TAMPA, Fla.?Reminding trustees that over 5,000 missionaries, the entire trustee board, and untold numbers of Southern Baptists are praying for the next president of the International Mission Board, trustee chairman Jimmy Pritchard announced the search committee is still looking for “God’s man” to fill the agency’s top position.

Meeting Sept. 14-15 in Tampa just short of the first anniversary of the Jacksonville board meeting where then IMB president Jerry Rankin announced plans to retire after 17 years, trustees expressed concern over balancing the budget, shared information about human needs ministries, and presented 51 new missionaries.

Pritchard, who also heads the 15-member presidential search committee, pledged that when a nominee is presented to the board “we’re going to have full confidence that we’re presenting God’s man.”

“This is the most crucial position that a man can hold on the face of the planet,” Pritchard said. “And because of that [choosing a new president] shouldn’t be easy.”

Pritchard, pastor of First Baptist Church in Forney, Texas, thanked trustees for their patience and prayers as the search committee continues its work.

“We’re working together. We have one purpose and that is to find God’s man,” Pritchard said. “Are we there yet? No. But by God’s grace, we’re going to get there.”

Richard Powell, an IMB trustee and pastor of McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla., who is on the search committee, told the Florida Baptist Witness after the meeting he believes the committee has labored to find the “right man” to serve?although he would like for the process to be “further along the road” than it is.

“But it’s a journey and it’s not without its bumps and bruises; its not without its tough times and tears, its not without its arm wrestlings and makeup hugs and laughter,” Powell said. “But it’s a journey.? Nobody wants to find a president more than the people who are on the search committee.”

Echoing Pritchard’s statements about the importance of the “right man” for the position, Powell said “if we really are one of God’s last great hopes to win the world, this is the man who is the leader of our best mission organization as we attempt to be effective at being God’s last best hope to win the world to Christ.”

Powell said as far as the missional strategy of winning the world to Christ, a new president will be one “who needs to galvanize us; he needs to motivate us; he needs to lead us to be Great Commission believers.”

“In that sense, this may be, in my mind, the most important positional appointment that we will make in the history of Southern Baptists,” Powell said, “because we are at a crossroads as a convention, and in my perspective we are at a crossroads as a nation to see if we can to be a nation that’s influenced by Christians. One of the things that makes us influential as Southern Baptists is our priority of winning people to Christ.”

David Uth, an IMB trustee and pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla., told the Florida paper, “these are defining days” in Southern Baptist life as the board searches for a new leader. Noting an “incredible movement in the world” while the board does its work, Uth said he wishes all of Florida’s churches could hear the reports about the work throughout the nations.

“God is drawing people from every tribe, from every nation, from every tongue,” Uth said. “There’s an incredible movement in the world towards the gospel.”

Uth said the next president of the IMB needs to be “a man who has vision; a man who has a passion, and can rally us all to really accomplish the Great Commission.” Referencing a brief time of prayer trustees had for members of the search committee during the meeting, Uth said he doesn’t believe they will make a mistake.

“I believe they’re waiting on the Lord and the Lord will reveal and speak to them and when he does, the timing will be just right,” Uth said. “It will be the right person.

“This is the most important position in Southern Baptist life,” Uth continued. “This is the person that will help us reach the nations and take the gospel, even to those 6,400 unreached people groups. So we’ve got to have the right person.”
In other business, trustees received a draft of the IMB’s 2011 budget, which financial chief David Steverson said leadership is still working on to balance.

“You will recall that we used $7.5 million from our contingency reserve to balance the 2010 budget. We simply cannot afford to do that again,” Steverson said. He expressed gratefulness for an increase in the 2009 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, but lamented declines in both investment revenue and Cooperative Program giving, the latter of which is down at least 4 percent this year.

Pritchard said he believes the problem isn’t financial, but spiritual.

“How sad it is when we have people who want to go but we can’t afford to send them,” Pritchard said. “The issue is not that we [Southern Baptists] can’t afford it, but that we just don’t want to foot the bill. What will solve our problem is a good dose of spiritual awakening in our churches.”

Ray Jones, a trustee from Alabama, shared a report about human needs ministries. He said this effort provides “opportunities to tell the world about Jesus Christ.” Briefly describing work in Haiti and in Pakistan, Jones said in Haiti the IMB has partnered with groups including Florida Baptist Disaster Relief to provide nearly $2 million in aid to the island nation with $5 million more pledged. In Pakistan, Jones said over 80,000 people received some sort of assistance.

