Month: May 2007

Now, what does it mean?

LifeWay Christian Resources’ report on their survey dealing with the viewpoints of pastors on private prayer language will be the talk of the town at our SBC annual meeting. Understandable. The main assertion?that 50 percent of SBC pastors believe PPL is a gift of the Holy Spirit?comes as a surprise to many. The lengthier discussion will entail the meaning and significance of this finding.

We don’t know how many of these pastors actually practice PPL. Is their answer one of tolerance rather than conviction? Is it based on an exegetical conviction or on an anecdote? We don’t know.

Here are two things we can reasonably say, based on LifeWay’s report:

A surprising number of SBC pastors are open to the theoretical idea of PPL.

Southern Baptist pastors are less open to PPL than are pastors of other Protestant denominations. That’s interesting. We can actually think of several other things that SBC pastors are less open to than are other Protestant pastors.

But we can’t infer these things from the report:

We can’t infer that there is a general acceptance among Southern Baptists of PPL as a biblically based gift. We don’t know what the laity think of the matter. We also don’t know what the difference might be between the response of pastors to an academic question and their response to a Sunday School teacher who advocates for PPL in the church. That might be where the tolerance and acceptance part company.

We can’t infer that the assertion that PPL is a biblically based notion is truer than it was before the release of the report. An opinion held by many, while important, is not, by itself, an argument. If, for example, you find that 51 percent of SBC pastors teach a different interpretation of election than you do, does that change your mind about election?

We can’t authoritatively infer the reason for the opinion held by the 50 percent. Is it a sign of the cultural times? Is it a result of a more ecumenical wind blowing across our denomination? Is it a sign of spiritual renewal? No one who does not have more information than we currently do should assert any such things.

My point is that this report is a great discussion starter. A deacon at my church who doesn’t likely read Baptist Press stopped me Sunday to comment on the report findings. It’s of widespread interest among our people. We’ll talk about it for a few weeks without any doubt. Few of us are likely to change our minds.

It’s not a debate ender, though. Those on the “we told you so” bandwagon are going beyond the data if they believe their arguments have been recently shored up.

We’ve discussed charismatic practices in the SBC during the whole course of my ministry. Many of us see a threatened introduction of “unbiblical” practices into the life of our churches.

Others agree, sort of, but also fear that the pendulum has swung so far as to close off any openness to the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Southern Baptists. Extreme positions are, by definition, threats to productive dialogue.

The bottom line for now is that we will still struggle to find that reasonable and biblical position between the extremes and we’ll continue to disagree over where it is. Nothing happened to change that tradition when LifeWay released the results of a survey last week.

SPECIAL REPORT: Face of Texas is changing

An elementary school in the north Dallas suburbs gives a glimpse of how Texas, especially in its urban centers, has become more international. Take a kindergartner this reporter knows well, a white kid from a middle-class family, and peer around his classroom.

His buddies are boys such as Alejandro, from a Hispanic family, and Caleb, the American-born son of Ethiopian immigrants. The school sits at a crossroads between suburban affluence and a largely Hispanic community. Special segregated classes are offered in the early grades for a large percentage of Hispanic students whose families speak little or no English.

Not far from there, a neatly manicured neighborhood reflects growing diversity, with an elderly Korean woman working in a yard, what looks to be an Indian or Pakistani couple taking their grandchildren for a walk, and a British accent discernable from a woman at the neighborhood park. The convenience store on the corner is operated by courteous Middle Eastern men, likely Muslims.

Though the suburban neighborhood is still mostly white and American-born citizens are the norm, this is not your father’s suburbia.

“Dallas may pride itself on old money and glitz, but over the last two decades it has become a kind of Ellis Island–one of the nation’s key immigration gateways,” the Dallas Morning News opined.

DFW International, an organization that describes itself as “the portal to international North Texas,” reports that 40 percent of the Dallas-Fort Worth population is first- or second-generation Texan.

Similar, if not more, diversity is found in Houston, demographic studies indicate.

Houston is a microcosm of changing American cities, with more than 315 different identifiable people groups represented, according to a study by MAP International Inc., with more than 80,000 Asian Indians living there. Other prominent ethnic groups in Houston are Chinese, Koreans, several Southeast Asian cultures, Guatemalans, Taiwanese and many others.

Texas state demographer Steve Murdock said: “By 2040, 68 percent of consumer expenditures, 80 percent of kids in Texas elementary and secondary schools and 70 percent of students in colleges and universities are going to be non-Anglo.”

