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Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

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Eric Reed

The waiting game

September 1, 2022 By Eric Reed

The waiting game

One of Mr. Rogers’s songs comes to mind: “Something to do While We’re Waiting.” The announcement that the Department of Justice is investigating the Southern Baptist Convention came with no reference to a timetable. It was the SBC Executive Committee that said DOJ had subpoenaed records pertaining to their handling of sexual abuse allegations. DOJ […]

What can we say about Uvalde? 

May 25, 2022 By Eric Reed

Uvalde, Texas

If Greg Zanis hadn’t died in 2020, he would be headed to Uvalde, Texas right now. Or Buffalo, New York. Or Laguna Woods, California. The Aurora, Illinois carpenter built crosses to place at the sites of mass shootings, each with red heart and the name of a victim on it. I first noticed 15 crosses […]

Missionaries report tragic acts of war, then and now

April 8, 2022 By Eric Reed

This copy of the Illinois Baptist from January 1942 was unearthed in a recent renovation of the IBSA archives. An eyewitness account of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by a Southern Baptist leader on the scene echoes the stories from IMB missionaries in Ukraine today.

Sunday, December 7, 1941: Charles Maddry was preparing for three worship services that morning with the fifteen missionaries serving through the Hawaiian Baptist Mission. Dr. Maddry was head of Southern Baptists’ Foreign Mission Board. He was in Honolulu for a three-day conference to plan missions on the islands. “My room in the hotel looked out […]

Do I dare declare judgment?

September 8, 2021 By Eric Reed

Remembering 9-11

The recent collapse of a condo building near Miami and weeks of searching through 22 million pounds of rubble for 97 victims took me back. I couldn’t break away from the coverage. And it reminded me of a question I’ve been asked after several catastrophes. In November 2001, I visited New York City. I was […]

Two scoops of courage

June 10, 2021 By Eric Reed

A friend of mine opened an ice cream shop in May. She dreamed a dream, a big dream, and made it happen during a pandemic. She wrestled with construction, permitting, sourcing, bidding, hiring, marketing, and taste-testing. She cultivated relationships with local officials, churn experts, shop owners, potential staff, and her community. No one told her […]

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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 […]

The force is with us

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 […]

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Tomorrow’s leaders need mentors

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

More News Stories

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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