Summer 2023 fellowship! magazine

Equally Called

In 1983, Baptist Women in Ministry was established to advocate for the biblical truth that has been confirmed time and time again in our lives, namely that God calls women as well as men to all places of leadership in the Church. In the 40 years that have passed, the staff and volunteer leadership of BWIM have elevated the gifts and callings of women, celebrated women and men alike who have acted courageously to affirm women serving in ministry, offered support and encouragement to women across their lives in ministry, established transformational mentoring initiatives to connect women from different generations and taken important steps to encourage congregations to be more receptive to the leadership gifts of women.

Many of the Baptists who established BWIM 40 years ago participated actively in the establishment of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship almost a decade later. A significant number of our Fellowship’s founders professed a strong conviction regarding the equal call of women and men. Over the years, that affirmation has become more prevalent among Cooperative Baptists.

In listening sessions and written surveys throughout the Toward Bold Faithfulness process four years ago, commitment to women’s leadership was expressed as an “identifying marker” of our Fellowship and its congregations. That same process led us to name that one of the most powerful gifts available in our Fellowship was that of women leaders. We are coming more and more to a shared stated conviction that God equally calls women and men to church leadership.

We believe the words of the prophet Joel that “sons and daughters will prophesy.” While we are well aware that not all Baptists everywhere share this faith confession, we strongly believe that it is established in the Scriptures and confirmed by all the ways the Holy Spirit is at work among us.

At the same time, we are facing undeniable evidence that there is still too much space between these convictions stated with our words and the reality we are living in our congregations and Fellowship. “The State of Women in Baptist Life,” published by BWIM in 2022, reported that only 105 CBF congregations (or 7.4 percent) were being led by a woman senior pastor or co-pastor. That number has been essentially “flat” for a long time.

The report also offered painful testimony of the reality that women who do serve in ministerial roles experience abuses that their male colleagues do not. Search processes, along with congregational

and denominational systems and structures still privilege men, and transforming those structures so that they are equally receptive of women who are called requires honesty and intentionality. We have work to do together if we are going to be a Fellowship where women as well as men both flourish in equal callings.

This summer, CBF is pleased to join with BWIM in releasing a new congregational resource named Equally Called: Celebrating Women’s Leadership in the Church. This four-session study includes guides for children, youth and adult participation. It clearly establishes the biblical and theological foundations for our convictions about the equal calling of women and men, makes space for the important testimony of women about their experiences, and offers encouragement to congregations seeking to live even more faithfully into our convictions about the leadership gifts of women.

Together, we are inviting all our congregations to use this resource. We believe it will equip us with deeper understandings of needs and opportunities, and that the Holy Spirit will use it to catalyze a more significant transformation. I strongly encourage all CBF congregations to make space as soon as possible for this resource. Work toward the development of this resource began last fall. Many have invested time, energy and gifts to bring it to life, and I am profoundly grateful to all who have been involved.

We also learned in the Toward Bold Faithfulness process that more than 80 percent of the respondents to that online survey in winter 2020 were in a congregation where a woman served on the ministerial staff. Nearly 5,000 Cooperative Baptists responded to that survey, representing 761 of our congregations. More of us are calling women to serve in ministerial roles. There are gifted women already serving in ministry and more are preparing. Today, women who are serving as senior pastors are offering remarkable and transformative leadership and the congregations they serve are thriving in faithfulness. As a Fellowship, we have encouraged all of these women to respond to God’s call. Now it is imperative that we take the necessary steps to make sure our lives together demonstrate the faith we have professed.

Will you join us in responding to God’s call to be a Fellowship that embodies the equal call of women and men? What steps can you take? What steps can your congregation take? May this be a season of honest conversation, deep reflection and transformative action.

Fellowship! is published 4 times a year in September (Fall), December (Winter), March (Spring), June (Summer) by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Inc., 160 Clairemont Avenue, Suite 500, Decatur, GA 30030. Periodicals postage paid at Decatur, GA, and additional offices. USPS #015-625.

Executive Coordinator

Paul Baxley Associate Coordinatorfor Identity & Communications

Jeff Huett Editor Aaron Weaver Associate Editor Lauren Lamb Graphic Designer Jeff Langford

E-Mail fellowship@cbf.net

Phone

(770) 220-1600

Postmaster: Send address changes to: Fellowship! Cooperative Baptist Fellowship 160 Clairemont Avenue, Suite 500 Decatur, GA 30030

PAUL BAXLEY is Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

By Jennifer Colosimo

FROM THE EDITOR

By Marv Knox

By Marv Knox

By Grayson Hester

Summer is here with sunshine and celebration! In this issue of fellowship!, we celebrate 25 years of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship endorsing more than 1,200 chaplains and pastoral counselors to ministry in diverse contexts across the country and around the world. CBF chaplains are currently serving in each branch of the Armed Forces as well as medical centers, correctional institutions, hospice organizations, police and fire departments, colleges and universities, businesses, retirement communities, Department of Veterans Affairs, Civil Air Patrol and more.

Working in the military, intensive care units, emergency departments, prisons and trauma centers, these chaplains serve where congregations cannot. Read their stories on pp. 14-19 and attend in-person or livestream the commissioning of new CBF-endorsed chaplains and pastoral counselors on June 30 at the 2023 CBF General Assembly.

Don’t miss the story of Speedway Baptist Church in Indianapolis (pp. 10-11) and its transformation as a multicultural congregation. Read about Rev. Charles Tinsley and the impact he is making and has made in Barbourville, Ky., over the past 25 years.

We also want to recognize the 2023 recipients of the Daniel and Earlene Vestal Scholarship: Antonio Vargas of Yale Divinity School and Laure FitzSimons of Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Both students are being honored because of their academic excellence and commitment to the local church and our Fellowship (p. 27).

Last but certainly not least, learn about CBF’s five new Global Missions personnel who will be commissioned in Atlanta to service in Larnaca, Cyprus, and North Carolina, including career field personnel and Global Service Corps personnel (pp. 22-23).

AARON WEAVER is the Editor of fellowship! Connect with him at aweaver@cbf.net

LAUREN LAMB is the Associate Editor of fellowship! Connect with her at llamb@cbf.net

BWIM, CBF TEAM UP TO PRODUCE 4-SESSION CURRICULUM RESOURCE

Baptist Women in Ministry and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are producing a four-session curriculum for adults, youth and children to help close the gap between what Cooperative Baptists profess about women’s leadership in the Church and the actual practice in their churches.

Equally Called: Celebrating Women’s Leadership in the Church will be launched at the CBF General Assembly in Atlanta, June 28-30. The curriculum includes discussion guides and video components that invite congregations to consider how Scripture reveals God’s plan for all of humanity—male and female together—to serve God’s people. The resource will help churches articulate the biblical and theological basis for affirming the calling of women and nurture a culture that more fully welcomes their leadership.

BWIM Executive Director Meredith Stone said that while many identify affirmation of women in ministry and leadership as a core value of CBF and equality of women is often proudly proclaimed, data from BWIM’s recent “State of Women in Baptist Life” report demonstrates that practice within CBF congregations does not match the beliefs we state.

The report found, for example, that 86 percent of women in ministry experience obstacles to their ministry because of their gender.