From 1970-2005, the foreign-born population of the United States nearly tripled, from 4.7 percent to 12 percent. By 2050, half of the U.S. population will be of non-Anglo ethnicity, the Center for Missional Research (www.missionalresearch.info) of the North American Mission Board reports.

“Globalization and transnationalism have afforded North America a unique opportunity in history,” a Center for Missional Research people groups profile observed. “Just as Judea was a crossroads for the known world during the time of Jesus, North America has become a modern crossroads of peoples from around the globe.”

With changing demographics comes the need to understand the new neighbors and their worldview in order to engage them with the gospel, said Terry Coy, SBTC senior church planting strategist.

In Texas, more than 100 languages are spoken, with few Baptist churches able to communicate effectively with someone speaking, for example, Mon-Khmer (7,870 households), South Slavic (1,648 households), or Tagalog (39,990 households).

Behind English and Spanish, more Texans speak Vietnamese than any other language, with German, Chinese and French close behind.

In addition, by 2025 Hispanics should comprise about 40 percent of the Texas population, up from nearly 30 percent now.

Religious identity is more difficult than ethnicity to track by Census data, but Islamic adherents in Texas, for example, are estimated to number more than 250,000, an article by the Islamic Information & News Network found at www.muslims.org states. Harris County, which encompasses Houston, has the largest concentration of Muslims, with Dallas County second.

Coy said with Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus, “It may take three or four or five months before you can initiate spiritual conversation with them.”

As with anyone, developing authentic friendship and demonstrating Christ-like compassion will develop trust, which is essential to getting a hearing with immigrants, he added.

To that end, the SBTC missions department is launching People Group Champions, a pilot program with the goal of helping local Texas churches, primarily those in urban settings, do international outreach in their own communities.

“The missiological challenge of a truly international Texas is that churches will be stretched like never before,” Coy said. “We must re-think outreach, ministry, and how to build community relationships. Faithfulness to the gospel will require Southern Baptists to think and act in multi-global mentality. Either we meet this challenge or we forfeit what is possibly the greatest missions opportunity in the history of Texas.”

MEET THE NEIGHBORS: Houston model of new diversity, study says

HOUSTON–“Houston is one of the most culturally diverse metropolitan areas in the country” and, as such, “is at the forefront of the new ethnic diversity that is refashioning the socio-political landscape of urban America,” according to a 2005 report issued by professor Stephen Klineberg and the Rice University sociology department.

That diversity revealed itself as the once mostly bi-racial (Anglo and black) metroplex saw dramatic shifts in population in the last two decades of the 20th century. The study revealed that black and Anglo populations in Houston decreased as the Asian and Hispanic populations grew exponentially. The “Asian/Other” people groups grew from 2.1 percent of the total population in 1980 to 6.6 percent of the total by 2005.

The 2000 U.S. Census ranked Texas second behind California in the number of Vietnamese immigrants, with Houston home to almost 61,000 people of Vietnamese heritage. For churches reaching this subculture, being sensitive to slow assimilation into mainstream America and building trust and respect among Vietnamese immigrants is vital, Baptists who work among the Vietnamese in Houston told the TEXAN.

Houston-area Union Baptist Association consultant Rickie Bradshaw told the TEXAN newer immigrants like the Vietnamese who have settled in the Alief district of Houston are resistant to assimilation into mainstream American culture. Instead, they tend to surround themselves with the comforts of their homeland, including everything from the food they eat to the temples in which they worship.

Not only have the faces changed in Alief but the street signs as well–now posted in English, Chinese, and Vietnamese. To reach the people surrounding a church, a paradigm shift needs to occur within the church. Congregations need to change their focus from ministry to missions, Bradshaw said. “Reaching people for Christ” does not necessarily result in new members to the church, especially if those new believers are of a culture different from the local church.

“You can’t just bring people into the church and expect them to be like you,” he said. More and more immigrants, he added, are staying close to their roots, assimilating less into the American melting pot. “No longer are immigrants wanting to become part of the American culture.”

Churches that don’t change with their surrounding neighborhoods are doomed to die out. When new neighbors, who look, speak, eat, and live differently than the established church–in Houston, historically Anglo and black–do not become a part of that congregation, the church does not grow and only continues to lose members through death and attrition. What’s left, Bradshaw said, is a sanctuary that seats 600 with only 20 original members seated on the front rows and the local ethnic group squeezed into the church library.

Therefore, diversity does not mean boasting of a congregation that is a reflection of the U.S. Census for a community, but accepting the changing complexion of that community and enabling believers within the ethnic minority to establish and maintain churches that are uniquely theirs. The local church, instead of drawing in the new neighbors, needs to plant churches that are culturally relevant to their new neighbors.

