IBSA News

Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

I’m racist–but not like you think

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Some of the earliest conversations I remember about the Civil Rights movement were happening above my head in my grandmother’s beauty shop. But while the shampoo-and-set ladies were still sputtering about the Freedom Riders, my first-grade class was being integrated. As I remember it, none of us six-year-olds had a problem with Beverly or Geneva […]

IBSA Annual Meeting shortened, moved to Tabernacle, Decatur

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Springfield | The IBSA Board voted to move the 2020 Annual Meeting and shorten the event to one day to accommodate concerns presented by the Coronavirus pandemic. The meeting will be Wednesday, November 4, at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Decatur. There will be no exhibit hall or ancillary meetings. Leaders of the IBSA Pastors’ Conference […]

SBC 2020: Put a lid on it

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Remember The Year Without a Santa Claus? Santa woke up with a cold in the 1974 animated special, so he took his doctor’s advice to go on a December vacation. By the end of the show, however, Santa was back on the job in the nick of time, because no one could imagine a year […]

The gift of uncertainty

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We Baptists are a certain people. We are sure about our theology. We are sure about our ecclesiology. We are sure about the way we do things, or we’d belong to some other denomination, Baptists are fond of saying. As we have it all right, there’s no need to switch. But in the COVID season, […]

Take care of yourself, pastor

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The Sesame Street producers posted a video of Elmo’s father, another fluffy reddish monster of some kind, urging parents during the confinement to take moments for themselves. “Breathe,” he said, even while Elmo called “Daddy, daddy, come here” a half dozen times off screen. Elmo, always age three, needs lots of attention. So do churches. […]