The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-05/01/1998 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hundreds being saved through FAITH evangelism initiative by Chip Alford Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday NASHVILLE, Tenn.(BP)--It's been only four months since leaders from 28 Southern Baptist churches were trained in how to carry out a new strategy that "marries" Sunday school and evangelism. But early reports from the "FAITH Originator Churches" indicate hundreds are already coming to Christ as a result of the initiative.
"It's going phenomenally well, beyond what any of us really expected," Steve Cretin, director of the leadership and evangelism department in the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board's Bible teaching-reaching division, said. The Sunday School Board is co-sponsoring FAITH with the North American Mission Board.
"One of the exciting things is that most every church I've talked to is not only reporting large numbers of decisions, they're also having the highest attendance in Sunday school they've ever had," Cretin said. "That tells me we're not only reaching people for Christ, but we're getting them involved in Bible study, too. And that's what this is all about."
Designed to turn around a "flat-line" baptism rate in the Southern Baptist Convention, FAITH ties ongoing, personal evangelism training to a church's Sunday school organization. Participants agree to attend 16 training sessions and practice what they learn in home visits. The initiative also includes weekly meetings for Sunday school teachers and group leaders, intentional discipleship and plans for assimilating new Christians into the life of the church.
The 28 originator churches were trained in January at First Baptist Church, Daytona Beach, Fla., and will hold training clinics for other churches in their areas this fall.
At FBC, Daytona Beach, the church which launched the strategy last year, more than 500 people are enrolled in FAITH training this semester. Tom Lynn, minister of evangelism and international missions, said more than 100 professions of faith have been reported, including 47 in one week.
Lynn said members are actively seeking opportunities to share the gospel using the FAITH outline, sometimes finding openings in unusual situations.
For example, one of Daytona's FAITH teams was returning to the church recently when they spotted a dog on the side of the road which had been hit by a car. When they turned around and got out to check on the animal, they noticed a young man standing nearby and began talking with him. As the conversation progressed, the subject of death obviously came up. This led into an evangelistic presentation and the young man prayed to receive Christ.
Flomich Avenue Baptist Church, a small congregation also located in Daytona Beach, has 12 three-member teams involved in its second semester of FAITH training. In the first 14 weeks of the program, 33 professions of faith have been recorded on visitation nights and 14 more on other days of the week for a total of 47 decisions for Christ.
Pastor Jerry Webb said his church has already baptized 23 persons so far in 1998 -- four more than they baptized all last year. Four new Sunday school classes are being started and improvements are being made to the church building to accommodate the new members.
Next semester, he hopes to have 20 FAITH teams sharing the gospel around the community.
"This has shaken up our church and drawn us closer together," Webb said. "It's exciting to see the spiritual growth that's occurring in the life of our church family, not only in the FAITH team members, but in the folks who are supporting them in prayer and in other ways."
At Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston, 120 people are participating in 40 FAITH teams. According to minister of evangelism Lane Dyke, one team not only played a role in saving two souls, they may have saved a family as well.
"A young girl in our Christian day-care program was crying and when one of our workers talked with her, she told them she was upset because her mom and dad were leaving each other that day," Dyke reported. "One of our FAITH teams made a visit to the home and the moving van with the woman's things pulled away right as they arrived. But the team members talked and counseled with the couple, and they were able to lead them both to Christ."
The couple is now in counseling and attempting to reconcile, Dyke said.
A similar story unfolded at Trinity Baptist Church in Southaven, Miss. Pastor Jim Butler said his FAITH team recently called on a young woman with two young children whose husband had recently left her.
"She had never been in church, but she told us, 'Whether my husband ever comes back to me or not, my life needs to change. Can you tell me how to do that?'" The FAITH team witnessed to her, she accepted Christ and later brought her estranged husband to church. They, too, are in the process of reconciling.
