Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Board members listen as Criswell College Interim President Lamar E. Cooper, Sr., give his report from the school.

Four affiliated ministries that partner with SBTC reported to the Executive Board on their efforts to provide educational ministries as well as avenues for adoption, foster care and assistance to troubled families.

East Texas Baptist Family Ministries (ETBFM) was organized in 2003, partnering with SBTC to provide children’s homes, maternity homes, ministers’ retirement homes and recreational, educational and retreat events, as well as housing equipment for Disaster Relief, volunteer builders and crusade evangelism.

ETBFM President Gerald Edwards encouraged SBTC-affiliated churches to take advantage of free housing available at the Timpson site for up to 50 volunteers for various work projects. Individuals and churches may contact Edwards at 903-822-3474 or visit www.etbfm.org.

“We do a lot of work out here with a very short stick,” Edwards remarked. “I’m thankful for the way this business is going and what’s happening here,” he said, alluding to a devotional offered to Board members on the priority Jesus gave to being about his father’s business.

Texas Baptist Homes President Eddie Marsh reported that the number of children in the care of TBH ranges from 97 to 120 as they attempt to move them from foster care to finding permanent homes through adoption programs. Of the more than 15,000 children in foster care in the state, 6,077 are legally free and awaiting adoption, Marsh shared.

A new office will be opened in the Mid-Cities area of the Dallas-Fort Worth region to recruit foster families. Families and churches in the area are encouraged to contact TBH at 972-937-1321 or visit www.tbhc.org. At their home office in Waxahachie, TBH also provides maternity care and training for families in crisis.

Both Criswell College in Dallas and Jacksonville (Tx.) College are looking ahead to site visits from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as part of the process of reaffirming accreditation. Classes begin at Criswell College on Aug. 17 and at Jacksonville College on Aug. 28.

Criswell College celebrates its 40th anniversary in the coming year with five major events planned. Interim president Lamar E. Cooper, Sr. told of an expository preaching conference Oct. 5-6 to launch the emphasis, followed by the Criswell Lectures Jan. 19-21, a missions conference in March featuring alumni serving around the world, an anniversary dinner during the annual meeting of the SBC and a reunion in the fall of 2010 to reinstitute the School of the Prophets.

Cooper said students continued to join with SBTC in sharing the gospel, participating in annual SBC and SBTC pre-convention evangelistic outreach efforts, as well as student workshops in music and student ministry.

First Baptist Church of Dallas has accepted the terms of separation from the school, Cooper reported, with the process to be finalized early next year. SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards serves on the transition team that will assist in the process of independence. More information on the school is available by calling 800-899-0012 or online at criswell.edu.

Jacksonville College President Edwin Crank spoke of the school’s mission to train students who are called to preach as well as educating future laymen who can give wise counsel as church leaders.

Founded by Baptists in 1899, the school’s charter was amended in 1923 to allow the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas to become the owner. In 2002 the college affiliated with the SBCT and the two entities formend a partnership as part of the Hispanic “Education Superhighway” Agreement to provide accredited higher education of Hispanics. Manuel Giron completed the 24 hours required for the basic certificate in that program last May.

“I encourage you as somebody on the outside looking in, don’t let the Cooperative Program slip away from you,” Crank told board members. “It is a good method for giving.” For more information call 903-586-2518 or visit jacksonville-college.edu.

Tom Campbell directs facilitating ministries for the SBTC, including fraternally-related partnerships with Houston Baptist University and Baptist Credit Union, and ministry partnerships with Korean Baptist Fellowship of Texas, Nehemiah’s Vision, Texas Baptist Men and Texas Life Connections. Contact Campbell at tcampbell@sbtexas.com or call 877-953-SBTC.

The annual SBTC Church Leadership Conference, Aug. 14-15 at First Baptist Church of Forney, will offer more than 60 topical sessions with “the brightest and best” thinkers in church ministry today, said Church Ministries Associate Kenneth Priest.

The conference will feature keynote speaker Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, on Aug. 15. Also included this year are pre-conference sessions on Friday, Aug. 14 featuring roundtable discussions and a session called “Spiritual Conversations with the Unchurched” with Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church in suburban Nashville, Tenn., and author of “In Real Time: Authentic Young Adult Ministry As It Happens.”

“The main emphasis of the Church Leadership Conference is comprehensive leadership training,” Priest said. “From a pastor’s perspective, this conference is designed for them to bring their key lay leaders and there is a track of study that will help that lay leader in service to the church. We have tried to focus on the hot topics in the church today.

