Taking a marriage covenant seriously begins long before vows are exchanged. In his new book “What He Must Be,” author Voddie Baucham observes: “Little thought is given to preparing our sons to be husbands. Thus, they meander through life without the skills or mind-set necessary to play this most important role until one day, having met ‘the one,’ they pop the question, set a date, and?in the rarest of cases?go to the pastor to learn everything they need to know about being the priest, prophet, provider, and protector of a household in four one-hour sessions. In the words of that great theologian Dr. Phil, ‘How’s that workin’ for ya?'”

Never one to mince words, Baucham challenges parents to plant seeds in the lives of their children that will grow and bear much fruit in generations to come, coming to grips with sinful patterns and tendencies. “We must stop preparing them for lives of selfishness, immediate gratification, and perpetual adolescence if we ever expect to turn the tide.”

Baucham recognizes his responsibility to protect his daughter from men who view marriage as a temporary arrangement as opposed to a lifelong covenant. “I must also see to it that I do not allow such thinking in my sons,” he adds. “A young man who is worthy of a wife will have a clear understanding of the covenantal nature of marriage. He will also have a healthy apprehension when he thinks about the magnitude of his responsibility should he assume the role of a husband and father. He must know the weight he is taking on his shoulders and be willing to accept it. He must be a man who is wiling to endure hardship for the sake of his family should he be called upon to do so.”

While this Texas pastor has no intention of picking his daughter’s husband, both he and she know he intends to play an active role in the process of finding and evaluating potential suitors. Unfortunately, he writes, the more common practice is for casual dating to turn into a long-term relationship; a long-term relationship turns into a foregone conclusion; and eventually the foregone conclusion turns into a marriage.

“We must help our daughters turn their affections away from cultural conditioning and toward biblical truth.”

Other resources for parents, engaged couples and married couples seeking to renew their commitment, include:

?God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation by Andreas Kostenberger, Crossway.

?From Boy to Man: The Marks of Manhood, Part II by R. Albert Mohler, available on blog dated April 22, 2005 at www.albertmohler.com

?Five Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter by Vicki Courtney, B&H.

?Covenant Marriage: Building Communication and Intimacy by Gary Chapman, B&H.

?Siete pilares para una familia del reino (Unbreakable: The Seven Pillars of a Kingdom Family) by Tom Elliff, B&H.

?Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome, How to Grow Affair-Proof Hedges Around Your Marriage by Nancy C. Anderson, Kregel.

?Contact Family Life ministry at 1-800-358-6329 for information on marriage covenant certificates for use in a wedding ceremony or visit www.store.famillylife.com

?Visit Lifeway.com to order Certificate of Marriage Covenant Renewal.

The annual Acts 1:8 SENT Conference, sponsored by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, will mark its fourth year when the event is held April 17-18 at Houston’s First Baptist Church.

SENT is more hands-on than a typical missions conference, the music is oriented toward the youngers in the crowd, and the approach to missions begins at one’s front door and ends halfway around the globe?glocal, they call it.

That’s by design, said SBTC Missions Mobilization Associate Tiffany Smith.

“The SENT Conference is developed and geared to train and equip church staff and lay leaders, and especially youth and collegiate students and young adults, to mobilize in missions, to learn to live their lives missionally, whether locally in Texas, somewhere in North America or overseas.”

Smith said training the next generation of Baptist leaders to be missionaries no matter their geographic residence is crucial, and SENT draws a more youthful contingent than a typical denominational event.

This year the SBTC’s collegiate ministries will scholarship any college student with lodging, meals and conference registration fees.

A flyer for SENT beckons readers to “investigate your role in God’s plan to reach the people and the nations around you?at home and overseas. Learn how to walk the Christian journey with life skills that equip you to live out the greatest adventure God has designed for you as you share Christ with the people in the world.”

And increasingly, the world has come to Texas, Smith noted, creating the possibility for global impact at home as well as abroad.

Smith said there would be 38 speakers in plenary and breakout seminars and several dozen missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, North American Mission Board, Baptist Global Response and other Great Commission organizations.

“So there’s practical training for everyone, and there is ample opportunity to connect with missionaries, pray for them, plan short-term projects with them?to network with them face to face and start engaging the mission field even if the first step is praying for them,” Smith said.

Keynote speakers will include IMB President Jerry Rankin and LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer.

Recording artist Joel Engle, pastor of The Exchange in Keller, a church plant begun in September, will lead in musical worship.