“In light of the gap between what we profess and practice, BWIM has been proud to partner with CBF to create Equally Called, a curriculum designed to reinforce the biblical foundations for full participation in ministry, while also describing the realities that women in ministry experience today, and cultivating a vision for the beloved community that the Bible points us toward,” Stone said. “This curriculum is for congregations that are newly discovering support for women in ministry as well as congregations that have supported women in ministry for years. We hope it will be an encouragement to engage and re-engage practices of affirming, valuing and elevating women in ministry and leadership.”

CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley said that “from our beginning, an overwhelming number of Cooperative Baptists have affirmed that God equally calls women and men to all places of leadership in the church.” He agreed with Stone, though, saying that “we still have work to do for our Fellowship and our congregations to be holy spaces where the gifts of women and men equally flourish in faithfulness in Christ.

“We have professed this conviction because of what we read in Scripture and because of the powerful evidence around us of the ways women are gifted and called,” Baxley said. “In these days, we confess that in too many ways, our practice has not yet fulfilled our profession.”

Baxley strongly encouraged congregations in the Fellowship to plan to use the resource as soon as it is available and prays that through its use, “we will be equipped and transformed until our lives offer powerful evidence that women and men alike are equally called.”

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw, associate professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry at Campbell University, co-wrote the curriculum and serves as the biblical studies expert in the videos.

Equally Called, she said, reflects how the foundational stories of our faith affirm the mutuality of women and men and highlight the necessity for unity, not hierarchy, in our world.

“We learn that Jesus pushed against the assumptions of his culture by calling women as disciples, centering the experiences of marginalized women, and teaching women alongside men,” she said. “We also get a glimpse of the counter-cultural reality of women’s leadership in the Early Church, something that should inspire us to enact God’s egalitarian vision for humanity.

“This curriculum,” she said, “will remind congregations of the biblical roots for the full participation of women in ministry and urge them toward active advocacy for equality in the Church today.”

Celebrating Women’s Leadership in the Church

1 2 3 4

Creation and Fall

Genesis 1:26-2:4a, 2:4b-25 and 3:1-23

The Jesus Model

Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 8:1-3, Luke 10:38-42, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-18

Consider how Scripture reveals God’s plan for all of humanity—male and female together—to serve God’s people.

Available in age-graded formats for Adults, Youth and Children

Look for the curriculum launch at General Assembly in Atlanta, June 28-30.

The Early Church Acts 16:11-15, Galatians 3:27-29, Romans 16:1-16

The Reign of God

A 4-session video and curriculum resource for all ages to help your church articulate the biblical and theological basis for affirming the calling of women and nurture a culture that more fully welcomes their leadership.

Team members enjoy an icebreaker game at a regional leadership training event in North Africa, where CBF field personnel Karen serves among migrant and refugee communities.

GLOBAL MISSIONS

SHARING GOD’S LOVE IN WORD & DEED

CBF Global Missions shares God’s message of hope and love in real ways to some of the most marginalized and vulnerable people in the world—people living in extreme poverty, refugee children and families fleeing violence in search of a safe haven, women who are trafficked, and families who have lost everything through a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we cultivate beloved community, bear witness to Jesus Christ and seek transformational development among people and places otherwise forgotten and forsaken. Our field personnel serve alongside congregations within three primary contexts: global poverty, global migration and the Global Church.

UKRAINE RELIEF $1.24 MILLION GIVEN BY

In 2022, CBF launched a Ukraine Relief Fund for field personnel and partner efforts in response to the war in Ukraine and in support of refugees in neighboring countries.

LOCATIONS INCLUDE UKRAINE, SLOVAKIA, MOLDOVA, SPAIN, MEXICO, ROMANIA, POLAND, BELGIUM, UNITED STATES

94,259

93,073

1,960

DOMESTIC RESPONSE

1,800 VOLUNTEER HOURS

$53,910 VALUE OF VOLUNTEER HOURS

1,800 RESPONSE BUCKETS ASSEMBLED

1,363 RESPONSE BUCKETS DELIVERED

$180,000 VALUE OF RESPONSE BUCKETS

DISASTER RESPONSE

CBF Disaster Response exists to equip people and churches to serve communities affected by disaster. This year, CBF responded to flooding in Kentucky, as well as Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and Hurricane Ian in southwest Florida.

3 INTERNATIONAL DISASTER RESPONSE LOCATIONS

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

9,671 PEOPLE SERVED

14 DISASTER GRANTS

$244,215 VALUE OF DISASTER GRANTS

EMERGENCY MINISTRY THROUGH CBF FIELD PERSONNEL

24,023 PROJECTS COMPLETED OR ITEMS DONATED

38,965 PEOPLE SERVED

1,144 CHURCHES ENGAGED

81 NEW LOCAL CHURCH PARTNERS

SPEEDWAY,

Speedway Baptist Church was founded in 1956 as a Southern Baptist transplant congregation. In the 1980s, Speedway Baptist started to recognize the important role women played in their congregation. They began ordaining women as deacons. Around 1986, they ordained their first female clergy member and found themselves in proverbial exile from their denomination. Searching for a place to belong, in 1990, Nikki Schofield, a law librarian, read about a group of disenfranchised Baptists gathering in Atlanta. Speedway had found its home as one of the early churches to join the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

When current pastor Mark McClintock began conversations with Speedway, it was experiencing an existential crisis. The community around it was rapidly changing. Uncertainty loomed in the congregation. Are we going to wither away trying to stay the same? Will we move to the suburbs to follow the demographic of people that once comprised our congregation? Or will we allow God to reshape us to be the church for this neighborhood?

McClintock was captivated by what the Spirit of God was doing in the congregation. “I was raised to celebrate the uniqueness that people bring wherever they’re from and the

fact that I can learn from others—no matter where they’re from.” Since McClintock arrived at Speedway in July 2017, the congregation has changed from being 95 percent white to a 50 percent international congregation.

“We’ve had people from the Philippines, Ivory Coast, East Africa as well as refugees from West Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Central America, Jamaica and Haiti. Most families here have come from Nigeria where there is a Southern Baptist seminary,” McClintock explained. “When they moved into the community, they saw the sign and found their way to the church. Here, they found people opening their hearts and minds to whoever came through the doors.”

Becoming a global congregation has demanded changes in how Speedway approaches fellowship and worship. “We started using nametags and practicing Yoruba vowel shapes so that learning names won’t be a barrier,” McClintock chuckled. “We are learning how to incorporate different worship styles into our worship—especially in how we now take the offering.”

Indiana, isn’t the place that comes to mind when one thinks of a growing, multi-national community. Due to its proximity to Indianapolis and the racing industry, that is what it has become. At the northern boundary of Speedway, Speedway Baptist Church has always been an anomaly.

Temitope Adeniran, a member of Speedway Baptist Church from Nigeria, visits a booth at the church’s ministry fair.

During the pandemic, Speedway placed its offering plates on pedestals in the back of the room. As in-person worship began to resume, McClintock asked some international deacons, “How would you take the offering?” He learned that in Benin, Africa, it is traditional for the offering to be a celebration. “So, we put the offering plates down front and used a variety of music; everyone is invited to bring their offering as a gift and a celebration,” McClintock explained.

Perhaps the most visible image of how this multi-national congregation is woven together is Sunday mornings during children’s time. “One thing that made an impression on folks early on,” McClintock recalls, “was when they would see children from all parts of the world coming down front and sitting together on the steps. When you speak with children, you take ethereal theology and make it concrete for them.” The result? The congregants whose native language is not English began to understand the Scripture and where the sermon originated. They began to see the vision for God re-shaping Speedway Baptist Church in the faces of children. This congregation that once faced an uncertain future is now enjoying the movement of the Holy Spirit as they are woven together into a beautiful, global tapestry depicting the body of Christ— inclusive of all nations.

