Month: September 2021

9/11: Southern Baptist Disaster Relief left legacy at Ground Zero

Oklahoma DR chaplains minister at Ground Zero in NYC

NEW YORK CITY (BP) – Twenty years after spending weeks in what could only be called a war zone, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers are reflecting on their experience working in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and how it affected their lives.

Sam Porter is the national director for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief for Send Relief with the North American Mission Board. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Porter was serving as the disaster relief director for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. He said he remembers the events surrounding 9/11 “very vividly.”

Chaplains organize their shifts for work at the temporary morgue at Ground Zero. File photo by Bob Nigh

Even before the second World Trade Center tower collapsed, Porter was on the phone with NAMB’s national disaster relief director making plans to take a relief team to New York.

Because a majority of flights around the country were canceled after the day’s events, Porter and his team flew to New York on a private plane Sept. 12.

The pilot had to ask the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to fly. Permission was granted due to Southern Baptist Disaster Relief’s efforts after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, when Porter and his team had served in the days following the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Their service was remembered, and the government asked the team to fly to New York as soon as they could, something Porter said is just one example of God opening doors for them to be able to minister at Ground Zero.

Once the team arrived in New York the morning of Sept. 13, they steadily established a relationship with the head of security for the New York Police Department, who observed the way they were caring and praying for first responders. He gave them permission to minister any way they saw fit, despite their not having official clearance to be at Ground Zero.

From left, BGCO Chaplaincy Specialist Leslie Sias, BGCO Disaster Relief Director Sam Porter and Oklahoma City Police chaplain Jack Poe visit with firefighters near Ground Zero in New York City. File photo by Bob Nigh

Porter was eventually asked to be one of the leaders of the chaplaincy efforts at Ground Zero. Southern Baptist DR teams from around the country were slowly but surely given access to come volunteer, and Porter said teams were volunteering in the area until it was closed off in May of 2002.

SBC Executive Committee President and CEO Ronnie Floyd praised the way Southern Baptists around the country responded to the shocking and challenging time in the nation.

“9/11 sent shock waves across the nation and around the world,” Floyd said. “On this day, it seemed everything stopped as these horrific events unfolded before our eyes. Churches across the nation were moved to urgent and deep prayer for America.

“While fear gripped the nation and the world, pastors and churches joined a unified call, placing our faith and hope in the Lord. Attendance to local church worship services grew in the weeks following as America focused on the need to talk to God and depend on His power in this national time of spiritual need. Through our cooperative work as SBC churches, we did whatever was needed to be done at the time. I have not seen America more unified and resolved since 9/11 and the weeks and months following.”

A demolished firetruck is lifted out of the debris at Ground Zero by a crane. File photo by Bob Nigh

Porter said ministry at Ground Zero generally involved caring for and praying with first responders and serving food in partnership with The Salvation Army.

One of their main ministries was connecting with first responders and simply asking them to tell them their story. Often, a connection was made when volunteers said they were from Oklahoma and were acquainted with some of the trauma that can result from terrorist attacks.

Porter said the ministry work included many difficult things, such as praying over the remains of every person who was uncovered from the wreckage before the remains were moved on for attempted identification. Still, the team was grateful for the opportunity.

“We knew God had us there for a reason to make an impact. … It was a great honor for us to be there and tell people about the hope of Christ Jesus,” Porter said. “I’ve never prayed as much or cried as much in my whole life, but God made a big difference.”

While Porter was a DR veteran when he went to Ground Zero, Nancy Hubbard was not. In fact, it was her first assignment.

Hubbard, who was 62 at the time, first heard about Southern Baptist Disaster Relief from a presentation at her Georgia church. She later visited a DR effort going on in Florida and was immediately “hooked,” she said.

“Being a Christian, I always wanted to do things to help people, and this was ideal for me,” Hubbard said. “I like to be out working so this was perfect. I was able to meet new people and new Christians that you have something in common with. It was just God-sent for me.”

Hubbard has been on at least 50 DR deployments in the last 20 years, but 9/11 – her first – is fresh on her mind.

“I went not knowing a soul,” she said. “When we went up there, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We just said, ‘We’re here; where can you use us?’ It was devastating to watch what was left, and it was eye-opening.”

Hubbard, now 82, is retired, but has no plans to stop volunteering in disaster relief. Just this week, she was in Louisiana, helping clean up after Hurricane Ida.

“I hope the Lord will allow me at least a couple of more years of doing this work because I truly love it,” she said. “It seems like when I go on these trips, I forget my age and my energy just hits the top rung and I’m just ready to go.

“You just meet the most wonderful people with the best attitudes that you could ever even imagine, the people that run into just makes it worthwhile. You know you’ve helped somebody that really needs it.”

Porter said the impact SBDR teams made at Ground Zero is still felt today, as disaster relief efforts increased throughout the states over the next 20 years, and Southern Baptists now have “a seat at the table,” among national relief agencies.

He added that the unity displayed by the country in the aftermath of 9/11 is the type of unity that is now desperately needed for Southern Baptists as followers of Christ.

“We have to base our beliefs and our ministry on the Word of God, and realize that we serve God, not each other,” Porter said. “We serve because He’s called us, and there’s so much we can do now through Send Relief to bring help, hope and healing.

