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Archives For November 30, 1999

Which church are you?

ib2newseditor —  October 26, 2016


By Adron Robinson

Editor’s note: This post is one in a series on cross-cultural ministry, taken from a round table discussion between four Illinois pastors and leaders. Click here to read more from their conversation, published in the September 29 issue of the Illinois Baptist newspaper. 

adron-robinsonAdron Robinson is pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Country Club Hills and vice president of IBSA. He will deliver the annual sermon on Thursday, Nov. 3, during the Illinois Baptist State Association’s Annual Meeting at Broadview Missionary Baptist Church in Chicagoland. The theme of the meeting is “Cross-Culture.”

On finding an identity
Every church is going to be “that” church. People are going to say that’s the church that does this, or that church does that. As leaders, we need to get out front in defining what our church is going to be known for. John 13:35 just comes to mind: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Your church needs to be known for showing your community God’s love in some way.

Your church needs to be known for showing your community God’s love in some way.

I grew up next door to a church. The church’s driveway was right in between it and the house where I was raised. Growing up, I thought the driveway was ours because we never saw church people until Sunday. On Sunday, they would come in and park on the street and fill up the driveway. They would be in the building all day and you would hear the music, but the rest of the week, the building was empty.

The church was just “that” church next door. When they came around on Sunday, they were “those” church people.  The complaint among the neighbors was that they took up all our parking. Other than that, they had no interaction whatsoever with the block, not to mention the rest of the community.

On engaging your community
Churches can do a great service to their community just by being good neighbors, and engaging people around them. Go be a coach, or just be a parent watching your kids play on a local sports team. Let people see the love of Christ in you. You don’t have to always be carrying a big Bible around, but just get to know people and start the relationships and let your love for the Lord be seen amid those interactions. You do much more for the gospel that way.

I think we try to reinvent the wheel too much. The community is already gathering together; go to those areas and take the gospel with you.

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Summit speaker: To lead others well, learn to lead self

Lisa Misner —  January 27, 2016
ILS16 Bumgarner_Tuesday

Bob Bumgarner

The two-day Illinois Leadership Summit kicked off January 26 with nearly 250 leaders from around the state filling the IBSA Building in Springfield.

Keynote speaker Bob Bumgarner led participants through the first two phases of IBSA’s four-phase leadership development process: leading self, leading followers, leading leaders, and leading the organization. Bumgarner, a leadership expert, is executive pastor of Chets Creek Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

He shared that character is the focus of leadership development. “Leading myself is a growing self-awareness of who I am, what my strengths are and where I am headed coupled with the character, commitment, and competence required to get there.”

More simply, he said, “We have to understand that before we can lead others well, we have to learn to lead ourselves.”

Bumgarner shared, “When we develop our heart we are accepting our assignment. The goal for personal responsibility is accepting responsibility for our actions when we lead… We don’t do that because it’s our job, we do that because it’s our calling.”

Stressing the importance of good leadership, Bumgarner noted, “Our impact on the people we lead either makes them better or worse.”

The job of the leader is to help the people your leading see and shape the future. “These are people who said I will trust and follow you,” he said. “What do you really want to accomplish? Until you tell them what you want to accomplish, they don’t know how to contribute.”

The Illinois Leadership Summit is part of IBSA’s ongoing leadership development plan. The conference features 27 speakers in 32 breakout sessions, including some Illinois pastors sharing experiences from their churches.

The Summit continues January 27. For coverage of the event, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. #ILS16

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Higher resolution

Lisa Misner —  December 31, 2015

Higher resolutionWe have a new TV at our house. It was probably overdue, because our previous TV was 15 years old, square, and only showed about two-thirds of the information that now seems to scroll continuously along the bottom of the screen.

But that outdated, misshapen, low resolution, antiquated TV simply would not die on its own, though I would occasionally toss the dog a ball in its direction, hoping something would happen. The old TV was still functional, and so year after year, we kept settling for that increasingly dated picture of our world.

