Stories tagged with: racial reconciliation

• Church merger 'undivided example in divided world'

  by Diana Chandler, posted Tuesday, August 20, 2019 (3 months ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of Kelvin Oliver/Electric Eye

  PORTSMOUTH, Va. (BP) -- Longtime pastor Jack Stallings determined years ago to empathetically view life from the eyes of a black Christian, a feat he says he hasn't quite achieved, being he's white.

  "A person that has helped me tremendously with that, and has probably been the single greatest contributor to whatever ability I have to be able to do that, is Rev. Lee," Stallings said of Robert Lee, installed Sunday (Aug. 18) as the senior pastor of Collinswood Agape Baptist Church, a merger of Stallings' and Lee's previous Portsmouth, Va., pastorates. Read More

• Checklist sparks friendship, opens ministry doors

  by Bonnie Pritchett/Southern Baptist TEXAN, posted Tuesday, July 30, 2019 (4 months ago)

  

  Photo by Bonnie Pritchett

  STOWELL, Texas (BP) -- Sammy Little looked down at the checklist in his hand. One empty box on the spiritual goals inventory he and thousands of men gathered at the 1995 Promise Keepers conference had been asked to take glared back at him.

  "One of them was race related," said Little, pastor of First Baptist Church of Stowell in southeast Texas. The rural town is just south of Vidor and Jasper, communities with tense racial histories. Read More

• Lincoln Bingham, 87, remains active interim pastor

  by Chip Hutcheson/Kentucky Western Recorder, posted Monday, July 01, 2019 (5 months ago)

  

  Lincoln Bingham, 87, remains active interim pastor

  Lincoln Bingham, 87, has officially retired as pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights -– a church merger that made national news 10 years ago -- but he's still in the pulpit there and in the office most every day during the week.

  LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- Lincoln Bingham has officially retired as pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights, but he's still in the pulpit there and in the office most every day during the week.

  At age 87, he serves as the interim at St. Paul -- the church in Louisville, Ky., that made national news in 2009 when an African American church, St. Paul Missionary Baptist, merged with an all-white church, Shively Heights Baptist. Read More

• Path to reconciliation focus of 'Advocates'

  by Brandon Elrod, posted Wednesday, June 26, 2019 (5 months ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of Blueprint Church

  ATLANTA(BP) -- Dhati Lewis remembers flipping through election night coverage on television, Nov. 8, 2016. He felt captivated by the news cycle as the results started pouring in.

  Lewis recalls that night in his new book "Advocates: The Narrow Path to Racial Reconciliation" and remembers a common theme that moved him deeply: "our country is divided." Read More

• Greear on race: Past sins, present consequences

  by Diana Chandler, posted Monday, June 17, 2019 (6 months ago)

  

  Photo by Van Payne.

  BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP) -- Sociology professor, researcher and author George Yancey always steps back when he knocks on a door. A 6-foot-3-inch African American, he says his appearance strikes societal fear.

  Seminary assistant dean and director Missie Branch says she also encounters difficulties because she is an African American woman. She says she's either overlooked or viewed through stereotypes "which results in fear where everything I do and say or wear is a big deal." Read More

• Racial reconciliation focus of Pastors' Conf. panel

  by Timothy Cockes, posted Wednesday, June 12, 2019 (6 months ago)

  

  Photo by Lindy Lynch

  BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP) -- Fostering relationships among fellow pastors and church leaders was the theme of a panel on day two of the Pastor's Conference of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting on Monday (June 10).

  "There can be no racial reconciliation without relationship. Any racial reconciliation that lacks relationship will be an ineffective, powerless movement," said Mike McClure Jr., pastor of Rock City Church in Birmingham. "When two people come together for what God is trying to do, great things can happen." Read More

• Gospel at core of pastors bringing churches together

  by Mark Maynard/Kentucky Today , posted Monday, April 29, 2019 (7 months ago)

  

  Photo submitted

  GLASGOW, Ky. (BP) -- In Barren County, Ky., at least in the past two years, Easter has become a day of unification among four Baptist churches -- two with predominantly African-American congregations and two with mostly white members -- at a central location.

  They come together on Easter morning but the bond that these four pastors have forged make it more than a one-day show for the community. They are partners in Christ delivering the Gospel message together and individually to the Glasgow community. Read More

• WRAP-UP: Sex abuse prevention tops SBC Exec. Comm. agenda

  by BP Staff, posted Wednesday, February 20, 2019 (9 months ago)

  

  Photo by Morris Abernathy

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Preventing and responding to sexual abuse was a major focus during meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee Feb. 18-19 in Nashville. Among the EC's actions was recommending an amendment to the SBC Constitution stating churches are not "in friendly cooperation with the Convention" if they "have evidenced indifference in addressing sexual abuse." Read More

• Trauma healing, conciliation focus of racism forum

  by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, February 08, 2019 (10 months ago)

  

  Screen capture from "Unchained" documentary

  PHILADELPHIA (BP) -- Pastor K. Marshall Williams has experienced what researchers term "post traumatic slave syndrome," the trauma and pain African Americans suffer from societal and institutional racism and marginalization.

  Racial conciliation, the process of empathizing with this trauma and pain, is necessary to achieve racial reconciliation, Williams told Baptist Press in advance of a forum he's hosting Feb. 23 on the subject at his pastorate, Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

  "Listening, learning, understanding and empathizing with the deep hurts and wounds of generational trauma due to our history of slavery, racism, oppression, injustice and its repercussions," is conciliation, Williams said. "After being reconciled to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the next step. Read More

• 'Every town in America & our world' needs a Jerome

  by Paul Baxter, posted Friday, February 08, 2019 (10 months ago)

  

  LAGRANGE, Ga. (BP) -- Many pastors have climbed the heights of real and admirable ministry. The late Jerome Shipman was one of them.

  I have never seen so many ministers seated down front nor scattered throughout the audience as at his memorial service last August, nor a processional that lasted perhaps 10 minutes, as did the one for this dynamic African American leader in our community. It may well have been the largest such service in the history of First Baptist Church on the Square in LaGrange, Ga. Read More