Texan Digital magazine April 18

April 18, 2013 • ISSUE 7

A growing chorus of evangelicals, including Southern Baptist pastors such as Houston’s David Fleming and Dallas’ David Galvan, are calling for immigration reform that includes a path to legal status for illegal immigrants and increased border security.

But can they win over their critics?

+Prestonwood group ministers +FBC Dallas dedicates in Boston after bombing

$130 million expansion

Contents 2 5

The freeing restraints of God As our nation marches happy-go-lucky into so-called “marriage equality,” we may find that sex sans Christianity was not the freer option.

3-4 Passings

Graham associate George Beverly Shea, NFL’s Pat Summerall remembered

Media pay heed to Gosnell trial—finally The murder trial of Kermit Gosnell entered its fifth week with new media interest in an abortion doctor who allegedly practiced infanticide in his clinic.

6 COVER STORY 11

Prestonwood group ministers in Boston after bombing A young adult group from Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano who were in Boston during the marathon ministered in the aftermath of the bombings.

13

San Diego pastor, Texas governor help dedicate FBC Dallas facilities Members of the storied First Baptist Church of Dallas were reminded to turn outward in their mission by two very different messengers on April 7 during dedication services.

On the immigration issue, evangelical group calls for bold reform while others worry about follow-through on border security.

TEXAN Digital is e-published twice monthly by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, 4500 State Highway 360, Grapevine, TX 76099-1988.

Jim Richards, Executive Director Gary Ledbetter, Editor Jerry Pierce, Managing Editor Tammi Ledbetter, News Editor Russell Lightner, Design & Layout Stephanie Barksdale, Subscriptions Contributing Writers Bonnie Pritchett, Jane Rodgers To contact the TEXAN office, visit texanonline.net/contact or call toll free 877.953.7282 (SBTC)

Jerry Pierce

The freeing restraints of God

W

hen the older of my two sons was about 8, he decided to entertain himself with the slack of a spare seat belt in the back of our van. We were traveling back to Dallas from Oklahoma City, and I was carefree about it until I heard him say in a panicked voice something like, “I’m stuck” and “it hurts.”

After my wife crawled back to unleash him and failed, I exited the interstate—not a happy camper—and pulled off on the shoulder to resolve this. I failed too. Exasperated, I drove until I found a fire station in Ardmore, Okla., where several gracious firemen solved our problem.

The irony was that the more we tried to loosen the knotted seat belt strap, the worse his predicament. For passenger safety, the seat belt manufacturer didn’t design the belt to get looser upon being jerked. Just the opposite.

I can’t help but think of that irony as our nation marches happy-go-lucky into so-called “marriage equality.” In Texas, we are far from going there by choice—I think—but the dominos are falling faster than we realized. Our friends’ and neighbors’ convictions were wobblier than we thought.

And if Rod Dreher, a former Dallas Morning News columnist, is correct, the whole movement is not merely another chink in the armor but a grievous wound signaling Christianity’s defeat in Western culture. Freedom requires limits. Societies are defined by what they prohibit, Dreher notes. The ironic unintended consequence of laissez-faire morality is eventual enslavement of the powerless by the powerful.

Writing in the American Conservative, Dreher says that “put bluntly, the gay-rights cause has succeeded precisely because the Christian cosmology has dissipated in the mind of the

2 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

West.” Dreher was recalling a 1993 article in The Nation that described a “cosmology”—used here in a philosophical sense of understanding reality and the universal order of things— created by homosexuals to explain their condition in a society with a sexual identity crisis. The article contended that given their cosmological aspirations, a “small and despised sexual minority will change America forever.”

Change seems to be here, helped along by a “Live and let live!” philosophy inside and outside our churches.

We are past the tipping point, Dreher believes, and it happened faster than anyone thought possible largely because of decades of dismantling Christian constructs, beginning with the Enlightenment but bearing discernable fruit in the 1960s sexual revolution.

That era of sexual revolt pitted individualism against community or religion or superstition. “Live and let live!” and “If it feels good, do it!” took root in hearts far beyond hippie hamlets and college dorms. Those mantras subtly went mainstream. They are in our churches. Think of that couple in your church, seemingly happily married, that divorces because one spouse is feeling unfulfilled in mid-life or because one of them has met a “soul mate” who isn’t their spouse.

If a fair number of professing Christians are committed to their marriages only conditionally, then is it a surprise that a growing number of our seemingly conventional, freedom-loving, flag-waving neighbors are open to changing their minds on gay marriage? We devalued the thing first—in the name of freedom and self-fulfillment.

A poster on Facebook recently spouted, “Who cares about who gets married” when we have so many people out of work?

This person is a professing Christian, and I gather, fairly conservative politically. But she apparently doesn’t believe there is much to lose culturally by “who gets married.” She is dangerously nearsighted.

The illusion is that we can be free of theological claims on our lives, or others can be, and it can remain a private matter. But the irony is that the further off the leash sexually and morally we go and the more we attempt to define our own essence, the more severe our bondage—personally and corporately.

We must look back to our origins, making a case for a worldview that explains God, man, sin, corruption and redemption.

Maybe we shouldn’t omit the Bible’s sexual metaphors in our talks about the gospel. Maybe we shouldn’t talk philosophically about sex without also discussing marriage and the mystery of Christ and his church.

And maybe we should start in our homes and in our churches.

Briefly Dallas mayor criticized for attending First Dallas Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings found himself defending his choice to attend a dedication service on April 7 for new facilities at First Baptist Church of Dallas, citing his reason as a belief in tolerance.

In its story on Rawlings’ attendance at the same

service

where

other dignitaries such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry

NORTH AMERICA

Bev Shea, Graham soloist, dead at 104 George Beverly Shea, the longtime soloist for Billy Graham Crusades, died April 16 after a brief illness. He was 104.

Shea and Graham were lifelong friends, for decades living only a mile apart from each other in Montreat, N.C. “I first met Bev Shea while in Chicago when he was on Moody Radio,” Graham said. “As a young man starting my ministry, I asked Bev if he would join me. He said yes and for over 60 years we had the privilege of ministering together across the country and around the world.”

Graham added, “Bev was one of the most humble, gracious men I have ever known and one of my closest friends. I loved him as a brother.”

A lengthy New York Times obituary said Tuesday Graham wasn’t always the more famous of the two. When Graham asked him to sing at his preaching events in the 1940s, Shea already was a nationally known voice in Christian music, The Times said. Graham, at the time, was a

“fledgling minister.”