As we now enter a new year, I feel the need for higher resolution in my spiritual life as well. Perhaps you do too. I don’t want to keep settling for an old picture of how things are, or how they should be, while the rest of the world is so quickly changing around me. I want my life and my church to have a sharp, accurate new picture of our purpose and mission in the world.

What does that mean? Well first, I think I need a new, higher-resolution picture of lost people. I need to stop seeing those around me who don’t know Christ as satisfied, self-sufficient neighbors who deserve their privacy. I need to see them clearly as hollow souls, spiritually dead on the inside, who are living life with quiet, inward desperation until someone finds a way to break through with the good news about Jesus.

I also need a higher resolution picture of what it actually takes for me and my church to deliver this good news. I can’t keep seeing the routine weekly schedule of my church as an adequate witness in my community. I need to see clearly what behaviors and changes are needed to actually share the gospel with people, and welcome them into the family of disciples that we call church.

I wrote recently about five actions that, statistically speaking, most often result in people coming to faith in Christ. They are an evangelistic prayer strategy, Vacation Bible School, witness training, outreach events, and starting intentional new groups. If my church and I don’t at least embrace those proven actions, we’re probably not seeing clearly at all.

Finally, I also need a higher resolution on what people, organizations, and partners are actually advancing the gospel, and most deserving of my time and resources. A couple of years ago, my wife and I updated our estate plan, and it made us think carefully about where we want the resources of our life to go. Sadly, in just a short time, some of those organizations or people have changed or drifted enough that we feel a need to rethink our plan. We want to generously give our best, but with a clear, current picture of where our investment brings the greatest Kingdom return. I’m happy to say that our cooperative missions work here in Illinois is still on the top of that list.

You should see our new TV. It’s not only larger than the old one, the picture is incredibly sharp, it’s relatively lightweight, and because it’s a “smart” TV, we can now access all kinds of new features through the Internet. It’s amazing. Yet it cost less than half of what we paid for its antique predecessor 15 years ago.

I can see things so much more clearly now. It makes me wonder why I waited so long to get a better picture. I don’t want to wait any longer to get a clearer picture of what it takes to reach people with the gospel either. I think that higher resolution will also give me higher resolutions for this new year.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org. This column appears in the 1/4/16 issue of the Illinois Baptist.

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The pipeline

nateadamsibsa —  August 10, 2015

Nate_Adams_August10COMMENTARY | Nate Adams

Recently Beth and I had the opportunity to travel to Alaska for our 30th anniversary, and to see for the first time the famous Alaska Pipeline. It is truly a modern marvel, transporting millions of barrels of oil each week over 800 miles from the north slope of Alaska to its northernmost ice-free port in Valdez. Since the pipeline opened in 1977, more than 17 billion barrels of oil have flowed through it, along a route that travels both underground and over the permafrost, in climates that can vary from -80 to +95 degrees Fahrenheit.

The amazing length, cost, and complexity of the pipeline is a testimony to the value of the oil it carries. At $8 billion, it was the largest privately funded construction project ever at the time, and took 70,000 workers and more than three years to build. But it has paid for itself many times over.

Here in Illinois, Baptist churches are working together to build a different kind of pipeline, one designed to carry something of far greater spiritual value than oil. We are seeking to build a leadership pipeline, one that can deliver church planters and tomorrow’s church leaders, both to current churches, and to the under-churched regions of our state.

This summer we laid some major new sections of that pipeline. For the second year, IBSA hosted “ChicaGO Week” at Judson University in Elgin, a mission week experience designed to connect student groups with church planters in Chicagoland. We were delighted to see participation triple over the previous year, as 181 students and leaders from 14 churches invested a week of their lives in numerous neighborhoods where we are seeking to plant new churches.

Earlier in the summer, we laid yet another track of leadership pipeline through IBSA’s Summer Worship University, hosted by Hannibal-LaGrange University. About 130 students and leaders invested a week learning music and worship leadership skills, and then more than 50 of them went on tour to put those skills into practice through the All State Youth Choir.