Workshops will include Bible-storying for oral cultures; “Becoming a Missional Church,” “Reaching Out to Muslims,” “Medical Missions,” “Using ESL in Missions,” “Reaching Your City” and other topics.

Also this year, special pre-sessions are available during the day on April 17 including Disaster Relief Phase 1 training and other topics such as spiritual warfare and building a short-term missions team.

About five spots for a Houston Vision Tour on April 16 remained open as of March 13, Smith said. The tour will offer a glimpse at the possible mission opportunities in Houston and will include prayerwalking, dinner at a homeless shelter, and visits to the Vietnamese Buddhist Center, Hong Kong Market and the Da’wah Islamic Center.

To inquire about the vision tour, e-mail Gayla Harris at gharris@sbtexas.com.

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AUSTIN–Conservative lawmakers are pushing legislation to reform Texas’ family law code, one bill at a time. While previous legislative sessions have passed bills pertaining to healthy marriages and promoting premarital counseling, the 81st session of the Texas legislature is considering a bill that would encourage couples headed toward divorce to reconsider.

While many Christians held out hope of passage of former State Rep. Bill Zedler’s bill to offer an option between a standard marriage license and a covenant marriage, the current climate of the Texas Legislature appears unlikely to entertain such a proposal.

However, Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa introduced House Bill 480 earlier this year to require a 10-hour marriage education course for couples with minor children who are filing for divorce on the grounds of insupportability. It was scheduled for public hearing on March 16.

In pushing family law reform, these lawmakers say they hope to lower the state’s divorce costs, pull potentially broken homes out of poverty, and promote a more stable society.

Statistics vary regarding divorce rates. A March 2008 Barna Research study discovered one-third of married adults have experienced divorce, either in their own marriages or as a child of a failed marriage.

“This means that among all Americans 18 years of age or older, whether they have been married or not, 25 percent have gone through a marital split,” a release on the Barna website noted.

In comparing the divorce rate of born-again Christians to the divorce rate of non-believing adults, the study revealed a nearly identical figure–32 percent versus 33 percent, respectively. Speaking to the findings of his study, George Barna called divorce an “unavoidable rite of passage.”

“Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility,” he said. “There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life.”

Barna’s research confirms that positive and traditional views regarding marriage have taken a hit in the last two decades. The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center reported that less than one-half of all high school seniors believe that choosing marriage over remaining single or cohabiting leads to a fuller, happier life.

These data support overall trends indicating Americans are adopting increasingly positive attitudes toward nontraditional marital and family values including divorce, cohabitation, remaining single, egalitarian gender roles, and premarital sex.

In 2005, Texas reported 3.3 divorces per 1,000 people, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. While falling behind the overall average found by Barna, the percentage of divorced adults in Texas is as follows: Caucasian (16 percent); African American (21.9 percent); Hispanics (11.4 percent). In 2006, Texas reported a little over 3 million children living in families below the federal poverty level–just over half of these children were living with married parents.

Statistics regarding the consequences of divorce are well documented. The website of The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank, posts recent studies regarding the state of the family and marriage. From national research, the foundation posted its top 10 findings regarding influencers of the quality and stability of marriage. Of special significance are its findings regarding the economic decline of divorced and cohabitating couples, especially for women and children; after divorce, household standards of living are 20 percent lower, home ownership drops by 12 percent, and household incomes are $13,000 lower.

However, the impact of divorce has reached far beyond the domestic sphere. The Family Research council estimates an average divorce costs a family $30,000. About $3.3 billion of divorce costs are picked up by the U.S. government each year. This price tag includes funds required of both federal and state governments for child support enforcement, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, and public housing.

HR 2683: PROMOTING HEALTHY MARRIAGES
The declining view of matrimony and the rising costs of divorce absorbed by the state served as the cause for Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) to push House Bill 2683 through the Texas House of Representatives last year.

Among its provisions, the bill established the Healthy Marriage Development Program to provide instruction on premarital counseling (including anger resolution, family violence prevention, communication, honoring your spouse, and managing a budget); physical fitness and active lifestyles, (including sexual abstinence for un married and previously married people and nutrition on a budget); and parenting skills for character development, academic success, and stepchildren.

The bill allocates financial assistance for the courses through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)—a federal grant for low-income families. Especially noteworthy is the bill’s promotion of marriage education services through the Health and Human Services Commission, allocating up to $50,000 for such programs.

