as they assist the Nepali Christians in their response to the
earthquake and advance the
cause of Christ.”
*name changed
husband have spent countless
hours serving during many
major weather events in the
last eight years. This was her
first time to volunteer since he
died in October.
A 77-year-old grandmother of
11 and great-grandmother of 16,
Fuller said she is impressed by
the work of volunteers spread
“all over” the state of Texas.
“We see God’s in control. We
work awfully hard, literally fall
into bed, and then the next day
go out with a smile,” Fuller said.
“It’s a God thing. When we go
out, God gives us the strength.
It’s absolutely amazing.”
It is all part of what Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers see as their mission—
to “become the Lord’s hands
and feet during a disaster,” said
Vaundina Green of Cedar Bayou Baptist Church in Baytown.
Green and Sheryl Adams
were operating a laundry and
shower trailer provided by
their church at the site where
the machines were busy all
hours of the day.
When the relative of a local resident stopped by to ask
about cleaning supplies to assist in a mud-out, the women
gently steered him toward a
local community center that
could meet his specific need.
“Thank you,” he beamed.
“I appreciate the help.”
Gordon Knight, an incident
commander for SBTC disas-
ter relief, said the volunteers,
most of whom are staying in a
dormitory at nearby Houston
Baptist University, pray daily
for each other and for the people they help.
“Our single motivation is to
serve other people with the
love of Christ,” Knight said.
In Houston—the nation’s
fourth largest city with more
than 6 million diverse people—
Knight said it would be easy
to become overwhelmed with
the needs but teams know God
has a purpose for them there at
this particular time.
“It’s sad that it takes a
tragedy like this to focus on
the needs of Houston, but
the needs are great,” he said,
speculating it is “probably the
most unchurched city in Texas” despite church buildings
of almost every kind scattered throughout most of its
neighborhoods.
“We hope as people watch
us they understand what we
do and why we do it,” Knight
said. “People are coming here
looking for security and jobs,
and they don’t stop to think
there is more to life than
that. And that’s what we’re
here for—the opportunity to
share Christ.”
For more information about
SBTC disaster relief or how
to contribute to their efforts,
visit sbtexas.com/evangelism/
disaster-relief/how-to-help/.
SBTC disaster relief chainsaw crew works on removing a fallen tree
from student housing at Jacksonville College in Jacksonville, Texas,
May 27, after storms bringing 60-80 mph winds ripped through the
area. PHOTO BY SCOTTIE STICE
4
OPINION
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
sbtexan
T E X A N
ALWAYS READY TO GIVE A DEFENSE
Gary Ledbetter
Editor
A
pologetics begins in
the hearts of maturing Christians who are
even unfamiliar with
the term. I think it gets a bum
rap from those who see it as
merely argumentative—and it
can be just that if misused. It is
not a defense of the gospel so
much as it is an explanation for
“the hope that is in you,” to continue the quote of 1 Peter 3:15.
If we live as citizens of heaven,
fearing God rather than men,
we’ll be asked why. What a pity
to be caught flat-footed when
that question arises.
Apologetics is not merely
a matter for professionals or
academics but for all believers
who “know that [they] have
eternal life” (1 John 5:13). If we
are going to follow the biblical
imperative to love the Lord our
God with all our hearts, souls,
minds and strength, we will
progressively have a better understanding of the “what” and
the “why” of our beliefs. That
knowledge comes first from the
Scriptures, opened to us and applied to our lives by the Holy
Spirit. But being ever more
ready to “give a defense” will
require some things from us.
Curiosity—We will naturally want to know more about
IF WE ARE GOING TO FOLLOW THE BIBLICAL
IMPERATIVE TO LOVE THE LORD OUR GOD WITH ALL
OUR HEARTS, SOULS, MINDS AND STRENGTH, WE WILL
PROGRESSIVELY HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF
THE “WHAT” AND THE “WHY” OF OUR BELIEFS.
the God we love. As we read
his written Word, we’ll come
across questions—the same
questions asked by some who
want to know about our faith.
I like to write those down as I
study a verse or passage. Often
a question is answered or expanded in another verse of the
Bible. Other questions or unfamiliar words can be addressed
by books or online helps, but
we won’t even seek the answer
if we’re not in God’s Word and
if we are not hungry to know
more about him. Perhaps the
best and most natural kind of
apologetics is when someone
asks us a question and we can
say, “I had that same question,
and this is what I came to understand.” It becomes a testimony at that point rather than
a debating point.
Diligence—Read through 1
Timothy this week. It won’t
take long, and you’ll notice
something that struck me the
last time I read it. Paul tells
Timothy to work hard in his
ministry of the Word. He uses
metaphors of struggle (“war-
Jim Richards, Executive Director
Southern Baptist TEXAN
VOLUME
NUMBER
14 07
JULY
2015
Gary K. Ledbetter, Editor
Keith Collier, Managing Editor
Tammi Ledbetter, Special Assignments Editor
Sharayah Colter, Staff Writer
Gayla Sullivan, Circulation Manager
Russell Lightner, Layout/Graphic Artist
sbtexan
texanonline.net
fare” in 1:19, “fight” in 6:12,
“guard” in 6:20), frequent imperative language (“I charge
you” in 1:18, “I exhort” in 2:1,
“instruct” in 4:6, “reject” in 4:7,
and many others), and in one
challenging passage tells Timothy to “give attention” to the
Word, “do not neglect” his ministry gift, “give yourself entirely,” and “take heed to yourself
and to the doctrine.” He later
refers to pastors as “laborers.”
The point is that following
Christ should be something
that requires commitment and
energy. Although the Bible
does set a high standard for
pastors, there is no indication
that the rest of us are off the
hook as far as intense interest and labor for the things of
God. Are we as eager to know
more of God as we are to learn
more about a hobby or favorite
recreational activity? Are we
seeking God as passionately as
we expect our pastors to do? A
casually educated person who
applies himself to Bible reading, prayer and obedience will
surpass in his understanding
Contributors:
Rob Collingsworth,
Joni Hannigan,
Jerry Pierce, Bonnie
Pritchett, Erin Roach,
Jane Rodgers, Maggie
Sandusky, Dante Wright
sbtexan
of God a formally trained person for whom the whole thing
is academic.
Intention—I do think 1 Peter
3:15 is referring to curiosity
and diligence in our Christian
walk for more reasons than
just personal edification—edifying though they are. “Ready
to give a defense,” indicates
that we expect we’ll be asked
or challenged. That requires
an understanding of God that
goes beyond a simple witnessing scheme such as the Romans
Road (3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:13),
though that is a useful scheme.
Our best brief explanation of
our faith is better as we understand more of what God has
told us about himself, man, sin,
redemption and eternity. But
we learn these things partly
with a missionary intent.
Intention also indicates an
awareness of context. When
Aquila and Priscilla explained
the gospel to Apollos, they
were telling him the rest of
a story he already knew. Peter’s message on Pentecost was
likewise to a crowd that knew
redemption’s
context
but
needed to know its fulfillment.
But Paul had a very different
challenge when he spoke to
the Greeks on Mars Hill. He
started with Romans 1 rather
than John 3:16, so to speak. He
knew his audience and could
explain the gospel appropriately because he was curious
himself about these things, diligent in study and intentional
in his presentation.
Love—Perhaps this isn’t a
motive often enough ascribed
to theologians or even evangelists, but all believers are recipients of God’s love and should
desire to reflect it toward others. If we see our neighbors as
people in chains and bound for
a godless eternity, we should
care about that as much as
someone cared to tell us. And
yes, that requires that we learn
more about our God and our
faith in him so that we can explain it better every time.
Think of apologists as “explainers.” The explanation of
the hope within us will be a bit
different from person to person, in the same way our testimonies differ. Our story will, or
should, gain depth and nuance
as we follow Christ and grow
in him. We don’t all have to become academics (though thank
God some do), but we can all
know God better than we did.
I believe God will bring people
into our lives appropriate to
our maturity and preparedness
to give an answer/defense/explanation of the hope within
us. Our challenge from 1 Peter
seems to be to care first about
the things of God and then
about the people around us
who need to hear good news
far more than they desire to
hear it.
The Southern Baptist Texan is the official newspaper
of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention,
P.O. Box 1988, Grapevine, Texas 76099-1988.
Toll-free 877-953-7282, Phone 817-552-2500,
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JULY 2015
OPINION
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
5
CREATOR REPLACED BY CREATION:
A BROKEN WORLDVIEW
Jim Richards
Executive Director
B
y the time you read this
the United States Supreme Court will have
made a decision on the
issue of same-sex marriage. I
am writing this article a couple
of weeks in advance of their
announcement. This puts me at
a distinct disadvantage. I’m not
a prophet. I do not have the gift
of foreseeing the future. However, God has given us a clear
statement about his plan for
creation. Psalm 8 is a tremendous testimony to his purpose
for humankind.
It all starts with creation
itself. God is eternal. Matter
is not. The eternality of God
is the basis for belief that he
is the initiator of existence.
Stephen Hawking, an astrophysicist (to say genius would
be redundant), postulates that
something, our universe, was
“created” by no one. Atheism
is counterintuitive. If a person
can believe Genesis 1:1, then
everything else that follows in
Scripture is possible.
GENDER CONFUSION, SAME-SEX ATTRACTION AND
LEGALIZED SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ARE NOTHING MORE
THAN THE CULMINATION OF PEOPLE REJECTING THE
PLAN GOD HAS FOR A PERSON’S TRUE FULFILLMENT.
The evidence of God’s existence is found in the created order of the universe. People must
be miseducated out of a belief
in God. Within every person
is a yearning to connect with
something or Someone who is
beyond himself. Creation cries
out that there is a Creator. How
nonsensical is the belief that
nothing caused something to
come into existence?
Humankind is the apex of
God’s creation (Genesis 1:26-27).
God put a man and woman as
the first humans in a perfect
environment. Well-meaning
people wish to improve the
lives of others by giving them
housing, education and other
benefits. The first couple was in
the best environment possible.
Yet, they still chose to disobey
their Creator.
Our purpose is to bring glory
to God. The imprint of Imago
Dei is on every person. Although marred by Adam’s fall,
God’s image continues in every
human. This sets us apart from
the animals. Animals and plants
do not bear the image of God.
Mankind’s duty is to be stewards of the environment, not
worship it. God’s complementarian plan for man and woman
is to live out specific roles.
Romans 1:20-32, tells the
story of what happens when
the Creator is replaced with the
creation. When we fail to fit into
God’s plan, tragedy is the result.
How did we get to this point?
Why is there tragedy in this
world? Why are babies born
with cancer? Why do floods
and tornadoes take the lives
of sleeping families? Why do
senseless murders take place? If
God is all powerful and all loving, these things shouldn’t happen. God created everything
perfect, yet he allowed his created beings to have a choice.