“All the children of the world” help lead worship at Speedway Baptist Church. Some speak two or more languages and some are refugees. All are welcome. The congregation is made up of members from the Philippines, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, East Africa as well as refugees from West Africa, Central America, Jamaica and Haiti.

Clockwise, from top: Members of Speedway Baptist Church share testimony, conversation, and music at an EvenPsalm worship brunch; a church member prays for world peace; children take part in a ministry fair; Pastor Mark McClintock and friends share a “sermon on the steps.”

May the God of peace… equip you with every good thing...

—Hebrews 13:20

Your gifts to the CBF Offering for Global Missions support the long-term presence of CBF field personnel around the world.

Learn more at www.cbf.net/ogm.

CBF Chaplaincy & Pastoral Counseling mark 25th Anniversary

By Marv Knox

CBF celebrates 25 years of endorsing more than 1,200 chaplains and pastoral counselors. There are CBF-endorsed chaplains in all 50 states and nine countries. Chaplains serve in each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, medical centers, correctional institutions, hospice organizations, police, fire and rescue departments, colleges and universities, businesses and industries, retirement communities, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Civil Air Patrol.

Pastoral Counselor Lauralee Estes receives a stole from Chaplain Ansia Chahoy, chairwoman of the CBF Council of Endorsement from 20182020. Carrol Wilson, CBF chaplaincy and pastoral counseling ministries specialist, participates in the commissioning service during the 2019 General Assembly worship, offering a blessing to each newly-endorsed chaplain. Commissioning stoles are handwoven in Togo, Africa, by a weaver who partners with CBF field personnel Lynn and Mike Hutchinson.

For 25 years,

Chaplain Charlie Reynolds closed the memorial service for U.S. Army Spec. Anthony Vaccaro, “the most-loved soldier in the battalion,” a medic who died in Afghanistan in 2006. Then Reynolds moved to Vaccaro’s memorial display so he could encourage the young man’s devastated comrades as they saluted their friend one last time.

“As the first soldier came up and gave a salute and walked over to me, I reached out my hand,” Reynolds recalled. “He buried his head in my chest, and our tears mingled together on the blouse of my uniform. Every soldier in that company except one cried in my arms.

“Something happened that had never happened in 40 years of ministry: I felt like I wasn’t there and that it was the arms of Jesus holding those soldiers.”

Thank God that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship endorses and supports chaplains.

Remarkably, that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. In the early 1990s, “intensifying divisions in Baptist life” worried many chaplains and pastoral counselors who had cast their lots with CBF. They wondered whether their endorsements were in jeopardy, Ed Beddingfield, a pastor and pastoral counselor from Buies Creek, N.C., reported in the book CBF at 25: Stories of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

Most of them had received endorsement through the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. Denominational endorsement provided the required credential that enabled them to hold down an array of ministry jobs. Would the stridently conservative SBC drop them because they had affiliated with CBF? Would they be forced to choose between signing a creed or keeping their jobs?

Even as they pleaded for help, CBF Executive Coordinator Cecil Sherman resisted. He feared declaring CBF a “denomination” for endorsement purposes could force dually-aligned congregations to choose between CBF and the SBC. Southern Baptist leaders piled on, telling them a church could not affiliate with two denominations.

In 1995, the CBF Coordinating Council’s Church Ministry Resources Group created a study committee to find a way forward. They decided terminology need not create a barrier to endorsement. So, in the summer of 1997, they recommended that CBF declare itself a “religious endorsing body” without mentioning the word “denomination.” That fall, the Coordinating Council established the CBF Council on Endorsement.

Then, in January 1998, CBF endorsed its first class—including Jim Harwood, a U.S. Navy chaplain; Tim Madison, a Texas hospital chaplain; Paula Peek, a Kentucky hospice chaplain; and Jim Pruett, a South Carolina pastoral counselor.

CBF had not yet received accreditation from any national chaplaincy and pastoral counseling organization. But Harwood’s

CBF chaplains and pastoral counselors have entered sacred spaces, delivering unconditional love and compassionate presence.

The new logo for CBF chaplaincy and pastoral counseling ministries celebrates 25 years of chaplains and pastoral counselors. The purple stole draped over the bowl of water symbolizes the compassionate presence, God’s divine love, healing waters and hope of Christ that CBF chaplains and pastoral counselors bring.

In 2012, chaplain Renée Owen offered a blessing for an infant in the neonatal intensive care unit. Owen now serves as CBF’s endorser for chaplains and pastoral counselors.

Hospital chaplain Jonatan Amaya, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, receives a blessing at the Commissioning Ceremony during worship at the 2022 General Assembly in Dallas.

strong military contacts—he was assigned to the U.S. Navy Chief of Chaplains Office in Washington—proved fortuitous. That June, the United States military recognized CBF as an endorsing body. Two years later, the SBC confirmed those early fears: The SBC North American Mission Board, successor to the Home Mission Board, required chaplains and pastoral counselors to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement.

Today, CBF’s decision to endorse chaplains and pastoral counselors—plus subsequent accreditation by professional organizations—is vital for these ministers affiliated with the Fellowship, explained Renée Owen, CBF’s endorser and director of chaplaincy and pastoral counseling ministries.

“Ecclesiastical endorsement certifies that a minister is in good standing with a religious body and is appointed to minister on its behalf,” she said. “This endorsement is required by institutions that employ chaplains and pastoral counselors in healthcare settings, the military and government agencies and is also a requirement for membership in certain professional board-certifying organizations.

“CBF’s endorsement process is intentional and relational. The chaplain or pastoral counselor is vetted as being spiritually, emotionally, educationally and clinically prepared to serve in a

specialized ministry setting outside the local church. Our Council on Endorsement also considers the candidate’s relationship with CBF, since that person’s ministry becomes an extension of the work of our local CBF congregations and the larger Fellowship.”

That “extension of the work” has encompassed 1,200 endorsed chaplains and pastoral counselors across the past 25 years. It includes 876 currently active people serving under endorsement. And many are leaders in their specialties, Owen said, noting three of the eight highest-ranking U.S. military chaplains are CBF-endorsed.

For its part, CBF maintains five commitments to chaplains and pastoral counselors, explained Gerry Hutchinson, Owen’s predecessor and the second full-time CBF endorser following George Pickle:

• Assist ministers in the discernment process regarding serving as a chaplain or a pastoral counselor.

• Help inquirers understand if CBF is a good fit as their endorsing body.

• Endorse candidates to ministry settings for service as either chaplains or pastoral counselors.

• Provide professional and personal support for CBF-endorsed chaplains and pastoral counselors.

•

Represent CBF among professional chaplaincy, pastoral counseling and endorsing organizations.

Chaplain Chuck Hawkins, hospital chaplain at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, prays over an ICU patient near the end of life.

Chaplain Cindy Goza, hospital chaplain at CHI St. Vincent North Hospital in Sherwood, Ark., offers a hand blessing for a nurse in 2020. Caring for staff as well as patients is an essential role of chaplains.

Left: Chaplain Laura Senter, hospital chaplain at Providence Everette Medical Center in Everette, Wash., visits with a pediatric patient and his mother. Many CBF hospital chaplains receive certifications to serve in specialty clinical areas.