“In today’s economic climate, most churches are not going to be able to do all the training they would want to do at the church. We have made available at a minimal cost top-level leaders. Overall, I think we’re bringing in the brightest and best.”

Priest said examples of such leaders are Alan Chambers, executive director of Exodus International, in response to what Priest said was a growing number of inquiries from churches, especially small- and medium-size churches in metropolitan areas, about ministry to people with homosexual attraction, and church staff members such as David Lorenz, college and singles pastor at First Baptist Church of Orlando.

Chambers will lead discussions on “Leaving Homosexuality” and “Practical Tips on Ministering to Children Whose Parents are in the Gay Community.”

Tracks include collegiate ministry, missions, family ministry, evangelism, preschool and preteen ministry, student ministry, technology, pastoral ministry, publicity and many others.

Other breakout sessions include such topics as “Spiritual Practices of Small Group Leaders,” “Equipping Parents to be the Primary Disciplers,” “Effective Church Websites,” “Developing a Church Evangelism Team,” and “iPod Children in Sunday School.”

The theme verse for the conference is Philippians 4:9: “Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

A Spanish-language session will also be offered at the conference featuring Mike Gonzales, director of the Hispanic Initiative and SBTC Ethnic Ministries, along with his wife, Dalia; SBTC ministry associate Bruno Molina and his wife, Clara; and Sergio Arce of LifeWay Christian Resources.

Registration through Aug. 7 is $15 per person or $20 at the door. To register or for more information, visit sbtexas.com/clc. First Baptist Forney is about 15 minutes east of Dallas at 1003 College St. (FM 741) in Forney (75126).

This year’s SBTC Student Evangelism Conference (SEC) at the Dallas Convention Center Aug. 7-8 will feature speakers Afshin Ziafat and Ed Newton and music from Sanctus Real, Brandon Heath and Dutton.

“The theme ‘Message Received, Message Sent’ illustrates what we hope to achieve with the Student Evangelism Conference this year,” said SBTC Student Evangelism Associate Jared McIntire. “We hope students will receive the message and in turn send out the gospel with their lives and witness.”

Ziafat and Newton are the right speakers to communicate that vision, McIntire said.

“Both of these guys have incredible life stories of God’s grace and serve as some of the best student communicators in the United States. They will challenge the lost to be saved and the believer to share his or her faith. On top of having musical artists Brandon Heath and Sanctus Real, we are fortunate to have one of the next up and coming worship bands, Dutton. These guys are talented, humble, and love students.”

Raised as a Muslim in Houston by immigrants from Iran, Ziafat came to Christ through the witness of friends in high school and a Bible given him when he was a boy by a Christian tutor. He dug the Bible out of a closet when he was challenged to read it by some high school friends.

Newton was raised as the only child of deaf parents, and became a Christian in high school after a series of hardships. A former church student minister and outreach pastor, Newton serves as staff evangelist at Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, Tenn.

For those unfamiliar with the annual SEC, McIntire said the event is one where students, student ministers, and student volunteers can find spiritual refreshment and revitalization to be “effective witnesses in the spheres of influence where God has placed them.”

Conference registration begins at 2 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 7, with doors opening at 5:45 p.m. and session one beginning at 6 p.m. and ending at 10 p.m.

Doors open on Sat., Aug. 8 at 8:15 a.m. with the session beginning at 9 a.m. and running until noon.

Registration as a group is encouraged by visiting planetstudents.org, where additional information on area hotels and restaurants is available. Conference cost is $30 per person or $35 at the door.

The Dallas Convention Center is at 650 S. Griffin St., Dallas (75202-5098).

As usual, there is a Six Flags special rate available for conference attendees. Park tickets are available at the discounted rate of $25.50 per person (plus fees and tax) online at sixflags.com/overtexas. Enter the promo code SBTC09. There will also be a Six Flags booth with tickets for sale at the SEC.

McIntire added: “Through the music and speakers I hope unbelieving students will experience the grace of God and trust Christ as their Savior and Lord. I pray teenagers who have made mistakes and feel unworthy hear that God does love them despite their faults. I hope the stubborn and rebellious students will be humbled and broken by the cross of Jesus. I look forward to seeing and hearing how God shows up.”

ROCKWALL?Steve Swofford, pastor of First Baptist Church of Rockwall, said he plans to nominate First Baptist Church of Odessa pastor Byron McWilliams as president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention during the SBTC annual meeting Oct. 26-27 in Lubbock.

