
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-04/21/1997

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SBC church membership up, baptisms down, ACP shows
by Chip Alford
Date: April 21, 1997 - Monday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Increases in church membership, number of churches and all church program areas highlighted the Southern Baptist Convention's statistical report for 1996.

The Annual Church Profile is compiled by the Baptist Sunday School Board's strategic information unit from church reports routed through local Baptist associations and state conventions.

The 1996 report showed SBC church membership climbed to 15,694,050, up almost 26,000, or 0.17 percent, from 1995. The number of Southern Baptist churches increased by 526 in 1996 to total 40,613, a 1.31 percent increase over 1995.

Only two categories registered declines in 1996: baptisms, which totaled 379,344, down 14,467 or 3.67 percent from 1995, and missions operated by churches, down from 4,026 in 1995 to 3,592 in 1996, a 10.78 percent decrease.

The ratio of baptisms to Southern Baptist church members for 1996 was 1 baptism per 41 church members.
All church program areas registered increases in 1996, ACP stats showed, including:

-- Sunday school enrollment, 8,242,128, up from 8,207,860, a 0.42 percent increase.

-- discipleship training enrollment/participation, 2,347,695, up from 2,171,993, an 8.09 percent increase.

-- music ministry enrollment/participation, 1,915,288, up from 1,881,754, a 1.78 percent increase.

-- WMU enrollment, 1,071,240, up from 1,061,279, a 0.94 percent increase.

-- Brotherhood enrollment/participation, 769,248, up from 749,310, a 2.66 percent increase.

BSSB strategic information unit supervisor Cliff Tharp said some questions on the 1996 ACP were asked differently, possibly impacting totals in the following categories:

-- total tithes and offerings and special gifts, $6,438,550,187, up from $5,635,014,266, a 14.26 percent increase.

-- undesignated receipts, $5,040,070,313, up from $4,538,898,609, an 11.04 percent increase.

-- total receipts, $6,878,906,615, up from $6,069,724,030, a 13.33 percent increase.

-- total mission expenditures, $891,259,062, up from $858,779,214, a 3.78 percent increase.

The value of church property increased from $29,103,227,053 in 1995 to $30,533,888,520, a 4.92 percent increase.

Increases also were reported in both morning and evening worship service attendance. Morning attendance climbed to 4,898,872, up from 4,562,639, a 7.37 percent increase. Evening attendance totaled 1,902,519, up from 1,792,876, a 6.12 percent increase. Tharp emphasized these figures represent the attendance in churches on the last Sunday of the associational year and are not necessarily an average for the year.

Two new questions were asked on the 1996 ACP, Tharp said. Statistics compiled from those answers showed 25,319 churches give to their association on a percentage basis and 20,231 churches have an ongoing intercessory prayer ministry.

Tharp said 100 percent of the ACP data for 1996 was received electronically, adding software for 1997 is being distributed to state conventions this month.
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Bob Reccord to accept NAMB post if elected
by Art Toalston
Date: April 21, 1997 - Monday

NORFOLK, Va. (BP)--Robert E. Reccord told the Norfolk, Va., congregation he leads April 20 he will accept the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention's new North American Mission Board, if elected by the agency's trustees in their inaugural meeting June 19 in Dallas.

Reccord, 45, pastor of Norfolk's First Baptist Church, was joined in the Sunday evening service by Morris H. Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee, and Bill Hogue, a retired California Baptist executive who led the presidential search by a 13-member group of NAMB "incorporators."

"I know I must be obedient to what God is saying to me at this point," Reccord told the Norfolk congregation, according to The Virginian-Pilot daily newspaper April 21. "Tonight I would just ask you a big favor: Please love us enough to grant us a release to take that step, because we feel like it's a step we must take."

Reccord also noted to the church, "God does not build his churches on men or women. God builds his churches on Christ, and that's why they stand."

Chapman, in his comments, said Southern Baptists "are dead serious about saying we want to lead North America to Jesus Christ. We're talking tonight about shaping the history of America."