Before time began, Satan
was an angelic being who re-
belled against God (Isaiah 14,
Ezekiel 28, Luke 10:18). After
God created earth and man, Satan appears as one who desires
revenge. He is the tempter, accuser, murderer and liar. These
are the descriptions given to
Satan in the Bible. He seeks to
keep people from giving glory
to God.
Every person born with a
human father has Adam’s nature. We want to go away from
God, not toward him. Because
of Adam we live in a sin-cursed
environment. Everything is
touched by the Fall.
Genetic deformities, environmental factors and spiritual
proclivity toward some kind
of sin contribute to our march
away from our Creator. Lust
is the passionate cry for something that never comes. We are
all broken.
JESUS is the perfect man.
Hebrews 2:6-9 says Jesus fulfills Psalm 8. Jesus is son of man
to be crowned with glory and
honor. Jesus is the one who
has dominion over creation.
He stilled the winds, walked
on water and cursed the fig
tree. He healed the sick, delivered the oppressed and raised
the dead. The second person
of the godhead became a man.
He lived a perfect life. He died a
vicarious death. He had a victorious resurrection. He promises
eternal life to all who repent
and believe. One day all things
will be placed under his feet (1
Corinthians 15:22-28).
Gender confusion, same-sex
attraction and legalized samesex marriage are nothing
more than the culmination of
people rejecting the plan God
has for a person’s true fulfillment. Questions of all sorts
arise in churches, families
and individuals. The Bible addresses every aspect of life.
While many questions are
perplexing, God gives us what
we need to live for his glory.
Through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ we can
have victory in this life over
our greatest challenges.
Believers will be mocked.
Longstanding social norms are
ridiculed. Simply voicing an
opposing view based on Scripture characterizes a person as
a hatemonger. Followers of
Jesus are to speak the truth
in love. Only the gospel can
change lives. Let us be faithful
to share it.
Prayer: The Catalyst for a New Great Awakening
Dante Wright
Pastor, Sweet Home
Baptist Church,
Round Rock
“The cause of justice and peace in
society is a noble one, and evangelicals should be in
forefront of it.”
—CARL F. H. HENRY
W
e can take a lesson
from the conversation
between Dr. E.V. Hill
and a White House
staff member regarding the inauguration of former President
Nixon. As if eavesdropping in
on the conversation, listen to the
truth found in these words:
White House: Dr. Hill, we
have not yet received a copy of
your prayer.
Hill: Well I haven’t prayed
it yet.
White House: Dr. Hill, we
need a copy prior to the event.
And you know you can’t mention any names of deity (meaning Jesus) in your prayer.
Hill: I always pray in Jesus’
name because I plan on my
prayers being answered. If you
need to, tell the president to get
somebody else.
Dr. Hill prayed in the powerful name of Jesus, and they left
him alone. We can learn a lot
from Dr. Hill’s conversation, for
it is only at the name of Jesus
that the moral decline of our nation can change. No other name
has the power to change the climate of our nation, but Jesus.
For it’s Jesus that has power to
cast out Legion from the man in
the tombs; it’s Jesus that has the
power to cause Jairus’ daughter
to live again; it’s Jesus that has
the power to calm the raging sea
by saying, “Peace be still.” Surely,
since he has done all of these
things, he truly can bring peace
to our nation.
It is tragic that the landscape of
our country is strewn with the
debris of social unrest. Various
communities have experienced
moments of hostility and division. These include cities such as
Cleveland, Ohio, Baltimore, Md.,
and most recently McKinney,
Texas. No matter where you fall
on the spectrum of agreement
or disagreement concerning the
actions and subsequent reactions in each city, the common
denominator is the moral decay
of the “greatest country” in the
world. It has become more and
more apparent that our country
is in need of a great awakening.
The family is in disrepair due
to high divorce rates, single parent families and continuing economic decline. The redefinition
of the family is not the only issue, but the laxity of our commitment to family stands as a glaring reminder of the plank that is
stuck in the evangelical eye. The
Pew Research Center reveals
that evangelicals account for 28
percent of divorced and separated adults among Christian denominations. Within the evangelical tradition, Baptists make
up 10 percent of the divorced
and separated, the highest percentage in the evangelical tradition. Not to mention, evangelicals have a higher divorce and
separation percentage than all
non-Christians combined. This
divorce rate includes Muslims,
atheists and humanists, to name
a few. We see a continual moral
decay of the “greatest country”
in the world, and it has become
more and more apparent that
our country is in need of a great
awakening.
We have a unique opportunity to reignite the Christian
fervor of our nation. Carl F.H.
Henry tells us that evangelicals
should be leading the nation in
spiritual renewal and establishing justice and peace in our so-
ciety for all people. Renewal is a
daunting task; however, as evangelicals we have the responsibility to lead the way in the pursuit
of a new Great Awakening. The
unspoken question on many of
our minds is how do we start the
process of renewal?
Acts 4:23-31 gives us a blueprint, anchored in prayer. Peter
and John had just been released
from the Sanhedrin council after healing a lame beggar and
preaching a bold gospel. Just as
Dr. Hill was asked not to pray in
Jesus’ name, Peter and John were
asked not to preach in his name.
The boldness of Peter and
John to speak put them in
harm’s way, but also got them
released. It is that same boldness
that they prayed would permeate all of the believers. Just as the
boldness and power of prayer
shook the foundation during
their prayer meeting, evangelicals should come together in fervent prayer before a living God
and allow him to fill us will the
boldness to preach the uncompromising Word of God as he
heals the land.
Prayer has the supernatural power to bring about a new
Great Awakening, one that will
bring healing to our land, peace
in our communities and unity
PA S T O R P R AY E R
G AT H E R I N G :
DAY O F P R AY E R
A N D FAST I N G
JULY 13 | Northeast Houston
Baptist Church (Nathan Lino)
JULY 14 | FBC Beaumont
(Chris Moody)
AUGUST 17 | McCombs
Baptist Church, El Paso
(Larry Vanley)
AUGUST 20 | Southside
Baptist Church, Carthage
(Kirby Hill)
sbtexas.com/prayer
among humanity. Evangelicals
must be bold enough to come
together, to pray and to be uncompromising in their belief that
their prayers will be answered
and our nation will be healed.
The antidote is praying with
boldness and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, which leads to
spiritual transformation that will
result in social transformation.
6
LOOK LIKE HEAVEN
HOUSTON
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
The pews could hold a lot
more, Johnson thought. And
the congregation should look
more like the inner-city Houston
neighborhood it served.
Since then membership is up
to around 300, and the faces in
the congregation and behind the
pulpit look like those across the
street and around the block.
“All things have become new,”
said Sherman Nong, following
a worship service in late May,
paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 5:17
and its relation to the changing
complexion of Faith Memorial
Baptist Church.
Gathered to share their
unique perspective on the growing pains at Faith Memorial
were Nong; Frankie Atkins, a
72-year-old African-American
retired postal worker; and her
93-year-old friend Derwood
Radican, who is white and also a
retired letter carrier.
“There is something special
about this church,” said Nong,
the lone Asian in the rapidly
growing and changing congregation. “What’s special about this
church is everybody is really
warm. They try to get to know
you. I have a lot of people supporting me in prayer.”
Raised in a local Vietnamese
Baptist church, Nong—a 2015
HBU pre-med graduate—wanted to broaden his perspective of
S O U T H E R N
Christian fellowship and worship beyond what he knew in a
Vietnamese-centric expression
of that same faith.
Atkins could relate. More than
40 years ago she transferred her
membership from an all-black
church to the nearly all-white
Faith Memorial in 1972. Aside
from her husband and their children, only one other black family graced the pews back then.
Some members were not as
welcoming, Atkins recalls, but
her family was grateful for those
who were especially loving.
An admitted “hugger,” she said,
“There were a few who weren’t
having any of that.”
But a mutual love for the
Lord and his people transcended the racial tensions—a reality that still holds true today,
Johnson said.
Atkins and Nong agreed that
individual Christians willing to
immerse themselves in a congregation where they are not
the majority—where the only
commonality is a shared faith in
Christ—have so much to learn.
“True learning happens when
we have little to no comfort or
control,” Johnson told the TEXAN. “This can’t just be a cute,
pithy idea—a tip of the hat to
multi-ethnic churches.”
He noted the gospel united a
fiercely divided culture in firstcentury Jerusalem as Jews
and Gentiles found common
ground in their mutual faith in
Jesus Christ.
“It proved that the gospel
was for the whole world. If we
Long-time members and friends, Derwood Radican, 93, and Frankie Atkins,
72, both retired postal workers and widows. PHOTO BY BONNIE PRITCHETT
Radican drove one of the church buses for almost 30 years. Some of his
passengers were his friend, Frankie Atkins, and her grandkids. Atkins began
attending Faith Memorial in part because of the bus ministry. PHOTO BY BONNIE PRITCHETT
B A P T I S T
T E X A N
fail to see that, we’re going to
miss out on how big our God is,”
Johnson said.
Having served as youth pastor at an all-black church Johnson understood, like Atkins and
Nong, what it was like to be the
odd man out.
“It was intimidating at first,”
he said of his two-year stint
with Alief Baptist Church
while in college. “I was the only
white face in the crowd. You
learn something when you’re
the minority.”
Although the doctrine was
the same, the worship was very
different for a boy raised in a
white Southern Baptist church
in Luling. Empathy for those in
the minority and an appreciation for the differences in worship were significant takeaways
for Johnson.
The lessons from Alief guided
Johnson at Faith Memorial. Although he felt called to pastor
a multi-ethnic church and believed the rejuvenation of Faith
Memorial would require such a
course, Johnson recognized his
place as the new pastor—only
the third in the church’s history.
Some members had been there
even longer than Atkins and had
grandchildren older than the
new pastor. So he gave it a year,
preaching and establishing relationships in order to create a unified vision for the whole church.
And as expected, when this
change came, not everyone was
pleased. However, Johnson was
fueled by the reality that creating a multi-ethnic church was
not simply change for change’s
sake. The survival of the church
depended on the congregation reaching out to their predominantly black and Hispanic
neighborhood, which is steeped
in poverty and entrenched
in self-destructive ways. Still,
Johnson believed, the church
would be better for it.
Some of his opponents—his
“biggest headaches”—became
sbtexan
(Top) Members of Faith Memorial Baptist Church in inner-city Houston join
together to worship on a Sunday morning. PHOTO BY BONNIE PRITCHETT
(Bottom) Pastor Andrew Johnson leads the Wednesday evening devotional
and prayer time at Faith Memorial Baptist Church. PHOTO BY BONNIE PRITCHETT
his greatest allies during the
course of the transition that
began in 2014 with building
renovations that included removing barbed-wire fencing
around the property, repairing
broken windows and painting an exterior wall with art
unique to the neighborhood.