Swofford, a former SBTC president, said McWilliams provides “first of all a role model for what a biblical home and family” should be and is someone with “integrity and authenticity.” Married 27 years to Andi, the native Texas couple has three teenagers.

“Byron is a faithful and trustworthy Great Commission pastor who is deeply committed to personal evangelism and text-driven preaching” as well as international missions. McWilliams serves as an International Mission Board trustee who has led his church to give sacrificially through the Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions.

Swofford praised McWilliams for leading FBC Odessa to affiliate with the SBTC during his five years as pastor there.

“Although very involved in the SBTC through his faithful attendance at the annual meetings and SBTC-sponsored speaking engagements, Byron has never served as an officer of the convention or on the executive board and so his election would not only give us a president from West Texas, but would also continue the SBTC precedent of electing fresh leadership to the SBTC,” Swofford said.

Who should be allowed to read the Bible? No really, when the “science is settled” and still the religious ignorant among us insist on dragging our feet as our masters try to pull our children toward enlightenment, is it in the public interest to allow untrained and unsophisticated people to read God’s Word for themselves?

President Obama’s designee to head the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, seems to think that it is not. Collins has been the poster boy for acceptable evangelicals since he began his campaign for theistic evolution a few years back. Dr. Collins is the founder of the BioLogos Foundation which, in its effort to find harmony between science and faith, handles non-evolutionists with contempt. Collin’s co-founder at BioLogos is Karl Giberson. Giberson recently conducted an interview (friendly chat, in reality) with Collins for Books & Culture. One reason Giberson gave for the presence of evolution deniers among his fellow evangelicals is that, “We encourage people to read the Bible on their own, but certain misunderstandings are bound to emerge with that approach. Young people are going to read Genesis and think of Adam and Eve as real biological parents of the human race.” Collins responded that we should put “God’s other book,” the book of Nature, in a place of authority more comparable to that of the Bible?to not so quickly assume that the Bible is correct when there is an apparent contradiction with the conclusions of (selected) scientists.

Substitute “conciliar law” for “the book of Nature” and “priests” for “scientists” in BioLogos’ scheme and you’ve reverted to 1516, before the Protestant Reformation restored biblical authority to its preeminent role. It was more convenient for the priesthood of that day that the untrained take their word for religious matters, just as it is for the secular priesthood of our day. We might glean two parallel warnings in Giberson’s and Collins’ fairly mainstream opinion.

First, it’s important that everyday folks (such as the human writers of the biblical books) read the Scriptures without self-exalted human guides. Jesus preached the deep matters of the kingdom in language intentionally accessible to the poor and uneducated. Faith, the simple belief in what God says, has proved to be a more critical element in understanding the Bible than has sophistication or higher education. To this sort of person, Jesus told parables of farmers sowing seed, a woman losing a valuable coin, a father losing and finding a wayward son. Heads surely nodded in understanding as the Lord used these common experiences to explain the gospel.

I believe this understanding was behind Martin Luther’s determination to translate the Bible into vernacular German. This was a very controversial action on his part; his opponents considered the untrained and uninitiated to be incapable of understanding what the Bible said. Luther’s own testimony proves this, actually. His personal study of Romans is what set the whole Reformation ball rolling. Luther believed that the lowest stable boy should be able to read the Bible in his own heart language.

How would stable boys, farmers, housewives, and mortgage brokers read Genesis then? I know that some sophisticates are convinced that even Jesus was not saying what he seemed to be saying, what his hearers understood him to be saying, but discard that rubbish for a minute. Did Jesus’ disciples, non-professionals like Peter and John, understand Genesis 3 to be about the real biological parents of the human race? Did they read Genesis 8 to be about a worldwide flood and a real guy named Noah that God saved out of the flood? Unless you believe that Jesus secretly confessed intentional deception to the 12, you have to say “yes, they did understand these passages pretty literally.” Perhaps Dr. Collins believes we should think of ourselves as better than these simple folks.

Second, this discussion indicates that it is very important that we, who have the Bible in several versions of our native tongue, read it. We should read it, read it aloud, pore over it, meditate on it, treat it as the very Word of God, and believe the God who speaks through it. If it leads us to think something that is out of step with the majority view in our culture or our profession, read it again, but don’t finally place the opinions of men on equal or superior footing with the teachings of the God of all truth.

As fine and important as the professions are, we should not all become physicists or biologists or chemists. We are all theologians and philosophers, though. Few of us will ever endanger our amateur status in these foundational disciplines but we do expound on the nature of truth and other ultimate matters more often than we realize.