Of the 630-plus churches within the UBA, Bradshaw said he could think of only three congregations that are truly multi-cultural. Aside from those, 220 churches have African-American pastors; 180 are led by Spanish-speaking pastors; 70 are Asian-American congregations. The rest are predominantly Anglo.
He recalled three well-intentioned pastors from the West Coast arriving in Houston and conferring with him about planting multi-cultural congregations, a common phenomenon in California.

“They found the ground was pretty hard,” he said.

Houston, like most of the South, “wasn’t birthed in diversity,” he explained. The large cities and small towns were essentially made up of blacks and whites. As immigrants began to set up housekeeping in those towns, they tended to keep to themselves–opening storefronts, restaurants, and community centers catering to their ethnic group.

When churches see ethnic changes coming to their communities, they should see the changes not as a threat but as an opportunity to encourage believers within that people group. To determine what kind of changes a community is experiencing, Bradshaw said members of the church must “sit on the front porch and see who passes by.” They should ask themselves, “Why is God bringing them and who amongst them needs the gospel?”

Prayerfully consider what response the church should take and then move as the Holy Spirit leads. He said churches should look beyond bringing the newcomers into the church and, instead, empower them to establish churches of their own.

“There’s a large number of believers who say being externally focused is not ‘church.’ And they’re right. That’s missional.”

When the immigrant believers are encouraged in the establishment of their Christian spiritual roots in their new homeland, the lost of that same group will be drawn to the Lord.

The need for the urban churches to be mission minded is reflected in the number of baptisms, or the lack of them. Harris County has nearly 4 million residents and a growing population. Church memberships are up but not baptisms. That, Bradshaw said, is an indication that believers are joining churches, not the new converts.

Helping churches become mission minded and employing strategies for achieving that end are available through area Southern Baptists. Different conferences and leadership training seminars equip staff and lay leaders to meet the challenges of sharing Christ with a population that did not live next door 10 years ago.

As the face of the American population continues to diversify and the role they play in bringing Christ to the world next door.

Muslim growth adds to Texas diversity

As Texas changes in its demographics, much of the focus is frequently given to the increased Hispanic population, but another trend is also emerging: a sharp increase in the Muslim population.

Getting a firm figure is difficult, since the law forbids the U.S. Census Bureau from mandating that citizens cite religious affiliations. But according to the Texas Almanac, in 1990 the Islamic population was estimated at 140,000 in Texas. More recently that figure has grown to a range of 350,000 to 400,000.

That gives Texas the eighth-largest Muslim population of U.S. states. While most Muslims are concentrated in the urban centers (Harris, Dallas and Tarrant counties report the largest population of Muslims), there are growing, smaller pockets in suburban and even rural areas. Denton County, for instance, partly Dallas suburbs and partly rural, was listed by the Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA) as having one of the highest percentage concentrations of Muslims.

Nationally, the estimated figure of Muslims ranges from 3 to 7 million, and Cornell University projects a 6 percent annual growth rate, with most of the influx coming from Muslim immigrants to the U.S. and not the few American converts.

“Islam is no longer an ‘over there’ thing,” said Afshin Ziafat, a national Christian speaker who was born in the U.S. to Iranian Muslim parents. “We see thousands of mosques being built, Islamic centers and schools, right here,” he said at a conference in Austin last month.

Ziafat lives in the Houston area, which according to ARDA, has the highest number of Texas Muslims.

“I don’t think there is a widespread conversion to Islam. Most of the growth is from immigrants. But there is, especially after 9/11, a swing for people to be much more accommodating toward the religion.”

Chad Vandiver, an SBTC church planting consultant, grew up on the mission field and has had a heart for reaching Muslims since he was 8 years old. Vandiver suggests witnessing to Muslims should begin with prayer for a specific people group. Also, identify the possibilities of reaching the group by exploring where they work, play, and live.

Another important way of witnessing is praying with Muslims and allowing God to open doors through answering those prayers.

“As immigrants they are very accepting of Americans; they know that the culture is different. But still, you should ask permission to pray for them,” Vandiver said.

By genuinely showing concern for their souls and their everyday life needs, you will see God open a door to offer up prayer.

In addition to the curiosity about Islam following 9/11, another contributing factor to sympathy towards Islam is the increasing dissatisfaction with the handling of the war in Iraq.

“Muslims are ostracized in America and especially in Texas. They are interested in sharing their faith with you and Christians should be genuinely interested. As they share, you will have an ‘Aha’ moment and you’ll see something that doesn’t make sense. That’s when you will be able to share Christ.

