Wednesday, August 10, 2016

• Young urban pastors plan for more church plants

  by Karen L. Willoughby, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of The Gate Church

  ST. LOUIS (BP) -- Kenny "KP" Petty has been there and done that, so what he says rings true to others who are as he was. Too busy with his gang life to finish high school, he was shot for the first time at 17, and then again at 18. He went to jail at 19, facing (later acquitted of) an attempted murder rap.

  Today, not quite 20 years later, Petty and co-pastor/rapper Kyle Hubbard are in the fourth year of planting The Gate church in University City, an older, poverty-pockmarked neighborhood in southern St. Louis. The Gate recently voted to sponsor a similar-style church in Baden, north St. Louis, as "the first of many" sponsored works, the pastors said. Read More

• Olympics: Nightly prayers keep skeet shooter's focus on God

  by Tim Ellsworth, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of USA Shooting

  RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) -- Vincent Hancock was so fed up with skeet shooting in 2011 that he almost quit.

  Despite winning gold in skeet shooting in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Hancock had lost his love for the sport. After a horrible World Cup competition in Slovenia -- his worst finish ever -- he called his wife Rebekah to tell her he wanted to quit.

  "No, don't do that," Rebekah told him. "Just get home. Let's talk about it. Let's pray about it." Read More

• Human-animal embryo research likened to sci-fi

  by David Roach, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- A National Institutes of Health proposal to fund research that inserts human stem cells into animal embryos has provoked warnings from evangelical bioethicists.

  The focus of the proposed research would be studying human diseases and growing human organs in animals for transplants. But potential side effects of so-called "chimera research" -- a reference to Greek mythological creatures that were part goat, part snake and part lion --include destruction of human embryos, creation of animals with some semblance of human intelligence and creation of animals with the ability to produce human offspring. Read More

• Baptist institutions stand, wait on mandate solution

  by Tom Strode, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  "We should not be forced to conform to the government's ideological views about life."

  -- Robert Sloan

  WASHINGTON (BP) -- Southern Baptist-affiliated institutions are maintaining their stand against the Obama administration's abortion/contraception mandate while they continue to wait for a satisfactory legal resolution.

  GuideStone Financial Resources and four Baptist universities -- East Texas Baptist, Houston Baptist, Oklahoma Baptist and Truett McConnell -- are among 92 nonprofit religious organizations awaiting what they hope will be an agreement with the federal government that protects their freedom of conscience. Read More

• Vietnamese seek 'next step' during annual meeting

  by Karen L. Willoughby, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of VBFNA

  SEATTLE (BP) -- In an apparent effort to better fulfill its purpose, the Vietnamese Baptist Fellowship of North America at its annual meeting moved to nearly double its budget.

  It is $56,000 this year; messengers voted to make it $100,000 for 2017.

  "We had much discussion about this," said Paul Cao, vice president of the Southern Baptist ethnic fellowship that was started in 1984. Cao also is pastor of Vietnamese Baptist Church in High Point, N.C. Read More

• YouTube testimonies pose risk for Moroccan Christians

  by Julia A. Seymour/WORLD News Service, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  MOROCCO (BP) -- In a new series of YouTube podcasts, Moroccan Christians are stepping out of the shadows, showing their faces, and telling their stories. Speaking to their countrymen, they proclaim themselves "Moroccan and Christian." Read More

• FIRST-PERSON: Suffering & endurance

  by Susie Hawkins, posted Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (8 years ago)

  A severe injury to her grandson's eye has given Susie Hawkins and her family a deepened awareness of the biblical truth in James 1:3-4 that "the testing of your faith produces endurance … so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." Read More