Before becoming CBF’s endorser, Hutchinson experienced the other side of the endorsement relationship.

“I was a chaplain in the U.S. Naval Reserve for 26 years, endorsed by CBF from 2001 to 2014,” he said. “I can’t overstate the value and peace of mind that came from being endorsed by CBF, knowing I had theological congruence with the Fellowship. This was no small thing after years of seeing the SBC—under whom I was endorsed from 1988 to 2001—become more and more fundamentalist and knowing this was not who I was theologically.”

Chaplains and pastoral counselors expressed similar appreciation for CBF’s endorsement, relationship and support.

“As a female chaplain in the Air National Guard, CBF’s progressive values are a great fit for me. I am fully supported and empowered to pursue my calling, which includes encouraging other women to do the same,” said Col. Leah Boling, director of the Air National Guard Chaplain Corps and one of those three highest-ranking military chaplains endorsed by CBF.

“CBF’s commitment to inclusivity and support for women in leadership has given me the freedom to take on significant leadership roles without fear of being judged or questioned.

“The CBF community is an incredibly empowering one, and this is largely due to its open and welcoming stance toward women in ministry,” she added. “What makes the CBF community particularly unique is its embrace of diversity and inclusivity. This openness has allowed me to celebrate my faith without feeling constrained or limited. As a result, my faith has truly thrived and blossomed in this supportive and nurturing environment.”

CBF endorsement is valuable because “it gives the chaplain a sense of support,” noted Rhonda James-Jones, manager of spiritual health care at Wellstar Paulding Hospital and Nursing Center in Hiram, Ga.

“Endorsement is not for the organization to say, ‘we have this many chaplains who are endorsed by us,’” she said. “It’s really for the chaplain to say, ‘I have this many people who are standing with me.’ So, as you are going out here to do this work, you are not going alone. There are people who are in this with you.”

CBF provided an answer to a life question for Nicole Tota, a mental health chaplain in the VA Health Care System in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Above: Chaplain Terry Eddinger, U.S. Navy, offers communion to a sailor. Military chaplains are essential to caring for military personnel to ensure spiritual readiness and well-being as they carry out their mission to serve and protect.

Right: Chaplain Younsoo Park, U.S. Army, prays with soldiers during a deployment.

Below: Chaplains Jeff Ross and Sunny Mitchell both serve with the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps.

Lower right: During the commissioning service at the 2022 General Assembly, Carrol Wilson presents Chaplain Christina Pittman with a CBF chaplaincy stole and a CBF harness for her partner in ministry, Avalon, a black lab therapy dog. Pittman serves with the Air National Guard of South Carolina. .

Left: Chaplain Chaplain Peggy Gold, hospital chaplain and CPE educator at Duke University Hospital, consults with a nurse regarding a patient’s plan of care. Hospital chaplains are an important part of the interdisciplinary team.

“I searched for a long time to discover my vocation as an ordained female Baptist minister, and I feel affirmed in that vocation working as a chaplain for the VA,” she said. “The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship allowed me the opportunity to pursue this. I am grateful for my endorsement with CBF in that they allow me to be flexible in my ministry, adapting to the needs of the veteran before me.” That “before me” location takes chaplains and pastoral counselors to people who might not receive ministry any other way.

“Chaplains and counselors take the Church where the Church can’t go,” said Beddingfield, pastor of Memorial Baptist Church in Buies Creek, N.C., as well as an endorsed pastoral counselor. “The work of Jesus that we do is in different places, but it’s the same as churches do. We’re trying to touch people in their hearts where they hurt and let them know God loves them.”

“In today’s world, there’s a big call for how we move out of the church into spaces where people still need spiritual care,” added Paul Byrd, for three decades a pediatric oncology chaplain who now works alongside rural healthcare providers.

“It is meeting the loneliness, the grief, the lack of meaning, the despair, the mental health issues,” he said. “Those are big, big issues, and there’s a huge role for chaplaincy. Sometimes, it may be helping doctors understand what to do with spiritual issues in their clinics.

It may be helping ministers and churches know how to reach outside their comfort zones to meet some of those needs. So, it’s pretty exciting, I think.”

Chaplains and pastoral counselors supplement the ministries of congregations, Owen noted. “They are excellent resources to our local CBF congregations in areas of trauma-informed care, grief and bereavement, and self-care for staff,” she said, adding many often fill Fellowship pulpits when pastors are away. She is also leading CBF to explore how chaplains and pastoral counselors can serve congregations as pastors and interim pastors.

Echoing Beddingfield, Owen pointed out that chaplains and pastoral counselors often go where the Church can’t—hospital intensive care units, trauma rooms in emergency departments, prisons, schools, alongside first responders to the scene of an accident, and alongside military service members on a mission. “In those spaces, they represent CBF, carrying with them the love of God and hope of Christ to all persons,” she said.

The likelihood chaplains and counselors will reach people the Church doesn’t reach is increasing, Hutchinson added. “As more Americans have less identification with religious tradition and less participation in religious services, the probability is high that they will meet a chaplain before they meet a congregational minister,” he said.

Right: Chaplain Nikki Tota, mental health specialty chaplain at the Sioux Falls VA Medical Center in Sioux Falls, SD, offers a prayer of blessing upon the opening of a new facility.

Chaplain Joanna Tarr receives an anointing and blessing from Charlie Reynolds, CBF associate endorser for military chaplaincy, during the commissioning service at the 2022 General Assembly in Dallas. Joanna serves as a chaplain and an ACPE Educator at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

“So, the opportunity for chaplains to interface with people at times of need will be there.”

Simultaneously, chaplains and counselors are partnering with congregations as they become more community-focused, particularly as healthcare providers move into more community settings, Owen observed. This provides reciprocal opportunities—or chaplains and counselors to minister alongside and support congregations, and for congregations to better understand who chaplains and counselors are and what they do, “so we can advocate for them within our Fellowship and communities.”

One of CBF chaplaincy and pastoral counseling’s greatest strengths is its diversity, Owen said. “We are a very diverse group in the specialized settings that we serve. We also are diverse in gender, race and ethnicity.”

But despite progress, the ministry is not as diverse as it needs to be, she conceded, insisting continued diversity is a vital goal.

“Representation speaks volumes,” she said. “If we want to continue to grow in meeting the diverse needs of our communities and those we serve in specialized settings, we must reflect that diversity in those whom we endorse.” That mirrors one of several goals for CBF chaplaincy and pastoral counseling in its next 25 years, Owen added.

“My dream for our ministry team is to be able to support our chaplains and pastoral counselors in an excellent professional and compassionate personal manner so they are prepared, empowered and upheld to live out their call to ministry in specialized settings,” she said.

“I hope we will continue to invite chaplains and pastoral counselors into the Fellowship to equip and empower them as they offer the transformative ministry of compassionately companioning and journeying alongside others. We must support them as they meet people where they are in their journeys, offering skilled emotional, spiritual and pastoral care during sacred life moments.”

As CBF celebrates 25 years of chaplaincy and pastoral counseling endorsement, “I am so proud of the ministry our chaplains and pastoral counselors offer every day,” Owen stressed. “They enter spaces where people are hurting, frightened, lonely, grieving, anxious and seeking peace. They enter into these sacred spaces, meeting people where they are in their own spiritual journeys, bringing compassionate presence and representing the unconditional love of God and peace of Christ.”