Butler said another FAITH team at Trinity stuck to their mission despite their leader's absence one week. They simply picked up another participant and went to call on a grieving family who had lost a husband and father earlier in the week. Although it was the first time members of the team had shared the FAITH outline, the widow and all three of her teenage daughters accepted Christ.
"In the two months before we started FAITH, we had 26 professions of faith," Butler reported. "In the two months we've been doing this, we've had 34 -- almost a 50 percent increase!"
"FAITH has created a climate of excitement in our church," he said. "There is a hunger in our people to share their faith that they didn't have before."
-------------------------------------------------------------------- FAITH luncheon, exhibit planned during SBC meeting by Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Messengers to this summer's annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, will have a chance to learn more about FAITH, a joint initiative of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board and the North American Mission Board that "marries" Sunday school and evangelism.
A FAITH Awareness Luncheon will be held June 9 from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. in Ballrooms B&D of the Salt Palace Convention Center. The featured speaker will be Bobby Welch, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Daytona Beach, Fla., the church that launched the FAITH initiative last year.
Tickets for the luncheon may be purchased for $10 each at the FAITH exhibit in the SBC Exhibit Hall. Messengers visiting the exhibit also will have an opportunity to register for a FAITH training clinic in their area.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Clinton confirms opposition to religious persecution bill by Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday WASHINGTON (BP)--President Clinton has reiterated his opposition to a congressional measure designed to thwart religious persecution overseas.
The president reinforced his position on the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act to a group of about 60 evangelical Christians at a White House briefing sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals. In an address of about 15 minutes to the group, Clinton said legislation that calls for automatic sanctions, like the religious persecution proposal, can lead to an administration being deceitful.
"What always happens if you have automatic sanctions legislation is, it puts enormous pressure on whoever is in the executive branch to fudge an evaluation of the facts of what is going on. And that's not what you want. What you want is to leave the president some flexibility to impose sanctions, some flexibility with a range of appropriate reactions," he said, according to a report in The New York Times.
Clinton did not say the administration had "fudged" the facts to avoid automatic sanctions, The Times reported.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R.-Pa., a chief sponsor of the bill, criticized the president's concerns, The Washington Times reported, saying Clinton "doesn't believe in separation of powers; he believes in no power for the Congress. He doesn't understand that Congress makes the laws … and when you have a law, it is supposed to be followed."
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., and Specter, would ban exports and nonhumanitarian aid to governments found guilty of widespread persecution of religious adherents or of failing to try to stop such persecution.The proposal would establish an office of religious persecution monitoring in the State Department. The secretary of state would rule whether a government has committed such a violation. If a regime is found guilty, sanctions would take effect, unless the president chose to waive them as a matter of American national interest or if he determines a waiver would further the legislation's purposes.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill in May or shortly thereafter. The House Judiciary Committee approved it 31-5 in late March.
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R.-Texas, predicted the House would pass the bill. "We expect a substantial number of Democrats as well as Republicans to be behind this," said Horace Cooper, Armey's press secretary, The Washington Times reported.
Clinton's comments to evangelicals at the White House came April 27 when he dropped in on an NAE briefing featuring national security adviser Sandy Berger. The NAE, a longtime supporter of the Wolf-Specter bill, had reiterated its position to the administration earlier in the day. The president did not take questions from the group, a NAE spokesman said.
"You could tell from his comments that (Clinton knew) we disagreed with him," said Rich Cizik, NAE's policy analyst. "We remain supporters of the bill and happen to think that a good, strong bill out of the House will provide leverage in the conference committee."
It appears a conference committee will be necessary because the Senate seems unlikely to approve the Wolf-Specter proposal but an alternative instead, Cizik said. After the White House meeting, the NAE group met with Sen. Jesse Helms, R.-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Helms is a cosponsor of the International Religious Freedom Act, which has Sen. Don Nickles, R.-Okla., as its prime sponsor.