“As has been widely reported, their early revival meetings were often advertised like this: BEV SHEA SINGS. Billy Graham will preach,” The Times said.

By the time old age led to the winding down of their ministry together, Shea had “faithfully carried the Gospel in song to every continent and every state in the Union,” the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) said.

Shea composed the music to one of his best known solos, “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” at age 23.

were present, the gaycentric Dallas Voice described the church as the “anti-gay First Baptist Church of Dallas” and referred to Pastor Robert Jeffress’

Falling fertility rate poses problems, author says

“ex-

treme anti-gay views”

Benches built to push couples to sit closer togeth-

for calling homosex-

er, special holidays and monetary incentives are

ual

“unnatural,”

all ways other countries have tried to boost fertili-

“filthy,” “perverse” and

ty rates, author and demographer Jonathan Last

acts

told a Washington audience recently.

“abnormal.”

Rawlings

said

he

The “bad news,” Last said, is there are

considers himself to be

few examples of effective public policy

a “Christ-centered per-

to nudge fertility rates upward. Other

son” but he disagrees

countries that have tried to do so failed,

with Jeffress on the is-

the author of “What to Expect When No

sue. He said he is com-

One’s Expecting” said during an April 3

mitted to working with

lecture at the Family Research Council.

all people in Dallas.

The world population will peak before

The wife of Rawlings,

the end of this century and then quickly

a Presbyterian, report-

contract, Last predicted in a February opin-

edly grew up at First

ion piece for the Los Angeles Times. This

Baptist Dallas.

would be the first time this large and quick APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 3

of a contraction took place since the Black Plague hit Europe in the Middle Ages.

Pat Summerall ‘finished well,’ pastor says

Today, 97 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where the fertility rate is falling, Last said in the article.

At the Family Research Council event, Last cited some past efforts to boost fertility rates.

“The first attempt we see as pro-natalist public policy is actually from Caesar Augustus,” Last said. “He passes in the late days of the Roman Empire, when they were having a fertility crunch, a bachelor tax—to get unmarried young men to get married and start [having] kids.

That did not work.”

“Pre-1968—broadly speaking, you could not have sex without getting married. You could not have sex without having a child nine months later, and you couldn’t have a kid out of wedlock. Certainly people did those things certainly on their own outside, but in broader society people didn’t do that,” Last said.

“The sexual revolution plays an enormous role on fertility,” Last said.

In 1965, four percent of all births were to single mothers; today, it is 47 percent. It is not that America is unwilling to produce children; the problem is broken homes and the dropping fertility rate, Last said. America’s ideal fertility rate is 2.5; it is currently 2.1.

“What has changed is not our conception of what the ideal family is but our ability to achieve it,” Last said.

4 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

Pat Summerall stood in the front row at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano on Easter Sunday, next to his wife Cheri, as the congregation sang “The Old Rugged Cross.”

“I looked over there at Pat, and big tears were streaming down his face,” Prestonwood Pastor Jack Graham said.

“Of all the times I’ve watched him on television, of all the times I’ve heard his Summerall accepted Christ later in life. voice, my greatest memory is going to be His partnership with Brookshier exremembering Pat with his eyes lifted up tended beyond the broadcast booth, as to heaven, tears soaking his face, singing the two became close friends and drink‘The Old Rugged Cross.’” ing buddies. Much of Summerall’s life Summerall, the famed NFL broadcaster, was characterized by alcoholism and died April 16 in Dallas of cardiac arrest at abandonment of his family. age 82. He had been in Zale Lipshy HosIn 1992, Summerall’s friends and family pital after surgery for a broken hip. staged an intervention on his behalf and Graham said with all the accolades and he ended up at a treatment center, angry applause that Sumat his condition. merall received for his Then he began read“[F]or the first time in my sports broadcasting ing the Bible. life, I knew what people work, his walk with “My thirst for almeant about being ‘born Christ is what mattered cohol was being reagain. I had already acthe most to him. placed by a thirst for cepted that Jesus Christ “He finished well,” knowledge about was the Son of God who Graham said. “His faith faith and God,” Sumdied for our sins. Now, I felt merall wrote. “I began was strong in Christ I was truly part of his family. reading the Bible regand he was prepared I felt ecstatic, invigorated, for eternity. His comularly at the treatment mitment was stronger happier, and freer. It felt as center, and it became than ever. Even though a part of my daily routhough my soul had been he was battling illness tine. The more I read, washed clean.” and the personal chalthe more I felt a void in lenges of aging, he was my life that needed to —Pat Summerall joyful and constantly be filled.” engaging people with He was later baphis life and his testimony. He was always tized at First Baptist Church in Euless. willing to share what Christ had done in Summerall described emerging from the his life and the transforming power of Je- water and said he had surfaced to a new sus in his life.” world.

After 10 years in the NFL as a kicker, “[F]or the first time in my life, I knew Summerall spent more than 40 years call- what people meant about being ‘born ing NFL games for CBS and FOX, most again,’” Summerall wrote. “I had already notably with analyst John Madden. Prior accepted that Jesus Christ was the Son to Madden, Summerall teamed with ana- of God who died for our sins. Now, I felt I lyst Tom Brookshier. was truly part of his family. I felt ecstatic, “We lost one of the all-time greats invigorated, happier, and freer. It felt as yesterday in Pat Summerall,” said Mike though my soul had been washed clean.”

Greenburg, host of ESPN’s “Mike and Graham was scheduled to preach SumMike in the Morning,” on his April 17 merall’s funeral at Prestonwood on April show. “He was one of the great football 20, with a live broadcast link to the servoices—maybe the greatest football play- vice accessible at prestonwood.org. by-play man there ever was.”

Media pay heed to Gosnell trial—finally

By Tom Strode (BP)—The murder trial of Kermit Gosnell entered its fifth week with new media interest in an abortion doctor who allegedly practiced infanticide in his clinic.

Gosnell, 72, faces seven counts of firstdegree murder in the deaths of viable children who were killed after delivery and a count of third-degree murder in the death of a Virginia woman during a 2009 abortion.

Those seven babies were only some of hundreds at least six months into gestation who were killed outside the womb after induced delivery at Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic, a grand jury reported in 2011. After delivery, Gosnell— or another staff member—would jab scissors into the back of a baby’s neck and cut the spinal cord, according to the grand jury. Gosnell called the killing of these children “snipping.”

