Month: May 2011

Offering bread for life renders ‘Bread of Life’

FORT WORTH—The book of James instructs Christians not to merely tell naked and hungry people to be warm and well fed; instead, true faith is demonstrated by clothing and feeding them.

Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth has done that over the years as it has ministered to the needy through its benevolence ministry. That’s how Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana de Travis began.

“Travis Avenue’s benevolence ministry reaches about 1,200 people each month, and that’s what wrought vision for the church plant,” said Homer Hawthorne, Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana de Travis’ pastor. “A number of people came to Christ through that ministry, and the need for a church was born.”

Launched in June 2010, the church is supported by Travis Avenue, the Tarrant Baptist Association and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Travis Avenue “chose to stay and minister to this community that was predominantly Anglo but has now transitioned to 70 percent Hispanic,” Hawthorne said. “There is a great need for Christ in the Hispanic neighborhoods all around us here at Travis. There are so many Hispanics that, for Sharon, my wife, and I, it is almost like living again in a Hispanic country.”

Reaching the unreached

“Our goal is to reach the unchurched,” Hawthorne said. “If someone is already involved in another evangelical church, we don’t invite them to our church. Our goal and desire is to reach those who don’t know Christ so the church will grow from conversions and not transfer growth.”

To reach unchurched Spanish-speaking Hispanics, the Hawthornes asked the first few believers of the church plant to list several people they knew who were not Christians, and to pray daily for their salvation as they expressed “Christ’s love to them,” said Hawthorne, who also led church members to pray corporately for the unbelievers every Wednesday night.

As the prayers proved effective and others became Christians, Hawthorne repeated the process to reach more unbelievers.

Not only is the prayer ministry teaching the new believers “to be sensitive to the Lord’s working in those lives but also how to share the gospel. We now have 45 baptized believers and an average of 50 attendees every week, and we continue to see conversions to Christ every month.” Hawthorne said.

A Hispanic woman volunteering in the benevolence ministry had previously committed her life to Christ, but had never been baptized, Hawthorne related. After her baptism, the church prayed for her husband. He soon allowed Hawthorne to make a home visit, but the man wasn’t yet ready to respond to the gospel. He began attending some church meetings, after one of which he invited Hawthorne back to his home.

“I went over there and asked him if he was ready to receive Christ. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ he said. And he got on his knees and gave his life to Christ,” Hawthorne recounted. “Out of that the daughter of the family, who is 20, was converted and baptized, and so was the 19-year-old son. It’s really something to see how the Lord works through the Hispanic culture, where relationships are everything.”

Citing a “great victory,” Hawthorne recounted the conversion of an unmarried couple and their 9-year-old daughter: “I was on the verge of sharing with this couple that, now being Christians, they needed to be married. But they came to me first and said, ‘We need to be married. This is not right that we are living together.’ This was truly a work of the Holy Spirit,” Hawthorne said. “The couple’s wedding drew almost 150 guests, many of whom were not Christians.”

Hawthorne said that such converts to Christ “face a lot of peer pressure and persecution” because Hispanics have an intensely cultural Catholic background.

“Many Hispanics aren’t active Catholics, but when peers and parents hear that they attend an evangelical church, the pressure mounts,” he added. “But the great thing is to see these converts live for the Lord.”

“The Lord didn’t command us to make decisions,” Hawthorne said. “He commanded us to make disciples. It’s not enough to lead someone to Christ. We must baptize them, teach them how to walk with the Lord, how to share Christ with others and how to grow in Christ’s likeness. It’s so exciting to see God change people’s lives.”

Practical and financial support

“The SBTC’s church planting process—the training, equipping and follow-up—it’s the best I’ve seen anywhere,” said Hawthorne, citing quarterly church planter evaluation sessions. The meetings are “very encouraging. The guys help you see what’s working and what’s not, and they are very constructive in suggesting any changes that would help. We feel a great deal of support.”

The advice and the support network “is essential in ministry, especially for first-time church planters,” he added. “You’re out there working hard. You’re challenged emotionally, spiritually, financially. You really need someone to support and encourage you.”