Bryant Wright, Southern Baptist Convention president and pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., spoke to trustees about the rise and fall of history’s great empires?from the Egyptians to the United States?comparing their relatively short-lived earthly reign with the eternity that is the kingdom of God.

“What is the kingdom of God? … It is wherever Jesus reigns. If Christ reigns in your life, the kingdom of God is there. If Christ reigns in your family, the kingdom of God is there,” Wright said.

“I hope Southern Baptists are going to return to Christ as their first love,” Wright continued. “The fact is that the kingdom of God is not going to come here on earth ? until the church has completed its mission.”

Trustees concluded the Tampa meeting with the appointment of 51 new long-term missionaries Wednesday evening at Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon. The appointments bring the number of IMB missionaries serving around the world to 5,201.
Rankin stepped down July 31. IMB trustees appointed executive vice president Clyde Meador interim president when Rankin retired.

The next trustee meeting is Nov. 9-10 in Greensboro, N.C. Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., will host a missionary appointment service the evening of Nov. 10 in conjunction with the meeting.

?Reporting by the Florida Baptist Witness and the International Mission Board

As a fellow struggler, I’ve approached this issue’s writing assignment with caution. I’m too large and inactive, and I sometimes let worry and stress rob me, and those around me, of joy. So how do I write about the subject of this issue’s articles without being a hypocritical nag? After a couple of false starts I think I’ve found an approach that addresses the broad subject and convicts even those who don’t yet struggle with their own health.

Some things we call bad habits are defiant behaviors we indulge so often that they become a normal part of our lives. Others are things that just happen if we aren’t diligent. They are entropic. I’m not making excuses for either class of sin but do believe that things like slander, violence, adultery, and theft aren’t reasonably called “bad habits.” Much of what comes under the category of stress, bad health decisions, and inactivity?the stuff of this issue’s special report?”just happens” through lack of remedial action. For purposes of this column, that’s my definition of bad habits.

The Bible does say a few things about how we care for our bodies. We are not reading carefully if we use 1 Timothy 4:8 to excuse a sedentary lifestyle. Paul says that physical exercise or discipline is of a little profit, not that it is of no profit, or a sin. Daniel’s example of not eating the king’s rich food in Babylon was in the interest of devotion to God but also better health. Nowhere does the Bible speak kindly of gluttons either. So this matter is not inconsequential. We’ve all had that moment of knowing that we would be better off to abstain from something than to follow our appetites.

Appetite is a broad term. A beloved college professor told us that he (in his 70s) would set his alarm just a little earlier than he needed to wake up. He maintained that one mark of an educated person was the ability to deny the desires of the body. I took him to mean “disciplined” or “mature” when he said “educated.” He claimed it set the course for the whole day. My prof had a remarkable list of achievements already behind him. We were impressed to hear him say that he still struggled to discipline his flesh.

This is the idea that I think takes in the whole of our health-related issues?discipline or self-control. This is what the King James calls temperance or moderation. The idea also goes beyond the scope of mental/physical health but it definitely applies to those things.

Literally, the two words used in the New Testament and translated “self-control,” “moderation,” or “temperance” refer to exercising power or being of a healthy mind. To lack self-control, then, is to be weak or unwell in mind. We don’t normally think of our Bluebell ice cream addiction in such strong terms, do we? The sin of bad habits is to despise self-control when God has called it a virtue?even a requirement for some kinds of service.

In Acts 24, as Paul is preaching to Felix at Caesarea, we’re told in verse 25 that when Paul spoke of “righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come” that Felix became frightened and ended the interview. I’ve always thought that it was a fine moment of authenticity that the story of Jesus, which I assume began Paul’s message, did not offend the Romans so much as the personal and behavioral implications for those who follow?or don’t follow?Jesus.

And of course the lascivious excesses of wealthy Romans are legendary. How apt that this culture would be famous for designating a place where people could regurgitate their food to make room for another round of delicious delicacies. Self-control was for those who did not have the resources to live a life of excess. A man would have to change his friends or risk giving offense if he attended social events without indulging to excess. As today, those people did not enjoy the company of monastics or wet blankets. The idea that God would judge unrighteous and intemperate behavior was unpleasant for the governor to consider. If God changed those things, it would change everything. The gospel was, at this point, too costly for Felix.