Witnesses recounted the killings of babies struggling for life outside the womb and the horrible conditions at the clinic during the trial’s first four weeks, but most major news organizations ignored or paid little attention to the trial despite the sensational testimony.

By April 15, however, that had begun to change. After an outcry from some in the news media and a pro-life campaign on Twitter, CNN covered the story in prime time April 12. “CBS This Morning” telecast a nearly four-minute report.

When the trial reconvened on April 15, reporters from The Washington Post and other major news outlets were present in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for the first time.

What local reporters, and some from conservative news organizations, heard in the trial’s first four weeks in the major news media’s absence included: 4Former clinic staffer Adrienne Moton told jurors March 19 she “couldn’t give you a number” of how many times Gosnell killed infants outside the womb by cutting their spinal cords, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

4Gosnell joked about the size of one

born-alive baby he killed, “This baby is going to walk me home,” said Ashley Baldwin, who started working at the clinic as a 15-year- old, The Inquirer reported.

4A “snipping” is “like a beheading,” said former Gosnell employee Steven Massof April 4, The Inquirer reported.

When mothers were given drugs to induce sudden contractions, “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place,” Massof said, according to WCAU-TV, NBC’s Philadelphia affiliate.

“It was interesting to hear, however, how the people working for Gosnell were needy, desperate people with few options in life. He seemed to seek out people like that for his clinic,” said pro-life advocate Cheryl Sullenger, who added all of the former employees except one seemed “emotionally affected in a negative way by their work at Gosnell’s clinic.

Sullenger said she hopes the trial “will awaken Americans to the ugly truth about how abortion clinics are run in America and how a lack of oversight only allows abortionists to prey on and exploit women, especially poor women of color.... Maybe the public will now be open to hearing about abortion abuses that go on in clinics every day and realize there is no such thing as a ‘safe’ abortion clinic. We hope it will lead to stronger laws restricting abortion and greater oversight and enforcement.

Perhaps if America can begin to understand the truth about the barbaric practice of abortion, we as a nation will finally stop tolerating it.”

BP requested comment from three leading abortion rights organizations—Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-choice America and National Abortion Federation—to two questions involving the Gosnell trial: What is their response to testimony Gosnell killed viable babies who survived abortions? How can state government make sure conditions similar to those reported at Gosnell’s clinic are not duplicated at other reproductive health centers?

Tarek Rizk, NARAL’s communication director, said in response, “This is an example of what happens to women and basic dignity when abortion isn’t available to all women by safe and legal providers.”

Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation did not reply before this article was submitted.

The Gosnell trial continues as health and safety complaints against abortion clinics mount. For instance, two nurses quit their jobs at Planned Parenthood of Delaware because of conditions at the clinic, they told WPVI-TV, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. One told a reporter, “I couldn’t tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was.” On April 10, WPVI-TV reported five patients at the clinic allegedly have been taken to the emergency room since early January.

Meanwhile, the Virginia Board of Health gave final approval April 12 to new regulations that require abortion clinics to comply with hospital-like building standards.

Major news organizations seemed to begin to backtrack on what critics described as a news blackout of the Gosnell trial after Democrat columnist Kirsten Powers wrote a scathing piece April 10 in USA Today. The former Clinton administration official said the “deafening silence of too much of the media ... is a disgrace.”

“You don’t have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy,” Powers wrote. “This is not about being ‘pro-choice’ or ‘pro-life.’

It’s about human rights.”

Some reporters or editors acknowledged their pro-choice affinity and confessed their news organizations should have been covering the trial.

APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 5

As a diverse evangelical coalition seeks reform with a path to legal status, some of their brother politicians are wary of border control problems.

By Bonnie Pritchett diverse coalition of 170 pastors and leaders calling itself

the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT) has created a bold proposal for solving the illegal immigration problem that strives to balance compassion with common-sense reforms.

Among its most visible members are Southern Baptists Richard Land, longtime convention ethics agency leader, and Houston pastor David Fleming, an Executive Board member of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Former SBC President Bryant Wright was also an early signer.

The group is watching closely for the roll-out of a 1,500-page bipartisan Senate document calling for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for otherwise law-abiding illegals— something long overdue, some critics of the current system contend.

But they are not the only Christian evangelicals, let alone Southern Baptists, who are eyeing the much-touted proposal by the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Eight”—a collaboration of Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain and John Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Richard Durbin of Illinois, and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert (R-Tyler) said he is in agreement with the EIT’s goals of compassion and reform, but he said he is 6 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

troubled by talk of legal status without stricter border controls.

Any reform must meet biblically based criteria, according to the EIT. The group includes conservatives as well as a few on the left edge of evangelicalism. Jim Wallis, president and CEO of Sojourners, is on board with EIT, as well as Ronald Sider with Evangelicals for Social Action.

In Texas, signers include former SBTC president and Dallas pastor David Galvan, Malcolm Yarnell, systematic theology professor at Southwestern Seminary and editor of the school’s theology journal, Daniel Sanchez, missions professor at Southwestern, and Lamar Cooper, senior professor of Old Testament and archaeology at Criswell College.

Additionally, leaders of numerous Christian denominations, including the Assemblies of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the Evangelical Free Church, signed the document, according to a list on the EIT website.

The coalition struck an accord and drafted a resolution in November asking Congress and the president to address the issue in a manner that reflects biblical standards and the

nation’s “commitment to the values of human dignity, family unity, and respect of the law.”

The EIT has broadcast radio ads in five states including Texas. In the 60-second Texas spot, Fleming is the voice, identifying himself as a pastor and calling for reforms “that are both just and compassionate. So please join a growing movement of Christians asking our political leaders for solutions which reflect each person’s God-given dignity, respect the rule of law, protect family unity, secure our borders, ensure fairness to taxpayers and establish a path to citizenship to those who David Fleming qualify.”

“For me it’s a moral issue,” Fleming, pastor of Champion Forest Baptist Church, told the TEXAN. Fleming and Land make no excuses for illegal immigration or overstaying legal visas. But fixing the problem demands Christian principals that balance charity, human dignity and prudence, they say.

Gohmert, a Southern Baptist deacon, commended the EIT tenets that pay heed to human dignity, family unity and reform. But Gohmert told the TEXAN, “As fellow Christians these are things we believe in. But we are not called to be in government as total fools.”

Previous immigration reforms assured secure borders but didn’t deliver them, said Gohmert, Louis Gohmert referencing the 1986 amnesty bill signed by President Ronald Reagan. A provision of the bill called for securing the borders to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

There should be no discussion of legalization and citizenship before the U.S. borders are secure, Gohmert argued, because such talk encourages unlawful entry by those believing they will receive amnesty.