Below: Chaplain Alan Tyson serves as a chaplain and director of chaplaincy at Tyson Foods, Springdale, Ark.

Left: Patricia Baldwin, chaplain at Trinity Retirement Community in Fort Worth, Texas.

Below left: Chaplain Angel Lee receiving a blessing during the commissioning service at the 2022 General Assembly in Dallas, Texas. Lee serves as a chaplain and ACPE Educator at the VA Hospital in Durham, N.C.

Below right: George Pickle served as CBF’s first full time Endorser from 1998–2013. Pickle’s caring spirit and foundational work with endorsement is a beautiful part of his legacy within CBF.

at Temple Baptist Church March 12. She will be commissioned during the CBF General Assembly in Atlanta, June 28-30. She will be a member of CBF Global Missions’ International North America Team.

Her path to this ministry began years ago, when she grew up in Yadkin County, N.C., where she loved to fish and do her homework on the banks of the Yadkin River. History does not record how well she fished, but she excelled at homework. As a high school senior, she became a National Merit Scholar and received full-scholarship offers from 43 universities across the country.

Her father offered wisdom that helped her make the choice that was right for her. “He explained to me, ‘I raised you to be rich in the Spirit of God, but some of the students you meet will believe “rich” means having everything they want,’” she recalled. “He said, ‘I know you will do well, but with two children already in college, we don’t have the means

Stimpson pours lifetime of skill, compassion into Welcome House refugees

By Marv Knox

Refugees who resettle on the western edge of North Carolina’s Research Triangle benefit from the same passion and commitment to excellence Delores Stimpson provided Fortune 500 companies throughout her long career as a director of information technology programs.

They also receive blessings from her deep well of compassion, empathy for overcoming challenges and belief that Jesus meant what he said about loving your neighbor as yourself.

Stimpson became manager of the Welcome House Community Network’s Triangle West region, which provides temporary residences for newly arriving

refugees, Jan. 1. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Kim and Marc Wyatt founded the ministry in Raleigh, N.C., in 2015. Stimpson serves through Global Service Corps, a CBF Global Missions program that offers mission opportunities to young college graduates and post-career volunteers, who serve alongside field personnel.

Stimpson manages the ministries of Welcome Houses in Chapel Hill, Durham and Hillsborough. She became affiliated with Welcome House when she helped Temple Baptist Church in Durham, her home congregation, open a house in 2020. Then she started coordinating work on the west side of the Research Triangle as a volunteer in 2022.

Stimpson was celebrated and blessed as CBF Global Missions personnel regionally

to buy you a new wardrobe, send you money or pay sorority dues.’ I so appreciated that honesty.”

She chose Winston-State University, one of the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities and “right down Highway 67 from where I grew up,” Stimpson said. “I had professors who understood what it was like to be me, who related to me, and I enjoyed it.”

She married her high-school sweetheart, Jerry Stimpson, a U.S. Army officer, and became a military wife and mother, living on bases alongside other military families during the Vietnam War.

When he left the military, Jerry accepted a position with the federal government and eventually transitioned to state and local levels to minimize frequent moves to multiple

Delores Stimpson is a CBF field personnel serving through the Global Service Corps program. She was recruited to coordinate Welcome Houses in the Research Triangle in North Carolina after her volunteer work turned into a new career.

locations. Eventually, they settled in Durham.

Along the way, “I started teaching myself about computers,” she said. That led to an entry-level job, but she kept learning, compounding her self-education with formal courses.

Delores’ love of technology led her to working with information technology specialists in delivering complex technology solutions, and she pursued certifications in program management. She achieved certification as a program management professional, was published in the organization’s monthly magazine and was a member of the committee that updated the candidate examination to include risk management. Delores also completed several advanced courses in leadership, adding to her capabilities to manage large-scale teams and multi-million-dollar budgets for large corporations.

As her career expanded, Delores spent years as a weekly commuter, managing programs based in the United States and across multiple foreign locations, including India, France, South America, London, Paris and Rotterdam. Delores worked at Two World Trade Center in New York, and decided to make a career change after losing hundreds of colleagues on 9/11.

Despite her success, her path was a challenge. “As a woman of color, I heard my share of queries about my qualifications,” she acknowledged. “I turned them into long-lasting friendships.

“For example, I walked into a board room in Florida, and the CEO said to me in front of everyone, ‘You’re Black.” He just didn’t expect a Black woman in my position. I saw an empty chair next to him and knew that was where I was going to sit. I determined to turn hurtful situations into something that would develop into a friendship. And to be successful, you have to gain the trust and confidence of the people you’re working with.”

Such confidence bore fruit at the height of her career, when the CEO of Fidelity Investments chose her, out of 40,000 employees, to manage complex programs costing more than $100 million, she said.

Toward the end of her career and especially after retirement, she poured her energy and skill into Temple Baptist Church,

where she served as a Sunday school teacher, treasurer and deacon chair. And Temple’s Welcome House residents snuggled up close to her heart.

When Marc Wyatt recruited Stimpson to expand beyond Temple’s house and coordinate Welcome Houses on the west side of the Triangle, he mentioned CBF’s Global Service Corps as a “post-career opportunity.”

“I said, ‘There’s no such thing as post-career,’” she reported. “I’ve had a full career, and I’m still working. It’s just a different career. Now, I have the time to do things I wanted to do years ago. I could not turn that down.”

For his part, Wyatt is delighted Stimpson accepted the challenge.

“Delores is right for this task because she has succeeded in life, both professionally and personally, during a time when being a confident, well-educated and purpose-driven woman of color has been nothing short of heroic,” he said. “She’s a person whose faith has been forged through life experiences I never will fully understand.

Stimpson’s appointment will extend the reach and ministry of Welcome House, Wyatt added.

“By encouraging the hospitality and housing ministries of local churches in Durham, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, this new field appointment will empower, mobilize and train volunteers, develop resources and give a platform for creative ministries to grow and flourish,” he explained. “This mission effort is a call to reclaim the Christian practice of hospitality in churches and in the homes of church members.

“Delores gets it! All the refugees she meets quickly know they are loved. That’s transformative. That’s whom we identify as a disciple of Jesus.”

Wyatt also hopes Stimpson’s example will inspire others. “At a time when the mission field is ready for a great harvest, God has answered our prayers for more workers,” he said. “That prayer is also for the many—even a hundred gifted and experienced persons like Delores—to follow her example and say: ‘Here am I, Lord. Send me!’”

To learn more and support Stimpson’s ministry, visit www.cbf.net/stimpson.

Nell Green, CBF Offering for Global Missions advocate, and Larry Hovis, executive coordinator of CBF North Carolina, and CBF field personnel Kim and Marc Wyatt (left) at Stimpson’s celebration and blessing as a Global Service Corps personnel at Temple Baptist Church. Stimpson will be commissioned at the 2023 General Assembly in Atlanta.

CBF to commission five new field personnel at General Assembly

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will commission five new Global Missions personnel on June 30 as part of the closing Friday worship service of the 2023 General Assembly in Atlanta.

Jana Lee is being commissioned as a career CBF field personnel to work closely with a local entity, addressing the health needs of refugees in Larnaca, Cyprus. Stella Perrin will also serve as

a career CBF field personnel in Larnaca, Cyprus, working as a mental health educator. Beverly Baker, William Baker and Delores Stimpson are commissioned to serve through the Global Service Corps (GSC) program. The Bakers are currently serving alongside CBF field personnel Anna Anderson in Ahoskie, N.C., and Stimpson is ministering alongside CBF field personnel Kim and Marc Wyatt in Durham, N.C.