Also encouraged by Cooperative Program support, Hawthorne said the CP “made it possible for Sharon and me to fulfill our call through the IMB for 29 years in Brazil, Belize and Mexico. Now, after retirement, we continue to be blessed by it as well as the Reach Texas Offering. This support is vital to church planters, and to the SBTC’s church planting ministry.

“I’m amazed at the initiative the convention is taking, the amount of churches they are planting. I especially applaud the SBTC’s missions department—the motivation and emphasis on training Hispanic church planters—it’s tremendously important since more than half the Texas population is Hispanic.”

“Our heart’s desire and the DNA of Primera Iglesia Bautista de Travis,” Hawthorne said, “is to be a reproducing, multiplying church of disciples—a Hispanic church that will start other reproducing, multiplying Hispanic churches.”

Church planting by the numbers

When it comes to counting church plants, one person’s dozen may be a “baker’s dozen” to the next guy counting.

Although most evangelistic and church planting strategies lead to new converts, not all can rightly be called churches, said Terry Coy, SBTC missions director.

Unfortunately for those who track such things at the North American Mission Board (NAMB)—Southern Baptists’ domestic missions agency in suburban Atlanta—the 43 Baptist state conventions it cooperates with use varied criteria for determining what a church plant is.

“Nationally, it’s been apple to oranges,” Coy said. “What we’ve discovered is the need for a more standardized definition of a church.”

NAMB’s new president, Kevin Ezell, has said NAMB will implement such a standard.

At the SBTC, a church plant is regarded as a new work planted with some SBTC funding and accountability—in partnership with local churches and associations—that practices the New Testament functions of a church. A church plant practices the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, has a pastor, and is intentional in its formation and identity as a local church.

The convention doesn’t take credit for churches planted without the church planting team’s involvement or new congregations formed from church splits. Organic strategies that involve Bible studies, multi-housing outreaches, or other similar ministries are also not counted as church plants until, and only if, they grow into intentional congregations.

“That is, there are many ministries that might be church planting strategies, but they do not always nor necessarily lead to a new church. All should be encouraged and celebrated, but we’re calling it a church after the fact, not before,” Coy explained.

Last year, the SBTC helped plant 25 new churches, with about 40 expected this year.

Ezell, speaking to state Baptist paper editors in February, said that in his assessment of NAMB’s work with the various state conventions, a plethora of accounting formulas led to “a lot of smoke and mirrors” to make numbers look better than they were.

For example, Ezell said, “One time I got five different answers to the same question because I asked five different people on purpose. … It’s very hard to solve a problem when you don’t have the right components to add or subtract.” He wants uniform counting standards that don’t tempt people “with skin in the game” to pad numbers.

In annual reports to NAMB, some state conventions counted as new church plants those that had “been alive maybe 30 to 40 years but on a church plant list.” Others have included Bible studies held at campgrounds, Ezell said, or recounted the same newly planted churches two or three years consecutively.

“Southern Baptists, when they hear that number, assume those are new church plants,” Ezell said.

Coy said the SBTC would rather undercount the number of church starts than overcount.

Organic strategies that involve multi-housing and people group strategists may be supported with church planting funds and are considered planting strategies but not considered church plants on the front end.

“Let’s plant the seeds, let’s start it, and let’s see what it grows into,” Coy said. “If and when it has the New Testament functions of a church, then we’ll call it a church.”

Some of the catalytic approaches to church planting “will become New Testament churches; others will become feeder ministries for existing churches,” he said.

“I am willing to call all of these methods church planting strategies and they all need to be celebrated, but they are not necessarily church plants.”

What’s wrong with established churches?

One most often-cited and easily demonstrable reason for our denomination’s emphasis on church planting is the contention that new churches reach more lost people per 100 members than do churches over 15 years old. According to Professor J.D. Payne of Southern Seminary, new churches reach more than three times as many lost people as older churches.

Some mature churches do reach their hundreds, even thousands. Maybe you’ll think of a church of 30,000 members that baptizes 1,000 they win to the Lord each year. It sounds good, and a thousand baptisms would put even a large church near the top of SBC baptisms, but remember the ratio. At an average three baptisms per 100 members (according to Professor Payne), a church with 30,000 members would have to baptize 900 people just to be average. The fictional church noted above has baptized 3.3 per 100 members. It’s the same problem, only multiplied by 300. Church planting still seems like the best way to reach a community, even in a place with many churches that are no longer as effective as they once were in evangelism.