“We’re going to do this again and in the wrong order,” said David Welch, director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, citing the concerns of some council members.

In 2010 the Houston council passed The Pastors’ Declaration on Border Security and Immigration

Reform, urging elected officials to remedy the issue, balancing the scriptural demands of justice and compassion. The resolution first called for securing the borders. Fleming helped draft that document.

But while legislators take what could be years to resolve the problem of porous borders, Fleming said those already here illegally linger in an untenable limbo.

He recounted stories of church members whose immigrant status defies conventional stereotypes.

Fleming told of a woman whose husband came to the U.S. on a work visa sponsored by his employer. Since her husband’s David Galvan death four years ago the woman has no legal recourse for staying in the country.

Despite working through proper channels, her request to stay here with her American-born teenagers was denied. Instead she was told to return to her native country to reapply for entry. “The line” to get back to America is 15 years long, Fleming said.

“This is an unfair, unjust response to this mom’s circumstances,” Fleming argued.

Approximately 40 percent of illegal immigrants in the country have overstayed their visas, Gohmert said.

Regardless of how they came here, many have become members of churches. Jesse Contreras, SBTC language ministries associate, estimates that 60 percent of Richard Land members in Spanish-language churches are illegal residents.

Land, who is retiring and will become president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, cited similar numbers. He said of Latino converts to Baptist churches, “We evangelize them and they become Baptists … part of the Iglesia Bautista.”

Putting a face on illegal immigration stories is compelling, Gohmert said. It is the impetus for seeking reform. But the face of the illegal immigrant also belongs to members of the drug cartels smuggling narcotics across the southern border, he said, and the single mom whose car was totaled by an unlicensed, uninsured, undocumented drunk driver.

“That is not how you treat people with dignity,” APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 7

Gohmert said. immigration reform. The Southern Baptists of Texas But, EIT proponents say, any immigration reform Convention passed a similar resolution in 2006. must include background checks to ensure those The last SBC resolution, in 2011, called for gospel here who are awaiting legalization meet strict proclamation balanced by justice and compassion, requirements. And those seeking legalization must pay with border security and hiring practices also a a fine to compensate for their illegal entry. concern. With secure borders, the government should Once an immigrant is deemed qualified, the seek a “just and compassionate path to legal status, legalization process would begin while the person with appropriate restitutionary measures, for those remains in the country. No one would be forced to undocumented immigrants already living in our return home and “get in line.” country.” It specified the resolution was not to be Also, the EIT argues, deporting the millions already understood as supporting amnesty. here is not a viable solution. To “retroactively” enforce An SBTC resolution in 2006 called for a the law for those who have been in the States for years “comprehensive set of reforms that embody biblical without the threat of deportation justice and mercy while vigilantly would be unjust, Land said. protecting the sovereignty and “It’s immoral to break the “It’s immoral to break the law security of our nation’s borders.” law but also immoral to but also immoral to not enforce The resolution also called on it,” he added. “To suddenly government agencies to work not enforce it. To suddenly impose immigration laws that together more effectively and for impose immigration laws have heretofore gone unenforced employers to follow the law in that have heretofore gone violates biblical mandates to treat hiring practices. unenforced violates biblical people justly and with dignity.”

Furthermore, the SBTC resolution Keeping families intact is a asked churches to “cultivate mandates to treat people key principle for the coalition. opportunities to minister to justly and with dignity.”

Fleming said requiring the mother immigrants in times of need, to —Richard Land from his church to return to offer classes in English as a Second her native country would either Language, to help immigrants in separate her from her children or their pursuit of legal residency or force them to leave the only home they have known to citizenship, and to demonstrate the love of Christ to all live in a foreign land. those residing in our communities” and “to obey the “The people most affected by the current policy are Great Commission by redeeming every opportunity to not anonymous to us. We know their names and their present the gospel of Jesus Christ to the immigrants faces, their hopes and dreams, their gifts and their whom God has brought into our communities.” skills. We recognize their inherent value and their The Houston Area Pastor Council declaration was great potential as human beings,” Fleming told Baptist used to help draft the EIT document. But how those Press last year. proposals are fleshed out is where the contention lies.

The admonitions of Romans 13 entreat Christians in Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center and this debate to find a just resolution for both citizen and the Brookings Institution indicate the majority of immigrant, Gohmert said. As an elected official, he is Americans (71 percent and 63 percent, respectively) especially mindful of his “duty to the people and to agree immigrants in the country illegally should be uphold the law.” afforded a path to legalization and/or citizenship if But that law, Fleming said, is to be just law. The specific requirements are met. The Pew survey broke current law does not do justice to the nation’s down the number to indicate that of the 71 percent, values—a point not lost on Gohmert, even if they 43 percent said immigrants should be afforded a path disagree on how to get there. to citizenship while 24 percent of respondents said Twice in recent years, Southern Baptist Convention they should only be permitted to apply for permanent messengers supported resolutions calling for residency. Four percent did not indicate a preference.

8 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

For SBTC’s Contreras, Reagan’s amnesty was a life-changer

By Jerry Pierce

curity number could be obtained within a few hours.

Jesse Contreras was 8 when he came to Texas from Monterrey, Mexico with his parents and three of his sisters in 1985.

They had the clothes on their backs, a tourist visa good for several months, a temporary place to live and little else.

Millions took their chances in breaking immigration laws that were never consistently enforced.

A year later, in 1986, President Reagan granted the possibility of amnesty to illegals that came Jesse Contreras

prior to 1985 through the Immigration Reform and Control

Act. Nearly 3 million came out of the shadows, went through the process and became legal residents.

When the tourist visa expired, the family, like

“I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have

many peer families, stayed. They settled in Dallas’ Oak

put down roots and lived here, even though some time

Cliff neighborhood after a seven-month stay with an

back they may have entered illegally,” Reagan said in

aunt in Garland.

a 1984 debate with Democratic presidential nominee

Contreras, now a language ministry associate at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and an Ameri-

Walter Mondale.

“I think people have a misconception when the word

can citizen since 2005, spoke no English when he be-

‘amnesty’ is thrown out—that it’s a free ride,” Contre-

gan fourth grade in Texas that year. Seven years later,

ras said. “But it’s actually a very costly, tedious and

he was confronted with the gospel and was saved

time-consuming process. You have

and baptized. He went on to earn

to really want to be here legally.”

bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Criswell College and entered the ministry.