Meet our new CBF field personnel

JANA LEE

Jana Lee is a long-term Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel appointed to serve in Larnaca, Cyprus, where she will work closely with All4Aid, a CBF Global Missions collaborator organization, and be part of the Africa/Middle East Team. Lee has roots in South Dakota and Texas and earned her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Texas and Master of Public Health in Global/International Health from the University of Arizona. She has previously worked with global organizations such as UNICEF and the Peace Corps.

After living in Madagascar for three years, Lee felt a shift in her passion and goals and was drawn to CBF Global Missions. She has deep expertise in health education, HIV prevention and water and sanitation health (WASH). She will serve as a health educator in Larnaca, where she will strengthen the capacity of a local organization and work with local leaders to address the health needs of refugees.

STELLA PERRIN

Stella Perrin is a long-term Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel appointed to serve in Larnaca, Cyprus, as a mental health educator and as part of CBF’s Europe Team. A native of North Carolina, she is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University, where she earned degrees in psychology and counseling and a Master of Divinity.

While serving as the associate pastor at Emerald Isle Baptist Church (N.C.) from 2018-2020, Perrin began a journey of discernment with CBF Global Missions. She has previously served in short-term mission experiences in Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Belize, Guatemala and Moldova. Perrin brings a wealth of experience in education as a school counselor and as a minister of spiritual formation. As a mental health educator in Cyprus, she will be working to build relationships with those in need and helping them to know their loving Creator through the person of Christ.

Meet our new Global Service Corps personnel

BEVERLY AND WILLIAM BAKER

Beverly and William Baker are Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel serving through the Global Service Corps (GSC) program alongside CBF field personnel Anna Anderson and her husband, LaCount, in Ahoskie, N.C.

The Bakers were called into career mission service in their 40s. After 20 years of service in the Pacific Rim, they returned to the United States and were drawn to local missions. They serve at the Roanoke-Chowan Christian Women’s Job Corps, a group of professional and retired women working to empower women by providing resources to help them move from dependency to self-sufficiency.

DELORES STIMPSON

Delores Stimpson is a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel serving through the Global Service Corps (GSC) program alongside CBF field personnel Kim and Marc Wyatt and with Temple Baptist Church in Durham, N.C.

Stimpson’s long-time career focus was managing large technology programs for Fortune 500 companies. After surviving the 9/11 terrorist attack on the North Tower in New York City, Stimpson felt led to missions. Most recently, She partnered with the Wyatts to start a Welcome House in Durham for newly-arrived refugees.

The Dick and Jesmarie Hurst Global Service Corps (GSC) is a two-year mission commitment that provides an opportunity for graduates and post-career individuals to work alongside field personnel and partners in a context that enables both giving and receiving of gifts and growing in their understanding and experience of how God is at work in the world.

By Grayson Hester

A MINISTRY OF MAGIC: CHARLES TINSLEY Ask

any fan of fantasy stories and they’ll tell you that magic makes things out of nothing. It conjures out of thin air; it achieves the impossible. It leaves people befuddled, awed at its capabilities.

For Charles Tinsley, pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church in Barbourville, Ky., it’s the most apt descriptor of what he and his church accomplish day in and day out.

A predominantly Black church in an overwhelmingly white geographic region, facing the same economic headwinds by which that region has come to be defined, grappling for relevancy and membership in a rapidly secularizing country, hasn’t merely survived. It has thrived. And with a robust youth

program, the envy of many a CBF church, to boot.

“People know when you love them. Kids know when you love them. It’s just magic,” Tinsley said. “And our ministry, I guess people think we just got a youth church, but they say, ‘Man, y’all don’t care about nothing.’ But we do, we care about everything.”

Tinsley knows this love deeply, not merely because he professes it and serves as a minister of it, but because it was what compelled him

Rev. Charles Tinsley’s first sermon became a 25-year ministry at St. Paul Church in Barbourville, Ky. Tinsley gave the church a new spiritual and structural foundation.

to the pastorate in the first place. He did not set out to be a pastor; indeed, had it been solely up to him, he would still be enjoying his retirement from coal mining. Hailing from Harlan County, Ky., a place ravaged by economic disinvestment by mining companies, there would have been virtually no other careers from which he could have chosen.

Of course, the spellbinding Spirit had something else to say. In 1998, following 12 years of service as a deacon in his home church— about one hour away from Barbourville—Tinsley underwent a true conversion experience.

“I never will forget that day. We were having altar prayer, and my sister was sick; and I just went to the altar,” Tinsley said. “And I was praying, and my pastor asked me, ‘Why did I come?’ And I didn’t even mention nothing about my sister, and I didn’t realize I had said it; but I said, ‘The reason I came up here is God has called me to preach.’”

And preach he did. One Sunday, he delivered his very first sermon not just as a pastor, but his first sermon ever. The next Sunday, the congregation of St. Paul asked him to serve in an interim capacity. Now, after nearly 25 years, it’s safe to say Tinsley secured the job permanently.

While the calling came rather easily, the decision to stay with St. Paul required a bit more deliberation. The small size of the congregation, at the time a “family church,” in Tinsley’s words, posed an issue. While its spiritual health was (and remains) robust, the health of its building was cause for alarm. “The building was in ruins, I’m telling you, it needed so much work done on it. I just didn’t know,” he said. “I said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how we going to get this done. It’s just so much that needs to be done.’ I’m trying to witness and try

to invite people to church, and I lived so far away.” At the time, and until 2021, Tinsley lived about 1.5 hours away with his wife, Sherry, making the trip up to Barbourville from Harlan County two or three days a week. It was a traversable distance, but far from convenient. It certainly didn’t make repairing the building any easier. This proved especially troublesome in the Appalachian winters.

“One Wednesday night we was going to have Bible study, but apparently didn’t nobody show up,” Tinsley said. “Me and my wife had traveled about a hour-and-a-half and it just started pouring down, raining.” Tinsley recollects the mud squishing under the church door, a casualty of the building’s faulty water system. He feared that with a particularly heavy snow, the roof would collapse, and with it, his newfound ministry.

His anxieties proved unfounded, as word of the church’s struggles quickly spread. Days later, a group of elders from a church in Oklahoma showed up at their door.

“One of the members in the church was part of a group called Oklahoma Builders, and he had rallied his people,” Tinsley said. “I think it was about 12 retired people, elderly men; and they brought mobile homes and they camped outside and they came and put a roof on this church.”

They built a roof and established a relationship that endures to this day, nearly 20 years later. It would prove not to be the last. In 2018, Elmer Parlier, a white Episcopalian who, at the time was 70 years old, decided to put some legs on his church’s commitment to racial justice. He traveled 20 miles to Barbourville, opened the doors to the predominantly Black St. Paul Baptist Church, walked inside and sat down. “I walked into this church and sat right here, and I thought,

St. Paul was in ruins when Tinsley began his ministry. A group called the Oklahoma Builders, made up of 12 elders, brought campers to live in outside the church while they worked. They restored the roof.

Elmer Parlier was a member of the Oklahoma Builders that helped repair the roof. He is retired but still travels 20 miles for worship once a month with a close relationship with the congregation and Rev. Tinsley.

