By Marilyn Stewart, Regional Reporter   NEW ORLEANS – Finding the unusual is easy on New Orleans’ Magazine Street, famous for its six miles of bohemian boutiques, fine art galleries, and antique shops. Finding a church that preaches the Gospel? That’s easy, too.   At Vintage Church New Orleans, members are committed to living out their faith “in the city, for the city.” Sixty have been baptized since the church plant began meeting two years ago in rented space above a Magazine Street gym.   Melanie Eichhorn, 25, is one whose life was changed.   [img_assist|nid=7382|title=Vintage Church|desc=Vintage Church averages 260 in worship on two campuses: Uptown and in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. Thirty community groups meet for Bible study throughout the city and its suburbs during the week.|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427]“I am a completely different person,” Eichhorn said. “I’m so happy now, sometimes I have to pinch myself.”   Young urban professionals who came to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are drawn to the church’s three-fold mission to “live the Gospel, love the city, be the Church,” pastor Rob Wilton said.   “They bring a new … [Read more...]

By Alan James, Baptist Press   ROCKVILLE, Va. (BP) – Tom Elliff, in his first trustee meeting as president of International Mission Board, rolled out the beginning of the vision he believes “God painted on my heart.”   Trustees elected a new vice president during their May 20 meeting at the International Learning Center in Rockville, Va., and were asked to pray for the final results of the 2010 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.   Trustees also approved 48 new missionaries.   [img_assist|nid=7384|title=Special gift|desc=Jerry Johnson, president of Criswell College in Dallas (left), presents IMB President Tom Elliff with the first full-tuition scholarship to be given to a student with IMB missionary parents. Johnson announced the new scholarship -- exclusively for all incoming students with IMB missionary parents -- will take effect in the fall of 2011.|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427]On May 22 at Mandarin Baptist Church in Los Angeles, 26 of those missionaries were appointed; the other 22 will be appointed during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting June 15 in Phoenix.   EMBRACING THE NATIONS   Elliff, in a brief preview … [Read more...]

By Quinn Lavespere, Message Staff Writer   HODGE – Hodge Baptist Church pastor Norris Curry doesn’t want his fellow citizens to forget the phrase that our country was built upon.   [img_assist|nid=7386|title=Norris Curry|desc=Pastor Norris Curry Hodge Baptist Church|link=none|align=left|width=92|height=100]Curry and the congregation of Hodge Baptist plan to host a “God and Country” celebration on Independence Day weekend commemorating America’s religious foundations and honoring its heroes and the freedoms it provides its citizens.   “We want this to be a patriotic celebration of a great country,” Curry said.  “At the same time, we want people to recognize that God is ultimately what is most important for this country.”   Curry, who is going on his fifth year as pastor of Hodge Baptist, said the “God and Country” celebration will be the first one held at the church since evangelist Oda “Tuck” Roberts oversaw the celebration in the 1980s.   “Pastor Tuck will be speaking at the services we’ll be having on Sunday morning and Sunday night,” Curry said.  “He has been the one who’s been directing us for this occasion.  As one of our goals for this celebration is to preach the … [Read more...]

By Joni B. Hannigan, Baptist Press   PHOENIX (BP) – Sensitive to the need for greater diversity in leadership and increased participation of ethnics, the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly June 14 to ask for greater accountability regarding their involvement in SBC life.   During a news conference after the vote, Paul Kim, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass., leaders to also have the opportunity to express their love for Southern Baptists in Christ. We have to work together.”[img_assist|nid=7388|title=Ethnic Panel|desc=The ethnic study workgroup, members of the SBC Executive Committee, answer questions during a press conference.|link=none|align=right|width=640|height=411]   It was Kim who asked messengers at the 2009 SBC annual meeting to study how ethnic churches and leaders could better partner with others to serve the SBC.   After a two-year workgroup study of the motion, the SBC Executive Committee approved a 10-part recommendation for the Phoenix meeting, citing the “need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnical and racial identities within Southern Baptist life.”   For the first time in … [Read more...]

By Staff, Baptist Press PHOENIX (BP) – Even as scorching temperatures bumped 102 degrees in Arizona’s Urban Corridor, Southern Baptists mobilized in Crossover 2011 to bring the Living Water to people throughout the region’s parched deserts. [img_assist|nid=7390|title=Crossover 2011|desc=Intentional Community Evangelism volunteers Victor Benavides , left, and 82-year-old Hiram Acree, center, a member of North Peachtree Baptist Church in Doraville, Ga., share the gospel with a young man headed down a street in north central Phoenix during Crossover 2011.|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=429]Some 5.2 million people live and work in the corridor, which stretches from the Phoenix metro area down to Case Grande and Tucson. Several hun dred of those people are new believers in Christ, following a week of community evangelism and Crossover’s Saturday events. Phoenix was the 23rd year for Crossover, an evangelism event coordinated by the North American Mission Board, local associations and churches, which precedes the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. This marks the second time the annual meeting has converged in Phoenix, the first time in 2003. “This past week, Arizona Baptists have truly shown their neighbors the … [Read more...]