“For the Southern Baptist Convention to come together, we have to go back and see what the Bible says about us going forward. If we go (to fulfill the Great Commission) in any other power expect the name of Jesus Christ, we will not be together, and we will be divided.”

3 SBC leaders reflect on 9/11

As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, three Southern Baptists leaders who held significant leadership roles on Sept. 11, 2001, help us to remember that infamous day in American history and consider its impact on the convention and our world.

At that time, Dr. Richard Land was the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; Dr. James Merritt was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention; and Dr. Jerry Rankin was the president of the International Mission Board. Each man shared his experience and reflections with us. Their words remind us of the difficult decisions during that time, the preciousness of our religious liberty, the value of every human life, and our call to take the gospel to the nations.

Jill Waggoner: Where were you when you heard the news on Sept. 11, 2001?

Richard Land: We were in the middle of our trustee meeting. I was getting ready and listening to the news when I saw the first plane hit. I called Bobby Reed, our chief financial officer, and I said, “Have you heard? Call the rental companies and get every rental car you can find, because they are going to shut everything down.” We ended up carpooling some of our trustees home who were there from more distant states.

It was astonishing. It’s hard to describe how shell-shocked everyone was. I had flown out of LaGuardia Airport, right past the Twin Towers, back to Nashville, just the Friday before. So, it was surreal.

James Merritt: Amazingly, I was getting ready to go upstairs and work out before flying to speak at the ERLC! I got a call from Teresa, my wife, telling me that a pilot had flown a plane into the World Trade Center and I might want to turn on the TV. I went back downstairs, and the moment I turned on the TV, I never left my bedroom for eight hours. During that time, I called the church to dismiss everyone to go to their homes immediately.

Jerry Rankin: When I arrived at the IMB office on Sept. 11, there was a notice that Genessa Wells, a journeyman in the Middle had been killed the night before in a bus accident two weeks before the completion of her term. At 9 a.m., I assembled our executive team for the purpose of activating crisis action procedures of notifying and ministering to family, responding to the trauma of the team on the field, and managing the media response. One of our vice presidents came into the room and suggested we turn on the TV monitor. He had just passed the one in the communications office, and something was happening in New York.

We watched the live events unfold in horror and disbelief for the next two hours and realized this would have global ramifications. Out of that day-long crisis mode, we realized the U.S. would retaliate on any number of Muslim countries and that Muslim population groups all over the world would then reciprocate, not necessarily against missionaries, but any American in their country. Although we have a policy that the decision to evacuate a country was to be made by local missionaries and their field leadership, we realized this was a larger global issue, and there was no way they could have the overview of the situation.

The decision was made to immediately evacuate missionaries in the 20 most dominant Muslim countries, which entailed moving 400 personnel and their families, most of whom were resistant to leaving, already cognizant of the risk in serving in a hostile environment. This was a massive logistical challenge. Where do they go? Where could we immediately provide accommodations for such a large number on nearby fields, not knowing how long they may be displaced or if they could ever return? How do we arrange travel, and how much time should we allow for them to make arrangements for sustaining their ministries and protecting property?

JW: How did 9/11 affect your role at that time?

RL: On a personal level, it made travel permanently more difficult and arduous, as it still is to some degree. It’s hard for people who are younger to understand how much easier it was to travel before 9/11.

The difficulty of the moment was that you wanted to protect your country without infringing on religious liberty and how to navigate that along with the threat posed by terrorists. We had to constanly remind people that 90% of the victims of the jihadists were fellow Muslims who refused to accept this as sole interpretation of Islam. We spoke to these issues, and when there was consensus among Baptists, we relayed that to Congress and the courts. We argued for sunsetting (when specific provisions cease after a certain time) for some of the legislation that was passed so that they would be reviewed every 10 years. We had to recognize legitimate security concerns, but we didn’t want laws set in place that would violate constitutional liberties permanently.

I got a lot of flack for coming out against waterboarding. Congressmen would ask me in private why I was against it. The shorthand definition of torture is something that is likely to produce permanent pyschological or physical damage. Having viewed waterboarding on films used to train our special forces, it was hard for me to imagine that this would not produce permant pychological damage This would be torture. If we engage in torture, then we become no better than our enemies.

To us the big question was: How do you defend religious freedom, including the freedom of Muslims? We said we are all free to advocate for our different faiths and to proselytize . . .

We also said we disagree with everything Muslims say, but we defend to the death their right to say it. When we defend the rights of those of the Muslim faith, we are defending the rights to our faith.

JM: It was out of that terrible tragedy that I was actually invited to the White House along with 25 other religious leaders to draft an ecumenical statement on praying for the nation. Then, I was one of seven selected to meet with the president in the Oval Office. That led to one of the most fascinating conversations and historical moments I could ever have envisioned or experienced. It also helped to cement a nice personal relationship with President George W. Bush.

JR: Any time mission executives have to take authoritative action, contrary to the wishes and desires of the missionaries, a morale problem evolves as well as a mixture of criticism and praise from their stateside families and churches. The crisis put emerging strategies that grew out of “New Directions” in 1997 on hold in terms of redeploying personnel to engage unreached people groups, provide creative access strategies in countries restricted to missionaries, and maintaining the momentum of new missionaries being appointed. (2001 had the highest number of missionary appointments in the history of the IMB, with more than a thousand being commissioned!)