“As soon as you reach that level of trust, you can share as soon as possible,” Vandiver added. “It may take a month or five years, the important thing is to model Christian behavior before them. They are always watching how you interact with your children and your spouse.”

Do’s and Don’ts in Witnessing to Muslims

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Q & A: Mike Gonzales, SBTC Hispanic Initiative director

As part of this package of stories on “The Changing Face of Texas,” the TEXAN interviewed Hispanic Initiative Director Mike Gonzales on what the growing Latino population means for Southern Baptist work in Texas.

First of all, explain briefly what the SBTC Hispanic Initiative is?

We have about 9 million Hispanics in Texas and we have about 127 Hispanic churches to reach that population. The primary objective is to help the Hispanic churches win the lost. And then I work really closely with Terry Coy [SBTC senior church planting strategist] in helping Hispanic church planting. The third tier of our work is the Hispanic Education Superhighway, which we developed not long after I arrived.

Our aim is to provide theological education and training from the GED to the PhD. Many of our pastors haven’t graduated from high school, so we encourage them to pursue that so they go on and work on a bachelor of arts, a master of divinity and then a PhD. At this point we work on five campuses: Southwestern, then the Southwestern campuses in San Antonio and Houston, and then Criswell College and Jacksonville College.

Also, we provide a Spanish session during the SBTC annual meeting and special events during the Empower Evangelism Conference, as well as a youth camp–we call it Youth Camp at Alto Frio–a women’s conference, and we’re developing a marriage conference and a men’s conference.

Are Texas Southern Baptists doing an adequate job in reaching Hispanics?

We’re lacking. We’re not where we need to be. I still dream that we would have a Hispanic church of 1,000 members; we don’t have that. Primera Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida in Garland probably has 700 or 800. There are several like that. But we struggle there.

Is that because of the large Roman Catholic influence among Hispanics?

Yes, Roman Catholic influence, Jehovah’s Witnesses influence, Mormon influence. Those groups are very aggressive and effective in influencing Hispanics. There’s even a growing Muslim influence among Hispanics. We are not as aggressive. We need to be more aggressive in reaching out. I think a problem that we have is we don’t have the business people in our churches who are able to help financially build a strong church. On the Anglo side, you have teachers, a superintendent, people who own a business, a lawyer, a doctor. We don’t typically have that in our Hispanic churches. Some do, but not as a rule.

One positive aspect is that more and more of our young people are going to school and they’re deciding to go into some kind of professional field that will give them a good future. But many of them are attracted to Anglo churches once they start their families.

Is some of that simply cultural assimilation?

Yes, but here in Dallas-Fort Worth, for example, we have over 2 million that are first generation. That’s a lot. But then you have many who are second and third generation, like me. And we prefer English and not Spanish. And many of these second- and third-generation people will not even speak Spanish. Some of our leading Hispanic churches, like Nueva Vida in Garland, they do have an English service, they do have a bilingual service. So as a result, that is meeting the needs in their context.

The rhetoric right now is high regarding illegal immigration from Mexico. Is that a sore spot in how our Hispanic churches relate to the Anglo churches? Is the level of understanding good from the Anglo perspective?

I think our Anglo churches would welcome anyone into their church. I think when we switch from a civic discussion into a church context, I don’t think it’s a problem. Most Hispanic first-generation and second-generation people will not even step into an Anglo service because of the facilities, because of the language barrier. So they would tend to be more open to coming to a Hispanic church. Our Hispanic churches don’t turn anyone away. We don’t typically ask them for documentation. We just want them to come and worship with us. And in almost all of our churches that happens.

Do you see some parallels there between Paul and Onesimus and Philemon?

That would be a good model, yes, as far as dealing with the types of relationships that can occur in our current context. I think our Anglo brethren need to understand that the people who are out there undocumented—they are here to better themselves, they are here to have a better life. I know it’s wrong, but it’s difficult for local churches to negotiate their way through those issues.

I too have pastored churches where we had people who were undocumented. We just didn’t ask them. We witnessed to them and as many of them became Christians, they became missionaries as they went back to their towns and villages back in Mexico or South America.

Today, it’s not just Mexico—it’s all over Latin America. We have people from South America, Central America—there are literally neighborhoods of Hispanic people from other countries in the metroplex. Thirty or 40 years ago it was overwhelmingly Mexicans. But now it’s Hispanics in general.

Actually, it’s complicated things for our churches because they have traditionally been Mexican, but then you get somebody from El Salvador, Bolivia coming in, and you would think they would mix. But sometimes they don’t mix because of the different cultures, the foods. It’s not easy for a pastor to draw these people together from different backgrounds.

