RICHMOND, Va.  Before the installation of Paul Chitwood as the 13th president of the International Mission Board on Feb. 6, four missionaries with Texas ties were among 19 commissioned in a sending ceremony at Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond.

The four Texans joined the more than 3,600 Southern Baptist international missionaries.

SBC leaders from national entities, seminaries and state conventions attended the celebration, which included remarks by SBC President J.D. Greear, a charge by former IMB President Tom Elliff and a response by Chitwood. WMU Executive Director Sandy Wisdom-Martin and IMB President Emeritus Jerry Rankin also participated in the service, which featured testimonies from the 19 new missionaries. 

Andy and Kesiah Morris, with their daughter, Olivia, are being sent by Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth to serve in South Korea. 

“As an international couple, it always seemed like we were caught between two different worlds,” Andy Morris said. “While our marriage was strong and our lives filled with reasons to be content, there was something deeper happening in our relationship. It was God who was calling us to go out into multicultural ‘in-between’ spaces.”

“One day last summer, we finally recognized this and made peace with the idea of uprooting ourselves and moving overseas,” Kesiah Morris said. “A few days later, with a divine appointment, [God] opened up the door and gave us a clear and unexpected call upon our lives to go as missionaries.

Arc and Rachel Crownover met as students at Southwestern Seminary, where Rachel was pursuing the study of missions.

“While I was in East Asia on a hands-on assignment, Arc went to missions week at Southwestern and learned about the lostness in Germany,” Rachel said.

“Burdened deeply by that lostness, I knew that we had to help, so when [Rachel] came back, I married her, and when we finished our degrees we spent almost three years in Germany with the IMB,” Arc said.

“We felt God call us to long-term service, so with our four children, we will be headed back to Germany to fulfill this calling,” Rachel added.

The Crownovers are being sent by NewBrook Church in Fort Worth.

The calling to go to the nations is one that Southern Baptists have sought to support since the Southern Baptist Convention’s beginnings. Unity around the Great Commission is core to Southern Baptist identity, Tom Elliff said in his charge to Chitwood and the new missionaries. 

“I sat there and cried thinking about how wonderful it is that we have the privilege of joining in this incredible mission of God of sending these people around the world,” Elliff said. “That’s happened thousands and thousands of times as the International Mission Board has, by the grace of God, had the privilege of doing that.”

Preaching from Philippians 2, Elliff reminded those gathered that Southern Baptists share a sacred mission, a solemn mandate that should not be taken lightly, and a specific manner in which we are to live our lives. 

Reminding the new appointees that the earliest Southern Baptist missionaries packed their belongings in caskets knowing they would never return, Elliff stressed the importance of the word “together.” 

“From the outset, there were people who realized that we can do better together than we can apart,” Elliff said. 

In 1925, Southern Baptists came together again to form the Cooperative Program, Elliff said. 

“That’s when we realized that if we really wanted to exponentially multiply the ability to send people around the globe, this was going to be the best way to do it. The best way is to do things together.” 

Chitwood responded to Elliff’s charge by asking the newly appointed missionaries and members of the home office staff to stand, acknowledging that they, with missionaries around the world and state and denominational leaders, have “made room” for him “in their hearts.” 

Concerning lost people around the world “who most of us will never know until and unless we see them around the throne,” Chitwood added, “thank you for making room for them in your hearts, your prayers, your giving, going and sending.”

The Sending Celebration service took place during an IMB trustees meeting in Richmond, Va., that also included the election of Todd Lafferty as the 173-year-old entity’s executive vice president and the affirmation of Roger Alford as vice president of communication. 

—with reporting by Ann Lovell

FORT WORTH  Imagine a person was just released from prison and wanted to get his life on the right track, and he knew going to church needed to be part of that plan. But because of his criminal record, he was required to stay away from churches. What would he do to find help?

In Fort Worth, such a person is able to find help and hope through Freedom Church, a ministry of First Baptist Church in nearby Colleyville. Freedom Church reaches men and women re-entering society from prison by offering weekly worship services, small groups and life skills classes. 

“Since these individuals for whatever reason—their paperwork, a stigma they may carry with them—don’t feel comfortable walking into a church or maybe they’re not thinking about church, I thought, ‘Hey, let’s bring church to them,’” John Earle, First Baptist Colleyville’s Freedom Church campus pastor, told the TEXAN. 

“When we reach ‘the least of these,’ it’s individuals who maybe committed murder, hardened criminals who have done their time and now they’re trying to get back into society,” Earle said. 

The ministry began a couple of years ago when First Baptist Colleyville deployed small group leaders to offer Bible studies in parolee housing complexes in Fort Worth, about half an hour from the church. They’d meet in laundry rooms or wherever they could find space. 