September 11 impacted international relations, the safety and security of missionaries around the world, and exacerbated the danger and reality of what it meant to give of one’s life for the sake of the gospel and obedience to the call. The next year, three veteran missionaries were assassinated at our Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen; Bill Hyde, a church planter in the Philippines, died in a terrorist bombing at the Davao City airport; and four pioneer missionaries seizing the opportunity to minister to the suffering in Iraq were gunned down by insurgents.

JW: How should Southern Baptists view 9/11 from this vantage point, 20 years later?

RL: Of first importance, we must defend our core values of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, particularly in times of great stress like that was. There’s the temptation to sacrifice those liberties on the altar of security, and that’s always a devil’s bargain. We need to practice and defend those “soul freedoms” for everyone at every opportunity.

September 11 told us — and our theology tells us this too — that we live in a world that is wracked by demonic and evil activity. The devil is a roaring lion “looking for someone to devour” as we read in 1 Peter. Paul tells us to redeem the time, “because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). The word here for “evil” is the word for an active, aggressive evil. We need to understand that the devil and evil people are up to things that we need to be vigilant against, and we are involved in spiritual warfare. Sometimes in the United States that is easy to forget because we have been spared many of the trevails that have been common to the rest of the world.

Once again, 9/11 reminded all Americans of the transitory nature of life. Churches were full right after 9/11. Then, things went back to “normal.” A lot of Americans have been lulled into a sense of “semi-immortality.” Events like this intrude upon Americans’ false sense of security. Life is a fragile thing, and none of us are guaranteed any set number of years. We need to keep our minds on eternal things and help fellow Americans keep their minds on eternal things, as well.

JM: Like any tragedy, I believe that we should always look to a sovereign God who is in control of everything that happens in the universe and wants to use everything for his glory, for the good of his people, and to turn people toward his Son, Jesus Christ. I still believe that events like this should remind us of the fragility of life and the urgency of sharing the gospel to a world that desperately needs Christ.

JR: Amazingly, these events and 9/11 resulted in a burgeoning pool of missionary candidates volunteering to take the gospel to the Muslim world. Over the next two years, the IMB global strategy coalesced around a vision of Muslim evangelism, seeing the gospel as the only power to counter the rise in terrorism. This was met by criticism and resistance of some of our Southern Baptist constituency who insisted we were wasting resources, missionaries should not be allowed to go to dangerous places, and Muslims deserved to go to hell.

In the last decade of the 20th century when the former Soviet Union disintegrated, Russia and Eastern Europe opened to the gospel. Unprecedented church growth swept China in spite of persecution and restrictions. The Muslim world was the one remaining formidable barrier to global evangelization. After 9/11, personnel in Muslim countries reported people expressing disillusionment in the Muslim faith that would endorse terrorism; they asked questions reflecting a search for hope and security they could not find in their traditional religion. September 11 caused the barriers to begin to crumble. Now, 20 years later we should remember what’s at stake and redouble our efforts to call out more missionaries and pray Muslims into the kingdom; after all God loves them, Jesus died for them, and his power is able to save them!

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La IMB anuncia el Domingo de las misiones hispanas el 26 de septiembre

In English

Como parte del Mes de la Herencia Hispana, que se celebra del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre, la IMB ha designado el domingo 26 de septiembre como Domingo de las misiones hispanas. La IMB anima a las iglesias a reconocer los logros y las contribuciones de las iglesias hispanas y los misioneros hispanos de la IMB en llevar el evangelio a las naciones.“La IMB tiene misioneros hispanos que sirven entre las etnias no alcanzadas de todo el mundo”, dice Oscar Tortolero, el movilizador estratégico hispano de la IMB.

Más de 60 millones de hispanos viven actualmente en los EE. UU. y Oscar informa que los Bautistas del Sur tienen más de 3,000 iglesias hispanas.

“Tenemos una gran oportunidad de movilizar a las iglesias hispanas para que oren, ofrenden, vayan y envíen”, dice Oscar, refiriéndose al objetivo de la IMB de ver una relación más estrecha con las iglesias hispanas y los aliados misioneros globales de los países hispanos.

Los recursos, incluyendo los videos, en español e inglés, los pueden encontrar en imb.org/misiones-iglesias-hispanas.

The post La IMB anuncia el Domingo de las misiones hispanas el 26 de septiembre appeared first on IMB.

Litton, Wright visit Louisiana Baptists to encourage Southern Baptist Ida responders

NEW ORLEANS – A year after taking a battering from Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta, the people of Louisiana have been recovering from another direct hit by one of the stronger tropical systems ever to hit the mainland United States: Hurricane Ida.

As Southern Baptists rally to help local communities recover, Southern Baptist Convention president Ed Litton and his wife Kathy visited the affected areas Monday (Sept. 6) along with Bryant Wright, president of Send Relief, the compassion ministry arm of Southern Baptists.

First Baptist Church, Laplace, La., pastor Shane Newton explains the aftermath of Hurricane Ida to Send Relief president, Bryant Wright (blue shirt); Southern Baptist Convention president, Ed Litton (black shirt); and Louisiana Baptist Convention president, David Cranford. Laplace is a community just west of New Orleans that received major damage when Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday, August 30. Photo by Alexandra Toy.