Super Summer for student leaders at Greenville College, kids camps at Lake Sallateeska and Streator Baptist Camps, and many other leadership development efforts throughout the year are designed to prepare tomorrow’s leaders, and guide them through childhood and adolescence and internships into tomorrow’s—and today’s—church leadership roles. In fact I frequently meet young adults serving in IBSA churches who say they got their start in church leadership through an IBSA leadership development event for students.

A church leadership pipeline is something that we all have to work together to build, in multiple different ways, whether we’re preparing leaders for our own church, or for a sister church somewhere. If we all work at it together, the value of the leaders the pipeline eventually delivers is well worth the cost.

The last day of the ChicaGO Week student camp happened to fall on July 31, which was also my mother’s 85th birthday. So that morning I showed a picture of her to the almost 200 students, interns, youth leaders, and church planting catalysts, and reminded them that missionaries like my mom and dad had invested their lives for decades in the work those young leaders were just now being challenged to continue. I wanted them to see where the leadership pipeline was leading.

After the group joined me in singing “Happy Birthday” on video to my mom, they loaded up in their respective vehicles. But as they drove away, I told myself that they were not just headed home. They are now on a long but important journey, down a pipeline that will one day deliver them to the church of tomorrow, as its leaders.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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Is preaching passe?

Meredith Flynn —  August 6, 2015

COMMENTARY | Nathan Carter

Nathan_Carter_August4In his little book, “The Priority of Preaching,” Christopher Ash writes what every pastor has thought at some point.

“Is it really helping when we spend so much of our week laboring at the Word of God, preparing to preach it to the churches we serve…Is it worth slogging away preparing Sunday’s sermon with such a world of need outside?”

Maybe you are a pastor and you have doubted whether your preaching is really doing anything. Maybe you are a church member who sometimes falls asleep during sermons and you wonder if there is a better way of connecting with today’s postmodern culture. Is preaching a thing of the past?

We are far from the Puritan days when one minister apologized to his congregation for preaching a two-hour sermon and they all replied, “For God’s sake sir go on, go on!” During the era of the Baby Boomers, preaching in many churches became a casual talk on how biblical principles can address felt needs, bolstered by the use of multimedia technology.

Many Gen Xers and Millennials are now looking for new expressions of church, and the very idea of preaching is being re-imagined. Wouldn’t it be more authentic to have a dialogue about the Bible where everyone could share his or her own experiences and insights?

I define preaching as one-directional, verbal proclamation of God’s Word culminating in the gospel. And I still maintain that this is an absolutely essential practice for the church. Why? For one, we see it happening all over the Bible (i.e. Acts 10:33-44). That’s descriptive, not necessarily prescriptive, you might say. Well, it is also expressly commanded elsewhere (i.e. 2 Tim. 4:2).

But couldn’t the intent behind “preach the word” be fulfilled in other ways than one person talking at other people for an extended time? I certainly believe there are several different legitimate styles of preaching. But the method of preaching is critical.

We need times when we bite our tongues as we are confronted by the authority of God’s Word. In an age of relativism and rebellion against authority, it makes sense why we don’t want to sit under preaching. We don’t want doctors; we’d rather self-diagnose. The idea of a wiki-sermon that we all have a hand in constructing is much more appealing. But our great need is to hear, “Thus saith the Lord,” and let his external word rebuke us, call us to repent, make us ready to receive the message of the gospel, and then respond in faith and obedience.

Hearing a declaration of something that has happened, something to which you can’t contribute a thing but must respond to with either belief or disbelief, best comports with the gospel. Since there is a constant need to have the double-edged sword of God’s Word pierce our souls to expose our sinful hearts and then graciously present Christ to us in all his resplendent glory so that we can trust in him as our righteousness and healer, preaching will always be indispensable.

