The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-03/02/1999 DISCLAIMER: Baptist Press should be credited for any reprinted stories that originate with BP. Suggested credit line: Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. Please note that Baptist Press periodically carries stories from other sources by permission. Individuals interested in reprinting non-BP stories should contact the entity where the story originated to seek reprint permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------- SBC Cooperative Program down for month; year up by Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program receipts for February were down slightly compared to a year ago while the year-to-date total remains ahead of the similar period a year ago, according to Morris H. Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the SBC Executive Committee.
For February 1999, CP receipts totaled $13,969,070 compared to February 1998 of $14,072,308, a decrease of .75 percent or $105,237.
For the SBC fiscal year, after five months, CP gifts totaled $70,200,855 compared to the previous year’s total of $66,606,966, an increase of 5.40 percent or $3,593,888.
Designated gifts for the month of February were $43,951,225 compared to the same month in 1998 of $48,179,231, a decrease of 8.78 percent or $4,228,005. For the year to date, designated gifts total $73,024,773 compared to the previous year of $77,299,241, a decrease of 5.53 percent or $4,274,468.
For the SBC’s Program Allocation Budget at the end of five months, the required budget amount of $66,585,717 was surpassed by $3,615,137, an increase of 5.43 percent. For the month of February, the required monthly budget figure of $12,917,143 was surpassed by $1,049,926, or an increase of 8.13 percent.
The SBC Cooperative Program total includes receipts from individuals, churches, state conventions and fellowships for distribution according to the 1998-99 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget.
The Cooperative Program is Southern Baptists' method of supporting missions and ministry efforts of state and regional conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention. Designated contributions include the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American missions, world hunger and other special gifts.
State and regional conventions retain a percentage of Cooperative Program contributions they receive from the churches to support work in their areas and send the remaining funds to the Executive Committee for national and international ministries. The percentage of distribution is at the discretion of each state or regional convention.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Annuity Board posts record in benefits paid during 1998 by Curtis D. Sharp Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday DALLAS (BP)--A 10 percent permanent increase in benefits on Jan. 1, 1998, for most annuitants, and 2,906 newly established benefits, resulted in a record for total benefits paid last year by the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, trustees were informed during their March 1-2 meeting in Dallas.
President O. S. Hawkins said, "… we have closed the 81st year of the Annuity Board operations with thanksgiving for significant accomplishments."
A strong fourth quarter in financial markets pushed total assets to $7.09 billion. Earnings for the year for most of the 13 investment funds were at historically comparable levels. A 25 percent increase, from $400 a month to $500 a month, for those fully covered in the Church Annuity Plan Protection Section Disability Benefit was approved.
Trustees received a report from staff that no rate increase would be necessary on July 1 for participants under the Personal Security Program (PSP) in the Comprehensive Medical Plan, the Catastrophic Medical Plan and the Medicare Supplement. The Annuity Board reviews PSP rates on a quarterly basis. Rates for managed care products and products under the Employer Security Program, meanwhile, are reviewed annually and, if necessary, adjusted at the beginning of the calendar year.
Board treasurer Jeffrey P. Billinger reported total assets were $7.09 billion at Dec. 31, 1998, compared to $6.35 billion at Dec. 31, 1997. The net income for 1998 was $825 million, the highest annual net income ever reported by the board. This compared to $735 million net income for 1997.
Benefit payments and withdrawals in 1998 totaled $389 million, up 18.9 percent over 1997. Applications were processed for 2,906 people. At year’s end, there were 30,290 benefit recipients.
The Church Annuity Plan had 43,143 people from 21,794 churches in active billing status Dec. 31, and another 37,420 institutional and agency employees had active retirement accounts. Participant contributions of $281,683,044 represented a 7.5 percent increase over the year 1997.