Excess is not merely a matter of food and drink. Ambition can drive us to excess. Because of their accomplishments, our society admires those who live frantic and overblown lives. The fact that many of these admired people, some of them religious figures, have lost their families, had notorious moral failures, and may require mood stabilizing drugs to continue their pace is of less importance to us than their resumes. Even we in religious vocations have been known to tolerate the wildest of inappropriate behavior because a man “built a great church” or is a “great communicator.” When they fall by the wayside like a soldier with heatstroke, marching by, we cluck our tongues and hope our own lack of self-control never comes home to roost.

We’re vulnerable when we decide that “we” will build something great for God. Self-control falls aside when let accomplishments attributed to others change our priorities because of fear or jealousy. When our churches decline in attendance, evangelism, or giving, it is excess to think that working more hours or pleading more loudly will turn things around. Where does the pressure in your life come from? What robs you of peace and joy? I’d venture to say that it is not the call of God that disturbs your sleep or saps your strength. In my life it is usually things that I’ve let stand in for the call of God.

We also know people, some of them quite accomplished, who exude peace. I don’t mean the simple lack of conflict. Some of them are warriors. I mean serenity that makes us wonder why our lives can’t be as idyllic as theirs. We might ask, “Why does God spare them the trials that I face?” He doesn’t. Nearly all of these people have faced harsh trials and yet come through without being scattered by the storm. It is doable. We can follow God even into great and celebrated ministries without losing our minds, our health, or our family to misplaced priorities.

There is another aspect of self-control we must consider. In Titus, Paul writes in chapter one, verses seven through nine that “an overseer must be ? self-controlled ? so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.” In chapter two, the same Greek word is rendered “temperate” in my New American Standard in referring to the behavior of older men. While no reason is given for older men to be temperate, the counsel for older women has to do with their role as encouragers to younger women. We might infer that older men ought to be fit examples for their younger brothers. In Titus the point of self-control is effectiveness in the ministry and the roles God has given us within the body of Christ.

Think about the evident ways an intemperate life is displayed in our lives. Maybe too much weight, bags under our eyes, poor endurance, emotional rawness, a harried and messy life style. Do those things affect our ability to exhort in sound doctrine, answer critics, and encourage our brethren? I think so. To some degree, we wear our testimonies on our faces, in our schedules, and around our waists. Not to put too fine a point on this; God has used big guys and stressed out people mightily on many occasions. But has he found us more usable because we are big or overwhelmed? Do some of us die young or are we too often sick or distracted because of “bad habits?” This is no doubt true.

Think of the many things we do under the category of “contextualization.” Missionaries learn the local language and adopt the native dress to some degree. We also do that in our own culture. Jesus didn’t wear a coat and tie, or a Hawaiian shirt. He dressed like the people of his time and place. We do too. Personal taste aside, we dress the

“Psychiatrist? No way. I was not nuts. (Just depressed),” said Liz Traylor in recalling a time in her life when she had done all she knew to do to fight off depression, but was losing ground in her battle.

Traylor, a former Texan and wife of Pastor Ted Traylor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., openly shares her story with ministry wives and other women to help them understand there is no shame in seeking help for mental or emotional struggles.

Traylor first experienced an episode with what she describes as burnout in the early 1990s, after years of trying to be the “best pastor’s wife God ever created.” To recover from that, Traylor sought help from a Christian counselor, and for two weeks backed out of all of her church duties and activities to rest.

“It was a blow to my self-righteousness, but the church got along just fine without me. A counselor said I accomplished six months of counseling in six weeks.”

For 14 years Traylor maintained a more balanced lifestyle, including making time with God each day her priority. But in 2004, a string of stressful events began battering away at Traylor’s fortitude, “none of my own making,” she said. Traylor had endured back surgery and underwent physical therapy, their children were leaving home and making life-altering decisions, Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola, their daughter’s roof was ripped off and she had to move home, several health crises occurred with family members, and relationships among some extended family members were tense.

Chronic fatigue, an inability to think or decide, four near-fainting spells and rapid weight loss sent Traylor to the medical doctors for blood work, an EKG, and an MRI, none of which provided answers.

Weeping in desperation in another doctor’s office, the doctor asked her, “Are you depressed?”

“No,” she replied. But then she remembered having that day asking God for an answer to her woes. She asked her doctor, “How would I know?”