Looking back, he sees God’s providence all along the journey.

“I sincerely believe that God brought me here to this country to hear the gospel and to change the trajectory of my life,” Contreras said.

He’s a believer in obeying the

“I think people have a misconception when the word ‘amnesty’ is thrown out—that it’s a free ride.

But it’s actually a very costly, tedious and time-consuming process.

You have to really want to be here legally.”

laws, but the system is broken on

The Contreras family went through that process. A Presbyterian pastor in Oak Cliff, who was Hispanic, helped the Contrerases and many other families go through the proper channels of legalization, driving them to the courthouse, and to Catholic Charities, which was active in helping thousands of Hispanic families complete their paperwork.

With help from Catholic Chari-

both sides of the border, he said.

ties his parents spent about $2,000 for amnesty and

Reasonable, realistic and compassionate reform is

work permits before applying for permanent resi-

needed, he said in an interview with the TEXAN.

dence. Following that process the children were legally

In the mid-1980s, one could find Hispanic grocery stores around Dallas where a bogus driver’s license, permanent residence ID (green card) and Social Se-

documented, Contreras explained. His fourth sister was born here and is a citizen by birth.

The family had been “nominally Catholic” in Mexico, APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 9

but after being befriended by the

have seemingly changed. Enforce-

they receive kickbacks or some

Presbyterian pastor, they began

ment, not uniformly applied in the

other demand. For many families,

attending the Presbyterian church

past, has become more stringent.

the safe option is to cross into the

with Jesse’s father eventually join-

For example, Contreras said he

ing and becoming an elder.

When Contreras was a teenager,

knows of one man here for more

U.S.—albeit illegally.

Also a problem, Contreras said, is

than 20 years who is driving with

deportation of families where the

the family moved back to Garland,

an expired license because getting

children have only spoken English

to an apartment where two Criswell

his renewed at the local Depart-

for years and have been educated

College students going door-to-

ment of Motor Vehicles office now

in America. They are thrust into a

door on a Saturday morning shared

means facing possible arrest by

Mexican culture that is foreign to

the gospel with Contreras in a way

Immigration and Naturalization

them and are punished for their

that resonated in his heart. They

Service (INS) agents. Previously, he

parents’ actions.

also shared something he hadn’t

could get a valid license and have it

heard: “God loves you.”

renewed periodically.

“I knew Christ died on the cross,

“It’s definitely a reality that you

“The immigrants are here and they will tell you they should have gone through the proper chan-

but I did not understand surrender

deal with here in Texas every day”

nels,” Contreras said. “But because

and trusting Christ as savior.”

with illegals constantly looking

of corruption on the Mexico side it

over their shoulders, he said.

is difficult to go through the legal

They invited him to church— Northrich Baptist in Richardson.

“There might have been two brown faces,” Contreras recalled.

“I don’t remember anything about

process from that end as well.”

Danger, exploitation and ethical dilemmas

tunity to become legal residents,

Ethically, it’s a dilemma for

“would jump on it. If there’s a fine,

Most illegals, if given an oppor-

the sermon. I do remember they

Hispanic Baptist churches, where

they would pay it. They want to be

gave an invitation. I told them I had

Contreras estimates 60 percent of

productive citizens, and they want

placed my faith in Christ.”

members are here illegally.

that for their children too.”

At age 15, he was baptized at

Their underground status makes

But until a solution is found,

Northrich Baptist. Later, his mother

them vulnerable to being exploited

illegals “are our neighbors, they

and four sisters also were baptized

on American soil by angry land-

attend our schools and our church-

there. Today, his mom and a sister

lords, neighbors or bosses who

es, they are a part of our mission

are members of Crossroads Baptist

might threaten to turn them into

field,” he said.

Church in Rowlett and another

INS if they don’t comply with de-

sister is involved with Woodbridge

mands.

Bible Fellowship, a church the

In one church where Contreras

“I do know a couple of pastors who have gone back out of conscience’ sake—at great cost,”

SBTC is helping plant in Wylie. His

served, a church member was

Contreras added, but they are the

dad still attends his Presbyterian

turned into INS and deported while

exception.

church.

his legal resident wife and two chil-

“They took me in, that whole

He also knows a businessman

dren, both U.S. citizens, were left

from Monterrey whose life was

church, even though I was the only

here. To keep the family intact, the

threatened by drug cartels. “He

Hispanic there at the time,” Contre-

church took the wife and children

came here to survive,” Contreras

ras said of Northrich Baptist.

to the Mexican border to be reunit-

added.

It took him about five years to get

ed and begin anew in Mexico.

“It’s a mess. It’s a broken system

permanent residency after his par-

But many regions of Mexico are

and it needs to be rectified. It’s bro-

ents gained legal status. He became

not hospitable to families because

ken here and it’s broken in Mexico.

a citizen in 2005 after another long

of government corruption and

And most people aren’t going to

process.

rampant drug cartel violence. The

go through the hoops of doing the

cartels often threaten business

right thing.”

Contreras said fear is constant among illegals because the rules 10 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

owners and their relatives unless

Prestonwood group ministers in Boston after bombing

By Erin Roach BOSTON

day after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the iconic Boston Marathon on April 15, pastors and other leaders were urging people to pray for Boston as the city grappled with the questions that arise from tragedy that claimed three lives and injured dozens of others.

Amid that shock, a group of young adults from the Dallas-area Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano were making themselves available to talk with and pray for passersby on the streets near the site of the bombings.

The group had been in town since April 11, working with Hope Fellowship Church, a Southern Baptist congregation about three miles away in Cambridge.

On April 15, the Prestonwood mission team handed out gum and invitations to Hope Fellowship to people who were watching the marathon.

“Some of our people actually walked down toward the finish line,” Josh Steckel of Prestonwood told Baptist Press.

Around 2:30 p.m., less than half an hour before the blasts went off, the group started heading back to the church.

“Some people said they heard something that sounded like gunshots,” Steckel said. “We were away from the city when it happened, on our way back from the marathon already.”

That night Hope Fellowship opened its doors for people to stop in and pray. Though residents of Boston were

Runners and bystanders rushed to help the injured after two bombs exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15. In the aftermath, a group of young adults from Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano were making themselves available to talk with and pray for passersby on the streets near the site of the bombings. The group had been in town since April 11, working with Hope Fellowship Church, a Southern Baptist congregation about three miles away in Cambridge.

encouraged to stay home following what is being investigated as a terrorist attack, a few people from the neighborhood who aren’t normally part of the church showed up to pray and to be prayed for, the church’s pastor, Curtis Cook, said.