‘If they reject me, they will, and if they don’t, they won’t,’” Parlier said. “They took me in like family. Never been so blessed with the warmth that they gave to me.”

Since that day, he has attended St. Paul about once a month, forging a relationship with Pastor Tinsley, the congregation and, as fortune would have it, the continually beleaguered building.

With his experience in affordable housing, handyman know-how, and connections to local organizations, Parlier proved to be yet another invaluable blessing in St. Paul’s magical lineage. In turn, the church has blessed him right back.

“Pastor Tinsley, although I attend here only about once a month, has essentially become my pastor. Having been raised in the Baptist church, I really relate to that style of worship and that style of preaching. It’s been a blessing to me,” Parlier said.

Through him, Tinsley met Scarlette Jasper, CBF field personnel serving with Together for Hope. The organization’s primary objective is to mitigate generational poverty in Southern and south-central Kentucky, a goal achieved through partnerships just like the one it enjoys with St. Paul. At the time of their meeting, the church was enduring a bat infestation in its rafters. For Jasper, a pernicious problem turned into the perfect project. By pooling CBF’s finances, mobilizing a youth group from St. Matthews Baptist Church in Louisville and employing the full heft of Together for Hope’s resources, the church emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic with a brand-new floor, a refurbished draining system and the appropriate number of bats.

“They did a tremendous amount of work that week,” Jasper said.

“And then we had some fellowship time and real relationship-building time and bonding. That’s the CBF involvement—mission teams and financial support towards the project.”

In true CBF fashion, Jasper, Parlier and Together for Hope do not intend to drop in and drop out, fixing a few surface problems while leaving the deep, human need for connection unaddressed.

Whether in Kentucky or Southeast Asia, CBF is not just about projects; it’s about presence—a sentiment with which Tinsley clearly agrees. “Ms. Scarlette and Mr. Elmer is going to be friends for life. It’s a partnership for life, because every time I get a chance, I don’t forget where your blessings come from,” he said. “It’s through them that I’ll never forget. I know we can’t repay them, but I don’t think they expect us to. I think it’s just being thankful, and it’s through God’s blessings.”

Other problems persist—the church’s lack of financial resources, for one, a symptom of both the surrounding area’s poverty and of the country’s deeply entrenched systemic racism. Yet, St. Paul practices its ministry, quite literally, from a more solid foundation. And on that foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Tinsley, who have no children together, can count as their own the children of Barbourville. And, if the veritable traffic jam of bicycles that clusters at St. Paul’s door every week is evidence of anything, it’s that this love is reaching the right places. “It’s just those innocent kids and we just try to do everything we can to help them. And like I say, it’s unreal. You have to just almost see it. I can’t describe it sometimes, the love that we have for our young people.”

That which can’t be described—yet another feature of magic.

“I just like the Scripture that says, ‘When you give to the poor, you’re lending to God,’” Tinsley said. “In other words, don’t expect them to pay you, but God will pay you. I think about the reward is just you being faithful, being good stewards of your own money to help people and God got a special place. He’s going to reward you at the banquet table.”

Laure FitzSimons and Antonio Vargas as 2023 Vestal Scholars

By Aaron Weaver

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has selected first-year students Antonio Vargas of Yale Divinity School and Laure FitzSimons of Candler School of Theology at Emory University as the 2023 recipients of the Daniel and Earlene Vestal Scholarship.

The Fellowship’s most prestigious scholarship, named in honor of former CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal and his wife, Earlene, was created in 2011 to further CBF’s commitment to theological education. The annual scholarship is a foundational element in the Fellowship’s focus on nurturing young Baptists. Recipients of the Vestal Scholarship have demonstrated academic excellence and displayed a deep commitment to the local church and to CBF.

Vargas serves as associate pastor at Church of the City in New London, Conn., leading the congregation’s English ministries. Serving in the church that raised him, Vargas has a passion and commitment to children and youth advocacy, education, justice and worship. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Religion and Culture at Gordon College in Boston, Mass., and in 2019 was selected as one of CBF’s 25 Young Baptists to Know.

FitzSimons serves as the children’s ministry associate at Johns Creek Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Ga. For the past five summers, she has served with Passport Camps as an assistant director with Passportkids. She has previously served as a youth intern with Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Tucker, Ga., and Calvary Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky. FitzSimons is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a Bachelor

of Science degree in Health Promotion and Behavior.

Devita Parnell, director of CBF’s Young Baptist Ecosystem, lauded the leadership abilities and congregational experience of Vargas and FitzSimons.

“Antonio and Laure are already strong leaders with excellent congregational experience. They beautifully embody the spirit of this scholarship and honor the legacy of Daniel and Earlene Vestal who have a lifetime of ministry in service of the church,” Parnell said. “As students, they are finding ways to lead and serve within the life of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship through the work of their states and regions. We are blessed by their presence and look forward to how they will be a part of shaping our future together!”

Vestal Scholarship selection committee members from the CBF Ministries Council included: Josh James (The Restoration Project, Md.), Kan’Dace Brock (The Message Church, San Antonio, Texas), Jamila Harper (Metanoia, North Charleston, S.C.), Sara Hunt-Felke (Bayshore Baptist Church, Tampa, Fla.), Bob Searl (Spring Creek Baptist, Oklahoma City, Okla.), Charles Qualls (Franklin Baptist, Franklin, Va.), and Cecilia Walker (chaplain, Birmingham, Ala.). David Hull (Governing Board Member, WinstonSalem, N.C.), Caroline Smith (Missions Council member, Parkway Baptist Church, Duluth, Ga.), and Lauren McDuffie (Nominating Committee member, First Baptist Church, Morehead, Ky.) also served on the selection committee.

Vargas and FitzSimons will be recognized at the upcoming CBF General Assembly, June 28-30, in Atlanta.

CBF Foundation stewards the long-term growth of the Daniel and Earlene Vestal Leadership Scholar Endowment Fund. We invite you to leave a legacy of Baptist leaders for future generations by leaving a bequest gift in your will toward the fund. You can also make an immediate impact by making a gift toward the fund at www.cbf.net/vestalscholar. Contact Shauw Chin Capps at scapps@cbf.net for further assistance.

ANTONIO VARGAS Yale Divinity School

LAURE FITZSIMONS Candler School of Theology at Emory University

WATER FROM LIGHT

By Mike

MISSION BITES

and confirming family information that would help us determine their eligibility to renew their status.

The filing process was relatively short, and each family member’s application was sent to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for a decision. Happily, each family member’s renewal application was approved by USCIS quickly, within a matter of months.

God at work!

Fast forward to 2023. As a program director I’ve sought to enlarge our current staff and expand our program’s capacity by hiring a Department of Justice accredited representative. After requesting prayer about this need in our quarterly e-newsletter, Jeanne Anderson at Fredericksburg Baptist Church contacted me. “I think I’ve found the perfect person to apply to work with your legal services team assisting immigration clients. I’ve known her for almost her entire life. She’s young, smart and highly driven to serve the refugee and immigrant communities now so she can prepare herself to become an immigration attorney. And can you believe it, she is a refugee,” she said. “Her name is Fainas.”

Last year, we visited a village to install solar lighting at the church. When following up last fall, we learned that the village had several existing water wells. There were a few broken generators around the village, but even when the generators were working, the cost of fuel was too high. With no electricity to pump the water up from 200 feet below, many families spent most of their meager income to buy water each month. In January, we returned to this village, five islands and a couple of flights away from our own, to provide enough solar generated electricity to run the village pump. Now, 38 families have access to free water.

