Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Musical Paints Compelling Portrait of Jesus’ Humanity
This past Sunday our youth choir, under the creative and visionary direction of Clark Sorrells, and with the support of 80-plus adult volunteers, presented (magnificently!) Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus...
Can Education Lower Rate of Returning Prisoners?
Recent attention to prison reform seems to have been prompted by the cost of high recidivism rates. Robert Parham's recenteditorial noted several initiatives aimed at curbing the cost of imprisonment. These are...
British Baptist Minister Rediscovers Carey Document
A slice of history that binds a Baptist missionary pioneer, India and one of the world's leading botanical gardens has been rediscovered. Although William Carey is probably best known for founding the Baptist...
A slower day …
(Written May 31 from Santiago de Cuba, with a 12-person team sponsored by Woodhaven Baptist Church in Apex, working through North Carolina Baptist Men’s partnership with the Eastern Baptist Convention of Cuba.)...
7 Strategic Habits of Jesus to Focus Your Church
Building a congregation's life around a clear vision and purpose is an easy thing to believe in. Aligning that purpose with biblical teaching and witness is an agreeable notion. I seldom encounter a leader or...
Biography Recognizes Steve Jobs’ Bright and Dark Sides
A person must have an outsized ego to approach the author of biographies of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin to write his own biography. Steve Jobs seems to have had no problem asking Walter Isaacson to undertake...
Serving Joyfully – The Mark of True Saints
Washing dishes. This is how I remember Momadu. Washing dishes is a chore, you know. In the pre-dishwasher days in America, my mom put "wash the dishes" on her children's list of things to do every day. We washed them,...
Out of the Ordinary
A sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ark., on June 3, 2012. Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:11-17 If you attend worship here, at least on a fairly regular basis, you know that the...
When Your Best Really Counts
A sermon delivered by Robert Browning, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Frankfort, Ky., on June 3, 2012. Communion Devotion Mark 15:16-39 “And when the centurion who stood in front of Jesus saw how he died, he said,...
Chosen and Called
A sermon delivered by Michael Cheuk, Pastor, Farmville Baptist Church, Farmville, Va., on May 27, 2012. Trinity Sunday Romans 8:12-17; Isaiah 6:1-8 These past several weeks have been a season of graduations in our...
Oratorio Tells Story of Gospel’s Other Mary
The scopes of my column, assigned to focus on “public religion,” often deal with religion in public affairs, particularly politics, economics and the like. There, one spots most media coverage of religion, but for many...
Partisan Polarization Increases; Democrats More Secular
Americans are more divided now along political lines than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a new report from Pew Research Center. The increased polarization has occurred during the George W. Bush...
Film Celebrates 400 Years of Baptists in Britain
Baptists from the past and present are celebrated in a new film that has been launched on YouTube. "Being Baptist – Called Gathered Sent" is a 15-minute film commemorating the 400th anniversary of a Baptist presence in...
More work, more churches
(Written May 30 from Santiago de Cuba, with a 12-person mission team sponsored by Woodhaven Baptist Church in Apex, working through North Carolina Baptist Men’s partnership with the Eastern Baptist Convention of...
Feed Our Neighbors As We Feed Ourselves
"Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith...
Technology Is Risky but Helpful, Pastors Say
One of the challenges facing the church today is the culture of technology, according to Baptist World Alliance (BWA) General Secretary Neville Callam. Callam spoke May 22 at a reception he hosted for pastors at the...
Hear John Edwards’ Court Statement Through Testaments of Faith
When John Edwards said after his court victory last week, "I don't think God's through with me. I really believe he thinks there's still some good things I can do," what did he mean? Political pundits and columnists...
Bluebirds, Pogo and us
By John Pierce A pair of Eastern bluebirds is working on a second batch of offspring in the one-room cedar house I erected in our backyard earlier this spring. Like before, the brilliantly beautiful male bird is...
Marginalizing Women in Church Betrays Gospel
The risen Christ revealed himself first to a woman, Mary Magdalene. Considering that a woman's testimony was discounted in a Jewish court of law, this in itself weighs against the charge that the post-Easter accounts...
Amid Economic Woes, Can Greece’s Government Function?
On the first Sunday in May, voters in the economically troubled country of Greece went to the polls and clearly demonstrated to the rest of the world just how fragmented and divided this birthplace of democracy has...
New York Mayor Connects Obesity and Smoking
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg connected super-sized sugary drink and cigarettes as harmful products a day after an EthicsDaily.com editorial said the nation needed an obesity campaign akin to the health campaign...