There is a place for small group discussions and seminars and life-on-life mentoring. But preaching is an essential element of the life and health of a church. The practice of preaching can be abused (when it becomes a chance to express one’s own ideas instead of expound a text), but that shouldn’t cause us to avoid its proper use. Some preachers are more gifted than others, but the mark of a mature believer is to be easily edified as long as the Word of God is being preached.

Charles Spurgeon said, “I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it. The moment the Church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her. It has been through the ministry that the Lord has always been pleased to revive and bless His Churches.”

May he do it again today!

Nathan Carter is pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Chicago.

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Tuesday Briefing: Presidential candidates to address Baptist conference

Meredith Flynn —  July 28, 2015

THE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

Baptists will hear from two presidential hopefuls at next week’s SEND North America Conference in Nashville, Tenn. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, will interview former Florida Governor Jeb Bush Aug. 4. The conference also will include a pre-recorded interview with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

The_Briefing“Evangelicals are looking for leaders who not only understand their convictions about human dignity and family stability but have plans to address them,” Moore said in a press release, “and this event will provide the opportunity for precisely this kind of discussion with some of the leading presidential candidates, and I am greatly looking forward to it.”

The SEND Conference, which is hosted by the North American and International Mission Boards, is expected to see 13,000 attenders.

In its press release, the ERLC said the leading candidates from each major party were invited to participate, including Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Moore said in a July 22 blog post. The Aug. 4 conversations will be the first in a series of discussions with candidates, Moore added.

Pakistani woman’s execution temporarily stayed pending court review
The Pakistani Supreme Court said July 22 they will review the case of Aasiya Noreen, known in media reports as Asia Bibi. The mother of two (and stepmother of three other children) was sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory comments about Muhammad. Read the full story from Morning Star News via Baptist Press.

San Diego’s landmark cross will stay
A veterans memorial in San Diego has been sold to a private group, effectively ending years of legal battles over its constitutionality. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial, which includes a 43-foot cross, was purchased from the U.S. Defense Department by the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association for slightly less than $1.4 million, The Christian Post reports. The group hopes to turn it into a tourist destination on par with the San Diego Zoo.

GuideStone appeals to Supreme Court
GuideStone Financial Resources has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court against a health care mandate that would require some companies it works with to provide abortion-inducing drugs. GuideStone, a Southern Baptist entity, and the churches it represents are exempt from the mandate, Baptist Press reports. But some other religious employers are at risk, they contend, even as the federal government argues it offers an accommodation for them.

Kenyan mall reopens almost two years after terrorist attack
Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi reopened July 18, 22 months after extremist group al-Shabab staged a multi-day attack that killed 67 people and wounded 175. Katherine Walton, an International Mission Board “missionary kid” now living in Kenya with her own family, was in the mall with her children during the attack, Baptist Press reports.

“It has been and still is a difficult journey in recovery. The children have all dealt with their own issues, but on the whole have done remarkably well,” she told BP. “God has been really good to us, and we keep moving forward, learning more about ourselves and about God during recovery.”

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Finding joy and purpose in moving forward

nateadamsibsa —  July 20, 2015

HEARTLAND | Nate Adams

Many Illinois Baptists know by now that Melissa Phillips, who was Associate Executive Director of IBSA’s Church Cooperation (Business) Team, went home to be with the Lord on July 2, almost a year after her initial cancer diagnosis.

Melissa was strong and determined, and she managed her initial months of chemo and radiation treatments so amazingly well that we all grew optimistic. And of course we were praying, diligently and daily (often wearing “Team Melissa” buttons). So her rapid health decline in June and then her passing have seemed sudden, especially to those who only saw her occasionally. For those of you just joining us in that grief, I am truly sorry for your loss, too.

Nate_Adams_July20Near the end of the movie, “The Last Samurai,” Tom Cruise’s character, Nathan Algren, travels to Tokyo to present the emperor with the sword of Samurai Lord Katsoumoto, who has just heroically given his life in battle. Somberly, the emperor says to Captain Algren, “Tell me how he died.” And with great respect and tear-filled eyes, Algren instead replies, “I will tell you how he lived.”

