In the Witness this week

IMB photo by Bill Bangham

Cindy Wiles, pastor’s wife from First Baptist Church, Arlington, Texas, leads a session on her church’s partnering efforts to reach a West Africa people group during the West Africa Summit at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa March 23.

Turning out lights shows spiritual darkness
West Africa Summit gives Southern Baptist churches strategic opportunity
Published April 6, 2006

TAMPA (BP)–With every light in the auditorium of Idlewild Baptist Church turned out, Pastor Ken Whitten told participants of the West Africa Summit that the physical darkness of the room could not compare with the spiritual darkness of West Africa.

Missionary parents humbly embrace ‘honorable calling’
Published April 6, 2006

MARIANNA (FBW)–Moving her hands, head, shoulders and face in a rhythm her mother well understood, Vesta Sauter remembers the moment 10 years ago when she told her mother she would be leaving Texas to become a missionary to the Deaf peoples in Eastern Europe.

Blind missionary guides to Christ
Annie Armstrong Easter Offering
Published April 6, 2006

LANSING, Mich. (NAMB)–Larry Woods’ job would be so much easier in Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa or Baton Rouge.

Opinion

Editorial

Florida Baptist Witness before the Florida Supreme Court – and why it matters to you
JAMES A SMITH SR.
Executive Editor

It’s not often that this newspaper becomes part of a story.

Point of View

The Cooperative Program and the Kingdom of God

If you are a Southern Baptist what do you need to know about the Cooperative Program? Is it merely a way to support the denomination, or is it a relevant, viable process that makes a difference in people’s lives beginning where you live and extending around the world?

Common mistakes in congregational church government
ALAN BRANCH
Baptist Press

I celebrate congregational ecclesiology. However, what many Baptist churches claim as a Biblical ecclesiology is merely a flawed model they have practiced for a long time and have “baptized” in Christian terminology. While many churches claim to practice a New Testament model, they in fact practice a dysfunctional imitation of the real thing.

BREAKPOINT: Following the money: Embryonic stem cells & big bucks
CHARLES COLSON
Breakpoint

Last week, the South Korean government revoked the license of scientist Hwang Woo-Suk. The revocation followed revelations that Hwang, whose claimed breakthroughs in cloning made him a national hero, had fabricated his data. Hwang is now barred from “cloning or receiving human eggs for stem cell research.”

The dying American church
THOM S. RAINER
Baptist Press

I am by nature an optimist. I have seen the hand of God too often in my life to live in a state of despair and defeatism. But the state of evangelism in the American church is such that I do have my moments when I wonder if the church is headed down the path of many European congregations: decline and death.

Florida

Florida News

Turning out lights shows spiritual darkness
West Africa Summit gives Southern Baptist churches strategic opportunity

TAMPA (BP)–With every light in the auditorium of Idlewild Baptist Church turned out, Pastor Ken Whitten told participants of the West Africa Summit that the physical darkness of the room could not compare with the spiritual darkness of West Africa.

Missionary parents humbly embrace ‘honorable calling’

MARIANNA (FBW)–Moving her hands, head, shoulders and face in a rhythm her mother well understood, Vesta Sauter remembers the moment 10 years ago when she told her mother she would be leaving Texas to become a missionary to the Deaf peoples in Eastern Europe.

McDonnall says a call for water led to sacrificed lives

MARIANNA (FBW)–She never heard the soft prayers of the soldiers who stopped to pray at her hospital room door or felt her mother’s tender hand on her forehead while she laid in a drug-induced coma for eight days, but Carrie McDonnall won’t ever forget the urgency of the call to provide water to some Iraqi families.

Victim’s parents find strength in God’s ‘permissive will’

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)–When violence crushed Jacksonville nursing student Sarah Whitlock’s longtime goal of serving in medical missions and ministering to South America’s needy, parents Gary and Paula could not be found shaking fists to heaven or grumbling to God.

CORRECTIONS

Florida News Briefs

VBS summer missionaries needed

May 6 Sunday School conference set

Florida ‘gay marriage’ suit withdrawn

National

Missions News

Five missionaries named top church planters for NAMB

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Five North American Mission Board missionaries have been named “Church Planting Missionaries of the Year” for their work in starting new Southern Baptist churches last year.

National News Briefs

Akin to nominate Durham pastor as SBC second vice president

WAKE FOREST, NC (SEBTS)–Daniel L. Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, announced today that he will nominate Pastor J.D. Greear for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the upcoming annual meeting June 13-14 in Greensboro, N.C.

Features

Terri Schiavo: One Year Later

One year later: Terri’s legacy survives

ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)–It was a painful time for the Schindler family.

PATRICIA ANDERSON: Schindler attorney, 2001-2004, the case strengthened her faith, changed her mind on abortion

ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)-In her first interview since last year’s controversial dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, Pat Anderson, a long-time attorney in St. Petersburg who worked on the case for more than three years, told Florida Baptist Witness in late March she felt like she was “dropped into boiling oil,” when she entered the case in 2001 in the midst of an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

DAVID GIBBS III: Telling the behind the scenes story of the final days of Terri’s life

SEMINOLE (FBW)–Attorney David Gibbs III, nearly a year after the dehydration of Terri Schiavo, is telling audiences who will listen about his part in the so-called “right-to-die” case that shook a nation and caused many to look at the way the disabled are treated in America.

Family forms the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation

ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)–Pledging to work on behalf of the disabled, elderly and other vulnerable citizens, against care rationing, euthanasia and medical killing, members of Terri Schiavo’s family will through the foundation work to educate the public on guardianship and state laws concerning death by dehydration and starvation.

Where are they now?

ST. PETERSURG (FBW)-March 31, 2005 Terri Schiavo died after Judge George W. Greer, at the request of Terri's husband, Michael, on March 18, 2005 issued a final judgement in the controversial and highly ligitated case (see related stories). For 13 days, nutrition and hydration was withheld from Terri Schiavo and she died of marked dehydration. George Felos, a prominent "right-to-die" attorney from St. Petersburg represented Michael Schiavo in the case.

Annie Armstrong Offering

Blind missionary guides to Christ
Annie Armstrong Easter Offering

LANSING, Mich. (NAMB)–Larry Woods’ job would be so much easier in Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa or Baton Rouge.

Media Montage

Another use for duct tape: Dreams of drums come true
Christian band seeks to share with people in all arenas of life

CLEARWATER (FBW)–Six years ago Greg Smith decided to stop envying the “jocks” of his middle-school band – members of the percussion section – and join them instead.

Life’s journey leads two brothers to paths Homeward Bound

CLEARWATER (FBW)–The title track of Among the Thirsty’s CD, Homeward Bound, has a double meaning for the Henderson family. Two of the Henderson brothers came home in the last year, one from military service in Kuwait, the other from a life of excess in Nashville.

Bible Study

Family Bible Study

April 16: You Have A Risen Lord
Luke 24:5b-8, 36-48

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

April 23: You Have A Mission
Acts 1:1-14

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

Explore the Bible

April 16: Do You Share the Good News?
Matthew 28:1–20

Troy Bush is the minister of evangelism and missions at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola.

April 23: Take Comfort in God’s Strength
Isaiah 40:1–43:28

Troy Bush is the minister of evangelism and missions at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola.