by | Jul 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
Decline in children’s music ministries bodes ill for future, scholar says.
Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) music ministries seemed like they were thriving in 1938. The instruments in churches across the denomination were valued at more than $10 million (the equivalent of nearly $217 million today). Fanny Crosby was the most popular songwriter. And vocal quartets, especially male quartets, were in great demand.
But as the Sunday School Board of the SBC surveyed more than 1,000 churches that year, it noticed one dire problem. The SBC was facing a shortage of qualified music ministers.
“We must point out,” the board wrote, “the greatest single need for a program of better music in Southern Baptist churches—the desperate need for well-trained choir leaders in the churches.”
Eighty-five years later, some things haven’t changed.
“There just aren’t enough people out there to serve as worship leaders,” said Will Bishop, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Bishop is the author of the first large-scale study of music in SBC churches in nearly 100 years. “A Snapshot of Southern Baptist Church Music: 2022,” as yet unpublished, surveyed 127 congregations across the country, asking them 111 questions about the music in their worship services.
Bishop’s work differs from the last big study of SBC music in scope and size. The 1938 survey had 1,381 respondents (out of 28,844 SBC churches) and asked each of them 24 questions. It focused on practical concerns like the total monetary value of the instruments in each church, the church budget for paying musicians and purchasing sheet music, the makeup of church musical ensembles, whether the choir was robed, and the use of mimeographed bulletins.
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by | Jul 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
Decline in children’s music ministries bodes ill for future, scholar says.
Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) music ministries seemed like they were thriving in 1938. The instruments in churches across the denomination were valued at more than $10 million (the equivalent of nearly $217 million today). Fanny Crosby was the most popular songwriter. And vocal quartets, especially male quartets, were in great demand.
But as the Sunday School Board of the SBC surveyed more than 1,000 churches that year, it noticed one dire problem. The SBC was facing a shortage of qualified music ministers.
“We must point out,” the board wrote, “the greatest single need for a program of better music in Southern Baptist churches—the desperate need for well-trained choir leaders in the churches.”
Eighty-five years later, some things haven’t changed.
“There just aren’t enough people out there to serve as worship leaders,” said Will Bishop, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Bishop is the author of the first large-scale study of music in SBC churches in nearly 100 years. “A Snapshot of Southern Baptist Church Music: 2022,” as yet unpublished, surveyed 127 congregations across the country, asking them 111 questions about the music in their worship services.
Bishop’s work differs from the last big study of SBC music in scope and size. The 1938 survey had 1,381 respondents (out of 28,844 SBC churches) and asked each of them 24 questions. It focused on practical concerns like the total monetary value of the instruments in each church, the church budget for paying musicians and purchasing sheet music, the makeup of church musical ensembles, whether the choir was robed, and the use of mimeographed bulletins.
Continue reading…
by | Jul 10, 2023 | Uncategorized
Letter from the denomination’s National African American Fellowship says vote on Saddleback and Fern Creek could “disproportionately impact” minority congregations.
Earlier this year, Southern Baptists expelled five churches from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination for having women as pastors.
Now, the leader of a fellowship of African American Southern Baptist pastors wonders if their churches will be next.
In a letter last week, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s National African American Fellowship asked to meet with the denomination’s president, saying the SBC’s recent decisions to expel churches with women pastors had caused “division within the SBC and may disproportionately impact NAAF affiliated congregations.”
“Many of our churches assign the title ‘pastor’ to women who oversee ministries of the church under the authority of a male Senior Pastor, i.e., Children’s Pastor, Worship Pastor, Discipleship Pastor, etc.,” wrote the Rev. Gregory Perkins, pastor of The View Church in Menifee, California, and president of the NAAF.
He also said a proposed amendment to the SBC’s constitution to bar churches with women pastors violated the autonomy of local churches—a vital Baptist belief.
During the recent SBC annual meeting, local church delegates, known as messengers, voted to affirm the decision to expel Saddleback Church in Southern California—one of the denomination’s largest churches—and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville. Those two churches had appealed an earlier decision made by the SBC’s Executive Committee that they were no longer in “friendly cooperation” with the convention.
Three other expelled churches—including two predominantly Black churches where women had succeeded their late husbands as pastors—did not appeal.
Messengers …
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by | Jul 10, 2023 | Uncategorized
The government detained Lazare Sebitereko Rukundwa in June and is holding him without charges.
The Congolese government is holding a Christian leader in prison and not releasing any information about where he is or what he’s charged with. Lazare Sebitereko Rukundwa does not have access to medication, and the Red Cross has not been allowed to see him, according to several people close to the situation.
Rukundwa’s arrest came after a United Nations report stated he led a campaign encouraging people from his ethnic group to take up arms. He has long been an advocate for peace in the region and categorically denies the report, which he says is based on a false accusation.
“It’s obvious that this group of UN experts have made an error by its informants with malicious intentions aimed at tarnishing my name and endangering my life,” he wrote in a statement. “Sharing false information is a weapon that destroys innocent lives.”
After a previous arrest, Rukundwa was released for lack of any evidence to substantiate the allegations. But some officials complained, and he was arrested again.
Rukundwa is president of Eben-Ezer University of Minembwe and has dedicated his life to education, development, and empowering churches in Eastern Congo. He played a critical role in bringing solar power to the region.
“Lazare is among few people in those mountains who is respected and loved across the tribal lines, even from communities in constant conflicts and fighting,” says his friend of 25 years, Freddy Kaniki.
CT Global managing editor Morgan Lee spoke with him before his arrest about the challenges currently facing Christians in Congo and the hope he holds for change.
How have your life and work been impacted by the persistent unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
More than 80 percent …
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by | Jul 7, 2023 | Uncategorized
Rebekah Naylor, 79, is stepping down from International Mission Board.
The first time she retired, in 2002, Dr. Rebekah Naylor, a longtime missionary surgeon, came home to Texas after 35 years in India to care for her mother, who was ailing.
Along with doing that, she joined the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where she taught surgery for eight years. She later became a consultant for Southern Baptist global relief and development work, taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and helped her church start a health clinic in Fort Worth, Texas.
This fall, the 79-year-old Naylor will retire again, stepping down from her role at the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, where she’s helped promote medical missions around the world.
Now, for the first time in 50 years, she plans to take a proper break.
Not bad for someone who, as a teenager, never wanted to leave home and who was overwhelmed when she felt God’s calling on her life.
“Even going to college seemed like a mountain to me,” said Naylor in a recent interview, looking back over her career. “So how could I be a medical missionary?”
But once she makes up her mind—especially about something she believes God wants her to do—almost nothing stands in her way. That combination of faith and tenacity has served her well. Following that call to missions, Naylor, the daughter of a Baptist preacher turned beloved seminary president, graduated from Baylor University, then went to medical school at Vanderbilt, where she was told that women were not welcome in surgery.
But a missionary surgeon in Thailand, whom she met while visiting that country as a medical student, believed in her. While the faculty at the medical school thought her …
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