Nickles' bill takes a different approach to the problem of religious persecution. It would place in the State Department an office on international religious freedom headed by an ambassador at large. It also would establish a commission on international religious persecution, with two members appointed by the president, two by the president pro tem of the Senate and two by the speaker of the House. Unlike the Wolf-Specter bill, it would provide the president with more options in taking action against guilty governments.
In addition to NAE, other organizations that have endorsed the Wolf-Specter bill include the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, U.S. Catholic Conference, Family Research Council, Amnesty International, Christian Coalition, National Jewish Coalition and International Campaign for Tibet.
Among organizations opposed to the Wolf-Specter legislation are the National Council of Churches and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
Countries cited most frequently where religious persecution persists include China, Sudan, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Laos and Burma.

Compiled by Tom Strode.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- House sends first voucher bill to president; veto expected by Tom Strode Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday WASHINGTON (BP) -- The U.S. House of Representatives approved school vouchers for children from the District of Columbia April 30, marking the first time Congress has sent voucher legislation to the White House.
The bill, approved nearly along party lines in a 214-206 vote, would permit 2,000 students from low-income families to receive vouchers of as much as $3,200 to pay for tuition at area private schools, including religious ones. All but 13 Republicans voted for the bill. Only six Democrats supported it.
The legislation, which was approved by voice vote in the Senate last year, faces what appears to be a certain veto by President Clinton.
After the vote, the president's education secretary, Richard Riley, criticized the bill in a written statement, calling it "divisive, unnecessary and a nonsolution."
"This bill is a politically expedient, substantively irrelevant effort which will do nothing to improve education for public school students" in D.C., Riley said.
Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice said the president's decision on the bill "will demonstrate whether he is committed to educational opportunity or captured by special interest groups."
Among the vocal opponents of vouchers are the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers organization, and the National School Boards Association.
In a written statement, Bolick called on Clinton "not to block the schoolhouse doors. These children desperately need educational opportunities." The Institute for Justice is defending in the courts school-choice programs in six states.
The D.C. schools are considered among the worst in the country.
Debate on the House floor was fervent at times.
"If we begin public vouchers, we might just as well abandon public schools," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D.-Colo., according to The Washington Times.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., said, "None of you would allow your children to go to the District of Columbia schools. And you want to deny the opportunity for other kids to get into schools," The Times reported.
A day before the House vote, 1,002 low-income students were awarded scholarship grants from a private fund. More than 7,000 families applied for the scholarships.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Round-robin prayer time’ helped them weather tornado by Jason Skinner Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday COKER, Ala. (BP)--Climbing over fallen trees and beating through mounds of debris, TV news crews followed the trail of destruction in their search for Bethany Baptist Church in Coker, Ala., near Tuscaloosa.
The massive carnage of the wooded area left the reporters no doubt they were on the same path as the devastating tornado that had swept through moments before. Finally, after a frustrating search, they knew they were close.
"They told us they heard us singing," said Melissa Franklin, who has attended the small country church of about 75 members all her life.
Franklin was one of 26 people trapped in a downstairs hallway Wednesday night, April 8, as the twister swirled overhead. As a teacher for the elementary-aged children, she said her kids were well prepared for what was in store.
"Our lesson that night, believe it or not, was on disaster relief," said Franklin, adding the children handled the crisis bravely. Meagan Lafoy, 8, was one of the children who now has a good story to tell about her experience. She said it was the singing that calmed her, along with her own prayers she offered up during the turmoil.
"I was very scared," said Meagan, adding, "but I asked him to be with us ...
and he was!"
Linda Lafoy, Meagan's mother, explained the group had heard about the inclement weather around 7 p.m. and moved downstairs into a hallway for a "round-robin prayer time." She described an atmosphere of peace and closeness as the strong, violent winds beat down upon the building.
Ruby Hughes, minister of music and joyful survivor, said she didn't fear death for one second during the ordeal. In fact, she called the impromptu hallway service -- where the group sang everything from "Amazing Grace" to "Deep and Wide" -- "some of the sweetest fellowship I've ever experienced."