About a year ago, Earle said, Freedom Church emerged, with Wednesday night worship services in a rented room at the Resource Center of Tarrant County. After eight years on staff as a youth pastor at First Baptist Colleyville, Earle transitioned last fall to his new position leading the ministry. 

Earle, who was an offensive tackle for five seasons in the NFL before entering ministry, realized the church volunteers weren’t able to maximize their efforts while meeting in the resource room. For one, parolees had to fill out extensive paperwork just to get permission to attend the services. 

“They had stipulations within their parole if they were allowed to leave the campus,” he said. “I saw that sometimes they came and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes it might be in their paperwork that if they worked in the daytime they can’t leave their campus at night.”

So starting in January, the worship services moved to the housing units where the parolees stay as they transition back into society. “It gives us a lot more people to reach with the gospel,” Earle said. 

“We know that we’re never going to be autonomous because of the turnover,” he said. “We have these parolees anywhere from three to five months. They go into these housing units and then they leave and go back into society. Our impact has to be fast and furious.” 

But God is working, and results have been visible.

“We see people getting saved daily. This past Sunday at a small group we had eight people get saved,” Earle said. “We’re going to get them baptized and walking with God. 

“I’ve heard stories of people getting attached to Freedom Church and six months later when they’re out and not living in the housing unit anymore, they still come to the services. They’ve told our volunteers that Freedom has had the biggest impact on their life.”

Earle explained that when a parolee is allowed to leave prison, “immediately they want a job. They need clothes. They need a place to stay. They need food. Those are all big-time urgencies on their hearts.

“But as I roll with them, I let them know that unless they have a heart transplant they’re going to be the same old, same old, and that urgency is going to cause them to make bad choices and get back in prison again,” Earle said.

Freedom Church strives to see changed hearts, and the people who keep coming back even after they’re allowed to leave the facility talk about that transformation, Earle said, and about how they have better lives now that they walk with Christ. 

A common saying in American culture is that everyone deserves a second chance, Earle noted, but that adage stops short.

“Let’s be real. We’re all probably on our 150th chance. I used to speak in public schools and I’d say the only difference between a person sitting behind bars and a person sitting in a school is some people get caught and some people don’t,” Earle said. 

God repeatedly offers forgiveness when true repentance is present, he said. 

“When these people are turning their backs on their sinful ways, who are we not to offer an opportunity to do life with them and help them get back on their feet and help them understand that they can be a returning citizen in society?”

It’s normal for people to feel uneasy when someone with a criminal record crosses their path, Earle said, especially if the person is a sex offender. “People want to forgive them from afar, but that’s not true forgiveness. True forgiveness is offering to do life with somebody.” 

Earle was born and raised in Keyport, N.J., and went to college in Illinois before being drafted into the NFL. After playing pro football, he joined Sports World Ministries and traveled the country sharing his testimony in public schools for 12 years. 

Part of that testimony is that football had been everything to him, and then he saw it slipping away; within a 14-month span he broke his right foot twice and his left foot twice. He thought of suicide, and he called his dad, who told him Jesus loved him and would never leave him. That night in 1991 he surrendered his life to Christ. 

Around 2008, after he had spoken in a Texas school, a pastor called him and asked him to consider being a youth pastor in Gainesville, Texas. “I lived in Illinois. I was from New Jersey. I had no thoughts about going to Gainesville, Texas, but I went down there and became a youth pastor and enjoyed every minute of it,” Earle said.

After three years there, he went to First Baptist Colleyville. What led him into prison ministry there, he said, is that Guy Earle, his identical twin brother who also played in the NFL, is executive pastor of GracePointe Church in Denton, and the two brothers founded Think Twice Ministries. 

“We do prison ministry,” John Earle said. “We probably do about 100 speaking events in prisons a year, and we see thousands of salvations. … We’ve been doing that for like the last 10 years. That’s where the love for prison ministry has come from.”

To give a prisoner the opportunity to rehabilitate himself with Christ starts with hearing the Word of God and includes a small group setting where he can receive individual attention, Earle said. “We can offer anger management classes and other things.” 

“When I talk about the Freedom experience in the parolee home, that’s what it really looks like: How many times can we touch you with the gospel in different settings and different ways where you’re at?” Earle said. 

Prison ministry can go beyond showing up, preaching and leaving, he said. 

“The parolee ministry is a little different because you’re doing life with them, you’re offering yourself, walking side by side with them as they are learning how to figure out life again,” Earle said. “I guarantee every city has parolee houses. I would encourage your church to find the parolee houses that are in their area and start impacting them.” 

Emmet Brickowski is an optimist, sun-is-always-shining Lego character living in a Lego world where everyone else is miserable.