“This has been an eye-opening experience to see the vast destruction of Hurricane Ida,” Litton said. “A director of missions told me during my visit here that Ida is worse than Hurricane Katrina in a lot of ways, in its impact on churches, pastors, members and local communities that were devastated by the powerful winds, floods and now extended periods without electricity.”

David Cranford, current Louisiana Baptist Convention president and pastor of First Baptist Church Ponchatoula, La., and John Hebert, state director of missions for Louisiana Baptists, hosted Litton and Wright as they visited churches and communities that had been wrecked by the storm.

“After seeing more devastation in Louisiana from another hurricane,” Wright said, “I’m so thankful for the state disaster relief teams that have come in quickly to provide tens of thousands of meals for people in need.”

Shane Newton, pastor of First Baptist Church Laplace, La., rode out the storm in his church building since it was one of the safest facilities in Laplace.

“It was six hours that was pretty intense because we stayed in the eye wall the whole time,” Newton said. “The building was sturdy. When the roof came off, that’s when we ran for shelter. It was constant, the wind blowing.”

First Baptist Laplace was not the only building to suffer significant damage in the town. The Celebration Church campus in Laplace is expected to be a total loss as wind tore and shredded the building’s metal roof, strewing sheets of the metal roof across a small field behind their property.

The River Parishes campus of Celebration Church in Laplace, La., suffered significant damage when Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana on August 30. The facility is likely going to have to be torn down and is one of roughly 80 churches in the state that were significantly damaged during the storm. Photo by Alexandra Toy.

Laplace, Kenner, La., and many other communities just west of New Orleans received a massive blow from Ida as the storm migrated inland 100 miles from shore.

North Carolina Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) volunteers set up their operation in the parking lot of First Baptist Church New Orleans to feed and serve residents as the power was being restored to the city.

“We are so appreciative to Louisiana Baptist disaster relief for inviting North Carolina Baptists to assist in the feeding and recovery efforts after Hurricane Ida,” said Tom Beam, disaster relief coordinator for North Carolina Baptists. “We hope in the midst of all our work, Jesus will shine through and people will hear and respond to the gospel.”

Send Relief president, Bryant Wright, addresses a group of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers with North Carolina Baptists On Mission. The North Carolina group stationed at First Baptist Church, New Orleans following Hurricane Ida to prepare meals and serve residents who were in need after the storm knocked out power for more than a week. Photo by Alexandra Toy.

Beam and North Carolina SBDR volunteers showcased their state’s SBDR kitchen, which had prepared 12,500 meals that morning with The Salvation Army delivering them out into the surrounding communities.

Chad Gilbert, pastor of First Baptist New Orleans, only recently became the senior pastor of the church after serving as an associate pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles, La., a city that was devastated by Hurricane Laura in 2020. Trinity served as an SBDR recovery site following Laura, so Gilbert has experienced how Southern Baptists come together during crises like Hurricane Ida.

“In a way, I feel like this is how Christ fulfills His promise in the Great Commission, ‘Surely, I’m with you always to the end of the age,’” Gilbert said. “I feel like He manifests that promise through the Body of Christ. There wasn’t a moment in my time in Lake Charles or here where I felt like, ‘I’m going through this alone.’ I already knew we were going to be enveloped by Southern Baptists and disaster relief.”

Robert Mabry, a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer with North Carolina Baptists, explains how their large, mobile kitchen operates to be able to provide up to 30,000 hot meals a day following major crisis events. Photo by Alexandra Toy.

The Littons and Wright also visited Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond, La., where an SBDR team from Arkansas set up a feeding and recovery site. There, SBDR volunteers prepared meals from their mobile kitchen, and chainsaw teams helped remove downed trees and other debris as residents requested help.

“There’s not a single person in our church, not a single person in this entire community that hasn’t been significantly impacted by this storm,” said Tim Moffett, pastor of Woodland Park. “Our church gets to be this bridge between the hurting folks who are in our community and the help that comes through Jesus Christ.”

Southern Baptists have united in responding to Hurricane Ida to help meet desperate needs with tangible, material help and with the eternal, spiritual hope of the gospel.

“I am deeply moved by the spirit of cooperation that exists among our Southern Baptist family,” Litton said of the trip. “State conventions, associations, the North American Mission Board and Send Relief all lead us to bring relief and the love of Jesus to stricken areas and hurting people.”

Southern Baptist Convention president, Ed Litton, shares a word of encouragement and prayer for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams from Arkansas as they served at Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond, La., in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Photo by Alexandra Toy.

Herbert expressed his gratitude to Baptists from across the nation, including their fellow state convention partners, Send Relief and the entire SBC family, saying it would be impossible to respond without their help.

“Our thanks are for the cooperation and for God’s grace for helping people in our state,” said Herbert. “Without a strong cooperative effort, Louisianians would be in dire straits. So, thank you Southern Baptists for that blessing.”

The Louisiana Baptist Convention is available to help connect Southern Baptists with Louisiana churches that are facing challenges in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Through church-to-church partnerships, Southern Baptist churches from across the nation can serve churches and assist those churches in meeting needs in their communities.

“This recovery will be a long process for the people of Louisiana,” Wright said. “But the opportunities to show the love of Christ and share the gospel will be great when we serve others who are in the middle of this great time of need.”

