Weekend Shootings, Alabama Church Growing in Missions & A New Day

Mass shootings don’t generally happen in affluent Highland Park, where a gunman killed seven and wounded 30 others gathered for a July 4th parade.

“That’s the last place that you would normally, and I say normally, expect stuff like that to occur,” said Rick Dorsey, administrative counsel chairperson with the Chicago Metro Baptist Association. “We’re living in a different time and a different era, and it could happen anywhere.”

Nor do such things generally happen in Allen, Ky., a community of 166 people where three policemen were shot dead and several others wounded trying to deliver a warrant to a private home.

“I think they were stunned. How could something like this happen in a small community like Allen?” Paul Badgett, a Kentucky Baptist Convention regional consultant, said of Allen Baptist Church where he is interim pastor.

Churches continue to play vital roles in Chicago and Allen, Kentucky where people are grieving the recent tragedies in those communities.

Lineville Baptist Church in Lineville, Alabama recently added another international ministry to its growing list of missions endeavors.

In addition to giving nearly 20 percent of their annual church budget to missions, the church is taking the next step as it adopts Luanda, Kenya, is the latest international outreach.

“I believe these types of opportunities only strengthen our awareness of the need to spread the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a global Gospel. These types of partnerships in cross-cultural contexts help us be at the tip of the Gospel spear,” said Pastor Ben Curlee.

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Speaking about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in a First-Person piece on Baptist Press, Southwestern Seminary President Adam W. Greenway and Land Center for Cultural Engagement Director Dan Darling write, “We believe this is the result of patient activism on the part of pro-life people as well as the advent of new technologies that have given multiple generations of Americans a window into the womb. And yet, as Christians, we come to this moment guided by the vision laid out in Scripture. The Book of Genesis tells us that every human life is “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26). There are no disposable humans in God’s economy. King David wrote poignantly in Psalm 139 how God “knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

They also write, “We also pray that this decision will not signal a new era of divisive and violent politics, but willingness for us to hear and listen to each other. We pray that the threats of violence against pregnancy resource centers and churches will not take place and if it does, will be met by swift law enforcement action. May we see even those who disagree with us as image-bearers of God.”