Chapman invited church members to join Reccord and his wife, Cheryl, at the altar for a time of prayer and, according to the newspaper, people swarmed from the pews.

Reccord's wife, in earlier comments to the church during the service, said she had known three years ago her husband might be called to the new position. Recounting a discussion they had of the SBC restructuring over lunch one day, she said, "At that table, on that day, it was as though God sat down and said, 'This is where you must be ready to go.' It startled me. Since that day, I've prayed, 'God, make me willing.'"

Reccord's predecessor, Ken Hemphill, also left the church to lead an SBC agency, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas.

Reccord resigned in March as chairman of the task force guiding the SBC restructuring, acknowledging at that time he was the probable nominee for the NAMB presidency.

As chairman of the Implementation Task Force, Reccord led in assisting the SBC restructuring which reduces the number of SBC agencies from 19 to 12 and creates the new mission agency NAMB.

In a prepared statement at the time, Reccord said he was one of several men interviewed for president last year and that he had been asked to move forward in the nomination process.

Appointed as chairman of the 10-member ITF in September 1995, Reccord is a member of the SBC Executive Committee which established the ITF.

Ordained to the ministry in 1973 by Calvary Baptist Church, Evansville, Ind., Reccord's first full-time service was as minister of outreach and spiritual development at First Baptist Church, Wichita Falls, Texas. From there he went to the Home Mission Board's evangelism section as director of witness training.

Reccord later served as director of leadership training for Evangelism Explosion International. In the 1980s Reccord became a vice president of sales and marketing for a Michigan company to support his bivocational ministry. From there he went to Carmel Baptist Church, Charlotte, N.C., as co-pastor and then to Bell Shoals Baptist Church, Brandon, Fla., as senior pastor. He has been senior pastor at the Norfolk church since October 1992.

Born in Norfolk, Reccord's mother died when he was six months old. His father, who was in the Army and an alcoholic, put him up for adoption. He was adopted by a couple living in Evansville, Ind., where he grew up.

He earned master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, in 1975 and 1979, respectively, and a bachelor of arts degree from Indiana University in 1972. Reccord has done post graduate work at Regent College, Oxford, England, on the history of revival and great awakenings.

Reccord and his wife have three children: Christy Joy, 20; Bryan Christopher, 17; and Ashley Nicole, 13.

The SBC's restructuring is to be completed at the annual meeting in June in Dallas. Following that meeting, the North American Mission Board begins operation with the election of a president, one of the first items for new trustees to decide. NAMB is a new entity resulting from the closure of three agencies: Home Mission Board, Atlanta; Radio and Television Commission, Fort Worth, Texas; and Brotherhood Commission, Memphis, Tenn. The new agency will have about 350 employees at its Alpharetta, Ga., office.

NAMB is a key facet of the SBC restructuring, highlighting the desire stated in the "Covenant for a New Century" passed by messengers to the 1995 SBC annual meeting in Atlanta to reach "the United States and Canada for Christ, using every appropriate means of evangelization and church planting." If approved in June, the NAMB budget for 1997-98 will be 22.79 percent of the SBC Cooperative Program budget, or more than $33 million. It will be second only in size in the SBC budget to the International Mission Board (formerly the Foreign Mission Board) with its 50 percent, more than $74 million, of the budget.

NAMB will have nearly 5,000 missionaries in cooperation with 41 state conventions/fellowships and 1,200 associations. A second source of funding for the new agency is the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for home missions which, in 1996, totaled nearly $40 million.
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North Dakota flooding draws Baptist disaster response
by Karen L. Willoughby
Date: April 21, 1997 - Monday

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (BP)--So far, there are no known dead.

But except for disaster relief crews on the job -- Southern Baptists among them -- "no known dead" is about the only good news in Grand Forks, N.D., a 10.5-square-mile city at least 70 percent under water April 21, with a portion of its downtown gutted by fire.

Most of its 50,000 residents left when a mandatory evacuation was ordered Friday, April 18.

Southern Baptist disaster relief units from Texas, Ohio and Oklahoma rolled into the area Sunday afternoon and were preparing to start providing meals Monday morning.

Grand Forks' downtown fire started Saturday, April 19, in an historic building -- perhaps because of a natural gas leak. It spread by Sunday to 11 buildings before helicopters contained it by dumping dozens of 2,000-gallon buckets of floodwater. More conventional firefighting efforts were hampered by floodwater running as much as five feet deep in downtown streets. The roiling muddy-colored water was further contaminated by raw sewage because the city's wastewater treatment plant was swamped.

These two disasters followed an April 5 ice storm. It turned into a blizzard with 60-mph winds that snapped upwards of 2,000 telephone poles like matchsticks. It was the ninth blizzard of the season and the worst snow storm in 50 years.

"We were already preparing for this flood when that storm hit," said Doug Lee, pastor for nine years at Cornerstone Baptist Church in the newly developed southwest corner of the Grand Forks. Townspeople knew high water was coming because the region's record 117 inches of snowmelt was finding its way to the Red River that marks the Minnesota/Dakota borders.

"Temperatures warmed up and snow started melting and you had that seeping in basements," Lee said. "It had to have someplace to go."

Pastors at all four Southern Baptist churches in the greater Grand Forks area related similar stories of their members being part of a community-wide effort to lend a hand where needed -- working sump pumps, sharing portable generators when there was no electricity, filling/passing/stacking sandbags to help shore up the city's long-established dike system.

The pastors went on to explain how their members have been impacted by the weather's triple whammy.

Henry Passmore has been pastor for the last dozen years at House of Prayer Baptist Church, a predominantly African American congregation that was meeting in the downtown Civic Center while its building was being renovated.

"You could say all we really have besides God is each other," Passmore said. Most House of Prayer church members have relocated to Emerado, about 15 miles west of Grand Forks. Grand Forks Air Force Base is located nearby, the pastor said.

Jim Cargile, pastor at Faith Community Church the last two years, echoed Passmore's thought.

"God is God," Cargile said. "He takes care of us in the good times and the bad times." At 7 p.m. Saturday there was eight inches of water in the street in front of the church and adjacent parsonage, but none so far in the basement. Most of his members had relocated to the Air Force base, the pastor said.

Mike Waters, on the job five weeks as pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Emerado, said 90 percent of his congregation are Air Force personnel. The military personnel have been on mandatory sandbagging shifts and so far have filled well over a million sandbags, Waters said. Emerado is west of the flooding.

Waters has been asked by the Air Force chaplain's office to provide pastoral counseling and to lead some of the worship services in the hangars for the evacuees. Calvary, which offers two contemporary Sunday services, will house the Texas Disaster Relief unit.

Cornerstone's church building, which was completed last summer, is on high ground so it might not be damaged, Lee said. He doesn't know for sure and might not know for up to six weeks. That's how long Mayor Pat Owens said the mandatory evacuation might be in place because of biological contamination.

Cornerstone church member Bob Jantzen's home was one of the first to be flooded. It was about 20 feet from where a sandbagged dike was breeched by overland flooding in the wee hours of Saturday. One day later all that could be seen of the house was the tip of the roof, Lee said.

"We have potential flooding every year but the dikes have handled it until this year," Lee said. "They built everything up to handle a hundred-year flood, but this is a 500-year flood."

The 400-mile-long Red River Valley once was covered by the prehistoric Lake Agassiz, Lee said. That's what makes the bottom land so flat and the black loam soil so rich. That's what set up the area for a flood so severe it would come along only once in 500 years.

Eastern North Dakota Southern Baptist Association director of missions Preston North had a further explanation for the natural disaster.

"All the water here -- on this side of the Continental Divide -- flows north to the Hudson Bay, rather than south to the Missouri or Mississippi River," North said. "You've got water flowing north, into ice. It's jamming up, spreading out."

That phenomena, known as overland flooding because it is not bound by a river channel, is what flowed over the top of Grand Forks' clay and sandbagged dikes that were readied for a 49-foot crest. The crest now is expected to reach 54 feet -- 26 feet above flood stage city officials say -- where it could stay for a week.

At the Grand Forks Air Force Base, as many as 10,000 evacuees will be staying in one of three hangars, but the numbers are much smaller than at first anticipated. Since they've been told they won't be permitted back into their homes for two weeks, many evacuated townspeople are going to the homes of relatives and friends outside the affected area, officials speculate.

The Texas unit at the air base expects to provide about 3,000 continental breakfasts and perhaps 3,500 beef stew lunches on its first day of operation, leader Mel Goodwin said.

The Ohio unit has set up on the parking lot at Temple Baptist Church in Fargo, which also has been impacted by the flooding. Fargo is about 75 miles south of Grand Forks.

The Oklahoma unit is setting up at an elementary school in Red Lake Falls, Minn. There is no Southern Baptist work in Red Lake Falls and only a seasonal Hispanic mission in East Grand Forks.

Jerry Bob Taylor of Brownwood, Texas, is the designated coordinator of the three disaster relief units.

"In our briefing today, we do not feel like the meal count is going to be quite as heavy as we thought," Taylor said. "The Red Cross is anticipating within two, three, four days that if nothing else feeds the river we're going to find masses of people trying to get back home. Basically what we're doing now is gearing up and getting all our support materials in place so we're ready for the onslaught when it comes.

"The thing I'm beginning to pick up on is that unlike some other floods I've worked where the water is more or less contained right on the river, this land is so flat it's just spreading out," Taylor continued. "I came in today from the air and I thought I was looking at one of the Great Lakes. It's a big sea."

Southern Baptists and relief agencies in the area are very grateful the disaster relief units have come in, Director of Missions North said.

"Everybody up here is really appreciative of the Southern Baptist disaster relief crews that have come in," North said. "They're appreciative of it, excited about it and anxious for them to start feeding."

Dakota Southern Baptist Fellowship Director Dewey Hickey also expressed his appreciation. He plans to be in the flooded areas early in the week.
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Momentum stalled, CBF board discusses growth initiatives
by Herb Hollinger
Date: April 21, 1997 - Monday

ATLANTA (BP)--The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinating Council discussed ideas to kickstart the organization's stalled growth and approved a 2.5 percent increase in next year's budget during an April 17-19 meeting in Atlanta.

The governing board of the six-year-old moderate Baptist group also approved a personnel policies and procedures manual and will nominate four people from Kentucky, Texas and Arkansas to the 80-member council at the CBF General Assembly in Louisville, Ky., in June. The council was informed that Phil Lineberger, a council member from Sugar Land, Texas, and a former Texas convention president, had resigned from the council, electing Ken Massey, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, to replace him. No reason was given for Lineberger's resignation.

But the obvious thrust of the meeting was how to kickstart the movement which has plateaued in growth and finances. CBF was started as a protest group by moderate Baptists critical of Southern Baptist Convention leadership.

Daniel Vestal, former Texas and Georgia pastor and CBF chief executive officer since Jan. 1, gave the council five "growth initiatives" in response to his question, "Why are we not growing?" Discussion on his ideas punctuated various task groups and committee sessions during the two days' sessions.

That stalled growth was reflected in the 1997-98 budget the council will propose to its General Assembly.

The new budget is actually the same budget number, $14,102,000, as the budget approved at last year's General Assembly. However, the coordinating council had reduced its 1996-97 budget in mid-year to $13,982,243, cutting expenses in anticipation of a shortfall in receipts. The CBF fiscal year is July 1 to June 30.

CBF officials, who like to give three goals for their budgets -- "would like to spend," "should spend" and "must spend" -- were subdued in that process, calling the 1997-98 budget strictly a "must spend." Added to the budget will be a 2.5 percent reserve for "all ministry areas to be used on a pro rata basis to cover shortfalls in undesignated giving."

The shortfall is what has plagued CBF for the past two years after record double-digit growth the first four years. After nine months of this fiscal year, CBF receipts are right on the revised projections of the February meeting at $12,580,000, officials said.

Thus, the proposed 1997-98 budget, if approved in June, means the group anticipates a budget nearly 14 percent above projected 1996-97 receipts.

As a result, budget planners said they anticipate drawing from CBF reserves and spending the earnings on some reserves to meet the budget in 1997-98.

Taking the biggest cuts in the proposed budget are scholarships for students at CBF-affiliated theological schools and grants to those same schools. Mercer University, Atlanta, will receive a grant of $227,912 in the budget compared to $350,000 last year and Truett Seminary on the Baylor University campus, Waco, Texas, will receive $161,488 compared to last year's $200,000.

The Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., at $318,000, will receive $82,000 less than the revised 1996-97 budget adopted in February while Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Kan., an American Baptist-affiliated school, at $150,000, will receive $50,000 less.

Grants to "Friends of ABP" also will be less: Associated Baptist Press, at $144,000 down $16,000; Baptists Today paper, at $49,500 down $5,500; and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, at $282,700 down $30,300.

The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, which had earlier been dropped from the CBF budget due to a controversial stand on homosexuality, was restored in the proposed 1997-98 budget at $8,000.

The proposed 1997-98 budget does allow for a net growth of six missionaries. Currently CBF has 142 missionaries in the United States and around the world. In that regard, the global missions portion of the budget increases from $8,886,913 approved last year to $9,714,420 for 1997-98, although it was revised in February to $9,677,279 by the council. The global missions portion of the entire budget -- the CBF annual offering amount is included in the budget -- will be 68.89 percent if the proposed budget is approved in Louisville.

Vestal, while saying the "CBF is facing a bright future," nevertheless spent nearly all of his "state of the CBF" address on growth initiatives. He said the future of CBF "will be shaped by our faithfulness to our vision" and said the group's decision last year not to call itself a "convention" was proper: "We are a fellowship."

He listed three things slowing CBF's growth: fear by pastors in leading their churches to CBF, ignorance by laypeople of CBF and indifference among Baptists in general.

He said it could be overcome by education and "exemplifying who we say we are." He listed five steps:

1) start new churches.

2) have an intentional placement system for ministers.

3) find ways to help educate and advocate women in leadership. "God is calling women to leadership."

4) reconnect "ourselves to a vision of a multi-culture, multi- language, multi-ethnic fellowship ... We have failed in this area."

5) explore the beginning of annuity and medical programs for CBF churches and ministers.

In other action: four people will be nominated to the council at the Louisville meeting: Nancy Burke, Jonesboro, Ark.; Hugh McElrath and David Burroughs, both of Louisville, Ky.; and Phil Martin, Houston.

The council also approved a revision to its personnel policies and procedures manual and changed the church resources ministry group to include three task groups: equipping congregations, equipping laity and equipping clergy. Council members also approved their officers appointing a committee to study adding two new ministry groups: networking and communication. Presently, the structure has a global missions group, Baptist principles group and church resources group.
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40 communication awards received by 3 SBC agencies
by Staff
Date: April 21, 1997 - Monday

ATLANTA (BP)--Staff members of three Southern Baptist agencies won 40 of the 107 awards presented during the Baptist Communicators Association's annual meeting April 10-13 in Stone Mountain, Ga.

The Foreign Mission Board won 23 awards; Home Mission Board, nine; and Baptist Sunday School Board, eight, in the association's Wilmer C. Fields Awards Competition.

Additionally during the meeting, BSSB photographer Jim Veneman was elected president of the association, formerly named Baptist Public Relations Association.

Top awards received by the FMB include the Albert McClellan Award for exceptional achievement in print media and design to Mary Jane Welch, managing editor of The Commission, and other magazine staff members.

