Editorial & Theological Thought By Waylon Bailey, Pastor First Baptist Church Covington Over the last few years, churches and church leaders have learned that health is a key metric for churches. Find a healthy church and you will normally find a growing church with positive influence in its community. Healthy churches grow healthy followers of Christ, and they make a difference in the world. What is it that healthy churches emphasize? First, healthy churches emphasize the past. They do this in two ways. Healthy churches remember their foundation both in the church and in Christian history. They emphasize their biblical roots. As the church magnifies the gospel – the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ–it builds on an enduring foundation. The healthy church also remembers those who established the foundation of their local congregation. Remembering the former leaders helps the church recognize its past and encourage its future. A look back to other leaders also helps the church’s humility. Second, the healthy church emphasizes its present. We have to live in the present. We can’t relive the past, and we are not yet in the future. The healthy church makes the most of every opportunity to do good and to proclaim the … [Read more...]

Editorial & Theological Thought By Erica Wright, Staff Member 121 Community Church, Grapevine, Texas GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) – I read a tweet the other day that said, “Sometimes the only prayer you can muster is, ‘Help!’” Amen to that. I’m rarely one to nap. Normally my brain doesn’t shut off long enough for me to sleep amidst a day; when the sun is shining, the pressure of productivity and task completion are all too real. I can’t live with time that feels wasted, so naps have just never been for me. But on this particular day, a nap quickly became a necessity. The exhaustion coupled with the cold weather persuaded me with little resistance. As I laid there, I began talking to Jesus. My confessions were real, my frustrations were real and my tears were real. I prayed for something I’ve prayed for every day for a year and seven months. It’s a bold prayer, a specific prayer and an impossible prayer. One that only Jesus can answer. As I prayed, I realized in great humiliation that I didn’t believe for a second that God would answer it. Could He hear me? Yes, absolutely. Was He able to act on my request? Without a doubt. But I didn’t believe He would. Honestly, I still don’t. I confessed my unbelief in that moment, but that didn’t … [Read more...]

Editorial & Theological Thought By Erich Bridges, IMB Global Correspondent RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – Will a new Cold War begin over the hot war in Ukraine? Will the European Union crumble, sparking another global recession? Will Iran go nuclear? Will the tottering Arab world collapse? Tyranny is cruel, but anarchy may be worse. Ask anyone living in one of the increasing number of failed or failing states around the world as 2015 stumbles toward ... what? “Our age is insistently, at times almost desperately, in pursuit of a concept of world order,” writes Henry Kissinger, chief architect of U.S. foreign policy for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, in his recent book “World Order.” During tumultuous times, Kissinger engineered Nixon’s historic 1972 opening to China. He also helped craft the détente that eased decades of nuclear-armed tensions with the Soviet Union. Today, however, order and agreement are becoming hard to find. “Chaos threatens side by side with ... the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the disintegration of states, the impact of environmental depredation, the persistence of genocidal practices, and the spread of new technologies threatening to drive conflict beyond human control or comprehension,” … [Read more...]