“We invested in a graffiti art
mural, something that looks like
a calling card to the community,”
the pastor said.
And it served its purpose.
The once nondescript, drabgrey building caught people’s
eyes, and their curiosity drew
them inside.
But most of the new members
came because of family.
“Being an old church we are
filled with grandparents. Their
kids started coming back,”
Johnson said.
After the May 31 worship
service, Atkins and Radican
joked about the changes. Different people. Different music.
And the differences between
the two of them.
“That was one of the most
healthy things—to laugh at your
differences,” Johnson said. “It
was one of those things that put
people at ease.”
The neighborhood of Atkins’
youth was half-black and halfHispanic (she speaks fluent
Spanish) so the transition came
a little easier for her as the congregation began to reflect the
neighborhood—race, ethnicity,
tattoos, piercings and all.
Radican, too, seems nonplussed by the shakeup. For
almost three decades he
drove one of the church buses
through the neighborhoods of
the historically black 5th Ward
and predominantly Hispanic
Denver Harbor picking up all
who wanted to learn about
the “risen Savior.” The spritely
men’s Sunday school teacher
took all the changes in stride,
even offering to pitch in to pay
for a new graffiti mural.
Staff members brought on
since Johnson’s arrival also reflect the faces of those in the
congregation and the community. Music director Moses Gonzalez is Hispanic and works to
blend contemporary choruses
with hymns and black gospel
music. Andre Turner, who fills
in with preaching and plays
keyboard in the praise band, is
black and coming into his own
right as a preacher according
to some members. Luke Dorr
is white and works with the
youth. All three men work fulltime outside the church and
are compensated with a small
stipend from the church each
month. Johnson is a part-time
employee and is working on
his master’s in theological studies at HBU.
Although the congregation
was small upon Johnson’s arrival, there was a deeply rooted
bond of care and affection for
one another perhaps because of
and not in spite of their differences. Members demonstrated
that love for believers from differing backgrounds cannot be
devoid of an appreciation for
their cultural differences. “If you
can speak their [cultural] language,” Johnson said, “that’s the
power of the Holy Spirit. Don’t
let their culture be the line you
can’t cross.”
JULY 2015
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
LOOK LIKE HEAVEN
7
LEADERS GATHER FOR LOOK LIKE HEAVEN
SUMMIT, DISCUSS ‘ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM’
By Sharayah Colter
Staff Writer
GRAPEVINE A diverse group of
about 30 pastors and worship
leaders met May 28 for a Look
Like Heaven summit at the
Southern Baptists of Texas
Convention offices in Grapevine.
Led by Terry Turner, former
SBTC president and current
pastor of Mesquite Friendship
Baptist Church, and Kevin
Jordan, pastor of First Baptist
Church of Hempstead, the
group discussed the importance
of developing cross-cultural
ministry friends and embracing
diversity within communities,
churches and the convention.
In an afternoon session,
‘Exposing the Elephants in
the Room,’ attendees spoke
frankly with one another about
the impact race has in their
lives and the presuppositions
that keep barriers between
ethnicities. Instead of brushing
over the differences and issues,
they said, the matters must be
dealt with and discussed before
true racial reconciliation takes
place. Many agreed that the
uptick in racial tension in the
United States has brought these
issues back to the forefront of
Americans’ minds, to a place
where they can indeed be
addressed and then, by the
grace of God, put in the past.
Turner and Jordan became
friends in an airport-to-rental
car shuttle on the way to
the state convention annual
meeting a few years ago. Since
then, they have continued
their friendship and learned
from one another, even taking
turns visiting each other’s
churches. While they do
not always share the same
opinion on every situation
they discuss, the two said their
willingness to have honest
dialogue and to listen to each
other’s perspective has greatly
enhanced their ministries.
The
two
agreed
that
segregation is not always
intentional or born out of
negative sentiments but that
people often are drawn toward
those most like themselves,
hence they said, the need to
look for ways to diversify and
cross cultures.
“I have no ethnic or racial
issue at all,” Jordan said. “But,
I didn’t even see how singular
my ethnic context was.”
No issue was off limits during
the summit, especially during
the portion of the day devoted
to discussing the “elephants in
the room.” Turner said he and
Jordan talked extensively about
Ferguson, Mo., and the discord
that brewed in that city.
“I don’t know about you,”
Turner said to attendees, “but
it helped me to have a white
brother to talk about that with.”
Tony
Mathews,
pastor
of North Garland Baptist
Fellowship,
delivered
the
meeting’s closing message,
saying he’s been to many
multi-ethnic summits in the
past 15 years, but that the May
28 event surpassed them all.
In a brief sermon on ‘what
the Bible says about [race],’
Mathews
encouraged
the
leaders to follow Jesus’ lead in
taking time to cross cultures.
When Jesus did that, Mathews
recalled, “almost an entire
town was saved.”
Jordan and Turner agreed
that the eternal salvation of
millions hangs in the cultural
and ethnic balance. The Great
Commission, they explained,
includes all ethnicities and has
eternal ramifications. Turner
wondered aloud that if by
reflecting on earth the ethnic
camaraderie that the Bible
describes in its mention of the
throne room of heaven, the
Lord might bless “in an even
greater way.”
8
SPECIAL REPORT:
APOLOGETICS
APOLOGETICS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
the TEXAN. In fact, the opportunity to reclaim the beauty of
a full-orbed, first-century faith
that attracted idolatrous pagans
to the early church may be in
reach, Gould contends.
It won’t be quick or easy.
Heavy lifting is needed to lay
planks along the bridge stretching from a disbelieving, postmodern culture to the cross
of Christ. If we have hope, we
must be able to articulate why.
Instead of going straight to
the Romans Road in our witnessing, we may find ourselves
beginning in Romans 1 and 2,
appealing like Paul to natural
revelation and “the law written
on their hearts.”
THE ‘FACT/VALUE SPLIT’
A significant obstacle to
Christian engagement with the
culture lies in something writer
and apologist Nancy Pearcey
calls the fact/value split, says
professor and author Steven B.
Cowan, general editor of the
book Five Views on Apologetics
and co-editor (with Terry Wilder of Southwestern Seminary)
of In Defense of the Bible.
Today, questions of religion,
morals and ethics are restricted
to the realm of “values”—a kind
of second-tier mode of reality
that takes a back seat to what
modernist philosophers consider “facts”—those things that are
known by empirical, testable
data. The late Francis Schaeffer
eschewed this false division,
which he described as a twostory house: Downstairs held
the “real knowledge” derived
from empirical testing; all else—
religious faith especially—was
consigned to the upper story.
These “upper story” values,
thusly defined, may be sincerely held and useful, but they are
not considered knowledge.
“Religion and morality are
relegated to the realm of values
instead of facts,” Cowan told the
TEXAN, “so the authority of
S O U T H E R N
God’s
Word,
religious beliefs
such as ‘God
exists’ or ‘the
Bible is God’s
Word’
and
moral
beliefs
such as ‘stealing Paul Gould
is wrong’—some
people might
cherish or find
value in them,
but they are not
facts—these are
things we can’t
legitimately
Steven B. Cowan
know,
from
their viewpoint.
“I
believe
that not only
does the advance of the
gospel depend
on demolishing the fact/ Joe Wooddell
value split, but
almost all of the public discourse
over the moral and ethical issues
we are facing that concern the
Christian community are all influenced by the fact/value split.”
Because of this, Cowan said
the strategy of quoting Scripture
to people who “don’t believe the
Bible is a real source of knowledge” is typically futile, unless
you can first demonstrate that it
has authority.
So in the same-sex marriage
debate, for example, claims to
biblical authority carry little
significance
because
such
claims reside in the so-called
upper story.
In order to lay claim to truth,
Cowan says an apologetic is
needed that first convinces
people, or reminds them, that
religious truth is knowable.
Cowan prefers what is
termed “classical apologetics,” in
which the apologist begins with
natural revelation—what can be
innately discerned—and builds
out from there a case for Christ.
Well-known apologists such as
Norman Geisler have championed this method.
Gould, meanwhile, said his approach can best be described as
“eclectic,” but he carries the classical approach in his toolbox.
TEXAN Correspondent
Richard D. Land calls it “the
mega-ethical issue of our time,”
and how one answers the question sets a course for an entire
worldview.
“What and who is man? That
impacts everything,” Land,
president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte,
N.C., told the TEXAN. “Are we
different in kind or merely in
degree from the rest of creation? If you believe that human beings are just the most
sophisticated mammal and by
the luck of the draw we got
the frontal lobe and the thumb
first, then there is not inherent
superiority or inherent value
to human beings.
“If that’s the case, anything
that can be done to an animal
can be done to a human being.”
Filtering
the
question
through the scope of emerging technologies—intelligencedriven robotics, digital nanotechnology, genetics, medical
advances, issues of gender and
sexuality—the potential for
ethical chaos becomes evident.
Land said the warp speed
of technological advancement
T E X A N
“The starting point we have
in our culture, I think, are the
universal longings for truth,
goodness and beauty, so I want
to play off of those with reason,
conscience and imagination,”
Gould said.
Like Cowan, Gould said he
begins with meeting people
where they are.
And where they are might be
all over the place, says Joe Wooddell, professor of philosophy and
vice president for academic affairs at Criswell College. Wooddell, whose book The Beauty of
The Faith addresses apologetics in
a postmodern context, said most
people live “with feet planted
firmly in both worlds”—modern
and postmodern.
For example, students at
a typical secular university
might attend biology class and
use 19th- and 20th-century
modern methods in their work,
then go to history or English
class, where postmodern philosophy will teach that no “big
story” or metanarrative about
the world around them is true.
In the secular mind, Christianity belongs to the list of discredited big stories.
“We live in an cafeteria-style,
postmodern culture,” Wooddell said. “A little bit of Buddha, a little bit of Jesus, a little
bit of Muhammad. Throw in
some witchcraft and some Darwin, and you’ve got a nice little
worldview. They all contradict
each other But the postmodern
will say, ‘That’s OK. I like it. I
don’t mind my food touching.’
“So we need to be able to answer that.”
the Christian imagination,
Gould said, is the ability to see
reality as it really is—“a deeply
enchanted world where everything is a gift that is supposed to
point to the Giver of these gifts.”
Wooddell makes a similar appeal to beauty in his book on
postmodernism.