Agreements were made with a new administrator for underwriting and claims payment in the board's medical plans. Contracts were negotiated with new preferred provider organizations and a new prescription drug provider. Activity in the various insurance programs included: Life and accident claims paid in 1998 totaled $8,744,485; disability insurance claims paid totaled $2,918,834; and indemnity medical and dental claims paid totaled $74,385,318. In addition, prescription drug claims of $22,293,341 were paid by Annuity Board plans.
A total of $4,384,631 was distributed through the board's relief program to needy retired ministers and their widowed spouses. This amount is more than $1 million over 1997 benefit totals. The amount received from the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program and special designations totaled $1,261,803. The entire Cooperative Program allocation for the Annuity Board and special designations is spent in relief ministry without any expense applied. The board's Retired Ministers' Support fund supplements the convention allocation. A significant number of people on relief receive no regular retirement annuity because their churches never enrolled them in the Church Annuity Plan.
Hawkins reminded trustees the Southern Baptist Convention has designated the fourth Sunday in June as Adopt An Annuitant Sunday. He requested that trustees make a special effort to promote this special day in their churches and associations.
At year’s end, 710 people were receiving supplemental assistance grants, and 2,691 received the $75 Adopt An Annuitant benefit. The increased monthly payments of $75 (from $50) for Adopt An Annuitant recipients began Jan. 1, 1998. The increase in this benefit was the first since the program was implemented in 1981.
The trustees’ relief committee considered 195 relief requests. They approved 120 two-year monthly grants, three three-month monthly grants, one one-time grant and 29 two-year expense grants. Forty-three were declined for being outside guidelines. Six individuals were added to the Adopt An Annuitant roll.
Trustees approved two resolutions recognizing exceptional service of one current trustee and one former trustee. Virgil V. Ayres of Louisiana, chairman of the trustee insurance committee, was recognized for leadership he provided during a strategic time of transition for the board's insurance programs. A second resolution was approved for former trustee Bob R. Howard of Missouri, who died Feb. 19. Howard was recognized for selfless service as a trustee and as a member of the board's endowment council.
Richard M. Hart Jr., executive officer for systems & technology services, provided an update to trustees concerning the board's efforts in preparing for the year 2000. Hart reported that all hardware has been upgraded and is fully compliant. He also indicated all software except one application has been certified as Y2K-compliant. The remaining application is expected to be fully compliant before the end of the second quarter.
Trustees elected William Thomas Hopkins as managing director of organizational development and vice president of the corporation. Hopkins will replace D. Hugh Williams who will retire in April. All other executive officers were re-elected. The Annuity Board bylaws require annual election of both general (trustee) officers and executive officers.
Trustees accepted the recommendation of their general officers nominating committee and re-elected Timothy E. Head of South Carolina to a one-year term as chairman and S. Glenn Weekley of Tennessee to a one-year term as vice chairman.
At the Monday evening dinner meeting, five trustees were honored for their years of service to the board: T. Jack Colvin Jr., Mississippi, 1991-99; Joseph A. Mack, South Carolina, 1991-99; E. Joe May, Arizona, 1992-99; R. Roy Rogers, Kansas-Nebraska, 1991-99; and Christene Y. Walker, a local member, 1991-99.
The trustees’ next scheduled meeting will be Aug.2-3 in Baltimore.

Sharp is executive officer, denominational and public relations services, for the Annuity Board.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Covenant marriage law won’t reduce divorce rate ‘overnight̵ by Tom Strode Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday AUSTIN, Texas (BP)--Most couples in Louisiana did not choose covenant marriage in the first 18 months after his precedent-making legislation was adopted, but Tony Perkins said he is "not looking for quick results" in "turning our nation back to one of commitment."
Perkins, a first-term member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the author of the country's first covenant marriage law, spoke in the opening session of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's annual conference March 1 at Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.
The law enables couples preparing for their wedding to choose covenant marriage instead of the standard marriage that provides for no-fault divorce. In the first 18 months after it went into effect, only 6 percent of couples chose covenant marriage, Perkins said.
Because the national trend for 200 years has been away from affirming the sanctity of marriage, "we're not going to change it overnight," Perkins said. Changing "the culture is like turning a big ship. It takes time," he said. "We're looking at this from more of an eternal perspective."