I don’t know why this is true. Over the period of my ministry, hundreds of books and thousands of articles have taken a shot at the problem. Some pastors have found notable success in their ministries but almost none of those who buy the books or attend the conference spawned by one church’s success are able to transfer the spark to their own ministries. “It’s a leadership problem,” many have said. “It’s a prayerlessness problem,” others chime in. Still others note the lack of outreach by many churches. Maybe the laymen need evangelistic training. Maybe we need revival in America. It’s hard to gainsay any of these ideas but some churches are doing better than others, seemingly based on being smaller and newer than the church in the next block.

Higher baptism rates are not the only reason to plant churches, by the way. In many places there are language groups that do not have a church that preaches the gospel to their culture or in their language. In other places, tens of thousands of people do not have a Bible-preaching church in their city. Most of the United States is not over-churched.
Do the characteristics of churches at different stages of maturity give us any clue for differences in evangelistic effectiveness? I think they might.

Smaller-newer churches don’t have enough money—Yes I know that a 40-year-old suburban church doesn’t have enough money either but that church spends 40 percent on personnel and another 30 percent or more on other fixed expenses. The newborn church can’t afford fixed expenses, yet. They have to do ministry without program money. They use what they have, people, every one of the 30-100 people they have.

Larger-older churches have obligations—They have a lot more ministry categories than their new sister churches. Each category needs a staff member to devote or split his attention to the success of the ministries contained therein. And each ministry has a constituency that will list that thing the church does as a very important reason that they attend the church. It becomes something the church must do, so long as they are able. Smaller-newer churches often look forward to the day when they can have a broader set of obligations. They can’t take them on, yet.

Smaller-newer churches are more motivated in evangelism—They need people. Yes, they strongly desire to see the lost come to Christ and so does the church down the block. The smaller-newer church also needs people to do the work and to fund the ministry. The Lord uses need to motivate us to do more energetically the things to which we’re committed already. A smaller-newer church has fewer distractions from the main thing in addition to a real need that may be less keen in churches that reached critical mass decades ago. J.D. Payne has also noted that the evangelistic effectiveness of a new church begins to decline after three years of life. Maybe the urgency fades a little at a time during the first decade.

Church planters are more likely to seek experienced help—The pastor of a mature church has decades of experience and has pastored two or more churches already. He’s less motivated to look for help. If, as many say, 80 percent of our churches are plateaued or declining, why aren’t 80 percent of our churches desperately seeking revitalization? Is complacency a temptation that follows experience?

No one goes to a new church plant to hide out—It’s a blessing of being smaller and newer that the church membership is thoroughly mixed up in the lives of brothers and sisters. The mature church, of 1,000 members or so, is a place where a person can usually attend and watch without anyone bothering him. It’s a difficult problem that grows with time as more and more people come and go or just come and sit. In that church of 1,000 members, nearly the same number of people are intimately involved in what the church does as in the newer church of 100. In the small-new church the percentage is near 100 percent. That drops with time and success, in most cases.

It makes me wonder why a church planter would ever look at another ministry and think, “someday.” But there is another way to look at it.

Mature churches are a resource—Remember those ministries and categories and staff members and fixed expenses? Well those are the things that make many community ministries possible. Smaller-newer churches may want to go to a youth camp planned by a staff member of the bigger-older church, in an office, in a building facilitated by some level of bureaucracy.

Mature churches give money to missions—The concept of missions is that more established ministries give to establish gospel outposts in less-reached places. Those are relative terms, but the life of a missionary or church planter or seminary student would be much more difficult without the missionary hearts of churches over 15 years old.

Larger-older ministries baptize hundreds of thousands each year—Their percentage effectiveness may, on the average, drop over time, but a lot of people are saved in mature churches.

Older churches currently minister in places where we’re not planting churches—Rural counties and small towns need love too. Unless we respect ministries in small traditional places, we’ll neglect the spiritual needs of millions of our countrymen. Our talk, even among our friends and co-workers, should indicate that even churches that might be gone in a generation are not yet gone or irrelevant.

