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Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

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Life advocates prepare for new challenges in post-Roe Illinois

January 4, 2023 By Meredith Flynn

Wonderfully made

“Pregnant? We will help!” The blue and white billboard for First Step Women’s Center towers over a major thoroughfare in Springfield, designed to reach women in the state’s capital who are facing an unplanned pregnancy. The ad is also for out-of-staters who may be seeking an abortion in Illinois, home to the most permissive abortion […]

The force is with us

December 13, 2022 By Meredith Flynn

Meredith Flynn

Our family’s recent Covid quarantine finally provided my husband an opportunity to introduce our daughters to Star Wars. Over several days, they dug into the space saga until we were all well-steeped in the story of good versus evil. A few days later, we were rushing around the house scrambling to leave for a much-needed […]

Ministers’ wives told ‘lean in and let go’

November 2, 2022 By Meredith Flynn

IBSA Ministers’ Wives luncheon

Jacki King opened her message on resilience by defining what it isn’t. “When we think resilience, we don’t need to be thinking we’re just going to barrel through, pull up our bootstraps, and make it through,” King told IBSA ministers’ wives meeting at Metro Community Church. “Instead, it really is leaning in, letting go, and […]

My audience with the Queen

September 8, 2022 By Meredith Flynn

My audience with the Queen

“Would you like to meet her?” The guard at Westminster Abbey approached our group of bedraggled college students waiting for a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth. I imagine our eloquent answer was something like, “Um…OK!” before we ran down the sidewalk to grab a bouquet of yellow daffodils from a train station. (Yellow flowers are her […]

My weepy witness

September 8, 2022 By Meredith Flynn

I was horrified at the tears filling my eyes. It was the last day of Vacation Bible School at Chatham Baptist Church and I had stopped on our way out to thank my daughter’s teacher. But what I’d intended as a breezy thank-you turned awkward as I was hit with the full weight of my […]

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Featured Columns

Meredith Flynn

Breaking the fourth wall

Meredith Flynn

A recent study by Barna had good news and bad news for increasingly polarized Americans. More than 90% of U.S. adults say they welcome different ways of thinking about important topics. But 51% also say their ideas are usually better than other people’s ideas, up from 31% who said so in 2015. And 36% say […]

Nate Adams

Grateful words

Nate Adams

Recently Beth and I joined a group of Baptist pastors and leaders and their spouses for a tour of biblical sites in Greece. For a week we followed the footsteps of Paul from Philippi, through Thessaloniki and Berea, and on to the ancient world crossroads of Athens and Corinth. It would be difficult to briefly […]

‘Respect’ and the marriage law we strongly oppose

Michael Nave

Here’s another moment when we feel like Dorothy, convinced she’s not in Kansas anymore. We might say, “I’ve a feeling this is not the world it used to be, and I don’t like it!” This time it is passage of The Respect for Marriage Act by the U.S. Congress. It sure feels like another “nail […]

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What happens when church leaders encourage mentoring relationships with their team members

Ben Jones

If the church is going to have leaders tomorrow, it’s going to take a new wave of mentoring from existing leadership today. This reality drove organizers of the 2023 Illinois Leadership Summit (ILS) to ask those coming to the annual event, “Which younger leader will you bring with you?” The evidence that many pastors took […]

News

Miles Mullin

ERLC trustees elect Mullin as chief of staff

ERLC Staff

Veteran Southern Baptist academic Miles Mullin is the new chief of staff and vice president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. The ERLC’s trustees elected Mullin unanimously upon the recommendation of Brent Leatherwood, the commission’s president, in a special called meeting Thursday (Jan. 26). Mullin became the first addition to the ERLC’s senior staff […]

Why gambling is getting riskier in Illinois

Security training offered March 11

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Mission

Sallateeska baptism demonstrates SBC connections

Baptist Press

(Ed. Note—In our July issue, we reported that Illinois’s very own Sandy Wisdom-Martin told the story of her brother’s recent baptism during her WMU presentation at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Anaheim. We thought we you would appreciate this longer account that shows God’s fingerprints through multiple SBC connections. It’s too good to miss.) […]

A first-time ministry to migrant workers is very fruitful

FIRST-PERSON: A once-feared tribe now spreads the Gospel

More Mission Stories

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