She added her priorities have changed since those 10 seconds when Bethany was in the eye of the storm and the palm of God's hand.
"To that group in the church's basement ... we're not going to be worried about the color of the carpet or things like that anymore," Hughes said.
But after making sure no one was hurt, the one thing on everyone's mind was getting the church ready for Easter services. Hughes noted that was not a problem -- the group would meet in the parking lot if necessary.
But God met their needs. Pastor Jim Roberts led a packed house Sunday morning in what he called a "glorious service," where members brought wildflowers and put them on a cross erected in the middle of the sanctuary. The jubilant worshipers looked up at the cracked ceiling tiles, which along with the vestibule, were the only real damage, as testimony to the saving grace they sang about.
Roberts preached on the hope Jesus offers -- the same hope present in the basement as Mary and the others felt when the stone had been rolled away. "Just as Mary had seen him outside the empty tomb, we saw Jesus in our midst Wednesday night," Roberts said. "This should give us the same unbridled joy she (Mary) had to share with everyone we come in contact with."
And just after Hughes and the choir had finished a special cantata they had prepared for the service, the church's power went out. Yet anyone happening outside the church, wondering about the parking lot full of cars and the darkened windows of the building, could still hear them singing.

Skinner is a correspondent with The Alabama Baptist newsjournal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Church focused on people after tornado’s destruction by Laurie A. Lattimore Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday ODENVILLE, Ala. (BP)--Chris Burns had no plans of changing his Easter message -- even though everything else for Easter services at Bethel Baptist had changed.
A tornado that swept through central Alabama with no abandon April 8 demolished the existing sanctuary plus a nearly completed $3.25-million sanctuary and family life center of the Odenville church.
About 100 choir members practicing for the Easter pageant were sent home when word of a tornado sweeping through several communities outside the heart of Birmingham was on its way.
Twenty minutes later, the building they had been in was nothing but wood and dust.
"I can't believe there were 100 of us in there just 20 minutes before the thing collapsed," said church member Greg Cobb. "It just shows God's power in destroying the building but sparing our lives."
And that's exactly what Burns' message was to be for Easter -- God is all powerful, the preacher said the day after the F-5 twister totaled the building, noting he had planned to speak from Romans 8:11.
"I had one guy tell me, ‘You know God is telling us something through this.’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, what’?" Burns said. "He said we probably weren't faithful enough in our building program and God wanted us to make it bigger."
Burns is somewhat overwhelmed at the task of rebuilding after nearly finishing a year-long building campaign. The night of the tornado was not as difficult as seeing the pile of wood and metal the next morning, he said, adding he started to cry when he saw it. But true to his message Easter morning, he knows God has a plan.
"We don't invest in buildings, we invest in people," he said. "The church is not here; the church is in all these homes around here."
Bethel members won't be meeting in their regular building for some time, using the high school and other church sanctuaries in the meantime. It is undecided what Bethel will do about its Wee Care program for children. But all of the answers will be provided in due time, Bethel members believe.
"We want the community to know that just because of this, it doesn't mean the ministry stops," Burns said. "We really have a tremendous opportunity to let God's light shine through this."
Bethel’s associate pastor of administration and education, Randy Gunter, is student body president for New Orleans Seminary’s Birmingham extension center. Gunter was in the final weeks of the master of divinity degree program.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Church within prison walls' focus of student-faculty ministry by James A. Smith Sr. Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--"I was in prison, and you came to me."
Jesus' words to his disciples are taken to heart by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary student Barbara Wilson and professor Chuck Lawless. For them, ministering to the "church within the prison walls" is a tangible way Christians can follow his teaching.
"I really believe that the God I serve is powerful enough to change lives, even in a prison. And I believe if I'm faithful and others are faithful in reaching out and meeting the needs that are there, God will honor that," said Wilson, a first-year master of divinity student and former federal law enforcement officer.