So let me write just a few words here about how Melissa Phillips lived. Melissa was one of the most loving, serving, capable professionals I have ever known. She was intelligent, intuitive, poised and articulate. I trusted her completely, and she brought the highest integrity and work ethic to every decision she made and every task she performed. She was often the first person at her desk in the morning, and the last to leave at night.

Melissa was 18 when she started at IBSA. It was just a few days after graduating from high school, and marrying her sweetheart Doug. As I said during her funeral service, in her 35 years at IBSA she not only trained a husband and two daughters, she trained six different executive directors. I am privileged to have been the most recent, and now the last.

Melissa was a reluctant executive, preferring to serve others and work behind the scenes for the good of IBSA, its churches and leaders. Yet she led well, and was strong and decisive when she needed to be, or when I needed her to be. Her moral compass and her wisdom were rooted deeply in her relationship to Jesus Christ and her understanding of God’s Word and his ways.

A few years ago, our son Caleb and Melissa’s daughter Laura got reacquainted at the annual IBSA family picnic. Talking led
to writing, and writing led to visits, and then a courtship led to marriage. So while Melissa has now gone on to be with the Lord, our families continue to be lovingly intertwined. And so in addition to all she gave me personally as a friend and staff member, through God’s providence she and Doug also gave us a daughter, one who seems to me to grow more like her mother every day.

As I watched hundreds of people patiently file through during the funeral visitation, and then pack every square foot of Springfield Southern Baptist Church for Melissa’s home-going service the next day, it became evident to me how many people loved and respected Melissa. The sentiment many expressed could be summed up by the question, “How can we go
on without her?”

This of course is the question Jesus’ disciples were asking themselves after his seemingly sudden death. Yet because Jesus then conquered death, and because he sent his Spirit to be present with us, and help us continue his example and his mission to the world, we find joy and purpose in moving forward, longing eagerly to see him again. How like Melissa to follow Jesus’ example, and leave those of us who loved and depended on her so much with that same wonderful assurance and hope.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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Is your church a place of grace?

Meredith Flynn —  July 16, 2015

COMMENTARY | Charles Lyons

Floyd and Rad certainly stood out when they showed up in our tiny congregation. I had been pastoring a couple years. Obviously not from around here, they did seem familiar with church. Conversation revealed they were both from Arkansas; one from a Baptist church, the other from an Assembly of God church. Maybe they were 20 years old. My guess is they met in high school.

Charles_Lyons_July16They, like thousands before them, had fled home and familiarity for faraway, big-city anonymity. I’m not sure why, but they didn’t hide their homosexuality from me. I’ll never forget the anguished question during one tearful conversation with Floyd:
“How can this be wrong?” He was overwhelmed with need, emotion, passion, and counterfeit love.

I have to say, getting to know them as individuals radically changed my rabid hostility toward those I before would have called “perverts.” I didn’t change what I believed. My conviction that God’s Word is true was not threatened. But I had an overwhelming desire to be a channel of grace and, as John puts it, “love in truth.”

It was God’s truth and love by God’s definition that eventually contributed to Floyd and Rad drifting away from the church,
looking for something else I could not offer.

Let me tell you! I’m as opinionated a person as you’ll ever meet. Furthermore, I am able to passionately, hey, vehemently
articulate my views. I’m especially dogmatic and emphatic when it comes to behavior I don’t engage in, and I can really preach against that stuff!

Many of us have gone through a process to get where we are today. We used to regularly rant against “easy targets” like communists and hippies, and these days those targets have been replaced by homosexuals, transgender, and “gay marriage” (as if there really were such a thing). And some continue to rant rather than to take a Bible approach.

Should we ignore these things or begin to accept them? Of course not, but we need to confront them biblically. After all, we
are not just guarding our culture or doing battle with sinners. We are representing God and his grace as well as his warning.