Gould argues that voice, conscience and imagination—all
victims of the modernism and
rationalism of the last few centuries—must be reclaimed and
recast by Christians in order to
build an apologetical bridge to
the emerging culture. He looks to
C.S. Lewis as an exemplar on this.
The challenge, Gould said, is
that the Christian voice no longer fits within what sociologist
Peter Berger calls the “plausibility structure” of culture, comprised of those things that society deems reasonable.
“We don’t see reality in its
proper light,” Gould said. “Everything is mundane and familiar, and so we’ve lost a sense of
meaning and mystery and deep
beauty and holiness—those
things Lewis talked about.”
Void of meaning or satisfaction, idolatry emerges, Gould said.
“The opposite of theism isn’t really atheism or the death of God;
it’s idolatry. … As Calvin said, ‘Our
hearts are idol factories.’”
The encouraging thing for
Christians is that “reality is
fundamentally religious and
spiritual, even the fact that God
exists,” Gould added. “You can’t
rub spirituality out like grease
on a pair of pants.”
Wooddell noted that traditional approaches to apologetics
are still relevant to many peoMEETING THE CHALLENGE ple. Everyone brings his own
Gould said a major part of bag of objections.
his focus right now is develop“But a postmodern doesn’t
ing what he calls the Christian care a whole lot about arguvoice, the Christian conscience ments or evidence but rather
and the Christian imagination. what is attractive,” he added. “So
His target is what he views as if we can put the truth of Chrismasses of disenchanted people. tianity on display and make it
The Christian voice refers to attractive while not comprothe ability to gain a hearing in mising the truth, that might be
the culture. Alongside it, the a better method.”
Christian conscience points
Two things largely achieve
humankind toward God’s plan that, Wooddell said: Christian
for human flourishing. And service and Christian love.
What and who is man?
By Jerry Pierce
B A P T I S T
sbtexan
“Putting on display the gritty,
authentic excellence of just
living a virtuous life that lays
down its life for other people—
that’s attractive.”
Such a life often removes barriers leading to deeper discussions about the resurrection of
Jesus, origins, the authority of
Scripture, or evil and suffering.
As Cowan noted, being ready
to give reasoned, biblical answers requires equipped saints.
“We need to teach people to
value the life of the mind and
to take seriously the questions
that unbelievers have and
[the questions] that believers
have,” Cowan said. “Then we
need to teach theology and
doctrine in our churches and
articulate a Christian worldview, showing how Christian
truth impacts every area of
life—family, politics, education, science, whatever. That’s
what we need to be spending
our time on in the churches.
“Studying the Bible, yes, but
studying it with a view toward
articulating an entire Christian
worldview and giving church
members the skills to answer
tough questions.”
YOUR ANSWER DETERMINES DIRECTION OF EVERYTHING
coupled with the
loss of theological truth has led
to a world where
situation ethics
has met its opportunity, and
the possibilities Richard Land
are troubling.
Joseph Fletcher, who championed situation ethics, argued
in the 1960s that “sub-human”
humans called “chimeras”
should be created to do the
drudgework of humanity.
So far, aside from a few
outliers in academia, no one
is seriously suggesting such
horror. “But once again, it all
boils down to what and who
is a human being,” Land said.
“There is a lot more flexibility in answering that question,
unfortunately, if you accept
the premise that we are only
animals with merely sophisticated brains.”
In the medical field, the pressure is great to derive potential
cures to save lives or enhance
quality of life for a host of diseases from embryonic and fetal stem cells, and the science
behind it, though still debatable as to its efficacy, has some
prominent advocates.
Southern Evangelical Seminary has been a leader in training pastors and lay leaders in
Christian apologetics. SES is
tackling the issue of emerging
technology ethics as an apologetical challenge.
In May, SES hosted a symposium, “Ethics of Emerging
Technology: The Dialogue
Begins,” posing the question of man’s essence and
discussing “could” versus
“should” in the realm of
technology. They even dedicated a webpage, ethics.ses.
edu, to ongoing discussion
of the issue.
JULY 2015
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
SPECIAL REPORT:
APOLOGETICS
9
HBU TRAINS STUDENTS TO BE APOLOGISTS
IN WORKPLACE, PUBLIC SECTOR, AND HOME
By Bonnie Pritchett
TEXAN Correspondent
HOUSTON
The university
campus has long been the intellectual caldron in which
students stew over the “big”
questions, roil in their doubts
and bubble over with newfound convictions—or at least it
should be. Political correctness,
trigger warnings and flagrant
attempts to stifle ideological foes threaten to douse the
fires of inquiry that lead to the
truth, particularly the truth
of the gospel. But an upstart
Christian apologetics program
at Houston Baptist University
has kindled an enthusiastic
response from students and
scholars alike.
Launched part-time in the
spring semester of 2013, HBU’s
Master of Arts in Apologetics
boasts a robust (and growing)
academic program on campus
and will launch a full-time online presence this fall. Students
can take the philosophical or
cultural track of the interdisciplinary program taught by
a coterie of the top Christian
apologists in the nation. Sharp
minds instruct students not to
win arguments but to engage
in civil, confident dialogue for
the sake of the gospel.
“Apologetics lays the groundwork that makes a serious
consideration of the Christian
claim possible,” Holly Ordway,
professor and director of the
MAA program, stated in an
email interview.
Ordway speaks from experience. Formerly an atheist, she
could not seriously consider
the notion of God much less the
precepts of the Christian faith.
But “rational apologetics,” along
with the writings of C.S. Lewis,
put a crack in the wall of her
secularist defenses.
“Rational apologetics is very
important because it helps
remove obstacles to belief—if
someone genuinely believes
that what we call God is a big
man in the sky, then of course
the Christian faith will seem
ridiculous,” she said. “Rational
apologetics also helps to show
that our faith is reasonable,
that we don’t ‘check our brains
at the door.’”
Ordway’s colleague and fellow former atheist Mary Jo
Sharp explained that philosophical and cultural apologetics provide an inroad for sharing the gospel within a society
that is increasingly offended by
the truth of Christianity.
Quoting from Augustine’s
Confessions, Sharp said, “’They
love truth for the light it sheds
but hate it when it shows them
up as being wrong.’”
Part of the problem lies in society’s separation of the secular
and the sacred, as people compartmentalize their lives and
relegate religion to the “no facts
to be found here” category. This
separation is evident even in
the church, where believers all
too readily accept secular notions of what is true.
“The truth of Jesus Christ relates to all of life,” Sharp said. “It
doesn’t matter where you are.
You can’t separate the sacred
and the secular.”
HBU president Robert Sloan
agrees. A polarized society where
people dig their heels into the
ground they claim as truth and
refuse to hear another perspective, Sloan said, creates a problem
for the Christian witness.
Some Christians are not open
to apologetics, often associating
it with arguing. Not long ago
a woman asked to pray with
Sharp following a speaking
engagement and went on to
beseech God to undermine her
ministry because “it teaches
people to argue.”
Sloan contends that every
Christian must give an answer
for his faith. That is the basic tenet of apologetics, which is derived from the Greek apologia,
which means “to defend.”
“If apologetics is approached
as simply argument to score
points—and unfortunately it
often is—then frankly it’s not
very useful for communicating
the gospel,” Ordway said. “That’s
one of the premises behind our
program: that it’s not enough
to know things about God; we
want our students to know God
and to be able to draw others to
him through personal witness,
rational argument and imaginative engagement.”
The interdisciplinary nature of HBU’s cultural apologetics program teaches stu-
dents to recognize and then
communicate God’s truths
that can be found in philosophy, the arts and literature.
Speaking God’s word is always effective, but the manner in which it is conveyed
is key to gaining the opportunity to speak in the first place.
Enrollment in the program
has swelled from 10 to 50 in
just a year and a half. These
students represent recent college graduates, pastors, lay
leaders and one surprising subset: mothers.
Both Sloan and Sharp said
that mothers are concerned
about the ideas their children
bring home. Many moms feel
ill-equipped to prepare their
children to hold their own in
matters of faith.
“It has been thrust upon
us,” Sloan said. “There is more
vocal challenge to the Christian faith.”
The students and faculty
represent the breadth of Christendom, with roots in Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and
non-denominational evangelical churches. All of them, Ordway said, share “a commitment
to Christ, a passion for sharing
the gospel, and a desire to love
God with their minds as well as
their hearts.”
In addition to full-time faculty—an amalgamation of authors, bloggers, philosophers,
ministry directors, male and
female—visiting scholars include names like William
Lane Craig, Lee Strobel, Nancy
Pearcey and HBU Provost John
Mark Reynolds.
Still in its fledgling stages,
the HBU apologetics program
is just beginning to teach and
train its students to use cultural apologetics as a means to an
end—the spread of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. In the interim,
Sharp recognizes the work to
be done.
“I’m not seeing bold Christian witness—people who are
naturally living their faith in
public,” she said.
But Ordway is seeing students gain confidence in her
classes.
“The more frequent ‘aha!’
moment has actually been as
students realize how they can
use what they’re learning to
transform the culture rather
than fleeing from it—that they
are becoming equipped to use
literature and the arts to convey
the truths of the faith; that they
can articulate why science and
faith are not at odds; that they
can engage in constructive dialogue and creative work.”
The professors and Sloan
see the program only growing
and being duplicated on other
campuses. The reason, Sloan
said, is obvious.
“I believe [apologetics] is increasingly effective because it
is increasingly necessary.”
10
SPECIAL REPORT:
APOLOGETICS
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
T E X A N
sbtexan
NEW BOOK CHALLENGES
MISPERCEPTIONS OF APOLOGETICS
By Rob Collingsworth
TEXAN Correspondent
When most people hear the
term apologetics they conjure
up images of red-faced scholars
squaring off in heated debate
or intellectuals studying in the
ivory tower of academia, preparing to vigorously defend their
faith to doubters and skeptics.
However according to Travis
Dickinson, assistant professor of
philosophy and Christian apologetics at Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, these caricatures fall short of capturing
the heart of apologetics.
“Apologetics should be a very
normal part of Christian discipleship,” Dickinson says. “On
my approach, apologetics is a
matter of loving God with our
minds, as we are commanded
to do in Matthew 22:37.”
This summer marks the release of Dickinson’s newest
book, Everyday Apologetics.
In the book, Dickinson paints
“ONE OF THE PRIMARY MISCONCEPTIONS
ABOUT APOLOGETICS IN TODAY’S CHURCH
IS THAT IT IS PRINCIPALLY ABOUT DEBATING
ATHEISTS.” —TRAVIS DICKINSON
a picture of apologetics not as
an academic exercise void of
emotion but rather as a holistic
enterprise that encapsulates
the entirety of the human person. Some have an aversion to
apologetics because of the misconception that it focuses too
much on reason and too little
on faith. According to Dickinson, however, it is intellectualism and reasonable defense
that tend to be lacking in modern churches.