Churches with a long history are tempted to forget their reason for being. I believe revitalization is possible if the church courageously focuses on first things. The focus, energy and almost desperate closeness of a new church start has much to teach churches that are dragged too often into maintenance. Older churches can reach people for Christ if they can shake off ossifying comfort. These churches have a responsibility to remain vital for the whole of their lives. In fact, their responsibilities grow as they are trusted with more influence and more resources.

From observation, it seems true that churches have life stages like people do. Some churches do remain healthy over the course of a hundred years but it’s rare. Most slow down and come to a stop long before that. That doesn’t mean they cease to have a purpose or that there is no hope, just that each stage of life has its own challenges. But if a church can be like a person, a denomination of churches can be like a family—an amazing collection of diverse individuals bound by cords not easily broken. Without new members, the family declines and without the generations of parents and grandparents, the young ones lack nurture. Like families, we also tend to take one another for granted or squabble over nothing. Let’s hear no more cynicism about the well-established need for church planting or, on the other hand, calling ministries different from our own “irrelevant.” It’s not the way families should talk about each other.

La Iglesia un Cuerpo Viviente

Cuando hablamos de la iglesia muchas veces pensamos en un edificio o en un local. A través de los siglos en muchos países cuando uno hace referencia a una iglesia siempre se piensa inmediatamente en un templo, una catedral o en una basílica. La verdad es que en la palabra de Dios, la iglesia no es un edificio sino que son aquellos que han aceptado a Cristo como Señor y Salvador de sus vidas. Se puede decir que los creyentes forman y son parte del cuerpo viviente de Cristo aquí en la tierra. La palabra iglesia proviene del griego ekklesia que significa “los llamados” y en el Nuevo Testamento la palabra iglesia se usa 115 veces. Vemos en Efesios 1:22 y 23 que nos dice: “y sometió todas las cosas bajo sus pies, y lo dio por cabeza sobre todas las cosas a la iglesia, la cual es su cuerpo, la plenitud de Aquel que todo lo llena en todo.” También vemos en Efesios 5:25 al 29 como Pablo habla de la iglesia comparándola a los maridos y a las esposas: “Maridos, amad a vuestras mujeres, así como Cristo amó a la iglesia, y se entregó a sí mismo por ella, para santificarla, habiéndola purificado en el lavamiento del agua por la palabra, a fin de presentársela a sí mismo, una iglesia gloriosa, que no tuviese mancha ni arruga ni cosa semejante, sino que fuese santa y sin mancha. Así también los maridos deben amar a sus mujeres como a sus mismos cuerpos. El que ama a su mujer, a sí mismo se ama. Porque nadie aborreció jamás a su propia carne, sino que la sustenta y la cuida, como también Cristo a la iglesia.” La iglesia no es un club o una organización social, es un cuerpo viviente.

La verdad es que la iglesia no es una institución como un hogar, un estado o una escuela; por eso la iglesia nunca debe ser llamada una institución. Es un organismo que es caracterizado por una vida espiritual.

Es algo viviente y dinámico. Nos hacemos miembros de su cuerpo por lo que Cristo hizo por nosotros; no por lo que nosotros hemos hecho. Nosotros no podemos crear la iglesia; es el cuerpo de

Cristo y simplemente somos añadidos a ella. La iglesia es compuesta de creyentes en Cristo que saben que tienen una vida eterna por medio de Él. La iglesia es una congregación o una asamblea de los fieles listos para servir y adorar al Dios vivo.

Se dice de un pastor que recibió malas noticias una noche sobre su iglesia. Le informaron: “Hemos venido para decirle que hubo un incendio en su iglesia esta noche y todo fue destruido. No quedó nada.”

El pastor replicó inmediatamente y dijo: “Si mi iglesia se quemó, se tenía que haber quemado los cien miembros. ¿Fue así?” Respondiendo dijeron: “Ninguno de sus miembros se quemaron.” El pastor concluyó diciendo, “Así es, lo que se quemó esta noche no fue la iglesia, fue el edificio. Pronto la iglesia edificará otro edficio.”

RA missions education transferred to WMU

Beginning in September 2012, Texas Southern Baptist churches offering Royal Ambassador (RA) and Challenger programs will no longer be able to order their missions materials through the North American Mission Board.
Responsibility for the historic missions education program created for boys in grades 1-12 has been shifted to the Woman’s Missionary Union, the SBC auxiliary group credited with developing the program in 1908.