I say this to point out another fallacy of the “how dare you amateurs speak on my subject” attitude of Darwinists within and without the body of Christ. As philosophers, we all have a view of the world that makes sense to ourselves. We all evaluate the validity of claims and offers that come our way a thousand times a day.

As theologians, we worship a god or the God. We form convictions regarding our source, purpose, and final destination. We have opinions regarding how the theology of others stacks up to our own. The fact that many Americans do not consider <st1:place w:st="on

R. Clark Logan Jr., with his wife Helen and three sons behind him, addresses the SBC Executive Committee after his election as vice president for business and financeOct. 15, 2007. At left is EC President Morris H. Chapman; at right, Georgia pastor and EC chairman Bill Harrell. Photo by Morris Abernathy.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.–Clark Logan resigned abruptly July 1 from the staff of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention where he has served as vice president for business and finance since Oct. 15, 2007. The TEXAN broke the story July 2, reporting that Logan told friends he had been fired.

When asked for a statement as to whether he had sought Logan’s resignation, EC President Morris Chapman stood by his account that Logan had resigned, adding, “It is not the practice of the Executive Committee to respond to rumors.”

EC officers are responsible for approving termination of executive staff, a requirement Chapman fulfilled during a June 30 conference call that chairman Randall James of Orlando, Fla., described as lasting about five minutes, according to a report in the Florida Baptist Witness.

Until then, none of the officers expressed a willingness to speak on the record about the event that has since dominated posts to online networking sites used by many Southern Baptists to update one another on developing news.

James, who serves as president of the First Orlando Foundation and assistant pastor of First Baptist Church of Orlando, broke the silence of EC officers by communicating his thoughts in a July 16 e-mail to state Baptist newspaper editor James A. Smith Sr., who released the account of their participation in Chapman’s decision. After sending the e-mail, the 62-year-old EC chairman left for a two-week vacation encouraged by his oncologist as he continues his recovery from cancer treatment.

“I considered this a courtesy call from Dr. Chapman to inform EC officers of an administrative matter he was going to undertake shortly,” James said. He told the Witness that Chapman “had been praying for six months about the matter” due to problems he had experienced with Logan. “He told the officers a change was imminent and asked us to approve his authority to make the change,” James said, acknowledging that he was not certain Chapman was required to seek their approval.

Unanimous consent was granted by five of the six officers, including James, newly named vice chairman Roger L. Spradlin of Bakersfield, Calif., secretary Martha Lawley of Worland, Wyo., business and finance committee chairman David R. Mitchell of Monticello, Ark., and Cooperative Program committee chairman Doug Melton of Oklahoma City. Administrative committee chairman Rick Lineberger of Bradenton, Fla., was not available to participate in the conference call.

Spradlin has not responded to e-mail inquiries. When contacted by the TEXAN, Lawley declined further comment on the officers’ response to information provided by Chapman. Noting they agreed to let James serve as their spokesman, she encouraged Southern Baptists to pray for peace and patience.

Logan told the TEXAN that he felt it best not to comment the day after being asked to resign, but issued this statement to the Witness the following week:

“On Wednesday, July 1, 2009, I was asked to submit my resignation before the end of the day, which I did. I do not have any comment to make regarding my separation, except to make clear that I have not been involved in, nor have I been accused of being involved in, any immoral or unethical action.”

Chapman later confirmed Logan’s assertion, while noting the EC “follows established policy” for personnel matters, which must remain “private,” according to the Witness update.

Logan added, “I have enjoyed the past 21 months of service to the people of the SBC through the VP role and that of Convention Manager. I am grateful to God, my staff, and countless volunteers for a successful Annual Meeting just two weeks ago.” He expressed confidence in the staff with whom he worked and desire for God’s blessings on the entire Executive Committee.

Chapman assessed Logan’s tenure for the TEXAN via e-mail, writing on July 2: “Clark Logan resigned yesterday from his position as Vice President for Business and Finance of the Executive Committee. Clark is a fine young man and his gifts and skills uniquely equip him for many positions of service among Southern Baptists. I am grateful for the contributions he made to the work of the Executive Committee, and I wish the best for him and his family as Clark pursues othr opportunities for ministry.”

Logan came to Nashville from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., where he had first served as assistant director of admissions, then director of development, and finally as vice president for administration. He was a computer analyst with State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Ill., and later served churches in Owenton and Louisville. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in business aadministration as well as a master of divinity from Southern.