HORSESHOE BAY, Texas ? Nothing catalyzes Americans to action more than the violation of personal, physical freedom, said WORLD magazine founder Joel Belz, speaking during the 2009 Association of State Baptist Papers fellowship in Horseshoe Bay, Feb. 10-13. Describing Western culture’s captivation with civil liberties, Belz warned against a grosser perversion of the God-given gift of physical freedom that occurs not at gunpoint, but in a “quiet embezzlement while no one is watching.”

“We do not have to fear atomic bombs; we do need to fear godless men and their ideas,” said Belz, quoting the late Fulton J. Sheen, an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church who conducted a weekly television program in the 1950s.”

Liberty a gift, not a right

Admitting that it may sound “overly cheap and almost obscene” to assert that civil liberties are not at the core of the true meaning of freedom, Belz argued that physical freedom and freedom of religion are not the ultimate issues of liberty.

Noting he could easily set the stage for a discussion on freedom with warnings of Muslim extremists, or North Korea and Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Belz instead called attention to Matthew 10:28, which states: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“There is a strange tendency among us all when we take up the issue of liberty in general and religious liberty in particular to reduce the discussion to somehow its most tangible and visible aspects,” he said. “So, we measure liberty’s progress overly much in terms of the absence of literal chains ? the absence of literal jail cells, the absence of literal guns, or the absence, in Muslim terms, of literal gallows.”

Americans think of themselves as free people primarily because the country has been mostly spared from physical restraint in the forms of totalitarian governments or repressive religious regimes, he said.

Careful not to minimize God’s gracious dealings toward the American nation, Belz said the global persecution of the church is the subject of four to five pages in WORLD magazine.

“Nonetheless, I hope we still always see such reports in their right perspective. That perspective is that throughout the long history of God’s people from Old Testament times until this very moment, persecution and the loss of civil liberty and the reduction of personal freedom have been among the very best gifts that God ever gives to his children,” he said. “Just like the blood of martyrs throughout the history of the church wonderfully watered the church as thousands of able young people committed their lives to the preaching of the gospel around the world.”

As such, Belz said, liberty is neither an end itself, nor is it a personal right. Instead, liberty should be viewed as a gift.

“Freedom and liberty of this sort are gifts God graciously extends to some of his servants, just as to some he gives good health, or financial prosperity, or beautiful children. But we should never fall into the trap of supposing that the state of political liberty or civic freedom is the norm for God’s people ? just as we do not expect that he owes us perfect health or a big bank account or deliverance from Wall Street or beautiful children.”

The fact that the nation has been largely spared from physical enslavement has both spoiled and blinded the church, Belz said, noting that “God’s goodness might be even more extravagantly expressed to his people when he sends us to Egypt or to Babylon.”

“The irony in all this may be that in our aversion to physical bondage and to persecution we have such a remarkable tendency to fall into bondage to a very different taskmaster ? our love for freedom. Our love for freedom can become our taskmaster,” he said.

And in a culture built on Patrick Henry’s famous credo, “give me liberty or give me death,” Belz said one only has to look at the annals of history to see the abuse of freedom paves the way for nominalism in the church.

“?I’m going to ask you to ponder the extent to which we, right here in America, have come to overly worship the gift of freedom that God has given us ? more than the giver of that gift himself,” he said, alluding to America’s “love affair” with the Declaration of Independence. “Just as we do with some of his other good gifts, we make freedom a false god, pushing from his rightful place the God that may or may not choose to give us such freedom. We come to the point of insisting this gift is instead our birthright.”

While agreeing that bondage is something from which to ask God’s deliverance, Belz proposed that “loss of liberty” could also serve as part of God’s plan of enrichment for his followers.

HORSESHOE BAY, Texas ? Baptist editors were urged to remain faithful to their calling as truth-tellers for Southern Baptists during the 2009 Association of State Baptist Papers fellowship in Horseshoe Bay, Feb. 10-13. The meeting was hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Keynote speaker and founder of WORLD magazine, Joel Belz, also called on the editors not to abandon print media, but instead to infuse their work with a Christian worldview.

