FIRST-PERSON: The present state of the SBC
Before we come together for our 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville, I want to share a few thoughts on the present state of the Convention.
May 28, 2021
Before we come together for our 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville, I want to share a few thoughts on the present state of the Convention.
Surfing involves a lot of things coming together. The waves have to be breaking. One has to get a sense of the ocean’s movement, when the wave is about to approach and join it. When that happens, it can take you farther than you expect.
In the silence since the May 20 ceasefire between Israel and Gaza ended 11 days of violence, Baptist workers among Israeli and Palestinians urge churches to look past the politics and see people in need of Jesus.
Answering an acute need, the Fellowship of Native American Christians (FoNAC) helped provide clean water to Native American tribes in Arizona this past year as a way to minister both physically and spiritually.
SBC President J.D. Greear led the first of three Wednesday sessions of focused prayer for the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting today (May 26) at 2 p.m. CDT.
U.S. Protestant churches endured a difficult 2020, including starting the year with fewer congregations.
May 26 marks the first of three consecutive Wednesdays in which SBC President J.D. Greear invited Southern Baptists into “committed, specific times of prayer and fasting,” leading up to the SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville June 15-16.
At first glance, the merging of Burncoat Baptist Church and The Church on Seven Hills may have appeared to benefit one congregation more than the other. Burncoat’s membership and building were both showing their advancing years. The Church on Seven Hills was energetic, four years removed from its founding and full of college students.
Like most other things in 2020, church planting looked different. But thanks to a strong network of support and a cadre of resilient church planters, Southern Baptists planted 588 new churches, an increase of 36 over the previous year.
Adam*, a national believer, knew death was coming. He told Jonathan*, an International Mission Board worker, he would be killed. His days were numbered, and though he didn’t know the number of days, he knew what God had called him to do.