Well, our Anglo brethren need to understand that there are people out there who are professional, who are educated, and who are Hispanic and they speak English. That’s a phenomenon already occurring the Valley down in South Texas. And many of the English-speaking churches in the Valley are having to reach out to the community and many times their staff reflects the community: they may have a Hispanic worship leader, they may have a Hispanic pastor on staff.

He may be Anglo, but he’s probably already learning Spanish because he realized that if his church is going to survive, they will need to reach the Hispanic and the Anglo cultures. Not only that, but in the Valley—I was a director of missions down there—the Anglo population is lowering and Hispanic population continues to grow. And you have many professionals, lawyers, doctors, people who are on the city council, architects, and these are the people the Anglos are now reaching out to.

Now in North Texas it’s a little more difficult because the Anglo churches are stronger and less diverse, but we need to understand that it’s imperative we reach out to everyone. We need first-generation Hispanic churches, we need second-generation, and the third and fourth. And the third and fourth may be people who come together as Hispanics and then they have all the service in English. But they may want to sing in Spanish every once in a while. That’s the key—allowing them to hold on to some of their heritage. They may want to hear a Scripture verse in Spanish.

Gilbert Chavez at Oak Meadow in Austin is an example of a guy who does everything in English, but they do some Spanish-language songs to connect with his people. That will attract people from the outside because when they come in they feel more comfortable and they connect better. It’s very difficult for Hispanics to connect in an Anglo setting unless they have a friend and they bring them. But to come from the street, it’s hard for them to connect.

How does the Hispanic family structure affect how we reach out?

Hispanics place a high value on family. Even those who come from other countries, as they come they may have left their family at home, and if they come here, they are thinking about their extended family. And if they find a family here, then they will connect.

I mentioned the Muslims are gaining ground among Hispanics, especially in the San Antonio area, because they base everything on family. And they’re reaching them left and right. I had a pastor in San Antonio tell me it’s amazing how these ladies are sucked in to it. They’ll be wearing their headscarves, they just accept the Muslim faith, and it’s because they have a strong emphasis on the family.

Most people think of Catholicism, but really it’s the Muslims that are gaining ground with Hispanic population. And it’s because of their emphasis on the family. That’s just another factor in reaching Hispanics with the true, biblical gospel.

SBC San Antonio: President urges prayer for Holy Spirit revival

SAN ANTONIO?Let us pray.

“It’s our only hope,” Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page said, reflecting on the prevalence of prayer planned for the SBC’s June 12-13 annual meeting in San Antonio’s Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Each of the SBC’s five sessions

will have a prayer focus:

?Tuesday morning: “Lord, Transform Your Churches.”

?Tuesday afternoon: “Lord, Bring Us to Confession and Repentance.”

?Tuesday evening: “Lord, Unite Us in a Cooperative Mission Task.”

?Wednesday morning: “Lord, Send Revival to Our Convention.”

?Wednesday evening: “Lord, Energize Our Evangelistic Efforts.”

“The central focus for my presidency and therefore for this meeting is to seek from the Lord spiritual awakening?his Holy Spirit’s revival,” Page said. “And that is always prefaced by and enabled by and empowered by prayer.”

A second key facet of this year’s convention will be the unveiling of a general outline for a 10-year evangelistic strategy in the SBC, said Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., who was elected as SBC president last year in Greensboro, N.C.

The North American Mission Board’s newly elected president, Geoff Hammond, has become part of the planning process, Page said, and “it looks like we will be able to unveil a general outline of a 10-year evangelistic strategy which brings associations, state conventions, NAMB and other entities into a true focus in calling churches not just to win souls but, better, showing them how.”

The evangelistic strategy will be “flexible, multifaceted,” Page said. It will encompass “the more traditional people within our convention and the more contemporary or non-traditional people, old and young, various styles and philosophies of evangelism and church planting, Calvinists, non-Calvinists, various people groups ethnically and various groups from the geographical areas across our country.

“Obviously, every Baptist entity is autonomous,” Page said. “But we are coming together to say here is a common direction for 10 years to equip churches and people to win the lost to Christ.”

The evangelism initiative must be in the context of “a massive emphasis on prayer and spiritual awakening,” Page said, “but at the same time we’ve got to put a tool in the hand, a plow in the hand to say here’s how you do it.”

This will be the SBC’s third meeting in San Antonio, following sessions in 1942 attended by 4,774 messengers and 1988 with 32,727 messengers, the third-highest total in SBC history during the Conservative Resurgence movement to return the convention to its biblical roots.