Prestonwood and Operation Christmas Child: To the ends of the earth

PLANO—Like thousands of other congregations of all sizes, the multi-campus megachurch Prestonwood Baptist will be ready for Operation Christmas Child’s 2021 National Collection Week, Nov. 15-22. Prestonwood has partnered with Samaritan’s Purse and OCC since the shoebox ministry’s earliest days.

OCC began in summer 1993 when, according to the organization’s website, a friend in the UK asked Franklin Graham if Samaritan’s Purse would fill shoeboxes with gifts for children in war-torn Bosnia. Graham agreed under the condition that Samaritan’s Purse could share the gospel with every child receiving a gift. Some 28,000 shoebox gifts made their way to the Balkans.

Samaritan’s Purse has never looked back. Neither has Prestonwood, considered a legacy church with OCC because of its early involvement.

Pastor Jack Graham learned about OCC in 1994 from his friend Franklin Graham. The pastor was visiting Billy and Ruth Graham when Franklin filled him in on the outreach. In a Prestonwood publication a few years ago, Deb Graham, Pastor Graham’s wife, recalled her husband’s enthusiasm: “Jack came back and showed me the shoebox and he said, ‘I want us to do this.’ He got Ross [Robinson] and me together—at that point, we’d never done anything like this before—and soon we were handing out empty shoeboxes.”

To date, the church has supplied more than 200,000 boxes bearing gospel booklets in the children’s own languages and filled with toys, clothes, books and school supplies.

Ross Robinson, OCC senior ministry strategist in church partnerships and a former Prestonwood staff member, said each shoebox provides additional gospel opportunities as children share their gifts and stories with others, generating evangelism, discipleship and multiplication opportunities.

“I love the missionary adage I heard long ago that is so fitting for the heart of our Prestonwood family: ‘The light that shines the furthest shines brightest at home.’ And I think Operation Christmas Child encapsulates it very well,” Jack Graham said in comments to the TEXAN.

“Operation Christmas Child is truly one of our favorite things to do each November as it encourages people of all ages to pack shoebox gifts for children, which above all provides an opportunity to share the gospel. Many of these children have never received a gift. These shoeboxes filled with gifts and packed with love, let them know that they are not forgotten.

“As for our church, it complements what we are already doing through our missions ministry and it provides a wonderful way to engage more of our members and guests in ministry—serving the local church and helping fulfill the mission of God’s church … to the ends of the earth.”

OCC at a glance

Filling the shoeboxes is something individuals, small groups and entire families at Prestonwood enjoy delivering the boxes to Prestonwood Cares collection stations.

The church, like many others, will start promoting OCC in the fall, perhaps showing one or more of the free videos—Including “How to Pack a Shoebox”—downloaded from the OCC website at with additional videos available.

Promotional materials are furnished at no cost to participating churches and organizations. The OCC’s familiar green and red cardboard or plastic boxes may be purchased online in bulk from Samaritan’s Purse.

Churches and groups collect the gift-filled boxes and transport them to drop-off locations the third week of November annually. The boxes are then taken to one of eight national processing centers.

Boxes collected in Texas wind up at the Samaritan’s Purse DFW processing center in Coppell, where volunteers inspect and prepare the shoeboxes for international shipping, stopping work every hour to pray for the children who will receive the gifts.

The shoeboxes are then distributed to kids in more than 100 countries. Even before this happens, OCC National Leadership Teams have trained pastors and leaders in these countries in how to host the child-friendly evangelistic events at which the boxes will be distributed.

OCC carefully works with like-minded, biblically-based, Christ-centered churches in the host countries, Robinson said, explaining the international process: “The gospel is shared through the local church. They have a children’s event. Unchurched children are invited by their friends from that church. The events are festive, with singing, clowns, puppets, balloons.”

The shoeboxes are distributed at some 75,000 such events yearly.

Many children also receive materials to participate in a 12-lesson discipleship program called “The Greatest Journey” that has been used with more than 26.5 million children since 2009, resulting in 12.5 million decisions to trust Christ. The program is taught through the local church.

Online options

While traditional collection and distribution is the most popular, OCC also offers people, churches and groups the opportunity to build shoebox gifts online, Robinson said. Samaritan’s Purse can even help churches set up goal pages on an OCC website free of charge.

For only $25, plus an optional extra $6 for the addition of “The Greatest Journey” material, anyone can assemble a box online by visiting the Operation Christmas Child website and clicking on the “Build a Shoebox Online” link.

An additional benefit to online assembly: these shoeboxes go to some of the most unreached countries across the globe.

Since 1993, more than 188 million children in more than 170 countries and territories have received an OCC shoebox. “The Lord uses the gifts to pull on their heartstrings to receive the gospel,” Robinson said.

“A small shoebox is a simple gift, but the blessings are eternal.”

Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Tweet

All-church benefits

OCC is not just for big churches, said Jim Harrelson, OCC vice president, applauding Prestonwood’s partnership: “Prestonwood’s deep commitment to Samaritan’s Purse over many years, among many other local and global ministries, is a very strong example for churches of any size to follow.”

Churches often discover that participating in OCC can benefit their communities and congregations, fostering a spirit of unity and excitement that strengthens the body, whether the church is a veteran OCC participant or is using OCC as a first missions outreach, Robinson said.

