LEWISVILLE?In its eight-year existence, El Companerismo Biblico El Camino of Lewisville has planted and supported churches and ministries around the world. The Spanish-language church’s latest ministry project, a Russian-language church plant, is only 20 miles away in distance but a world away in culture.

The two churches may seem an unlikely tandem. The pastors, though from different cultures and upbringings, share a common commitment to missions and church planting. Their current ministries give immigrants who might otherwise feel disconnected within their new communities a sense of belonging in a fellowship of believers.

“I’ve always had a burden for missions,” said Felix Cornier, pastor of El Camino and an SBTC church planting consultant. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York, Cornier did not learn to speak Spanish until he was 21. At El Camino he has worked to create a mission-minded church. The fruit of their faith is reflected in a budget that sets aside 20 percent for missions, including the SBTC and the Cooperative Program missions funding plan.

“That,” Cornier said, “is non-negotiable.”

The Hispanic congregation financially and prayerfully supports Russian Bible Church, an SBTC congregation whose pastor, Josef Lozovyy, is an accomplished violinist. El Camino mission coordinator John McLaughlin said their support has not been with physical help, in part due to logistics. Both congregations are spread throughout the Dallas area. The financial assistance, he said, allows the Russian church to develop as God leads.

“We want to take a backseat and let God lead the Russian church. This was the most effective way of helping,” McLaughlin said.

Lozovyy contacted Cornier in 2007 about supporting the start of a Russian-language church in the Richardson area. He said he contacted the SBTC because the Southern Baptist Convention had been a significant help when his father was involved in church planting in Ohio.

The decision to assist the upstart Russian church was not a difficult one for the small Hispanic church, the majority of whom, Cornier said, are new believers. Launched in 2000, El Camino is a fellowship with a common faith and language but a variety of backgrounds. The congregation of 147 has an average age of 37. They are young couples, day laborers, and professionals. Some are American by birth while others are immigrants from numerous Spanish-language nations?Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.

Although they did not share a common native tongue, they shared a common experience with their Russian brothers and sisters and even if the support funds had to come out of his own salary, Cornier said he was determined to help.

It was not Lozovyy’s first effort to start a Russian-language church in North Texas.

As a seminary student in Dallas in the late 1990s he made three attempts in two years to start a congregation but his efforts bore no fruit. The opportunity for continued education took him from Dallas back to Ohio where his family had first immigrated in 1992 when Lozovyy was 19 years old. His father, Teodoziy, had been a Protestant church planter in Russia and it was in that spiritually bleak land that Lozovyy’s Christian education began.

In Russia before the Glasnost reforms of the 1980s, the Lozovyy family at times found themselves the only confessing Christians they knew of. It was also illegal, he said, for parents to take their children to church.

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April 26 is Cooperative Program Day. The Cooperative Program is an awesome tool for God’s churches to accomplish Acts 1:8 missions and ministry in an efficient way. With the economic uncertainty we all face difficult times. Some say the place to cut the budget is with “charitable” or “discretionary” giving. However, to those of us in Jesus Kingdom work, Christian stewardship is not altered during hard times. God is still in control of our world and especially our finances. There is no better time than now to be an example of stewardship by staying faithful in giving.

There are over 10,000 missionaries in North America and around the world. While individual mission trips are important for Southern Baptists, without the foundation of the Cooperative Program there would be no continuous Southern Baptist presence among these gospel-needy people. My friend David Shepherd and his wife, Peggy, just recently went to southern Asia. He is my age. He has been a successful pastor and respected seminary professor. Now he is living in a challenging environment 247 to spread the gospel. He does not visit a week or two and go home. As he told me, “I want to invest the rest of my life there.” Your gifts to the CP make his work possible. Only eternity will show who partnered with David and Peggy through the Cooperative Program to win many to Jesus.

Over 15,000 seminary students in six SBC seminaries get a portion of their education paid through the Cooperative Program. A 20-something friend of mine, Nate, told me last Sunday he is concerned that his children may not have the opportunity to get the kind of seminary education he is receiving at a reduced expense. He wants another generation to enjoy the benefits of our Cooperative Program giving. Through the Cooperative Program you invest in the lives of our future pastors, missionaries, church planters and staff ministers like Nate.

A small amount of CP goes to fund the strong stance Southern Baptists take on social and moral issues through the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It is not for us to win every contest or engage every issue. We are called upon to be prophets to the culture about God’s truth. One of my closest friends, Harold, serves the Lord through a role at the ERLC speaking to Southern Baptists and speaking for Southern Baptists. He works to please the Lord, pouring his life into others. Your CP giving enables Harold to fulfill his calling.

Christian and Jake are high school seniors. They told me that God has called them to the ministry. They applied for enrollment at Criswell College. Through the Cooperative Program they will receive some tuition assistance. These fine young men are committing their lives to serve our Lord Jesus in leadership roles. Your CP gifts support them in their journey.