The law has had positive effects, Perkins said. There have been no divorces by couples married under the law. Pastors have told him marriages have been saved through counseling agreed to by those married under the law, Perkins said. "So, we know that it works," he said.
One of the reasons few couples have chosen covenant marriage is the lack of awareness of the option. Some do not hear about covenant marriage, Perkins said, until they get their marriage licenses, when it is too late. Pastors can help by immediately informing prospective brides and grooms of the option, he said.
The law requires premarital counseling and an agreement they will obtain counseling if there are problems in the marriage. It also narrows the grounds for divorce, Perkins said, to adultery, conviction for a felony, physical or sexual abuse of a spouse or child, and abandonment. Only the non-offending spouse can seek a divorce under the law.
Arizona has enacted a covenant marriage law since Perkins' bill was passed. About a dozen state legislatures will debate such laws this year, he said.
Covenant marriage is a way of addressing the problems produced by a "culture of uncommitment," Perkins said. Divorces, as well as marriages, have declined in the 1990s, but cohabitation by unmarried couples has increased 800 percent since the 1970s, he said.
The law also provides Christians with an opportunity to be light in the world, as directed by Jesus, he said. In the last 20 years, Christians have done a "pretty good job of being salt," but "where we have fallen short is that we have not been light," said Perkins, an elder in his church. "Light points to a better way.
"We have done a poor job as Christians in the public square of defining what we're for," he said. "We're known by what we're against, not what we're for."
The ERLC’s seminar, “Faith, Family and Freedom: The Moral Challenges of the Next Millennium,” will continue through March 3.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Loving Christian family greatest tool to bring people to Christ, Trent says by Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday AUSTIN, Texas (BP)--The church's most important evangelistic tool in this day is "a distinctively Christian home that loves Jesus Christ," popular author and speaker John Trent said March 1 at the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Trent, coauthor with Gary Smalley of such award-winning books as “The Blessing” and “The Language of Love,” told how his mother and both brothers received salvation "because one family said, 'I'm going to make a choice'" to bless others.
Doug Barram, a loving father with two small sons, befriended Trent when he was in high school. Trent, whose father left his mother when he was less than three months old, saw Barram hug and bless his boys as he visited in his home. After about 18 months of knowing Barram, Trent responded to an invitation after viewing a movie produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
"Because I'd seen a family that lived [out giving a blessing], all of a sudden I saw there was a heavenly Father that loved me," said Trent, who said he never received that blessing from his father.
Three things are part of a biblical blessing, such as the account of Isaac's blessing of Jacob, he said. They are:
-- appropriate, meaningful touch.
-- verbal affirmation.
-- attaching high value to a person.
Trent introduced Tom and Shon Stewart, a father and son from California, as examples of choosing to bless.
Shon, 18, who has cerebral palsy, was born 10 weeks premature, his father said. Although they were not Christians, Shon's parents "felt it was right to fight this thing out" when doctors told them they could allow him to die, Tom said.
God "used Shon in our lives as a little guy to bring us to Christ" two years after his birth, Tom said. At that acknowledgment, Shon gave a thumbs-up sign, and the audience cheered.
Shon "has been a true blessing in our lives, and we've tried to raise him like his sisters, treating him no differently than his sisters in a very special, loving relationship that we have," Tom said.
From his wheelchair, Shon sang two songs, including "Higher Ways," which talked about how God's "higher ways teach me to trust you."
Before singing "Gentle Healer" a capella, Shon shared something he heard in his church youth group the week before. "It's that, 'Jesus was concerned with the physical, but he was consumed with the spiritual,'" Shon said. "You know, he might not always heal in this lifetime, but he always is willing to heal" spiritually.

Reported by Tom Strode.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Most Americans believe life support should not be denied, survey shows by Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday WASHINGTON (BP)--About eight in 10 Americans believe a doctor should not be able to withhold life support against the wishes of a patient or the patient's family, according to a recent poll.