According to an April press release, the WMU will “assume responsibility for resourcing for RA and Challengers with mission education” as part of NAMB’s organizational overhaul. Previous responsibility for RAs rested with the missions education area of NAMB’s communications group, which has developed the missions curriculum since 1997. Prior to that the former Brotherhood Commission had the task.

Former pastor Steve Heartsill has been tapped as managing editor for the resource as well as liaison between WMU and NAMB. Heartsill serves as WMU design editor of the missions leader resource team.

In the April release, national WMU Executive Director Wanda S. Lee said she is excited about the coming changes and what they will mean for local churches.

“With WMU producing these materials, it will be so much easier for churches to order all their missions education resources from just one place—WMU,” Lee said.

In a written response to the TEXAN, Mike Ebert, vice president for communications at NAMB, said the entity looks forward to working with the national WMU to bring RAs to new churches while continuing to serve churches that have faithfully offered RA programs throughout the years.

“National WMU has assured us that they will work with any church that wants to bring RAs to its congregation,” Ebert said.

However, the re-organization might prove difficult for churches uniquely affiliated with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, one of two state conventions lacking a working relationship with the long-time women’s missions auxiliary.

Because current WMU bylaws restrict the SBC auxiliary from having more than one relationship with conventions in any given state, it does not recognize the SBTC as a working partner in missions. Consequently, Texas WMU materials exclusively feature Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) missions.

Housed in offices of the BGCT, Texas WMU promotes and hosts web content for BGCT mission projects and the BGCT’s state offering (Mary Hill Davis) on its new website. In-state training opportunities and mission camp opportunities typically focus on these same priorities.

Despite the lack of partnership between the SBTC and WMU, Tiffany Smith, SBTC missions mobilization associate, said that dually or uniquely aligned SBTC churches may still order missions education materials by contacting both SBTC and national WMU offices.

“Although the SBTC is not recognized by the WMU, this should not in any way hinder the church’s ability to have a WMU program,” Smith told the TEXAN after WMU released news of the re-organization.

And although the reorganization of responsibility over RA material compounds the long-standing problem of no relationship between WMU and the SBTC, Jim Richards, SBTC executive director, said he would still like to see a relationship established.

“My goal for the WMU-SBTC relationship is for the WMU to recognize the SBTC as a state convention. In doing so, I would want the WMU to allow the women of the SBTC churches to elect a WMU president and have a place on their board,” Richards said. “In essence I simply want the SBTC to be afforded the rights and privileges that any other state convention has in their relationship with the WMU.”

After news of the shift of RA responsibility was released, the TEXAN contacted the national WMU for clarification regarding its position toward SBTC churches. In an e-mailed response to the TEXAN, Julie Walters, corporate communications team leader of the national WMU, maintained that WMU focuses on resourcing churches with missions materials.

“While we resource the churches, we also partner with all Baptist state conventions equally for the purpose of resourcing churches with Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offering materials,” Walters said. “As Wanda [Lee] has communicated in the past, we relate on a state level with state WMU organizations. To say that we don’t ‘recognize’ the SBTC sounds like we ‘recognize’ all conventions and are singling the SBTC out. That is not true. Again, we desire to resource any church—regardless of their affiliation—with missions education resources.”

The WMU has also withheld a relationship with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV).

NAMB’s Ebert told the TEXAN he understood the shift in responsibility could intensify tensions arising from the lack of relationship between the WMU and dual-convention states.

“We can’t anticipate every scenario, so we look forward to helping resolve any specific challenges a church might have as we enter this new partnership,” he said.

Yet despite no formal relationship between the WMU and the SBTC, Ebert said NAMB would like “to see more churches and more boys participating in RAs.”

“NAMB has a long history of working well in dual-convention states,” he said. “In Texas, we helped coordinate efforts last year with GPS: God’s Plan for Sharing, the evangelism emphasis in which both state conventions participated. The same was true in 2007 for Crossover San Antonio. And we work with both state conventions to help coordinate national disaster relief responses.”

The SBTC’s Smith emphasized that additional resources for missions education are available for churches that opt for other missions education programs.