Joel planted a church in a Texas metro area last year. He is reaching people who need the Lord Jesus. Because of Cooperative Program support, Joel has been able to have a strong start with phenomenal attendance and numbers of people coming to Christ. Through the CP you are a part of every soul.

Space does not allow for all the testimonies I could give. God is moving in the lives of literally millions because of the Cooperative Program. You can help tell the story.

Within a couple of weeks materials will arrive at your church highlighting this powerful channel of blessing. Please consider showing the DVD, using bulletin inserts, bringing a lesson or message. If April 26 does not work for you, please consider another day. CP giving begins with the believer and his stewardship through the local church. Everyone can give something. Every family can tithe. Every church can participate through the Cooperative Program.

Bless your church by telling about this exciting partnership through the Cooperative Program. It is important that everyone in our SBTC family knows that the Cooperative Program works. Thank you for the privilege of serving you because of the Cooperative Program.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is drawn from several student ministry articles featured in the current issue of Texas Baptist Crossroads magazine. The more detailed articles in Crossroads deal with a shift in how churches disciple and minister to students and offer advice for churches transitioning to a home-based student ministry.

The statistics are stunning: Southern Baptists are baptizing a steadily decreasing number of students, and droves of them?about 60 percent?are leaving the church after graduating from high school.

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention staff isn’t letting the numbers numb them; they’ve been busy writing curricula, planning events and organizing think tanks to equip parents and youth ministers with biblical strategies and responses to the alarming mass departure.

Morevover, the SBTC is offering resources redefining the youth minister’s role, tapping parents as partners in student ministry, and even mobilizing other students to reach their communities and peers for Christ.

Intersecting the Christian home and youth ministry, SBTC staffers developed the “Home-Based Student Ministry” (HBSM) curriculum, which has two key components:

?Engage parents as primary Bible teachers for their children.

?Release student ministers to provide service and leadership opportunities for students.

Bookending the HBSM is a five-session, DVD-based discipleship study course for parents titled “Inheritance: Passing Down a Legacy of Faith to Our Children.” The study entails four video teaching sessions complete with printable PDF documents, a leader’s guide, home Bible study materials, and other resources for a complete, user-friendly package. Retailing at $69.95, Inheritance materials may be ordered at planetstudents.org. SBTC-affiliated churches receive a 20 percent discount.

Anticipating young adults’ transition to college and career?when they are most prone to drop out of church life?the SBTC staff is forming a web-based resource enabling parents and young adults to find viable churches and other ministries the young adults can plug into upon arriving in their new locales. SBTC Church Ministries Associate Ken Lasater will gather insights at the upcoming Student Leaders’ Escape, Oct 5-7, at the Highland Lakes Center in Spicewood.

The SL Escape is a think-tank laboratory meeting, combining ideas and information to develop workable strategies to strengthen the church-student connection.

“There’ll be no keynote speakers to give us education from their viewpoint,” said Lasater, who invites all interested parties to attend. See sbtexas.com/slescape for additional information or to register.

Training new church leaders

Another disturbing statistic is the amount of time churches invest each week in training students for church leadership roles?on average fewer than 15 minutes.

“That means we’re in great need of developing the right kind of leaders for the future: those who are skilled, prepared and committed for the long haul,” Lasater noted.

The SBTC’s answer is two-fold: Summer Worship University (SWU)?focusing on developing worship skills?and Student Leadership Training (SLT) covering other areas of church leadership. SWU classes include vocal and instrumental music, creative arts, and technical media. SLT classes offer training in student ministry, missions, public speaking, teaching, preaching, general church leadership and church recreation and fellowship.

Registrations for the July 13-18 SWU and SLT camps at Schreiner University in Kerrville received by May 1, $235; and after May 1, $265. Fees include all materials, a learner’s syllabus, a shirt, meals, lodging and conferences and all fees

Texas joins a long line of states introducing legislation to save families by strengthening marriages. And although only three states have enacted marriage covenant laws?Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona?the last two decades have seen both federal and state legislators initiating public policies to restore marriage to its once-honored position.

“Men and women who are married have been shown to be happier and healthier. Marriage also provides for increased financial viability, and children fare better in two-parent households. Children of married parents are less likely to engage in criminal behavior, abuse drugs and alcohol, become pregnant out of wedlock, or experience emotional and psychological troubles.

Based on research proving the ordinance of marriage to benefit adults, children, and society in general, legislation targeting this public institution is not new.

According to the U.S. Administration for Children and Families, “marriages exist in a social and cultural ecology that support or work against them.” The Administration’s website claims that “both directly and indirectly, public policy is crafted to support?or unintentionally weaken?marriage.” Because healthy marriages begat healthy communities, “marriage is a defensible target of public policy.”

Defending the notion of legislation as a viable form of policy intervention for failing marriages, the Administration believes “well-designed legislation intervention” can impact numerous lives in positive ways.