Parents find teachable moments as they introduce their children to the joys of giving and evangelism. The outreach even enhances cooperation with other churches in the community as groups band together to fill the shoeboxes.

“The people of Prestonwood have been blessed beyond measure over the years to be part of this life-changing ministry,” Jack Graham said, sharing the story of a young girl who hosted an annual packing party for several years, collecting about 500 boxes each year, starting early and inviting friends and family members to do the same.

Another long-time member included her name and address in a shoebox gift, Graham recalled. Little did she know the one box would be divided among several boys in a Christian boys home in Uganda. The boys wrote to thank her. She and her husband developed a relationship with the boys and even visited them.

“The blessing received by another member was truly full circle,” Graham said. “She was a teenager living in a Christian orphanage in Peru when she received an OCC shoebox, and a woman shared the gospel with her.” The girl and her sisters were adopted by a missionary family who became involved with a ministry distributing OCC boxes, so she helped hand out shoeboxes to children.

Later, she later became a missionary herself, and with her husband and two children eventually ended up in the Dallas area. They joined Prestonwood, where the whole family participated in packing shoeboxes.

“A small shoebox is a simple gift, but the blessings are eternal,” Graham said.

Does justice or profit drive abortion?

By now, the controversy in Texas over the Supreme Court allowing its near total ban on abortion to take effect has become part of the public ether. For some, the current moment offers a foretaste of what a post-Roe world could look like. For others, it is a dystopic descent into a religious theocracy. But in this intervening period where the Texas Heartbeat Act is in effect, it is worth wondering if the threat of financial ruin brought on by the prospect of the law will lead to the continuation or a decrease in abortion. Whether it continues or abates is a valuable opportunity to unearth what is really at the center of abortion and why abortion receives the degree of protection it does in our country. In short, it’s a question of justice. Is abortion a natural right worthy of pursuit and protection no matter the cost, or is it something else?

Abortion, justice, and civil rights

There is no right to an abortion before God or before the Constitution. Legal rights are enacted to protect natural rights. Natural rights are those attributes of human personality so essential to human happiness and human flourishing that to deny the exercise of these faculties is to deny citizens their right to basic self-constitution. Abortion fundamentally negates this. Rather than allowing life, it ends a life. In the Christian tradition, abortion is never a right, and the only reason it is in our public lexicon is because “rights” talk has been completely severed from its Christian beginings.

But that brings us to our central concern: If abortion is not happening with the frequency its proponents demand is essential, it raises the question of whether the cause of abortion is grounded in the sacrosanct category of a right, or whether access to abortion is about something more fundamental, namely, profit.

If abortion access is about a so-called “right” to reproductive justice, it would seem essential that for the sake of justice and the common good that abortion providers break the law, engage in civil disobedience, and pay the consequences for their prophetic indignation

This is what the classic formula is when it comes to engaging in civil disobedience. It is what motivated Martin Luther King Jr. and he appealed to it in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Citing the Christian natural law tradition, he appeals to the existence of a moral law that offers a higher standard to define what is just. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God,” writes King. “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law […] Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Abortion as predatory and lucractive

If abortion is morally right, it should align with the moral law of God and be pursued regardless of the consequences. In this scheme, a failure to offer abortion services for fear of legal challenge is, in effect, a refusal to honor one’s conscience. But as of right now, there is no push for civil disobedience in Texas. It is likely that abortion numbers will dramatically lessen. Why, though? If the cause is righteous and truly grounded in a right, these so-called enablers of justice should be bursting through the legal barricades to do what they know is right.

But they aren’t.

All of this just exposes the abortion lobby for what it is: a predatory scheme that traffics in “compassion” while garnering rich profits in the form of human death. Abortion providers do not really care about women. They do not really care about rendering justice. They care about the profit margin that unplanned pregnancy garners them and their investors. It is an unspeakably sordid reality — in America, people are becoming rich off murder.

God is the author of life (Acts 3:15). The truth is that every person is made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). The Bible tells us that. Human embryogenesis tells us this, too. Every person was once a “fetal heartbeat” or “cardiac activity.” We only use such inane vacuous euphemisms because our morally bankrupt culture has no honest reckoning with teleology.

The problem with culture is not that personhood is not known or apparent, but that we know it is real and suppress this truth with euphemisms, reducing human origins to “electrical activity,” as NPR did. We are a Romans 1 nation drinking from the cup of judgment. Only biblical judgment means getting what we want no matter the cost to ourselves.

Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Fellow with The Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Louisiana pastor organizing hurricane relief for hard-hit Hispanic community

BATON ROUGE, La. (BP) – Hispanic residents are likely among those needing the most help in recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Ida that killed 13 people in Louisiana alone, Baton Rouge Pastor Guillermo Mangieri said.

As campus pastor of Istrouma en Español, Mangieri is mobilizing Hispanic Southern Baptists as part of the larger disaster relief outreach of Istrouma Baptist Church in Baton Rouge.

Volunteers from Istrouma Baptist Church in Baton Rouge have focused on chain saw work and large debris removal after Hurricane Ida’s destruction.

“The Hispanic community and our Hispanic Baptist brothers and sisters will undoubtedly be one of the groups most affected and with the least help,” Mangieri said. “Most of the Latino community live in rental properties and trailer parks. Very few are homeowners.” He added that Hispanic residents often do not have access to pertinent relief information from the government or aid organizations.