The doctor listed nine signs of depression and told her that if even three were true for her for a continuous amount of time, she might be suffering depression. Of the nine signs, Traylor had seven of them: inability to concentrate, disinterest in activities, a change in appetite or weight, restlessness, feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness or excessive guilt, and a change in sleep patterns.

The only two she didn’t have were low self-esteem and thoughts of death or suicide.

“The doctor said this had nothing to do with my strength or my spiritual life. This was a chemical imbalance caused by intense, prolonged stress. Then he asked if I would consider medication. “Well, yes! This was not normal. Fix me!” she recounted.

Though reason would say that Christians should be immune to many kinds of mental or emotional illness, David Henderson, the Hope for the Heart Chair of the Criswell College counseling department, believes it is possible for anyone in the ministry to develop any kind of mental illness.

“Our mind and brain are subject to trauma just like the rest of our bodies. From a spiritual standpoint, we are susceptible to the effects of sin?not just our own, but the sin of others also,” he explained.

As an example, Henderson said, “For pastors, there is a tendency to have very driven, type ‘A’ personalities, which is great because they are able to get a lot accomplished. But without a healthy balance, these same highly effective people can develop OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder], an overdeveloped, yet ineffective drive for perfection.”

Henderson knows of ministers who have developed a type of OCD called “scrupulosity,” which is an obsession with acts of spiritual discipline, such as praying “enough” or praying “correctly.” In other instances, he has seen missionaries return home with extreme psychotic disorders, brought on by the intensity of their work and various other traumatic events?”what we have classically called ‘a nervous breakdown.'”

Henderson described how to recognize the difference between a normal amount of stress and an unhealthy amount of stress. Stress, he said, happens when the body alerts an individual to the need for a response to something looming on the horizon. When the stress is reasonable, we are able to move to action.

“When it rises to unhealthy levels, it paralyzes us and we can’t respond to day to day issues,” Henderson explained.
He compared stress to weightlifting. In weightlifting, the muscle fibers experience microscopic tears. If the tears have time to heal between workouts, the muscle fibers become stronger. If however, the same muscle is worked every day without time to relax and heal, the weightlifting becomes harmful to the muscle. “I think stress, from the standpoint of the brain, can be viewed in the same way. We need to reboot and regroup to keep stress from consuming us,” Henderson said.

When evaluating an individual’s susceptibility to unhealthy stress levels, Henderson noted four P’s that counselors consider:

• Predisposing factors that can “set us up” for mental illness, such as genetics, family history, traumatic upbringing, or substance abuse.
• Precipitating factors such as life-changing or life-threatening events that block the ability to function normally.
• Perpetuating factors such as how long trauma has been occurring. “Sometimes people can’t get a break. Stressful things happen again and again, and individuals do not have access to resources that can help provide relief,” Henderson noted.
• The presence (or lack) of protective factors such as faith, a strong family, a supportive church, and avoiding destructive habits like drug or alcohol abuse.

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I am not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV, but then again, neither is Jordan Rubin, author of “The Maker’s Diet,” one of the top 10 best-selling books in LifeWay Christian Store’s health section. Since I am not a physician, I will not claim to make a wholesale scientific and medical judgment on Rubin’s book. But as a reporter I can diagnose how something is said and how Rubin’s case for a healing and healthful lifestyle left me questioning the credibility of his claims and his credentials.

Rubin says he was cured of a life-threatening case of Crohn’s disease, as he outlines in the first chapter of his book. When he finally found healing and restored good health, he gave God the glory and sharing the results with others became his passion. But just as an antibiotic treatment will give healing to one individual and a rash to another, no single dietary program can be the answer to everyone’s health concerns.

Rubin uses a broad brush to tout the efficacy of his healing discoveries and with that same brush backhands doctors and conventional medicine using hyperbolic statements to, presumably, warn readers of the customary villains of poor health?pork, vaccinations, corn, hormone-laced milk, bottom feeders and more. Rubin even goes so far as to call commercially raised animal products “downright dangerous.”

His exaggerations border on the outrageous as he makes claims with no pretense of substantiation. Such examples include, but are not limited to:

“Though conventional medicine ‘declared war’ on cancer, heart disease, and other killer diseases, it is definitely losing these battles despite vast expenditures on research. Some might convincingly argue that conventional medicine?as it is currently practiced in the United States?is actually shooting itself (and us) in the foot,” and “Unless I’m forced at gunpoint, I will never knowingly take another vaccination,” and “fluoride is extremely poisonous?especially the salt-based form used in toothpaste and mouthwash.”