Among the other highlights of the convention:

?The 300th anniversary of Baptist associations, to be marked during Tuesday morning’s session, will be led by Tom Biles, president of the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Directors of Missions and director of missions with the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Baptist Association.

The first Baptist association was formed in Philadelphia in 1707. That group, made up of only a handful of churches, later adopted a confessional statement, supported the education of ministers and engaged in cooperative missions with other churches and associations. Baptist associations arrived in the South in Charleston, S.C., and Sandy Creek, N.C., soon after. These associations were the forerunners of the Southern Baptist Convention, established in 1845.

Today, there are nearly 1,200 Baptist associations, representing more than 44,000 cooperating Southern Baptist churches.

?Page will deliver his presidential address to close out Tuesday morning’s session. Rob Zinn, senior pastor of Immanuel <st1:PlaceN

SBTC volunteers finish deployment in Valley

ROSITA VALLEY?In the tiny border settlement of Rosita Valley, a low-income area southeast of Eagle Pass where most people don’t have insurance and the majority of the population lives in mobile homes, hope is on the horizon and the valley is beginning to fill again.

After 18 days of disaster relief efforts because of a category F3 tornado that left the community in shambles on April 24, SBTC disaster relief teams have left Rosita Valley?a clear sign of progress, as the small community is beginning to support itself and is now preparing for the rebuilding process.

“Our main objective was to get into position where we can provide ministry,” said Jim Richardson, the SBTC’s state director of disaster relief.

Carolynn Spencer, who served by preparing meals for the community and workers, commented that at the start of their efforts, she and other volunteers in conjunction with the Salvation Army were preparing two meals a day for 1,400 people. By the end of their stay, they were serving roughly 500 people.

“As the need went away, so did we,” said Spencer, whom the team referred to as “Mom” because of her persistent help to workers. She is a member of the Church on Rush Creek in Arlington.

“We moved it from state level to the local level,” she said. “Once you get to the point where the local churches can cook the food, then we back off.”

The organization consists of three main elements: clean-up and recovery, feeding, and communications.

For Southern Baptists, who boast the third-largest disaster relief organization in the United States with 73,000 members, churches are vital to the relief and ministry efforts. The greatest goal of the ministry is to connect the relief efforts to the local church by assisting them in their needs.

“We want all of our ministry to relate back to the church,” Richardson said. “After we are gone, people aren’t going to remember what disaster relief organization we were affiliated with…. They are, however, going to know that we were at that church.”

By working so closely with churches, the DR teams help connect people with the local church, where they can be ministered to.

For the victims and the disaster relief teams, tragedies often serve as a time for the Lord to bring about goodness after such a dark, devastating period. Many disaster relief volunteers see this as an opportunity to mend hearts and lives.

“It humbled me quite a bit,” said Roland Spivey, who served as a chaplain in Rosita Valley, his first disaster relief tour. “I was able to lead a girl and her mother to the Lord? Otherwise, I would have never seen them.”

Spivey and four other men spent a week in the Valley. They spoke to nearly 120 people about Jesus Christ and planted seeds. In their time served, four people were saved. Overall at least eight known salvations occurred, but some in the ministry think that as many as 12 might have begun a relationship with Christ.

For the most part, the town seemed hopeful for the future and were determined to make things better, the relief workers said. Many of the victims began forming bonds and relating to one another in meaningful ways.

“Neighbors were working together, helping one another ? almost every place I went to there were two or three families working together,” commented Spencer, who works in real estate appraisal. “They knew they were going to put their community back together.”

The response teams usually become very close to the other team members, encouraging one another and forming long lasting relationships.

“I have become real close to these folks,” said Darryl Cason, director of volunteer chaplains for the SBTC. “It becomes a family situation.”

Close relationships during disaster relief are very important for the team members because it offers them someone to talk with about the damage and tragedies that they witness.<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Trebuchet MS; mso-spacerun: yes"

Being the stranger

My family has moved more than a family should. We’ve been the new people in two regions of the country, two small towns, four cities and several churches. Small towns, like churches, can be close communities where strangers remain somewhat strange for years. No place is as welcoming as your childhood home but most of us don’t live there any more.

I thought of that as I looked at our report on the changing makeup of our Texas communities. Many have noted, and for years, the influx of people from all over the world to the cities and towns of our state. But what is our responsibility as natives in the land when confronted with the reality of accelerating immigration?

This is not a column about border security or legal status. I’m a big fan of border security and of the law. We face a very challenging political problem in addressing the reality of our porous borders and the presence of millions of outlaw immigrants. I have no easy solutions for that. Our challenge as churches is more local and attitudinal. That’s where I’d like to focus for a bit.