By Frank M. McCormack, Special to the Message   [img_assist|nid=7392|title=Chautauqua sketches|desc=Joe McKeever, speaker, writer, artist and former director of the New Orleans Baptist Association, sketches a cartoon of Margaret Hardin at First Baptist Ponchatoula’s first-ever Chautauqua, which took place May 31 through June 2.|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]PONCHATOULA – For three days this summer – May 31 through June 2 – Ponchatoula’s First Baptist Church held its first-ever Chautauqua, an adult education and arts event with roots stretching back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.   “Chautauqua” may not be a common term today, but around 1900 in rural America, the events were quite well known. They originated in 1874 in Chautauqua, New York, when a Methodist minister organized the first such assembly, which featured Bible instruction, arts and educational lectures, musicians, preachers and other speakers.   Soon thereafter, the original Chautauqua inspired dozens of spinoff events across the country.   At First Baptist Ponchatoula, the Louisiana-style Chautauqua was specifically designed for senior adults and was the brainchild of Johnny Presley, the church’s … [Read more...]

By David E. Hankins, Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention   It was good and hot. The hot part you could surmise.  After all, it was in Phoenix, Ariz. in June! But it was also good – good fellowship, good preaching, good conduct. Although the attendance was lower than expected, the business was completed efficiently and orderly. The officers executed their work with dignity and warmth. The reports from our ministries were inspiring and encouraging. Both mission boards commissioned new missionaries as a part of their presentations.   The emphasis this year centered around 1) the urgency of reaching the nations with the gospel, and 2) the importance of pursuing this together through Cooperative Program ministries and through all our denominational partners. There were no task force reports and no issues that embroiled the convention in controversy. Overall, it was a quiet, peaceful meeting, marked by goodwill and a desire to move forward in kingdom advance.   Perhaps the most significant facet of the 2011 SBC meeting is that it was the inaugural convention for three of our most important leaders: the new Executive Committee President Frank Page, the new NAMB President Kevin Ezell, … [Read more...]

By Kelly Boggs, Editor Baptist Message   “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic,” President John F. Kennedy told the 1962 graduating class of Yale University.   America’s 35th president continued, “We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”   Though Kennedy spoke these words almost half a century ago his wisdom has never been more relevant, especially when applied to the subject of homosexuality.   Homosexual activists and many in the media have for some time now touted research done by Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s that asserted 10 percent of males in the U.S. were homosexual.   The fact that Kinsey’s controversial research methods and suspect findings have been subject to debate and dispute has not stopped activists or the media from continuing to trumpet the 10 percent figure.   The motive, of course, is clear: If it were true that a significant portion of the population were engaged in a particular behavior, how could that behavior be deemed deviant? Perhaps it is … [Read more...]

By Argile Smith, Associate Dean of Pastoral Ministry Louisiana College   What do you look for in a pastor? What kind of profile should he fit?   Answering these questions raises an important issue for pastors and congregations alike. At issue is the way we arrive at our perspectives regarding who a pastor should be and what he should do.   If you’re like most church members, you love your pastor. Because you love him, you want him to fulfill his calling so he can glorify the Lord in his ministry.   Sometimes, however, our love for our pastor doesn’t prevent us from developing some rather unrealistic expectations of him. We can, unintentionally, allow unreasonable standards to creep into our thinking about a pastor’s profile. That’s when we can get into trouble.   Unrealistic expectations of a pastor come to us from a variety of notions that we collect along the way.   For instance, more than a few of us tend to gather all of the positive character traits and exemplary work habits of other pastors we have known through the years. Then we blend them together to form what we consider to be an appropriate job description for a pastor.   When we give in to … [Read more...]

By Archie England, NOBTS Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew   Question: Enemies of God’s people deserve a swift destruction. Right? If so, then why did God send Jonah to spare the wicked Assyrians?   Archie England responds: Jonah detested the command of God! “Go to Nineveh,” God had said (1:2).   Jonah refused to do so: He got on a ship to “escape the presence of the Lord.”   He later revealed why: He feared that a just God might actually bring salvation to an unjust people (4:2). Jonah feared that the goodness of God might do kindness to a nation that deserved only swift destruction. Such thought angered the prophet (4:1), motivating him to subvert God’s plan to send him as a messenger of warning to the people of Nineveh. Jonah detested the Assyrians! They deserved judgment.   God, instead, granted His enemies compassion and grace. From least to greatest, all of Nineveh heard (somehow a mad, Hebrew-speaking prophet communicated with an Accadian-speaking population) and repented to Israel’s God. Humbled by a rather cryptic prophetic proclamation (3:4), all of Nineveh fasted, believed and called upon the Lord, and turned from wickedness (3:5-10). Jonah was … [Read more...]