“We have vision trips throughout the year to mobilize churches in missions and we work with Paula Hemphill and ‘Kingdom Women’ at the IMB.” Smith said. “In addition, we have created materials and lessons to be dropped into ongoing missions curriculum or AWANA.”

For more information regarding SBTC missions education resources, call Tiffany Smith toll-free at 877-953-7282 (SBTC) or e-mail her at tsmith@sbtexas.com.

In Muslim-majority Nazareth, Baptist school nurtures faith

NAZARETH, Israel (BP)–Flat-roofed houses still dot the Nazareth skyline like they did in Jesus' time, but these days they're covered with satellite dishes.

A good bit has changed since Jesus grew up in the Galilean city. But one thing rings true across the years: Christ's hometown still needs His peace, said Charles Tyson*.

“People think of Israel, and they automatically think of biblical Israel instead of the modern-day political state of Israel,” said Tyson, a Southern Baptist worker in Israel. They don't realize that Israel is a diverse nation of many different ethnic populations, he explained.

The residents of Nazareth — including the members of Israel's first Baptist church, planted 100 years ago — are Arabs, not Jews, even though Israel is majority Jewish. The Word is preached today in Arabic at Nazareth Baptist Church, just as the church's first sermon was preached decades before Israel was a nation.

Today in the town of 80,000, roughly 80 percent are Muslim, 20 percent are Christian by background and a tiny sliver of that number are evangelical believers in Jesus.

It's that way even though Christians have had strong roots in the town since Jesus' day. Two churches — including the Church of the Annunciation, the largest church in the area — claim to be on the place where Gabriel told Mary she would bear God's Son.

“Even in Nazareth where we've had a Christian presence for a long time, it's hard for Arab Muslims to see what a Christian is,” said Adam Roberts *, a Southern Baptist worker in Israel. “We want to show them that it's not just our identification or our background. Our faith … transforms our whole life in Christ.”

It's slow work to overcome religious barriers, but workers are still tending the mission field where Baptists began planting spiritual seeds in 1911, Roberts said. One way he's doing this is through his work at Nazareth Baptist School, where he teaches Bible to teens. About 20 percent of the K-12 students are from a Muslim background, he said.

“The parents in the community respect the high academic reputation of the school to the degree that they are willing to accept that their children will be taught about the Bible,” Roberts said. “Because of this, I'm able to talk openly about the Gospel.”

“Openly” is a bit of an understatement — he said he's shared the Gospel more in one year at the school than he did in several years of youth ministry back in the States, he said.

“I encourage them to speak freely about their questions and their own faith and talk about where our beliefs are different,” Roberts said. “I tell them if we fall to the temptation to say we are the same, we are robbing both of us of important aspects of our faith. It's good to talk about what we share, but it's also good to discuss where we are different.”

Roberts asked for believers to pray:

— for the 1,000 students who attend the Baptist school in Nazareth.

— that the school will find qualified teachers who are Christ followers.

— that churches in the United States will partner with the school, leading a week of chapel at the school or partnering in other types of work.

–30–

*Names have been changed. Ava Thomas is an International Mission Board writer/editor based in Europe.

Navy reverses course on ‘gay marriages’

WASHINGTON (BP)–The U.S. Navy rescinded May 10 its permission for chaplains to perform “same-sex marriage” ceremonies on base when the ban on open homosexuality in the military is lifted. The switch came after members of Congress charged the change in policy violates the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Chief of Chaplains Rear Adm. Mark Tidd reversed course after his April 13 memo became publicized May 9 and drew a sharp rebuke from more than 60 representatives. Tidd said late May 10 he was suspending his authorization “pending additional legal and policy review” and enhanced cooperation with other branches of the military, according to The Washington Post.

News media coverage and the outcry from Congress caused armed forces lawyers to review Tidd's memo, a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged, according to The Post. “That raised the issue, so the [Navy] legal counsel looked at it and determined it needed further review,” Col. Dave Lapan said.

In his April memo, Tidd authorized Navy chaplains to officiate at on-base, same-sex ceremonies in states where such unions are allowed. He also said naval base facilities “may normally be used to celebrate the marriage” if the base is in a state that has legalized “same-sex marriage.”