Jesus’ harshest condemnations target self-righteous religious zealots. His greatest compassion is expressed to those most
ignorant of, rebellious toward, or distant from God. He said, “I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

It goes without saying, those who are determined to pursue any kind of sin are not going to be comfortable or in close fellowship in a Bible-preaching church.

That said, there is a whole slice of “sinnerdom,” and for sure some wrestling with same-sex attraction, who would seek help
from people they knew loved them. Is that not the spirit of Jesus?

How do we communicate God’s love?

How do we communicate God’s love to those who are out of bounds in any way, shape, or form? Think over-indulgence. Adultery. Consider any form of destructive behavior. What about unnecessarily angry people?

How do we express God’s love to those who are way, way out of bounds?

Is God’s love unconditional? Is the love I live, preach, teach, and lead our congregation to demonstrate just as unconditional?

Should the church be the last place these out-of-bounds think of for seeking help?

Do the kids attending our churches know these are safe places to bare their souls and share their secrets?

Understand me. There is always someone reading between the lines looking for compromise if not sellout, and I am not advocating in any way changing or messing with what God says about any particular sin. I am saying our churches need to be havens of hope, dispensaries of love and deliverance, places of grace.

The rebels and unrepentants will cast themselves into an eternity without God… but they should go with the knowledge that we loved them. Those willing to believe God’s promises, trusting him for rescue, and willing to fight the flesh in fellowship with God’s people should never wonder if they have a home.

Charles Lyons pastors Armitage Baptist Church in Chicago.

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Church celebrates God’s faithfulness through building project

Meredith Flynn —  July 13, 2015
Pastor Don Hannel estimated 80% of the construction at FBC Pleasant Hill was done by volunteers.

Pastor Don Hannel estimated 80% of the construction at FBC Pleasant Hill was done by volunteers. Photos by Joe Springer

HEARTLAND | Meredith Flynn

In the year it’s taken to build a new church, Pastor Don Hannel and the members of First Baptist Church, Pleasant Hill, have seen God move in numerous ways. One moment that stands out: when they raised the 30-foot steeple in the air, pausing first to dedicate the building to the Lord.

“When we raised the steeple up…it went from a building to a church, a house of God,” Hannel said. “It’s just one of the moments you’ll never forget the rest of your life.”

The members of FBC Pleasant Hill met in their new sanctuary for the first time May 10.

The members of FBC Pleasant Hill met in their new sanctuary for the first time May 10.

The 15,000-square-foot building now sitting on what used to be 10 acres of corn fields has been a labor of love for the congregation, who started exploring the possibility of expanding or renovating their facilities a few years ago. Their land-locked original location downtown Pleasant Hill, located about 15 miles from the Illinois-Missouri border, was built in 1917 and was in good condition. But it left them little room for growth–or parking.

About 80% of the work on the new building was completed by volunteers, Hannel said. His church members worked alongside several groups throughout the process, including Carpenters for Christ, a church-building ministry that started out of a Southern Baptist congregation.

The Carpenters groups that worked with Pleasant Hill hailed from Attalla, Alabama, and brought 120 men to the rural Illinois community last summer. In 10 days, they raised walls, set trusses, and nearly put on the whole roof.

They also set up the steeple, gathering with the Pleasant Hill volunteers to lay hands on it and pray before the crane hoisted it up in the air.

The steeple experience wasn’t the only instance Hannel described as a “spiritual moment.” There was the time a pastor from Talbotton, Ga., called to see how he could help. (Hannel’s church had helped build a church for the Georgia pastor on a previous Carpenters for Christ mission trip.) When Hannel replied there was some brick work to be done, the pastor and four other men came to Pleasant Hill to finish the job.

Then there was the man who had been attending Pleasant Hill who volunteered to spend several days last winter with his brother installing more than 70 interior doors in the building. A few months later, the volunteer and Hannel were talking in the new sanctuary when the pastor felt led to talk about how to have a relationship with Jesus. The man knelt there at the altar and prayed to receive Christ, the first person to do so in the new building.