Mangieri, Istrouma Baptist Church Senior Pastor Tim Keith and other Istrouma campus pastors mobilized about 75 volunteers, a third of them Hispanic, in disaster relief in Baton Rouge in the days following Ida’s landfall as just short of a Category 5 hurricane. Mangieri is directly responsible for outreach to the Latino community.

“Our primary focus is chain saw work and large debris removal, though we do have a mud-out that needs to be done for a member that flooded,” Mangieri said. “This will be a weeks- if not months-long process of clean up. We are also contributing to other organizations and churches in harder hit areas.”

Southern Baptist Convention President Ed Litton toured much of the devastation in Louisiana this past weekend with Send Relief President Bryant Wright.

“It was truly an eye-opening experience to see the vast destruction of Hurricane Ida in Louisiana,” Litton said. “The storm’s terrible impact on churches, pastors, members and communities who are devastated by the powerful winds, floods and now extended periods without power is just overwhelming.

“Still I am deeply moved by the spirit of cooperation that exists among our Southern Baptist family of state conventions, associations and Send Relief as these organizations come together to bring relief and the love of Jesus to stricken areas and hurting people.”

Baton Rouge Southern Baptists have been able to respond to community needs without requesting disaster relief teams from the Louisiana Baptist Disaster Relief (LBDR) and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, LBDR representative Clark Fooshee told Baptist Press today (Sept. 7).

In response to Ida, LBDR has mobilized feeding, chainsaw, tarp and mud-out units in 13 Louisiana communities, aided by volunteers from several states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, including Texas Baptist Men and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Pastoral outreach is particularly important when disasters strike, Mangieri said.

“It is time for the congregation to see their pastor up front, as human as everyone, as weak as everyone, but being in front of every situation, ready to pray, hug, work a chain saw or prepare meals and together, as a congregation, be witnesses between ourselves and our neighbors,” he said. “It is the best moment to be a good neighbor.”

Mangieri and his wife Fanny rode out the storm at their home to allow outreach as soon as possible, aided by the congregation.

“My first reaction was to evaluate and check on the needs of each family that decided to stay. Our small-group leaders immediately started working on this,” he said. “One of the most satisfying experiences as a pastor was that every time I visited with a family in need, due to us being unable to communicate because of no cell phone service, one of our small-group leaders had been with those families already, organizing the necessary aid, whether it be removing trees or offering shelter and food.”

While the Center for American Progress reports that Hispanics have been disproportionately impacted economically by the COVID-19 pandemic, Forbes reported that the Hispanic homeownership rate has increased in recent years, rising from 45.4 percent in 2014 to 50.1 percent in 2020. The Hispanic homeownership rate increased faster in those years that that of whites and Blacks, Forbes reported.

“Our brothers and sisters have opened up their homes so other families could stay with them,” Mangieri said. “Our own home has served as a refuge for many families, where they find hot meals, a fresh shower and a bed for all those who need it.”

Istrouma Baptist’s outreach continued Monday and today with volunteers dispatched from its Ascension and Baton Rouge campuses, according to istrouma.org. About 2,000 worshipers attend the church weekly, with 100 attending the Spanish service, Mangieri said.

About 1,500 Baton Rouge customers remained without electricity this morning as cleanup from the hurricane continued, Entergy Louisiana reported. Emergency contractors were scheduled to begin picking up debris in East Baton Rouge Parish today, The Advocate reported.

No storm deaths in Baton Rouge have been reported.

Road to Ida recovery continues for Louisiana, SBDR, Send Relief

HAMMOND, La. (BP) – A week before Hurricane Ida hit southeastern Louisiana, William Bekemeier had just endured a heart attack. After he rode out the storm and felt the shock of a tree landing on his family’s house, he didn’t have the strength or stamina to clear the tree from his yard. He also didn’t have the funds to pay for the work to be done.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) volunteers from Arkansas arrived and were able to remove the tree from his house and clear his yard.

William Bekemeier endured a heart attack a week before Hurricane Ida hit southeast Louisiana on August 30. The Category 4 storm knocked a tree down onto his carport, damaging his truck in the process. Volunteers with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief removed the tree from his home and cleared other downed trees on his property. Photo by Alexandra Toy

“I wasn’t able to get out and do the clean-up myself,” Bekemeier said. “Thankfully, they showed up and started doing the clean-up for me, which was definitely a Godsend. I didn’t have the money or the energy to do it. They’ve been a big help.”

In the week since Hurricane Ida made landfall on Sunday, Aug. 30, hundreds of SBDR volunteers have spread across 12 sites in Louisiana, preparing meals, chain sawing trees, removing debris and securing temporary roofing.

Volunteers with SBDR have already provided more than 26,000 work hours and prepared more than 175,000 meals as of Tuesday (Sept. 7).

“This means so much to us for people to come out and help everybody because we still have a lot of people without water and lights and food,” said Gracie Colona, a resident of Loranger, La. “It has touched us from the bottom of our heart for these people to come here and help us in Louisiana, and I want to thank you.”

Colona and her friend, Pam Hamilton, drove from Loranger to check up on Hamilton’s cousin in Independence, La.

“We came in to try and help and to drive up and him tell us yesterday, ‘They already cleaned up my trees,’” Hamilton said. “We were like, ‘Praise you, Jesus.’ There are so many other things, so many things [to do]. We were all so grateful that you guys are showing up and doing this from another state. … It touched him so much that you gave him a Bible.”