“We will have a special service this evening as a time to pray, read Scriptures, sing and have a chance for others in the neighborhood who might want to come in as well,” Cook said on April 16. “Obviously, we’ll speak to it on Sunday as well as part of our services.”

Steckel’s team from Prestonwood was back out on the streets the day after the bombings, handing out granola bars, this time with signs on their bags that said, “Need prayer? We are available.” That simple invitation afforded several opportunities to pray with people and share the hope of Jesus, Steckel said.

They also secured cases of water and gave them to police and National Guardsmen stationed near the blocked-off crime scene. The mission team was scheduled to leave Boston on April 17.

“Tell people to pray boldly in Jesus’ name that the gospel-centered church planters and pastors here would have more opportunities to share the gospel and love on the people of Boston,” Steckel said.

“Also pray for healing, that God would use this for revival and for his glory.”

APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 11

Steve Brown, a bivocational church planter who moved to Boston last summer with his wife and two children from Grand Prairie, was anticipating opportunities to speak with his coworkers at The Container Store as he drove into work Tuesday morning.

“The people that we’re close with, our friends and the people I work with for sure, they know that we’re Christians, and when things like this happen it just creates a lot of questions in people’s minds whether they are up front in talking about it or not,” Brown told Baptist Press.

Brown was asking God to give him opportunities to share the hope and comfort of Christ with people in the midst of those questions.

“I think it makes people think about their worldview whether they realize it or not. People think about why these things happen and where such evil comes from and where does God fit into this,” Brown said.

When tragedy struck in Newtown, Conn., in December, Brown had conversations with coworkers

“I think it makes people think about their worldview whether they realize it or not.

People think about why these things happen and where such evil comes from and where does God fit into this.”

—Steve Brown, a bivocational church planter

about how to process and respond to evil events in the world. He hopes to build on those conversations now, leading people to place their faith in Jesus.

Josh Wyatt, pastor of Charles River Church in Boston, landed at Boston’s Logan Airport just half an hour after the bombings and expected his wife and three children to be at the finish line to support one of their friends who was running. He was going to meet them there.

“By God’s grace, at a church marathon party that morning, church members talked my wife out of going because the crowds would be

too challenging to navigate by herself with three young kids. Instead, she picked me up at the airport, we prayed with our children and began supporting victims and their loved ones and hurting Boston residents,” Wyatt told Baptist Press.

There are about 100 churches that cooperate with the Greater Boston Baptist Association.

The SBTC will host a vision trip to the Boston area Sept. 17-18 in connection with SEND Boston, a North American Mission Board effort. For more information contact Barry Calhoun in the SBTC missions office, bcalhoun@sbtexas.com or 877.953.7282 (SBTC).

sbtexas.com/crossover 12 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

San Diego pastor, Texas governor help dedicate FBC Dallas’ $130 million expansion

By Jerry Pierce DALLAS

Members of the storied First Baptist Church of Dallas were reminded to turn outward in their mission by two very different messengers on April 7 during dedication services for the church’s new $130 million expanded campus that aims to be a “spiritual oasis” downtown.

Billed as “the largest church building campaign in modern history,” the project aesthetically complements its surroundings in an area of downtown where new multi-million dollar theaters, museums and parks dot the landscape.

David Jeremiah, pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, Calif., whose relationship with the church dates back to his days as a Dallas Theological Seminary student, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, known for his bold evangelicalism, headlined the list of dignitaries attending the first in a series of April services marking the historic church’s new facilities.

“The temptation will be to take a deep breath and to say ‘We finally did it,’” Jeremiah told a packed audience in the new 3,000-seat, state-of-the-art worship center with a 150-foot-wide IMAX-quality screen spanning the stage.

Jeremiah’s selection to preach the dedication was a historic fit.

W.A. Criswell, legendary pastor

of First Baptist Dallas, went to San Diego years ago to preach dedication services for Jeremiah at Shadow Mountain Community Church.

Jeremiah, a Southern Baptist with an international broadcast ministry called “Turning Point,” told of being captivated by Criswell and First Baptist Dallas while he was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary. In recent years, Jeremiah and First Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress have become friends, with Jeremiah encouraging Jeffress to expand his “Pathway to Victory” media ministry, Jeremiah said.

It was announced during the service to applause that “Pathway to Victory” began in late March with broadcasts into mainland China with a potential audience of 1 billion people.

To illustrate his sermon, Jeremiah turned to a Vincent van Gogh painting called “The Church at Auvers” that depicts a church building without doors to go in and out of and which sits in its own shadow, neither reflecting nor emanating any light.

Like the church in the painting, the danger for the modern church is that it would become a “lifeless relic that the people bypass to avoid its dark shadow,” Jeremiah said.

But with diligence toward the purpose of the church (“the glory of God”), the program of the church (reaching out to those on the outside), and the priority of the church (“the Great Commission”), First Baptist APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 13

David Jeremiah

Rick Perry

Dallas can become “thousands of points of light illuminating the darkness,” Jeremiah said.

Through 40 years of ministry and eight building projects, “I’ve come to believe that all of the benefits the nuclear family accrues from having a place to call home” also apply to churches. But much work awaits on the outside, he reminded.

“God has not just put this church in this community so if can be a beauti14 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

ful, a monumental, place for people to visit. This is not just a place where people should come into the church, but remember, the doors are open both ways. The church must go out of these doors, into the community and touch the lives of the people who are needy and are needing what Jesus Christ alone can bring,” Jeremiah said.

Perry began his six-minute address to the church by saying he was wowed by the facilities as a “beacon” where “our savior and our light can truly be seen.”

Noting his own depravity and his need for a savior, Perry said his Austin pastor often says church is a “hospital for sinners.” In the same manner, the mission of the church is not to condemn people “but to point people to the one who is the way, the truth and the life.

We as fellow sinners will never condemn someone to salvation, but God can use us to show them grace and love them to it.”

After reading Matthew 7:3-5—the passage about judging without first removing the “plank in your own eye”—Perry added, “We cannot condemn certain lifestyles while turning a blind eye to sins that in God’s eye are just as grievous. We must love all, welcome all.”

Though Perry didn’t refer to it, Jeffress and First Baptist Church received national media attention in February after NFL quarterback Tim Tebow withdrew from speaking during the church’s dedication celebration following public pressure from homosexual activists and liberal pundits.

