By Staff, Baptist Message

By Staff, Baptist Press

By Paul F. South, NOBTS Communications

NEW OLREANS – Two of the world’s best-known religious scholars will dialog at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on a question that has sparked debate for some 2,000 years: What did Jesus really teach?

John Dominic Crossan and Ben Witherington III will be the featured speakers at the  2010 Greer-Heard  Point-Counterpoint  Forum, Feb. 26 and 27 at Leavell Chapel.

The event marks the seminary’s sixth Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum. The Forum is designed to provide a venue in which a respected evangelical scholar and a respected non-evangelical scholar discuss critical issues in religion, science, philosophy, or culture.

By Michael Foust, Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) – Conservative groups are urging the Obama administration and Democratic leaders to take a second look at abstinence education after a federally funded landmark study showed that such programs were more successful than comprehensive sex education in stopping teen sex.

The study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health and published in the February journal of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, should be a game-changer in the debate over teens and sex.

By Mickey Noah, Baptist Press

North American Mission Board missionary Ronda Corn and village resident, survivors of the recent tsunami, survey damages.PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (BP) – Southern Baptist disaster relief work continues on American Samoa, seven weeks after an earthquake – measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale – struck the South Pacific island, triggering a deadly tsunami that killed 31 people, including six Southern Baptists.

By Barbara Denman, Baptist Press

Southern Baptist missionaries work at the Good Samaritan Clinic in Jimani Dominican Republic to treat Haitian earthquake victimsHIALEAH, Fla. (BP) – The joint Southern Baptist response to the Jan. 12 Haiti earthquake will launch in the coming week with four “strategically-selected” medical teams, leaders of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Network decided Jan. 26 at the Florida Urban Impact Center in Hialeah, Fla.

Plans to respond to Haiti’s urgent, intermediate and long-term needs were addressed at the meeting by assessment teams that had just returned from the quake-ravaged nation along with representatives from the Florida Baptist Convention, North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, Baptist Global Response and other Southern Baptist disaster relief representatives.

By Mike Ebert, Baptist Press

TALLADEGA, Ala. (BP) – Southern Baptists gave $56.5 million in 2009 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.

The amount was 2.7 percent (or $1.5 million) off the previous year’s giving mark and $8.5 million below the stated goal of $65 million.

By Erin Roach, Baptist Press

By Alan James, International Mission Board

Southern Baptist Pastor Tom Dortch from Mississippi and Christian worker Joel Trimble, meet in Haiti after delivery of supplies.PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (IMB) — “It’s a miracle from God,” exclaimed Joel Trimble, a Haiti for Christ missionary on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after two truckloads of food, water, fuel and medical supplies arrived in his driveway Sunday evening, Jan. 17, thanks to the perseverance of a Mississippi Baptist pastor.

Two days earlier, Trimble had told the Fox News Channel how he, his fellow missionaries and local co-workers at two orphanages housing approximately 150 children were desperate for food, medical supplies and fuel for generators.

By Staff, Baptist Press

DALLAS – The 2010 SBC Church Compensation Survey for Louisiana Baptists, provided through the joint efforts of  the Louisiana Baptist Convention, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone Financial Resources, launches again in January.

The survey – available by visiting www.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey – studies the compensation and benefits of ministers and employees of Southern Baptist churches.

By Jami Becher, Baptist Press

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (BP) – One catalyst for transforming ordinary churchgoers into mobilized, on-mission Christians is a personal connection with a missionary.

Friendship Baptist Church in Warner Robins, Ga., made that connection last year when it adopted Jamie Daughtry through the North American Mission Board’s Missionary Encourager initiative. Daughtry serves in British Columbia, Canada.

By Polly House, Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) – Opposition, cultural trends and supernatural faith were among the topics set before 600 women at this year’s Women’s Leadership Forum sponsored by the LifeWay Women ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources.

Featured speakers included Nashville-area pastor David Landrith and author-speakers Margaret Feinberg and Priscilla Shirer, with music and worship led by Travis Cottrell and Kelly Minter.

The forum also featured 60 different breakout sessions on such topics as conversations between mothers and daughters; cultural bridges and boundaries; and helping the next generation fall in love and stay in love with Jesus and His church.

STATEWIDE – Churches that give any amount to missions through the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program are part of the team that together supports the ministry of about 5,600 internati

By Mark Kelly,Baptist Press

SHREVEPORT (BP) – In a day of unprecedented global missions opportunity and great harvest, Southern Baptists will be forced to draw down their overseas missions force in 2010 by as many as 600 missionaries, International Mission Board trustees were told Nov. 10.

The trustees, meeting in Shreveport, adopted a $317.6 million budget for 2010 and learned that $7.5 million will be needed from contingency reserves to balance the budget. That unprecedented step leaves the organization with only six weeks of available reserves in case of major unexpected expenses.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every penny given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is used to support more than 5,600 Southern Baptist missionaries as they share the Gospel overseas. This year’s offering goal is $175 million. The 2009 Lottie Moon offering theme is “Who’s Missing, Whose Mission?” It focuses on overcoming barriers to hearing and accepting the Gospel in various parts of the world and the mission that the Great Commission gives all Christians to “go and make disciples of all nations.”  

By Elaine Gaston, Baptist Press

NORTH AFRICA (BP)—The truck we were traveling in through the Atlas Mountains rounded the curve of a hillside to reveal a meadow spreading below. As the sun burnished the field with its afternoon rays, an old Berber woman and girl tended a large flock of sheep. We slowed the truck and then stopped, thinking we might photograph this pastoral scene.

We were traveling through Berber country, the mountainous home of the indigenous people of North Africa.