“The idea is that we are all
called love and pursue God
intellectually, and part of this
pursuit will be asking deep and
difficult questions about the
faith,” he says. “This resource
casts the vision for what
this looks like.”
Eve r yday
Apologet ics
serves as a
broad
overview
of
ChrisTravis Dickinson
tian apologetics.
Dickinson deals in one chapter
with common objections to
Christianity, including supposed contradictions in Scripture, the problem of evil and the
hiddenness of God. The book
introduces the reader not just
to common arguments made
against the Christian faith but
also to an entirely new way to
think about apologetics.
“One of the primary misconceptions about apologetics in
today’s church is that it is principally about debating atheists,”
Dickinson says. “However, most
atheists don’t change their minds
as a result of arguments, especially in the context of a debate.
So if this were all that apologetics
is about, then it is probably not
worth our time and effort.”
If apologetics is more than
debate, then what is it? One of
Dickinson’s primary contentions is that apologetics should
be approached devotionally as
a component of viewing apologetics holistically.
“What it looks like to practice apologetics as devotional
is to ask those deep and difficult questions about the
faith for ourselves as a way to
simply to know and love God
more fully,” Dickinson says.
“We, as Christians, should be
curious about the problem of
evil, or the reliability of Scripture, or reasons for belief in
God, and other typical apologetics topics. Gaining insights
on these matters has made my
own faith and love for God
grow tremendously through
the years.”
In addition to discussions on
these topics the book includes
specific resources for pastors
seeking to make apologetics
a more central part of their
church culture. Dickinson
makes a compelling case for
apologetics as a necessary component of pastoral ministry, as
the role of the pastor should
not be relegated merely to
preaching on Sunday mornings
but also to shepherding believers through the inevitable valleys of doubt that accompany
the journey of faith.
Everyday Apologetics provides its reader with just that—
a practical guide to making
apologetics accessible to believers in their day-to-day lives.
For more information visit
swbts.edu/apologetics.
SPECIAL REPORT:
APOLOGETICS
11
FREE APOLOGETICS
COURSE EQUIPS
CHRISTIANS,
CHURCHES FOR
‘SUCH A TIME AS THIS’
By Erin Roach
TEXAN Correspondent
GRAPEVINE An online, video-driven
apologetics course is available to equip
believers in sharing and defending
the Christian faith at an increasingly
crucial time.
The Stand Firm Online Apologetics Course is a 16-lesson introductory
apologetics course launched by the
SBTC that can be used for group or individual study. The course is available
at sbtexas.com/standfirm.
Each video is about 30 minutes
long and should be viewed prior to
answering discussion questions in
the study guide. Discussion leaders and individual students may
research the topics by reading
recommended books and visiting
recommended websites.
“Thanks to Cooperative Program
giving, both the videos and the study
guide are downloadable for free,”
Bruno Molina, a language evangelism associate at the SBTC, told the
TEXAN. “I’d like to encourage all of
our pastors, discipleship leaders and
church members to take advantage
of this vital resource made available
for such a time as this.”
Stand Firm is designed to strengthen Christians’ faith by presenting
compelling evidence for the truths of
Christianity and to equip Christians
to share and defend the truth of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We really are living in a time
when, as 2 Peter points out, false
prophets rise among us who ‘introduce destructive heresies’ and ‘exploit you with false words,’” Molina
said. “Unfortunately, both Christians
and non-Christians seem to know
less and less about what the Bible actually teaches and, therefore, end up
being deceived.
“Nevertheless, as followers of Christ
we are commanded to be faithful ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians
5:20) who love God with all our mind
“WE REALLY ARE LIVING IN
A TIME WHEN, AS 2 PETER
POINTS OUT, FALSE PROPHETS
RISE AMONG US WHO
‘INTRODUCE DESTRUCTIVE
HERESIES’ AND ‘EXPLOIT
YOU WITH FALSE WORDS.
UNFORTUNATELY, BOTH
CHRISTIANS AND NONCHRISTIANS SEEM TO KNOW
LESS AND LESS ABOUT WHAT
THE BIBLE ACTUALLY TEACHES
AND, THEREFORE, END UP
BEING DECEIVED.
(Matthew 22:37), ‘contend earnestly
for the faith’ (Jude 1:3) and ‘stand
firm against the schemes of the devil’
(Ephesians 6:11),” Molina said.
In “Lesson 1: A Rational Romantic
Approach to Apologetics,” Paul Gould,
assistant professor of philosophy and
Christian apologetics at Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary, talks
about “pursuing and representing God
with our hearts and our minds.”
Gould explains how Christianity
is a perfect blend of reason and romance, and he helps churches think
through how they can incorporate
apologetics into their ministries.
Subsequent lesson topics include
“Does Science Disprove Miracles?”
“Why Does God Allow Pain and
Suffering?” and individual lessons
on reaching out to Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and
other religions.
Other contributors to the course
include Molina; Travis Dickinson, assistant professor of philosophy and
Christian apologetics at Southwestern; Keith Loftin, assistant professor
of humanities at Southwestern; and
Rudy Gonzalez, professor of New Testament at Southwestern.
12
SBC
SBC RECAP
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
The 5,407 registered messengers—up from 5,294 in Baltimore last year—also took several actions to advance racial and
ethnic diversity within the SBC
and celebrated nearly 60 missionaries during the first-ever
joint missions service of the
International and North American Mission Boards.
Awakening
Floyd, who was reelected to
a second term as SBC president,
called in his presidential address
for Southern Baptists to provide
spiritual and moral leadership
amid a time of crisis in the world
that also is “our most defining
hour as Southern Baptists.”
Building on Floyd’s address,
the June 16 prayer time featured intercession led by 11
pastors and was punctuated
by hundreds, if not thousands,
of believers kneeling and prostrated at the Greater Columbus
Convention Center. Dozens
more from a broad array of racial and ethnic groups voiced
prayers from the platform.
A resolution on “revival
and spiritual awakening” said
Southern Baptists “faithfully
and fervently plead with our
great God to open the windows
of heaven and come down
among his people with a fresh
filling of his Spirit.”
Marriage
With a U.S. Supreme Court
decision on gay marriage expected in late June, Floyd
and the living SBC presidents
elected since 1980 issued a joint
statement that pledged love for
individuals with same-sex attraction yet stated, “We will not
accept, nor adhere to, any legal
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
T E X A N
was adopted, and a resolution
pledged messengers’ rededication to racial reconciliation.
The Committee on Nominations elected for the coming
year is the most diverse in the
SBC’s history, with 27 percent
of members coming from ethnic
and minority groups.
Texans elected included
Nancy Rivera, Primera Inglesia Bautista, Grand Prairie, and
Scott Maze, vice chair, North
Richland Hills Baptist, North
Richland Hills.
Messenger Brent Hobbs of
Virginia unsuccessfully sought
to replace IMB trustee nominee Tom Polvogt of First Baptist
Church in Katy, with Johnson
Ellis of Prestonwood Baptist
Church in Plano, praising the
Texan’s commitment to the IMB.
The Committee on Nominations responded that Polvogt
embodies Floyd’s vision of
equipping ordinary Christians
to carry out the work of the
Great Commission and that his
church gives 10 percent of undesignated receipts through CP.
Floyd interrupted Hobbs when
he began to speak disparaging
of the nominee’s church and
the amendment failed.
Polvogt replaces Texan trustee
Religious liberty
To help combat global reli- June Richards of Keller who regious persecution, the ERLC signed from the IMB board days
announced the opening of an prior to the annual meeting.
international religious freeMissionary celebration
dom office in the Mideast and
At the joint NAMB-IMB
appointed Travis Wussow, executive pastor of Austin Stone Church and Mission Sending
Community Church in Austin, Celebration, messengers were
as director of international jus- introduced to dozens of North
American and international
tice and religious liberty.
missionaries in a video presentation, then gathered around
Ethnic diversity
Messengers received a report them to pray and offered an
from the SBC Executive Com- ovation of support.
mittee reviewing the convenIn other news:
tion’s progress on racial recon4Other officers elected by
ciliation between 1995-2015.
A motion from the floor to acclamation include Steve Dighcommend the EC for its work ton, pastor of the Kansas Cityredefinition of marriage issued
by any political or judicial body
including the United States Supreme Court.” Floyd drew national headlines when he said in
his presidential address that he
will not perform gay weddings.
A resolution on the “public
witness on marriage” called
the Supreme Court to “uphold
the right of the citizens to define marriage as exclusively
the union of one man and one
woman.” Southern Baptists will
not waver in their defense of
traditional marriage regardless
of how the court rules, the resolution said.
A presidential panel discussion addressed ways churches
can prepare for continuing challenges to biblical sexual morality.
Panelists included Russell Moore,
president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; Matt
Carter, pastor of Austin Stone
Community Church, and Rosaria
Butterfield, a former lesbian who
is now a pastor’s wife and defender of traditional marriage, all
of whom will speak July 29 at the
Austin church for an ERLC cohosted by the Southern Baptists
of Texas Convention.
sbtexan
Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, calls on
thousands of messengers at the June 16 evening prayer session of the SBC
annual meeting at the Greater Columbus Convention Center to pray for
America and for Southern Baptists to model “true unity that’s only really found”
in the gospel. PHOTO BY MATT MILLER
area Lenexa Baptist Church,
first vice president; Chad Keck,
pastor of First Baptist Church
of Kettering in Dayton, Ohio,
second vice president; with Jim
Wells reelected registration secretary for a 14th term and John
Yeats reelected recording secretary for a 19th term.
4IMB President David Platt
denied reports that a new personnel policy lowers standards
for missionaries. The policy
seeks to align the IMB’s requirements with the Baptist Faith
and Message and does not signal a shift in practice related to
speaking in tongues or divorce
among other missionary qualifications, Platt said. Messengers
did not ask Platt any questions
despite media reports that some
planned to voice concerns about
the revised personnel policy.
4NAMB President Kevin
Ezell reported 985 church starts
in 2014, a 5 percent increase
from the previous year. Some
58 percent of last year’s church
plants were non-Anglo, he said.
4Messengers amended an
EC recommendation that would
have allowed the messengers
present at any session of an SBC
annual meeting to constitute
a quorum. As amended, the EC
recommendation maintains the
current SBC Bylaw 35 definition of a quorum as “a minimum
of 25 percent of those duly registered and seated messengers.”
4An EC recommendation
was approved to change the
name of Golden Gate Baptist
Theological Seminary to Gateway Seminary of the Southern
Baptist Convention.