Sixty-three members of the House of Representatives complained to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus after Tidd's memo was revealed. Led by Rep. Todd Akin, R.-Mo., the representatives said they “find it difficult to understand how the military is somehow exempt from abiding by” the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

DOMA, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, defines marriage in federal law as being between a man and a woman and empowers states to refuse to recognize another state's “gay marriages.”

“Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriages violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land and binds our military, including chaplains,” the House members told Mabus in a May 6 letter.

Akin said in a statement released May 9 with the letter, “While a state may legalize same-sex marriage, federal property and federal employees, like Navy chaplains, should not be used to perform marriages that are not recognized by federal law.”

On May 11, Akin was expected to introduce amendments in the House Armed Services Committee to the yearly Defense authorization bill that would ban military chaplains from performing “same-sex marriages” and bar the use of armed services facilities for such ceremonies, according to The Post.

After Tidd's memo was publicized, a Navy spokeswoman told the Navy Times chaplains would not be required to perform “gay marriages.”

The Navy's initial response to the House complaint actually made things worse, said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. In his reaction to news of the memo, Perkins cited a Navy statement, which he said included: “If the chaplain declines to personally perform the service, then the chaplain MUST facilitate the request … “

Perkins said, “That's a big leap from simply allowing the ceremonies to take place. As much as the weddings violate DOMA, the referral order is a direct assault on the freedom of conscience. And it it's enforced, it could be what drives evangelical chaplains out of the military altogether.”

If the Navy proceeds with a policy change for its chaplains, it will not take effect until President Obama, as well as the secretary of Defense and the chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, certify that terminating the prohibition on open homosexuality will not harm the military.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell barred homosexuals from serving openly but also prohibited military commanders from asking service members if they are homosexual or about their “sexual orientation.”

Critics of the new law terminating Don't Ask, Don't Tell have warned it will result in infringements on religious liberty, as well as harm to the readiness, privacy and retention of service members.

–30–

Compiled by Tom Strode, Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.

5th week: China arrests more Christians

BEIJING (BP)–At least 13 members of a Beijing church were arrested Sunday, May 8, in the fifth straight week of its defiance of the Chinese government, which continued to force people out of their homes in an effort to pressure the congregation.

One family learned they were being kicked out of their home at 6:40 Sunday morning, before the service even began.

The high-profile clash between the government and Shouwang Church — one of the largest unregistered illegal churches in Beijing — has led to hundreds of house arrests or detentions. More than 500 church members were placed under arrest on Easter weekend alone, prevented from leaving their houses or apartments.

ChinaAid, a U.S.-based organization that monitors religious freedom in the country, said the government, as in previous weeks, continued “rendering church members homeless by pressuring their landlords to evict them.”

Shouwang Church itself is homeless, having lost its meeting space when the government pressured the owners of a restaurant — its last home — to kick out the church. The church also has tried to rent space, only to see various landlords pressured not to cooperate.

Each week during the past month, the church has tried to worship at a public site in Zhongguancun in northwest Beijing.

Churches in China are legal only if they register with the government and join what is known as the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. But ChinaAid founder Bob Fu, in an interview with Baptist Press, said churches have a solid, biblical reason for refusing to register with the government.

“Fundamentally,” Fu said, “the number one reason is focused on who is the head of the church? Is it the Communist Party, the Chinese government or Jesus Christ alone? The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is nothing but a political organization with a religious uniform. All the leaders are appointed by the Communist Party, the United Front Work Department and the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and they are salaried. And many of the leaders are also Communist Party members.

“Secondly, once you join the government-sanctioned church, you lose pretty much all the freedom of evangelism. There are lots of limitations and rules that will forbid you to do any evangelism outside of the four walls of the church building. You can't baptize anybody under 18 years old, you're forbidden to have a Sunday School. There are fundamental differences.”

More than 160 were arrested the first week Shouwang tried to meet outdoors, about 50 were arrested the second week, approximately 40 on the third week and about 30 on the fourth week. The declining number of arrests likely is due to the government placing so many other members under house arrest, which prevents them from even leaving their homes.

Included in the latest round of arrests was a woman who is a member of another illegal church, New Tree House Church. She showed up at the outdoor site to show solidarity with her fellow believers, ChinaAid reported.

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Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press.