First of all, we need to provide for the spiritual needs of newcomers without regard to their legal status. We’ve already made this need a priority. A dazzling selection of ethnic and language churches have arisen through partnerships between state conventions, associations, and already existing churches. The job is not done but we’ve demonstrated that we get it.

And yet, the ubiquity of separate but equal ministries both addresses and ignores important issues in our relationship with those strange to us.

It is a fine thing to provide a ministry that works within the cultural habits of an ethnic group, but those cultural habits should change over time. Minority communities should be affected by the larger population. They should also affect that population with some of their own distinctives. It happens but both parties seem to resent it. We don’t really mind new people coming in but prefer to keep to ourselves.

I noticed this when I first moved to the Midwest from Texas. The church I served welcomed me and was kind to my family in many ways, but we didn’t hang out. They had family and lifelong friends and preferred that company. We’d invite people over and they’d come, but return invitations were very rare. I was a stranger and, without being mean, folks in our church were fine with me finding some ex-patriot Texans to fellowship with. Understandable but wrong. We were a church and should have looked beyond merely circumstantial differences.

The experience of Christians newly located in the United States has got to be like that one I’ve described, but greatly multiplied. We’ll help, be compassionate, show some elements of partnership, but keep fellowship within our traditional circle of trust.

IT’S MINE, RIGHT?

My first conviction is that we, the natives and the majority culture, should repent of our “this-place-is-ours-because-we-were-here-first” mentality. This is present when Yankees move into our Southern towns after an employment relocation. It’s obvious when First Baptist Church, Anywhere, is surrounded by new housing additions.

The attitude rules when my community, but not my church, becomes more ethnically diverse. We prefer that things stay the same, only more so. It is a hard-hearted preference.

If we’ve helped build a great church and a healthy community, it becomes a thing we hold in trust for the God who enabled such a miracle. Just as with everything else we’ve been given, it’s for his glory and not for our comfort. We must, therefore, hazard our close fellowship and peaceful little community by generously sharing it, including ownership and management, with those the Lord brings our way.

STRETCH THE COMFORT ZONE

Second, we are too comfortable with culturally homogenous churches. Forced integration has failed repeatedly but our true desire should be for churches that become the culture of their members regardless of their heart language or accent. For that to happen we’ll need to do something radical.

Instead of waiting for our churches to start looking like the community cultural

Schaeffer’s influence persuaded Falwell

GRAPEVINE, Texas–Ronald Reagan owes the late Francis Schaeffer a posthumous thank-you, which he may have already delivered. Heaven only knows.

Others owe Schaeffer a debt of gratitude, too, including George W. Bush and hundreds of others elected to public office in the last three decades because of religious conservative voters.

Of course, politics and politicians don’t transform hearts through laws, but their work matters in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all. Most important, it matters to God.

Along that line, one temporal victory that stands tall of late is the Supreme Court’s decision against the barbaric procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

That decision on April 18 and the passing of Jerry Falwell on May 15 remind me of Schaeffer’s lasting legacy. Regrettably, a few so-called Christian Reconstructionists have taken Schaeffer’s ideas beyond what he intended, but most folks rightly grasp his call to a holistic witness.

In the 1970s, Schaeffer, a knickers-wearing Presbyterian minister, intellectual giant and prolific writer, and C. Everett Koop, a physician who later would become U.S. surgeon general, produced a book and video series called “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?”

In it, they examined how the rejection of the doctrine of man made in God’s image resulted in a devaluing of human life.

The effect of their work, lamenting modernism’s ruinous effects, challenged a few evangelicals, but not most — at least not immediately.

Southern Baptists, for example, were on record supporting abortion rights as late as 1976. Our ethics agency presented abortion as a sometimes necessary evil. Thankfully, the SBC officially reversed itself in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, a young independent Baptist preacher from Lynchburg, Va., was evolving from a fundamentalist separatist into a cultural icon.

In 2004, as Falwell reflected on his years of ministry in a sermon at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, he paid homage to Schaeffer as the one who roused him to cultural engagement.

Again in February he noted Schaeffer’s influence on him when asked about it during a brief interview at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s evangelism conference.

He told about visiting with Schaeffer and Koop in Virginia and coming away with a fresh view of how Christians could positively engage the world in various arenas.

A few years later, Falwell founded the Moral Majority, an organization whose cause resonated with most evangelicals and even some Roman Catholics, as social issues — most prominently abortion but also encompassing extreme secularism and fallout issues from the so-called sexual revolution — drew religious conservatives in from the political margins.