Top awards received by HMB staff members were the Fon H. Scofield Award for exceptional achievement in photography to R. Mark Sandlin and the Frank Burkhalter Award for exceptional achievement in feature writing to Lisa M. Smith of MissionsUSA magazine.

In other top awards, Laurie A. Lattimore of The Alabama Baptist newsjournal received the Frank Burkhalter Award for exceptional achievement in news writing; Douglas W. Rogers of the South Carolina Baptist Convention won the Arthur S. Davenport Award for exceptional achievement in public relations and development; and Alan L. Walker of Florida Baptist Convention received the M.E. Dodd Award for exceptional achievement in electronic media.

A full listing of the winners follows: PUBLIC RELATIONS and DEVELOPMENT

Public Relations Campaign: First place, Douglas W. Rogers, South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Special Project or Event: First place, Robert Reeves and Dannah Prather, Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children. PHOTOGRAPHY

Magazine Photography (B&W single): First place, R. Mark Sandlin, HMB; second place, Bill Bangham, FMB.

Magazine Photography (B&W series): First place, R. Mark Sandlin, HMB; second place, Bill Bangham, FMB.

Magazine Photography (color single): First place, Warren F. Johnson, FMB; second Place, Scott Collins, Buckner Benevolences.

Magazine Photography (color series): First place, Don Martin, FMB; second place, Roy M. Burroughs, FMB.

Newspaper Photography (color single): First place, Jim Veneman, BSSB.

Black and White Photography: First place, Jim Veneman, BSSB.
Color Photography: First place, Jim Veneman, BSSB. NEWSWRITING

Newspaper News Article: First place (tie), Mark Wingfield, Western Recorder, and Laurie A. Lattimore, The Alabama Baptist; second place, Greg Warner, Associated Baptist Press; honorable mention, Jennifer Davis, The Alabama Baptist.

Newsletter News Article: First place, Terri Lackey, BSSB.

Newspaper News Series: First Place, Jennifer Davis, The Alabama Baptist; second place, Laurie Lattimore, Jennifer Davis and Yvonne White, The Alabama Baptist.

Newspaper Editorial: First place, Lynn P. Clayton, Baptist Message; second place, William R. Webb, Word & Way.

First Person, Newspaper Column: First place, Lynn P. Clayton, Baptist Message; second place, Ferrell Foster, Illinois Baptist; honorable mention, Lynn P. Clayton, Baptist Message.

First Person, Newsletter Column: First place, Norman Jameson, N.C. Baptist Children's Homes.

Investigative Reporting (single article): First place (tie), Bill Bangham, FMB, and Laurie A. Lattimore, The Alabama Baptist; second place, Laurie A. Lattimore, The Alabama Baptist.

Interpretive Reporting (single article): First place, Greg Warner, Associated Baptist Press; second place, Tim Palmer, Word & Way.

Interpretive Reporting (series): First place, Mark Wingfield, Western Recorder; second place, Russell N. Dilday, Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine; honorable mention, Bob Allen, Associated Baptist Press.  ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Feature Production (more than 15 min.): First place, Trish Landers Ragsdale, FMB; second place, Gunther Friedrichs, FMB.

Feature Production (less than 15 min.): First place, Craig Martin, FMB; second place, Gunther Friedrichs, FMB; honorable mention, Alan L. Walker, Florida Baptist Convention.

Video Magazine: First place, Tyrus Wood Jr., Florida Baptist Convention; second place, Trish Landers Ragsdale, FMB.

Promotional Productions: First place, Alan L. Walker, Florida Baptist Convention; second place, Dawn Richerson and Randy Durham, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; honorable mention, Van C. Payne, FMB.

Video News Reports: First place, Gunther Friedrichs, FMB; second place, Trish Landers Ragsdale, FMB.