Sonogram bill headed to governor’s desk

AUSTIN—A bill requiring most women seeking abortions to undergo a sonogram at least 24 hours prior to the procedure and to hear a description of the baby’s physical features has passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature and awaits the promised signature of Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

House Bill 15 would give a woman the option of seeing her unborn baby and would require a physician or certified sonographer to describe the dimensions of the baby and the existence of the baby’s arms, legs, and internal organs, including a heartbeat, during the sonogram.

Women living in counties of fewer than 60,000 people or beyond 100 miles of an abortion facility and those in a life-threatening “medical emergency” would be exempt from the 24-hour waiting period. Also, in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormality, women could refuse hearing the verbal description from the sonogram.

In January at the start of the legislative session, Perry placed the bill on emergency status, giving it priority consideration over other bills.

Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, was chief sponsor of the House version, with state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, sponsoring the state Senate version. The Senate passed the bill on a third reading, 21-10, on May 3. On May 5, the House passed it, 94-41.

Patrick told the TEXAN last month that a few pro-life groups had criticized the bill as not stringent enough, but it got support from Liberty Institute, Texas Right to Life and Eagle Forum.

It was roundly opposed by abortion rights groups, who claim it violates doctor-patient privacy. The Texas Medical Association, for example, argued it not only “sets a dangerous precedent of legislation prescribing the details of the practice of medicine, but it also clearly mandates that physicians practice in a manner inconsistent with medical ethics.”

But Miller, the House sponsor, told reporters: “House Bill 15 will protect human life, the lives of the unborn victims of abortion, as well as those facing life-changing decisions. … This legislation will save numerous unborn lives.”

After it passed the Texas Senate on May 3, Perry said in a statement: “The Texas Senate has taken admirable action today by passing this significant sonogram legislation, and I want to thank Rep. Sid Miller and Sen. Dan Patrick for their work on this issue. Ensuring Texans have access to all the information when making such an important decision is a critical step in our efforts to protect life, and I look forward to this legislation reaching my desk very soon.”

A similar bill passed last year in Oklahoma is in limbo, awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York City.

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SBC 2011: Phoenix • Crossover: Phoenix-Tucson corridor

PHOENIX—Tom Elliff believes it’s time to stop talking about the estimated 3,800 unengaged and unreached people groups (UPGs), preferring instead to get the ball rolling this summer at the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting June 14-15 in Phoenix.

Although he’s happy the staff of the International Mission Board has developed all the pieces necessary to fully engage all UPGs, the new IMB president admits “some assembly is required.”

“We’re going to put these pieces together and by the grace of God, beginning with this year’s convention, within 12 months we pray that at least 3,800 churches in the Southern Baptist Convention would cowboy up,” Elliff stated after taking office in March. He said he hopes to hear those churches say “we are going to strategize, we’re going to pray, and we’re going to do everything we can with the ultimate goal of seeing that there are boots on the ground among those people.”

Asking trustees to take a minute to ponder the possibility, Elliff said, “Should Jesus grant us the days, by the 2012 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention we would be able to say that to the best of our knowledge every people group on this globe has some church committed to take specific steps.”

If such a partnership between SBC churches and IMB were to occur, Elliff said “God might be inclined to bring spiritual awakening to our nation that we so desperately need and ultimately that the gospel would be proclaimed to every nation, every people, and to the uttermost.”

Kevin Ezell, new president of the North American Mission Board, will lead a similar charge to reach North America when he brings his first report to the annual SBC meeting.

“My vision for the Southern Baptist Convention is that we would have a larger percentage of our churches adopting unreached people groups,” he told the Florida Baptist Witness last month. “If we can get our churches to serve locally, plant nationally, and adopt a people group internationally, we will be revitalized like never before.”

NAMB will be “very honest with Southern Baptists on where we are and where we need to be,” he told the Witness. “Defining reality has to happen in order for us to know where we are so that we know where we need to go,” he said.
NAMB’s new “Send North America” strategy will be launched during the Phoenix meeting.

SBC President Bryant Wright encouraged this year’s Committee on Order of Business to give greater prominence to a Great Commission emphasis, offering missionary commissioning services by both IMB and NAMB. He has invited Elliff and Ezell to join him at a news conference on Tuesday of the meeting to address the renewed Great Commission focus.