A statement from the church at the time disputed characterizations that Jeffress’ message was hateful, noting that “contrary to editorializing in the media, Dr. Jeffress shares a message of hope, not hate; salvation, not judgment; and a Gospel of God’s love, grace and new beginnings available to all.”

The First Baptist expansion includes a glass sky bridge connecting the worship center to the five-story Horner Family Center and parking garage.

An outdoor cross-tower and fountain—officially announced during the dedication service as the Jeffress Fountain Plaza—includes a baptismal pool and is surrounded by three-fourths of an acre of community space for pedestrians. The cross towers 68 feet with multiple fountainheads that can be synced to orchestral music.

Also dedicated were the Jennifer, James and Geneva Donald Preschool and Children’s Suite and the Donna and Hollis Sullivan Media Center—which will broadcast services and serve as home to the “Pathway to Victory” ministry.

Among the dedication service dignitaries were Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and two former First Baptist Dallas pastors, O.S. Hawkins, who offered a dedication prayer, and Joel Gregory, who read Scripture.

Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, preached on April 14. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson was scheduled for speak during a luncheon on April 21.

First Dallas members weigh history during dedication Jerry L. Halcomb, a deacon at was one of Criswell’s closest friends First Baptist Church of Dallas and a during his long tenure, said she sat member there since 1965, recalled on the same family pew in the old the day the late W.A. Criswell, then sanctuary for 65 years. in the prime of his long pastorate When George Truett took leave of at First Baptist, called him into his the church to fight in World War office to ask him why he was dating I, he placed his hand on Baker’s a Roman Catholic. shoulder and told him, “Take care Despite Criswell’s concerns, of my church while I’m gone.”

Halcomb eventually married Betty Baker was on the pulpit comand began bringing her to Sunday mittee that called Criswell to First School. She eventually made a proBaptist Church in 1944. Her father, fession of faith and was baptized— a lawyer whom she described as all under Criswell’s ministry. Their an “entertainer and a showman,” son Doug, now served as choir direcpastor of a nontor during Criswell’s “[H]e would be denominational first 2½ years at the amazed.

He knew this church in Lubbock, church, taking an was also saved and all needed to happen. under-utilized music baptized at First program into full It has happened—but Dallas. bloom at Criswell’s An architect, Halinsistence. When all in God’s timing.” comb said his first criticism came after —Church member Jerry church project was deacons realized the Halcomb speaking of the late W.A. Criswell at First Dallas years choir was being paid ago. To see the to sing, Criswell told current renovation and expansion Baker, “Ralph, I want a choir. You completed is “the hand of God,” he just take the heat.” said on dedication Sunday, April 7.

On dedication Sunday, standing He has known Pastor Robert Jefbelow a 150-foot-wide IMAX quality fress since Jeffress was a youngster video screen, the large First Baptist growing up at First Baptist, and it choir was on full display. is very meaningful to see God use “He said he wanted to build Jeffress to lead the church to this people, not a Sunday School,” M. point in their ministry, he said.

Douglas Adkins, Carole Adkins’ As for Criswell, “he would be husband and longtime deacon at amazed. He knew this all needed to First Dallas, said of his father-inhappen,” Halcomb said. “It has hap- law, who taught a large Sunday pened—but all in God’s timing.”

School class.

Carole Adkins, whose father, The new and expanded facilities Ralph D. Baker, was a pillar of the downtown—what the church is billchurch going back to early 20thing a “spiritual oasis in downtown century pastor George Truett and Dallas”—gives the church greater

potential to do that, the Adkinses said.

Doug Adkins, also a GuideStone Financial Resources trustee and a longtime Dallas attorney, chaired the building committee for the church’s Criswell Center, a $50 million project completed in 2006 that paved the way for the latest expansion. Adkins said the 235,000-square-foot Criswell Center provided needed space during the renovations, but also provided spiritual evidence that the people were willing to give sacrificially toward the $130 million expansion.

Adkins was also on the planning and development committee for the new worship center.

On the fourth floor of the Andy and Joan Horner Family Center on campus is the Ralph D. Baker Theater, which replaces Ralph Baker Hall, a space his close personal friend and client, women’s business pioneer Mary Crowley, dedicated in his honor in the facility that was torn down.

APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 15

Russell Moore

Kermit Gosnell & the gospel

L

ast week I was typing the name “Kermit Gosnell” and my phone auto-corrected the name to “gospel.”

I shuddered. What could be more contradictory than the name of an abortionist on trial for child murder, and the good news of the mercies of God in Christ? My smart phone, it turns out, was smarter than I was.

The Gosnell case is stomach-turning. Testimonies in court point to a sadistic man who would sever the spines of babies, in and out of the womb. They tell of a man so cold-blooded that he would keep the feet of unborn children as trophies of his evil. They speak of a man who preyed upon the most vulnerable women in his community in order to destroy their lives and those of their children. It’s hard to think of the gospel in the midst of all that evil.

That’s the point.

In the crucifixion narrative of Jesus, the Gospel writers tell us that he was not hanged alone. On either side were thieves. That word “thief” has taken the edge off of this scene for many contemporary Westerners. When we think “thief” we tend to imagine a shoplifter or a burglar cracking a safe. In this context “thief” communicated a murderous terrorist, feared and reviled by all. Jesus identified himself with the worst and most violent of sinners, even in the geography of his death.

One criminal responded the way most of us, left to ourselves, would. He didn’t want repentance but deliverance. He taunted Jesus to rescue him, not from his sin but from its consequences. This is what Gosnell seeks, to defend himself and escape prosecution. The one we have come to know as “the thief on the cross” acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and 16 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

pleaded for mercy. He identified himself with Jesus as King: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

The gospel isn’t a mere matter of God exempting people from consequences. We could understand such pardons, handed out for cosmic misdemeanors or victimless crimes. The gospel comes to those who are the horrible, the damned.

How could this murderous doctor do what he did? How could his nurses and assistants suppress the screams of these children, the spattering of blood? They do so by suppressing the conscience and walling over the embedded revelation of the justice of God. They pretend there will be no reckoning, no judgment seat, that somehow they can take these secrets with them to the grave.

The gospel, though, reveals the justice of God. Sin cannot be hidden, and judgment cannot be escaped. The cries of the oppressed, the orphaned, the murdered, are heard, and their redeemer is strong. Justification isn’t a matter of waving away consequences. It’s a matter of self-crucifixion, of embracing the judgment of God and agreeing with his verdict. And, in Christ, it’s a matter of being joined to another, one against whom no accusation can stand.