"I couldn't get away from Jesus' words," Lawless added. He is assistant professor of evangelism and church growth in Southern's Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth. "As much as I wanted to ignore that text ... I knew I had to do it."
Southern students and faculty participate in a number of ministries to the nearly 1,100 men at Luther Luckett Corrections Complex in LaGrange, Ky., about 30 miles north of Louisville. Although designated a medium-security prison, Luckett has the highest percentage of violent offenders of any prison in the state, said chief chaplain Suzanne McElwain.
"This is about the last place I ever thought God would call me," said McElwain, who graduated from Southern in 1986 with a master of divinity in Christian education degree and previously served as executive director of the Kentucky Alliance for the Mentally Ill and director of shelter ministries at Wayside Christian Mission, a Louisville homeless ministry.
With more than 120 worship services every month -- up from 15 per month four years ago when she started -- McElwain said she is seeing a revival among the inmates at Luckett. Sunday worship services had to be moved to the gym to accommodate the 300-plus inmates who regularly attend.
"I've seen men who went in and out of the 'hole' all the time who haven't been to the 'hole' for a long time," McElwain said, referring to the prison within the prison for recalcitrant inmates.
"Preacher Mike" Phillips is an inmate who is helping lead the revival at Luckett. The multiple violent offender who has been incarcerated for 30 years, the last 12 at Luckett, made a profession of faith 14 years ago. Every Monday and Tuesday, Phillips leads worship services which about 100 inmates attend. "God blesses every time we have a service," Phillips said in an interview at the prison.
Phillips confesses that sometimes he feels like the prophet Jeremiah: "I want to throw in the towel and give up. But when I see these guys on the floor praying or crying their hearts out … God gives me this goal, 'Go on!'"
Having been ordained to the ministry, Phillips hopes to be paroled next year and continue ministering to prisoners. Choking back tears, Preacher Mike said, "Somebody's got to reach them. Somebody's got to go out there and win them to Jesus. Fortunately, God's called me. It's a battle, but I keep holding on to God."
Phillips was among the team of inmates who assisted in a March 29 worship service which featured a sermon by Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. Nachel Wilkins, who directs prison and nursing home ministries for Highview Baptist Church, coordinates a weekly worship service at Luckett. Mohler was joined by a worship team from Highview, his home church. Southern's Danny Akin, dean of the school of theology, and preaching professor Hershael York also have preached for Wilkins.
Preaching from Luke 15 which records Jesus' parables about the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son, Mohler told the inmates the stories illustrate "we're all sinners. We need to confess that all of us are lost," contrary to the Pharisees who thought they were not sinners.
"The story about the prodigal son is not a story about some people. It's a story about all of us, because every one of us" is like the son, Mohler explained.
"The world is not divided between sinners and non-sinners. The world of sinners is divided between sinners who are lost in their sin and sinners who are saved by grace," Mohler said. Many inmates answered back by declaring, "Amen!"
Following the service, about 50 men knelt on the gym floor with Mohler as he prayed for their spiritual walk with the Lord.
Some of the men had considered skipping Mohler's sermon, McElwain reported. His appearance last year on a Kentucky public television program in support of the morality of capital punishment was the cause of their skepticism, she noted.
But most were persuaded to hear Mohler when McElwain reminded them that he was willing to worship with them in contrast to liberal religious groups who oppose the death penalty, but refuse to do ministry at the prison. "I can't get them in here," she noted.
In addition to the regular worship services, Highview's Wilkins started seminary extension classes for the inmates, with Lawless teaching the first class, "How to understand the Bible," to 48 eager students. Six classes have been held in the year and half since they were started and 61 students are currently enrolled, Wilkins reported.
The professor was impressed with his students.
"I found the guys there very receptive, very hungry for the gospel, who were thorough students. They did the best work they could do," Lawless said. "It was very encouraging and fun to be out there with them."