Brooke and Mike serve as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel in Southeast Asia.

GOD AT WORK

By Greg Smith

Shortly after LUCHA Ministries launched our immigration legal services program in 2016, a Burundian refugee family came to us. She was requesting help to renew their Lawful Permanent Residence status—more often informally called Green Cards.

Along with the family’s father and mother were their children, one of whom was named Fainas. Her siblings sat quietly around our conference room table as we spoke mostly with her parents, answering questions

At first, I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. Quickly enough I realized that this is God at work! This is God providing a way, not just for the future viability and capacity of our program, but much more importantly this is God providing for the immigrant and refugee community.

God at work! Thanks be to God.

Greg Smith serves as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel through LUCHA Ministries in Fredericksburg, Va.

CBF field personnel Brooke and Mike have served in Southeast Asia since 2017. For the past four years they have been installing solar panels to bring light to churches in their community.

Greg Smith worked to help a family renew their immigration applications by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. One year later, Greg Smith met a member of that family again when looking for an immigration attorney to help his staff in Fredericksburg, Va.

DOUBLE, NOT HALF

By Carson Foushee

Last fall, my daughter and I were at a festival near our home when “Yoshi,” a Japanese college student, approached me and spoke to me in English. This is actually a very rare occurrence as we almost always speak with local people in Japanese. Yoshi, a native of Kanazawa, was intrigued that our family lived in Kanazawa since there are not many internationals in our city. He shared that he is studying both English and German at a university in Tokyo focused on foreign languages and was happy to be able to speak English with an international in his city.

positive aspects of possessing multiple nationalities. It seems so simple, but this kind of language matters and has the power to help others to see the beauty of the diversity of their neighbors.

Yoshi and I have continued to send text messages to each other after his return to Tokyo. While I help him to navigate the difficulties he faces with his multinational background, I try to help him understand that his identity is not in who others say he is nor is it from the names of the nations printed on the passports he carries. He is above all a beloved child of God. He is enough because God has made him in God’s image. It’s a reminder that I hope we all carry as we journey together in faith and recognize the beauty of the diversity given to us by our Creator.

Carson and Laura Foushee serve as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel in Kanazawa, Japan.

HEARING IN A HEART LANGUAGE

By Mary VanRheenen

Yoshi and I shared contact information so that we could meet up the next time he was back home. I hoped to be able to take him to a cafe run by a German friend so Yoshi could practice German.

The next time we met, we enjoyed breakfast at the cafe, named Gemutlich or “comfortable” in German, which was a good description of our time together. The conversation covered a range of topics, but identity was a central theme. Yoshi’s father is Japanese and his mother is Chinese. In Japan, this makes him “half,” which is a term used for individuals with one Japanese parent and one of another nationality. Sadly, there is often a negative perception of “half” citizens in Japan. In 2015, the winner crowned Miss Universe Japan was “half” as her mother is Japanese and father is African-American. Critics felt she didn’t fit the traditional Japanese image to represent the nation, and the internet trolling was cruel. This kind of discrimination is common among “half” people in Japan and leads to identity crises as these individuals are forced to make decisions about their behavior to avoid the potential judgment of others in their communities.

Yoshi has felt this kind of discrimination throughout his life both in Japan and China. This is especially difficult since the two nations his parents come from have a history of conflict. He was even bullied by a teacher as an elementary student in China regarding the Japanese oppression of the Chinese during World War II. He has done his best to manage this struggle, sometimes by simply hiding characteristics and talents that make him different than his peers.

I shared with Yoshi that a Japanese pastor in the city of Kobe, married to an American, told me that rather than use the term “half,” his family says their children are “double.” Their family focuses on the

She was our waitress at a restaurant in a small town in Germany. Keith and I were on vacation in a picturesque area about five hour’s drive from our home in the Netherlands. This friendly young woman was answering questions about items on the menu. In addition to traditional local fare, there were some Polish-inspired dishes. Her family ran the restaurant, and her mother originally came from Poland. We chatted about that. Some years ago, Keith and I had worked for two months in Poland, so this led to a friendly exchange. She told us that on Christmas Eve, her father read the Christmas story out loud in German (again, following local tradition), but her mother still insisted on reading it in Polish, too. After we’d enjoyed a really good meal, Keith showed her what we had been doing in Poland: recording a new Polish translation of the entire New Testament, available online or as an App. She listened to a snippet from Matthew with glowing eyes. “My mother will love this!” We pray hearing the Word in her heart language had as much impact on the rest of the family as it did on this young woman.

Mary VanRheenen & Keith Holmes serve as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel in Europe.

Keith Holmes records the New Testament in Polish for the Romany people they serve. The children can hear and learn the Scripture in their native language.

On Palm Sunday, friends from the Kanazawa International Baptist Church in Kanazawa, Japan, gathered for a flower viewing in the park near their church.

Staying Power

By Rob Fox, President of Church Benefits Board

This year, Church Benefits Board (CBB) celebrates our silver anniversary. In 1998, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly voted to create the Church Benefits Board to provide retirement benefits for ministers and staff members of churches that are affiliated with CBF, along with CBF staff in Atlanta and field personnel worldwide. For 25 years, your benefits have been our ministry.

Recently, I had a call with a pastor interested in rolling over his retirement from another church plan to CBB. He asked me many good questions, but his final question was a great one: “What is the staying power of Church Benefits Board?”

Staying power, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the capacity for continuing (as in existence, influence or popularity) without weakening. From our inception in 1998, the CBB board members and staff designed a retirement plan built to last. I assured the pastor on the call that our staying power is significant, and I offered him these examples:

• CBB is Growing—Over the past 25 years, we’ve grown assets under management in our CBB 403(b)(9) retirement plan to more than $100,000,000. This is a combination of responsible investment management and market growth, the addition of new churches and participants joining our plan and increased employee and employer contributions year over year. CBB now serves over 1,200 individuals, and we are welcoming new churches and participants every week. By 2033, our projected goal is to double assets to over $200,000,000.

• CBB is Serving—Our recordkeeper, Empower Retirement, is our primary service partner, and one of the top financial services organizations in all the world. Empower is on a mission to empower financial freedom for all. CBB is the only church retirement plan that partners with Empower to offer all participants complimentary financial advice with FINRA licensed advisors, complimentary financial planning services with Certified Financial Planners and financial incentives for clergy who complete a financial plan.

• CBB is Competitive—Because of our unique nonprofit partnership model, we can scale and remain competitive when compared to other similar 403(b)(9) church plans. What sets us apart is the way in which we serve individuals and churches. For churches, we honor your local autonomy, leadership and offer you choices related to retirement and insurance benefits. For individuals, we serve women and men called to ministry, both clergy and laity. We are fiduciaries, and we always put the needs of our participants first.

Yes, Church Benefits Board has immense staying power. We are growing. We are serving. We are competitive. We are here for the long run.

For those of you just learning about us, welcome to Church Benefits Board. To learn more, please visit churchbenefits.org/welcome. Let us know of your interest in enrollment and rollover services. We welcome the opportunity to serve you now, and for the years ahead. Cheers to the next 25 years!

Rob Fox serves as president of Church Benefits Board. Connect with Rob at rfox@cbf.net.