Friday, April 06, 2018

• Quadrupling CP giving, church plant casts vision

  by Erin Roach, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of Storyline Fellowship

  DENVER (BP) -- A Denver-area church plant, in only its third year, voted to quadruple its giving through the Cooperative Program, realizing the value of the missions-support system that has aided them -- and through which they can help reach the world for Christ.

  "It's one thing to plant a multiplying church in Denver. It's another thing to be a part of planting multiplying churches all over the country and world," Ben Mandrell, pastor of Storyline Fellowship in Arvada, told Baptist Press.

  "Through the Cooperative Program, we can be in a thousand places. Without it, we can only be in one place." Read More

• Rwanda closes thousands of churches, arrests 6 pastors

  by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  Screen capture from Foursquare Gospel Church YouTube video

  KIGALI, Rwanda (BP) -- An estimated 6,000 churches have been closed across Rwanda and six pastors arrested in a government crackdown that began March 1 with 700 closures in the nation's capital of Kigali, according to news reports.

  The six pastors, who reportedly tried to rally public support for the churches in Kigali, were accused of "masterminding" a plot to disobey the government, the BBC reported March 6.

  The closures come as the Rwanda Governance Board (RGO) is conducting a national review of proposed new regulations controlling faith-based institutions, including requirements that pastors have theological education and that buildings have two bathrooms each for men and women, according to World Watch Monitor. Read More

• SBC should reflect diverse makeup, MLK50 panelists say

  by Tom Strode, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  MEMPHIS, Tenn. (BP) -- Southern Baptists should build on and apply the historic 1995 resolution on racial reconciliation while always being ready to repudiate racism, panelists said April 4 at a conference commemorating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

  The comments came during a breakout session of "MLK50: Gospel Reflections From the Mountaintop," a two-day event attended by about 3,900 people and co-hosted by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and The Gospel Coalition. The conference at the Memphis Convention Center took place in conjunction with many remembrances of King, who was murdered April 4, 1968, in this Mississippi River city. Read More

• New discovery sheds light on dark matter

  by Julie Borg/WORLD, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  Photo from NASA. gov/ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University)

  ASHEVILLE, N.C. (BP) -- The recent discovery of a galaxy about 65 million light years away that appears to harbor no dark matter has flabbergasted astronomers who believe galaxies need dark matter to hold them together.

  "Finding a galaxy without any [dark matter] is completely unexpected; it challenges standard ideas of how galaxies work," Allison Merritt, one of the researchers, said in a statement. A paper describing the discovery appears in the journal Nature. Read More

• Posthumous conception raises 'host of ethical issues'

  by David Roach, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  

  iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- The legal and moral propriety of conceiving a child with a dead person's egg or sperm is among the latest fronts being discussed in bioethics.

  In Ireland, legislation is under consideration that would permit reproductive cells from deceased individuals to be used by their spouses or partners to conceive children posthumously, according to media reports. The Irish legislature's Joint Committee on Health discussed the bill once in January and again in February, a spokesperson for the legislature told Baptist Press. A final bill could be drafted in the coming months and put before parliament for debate. Read More

• Gaines names SBC Committee on Committees

  by BP Staff, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  DALLAS (BP) -- Appointments to the Southern Baptist Convention's Committee on Committees have been announced by SBC President Steve Gaines, pastor of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. Read More

• COOPERATIVE PROGRAM: Sandlots, whirlpools & CP

  by Travis Southern, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  Travis Southern connects his recollections as a youth at the baseball sandlot and neighborhood pool with the impact Southern Baptists have had on him and countless others through Cooperative Program missions and ministries. Read More

• EDITORIAL: La tumba que habla

  by Luis L. Lopez, posted Friday, April 06, 2018 (4 years ago)

  Esta mañana después de ir a lavar el carro regresé a casa. Al llegar a la calle donde vivo noté que tres vehículos policiales estaban frente a la casa de unos amigos.... Read More