Keahbone Ministers to Survivors, Religious Liberty Victories & Lessons Learned from Migraines

Mike Keahbone, pastor of First Baptist Church Lawton, Okla., not only played a crucial role in drafting a resolution decrying the forced conversion of Native peoples, but he has already begun to use the resolution as a way to minister to survivors.

Keahbone, a Native American with heritage from the Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee tribes, served on this year’s SBC Resolutions Committee and helped write the resolution titled, “On Religious Liberty, Forced Conversion, and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report,” which was adopted by SBC messengers in June.

July 9, Keahbone read the resolution from the platform at a “Road to Healing” tour event sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior in conjunction with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who attended the event, is the first Indigenous person to serve in a presidential cabinet position.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the U.S. Supreme Court not only rightly ruled in the Dobbs decision to change the landscape of abortion but also made two giant leaps for religious liberty during its most recent term.

McConnell, speaking to colleagues in the Senate on Monday, July 11, said the Supreme Court’s term was its greatest in almost 70 years, since Brown overturned Plessy in 1954.

On July 12, McConnell addressed religious liberty victories saying they shored up Americans’ First Amendment rights to worship and raise their family as they choose. He said the work of the high court also protected faith-based organizations from the overreach of the government.

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In a First Person on Baptist Press, Michael Visy, pastor of Grace Church in Hewitt, Texas says chronic migraines have taught him to embrace something well-known preacher Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon said, “I’ve learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the rock of ages.”

Visy says he’s suffered from almost non-stop migraine headaches for eight months.

He says he’s learning to share his burdens, prioritize life according to his limitations and give patience.

He writes, “I’ve always known that patience is learned through tribulation (Romans 5; James 1). But this time, my lesson was not only in the patience I needed to receive, but also in the patience I needed to give. Those two are tied: I could not patiently parent a tired toddler without God’s patience. Because I cannot give what I don’t have, I depended daily on God’s provision for grace, patience and love. God is still teaching me these principles. But as I continue to behold the cross of Jesus Christ, not only am I learning great lessons for my life, but I’m also finding great rest for my weary soul.