Rubin does nothing to bolster his argument by demonizing the use of these products?including calling chlorinated tap water “dangerous” for drinking and showering. He makes the case for his diet and lifestyle plan with sparsely footnoted claims, some of which are based on medical research that is 80-100 years old. He dips back to the same well of resources throughout the book, extolling the work of “renowned nutritional researcher?,” “renowned diabetes expert?,” “Eminent neuroimmunologist,” and other people well known to Rubin and, presumably, others in the alternative medicine field. But their renown outside such circles is questionable as are the credentials of at least one source.

Throughout one chapter Rubin cites the late Steven Byrnes, Ph.D., N.D. (degree in Naturopathic Medicine). Byrnes “operated an unaccredited degree granting institution under the name of Academy of Natural Therapies,” according to the state of Hawaii, which charged Byrnes in 2002 with operating the school in violation of Hawaii’s consumer protection laws. He was ordered to close the institution and pay restitution.

The name of the academy is mentioned elsewhere in Rubin’s “The Maker’s Diet”?on the jacket. Rubin’s Ph.D. in nutrition was earned from the unaccredited Academy of Natural Therapies, a school with no campus. A cursory Internet search found no such academy. The Peoples University of Americas School of Natural Medicine where Rubin earned his doctorate in naturopathic medicine was also nowhere to be found. What the Web search did reveal was several blogs and watchdog organizations declaring these institutions and, by association, Rubin’s degrees spurious.

The book is filled with claims of the healing power of the Maker’s Diet, surmising that the dietary and ceremonial laws God gave the Israelites thousands of years ago can restore and maintain the health of the modern man. But Rubin fails to address the elephant in the room?as followers of Christ we are not beholden to the law. There are two very specific declarations?one to Peter and another from Paul (Acts 10 and 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1)?stating Christians can eat whatever God has declared clean within the bounds of courtesy for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

It is disappointing that a fellow believer who has a marvelous testimony of recovery would use the scare tactics of the secular media and poorly sourced assertions to make his point. And a Ph.D. after a person’s name carries the weight of years of post-graduate research, study, and a professor-guided dissertation and published work. To earn the moniker from an unaccredited school that cannot even be found on the Internet should warn the reader to get a second opinion.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.?Research indicates that members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at higher rates than most Americans, according to The New York Times.

Just in the past decade, the newspaper said, the clergy’s use of antidepressants has risen and their life expectancy has fallen. A simple solution, some say, is for ministers to take more time off.

“We had a pastor in our study group who hadn’t taken a vacation in 18 years,” Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, an assistant professor of health research at Duke University, told The Times. “These people tend to be driven by a sense of duty to God to answer every call for help from anybody, and they are virtually called upon all the time, 24/7.”

Cell phones and social media have added new levels of stress, The Times noted, and soaring health care costs have prompted some denominations to launch wellness campaigns urging ministers to get some rest.

“Time away can bring renewal and help prevent burnout,” a 2006 directive from the United Methodist Church said. Other denominations have placed a special emphasis on the importance of “Sabbath days,” weekdays off in place of Sundays.

The Rabbinical Assembly, an international association of conservative rabbis, now recommends three or four months off every three or four years.

“There is a deep concern about stress,” Rabbi Joel Meyers, a past executive vice president of the assembly told The Times. “Rabbis today are expected to be the CEO of the congregation and the spiritual guide, and never be out of town if somebody dies. And reply instantly to every e-mail.”

A pastor in Queens, N.Y., admitted that being too busy Is an impediment to one’s relationship with God, and clergy health studies say ministers have boundary issues defined as being too easily overtaken by the urgency of other people’s needs, The Times said Aug. 1.

“Larger social trends, like the aging and shrinking of congregations, the dwindling availability of volunteers in the era of two-income households, and the likelihood that a male pastor’s wife has a career of her own also spur some ministers to push themselves past their limits,” The Times said.

A seven-year study by Duke University examined more than 1,700 Methodist ministers in North Carolina and found that compared with neighbors in their census tracts, the ministers reported significantly higher rates of arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. Obesity was 10 percent more prevalent in the clergy group, The Times said.