The Gosnell case is horrific. It ought to revolt us and to turn our stomachs and to shock our consciences. But Kermit Gosnell’s criminality is one of degree, not of kind. Left to ourselves, we would all be given over to the kind of cruelty and rage he displayed. Our hope, and his, cannot be in simply evading consequences. After all, the worst consequence facing Kermit Gosnell is not that he be executed or imprisoned. The worst consequence facing Kermit Gosnell is that he be handed over to being Kermit Gosnell, eternally separated from a just and holy God. If we minimize God’s justice, and ignore the evil here, we eclipse the gospel. But there’s another danger too. Many Christians are rightly upset that the media have ignored the Gosnell trial. Our internal media do the same thing, with our own cosmic crimes against God. Our hope isn’t in indulgence but in the kind of mercy that crucifies and resurrects.

The Kermit Gosnell story is one of severed spines and seared consciences. A gospel of justification without justice cannot picture a holy God. A gospel of justice without justification ultimately leaves us all without hope before the tribunal of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ speaks of both justice and justification, and brings them together in a man drowning in his own blood at the Place of the Skull.

And on either side of him, there were thieves.

Russell D. Moore is president-elect of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

First Baptist Church of Academy turns loss into ‘Backpacks of Love’

By Jane Rodgers Last school year began and ended with tragedy for the central Texas community known as Little River-Academy in Bell County.

Two Little River-Academy High School seniors died in car accidents: one in fall 2011 and the other the night before baccalaureate in May 2012. An Academy school bus driver was killed and several children injured in a separate mid-year mishap.

The driver, James Johnson, 71, died on Feb. 15, 2012 of injuries from the crash in which a Lowe’s truck ran through an intersection on a foggy morning, hitting the bus and sending 29 adults and students to area hospitals. A 14-year-old girl remains paralyzed from the waist down from the accident.

Amid these community tragedies, the congregation of First Baptist Church of Academy also lost its beloved music minister, Ray Batson, in February 2012, only a few weeks after the church had hosted the funeral service for the bus driver, James Johnson.

“There was just a lot of grief that people experienced here,” said Brent Boatwright, pastor of First Baptist Church of Academy.

Community tragedy opened doors of opportunity for the congregation. The traffic accidents provided occasions for ministry, even though none of those fatally injured were members of the church.

“God gave some opportunities for us to be in the schools, myself and fellow pastors following each accident,” Boatwright said.

“I have a good relationship with the principal. We had good opportunities to minister and help the kids and teachers deal with what had happened.”

First Baptist of Academy is working with an area benevolence ministry in a backpack effort providing food for local school children and their families. The church pays $10 per month for the supplies for each backpack. At least a dozen First Baptist members are involved in this ministry.

Boatwright and fellow pastors spent several days in local schools following each incident.

“That’s the advantage of a small town,” Boatwright said when asked about the access to the public school system that he and other ministers share.

Little River-Academy has about 2,000 residents.

“Everyone is affected,” Boatwright said of the Ray Batson tragedies.

In addition to the suffering of the tightly knit community, Boatwright and his congregation mourned the loss of Batson, who lost his battle with cancer.

“God gave some opportunities for us to be in the schools, myself and fellow pastors following each accident. I have a good relationship with the principal.

We had good opportunities to minister and help the kids and teachers deal with what had happened.”

—Brent Boatwright, pastor of First Baptist Church of Academy

APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 17

“Ray [Batson] was always a man who loved young people and was generous to meet the needs of others. He would have found great joy in being a part of this new ministry in the school.”

—Brent Boatwright

“In October of 2003, First Baptist Church of Academy called me to be pastor. I was just shy of turning 30 years old,” Boatwright recalled. The church had an interim music minister and some in the congregation were calling for a more contemporary style of worship.

“As we have seen through the years in these battles within churches, you do not have to throw one style out for another style,” Boatwright said. This was Ray Batson’s conviction also. The congregation called Batson to be associate pastor of music and senior adults in 2004.

“Ray, nearing retirement age, was a wonderful gift to a young pastor who needed a trusted friend in the ministry,” Boatwright said. “He brought a great sense of unity to the church. He empowered young people to lead in worship.”

Batson even paid for music lessons for several young people and encouraged many to attend the SBTC’s Summer Worship University camp.

Russell Kurtz, who now directs music at First Baptist of Academy, was one of the young men mentored by Batson. Services remain blended—a mix of traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs.

18 TEXANONLINE.NET April 18, 2013

First Baptist of Academy continues to serve the Little River-Academy community.

In January, the church embraced a new opportunity: Backpacks of Love.

“We are supplying food to needy students based upon the recommendation of the schools,” Boatwright said. “On Fridays, eight different elementary school students receive backpacks filled with basic food supplies.” Students return the backpacks the following week, and Boatwright’s congregation fills them again.

First Baptist of Academy is working with an area benevolence ministry, CTLC (Churches Touching Lives for Christ), in the backpack effort. CTLC purchases the food for the backpacks from the Capital Area Food Bank. First Baptist members fill them and deliver them to the schools. The church pays $10 per month to CTLC for the supplies for each backpack.

At least a dozen First Baptist members are involved in picking up, packing, or transporting the backpacks.

“Other churches are doing this in other communities,” said Boatwright, who noted that a few churches in nearby Temple are working in a similar effort with schools there. “We are it for Academy,” said Boatwright, who added that the church hopes to expand the outreach to the local middle school as soon as possible.

“Ray [Batson] was always a man who loved young people and was generous to meet the needs of others. He would have found great joy in being a part of this new ministry in the school,” Boatwright said.

I’m encouraged to know when I give money through the Cooperative Program, it is used to minister to others. IN Disaster Relief, I was able to see people’s needs met through feeding, childcare, chainsaw recovery, mud outs, and many different things. If you want to be involved in something you know is working for the Lord, I encourage you to give through CP. —DEWEY WATSON, YOUTH PASTOR, FBC LEONARD & DR VOLUNTEER

JESUS TOGETHER, BUT

GETTING THE GOSPEL OF

CHRIST TO THE LOST PEOPLES OF THE WORLD IS DAUNTING

WORKING THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS

Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Toll free 1.877.953.SBTC (7282) www.sbtexas.com APRIL 18, 2013 TEXANONLINE.NET 19