At the least, Reagan’s election in 1980 and his socially conservative agenda were aided by Falwell and the millions his movement helped mobilize.

Often provocative, especially in the early days, Falwell activated even those who may have squirmed a bit at his occasional verbal overindulgences.

Falwell’s style differed from Schaeffer, but the movement Falwell helped birth has created a consensus among evangelicals that human life is sacred, and that believers must continually beckon the pagan world through words and deeds in every sphere of life, towards a culture that more closely resembles Eden, and to the Christ who redeems.

Those are grandiose goals, but it is the Christian mandate and the greatest apologetic, Schaeffer believed.

Leaders who have risen up since — people such as Richard Land, R. Albert Mohler Jr., James Dobson, even Rick Warren — are marked by Falwell’s influence, which points back to Schaeffer.

If nothing else, Schaeffer should be remembered as a catalytic agent when reflecting on the influence of evangelicals on American culture and government.

As a post-script, it’s worth noting that Falwell’s private charity toward his opponents is mostly unsung, which is a shame.

In the obits that flooded the Internet the week of his death, the words of a Newsweek magazine reporter stood out as cheeky:

“Opponents would call him a vicious and unforgiving bully.”

But the stereotype of the public Falwell is incongruent with the private man, who often extended kindness toward his detractors as quickly as he sometimes shot zingers in a debate.

In a 2003 videotaped interview, Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt told Baptist minister Bob Harrington: “After all these years, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and I have become friends and we talk frequently. He knows what he’s selling and I know what I’m selling.”

Flynt released a statement May 15 after Falwell’s death uttering similar sympathies.

Hustler maliciously parodied Falwell, which led to a defamation lawsuit against Flynt in 1988 that Falwell eventually lost in the Supreme Court.

Later, Falwell befriended Flynt as the pair debated on college campuses over First Amendment rights and responsibilities, causing Flynt to write in the Los Angeles Times May 20, “We steered our conversations
away from politics, but religion was within bounds. He wanted to save me and was determined to get me out of ‘the business.'”

Of all the eulogies, this one is a cogent reminder of the radical call for saved beggars to help lost beggars find salvation. I can’t think of a better legacy.

San Antonio marks silver anniversary

It just dawned on me this week that I am preparing for my 25th consecutive Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. To host the convention in Texas is icing on the cake.

In 1982 I was pastor of the Boeuf River Baptist Church in Rayville, La. God blessed my ministry there. It was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. Once the folks at Boeuf River realized there was a problem in our Southern Baptist Zion, they rallied to the cause.

My wife and I, along with Norman and Ella McKnight, Elsie Adcock, and Nell Morgan drove to New Orleans. Jimmy Draper won the election. This was my formal introduction to the Conservative Resurgence. Unbelievably, in ’83 a group from Boeuf River traveled to Pittsburgh to participate again. Each year it seemed the drama built. Who would control the direction of the convention? Would it be what I called the Bureaucratic-Liberal Coalition or the Grassroots Conservative Southern Baptists?

I was there for the 1985 convention in Dallas when the largest deliberative body ever met for business. There were exotic sites such as St. Louis, Kansas City and Atlanta along the way. We ventured out in rickety church vans and stayed at Motel 6, all out of a conviction about the Word of God.

San Antonio was the host city for the 1988 annual meeting. The meeting held a personal attraction for me. I had been nominated to serve on the Christian Life Commission (now the ERLC). An announcement was made that the moderate-liberal coalition would offer an alternate slate. My name along with many others would be challenged. Not only was the Committee on Nominations report affirmed by the messengers, but Jerry Vines was elected by the slimmest of margins to continue the resurgence.

There have been several intense annual meetings since then for me personally and for Southern Baptists in general. Every year brings its own intrigue and drama. There are always new issues or resurfacing of old issues that demand the attention of Southern Baptists.

Some have lost interest in attending the convention sessions. Ironically, conventions over the last couple of years have taken on the composition of the pre-resurgence times. Mom and Pop Baptists are not coming in large numbers any more. Denominational employees, both state and national, larger- and medium-size church pastors and staff, and locals make up the majority of the attendees. A small special-interest group can wield a disproportionate influence at the annual meeting because of the smaller numbers.

Such groups might even be able to push through decisions unrepresentative of most Southern Baptists. If traditional, conservative Southern Baptists want to see the continuation of our current priorities, they need to attend the meetings. I encourage all Southern Baptists in Texas and beyond to be in San Antonio as messengers and to vote their convictions.

God bless you, God bless the Southern Baptist Convention and God bless Texas!