A Wirthlin Worldwide survey announced in late February showed 79 percent of adults think a family should be able to choose life support for an unconscious patient even when a physician believes the patient's quality of life does not warrant such action. In the same poll, 85 percent of respondents said life support should be given when a patient has requested it, even if a doctor thinks the patient's quality of life is too low to merit it.
"While we do not determine right and wrong by polling data, it is heartening to know that the average person understands the issue better than the so-called experts," said Ben Mitchell, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "Physicians have an important role to play, but they are not God. Most of them realize that fact.
"We're involved in a huge social engineering experiment,” Mitchell stated. “When pro-death social engineers team up with economists, the result is policy that kills patients who are judged to have a life not worth living."
Some ethicists have advocated policies under which life support would be withheld despite the wishes of patients and their families. Some hospitals have implemented such procedures. Such policies have been promoted under "the rubric of futile treatment," Mitchell said.
Five states have adopted laws requiring hospitals to provide treatment at least until the patient can be moved to a facility willing to place him on life support in response to his wishes. The states are Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Similar laws are expected to be considered this year in the legislatures of at least four states, Arkansas, Florida, New York and Texas, and possibly in Congress, according to the National Right to Life Committee.
Mitchell also serves as a biomedical consultant for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Reported by Tom Strode
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Teen girls’ self-image needs more than just ‘You go, girl!̵ by Art Toalston Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--With Madonna, Mariah Carey and Ally McBeal seen as today’s “new feminists,” teenage girls need the “vital role” church youth groups can exert in developing their self-worth.
Pointers for nurturing teenage girls’ self-worth are relayed in an article in Youth Ministry Update, April 1999, published by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The writer is Susan West Richardson, a high school media and theater teacher in Nashville, Tenn., and mother of two daughters -- one a teen, the other a pre-teen.
“The exuberance of today’s young feminists’ rallying cry -- ‘You go, girl!’ -- is a positive one,” Richardson concedes, but then urges church youth leaders: “Work to see that it goes beyond the image and is supported by development of true self-worth and individual acceptance.”
For teen girls today, Richardson recounts, “The current image of the in-charge female as represented in many of the teen magazines includes the unwritten footnote: ‘And you must be tall, skinny, and beautiful with a somewhat vacuous look.’”
With “a more lean, tubular form” now popular, and girls becoming “more concerned about body image at a younger and younger age,” Richardson notes that girls’ teenage years are also when they begin to lose confidence in themselves.
“[N]o matter how much you tell a preadolescent or adolescent that it doesn’t matter how she looks on the outside, [or] that how she looks on the inside is what counts, the images all around her contradict that,” Richardson writes, citing “a constant bombardment in a variety of media based on carefully researched teen demographics.”
From current research, Richardson notes:
-- Among boys the same age, there’s “a general lack of interest in their own body types, but they are very specific in what they see as the perfect female body type.”
-- Despite differences in social, economic or ethnic background, all teens, whether they admit it or not, want to be “cool,” according to Teen Research Unlimited. The organization’s research notes four different categories of teens, with the largest group being “conformers” who just want to fit in. They look up to “influencers,” who are popular kids and trendsetters. The other two groups are “edge” and “passive” teens. “Edge” teens like being on the edge and are rebellious and independent, while “passive” teens care little about trends and are uncomfortable about being different.
-- 89 percent of girls now use computers, and one in four teens is on the Internet an average of six hours per week, where contemporary feminist messages abound.
-- Movies are highly popular with teens, eclipsing even having a boyfriend or girlfriend. “And since the purchasing power of the teenage girl has made itself felt in Hollywood, Hollywood is responding with more of the desired images,” as are music videos, Richardson writes.
Church youth groups need to step in to provide “a lot of balance,” Richardson writes.