HB 2685: PREMARITAL COUNSELING
Last September, Chisum’s House Bill 2685 was signed by Gov. Rick Perry. The bill increases the cost of marriage licenses from $30 to $60 and encourages eight hours of premarital course work prior to marriage. Of significance is the bill’s waiver of the marriage license fee and 72-hour waiting period after issuance of a marriage license for those who undergo premarital counseling.

“Divorce is what keeps many of our people in poverty,” Chisum told the New York Times shortly after introducing HB 2685. “I am trying to do something to raise people out of poverty.”

The bill stipulates that a premarital education course must include instruction in conflict management and communication skills and be completed within one year of the license application date. Premarital instructors recognized by the state include: marriage educators, clergy, licensed mental health professionals, and faith-based and community-based organizations.

HB 480: RESTORING THROUGH EDUCATION
While covenant marriage proposals go much further to ensure premarital counseling, legislation proposed by Chisum seeks to restore troubled marriages through marriage education.

HB 480 requires a respondent of a suit seeking dissolution of a marriage to submit a completion certificate for a crisis marriage education course. Exception is given to cases with evidence of family violence—whether mental, emotional, verbal or psychological abuse—based on a protective order, police record, a sworn statement by a physician, counselor, advocate in a family violence program or other medical evidence indicating that the party was a victim of family violence.

Parties are encouraged to complete the course within a 30-day period of the time when the suit is filed. Minimal instruction must address conflict management, communication and forgiveness skills taught by trained and certified instructors. Among those eligible to offer instruction are marriage educators, clergy, licensed mental health professionals, faith-based and community-based organizations. Participants are required to pay any fee charged for the course. Access will be provided to an Internet website listing individuals and organizations offering such courses.

The bill also amends the Family Code so that the court considers a wide range of the needs of children related to their age, education, financial support and care, “consistent with best interests of the child” while “taking into consideration the circumstances of the parents.”

While a covenant marriage changes both the entry and exit requirements for marriage, the enactment last year of the Healthy Marriage Development Program offers some hope of increased pre-marital education while the bill currently scheduled for public hearing addresses attempts to end a marriage.

Divorces for the tougher covenant marriage are typically granted only for the following: adultery; conviction of a felony; imprisonment for one year; abandonment for at least two years; or separation without cohabitation for at least three years—while including a caveat to protect victims of domestic violence. With no-fault divorce still in place, those standards do not apply, although Chisum hopes more thought will go into the consideration by judges and parties seeking to divorce.

He told KVUE-TV in Austin that he desires to have children raised with a mother and a father.

“We can save emotional heartache by keeping them together.” He encouraged passage of the bill, statin, “Let’s just make a little effort, put a few hours in, saying, what can we do to restore this marriage?”

The Free market Foundation says the bill has a simple and extremely important goal: keep marriages together when kids are involved.

“We know that not only is family breakdown filled with emotional costs to the adults and kids, we also know it has a staggering effect of costing Texas taxpayers $3 billion a year,” said Jonathan Saenz, director of legislative affairs for Free Market Foundation.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Judith Zaffirini of Laredo introduced Senate Bill 24 to remove the 60-day waiting period for divorce decrees in cases involving assault and family violence. That bill and one similar to it (HB 72) are before committees.

To track any Texas bill visit legis.state.tx.us.

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention encourages churches and mission groups to exercise discernment when traveling to Mexico. According to the travel alert from the United States State Department, people traveling to Mexico, especially communities along the U.S. border, need to be aware of certain dangers. These State Department updates are accessible at the following website:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_3028.html

This year, the outbreak of kidnappings for ransom, increased homicides, thefts, rapes and street crime related to the Mexican government’s war against the drug cartels has created in many locations in Mexico a significantly unsafe location for mission projects. The outbreak of violent activity has precipitated unprecedented re-routing of mission projects from Mexico to domestic locations. It is difficult for the SBTC to know which areas may be safe and which areas give significant exposure to potential violence.

The SBTC urges you, as an autonomous church, to carefully evaluate any trips to Mexico. Because of the potential for extreme violence, the SBTC recommends that you consider re-routing any Mexico mission projects to another location.

For information about other options for re-routing mission projects, please contact Tiffany Smith: Phone: 877-953-7282 (SBTC); E-mail: tsmith@sbtexas.com.