“Now when we live in a time when the printed page is called an endangered species, I want to say to you don’t believe it,” said Belz, who writes a weekly column for WORLD and is co-author of “Whirled Views,” a collection of columns with WORLD Editor-in-Chief Marvin Olasky. “It is still a powerful, powerful tool once you learn to make it useful.”

WORLD magazine’s roots draw from the Presbyterian Journal, a North Carolina newspaper founded by Nelson Bell, the father-in-law of Billy Graham, and God’s World, a weekly series for children that is still published today. Although WORLD faced a rocky start, the “senior version” of the kids magazine just recently surpassed the circulation of Christianity Today.

But even with a strong subscription list, Belz said he still has difficulty finding qualified writers to evaluate movies, books, music and art for the magazine’s review section. The founder eventually developed three criteria. First, a reporter must “see” accurately what is going on in any piece of art. Second, a reporter must report with interest what they have seen. And third, the reporter must write from a shepherd’s heart.

As he developed his qualifications for the review section, Belz said he realized those qualifications applied to the entire magazine, whether covering the federal stimulus bill or international issues.

“The basic premise of WORLD is from 1 John 1: 3, which states, ‘What we have seen and heard we declare to you.’ We are not there to simply warm over other people’s reports. [We] ask questions and see it for ourselves,” he said, adding that they recently sent a reporter to Baghdad for a week. “I’m not sure how many of you have done reporting in other countries. I like to be where I am safe, but if I am safe will I see what’s true?”

The tension between reporting from a position of safety and truly engaging the truth of a story is felt by every reporter, Belz said. The tension can also be seen in a church setting as editors seek to discern issues in a local church, region, or convention.

“When you talk to people, are you talking from a perspective of safety or are you talking from a perspective of seeing the truth?” he asked. “I discovered right away that what I thought at first for the review section was applicable to the whole magazine.”

But the call to be a truth-teller also applies to a believer’s personal walk with God, Belz said.

“It is incumbent on you as a disciple of Jesus to work harder and harder to see the world the way he sees it. That is what Christian worldview thinking is ? you see the world the way God sees it,” he said. “That is your task, not just as an editor, publisher or church person, but as a disciple of Jesus to see the world in crisper and crisper terms the way God sees it. And then to bear witness to what you’ve seen with interest.”

In the same way a reporter tries to draw a reader into his story, believers should seek to draw the lost into the gospel message.

“You don’t want to be Jesus’ witness with boring language ? you want to put it in sparkling terms [to those] who may have never heard.”

Held in connection with the fellowship of State Convention Executive Directors, editors also received updates from media representatives of LifeWay Christian Resources, the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, as well as remarks on the national evangelism initiative known as GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) by NAMB President Geoff Hammond.

At the invitation of ASBP President Gary Ledbetter, two SBC entities appeared for the first time in decades to give reports t

MEMPHIS, Tenn.?Six people were found shot and stabbed to death in a mass murder in Memphis’ dangerous Binghamton neighborhood. Three children who survived the attack were hospitalized in critical condition.

And before the dead bodies were cold, yet another shooting and robbery took place in the same gang- and drug-plagued Binghamton area, located just six miles from downtown Memphis.

Southern Baptist missionaries Willie and Ozzie Jacobs Jr.?believing it will take no less than Jesus Christ to once and for all change the crime-culture of Memphis and stop such senseless neighborhood violence and bloodshed?have taken on the challenge.

Although now in their early 60s and married for 41 years, the couple is not ready for matching rocking chairs and simply waiting on monthly Social Security checks. They are on a mission from God in one of the perennial “Top Ten” most dangerous cities in the United States.

“Memphis is in the middle of spiritual warfare,” Jacobs remarked when asked about the spiritual climate of Tennessee’s youngest but second-largest metro area. “We’re dealing with murder, crime and drugs throughout the city. There’s a racial divide that has plagued Memphis since the days of Dr. Martin Luther King. It’s never healed. There’s also an economic and a political divide. In the middle of all this, we try to do ministry.”

And as if ministry in Memphis was not challenging enough, Jacobs serves the North American Mission Board?in partnership with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and the Mid-South Baptist Association?as regional coordinator of church planting for the four-state Memphis Delta Region, including parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri.