Among her suggestions:
-- “Designate one area of the youth room as the Media Wall. During one of your youth times provide magazines, newspapers, posters (etc.), or ask the students to bring these. Lead the group in a discussion about how so many of the images for young people are carefully designed to get them to buy products. … [The] images are attractive, but are they realistic? Prompt the students to talk about this. Then go on a hunt to debunk the images. Have youth go through the materials brought and cut out and tape images to the wall. Then create signs to go along with the pictures, such as ‘Needs a Life,’ ‘Please Don’t Feed the Models,’ ‘What’s So Super About a Super Model?’ ‘Life’s Too Short to Look Perfect’ and ‘Doesn’t Exist on This Planet.’”
-- “Have ‘I Like You Because …’ sessions … periodically during youth activities. When the youth are in a circle, … hold your hand over one person at a time. Begin, ‘I really like Annie because she always speaks to me, even when I’m not in a great mood.’ Then prompt others to give one reason why they like Annie. Not everyone needs to say something, but it is important that you make sure something is said about everyone. Of course, there will be silly comments, but the important thing is that everyone hears that they are liked. Sometimes just saying that someone is liked makes all the difference to a girl -- for 24 hours anyway, and sometimes it’s just about getting through those next 24 hours.”
-- “Plan projects that help youth discover their gifts. Celebrate these and plan ways to emphasize the gifts. For those girls who are still struggling to find what their gifts are, who they think they are, where they connect -- if they haven’t begun to fill in those blanks, it becomes too easy to fill them with the images that they always see in front of them.”
-- “Look for women in your church membership who would be good mentors for girls in your youth group. Ask them to serve and assign them to a girl each. Explain that if the mentor can spend talking time at least once a week with the girl, she becomes a positive, real image for that girl in achieving a balance of images.”
-- “Make a checklist for yourself: whom do you ask to do things or answer questions in the group? Make sure that everyone is getting a chance for some kind of recognition.”
-- “Fight images with images. Instead of the latest skinny model stuck on the wall, there’s a whole bunch of happy kids. Invest in a Polaroid camera. Cameras are on sale periodically, as is film. Take a lot of photographs. Perhaps across from the Media Wall have your (Church Name) Media Wall. Let the photos add up of good times together at church or on youth trips. Let the students take photographs home, and encourage them to put them up in their rooms.”
-- “Depending on your youth budget, you may want to blow up some of the photographs to poster size to decorate the youth room. This can be a fairly expensive venture, but it is a good way to celebrate the group.”
-- “Let the youth make ‘All About Me’ books. They may have done these when younger, but we never outgrow the need to show where we are now. In the books, create places for photographs, lists of ‘favorites,’ self-portraits, a place to write about dreams or goals for the year. Maybe the church year can begin each year with everyone in youth doing one of these books. They can compare them to the previous year’s and laugh about photos as well as how their ‘favorites’ have changed. But, most importantly, the books are a way to say, ‘This is who I am … . This is what I like about me.’”
-- “If possible, invest in a video camera or borrow one or rent one to use with the youth group. Designate a cameraperson for different youth events and document the events with moving images as well as the still images already discussed. Eventually, the youth group will have quite a library of positive images to review and enjoy.”
Youth Ministry Update is a quarterly LifeWay publication relaying facts and trends relevant to youth ministry. Subscription information may be obtained by calling 1-800-458-2772.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Inner-city minister cites his life to show how God redeems ‘junk̵ by Cory J. Hailey Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--God is in the recycling business, taking people who might be considered "junk" by others and using them to accomplish his will, the leader of an inner-city ministry said at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Feb. 23.
"God loves taking junk and incorporating it into his will," said Tom Mahairas, director of the New York ministry City Vision. "He loves taking the most bizarre situation and showing his grace."
Mahairas, speaking in chapel at the Fort Worth, Texas, seminary, said he sees people every day who have been written off as being past help, but in relating his own experiences he told the students "Jesus can help you right off the bat."
As a youth, Mahairas said, he was in trouble a lot of the time. By the time he was a young adult, he was using marijuana, cocaine, LSD and heroin. In an attempt to help him, his mother took him to a New York hospital where he was administered electroshock treatments.