And he’s not the only one. Revival started at Pleasant Hill through the building process, Hannel said. Seven people were baptized in the new building in June, with six more waiting.

On May 10, the church met in the new building for the first time, with 282 people in attendance. (Previously, they had been running between 130 and 150.) They dedicated the new facility two weeks later, with a Saturday open house and special worship service on Sunday.

There were times in the process when it was difficult to press on, and the church had to rely on the Lord for strength, Hannel said. But seeing those 282 people come in, “it was just like everything disappeared at that point.”

The pastor has been at Pleasant Hill for 10 years; the last one has given him countless stories of God’s faithfulness to tell over the next many.

“We need to write a book on this some day,” he said, “as many things as God has done through this.”

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Marriage ruling finds favor with 49% of Americans, 28% of practicing Christians

Meredith Flynn —  July 7, 2015

The_Briefing

THE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

While 62% of American adults believed nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage was inevitable, slightly less than half (49%) are in favor of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26 decision in favor of it, Barna reports. 43% disagreed with the decision, and 7% were unsure how they felt about it, according to the researcher’s July 1 report.

When it comes to how Christians feel about the Court’s decision, Barna found, 28% of practicing Christians (defined as “those who say their faith is very important to their life and who have attended one or more church services during the past month”) approve of legalized same-sex marriage, compared to 43% of people who identify as Christians but don’t qualify as practicing.

Only 2% of evangelicals support the Court’s decision. Read the rest of Barna’s report at Barna.org.

U.S. Episcopal Church votes to approve same-sex marriage
Right after the Supreme Court made it legal nationwide, the U.S. Episcopal Church moved to approve same-sex marriage in the denomination, The Christian Post reports. Episcopal clergy are now authorized to perform same-sex marriages, but can opt out, according to two marriage-related resolutions passed in late June at the denomination’s General Convention.

The resolutions were opposed by 20 bishops who issued a minority report stating, “The nature, purpose, and meaning of marriage are linked to the relationship of man and woman,” and by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who said the decision “will cause distress for some and have ramifications for the Anglican Communion as a whole, as well as for its ecumenical and interfaith relationships.”

Church violence survivors share in Charleston grief
After nine people were killed in a South Carolina church last month, Southern Baptists who have experienced similar tragedies expressed their sympathy and grief over the June 17 shooting.

“I don’t know if you ever recover from something like that,” said Cindy Winters, whose husband, Fred, was killed in his Maryville, Ill., pulpit in 2009. “I think you learn how to get through it, but I don’t think you ever get over it this side of eternity,” Winters told Baptist Press. “I know one day I will when I’m with Jesus. Obviously only by the grace of God am I able to get up each day and go forward, and find beauty and meaning…and find goodness in living.”

Burned churches receive assistance from Baptist missions agency
African American churches in need of assistance after a recent spate of church fires can receive help from a fund established by the North American Mission Board, the domestic missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Southern Baptists should be the first to condemn acts of hatred toward African Americans,” NAMB President Kevin Ezell said, according to Baptist Press. “Regardless of the causes of these fires, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to come alongside and offer whatever assistance we can.”

None of the fires have been deemed hate crimes, and only some are suspected arsons. However, one confirmed arson case is Charlotte’s Briar Creek Road Baptist, a predominantly black Southern Baptist church.

Barnabas Piper: Parents, ‘Don’t fight unbelief in your kids’
“At least don’t think of it as fighting,” Piper said in an interview about his new book “Help My Unbelief.” “Belief, ultimately, is a miracle, death made life by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can work in myriad ways, and questioning is a significant one,” Piper, son of preacher and author John Piper, told Ed Stetzer.

“As parents our job is to declare and display the work of the Spirit, our relationship with God, so that children can see where the answers to those questions truly lie. Don’t argue; answer. Don’t fight; exemplify. Don’t give up; pray.”

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