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Table Talk

First Person: Two years after the Maui fires

August 8, 2025 By Craig Webb

SBC Disaster Relief volunteers

Editors note: John and Gay Williams, Hawaii Pacific Baptist Disaster Relief co-directors, are former Illinois Baptists from Granite City where they met in high school and married at Grace Baptist Church. Gay was an Acteen who attended camp at Lake Sallateeska and Streator Baptist Camps. On August 8, 2025, we mark the second anniversary of […]

Where is God when it hurts?

July 13, 2025 By Tony Martin

NBC News Screenshot

This isn’t one of those pieces that ties everything up in a neat spiritual bow. It’s not filled with pat answers or hollow clichés. It’s born out of pain, prayer and the unshakable truth that — even in the flood — God is still present. The recent flooding in Texas has left so many of […]

Navigating a season of change

July 8, 2025 By Doug Munton

Doug Munton

Nothing is scarier than change. (Well, maybe spiders are scarier, but I digress.) But here is the reality we face. Change is happening all the time, whether we like it or not. The real issue isn’t whether things will change, but how we deal with the change that is inevitable. So, let’s talk about navigating […]

Turning volunteers’ no’s into enthusiastic yes’s

May 23, 2025 By Daniel Kim

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 […]

Watching for Baptist smoke

May 7, 2025 By Eric Reed

Black smoke

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 […]

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Featured Columns

Carmen Halsey-Menghini

What if leadership isn’t the main issue?

Carmen Halsey-Menghini

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on something Henry Blackaby said: “The church doesn’t have a leadership problem; it has a discipleship problem.” I’ve found myself thinking about that, especially when talking with pastors of smaller churches who are discouraged because they don’t see enough people stepping into leadership roles. What if the question isn’t “Why aren’t […]

5 things bivocational pastors wish you knew

Will Dole

If you had told me 15 years ago that I would be a bivocational pastor today, it’s doubtful I would’ve believed you. At the time, I was working—bivocationally—with a small parachurch ministry and desperately hoping to be fully funded so I could focus on ministry. It was around that point that a friend asked me: […]

25 years after 9/11: A lot has changed. And not much.

Eric Reed

By the time you read this, many people will be talking about where they were when the Twin Towers fell 25 years ago. Bells will toll. Long lists of names will be read. We will remember, and never forget. The realization that its anniversary is upon us raises the question— Has anything really changed since […]

More Columns

GuideStone, ERLC applaud Senate’s passage of Clergy Act

Roy Hayhurst

Dallas | The U.S. Senate passed the Clergy Act Wednesday (Sept. 30), which sends the legislation to President Donald Trump for consideration. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the act in April. GuideStone Financial Resources applauded passage of the bipartisan bill that would provide eligible ministers who previously opted out of Social Security with a […]

News

Gen One

Moms reconnect at Super Summer—because their kids are attending

Kayla Houchin

Greenville | Marie Swegle and Stephanie Simmons have been serving alongside each other at Super Summer for several years. They didn’t recognize each other at first. “You get older, people change,” Swegle said. “I had no idea who she was when we first started serving.” After Simmons found a picture of her and Swegle during […]

Prayer tours the Mother Road

Sexual abuse, doctrinal fidelity, transparency, highlight Rice’s first EC address

More News Stories

Mission

World Cup scores for digital witness

Illinois Baptist Staff

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup roared to a close and Spain left holding the trophy, Southern Baptist churches and missionaries around the world prayed for impact that outlasts the hardware. Southern Baptists mission boards joined churches and associations in digital and in-person outreach, as North America hosted the World Cup for the first time […]

IMB trustees appoint new missionaries, elect first woman chair

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

More Mission Stories

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