"You have to be absolutely insane to think you can connect people to electricity and zap them" to cure them, Mahairas quipped, noting solutions like that are the world's way of helping.
His ministry works with people who, when the world's efforts fail, the world gives up on, he said, adding Jesus Christ does not give up and is ready to help, as he did for Mahairas in August 1968.
After one arrest, Mahairas met a man who offered to help, introducing him to the Word of God. After being released from jail, Mahairas continued to read the Scriptures and became a Christian as he realized Christ had died for him. The knowledge inspired him to lead his future wife to Christ as well.
From there, they enrolled in college and then started their ministry in New York’s Washington Heights, a "tough place to be." Their work has not gone unrewarded. In 27 years of ministry, Mahairas has seen what began as a ministry in a rented basement grow into a group of programs ministering to the homeless and drug addicts, a day school and six church communities.
And God did it using a former drug addict, Mahairas said, emphasizing God often likes to use people who no one would ever think would be fit for service.
But a Christian doesn't have to experience problems like drug addiction to minister to people, Mahairas said.
"You don't have to go into darkness to talk about the darkness," he said. "You just have to shine the light."
In ministering, Mahairas cautioned his audience that they should not make the mistake the Pharisees did of focusing on people's sin and neglecting the message of grace. "You can't go beating up people and telling people they're sinners and go on,” he said.
The whole point of the gospel, he said, is to save not to condemn.
Christ did that when he went to Sychar and spoke with the sinful woman at the well, Mahairas said. Because of what Christ did, Mahairas added, the town heard the message of salvation.
Mahairas reminded the students God's ways are higher than humans' ways, and God thinks differently from people, looking past problems and seeing the good that he can use.
"Do not look at yourself and say, ‘God can't use me,'" Mahairas said. "God's got a plan for you."
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 48-hour ‘Urban Plunge’ pushes students ‘to look need in t by Jason Skinner Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday MOBILE, Ala. (BP)--According to Webster, plunge means: "To thrust or cast oneself quickly and forcibly into something."
That's a fitting description for what a group of University of Mobile students experienced as they took part in UM's first-ever “Urban Plunge.”
Taking the plunge were almost 70 collegians and leaders who traveled to five cities in five different states for a 48-hour inner-city missions experience.
The five groups, made up of about 13 members each, traveled to Birmingham, Ala; Tallahassee, Fla.; Jackson, Miss.; Atlanta; and New Orleans.
Moses Caesar, director of spiritual development at UM, defined the Feb. 5-7 Urban Plunge as "an opportunity for students to look need in the face and have the courage to do something about it."
During the weekend, the UM students were involved in a variety of missions projects, from physical labor to prayerwalking and door-to-door evangelism.
By "totaling submerging" the students into the inner cities, Caesar hoped "to eliminate their fears by exposing them to the reality [of urban life]." Also, he said he hopes Urban Plunge helped each student discover his or her place in helping to alleviate social ills.
"Although the urban need is massive, we as individuals can make a difference," Caesar said.
Planning to make Urban Plunge an ongoing ministry each semester, Caesar expressed his desire to build relationships in those selected cities and also "guarantee that the maximum number of students get involved as possible." The concept for Urban Plunge was modeled after similar projects Caesar observed while attending California Baptist University in Riverside.
In Birmingham, the urban plungers ministered to women and children at Jessie's Place, a branch of the Jimmie Hale Mission for Battered Women and Children; provided assistance at the Bessemer Rescue Mission; and ministered to the homeless in the city streets.
For Jenny Covington, a junior majoring in music education at UM, the Urban Plunge her first missions experience. She said the weekend helped her dispel the stereotypes often associated with those who live in the inner city. "Now I know more about the reality that's here," she said.
The Birmingham group was led by Troy Nicholson, a senior majoring in religion at UM and youth pastor of Northpoint Community Church in Mobile.