The Jacobses are two of 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. They are among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1-8. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest.” The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like the Jacobses.

Willie and Ozzie (pronounced “O-zie”) didn’t have to transfer to Memphis last July. They were quite happy and content in Columbus, Ohio, where Willie was serving as a church planting strategist for the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio. Before that, he spent 30 years as a full-time pastor?20 years at a single church?in the Dallas area. Both Alabama natives, they now live in nearby Collierville, Tenn., and have three grown daughters and two grandchildren.

“For 40 years, we dreamed of the day when we’d become missionaries going to Africa,” he said. “But God allowed the mission field to come to us, after years of experience as a pastor in Texas.

“We came to Memphis because we sensed the lostness and spiritual climate of Memphis. We felt the Lord wanted us to come here and make an impact in new and innovative ways. This is a God-sized job here in Memphis when you look at the enormous responsibility we’ve been given as national missionaries.” He said sometimes it’s almost overwhelming.

Jacobs has launched a multi-pronged strategy for the Memphis area. He does his best to work along aside other predominantly African-American denominations?strong in Memphis?such as the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and the National Baptist Convention, although “their concept of missions is quite different from ours as Southern Baptists,” Jacobs admitted.

“One of the biggest challenges we face among Southern Baptist churches is to help people change their mindsets about how ministry is done. The churches need to learn new approaches in order to reach people with the gospel, and do it in such a way that’s non-threatening. You have to build relationships,” Jacobs said.

“There’s a real need for churches to realize that ministry takes place on the outside and that a lot of the needs of people are going unmet because church members and fellowships are not going out.”

The greater Memphis area has a population of 1.2 million, making the city Tennessee’s second-largest metropolitan area behind <st1

A co-worker from long ago had a Yogi Berra moment in staff meeting and said, “We’ve got to have some priorities and some of them need to be first.” The rest of us eventually understood what he meant. It’s one of the biggest challenges of any life to do the important stuff first or even to accurately discern what should be first on our to-do list.

It is a complicating matter that many of our volunteer advisors give contradictory answers about that first thing. They’re very disappointed if we choose somebody else’s first thing, even on our list for today. I find that it is a matter of focus, that almost mystical state of being able to see and hear though the clutter until we make out the path we should take.

When Chesley Sullenberger landed flight 1549 in the Hudson River last month, people hailed him as a hero, a professional, the very model of a modern Major-General or something like that. I have no problem with that although I wonder what we would have said if he had done every single thing that he did but without the blessing of a mostly functional aircraft and a long, straight stretch. I’m amazed at his focus.

As he decided to land the monster aircraft in an unconventional and risky place, Captain Sullenberger had to pay attention to:

?pitch

?yaw

?roll

?wind

?flaps

?fuel

?speed

?rate of descent

?gear

?the length of his runway

?obstacles in and above his runway

He could have also been distracted by:

?his crew (who he knew by name)

?his passengers (who he knew in abstract)

?people along the shore

?emergency vehicles headed toward the river

?buildings around the crash site

?cursing his fowl luck

?his career

?radio chatter

?fear

?thinking about his family

But for long enough, he focused on the one thing he needed to do. He adequately winnowed through all the sensory input to find those things that deserved his full attention and gave it to them at just the right moment. I admire that and find amazing all such stories where a person does a difficult thing just right in spite of a thousand good excuses to fail.

What do you do? All of us have a calling of some sort from God. We might not normally think of our clerical job or sales job as a calling but it is God who provided you the place to work. It surely could have turned out otherwise. As Christians, we serve and glorify God although in a variety of mundane or exalted specialties, but one of those is your bit of the load for today. How do you go about giving it due attention?

For some of us, it depends on how important we think the job might be. If you are in a menial job, you might be tempted to decide how much of the hour you’re being rightly compensated for and then blow off the rest. Your boss steals from you so you steal from him. Actually I believe this way of thinking runs all the way up and down the career ladder. I’d argue that we’re wrong to suppose that we know the significance of our jobs in the eyes of God. God called us to serve him, he gave us days and hours in which to bear his name, and he blessed you and me with ways to earn our bread. That sounds pretty important to me. If nothing else, gratitude should motivate us to wear his brand with all the integrity we can muster.