For someone who initially didn't think he had time to teach the class, Lawless is now looking forward to his next teaching assignment at Luckett this summer.
Lawless added that the ministry at Luckett "helped me keep my feet in the real world," something he continually hammers home with seminarians. Being at Luckett "reminded me that we are here to win a hurting world ... that what's outside the seminary walls is a different world that we need to reach and help people to avoid winding-up in prison, as well as ministering once they are there."
The inmates are anxious for Lawless to teach again, Wilkins said. "Chuck did a great job. The men just loved him," he said. Wilkins also appreciates the students from Southern who assist him at Luckett. "I could not do what I'm doing without them. They're really a big help to us," he noted.
Wilkins' own ministry at Luckett is deeply appreciated by chaplain McElwain. "Nachel and Highview Baptist Church are a gift from God," she said. McElwain also values the ministry of students from Southern.
"It's so important to have Southern students here," she said. As Baptists, "we have something that these men need -- the transformation of Jesus Christ. There is no rehabilitation in corrections without that." Although teaching inmates vocational skills is important, McElwain said, "unless you get their spiritual life together, it's not going to change anything."
Barbara Wilson, a student focusing on pastoral counseling, works as a student chaplain as part of her required clinical pastoral education requirements. Beyond the academic requirement, Wilson sees prison ministry as an opportunity to minister to men who are sincerely attempting to follow Christ.
A native of Chicago, Wilson draws on her 10 years of experience as a federal law enforcement officer in her prison ministry. "I have had a unique opportunity to see the criminal justice system as a whole and have firsthand experience working here," Wilson noted.
Before enrolling at Southern Seminary, Wilson served in three positions in the federal prison system, including more than three years as an investigator for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and five years as a probation and parole officer. While serving in those two positions based in Chicago, she also volunteered in a prison where she led a Bible study for women.
"Although I never thought I would be back working, even in ministry, in the prison system, that's one of the places God has called me," Wilson said. "My interest is how do I as a minister educate local churches about the realities of prison life and integrate in that our obligation to not only evangelize, but disciple the church within the prison walls."
Wilson is careful to not think too highly of herself in relation to the prisoners she ministers to at Luckett. Asserting that God is faithful, Wilson noted, "If he can transform me and is still doing that within me, he can do that with all of us, and certainly those who are in prison."
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Church’s founder among Titanic’s 1,500 victims by Date: May 01, 1998 - Friday JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP)--All the church knew, like so many of the friends and family of victims aboard the Titanic, is that Earl D. Sims was among the 1,500 passengers declared lost at sea after the massive ship struck an iceberg the evening of April 14, 1910.
Sims was traveling aboard the ill-fated ship back to the church he had helped start -- Phoenix Baptist Church in Milldale, Fla., now North Main Street Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
The church organized in 1908 after Sims had led a series of tent revival meetings in a sawmill community on the outskirts of Jacksonville. Mill owner W.W. Cummer, the namesake of Jacksonville's Cummer Museum and Gardens, allowed revival-goers to meet on his property, then later deeded the land to the church and supplied lumber for its construction.
Sims led the congregation for three years before traveling to England to visit his parents, English missionaries to China who were on furlough. Born in China, Sims was a missionary in Michigan before moving to Jacksonville. Jennie Phillips, who had known Sims in Michigan, had encouraged him to hold tent revivals in Jacksonville's mill community.
Phillips was a distant cousin of North Main church's current historian, Martha Thompson, whose parents were charter members of the Jacksonville church. Thompson was 4 years old when the Titanic sank.
"I remember that the church was sad about losing him," Thompson said. "I've heard about him and his story all of my life. It was part of my heritage -- I was a member of the church he started."
Sims' commitment to missions has been carried on in the church, Thompson said. "We were organized by a missionary and have kept that focus. We have always been a missions-oriented church."
North Main Street Church will remember Sims and others who have contributed to the congregation's life when the church celebrates its 90th anniversary May 3.