4Messengers approved an
EC recommendation to amend
NAMB’s ministry assignment,
enabling the convention’s entity charged with facilitating
North American missions to
“provide specialized, defined
and agreed upon assistance
to the International Mission
Board in assisting churches
to plant churches for specific
groups outside the United
States and Canada.” EC leaders
said in February that the possibility of military chaplains facing religious liberty constraints
in their ministry to troops
overseas was a key factor in
the recommendation.
SWBTS teams reach thousands of homes to aid Ohio church plant
By Tammi Reed Ledbetter
Special Assignments Editor
BEXLEY, Ohio Matt Skiles of St.
Augustine had been praying
that at least one person would
come to faith in Christ during
a week of door-to-door visitation on behalf of Paramount
Church in Bexley, a town near
Columbus. A young mother
with whom he shared the
gospel “finally understood”
after he presented truth from
Scripture, putting into practice
the training he’d received at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Fifty three students from the
Fort Worth-based seminary
and the College at Southwestern assisted the relatively new
church plant launched as a part
of the North American Mission
Board’s SEND cities initiative.
Skiles began by inviting Nancy to a block party then asked
where she went to church.
A professing Catholic, the
young woman believed she
Reynier Carballosa of Havana, Cuba, and Arelie Urbina of Houston particpated
in Crossover at Paramount Church in Bexley, Ohio. PHOTO BY GARY LEDBETTER
would get to heaven by going
to church and doing the right
things, Skiles said, recalling
how he used Scripture to help
her see that salvation is found
through faith in Christ alone.
Paramount Church Pastor
Rush Witt has already begun
sending out teams to follow up
on the 309 homes where Southwestern students had gospelrelated conversations, particu-
larly with the 46 people who
professed faith in Christ.
“They were clearly trained to
be wise and strategic, yet really
bold,” Witt said of the college
and seminary students.
“We can’t control whether
people at the door come to
Christ, but these students have
definitely been in control of
how they share the gospel and
give us the opportunity to have
a long-range relationship with
these people.
“This location is unique in
that there is a great need for
another healthy, gospel-centered church. Our community
is 35 percent Jewish—most of
whom are Orthodox. We have
great respect for our neighbors
and much of what they believe, but obviously we want to
share the gospel with them—to
do what we read about in the
New Testament—reach both
Jews and Gentiles.”
Two other students, Reynier
Carballosa of Havana, Cuba,
and Arelie Urbina, a Kansan by
birth who later moved to Houston, joined a van-load of nine
other students they dubbed
“Team Worldwide,” carrying
students from Nigeria, Germany and other countries. They
spread out to visit 200 to 300
homes each day with the entire
group distributing gospel materials to 7,643 homes.
One self-identified atheist
invited Carballosa and Urbina
to sit with him under a tree to
share their convictions. “We
got to have a conversation
with him for over an hour,”
Urbina said.
While that man did not accept Christ during their visit,
two teenagers in the same
neighborhood listened attentively as Carballosa and Urbina turned the conversation
to share their own testimonies of coming out of Catholic
backgrounds.
“When you relate your story
about how you came to faith it
definitely takes the conversation to a more personal level
rather than just trying to sell
them on church,” Urbina said.
Southern Baptists of Texas
Convention partnered with
Southwestern to supply funding for students to travel to
Columbus. Witt is grateful for
the partnerships across the
convention, saying, “The Cooperative Program has made
everything we do every day
more possible.”
JULY 2015
SBC
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
13
PANEL DISCUSSES TRANSGENDER
MINISTRY, GENDER ROLES IN THE CHURCH
roles in marriage as a picture
of the relationship between
Christ and his church, Strachan
said, “We have this gospel that
we put on display in practical
and tangible form.” He said men
and women flourish best when
they align themselves with
God’s design, and the “competition between men and women”
ceases in the gospel.
Questions from the audience
zeroed in on the issues of transgenderism and biblical roles for
women in the church.
(Left to right) Nathan Lino, pastor of Northeast Houston Baptist Church in
Humble, Owen Strachan, president of the Council on Biblical Manhood
and Womanhood (CBMW); Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary; Jason Duesing, provost at Midwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary and Thomas White, president of Cedarville University
in Ohio were part of a panel titled “A conversation about marriage, gender
and the future of ministry in a post-Christian age.” The discussion was hosted
by the CBMW on June 15 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Columbus, Ohio.
PHOTO BY ADAM COVINGTON
By Keith Collier
Managing Editor
COLUMBUS, Ohio The Council for Biblical Manhood &
Womanhood (CBMW) hosted
a breakfast panel discussion in
conjunction with the annual
meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, June 15, which
addressed issues surrounding
biblical complementarianism,
including gender roles in the
church and how churches can
effectively minister to individuals who identify as homosexual or transgender.
Daniel L. Akin, a CBMW
council member and presi-
dent of Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Wake
Forest, N.C., opened the discussion by defining the term
complementarianism as “a
perspective that is grounded
in Scripture that understands
that men and women equally
bear the image of God and yet
God in his wisdom has given
us different assignments and
different functions.”
CBMW President Owen Strachan noted the significance of
the topic, saying, “We’re in this
because fundamentally we have
a complementarian gospel.”
Citing Ephesians 5, where the
Apostle Paul describes gender
TEXAS PASTORS ELECTED
AS OFFICERS OF 2016 SBC
PASTORS’ CONFERENCE
John Meador,
pastor of First
Baptist Church in
Euless, was elected president of
the 2016 Southern Baptist ConJohn Meador
vention Pastors’
Conference in
St. Louis. Meador
was nominated
by Steve Gaines,
pastor of Bellevue
Baptist Church
in Cordova, Tenn.
Additional ofGlynn Stone
ficers elected include Neil Franks,
pastor of First Baptist Church in
Branson, Mo., as vice president and
Glynn Stone, pastor of Mobberly
Baptist Church in Longview, Texas,
as treasurer.
Homosexuality
& Transgenderism
Thomas White, president of
Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, pointed to Psalm
139 to say that God does not
make mistakes in creating individuals, so they do not get to
choose their gender or sexual
preference. At the same time,
he said, Christians should treat
the topic with grace and respect rather than find it something to joke about.
Nathan Lino, pastor of
Northeast Houston Baptist
Church in Humble, Texas, said
a few transgendered people
attend his church, which has
brought the topic close to
home. While they have made
their position on the matter
clear to these individuals—
who are not members of the
church—Lino said the church
works to give them “time and
space to hear the gospel.”
“We have no reason to be
alarmed or panicked about
the rise of transgenderism and
what that means for ministering to people. The gospel of
Jesus Christ is the solution to
all matters. … The solution, in
my opinion, is we must return
to teaching a fully explained,
gospel-based explanation of
complementarianism.”
Lino admitted that the
church has had to work
through some practical concerns, such as not allowing a
woman who self-identifies as
a man to be involved in the
church’s men’s ministry. At
the same time, Lino said he has
worked to help church members understand that homosexuality and transgenderism
are violations of God’s design
the same that pornography,
pre-marital sex, adultery and
heterosexual sins are.
“The mission of the church
is not to ‘un-gay’ people,” Lino
said. “The mission of the church
is to win people to Jesus Christ.
And the struggle with the unbelieving homosexuals in your
church is not that they’re homosexuals; it’s that they’re unbelievers. And homosexuality
is just one of a million expressions … of what unbelieving
can look like. … Lead them to
Christ, and he will redeem
them in due time—given time
and space to hear the gospel—
and voluntarily submit themselves to it.”
SBC RESOLUTIONS PULL BROAD CONSENSUS
by Tom Strode
Baptist Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio All the resolutions
offered June 16 at the SBC’s meeting
gained passage by unanimous or nearly
unanimous votes. The messengers affirmed biblically based stances on such
topics as same-sex marriage, racial reconciliation and the sanctity of human
life, as well as religious persecution and
pornography. Approved resolutions also
called for spiritual awakening and celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Cooperative Program.
“When it comes to our nation, when
you look back at just the last 12 to 18
months, racial reconciliation needs to
be at the top of our list,” said Resolutions
Committee chairman Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church
in Cordova, Tenn., a suburb of Memphis.
“All of us who have children or grandchildren are very concerned about pornography. All of us are concerned about
abortion and not just abortion but the
sanctity of life on both ends.”
He added, “It’s not hard in light of
what’s going on with [the self-pro-
claimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]
and what’s going on in North Korea and
other places to make resolutions” on religious persecution.
The approved resolutions:
4urged the Supreme Court in its decision this summer to affirm the right of
citizens to limit marriage to a male-female union, reasserted the SBC’s belief
in the biblical view of marriage no matter how the justices rule and called for
religious freedom for individuals and
organizations who conscientiously object to same-sex marriage.
4called for SBC churches and entities to work toward racial and ethnic diversity in their leaders and encouraged
Southern Baptists to be “faithful ambassadors of reconciliation.”
4affirmed the sanctity of human life
“at all stages of development” and exhorted Southern Baptists to seek “the repeal of unjust laws and inhumane practices that degrade human life.”
4denounced all religious persecution
and called for Southern Baptists to pray
for persecuted Christians during personal times and corporate worship.
Women’s Roles
in the Church
When asked about the
permissible roles for women
in the church, all panelists
agreed with the Baptist Faith
& Message 2000 article on “The
Church” that “While both men
and women are gifted for service in the church, the office
of pastor is limited to men as
qualified by Scripture.”
Jason Duesing, editor of the
Journal for Biblical Manhood
& Womanhood and provost at
Midwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Kansas City, said
CBMW has addressed the issue
well in the past, and it’s something he would like to see emphasized more in the present,
especially from female voices.
“There are many strong,
evangelical, complementarian
women that CBMW can benefit from and use and resource,
and I don’t think we’ve done
that as well as we could.”
Strachan said women can
be teachers and leaders in the
church, provided that they’re
teaching and leading other
women. At the same time, women should not view this as holding them back from ministry.
“We have the most stake in
raising up women of God as
complementarians,” Strachan
said, adding that CBMW is not
sheepish or shy about women
in ministry. “Not at all. Within
biblical parameters, we want to
unleash women for ministry.
4appealed to the North Korean government to respect human rights and
urged the U.S. government to pressure
North Korea to recognize the religious
freedom of its citizens.
4expressed grief over the destructive
impact of pornography and affirmed the
power of the Gospel of Jesus to deliver
those who have committed sexual immorality.
4pledged a commitment by Southern
Baptists to seek God and to pray that He
would bring revival.
4expressed gratitude to God upon
the 90th anniversary of the Cooperative Program for His leadership in its establishment and encouraged Southern
Baptist churches to consider increases
in their giving through it.
4thanked God and all those who
helped with this year’s meeting.
Messengers approved amendments
to three of the resolutions presented by
the committee. All those changes were
welcomed by the committee as friendly
amendments.