Music Videos: First place, David Wilkinson and Randy Durham, CBF; second place, Douglas W. Rogers, South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Home Page: First place, Dawn Richerson, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; second place, Chip Alford, Jim Veneman and Diana Lawrence, BSSB. FEATURE WRITING

Newspaper Feature Article: First place, Norman Jameson, N.C. Baptist Children's Homes; second place, Tim Ellsworth, Illinois Baptist; honorable mention, Dana Williamson, Oklahoma Baptist Messenger; honorable mention, Lynn P. Clayton, Baptist Message.

Magazine Feature Article: First place, Lisa M. Smith, HMB; second place, Tim Palmer, Word & Way.

Newsletter Feature Article: First place, Dannah Prather, Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children; second place, Dannah Prather, Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children; honorable mention, Dannah Prather, Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children.

Newspaper Feature Series: First place, Eva Wilson, Kansas-Nebraska Convention; second place, Joyce Sweeney Martin, Western Recorder.

Magazine Feature Series: First place, Don Martin, FMB; second place, Don Martin, FMB.

Single Advertisement: First place, Pat Cole and Mauri Smith, Western Recorder.

Ad Series: First place, D'Lesa Carroll, Woman's Missionary Union.

Scripts: First place, Scott Collins and Russell Rankin, Buckner Benevolences; second place, Douglas W. Rogers, South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Special Print Materials: First place, Eddy G. Oliver, HMB; second place, Pat Cole, Western Recorder. PRINT MEDIA and DESIGN

State Baptist Newspaper: First place, William Neal, James Dotson and Rich Reasoner, The Christian Index, Georgia; second place, Ferrell Foster, Tim Ellsworth and Brad Reno, Illinois Baptist.

National or Regional Magazine: First place, Mary Jane Welch, FMB; second place, James D. Warren, Sowgand Sheikholeslami and Melanie Whitehurst, Brotherhood Commission.

Limited or Special Audience Magazine: First place, Randy Shebek, Scott Collins and Russell Rankin, Buckner Benevolences; second place, Carol Causey, WMU.

Other Newspaper, Newsmagazine or Tabloid: First place, Norman Jameson and Jennifer Harner, N.C. Baptist Children's Homes.

Newsletter: First place, Chip Alford, Jim Veneman and Shirley Richardson, BSSB; second place, Sam House, BSSB.
Best Redesigned Periodical: First place, Michael D. Chute, Florida Baptist Witness; second place, Randy Shebek and Scott Collins, Buckner Benevolences.

Annual Report: First place, Randy Shebek, Buckner Benevolences; second place, Michael C. Blackwell, Norman Jameson and Jennifer Harner, N.C. Baptist Children's Homes.

Brochure or Booklet: First place (tie), Randy Shebek, Scott Collins and Russell Rankin, Buckner Benevolences, and Greg Warner, Bob Allen and Lindsay Bergstrom, ABP; second Place, Linda Lawson and BSSB communications staff.

Book: First place, FMB and WMU communications offices, A Journey of Faith and Sacrifice.

Special Print Materials: First place, Wayne Grinstead, Missy Greenoe and Scott Brooks, HMB; second place, Wayne Grinstead and Missy Greenoe, HMB.

Logo Design: First place, Stephanie Delgado, FMB.Brochure or Booklet: First place, Jim Edminson, Louisiana Baptist Children's Home; second place, Brian K. Hardy, South Carolina Baptist Convention; honorable mention, Russell N. Dilday, Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine.

Special Print Materials: First place, Wayne Grinstead and Missy Greenoe, HMB; second place, Sharon Saunders, Houston Baptist University; honorable mention, Bill Bangham and Stephen Rountree, FMB.

Direct Mail Campaign: First place, Chuck Flowers, David and Teri Capshaw, Planted Tree Design Studio; second place, Jesse Palmer, Details Marketing and Design for Churches.

Print Advertisement: First place, Dan Allen, FMB; second place, Stephanie Delgado, FMB.

Special Promotional Materials: First place, Jesse Palmer, Susan Tucker and Amy Heise, Details Marketing and Design for Churches; second place, C. Wayne Childers, David Flick and Brad Price, Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma.
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