• Contact
  • Return to IBSA
  • Advertise Through Us
  • Subscribe
  • E-Reader

IBSA News

Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

  • Quick Links
    • E-Reader
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Resource
  • News
    • IBSA
    • SBC
    • Culture
    • Illinois Churches
  • Stories
    • Church Planting
    • Mission
  • In Focus
  • Columns
    • Nate Adams
    • Eric Reed
    • Meredith Flynn
    • Table Talk
    • Reporter’s Notebook
    • Encouraging Words

Ruth’s surrendered life

May 9, 2025 By Meredith Flynn

Ruth and Naomi

Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16). A few months after I moved to Illinois, I was assigned to […]

The flip side of a clean slate

January 21, 2025 By Meredith Flynn

Woman at the well

Happy New Year, Illinois Baptist readers! This year marks a pivot for the Brighter Day column. Over the next 12 months, we’ll examine the stories of 12 biblical women. We’ll let their life-changing encounters with God compel us to a fresh commitment to our own churches and communities. Speaking of community, the first woman in […]

Breaking the fourth wall

January 12, 2023 By Meredith Flynn

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 […]

During pandemic, IBSA stays connected through online gatherings

March 19, 2020 By Meredith Flynn

Luke Henry webinar

The first webinar in IBSA’s Church Helps series dropped March 19 to help church leaders navigate the Coronavirus pandemic. Church Helps is also the name of the webpage created to share resources and encouragement as churches seek to do the work of ministry in a uncertain times. The webinars will livestream at IBSA.org/church-helps on Tuesdays […]

Church destroyed in fire

August 7, 2018 By Meredith Flynn

For the second time in two weeks, an historic Southern Baptist church building in Marion County was damaged by fire. On July 15, the sanctuary of Zion Hill Baptist Church in Centralia was destroyed in a fire caused by a lightning strike. Read…

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 12
  • Next Page »

Featured Columns

SBC25 Dallas

7 BOLOs for the Dallas Convention

Eric Reed

If the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Dallas June 10-11 proves to be a rowdy rodeo, we will “be on the lookout” for these issues. 1. The long arm of the Law Amendment. The open letter to SBC churches on a method to resurrect the Law Amendment virtually guarantees that someone will try it. Asked […]

Nate Adams

Between summits

Nate Adams

Those who know me or who have been reading this column for a while know that I am on a bit of a quest to climb as many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains as possible. My oldest son, Caleb, and I have summited 37 “fourteeners” together, some with other family members. My wife, Beth, would be […]

Turning volunteers’ no’s into enthusiastic yes’s

Daniel Kim

In the third week of my internship, I was assigned to tear down chairs and tables after an event in our gym. Coming from a smaller church, I assumed I could handle it on my own—until I saw eight tables and 150 chairs that needed to be cleared. After three grueling hours, one thought kept […]

More Columns

SBC 2025: Back where we started

Illinois Baptist Staff

Dallas | Messengers to the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Dallas June 10-11 arrived at the probability that motions from the floor on women and the pastorate, financial transparency, and the fate of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission would dominate the discussion. In the business sessions, they did. But in the end, […]

News

Pressley reelected

SBC: New and familiar faces elected

Lisa Misner

Dallas | Clint Pressley was reelected to a second one-year term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention on the first day of the Annual Meeting in Dallas June 10. And his new first vice president is an evangelist familiar to many because of triumph over significant disabilities. One candidate elected without opposition was presented […]

Jennifer Lyell dies after brief illness

HLGU opposes mandate

More News Stories

Mission

“While we have not yet arrived at the destination we envision, I believe we are clearly headed in the right direction,” said IMB President Paul Chitwood to trustees in the May 22 plenary session. IMB Photo

IMB trustees appoint new missionaries, elect first woman chair

Leslie Caldwell

Richmond | International Mission Board trustees approved 65 fully funded missionaries for appointment during their May 21-22 meeting near Richmond, Virginia. The missionaries approved for appointment will be recognized during a Sending Celebration on Tuesday, June 10, at 10:08 a.m. CDT in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas. The event will […]

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

Sallateeska baptism demonstrates SBC connections

More Mission Stories

  • News
  • Mission
  • In Focus
  • Columns

Copyright © 2025 · Website by Megaphone Designs