One Texan, Berta Delgado-Young,
communications editor and member of
Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano,
served on the committee.
F O R M O R E S TO R I E S R E L AT E D TO S B C A N N UA L M E E T I N G , V I S I T T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T A N D B P N E W S . N E T
14
TEXAS
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
sbtexan
T E X A N
SBTC founder writes memoirs
By Texan Staff
Ronnie Yarber, who served
the SBTC in various roles including sole employee of the
convention’s precursor organization, has written a brief
memoir of his life and of the
convention’s founding. Why it
CHURCH POSITIONS
PASTOR
u FBC Rocksprings seeks FT pastor. Parsonage and utility bills furnished. Please contact First Baptist
Church, PO Box 438, Rocksprings,
TX 78880, 830-683-5186 or
[email protected].
u Calvary BC, Lufkin, SBTC affiliated, is seeking a FT senior pastor.
Please send resume with a video
recording of message to ATTN:
Pastor Search Committee, Calvary
Baptist Church, 516 Montrose
St., Lufkin, TX 75901, or email to
[email protected]. Church
website: calvarylufkin.org.
u FBC of Tool is prayerfully seeking
an experienced, FT pastor. Send
resume to: Pastor Search Committee 1001 N. Tool Drive, Tool, TX
75143; [email protected]; or 903432-2711. fbctool.com
u Brazosport Baptist Temple,
Angleton, SBTC affiliated, seeks
a FT pastor for a small church
with a strong desire to grow. The
pastor should have a heart to
preach, teach, minister and lead
the congregation. Ten years of
ministry experience, with some
seminary or other theological training is preferred. Send resumes to
[email protected].
u FBC Electra seeks FT senior pastor. Parsonage provided. Please
send resumes to PO Box 466,
Electra, TX 76360, or email [email protected].
u FBC Blum seeking PT pastor.
Send resume’s to First Baptist
Church, attn: Sam Howard, 207 E
3rd St, Blum, TX 76627.
u Cornerstone BC, Lucas, on
11 acres in growing suburban
community seeks FT pastor with
a minimum of five years’ experience. Church averages 300-400 in
Sunday school. Salary dependent
upon experience. Contact Randy
Fletcher at 214-531-9407 or
[email protected].
u Lakeview BC, Belton, a unique
SBTC affiliate, seeks a FT senior
pastor. Seminary and pastoral experience preferred. Please submit
resume to the pastor search team
at [email protected] or
Pastor Search Team, 7717 Hwy 317,
Belton, TX 76513. Resumes accepted through July 31, 2015.
had to be! begins with Yarber’s
compelling testimony. Saved
out of alcoholism as a young,
newly married man, he was
called to preach a little while
later. The example of his wife,
Carol, herself a new believer,
was instrumental in bringing
Yarber to Christ.
The second half of this
booklet gives a firsthand
account of meetings and
events leading up to the formation of the convention in
1998. The appendix includes
a helpful timeline that tracks
the growing discord between
conservatives in the BGCT
and the state convention during the 1990s.
Students of Texas Southern
Baptists will want a copy of this
eyewitness telling of SBTC’s
founding. Contact Ronnie Yarber at 903.677.1937 or [email protected]. The cost is
$5 per copy plus $3 shipping.
u FBC Pettus seeks a FT pastor.
Seminary and pastoral experience preferred. Send resume
to Pastor Search Committee,
First Baptist Church, PO Box
460, Pettus, TX, 78146, or email
[email protected].
u Salem Baptist Church, Mena, AR,
is prayerfully seeking a full-time or
bi-vocational pastor. Please send
resume to Chairman David Smith,
155 Alder Creek Ln., Mena, AR
71953.
u Community BC of Eldorado
seeks FT or bi-vocational pastor.
Church is debt-free and has a wonderful church plant. Send resume
to Community Baptist Church, PO
Box 998, El Dorado, TX, 76936.
u PT bilingual pastor needed
for new Spanish service and
ministry start-up at FBC Nixon.
Salary is $300 per week. Email
resumes and questions to
[email protected].
u FBC Munday seeks a FT pastor.
If you are interested, please send
your resume to Mark Reed at
[email protected].
God and worship Him in song
and proclamation of the Word.
We love to sing hymns and have
traditional style worship, and we
are looking to incorporate new
songs. Please contact Pastor Ben
Hokanson for more details. Email:
[email protected] or
call 325-513-0255.
u Harleton BC is accepting resumes for a PT minister of music.
Send resumes to PO Box 344,
Harleton, TX, 75651 or email to
[email protected].
located in suburban NW Wichita
and growing. Seminary required/
some experience preferable. Email
resumes m to [email protected].
u FBC Winnie is accepting
resumes for a PT youth minister
(Wednesdays & weekends). Send
resumes to FBC Winnie, PO Box
665, Winnie, TX 77665. ATTN: Kenneth Hodges. For more information, call 409-781-3891.
MUSIC
u Danville FBC, AR, is seeking a
passionate FT music minister/worship leader. Please submit resumes
to PO Box 877, Danville, AR 72833
or email [email protected].
u Believers Baptist Church, Wichita,
KS, is seeking God’s man to lead in
music/worship ministry. Located in
suburban NW Wichita and poised
for growth. Seminary required/
some experience desirable. Resumes may be e-mailed to taohls@
gmail.com.
u Trinity BC, Bonham, is accepting
resumes for a PT minister of music.
The salary range will be around
$8,000 to 10,000 per year. Duties
will include but aren’t limited to
working with the pastor in the planning of worship services, leading
music during Sunday morning and
evening services, directing choir
and planning musicals. College/
seminary students encouraged to
apply. Send resumes to [email protected] or mail to Trinity
Baptist Church, Attn: Search Committee, 219 W. Denison, Bonham,
TX 75418.
u St. Joe BC is seeking a PT minister of music. Our aim is to glorify
New Paid Classifieds
u WORRIED ABOUT THE DECLINING VALUE OF THE DOLLAR? For 5,000
years gold has endured as “REAL” money! Would you like to know how to
get the best gold at the best price and get paid to do it? 888-644-4408
u AFFORDABLE WEBSITE DESIGN AND PRINTING: Done by a
Christian-owned business to meet all your church’s needs. We print
banners, business cards, door hangers, brochures, postcards and
much more! References available. Free shipping on most orders!
Contact David: (409) 622-2197 or southeasttexasdesign.com.
YOUTH
u Sunray BC is searching for FT
student pastor, who will be responsible for proclaiming the gospel
of Jesus Christ, teaching biblical
truth and engaging in pastoral care
ministries to preschoolers through
12th grade, with an emphasis in
youth ministry. Send resumes to
[email protected].
u Oak Meadow BC in South Austin
is searching for a FT youth and
associate pastor with the emphasis on developing our youth. It
requires someone who is bi-lingual
in Spanish and English. If interested, please send your resume to
[email protected].
u Calvary BC of Tishomingo, OK
is seeking a FT youth minister. Experience in music is a plus but not
required. Apply by mail to Calvary
Baptist Church, 9700 S Hwy 377,
Tishomingo, OK, 73460, or email
to: [email protected].
u Believers Baptist Church, Wichita,
KS, seeks God’s man to lead our
student ministries. The church is
CHILDREN
u FBC of Borger seeks a FT children’s pastor, who is responsible
for developing a strategy that
fosters development of a biblical
worldview and spiritual growth in
children birth – 6th grade. Serves
as Wee School Director (preschool
program for 3-5 yr. olds) and will
partner with our MOPS program
and develop an intentional strategy
to bridge Wee School and MOPS
families into the church. Candidates should have a bachelor’s
or higher degree in a ministry or
childhood related field. Resumes
may be sent to shana@firstborger.
com and should be received by
July 10, 2015.
OTHER
u FBC Keller seeks executive
assistant to the senior pastor. He/
she is responsible for assisting
the senior pastor and must be
able to manage time, schedules,
appointments, and help in hosting
special events. This is a FT position
with benefits. Please contact Jack
Gatewood at 817-431-2545 x130 or
email [email protected].
u A rapidly growing fellowship
currently over 1,100 at Flint BC,
Flint, TX, seeks a FT minister, gifted and experienced in business
administration, for the position
of director of administration. To
submit your resume, request the
job description, and ask questions, please email personnel@
flintbaptistchurch.net.
u Bi-fork Association seeks a
FT director of missions. We are
looking for a candidate ready to
lead the associational office to be
a resource to both churches and
pastors. Our main emphasis is a
candidate who can guide in providing and organizing opportunities
for cooperative missions. Please
forward all questions and resumes
to [email protected].
ANNOUNCEMENTS
u Nineteen used church pews
to donate to any church—padded seat and back pews in good
condition, 12.75’ long. Please
contact JP Jobe at 903-348-9764
or [email protected].
u Free 1993 commercial school
bus to an SBC church or ministry.
Diesel, no air, runs. Call 432-5863542, Kermit, TX.
u The Baptist Convention of New
Mexico is receiving resumes for
a camp manager at Inlow Baptist
Camp and Conference Center.
Please send resumes to Dr. Joseph
Bunce at [email protected] or
call (505) 924-2325 (Albuquerque
area) or 1-800-898-8544 ext. 325.
JULY 2015
SBC
T E X A N O N L I N E . N E T
15
MORE THAN 1,300 GRADUATE, RECEIVE GOSPEL
CHARGE FROM SOUTHERN BAPTIST SEMINARIES
More than 1,300 students
graduated from Southern Baptist seminaries and colleges
this spring, receiving charges
from their presidents and fellow classmates to keep following and serving the Lord wherever he leads them. Among the
graduates were 33 maximum
security state prison inmates
completing
degrees
from
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) at
the Darrington Prison Unit
near Houston. Among other
noted graduates were former
Army Ranger and Chaplain
Jeff Struecker graduating from
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) in Wake
Forest, N.C., and Justin Taylor,
senior vice president and publisher of books for Crossway,
graduating from Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary
(SBTS) in Louisville, Ky.
SWBTS
SWBTS conferred degrees
to 267 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students. In
his address to the graduating
class, President Paige Patterson reminded students of their
highest calling, saying, “You are
commissioned today to spend
the rest of your life finding
other people that need to know
about the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Patterson preached from
John 1:43-51, the passage in
which Philip follows Jesus
then invites Nathaniel to do
the same. “There is nothing
else as important as finding
everybody you can and bringing them to Jesus,” Patterson
told graduates.
SBTS
SBTS conferred degrees to
297 seminary students on May
14 and 107 Boyce College stu-
edge his authority,” Akin said.
“Now that you are in Christ
you have access to his authority and power.”