Nicholson, who grew up in the Birmingham area, said, “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. I pray this will break my spirit and get me back to reality."
The weekend resulted in changed lives, for both the cities' inhabitants and the students, Nicholson said.
"I think God will do mighty things in the hearts of the lives we've touched," he said. "But even greater has been done in the hearts of those of us who are taking the Urban Plunge."
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Man with unique name, passion for discipleship joins college staff by Jason Skinner Date: March 02, 1999 - Tuesday MOBILE, Ala. (BP)--When a college seeks our that perfect person to head its Baptist Campus Ministries, direct its Fellowship of Christian Athletes and lead its chapel programs, who better to take responsibility than a man named Moses?
The University of Mobile, however, not only recruited a Moses but also a Caesar -- Moses Caesar, that is -- as the school’s director of spiritual development.
“I consider myself an enabler,” said the 32-year-old native of Bangalore, India, who began his duties at UM last August.
Queried about the explanation behind his memorable moniker, Caesar recounted that his first name means “saved from water,” which is derived from the plight of the biblical character who, like the UM staffer, was nearly lost early in life. Caesar was dehydrated at birth, with slim chances for survival. But like the babe discovered floating along the banks of the Nile River by Pharaoh’s daughter centuries ago, this Moses, too, was delivered from death by the grace of God.
His surname -- Caesar -- came from his father’s birth through caesarian section. Because of the rarity of the procedure’s success in rural India years ago, his father, who grew up playing soccer with American missionary kids, wanted his son to carry a reminder of God’s provision.
Moving to the United States at the age of 7, Caesar, who was raised speaking English, called the experience, “more like moving to a different neighborhood.”
His family settled in Wichita Falls, Texas, where at the age of 10, young Caesar accepted Christ in a Sunday school class at First Baptist Church. He progressed slowly in his Christian walk until age 13, when he heard something that had -- and still has -- a profound affect on him.
“I discovered that Jesus desired from me a relationship and not just a religion,” he explained. This new spiritual insight, combined with his uncovering of a history of Christianity in his ancestry -- six generations, dating back to the early 1800s in India -- prompted Caesar to commit his life to full-time Christian ministry at age 16.
Since that life-changing decision in the 10th grade, Caesar has journeyed from Texas to Washington, New York, Tennessee and New Mexico, serving God in various capacities, from camp leader to youth pastor to a bus ministry.
He also helped set up and operate audio-visual equipment at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, while earning a master of divinity degree in 1991. He is currently a candidate for a doctoral degree from Golden Gate Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif.
Since joining UM’s staff, Caesar has worked hard to implement a program that is “birthed and driven by students,” with his primary responsibility to give direction.
“I’ve been very fortunate that [UM] has given me the latitude to do a lot of different things to encourage spiritual growth on campus,” said Caesar, who previously served in a similar position at California Baptist University in Riverside.
He reiterated his hope that the students, and not only himself, will take the initiative to “dream, generate and complement ideas” that will further their spiritual development.
Caesar has inherited a BCM that he feels is ready to shake up the university’s campus for Jesus. “These students have a lot of heart and ideas,” he said. “It’s really exciting. … We’ve even had to hold them back a little.”
Caesar admitted he previously “had not heard much about the University of Mobile at all,” but eagerly expressed enthusiasm about working with UM President Mark Foley, who has kept up with the young man’s progress since teaching Caesar’s college Sunday school class in Wichita Falls.
“Even then, I could see his deep love for the Lord,” said Foley, who took over the reigns as UM president last March.
He has also been impressed by Caesar’s “passion for discipleship,” something he hopes will be “contagious” to students. The position of director of spiritual development “gets at the heart of what I want to see happening to our students,” Foley said, adding that he has already noticed a mutual affection between Caesar and UM’s students and faculty.
Caesar said he shares a common vision with Foley, that each student would come away from the university with a “value-centered Christian education.”
“My dream for the future,” he said, “is that UM will soon be churning out students who truly understand what a vibrant, growing relationship with Christ is.”