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Columns

The Home Stretch

April 1, 2025 By Nate Adams

Nate Adams

When I played basketball in college, our coach expected everyone on the team to come to the start of the season with a certain level of personal conditioning. For example, before anyone could attend his first practice in the fall, he had to demonstrate that he could run a mile in five and half minutes, […]

Heart of the matter

March 28, 2025 By Meredith Flynn

When our girls were younger, The Jesus Storybook Bible was our bedtime reading on most nights. And the story they often chose was “The Girl No One Wanted,” about Jacob’s lesser-loved wife Leah and her long struggle to be valued. In this version of the story, Sally Lloyd-Jones uses modern language to describe the differences […]

There’s more than one way to grow your ministry

March 24, 2025 By Bryan Price

Coffee shop

One of the top requests that churches in Illinois ask of our state convention is “Help us grow our church.” As a pastor myself, I want to offer some clarifying versions of that request. First, “Can you help us be the church in our context with the resources that we have?” Here in the metro […]

New signs of the times

March 21, 2025 By Eric Reed

Liam Morrison

Several years ago, I asked our graphic designer to help me with a project. There was such a proliferation of pronouns at the time that I wanted him to take all the new ones and make a word cloud of them. There were 15 on the list. I planned to use the cloud with a […]

John 3:16: The Gospel in a nutshell

March 11, 2025 By Bob Burton

3:16 on 3/16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 NKJV) There is an abundance to search out concerning this well-known verse. Martin Luther described it as “the Gospel in miniature.” If you were to stay in a hotel […]

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Featured Columns

Gerald and Betty Steffy

We need more like them

Brent Cloyd

When Gerald and Betty Steffy came to Fairfield in August 1959, the couple were in their mid-twenties.  Gerald had just completed his theological training, and he was called to serve North Side Baptist Church. Gerald and Betty served churches in Illinois well into their eighties. Gerald died in September 2022, and Betty just a few […]

Ruth and Naomi

Ruth’s surrendered life

Meredith Flynn

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 […]

Watching for Baptist smoke

Eric Reed

While the world waited in St. Peter’s Square, watching a nondescript stove pipe protruding from the roof of the Vatican, I was recalling the smoke jokes at the church where I have served as interim pastor. And I’m thinking about our own Baptist conclave coming soon. In Rome, three rounds of black smoke from the […]

More Columns

9 tips for life on mission: Retired missionaries offer advice for next generation

Sue Sprenkle

The 20-something held up a fistful of letters. Inside the old-fashioned style of communication were words of encouragement and advice for the new International Mission Board missionary.  The letters reaffirmed words Zoe Hill heard countless times in person at First Baptist Church Columbia, Mississippi, from retired IMB missionaries Tom and Gloria Thurman:  1. The call […]

News

Victoria Awbrey

Awbrey named to SBC’s Dallas Team

Illinois Baptist Staff

Victoria Awbrey returns to the Registration Committee for the 2025 Annual Meeting in June. She was one of 26 members appointed by SBC President Clint Pressley. The registration committee is called “to supervise the registration of messengers, to oversee the operations of the registration desk, and to rule upon any questions which may arise in […]

Hunt trial on hold for now

‘To preserve unity’ S.C. megachurch withdraws

More News Stories

Mission

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

Ben Jones

Pastors and church leaders from around the Metro East area gathered in Collinsville May 17, 2023 for the second Multiply Illinois Hub. These quarterly regional events are designed to encourage and equip those interested in church multiplication. Heights Community Church, planted in 2016, hosted the gathering in their newly renovated home. With the St. Louis […]

Sallateeska baptism demonstrates SBC connections

A first-time ministry to migrant workers is very fruitful

More Mission Stories

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