Among those graduating
from SEBTS were Matt Carter,
pastor of The Austin Stone
Community Church in Austin, Texas, with his Doctor of
Ministry degree, and Akin’s
son, Timothy, with his Master
of Divnity.
dents on May 8. Of the total
404 graduating, six students
had ties to Texas.
In his commencement address, President R. Albert
Mohler Jr. charged seminary
graduates, “Take your place in
line and fulfill your ministry
with eyes wide open, knowing
your destiny in Christ. Go into
the world of darkness as brave
children of the day.”
A week earlier, Mohler encouraged Boyce College graduates, “Follow Christ with all
your heart for the length of
your days. Lose your life to
save it. Take up your cross in
the name of the one who died
on a cross for you. Use the education you have earned for the
glory of God and for the sake of
the church and for the furtherance of the gospel.”
Mohler’s son, Christopher
Mohler, was among the graduating class, earning his bachelor’s from Boyce College, marking the first time a child of a
Southern Seminary president
has graduated from the school.
MBTS
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) in Kansas
City, Mo., held its 57th commencement ceremony where
109 students graduated. President Jason Allen encouraged
graduates to be about the business of spreading the gospel for
the rest of their lives.
In an exhortation from Acts
4:1-22, Allen noted how President Calvin Coolidge was a
man of few words who stated,
“The words of a president have
enormous weight and ought
not be used indiscriminately.”
The opposite should be true
of graduates and all Christians,
Allen said.
“The words of the gospel
have enormous weight,” which
is “precisely why we must use
them indiscriminately.,” Allen
said. “We have something to say
as Christian ministers, and we
best be about saying it for the
rest of our days on the planet.”
SEBTS
SEBTS conferred 274 degrees
in its 61st commencement ceremony. In his commencement
address on May 15, seminary
president Danny Akin challenged graduates with Jesus’
last words in Matthew 28:1820. He highlighted God’s sovereign power, plan and promise.
“As you go and do what God
has called you to do, you need
to daily continue to acknowl-
NOBTS
Nearly 240 students graduated from New Orleans Baptist
Theological Seminary (NOBTS),
including students earning degrees from Leavell College.
Among NOBTS graduates
was Sungjin Son, the first graduate of the seminary’s Korean
Doctor of Ministry program.
And Ai Kyung Ra and her husband Jin Kwon became the second Korean couple at NOBTS to
both earn Ph.D. degrees.
The NOBTS class also included a father and son. Roy
“Thumper” Miller received the
Doctor of Ministry degree and
his son, Joshua, received the
Master of Divinity degree.
GGBTS
Across five separate commencement ceremonies at
each Golden Gate Baptist
Theological Seminary (GGBTS)
campus, 162 students received
diplomas, master’s and doctoral degrees.
At the June 11 commencement near the seminary’s main
campus in Mill Valley, Calif.,
president Jeff Iorg delivered an
address based on 1 Corinthians
4:9-17, reminding graduates
that ministry leaders are called
to serve as “spiritual parents”
and described the unique family metaphor Paul uses for ministers in the passage.
“As you enter ministry, find
the people you are responsible
to lead and parent them in the
Gospel,” Iorg said.
Compiled from various reports from
the schools and Baptist Press.
Criswell College graduates 55 during
40th annual commencement
By Sharayah Colter
Criswell College in Dallas held its
40th annual commencement ceremony and conferred 55 degrees.
Old Testament Scholar-in-Residence Eugene Merrill delivered the
keynote commencement address.
He charged graduates to be not only
thankful for their degrees but also for the goodness of God
to them during their studies. Further, Dr. Merrill reminded
graduates that every person arrives at a fork in the road and,
like so many of God’s people before them, they should choose
God’s preeminence over their own priorities. He concluded
by reading Philippians 3 as a prayer for the graduates.
16
TEXAS
S O U T H E R N
B A P T I S T
T E X A N
sbtexan
WHY I’M GLAD MY PARENTS DIDN’T
LET ME CHOOSE MY GENDER
Maggie Sandusky
BiblicalWoman.com
T
here is a growing trend
in the world today that
we see repeated in news
headlines: Parents choosing to raise their child genderless or as the opposite gender,
due to the child’s preference.
Simply put, if a little girl says
she wishes she were a boy or a
little boy prefers to play with
dolls, the parents seek to grant
their wish.
I find this especially troubling
because honestly, if raised in a
different time, by different parents, I fear I could have been
one of them. You see, I had two
older brothers who, from my
4-10 year-old tomboy perspec-
THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION TO MY DILEMMA IN OUR
CULTURE WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR MY PARENTS TO
GRANT ME MY DESIRE AND EITHER RAISE ME AS A BOY
OR GENDERLESS SO I WOULD HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT
“WHO I AM” WITHOUT THE PRESSURE OF NURTURING.
tive, got to do a lot of pretty
great things that I didn’t. They
didn’t have to wear a shirt when
they were hot (a great injustice
in my mind), they didn’t have to
wear complicated dress clothes
and they were in Boy Scouts.
Everything about Boy Scouts
seemed awesome to me—camping, learning about animals,
racing little wooden cars—it
looked like a dream. I had no
desire to be a Girl Scout as large
groups of girls intimidated me
and all they seemed to do was
sell cookies, have sleepovers,
and wear mud brown. I liked to
run with the boys. I remember
on multiple occasions as a little
girl questioning why God had to
make me a girl!
The logical conclusion to my
dilemma in our culture would
have been for my parents to
grant me my desire and either
raise me as a boy or genderless
so I would have time to figure
out “who I am” without the
L EAD ERS HI P T R AI N I N G FO R AL L A S P E CTS O F M I NI S TR Y
+ Preschool/Children
+ Men
+ Evangelism
+ Children’s Music
+ Women
+ Leadership
+ Preteen
+ Discipleship
+ Library
+ Student/Collegiate
+ Family
+ Pastoral
+ Adult Home Groups
+ Communication & Technology
+ Spanish
+ Adult Sunday School
+ Worship
+ Black Equipping Churches
+ Young Adults/Single Adults
+ Facilities
KEYNOTE: ALLAN TAYLOR
Allan is Minister of Education at First Baptist Church Woodstock, Georgia. Allan is
the founder of Ember to Blaze Ministries and writes Sunday School Leadership and
training material. He has authored three books: “Sunday School in HD”, “The Six Core
Values of Sunday School” and “Disciplining and Restoring the Fallen” as well as a
DVD series, Sunday School Done Right and his new series, Forward from Here!
$10
Cost:
$15
with pre-registration on or before August 10th (includes lunch)
at the door (lunch is not guaranteed but is based
on availability according to the number of walk-ups)
for more information visit
sbtexas.com/equip
MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH YOUR COOPERATIVE PROGRAM GIVING
pressure of nurturing. As this
is a growing trend, we need
to first and foremost look to
Scripture when engaging culture, advising friends how to
handle this or dealing with our
own children’s views about
their gender.
First, we must remember
that God created gender (Gen
1:27) and he created our gender
to be a blessing (1 Cor. 1:11-12).
Ephesians 5:22-33 shows how
God uses them to teach us about
himself and to paint a picture
of his love for the world. While
there may be some aspects of
being a woman that our flesh
isn’t thrilled about, such as
submission, we should also
acknowledge that manhood
brings its own set of challenges
(Eph 5:25, 1 Peter 3:7). The grass
isn’t greener on either side.
Second, we should understand that children need nurturing to understand their
world and grow up to honor
God (Prov 22:6). Any parent can
think of examples of irrational
requests or desires their child
has expressed. When my husband was little he would tell
people he wanted to be a fire
truck when he grew up. As silly
as it seems, it is about as reasonable for his parents to start
keeping him in the garage and
paint him red as it would have
been for my parents to raise me
as a boy. Mothers and women
in the church should help girls
learn to be women of God. Men
in the church and fathers, likewise, need to model and teach
manhood to boys (Titus 2).
Third, we should acknowledge the wide spectrum of femininity and masculinity and not
seek to force stereotypical pref-
erences on our children. Dorcus
was crafty (Acts 9:39) while Rachel was a shepherdess. David
was a fierce warrior (1 Sam 18:7),
but he also liked poetry (Ps 23).
Ultimately, I’m glad my mom
made me wear a shirt, taught
me to dress like a lady, and
didn’t fight to let me be a Boy
Scout. I’m also glad my dad took
time to show me outdoor skills
and that my mom gave in to my
begging to join the pole-vault
team, though she was sure I’d
break my neck. My parents
nurtured my femininity without forcing me into stereotypes.
I fear that many children
raised counter to their Godgiven gender will, with age,
question what their parents
were thinking. Just like a parent who allows their child to
play with matches, the excuse
that it is what they wanted or
it wasn’t culturally acceptable
to tell them “no” won’t cut it. As
believers, we need to be loving
enough to tell our children and
our culture “no” when we see
them destroying themselves.
Ultimately, a few years of
perceived injustice in my life
gave way to being very glad
that I am not a boy and enjoying my God-given gender. I love
Pinterest and I’m always up for
a pedicure, but I still love being
outdoors and doing physically
challenging activities. I couldn’t
claim to be a girly-girl, but I’ve
come to realize and to love that
that is simply not the kind of
girl that God made me.
—This article first appeared on
BiblicalWoman.com. Maggie is
pursuing her Master of Divinity with
a concentration in women’s studies
at Southwestern Seminary.
DEADLINE FOR SBTC
COMMITTEE/BOARD NOMINATIONS
The Committee on Nominations
is receiving nomination forms
to fill upcoming vacancies on
the SBTC Executive Board and
committees. Nomination forms
can be completed online or
downloaded at www.sbtexas.
com/nominations. The deadline
to receive nomination forms is
August 1, 2015.
The vacancies to be filled are
as follows:
Executive Board – 12 vacancies
(5 eligible for renomination).
Note: The composition of the
Executive Board is based on
certain considerations: 1) onefourth (1/4) of the membership
must be laypersons, 2) onefourth (1/4) of the membership,
at the time of election, must be
a member of a church of 400 or
less in resident membership, 3)
at least five (5) representatives
from each quadrant of the state.
Missions Committee – 3
vacancies; Evangelism
Committee – 4 vacancies;
Church Ministries Committee
– 3 vacancies; Texas Ethics and
Religious Liberty Committee
– 3 vacancies; Pastor/Church
Relations Committee – 3
vacancies; Hispanic Baptist
Institute of Biblical Studies
Committee – 3 vacancies;
Credentials Committee – 2
vacancies; Committee on Order
of Business – 2 vacancies.
Also: Criswell College Board –
2 vacancies; Jacksonville
College – 1 vacancy; Southern
Baptists of Texas Foundation
– 5 vacancies (3 eligible for
renomination).