EULESS–Near-capacity crowds attending the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Empower Evangelism Conference, held Feb. 16-18 at First Baptist Church of Euless, were reminded by a notable lineup of preachers that included Jonathan Falwell, Lee Strobel and Jerry Vines that evangelism requires the Holy Spirit empowering his witnesses and stirring hearts.

SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass said the best-attended session was the opening night, when country/bluegrass musician Ricky Skaggs and his Kentucky Thunder band performed to hand clapping and even some rug cutting from some young bluegrass enthusiasts, causing Skaggs to quip after a song, “It’s about time we had some dancing in a Baptist church.”

The youngsters apparently left after Kentucky Thunder finished its set.

Actor Clyde Annandale performed between speakers and musicians at the conference with monologues portraying biblical characters such as the Roman centurion who thrust the spear into Jesus’ side at the crucifixion and the Jewish high priest Caiaphas.

Charles Billingsley, the Booth Brothers, Dawn Smith-Jordan, and the choir of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth also sang during the conference.

HISPANIC SESSION DRAWS RECORD

The Hispanic session of the conference, held Feb. 15 at First Baptist Church of Colleyville and Feb. 16 at the Campus West facility of First Baptist Euless, was well attended also, with the Feb. 15 rally drawing 1,000 people and resulting in approximately 100 salvation decisions after evangelist Alberto Mottesi preached.

Many churches brought in buses with church members bringing friends and neighbors with them. Consequently, a significant number of unreached people were at the Feb. 15 rally, said Mike Gonzales, director of the SBTC’s Hispanic Initiative and Ethnic Ministries team.

EVANGELISM AWARDS

During the conference, SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass presented the W.A. Criswell Lifetime Achievement Award for Pastoral Evangelism to John Bisagno, longtime pastor, now retired, of Houston’s First Baptist Church. The Oklahoma native led the Houston church for more than 30 years.

Also, Cass presented the Roy Fish Lifetime Achievement Award for Vocational Evangelism to John McKay, a native of Turkey, Texas, who was saved at age 13 at a Southern Baptist church in Fort Worth. McKay has led revivals and crusades internationally and throughout the United States with evangelist James Robison and many others.

Cass, a Texas native, was honored as well. Marking five years of Cass’ service to the SBTC, Executive Director Jim Richards presented Cass with a Scripture plaque on Feb. 18.

Reflecting on his five years at the SBTC, Cass told the TEXAN that “these past five years are some of the best days of my life. My prayer is that now where we live, we will claim for ourselves and practice James 1:22, to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers.”

Churches with exceptional baptism numbers were also recognized.

In the numerical category, Second Baptist Church, Houston, led the way with 2,305 baptisms, followed by: Fellowship Church, Grapevine, 1,683; Lake Pointe, Rockwall, 844; Prestonwood, Plano, 714; Community of Faith, Cypress, 500; Champion Forest, Houston, 287; Bay Area Fellowship, Corpus Christi, 285; Lake Hills, Austin, 247; Seoul Baptist, Houston, 219; and Sagemont, Houston, 207.

By average church attendance, in the category 250 and under, Willow Creek Fellowship, Plano, baptized 82, followed by: (251-500) Eagle Heights Fellowship, Mont Belvieu, 110; (501-700) Willow Park Baptist, Willow Park, 120; (751-1,000) The Country Church, Marion, 102; (1,001-1,500) Parkway Baptist, Victoria, 144; (1,501-2,500) Seoul Baptist, Houston, 219; (2,500-plus) Second Baptist, Houston, 2,305.

A special women’s session on Feb. 16 drew several hundred people to hear speakers Rhonda Kelley, Mary Jo Sharp, Jan Silvious and the music of Smith-Jordan.

Kelley is the wife of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Charles Kelley and is director of the women’s track at the school.

Speaking from Ephesians 1:13-14, she challenged the women to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, by whom believers are sealed as an inner testimony and as a testimony to a watching world.

Besides Falwell, Strobel and Vines, the conference heard sermons from Don Harms of First Baptist Church, Porter; Jimmy Pritchard, pastor of First Baptist Church, forney; Billy Graham’s grandson Will Graham of The Cove, a ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; Sammy Gilbreath and Jerry Spence, both of Alabama; longtime Texas pastor John Bisagno; Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research; Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas; and Fred Luter of New Orleans.

Ed Litton, pastor of North Mobile Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala., spoke during the Cooperative Program Luncheon on Feb. 17.