Gone are the times when—as the song says—“everything is awesome.” Those happy days ended five years ago, when aliens wrecked Bricksburg and took away some of the population, too. Emmet’s town is now known as Apocalypseburg, a desolate place where people often argue and no one smiles. Even the Statue of Liberty has been toppled.

That’s OK, though. Emmet still has his friend and romantic interest, Lucy. Yet even she believes Emmet should see the world for what it is, and not for what he hopes it to be.

“You’ve got to stop pretending that everything is awesome,” she tells him. “… We have to grow up sometime.”

Emmet, though, doesn’t believe her. But that begins changing when another alien, the masked General Sweet Mayhem, invades Apocalypseburg and kidnaps a few more citizens, including Lucy. Emmet quickly builds a Lego ship to chase Lucy to the other end of the galaxy. He begins wondering: Maybe everything isn’t awesome, after all.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (PG) opens this weekend, picking up five years after the events of 2014’s The Lego Movie. It stars Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy series) as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games series) as Lucy, and Will Arnett (The Lego Batman Movie) as Batman.  

The film, in essence, is a pretend world told through the eyes of two children in the movie’s real world: Finn and his younger sister, Bianca. At the end of the first Lego Movie and the beginning of The Lego Movie 2, their father allows Bianca to play with the Legos—a decision that upsets Finn, who believes she will destroy them.

Finn’s instincts prove to be true. This explains the destruction of Bricksburg (Bianca did that) and the kidnapping of Lucy and Batman (Bianca took them to her room). It also explains the film’s out-there plot: In the Lego world, Batman is taken to the “Systar System,” where he is forced into a marriage with a chameleon-like alien, Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi. Only a girl would do that.  

Here’s the good news for parents: The Lego Movie 2 is mostly squeaky-clean, with no language (not even an OMG) and only Lego-style violence.

Here’s the bad news: It’s not as good as its predecessor. It’s slow at times and, often, downright weird. It also contains a few lines and angles that had me scratching my head, but most of them will go over the heads of children.

Warning: minor/moderate spoilers!

(Scale key: none, minimal, moderate, extreme)

Violence/Disturbing

Minimal. Picture a child picking up two Lego characters and “making” them fight. That’s about as bad as it gets. The film does imply punches are thrown, and a few explosions do occur, and a Lego city is invaded, and there are guns with lasers, but it looks a lot like what you’d see in a kid’s bedroom floor.

Sexuality/Sensuality/Nudity

None. Other than Batman saying he has “ribbed pecs.”

Also, see “Other Stuff You Might Want to Know,” below.

Coarse Language

None. The worst we hear is “butt” a couple of times.

Other Stuff You Might Want To Know

One character is called “Larry Poppins”—a knockoff on Mary Poppins. He has a flower on his head. Another character who looks like Dracula says he enjoys wearing women’s jeans.

We hear Z.Z. Top’s Tush and Motley Crue’s Kickstart My Heart.

One character tells another one, “Just listen to the music and let your mind go.” Someone says he/she has been “meditating.”

The Queen built a “space temple” where the wedding will take place. The wedding is called the “matrimonial ceremony.”

Life Lessons

It’s an ultra-goofy movie with few lessons until the final minutes. Still there, are a few. Lucy saves a “bad guy” from dying, displaying mercy. In a scene that borrowed a page from Back to the Future, Emmett faces a bad, future form of himself and declares that he wants to do good. The final scenes also include lessons on forgiveness, repentance, and love between a brother and sister (Finn and Bianca).

Worldview/Application

Is everything awesome? That’s what we are told in the first movie through a hit song with catchy lyrics: Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team; everything is awesome, when you’re living out a dream. It added: Life is good ’cause everything awesome; lost my job, there’s a new opportunity; more free time for my awesome community. That’s certainly true, but then the song goes south. Dogs with fleas are awesome. Clogs are awesome. And “everything you see or think or say is awesome.”

Umm … no. Everything is not awesome, even if the song’s positive outlook is attractive. Sin certainly isn’t awesome.

The Bible would tell us that some things are awesome and some things are not.

That’s why the new song in The Lego Movie 2—Everything’s Not Awesome—may be closer to Scripture: Everything’s not awesome; things can’t be awesome all of the time; it’s not realistic expectation; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try; to make everything awesome.

Sponsors

McDonald’s is a partner. Lego-themed Happy Meals are on their way.

What Works

The humor. It’s funny for kids and adults, too, without being inappropriate. The filmmakers also give us plenty of flashbacks to the film’s real word (the brother and sister) to help explain the movie’s quirky plot.

What Doesn’t

The plot. Sure, the story could have been imagined by a child, but it would have been more relatable had it been a little less weird.

Discussion Questions

1. What did you think of the song Everything Is Awesome? What about the new song Everything’s Not Awesome?
2. What can we learn from Finn and Bianca about getting along? About siblings and forgiveness?
3. What can adults do to recapture the God-given creativity and imagination that makes childhood so fun?