Any timeline for a public policy approach to strengthening marriages begins against the backdrop of legislation in the 1960s and 70s. During this time, family law was characterized by leniency?both the advent of contraception and no-fault divorces.

But beginning in the 1990s, a movement evolved dedicated to strengthening marriage. Its impact can be seen in the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

Additionally, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) gave states the latitude to tailor welfare programs to their own specific problems and needs.

With their newfound freedom in regulating welfare funds, many states began to reduce welfare incentives to couples who remained unmarried. Prior to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, single-parent families qualified for welfare with little funds directed to two-parent families.

But it was with the election of George W. Bush in 2000 that the federal government gave concerted effort to rebuilding the institution of marriage. In 2002, federal funding was slated to support marriage promotion programs such as the Healthy Marriage Initiative within the Administration for Children and Families, which was designed to help couples obtain marriage education and to sustain healthy marriages. Additionally, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 allocated $150 million each year until 2011 for healthy marriage promotion and responsible fatherhood programs.

Today, most states have enacted legislation to encourage marriage and strengthen the family. In many states, high schools now offer marriage and family education curricula. And with the rise of faith-based organizations came the introduction of community marriage-promotion programs. Marriage Savers, a marriage preservation organization, has helped 183 cities in over 40 states reduce their divorce rate, their website claims. Other public initiatives include reenactment of fault-based systems for divorce and restrictions on unilateral no-fault divorce.

In Texas, House Joint Resolution 6 serves as a recent example of public policy targeting marriages on the state level. The resolution, a product of the Texas Conservative Coalition, amended the Texas Constitution to define marriage as consisting solely of the union between one man and one woman.

Despite the push on the state level to reaffirm traditional family values, only three states have gone as far to enact covenant marriage legislation (Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona). While most of 20th century family law legislation sought to liberalize restrictions on di

AUSTIN?While Texas lawmakers wrangle over the appropriate direction for family law reform in the legislature, one church is already hard at work building a foundation to strengthen marriages in the heart of the state’s capital.

At Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, the covenant nature of marital and family relationships was the subject of a fall emphasis. Pastor Michael Lewis led the congregation through a sermon series focusing on the subject, a 40-day love dare in which church members lived out the covenant love of Christ with friends and family, and a vow renewal service.

After previewing a screening of the “Fireproof” movie starring Kirk Cameron and produced by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., Lewis said he felt convicted to provide his church with practical and biblical teaching on the covenant nature of God and its implications in the lives of believers.

“We’ve seen marriage and family disintegrate in today’s culture with no values and no stability,” Lewis said. “We sensed a great desire to convey to believers and to our church today the stability found in a covenant relationship?found with God first of all and then found in covenant marriage relationships and even in covenant relationships with family.”

Although Lewis believes covenant marriage legislation can only strengthen families, he said it is the church’s responsibility to provide real remedies for the spiritual problem of failing marriages.

As a kick-off to the marriage emphasis GHBC rented five theaters on “Fireproof’s” opening weekend, and over 1,000 church members viewed the movie with family and friends. Additionally, 1,200 members of GHBC participated in a 40-day love dare intended to strengthen all forms of relationships. As seen in the “Fireproof” movie, the “40-Day Love Dare” is a devotional guide produced by Sherwood pastors and “Fireproof” creators Alex and Stephen Kendrick. The book provides daily challenges or “dares” to demonstrate love to a spouse.

“It was a challenge each day to exhibit Christ-like love in those covenant relationships,” Lewis said. “We had our members demonstrate practical ways of being patient and kind with each other on a daily basis. Each love dare gave them a biblical teaching and then gave them a life application of how to experience that love.

Lewis said the church saw families and marriages greatly influenced by the love of Christ.

“We saw growing marriages strengthened. We have experienced several marriages that had no hope experience new hope in Christ,” Lewis said, adding that one couple was reconciled after being divorced for two years. “The husband had recently accepted Christ in our congregation and the wife wasn’t going to church anywhere, but she began to see life change in his heart and life. She began to watch us on TV while I was teaching about covenant marriage, and she came to church and now they are remarried and going through biblical counseling.”

Other examples that highlight the eternal impact of the 40-day love dare included increased communication between spouses.

“Couples that have never prayed together now pray together,” Lewis added. “Some couples that had faint hearts about their marriage?one considering divorce?when they understood their marriage was a covenant and not just a contract to be broken, they re-affirmed their vows to each other.”

The marriage emphasis culminated in a vow renewal service for 230 couples on Oct. 26. The candlelight service gave members an opportunity to remind themselves of the covenant nature of marriage. After the ceremony, a church-wide celebration included a reception and wedding pictures.

But it was Lewis’ introductory sermon on covenant marriage that provided a springboard for the Great Hills marriage emphasis. The Sept. 7 sermon identified three key principles regarding covenants and their modern-day implications for daily life.

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