Jimmy Blackford chainsaws a tree that was felled on an Independence, La., homeowner’s property after Hurricane Ida hit southeast Louisiana on August 30. Blackford, a volunteer with Arkansas Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, is a member of First Baptist Church Marion, Ark. Photo by Alexandra Toy

Jimmy Blackford, a volunteer from First Baptist Church Marion, Ark., traveled to Louisiana with Arkansas Baptists as a part of a chain saw team that removes downed trees that have fallen into hurricane survivors’ yards or on their houses.

The services these SBDR teams provide, which can save residents thousands of dollars, is provided for free by the volunteers.

“We’re here showing the love of Christ. That’s what we’re here for. These people, some of them don’t even know what to do,” Blackford said. “It gets kind of rough. They need to have somebody come by and help them, and we’re here to do that. We also share the Gospel where we can.”

With SBDR volunteers arriving from North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, it has taken a cooperative effort from Southern Baptists to get sites up and running at the same time.

“Hurricane Ida is one of these storms that’s overwhelming – the magnitude and the extent of destruction and damaged and the number of people hurting, the number of churches and homes that have been damage,” said Stan Statham, director of SBDR for Louisiana Baptists.

A group of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers from Arkansas attach a tarp to the roof of an Independence, La., homeowner following Hurricane Ida. Photo by Alexandra Toy

An SBDR team with Texas Baptist Men cooked meals at Ascension Baptist Church in Gonzales, La., and they helped the church deliver those meals to a nearby neighborhood in need. The church had been struggling to make inroads into that community and were able to use the meals to make connections with the residents.

“Each one of the state conventions disaster relief teams adopted a region of southeast Louisiana to do ministry,” Statham said. “Our director of missions and associations across our state have been a big support. Send Relief, the North American Mission Board, provided more than 100,000 meals to help kitchens start providing food.”

A second tractor trailer from Send Relief, the compassion ministry of Southern Baptists, delivered more recovery supplies – temporary roofing and flood recovery supplies among other resources – to southeast Louisiana on Monday (Sept. 5).

Also included on the trailer was a donation of generators and box fans from The Home Depot for Children’s Hospital New Orleans that the home improvement retailer asked Send Relief to deliver to support the hospital.

A Kentucky SBDR team arrived in Houma, La., over the Labor Day weekend and began surveying the storm damage. Just 60 miles inland from where the hurricane made landfall near Port Fourchon, La., Houma experienced severe damage.

“This is certainly one of those storms where it takes everybody working together,” Statham said. “To know, from Louisiana’s standpoint, that we have so many people who are willing to commit resources and people, it’s a humbling thing to know and something that we praise God for.”

Disney Junior’s ‘Muppet Babies’ features cross-dressing Gonzo

The controversy over gender roles this summer reached the children’s channel Disney Junior, when an episode of Muppet Babies showed Gonzo wearing a dress and calling himself “Gonzo-rella.”

The episode was applauded by LGBT groups and opened with two female characters—Miss Piggy and Summer Penguin—wanting to hold a “royal ball,” similar to the one in the story of Cinderella.

Hearing the story of Cinderella, Gonzo tells his friends, “I’d love to wear a dress like that to your royal ball.” Summer Penguin responds, “But Gonzo, Piggy and I are the princesses. We wear the dresses.” Miss Piggy agrees and adds, “According to the royal handbook, the girls come as princesses, and the boys come as knights.”

Soon, though, a magical “Fairy Rat-Father” transforms Gonzo’s outfit into a blue dress, complete with slippers. Gonzo attends the ball without revealing who he is.

In the episode’s final moments, he tells his friends he was the one wearing the blue dress.

“I don’t want you to be upset with me, but I don’t want to do things just because that’s the way they’ve always been done, either. I want to be me,” Gonzo says.

Piggy apologizes and tells Gonzo, “It wasn’t very nice of us to tell you what to wear.” Piggy then says she wants to make a new “royal handbook” which will include new rules.

The episode closes with Summer Penguin declaring, “And in our new handbook, everyone can come to the ball dressed however they like.”

—Christian Post, Christian Headlines

Kendrick Brothers’ ‘Show Me the Father’ opens in theaters Sept. 10

The Christian filmmakers behind the hit movies War Room and Courageous will release a theatrical documentary in September that will explore a subject at the core of Scripture: fatherhood.

The film, Show Me the Father, will open in theaters Sept. 10 and feature inspiring stories about fathers interwoven with biblical truths about the fatherhood of God. Alex and Stephen Kendrick served as executive producers.

The movie includes interviews with Texas pastor Tony Evans, Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly and former NFL coach and player Sherman Smith, among others.

It is the first documentary by the Kendrick Brothers, who also made War Room, Courageous, Fireproof, Overcomer and Facing the Giants.

Stephen Kendrick called it a “dream project.” He and his brother interviewed multiple people and “compiled about five of the best stories that are tied to the fatherhood of God together,” he said.

“It is an emotional roller coaster. It’s engaging from the opening scene all the way to the end,” Kendrick said. “This is an evangelistic, edifying, theological, emotional journey.”

—ShowMeTheFather.com, Southern Baptist TEXAN