Entertainment rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Family-friendly rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Rated PG for mild action and rude humor.

ABILENE—Around 20 volunteers seeking certification or recertification as SBTC Disaster Relief volunteers gathered Feb. 1-2 at Broadview Baptist Church in Abilene for the first Phase 1 and 2 DR training sessions of 2019. Volunteers learned that DR serves the spiritual as well as the physical needs of victims.

“We do chainsaw, we do mud-out, we do clean up and recovery, but we do it all so we can share Christ,” SBTC DR Director Scottie Stice told participants in Saturday’s general session.

SBTC DR—funded through the Cooperative Program and Reach Texas giving mechanisms, and individual donations—is a calling, Stice said. “Hurricane Harvey hit and we felt compelled to serve. That came straight from the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit to his servants. We can’t help but want to help,” he added.

Referencing SBTC DR materials, Stice defined disaster partly as “an occurrence that causes human suffering or create human needs that the victims cannot alleviate without assistance.”

Physical needs in a disaster are many. “If a tornado hits a car, we can’t replace the car, but we can get that tree off the car,” Stice said. But DR ministry is much more, for each victim presents an opportunity for a volunteers to share the gospel and be a blessing, he noted.

Stice explained the “Hope in Crisis” tract to trainees. The tract, which is also available in Spanish, was developed by the North American Mission Board’s Send Relief initiative for use in disasters. Featuring the biblical illustration of Job as a survivor of trauma, the tract includes a short gospel presentation.

“Know your testimony. Know some sort of gospel presentation plan,” Stice urged volunteers.

At the request of Shane Pruitt, SBTC director of evangelism, SBTC DR trainings are now featuring instruction in intentional evangelism, Stice told the TEXAN.

“Traditionally our chaplains have done evangelism and they have done a good job,” Stice said. “Last year, Richard Taylor [SBTC personal evangelism associate] spoke to our groups. This year we chose to train all our volunteers in One-Verse Evangelism.”

One-Verse Evangelism, a discipleship tool developed by the Navigators ministry, focuses on Romans 6:23. Its use in SBTC DR was the brainchild of Kevin Jones, missions pastor of Fellowship Church in Royce City.

“About the time we were making the change to add evangelism training, Kevin came up and had the idea to use One-Verse Evangelism,” Stice said.

“I had just finished unit director training,” Jones told the TEXAN. “I talked to Scottie about One-Verse Evangelism. I was making a suggestion that turned into a ‘would you do this?’” Jones said that he had successfully used the method to train church members in evangelism as they prepared for mission trips.

Discussions with Taylor led to the production of eyeglass cleaning cloths with Romans 6:23 and the One-Verse graphics imprinted on them, a practical item facilitating the sharing the gospel during DR deployments.

Admitting that he was not a natural evangelist himself, Jones urged DR volunteers, “You and I are given the opportunity to share the gospel. People need the gospel as much as they need their house remediated. People need the gospel in hopeless situations.”

Jones cited surveys by Barna (1993, 2018) showing that sharing their faith is becoming “increasingly optional to Christians” and LifeWay (2012) indicating that while 80 percent of churchgoers said they believed it was every Christian’s duty to share the gospel, only 61 percent of that 80 percent claimed to have done so.

“Jesus healed the blind and shared the kingdom. He healed the paralytic man and forgave his sins. We are given needs in order to share the gospel,” Jones said.

The training session included a time to practice the method.

Kendra Kimberlin of Lubbock, a new DR volunteer, called the One-Verse tool helpful, but stressed the importance of relating to the survivor before starting a gospel conversation.

Veteran volunteers Patrice Herring and Marjie Batchelder were also positive.

While Herring said she preferred the EvangeCube, One-Verse’s drawing of a chasm separating God and man would be appropriate for witnessing to adults and children.

Batchelder noted there were many evangelistic tools, adding that she had often used the Four Spiritual Laws.

Before the room buzzed with people practicing One-Verse Evangelism, Jones told the TEXAN he planned to do One-Verse presentations at future DR trainings in 2019, equipping volunteers with one more tool to be used to minister to those in crisis, where the hurts and needs are more than material.

Following the evangelism workshop, volunteers chose areas of service such as child care, assessments, chaplaincy, clean up and recovery, feeding, administration and communications for further training.

SBTC DR Trainings 2019

Phase 1

Feb 2 – Broadview BC, Abilene

March 9 – FBC, Wake Village

April 13 – Spring Baptist Church

Sept 27 – FBC, Alvarado

Phase 2

Feb 1 – Broadview BC, Abilene

March 8 – FBC, Wake Village

April 12 – Spring Baptist Church

Sept 27 – FBC, Alvarado