News Articles by Butch Blume

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP) -- Gathering under the banner of "Unite," messengers to the 197th annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention sang, prayed, conducted business and fanned out across the city of Columbia for a "One Day" missions and evangelism effort. Keith Shorter, SCBC president and pastor of Mt. Airy Baptist Church in Easley, opened the Tuesday morning session of the Nov. 7-8 meeting by encouraging Christ's followers to unite as one "so that … a lost and divided world may believe that God sent [Jesus]."

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP) -- Churches were urged to "launch out" and spread the Gospel as messengers gathered for the South Carolina Baptist Convention annual meeting Nov. 15–16 at Riverland Hills Baptist Church outside Columbia. "'Launch Out' is not a suggestion, it is a command from our Lord," 2016 convention President Tom Tucker told messengers at the outset of the SCBC's 196th annual meeting, taking his inspiration from Luke 5, where Jesus said to Peter, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a great catch." "We're sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time," Tucker said, invoking a popular song from the 1960s. "We're told to launch out and tell someone that Jesus loves them. If you are saved, you've got a story."

LANCASTER, S.C. (BP) -- Imagine quitting your job, putting your roomy home up for sale, paring down your possessions by way of a yard sale, saying goodbye to family and friends, and moving your family nearly two hours away to set up housekeeping in a singlewide in the middle of a crime-plagued trailer park. Grant and Amber Hinson can't imagine doing anything else.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP) -- South Carolina Baptists passed resolutions addressing an array of societal ills and challenges facing the church at their 194th annual meeting, affirming biblical marriage, the protection of victims of abuse and neglect, and religious freedom at home and abroad.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (BP) — Don Kirkland, editor and president of The Baptist Courier for the last 16 years, has announced he will retire from the South Carolina Baptist paper at the end of 2012. Kirkland, addressing the Courier board of trustees’ biannual meeting March 2, said when he was asked in 1974 to join the […]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP) -- Messengers to the 191st annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention overwhelmingly approved the report of the state convention's Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Nov. 15.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP)–The South Carolina Baptist Convention has adopted a 2011 operating budget of $29.54 million that increases the percentage of funds to be forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention. The convention also authorized the creation of a task force to chart South Carolina’s response to challenges related to the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force […]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP)–South Carolina Baptist Convention messengers adopted a streamlined budget during their Nov. 10-11 annual meeting; weighed in on legislative issues ranging from health care reform to legalized gambling; and elected a president who says the denomination “is not going to be the way it used to be.” Before the meeting adjourned at noon […]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP)--Pastors are accustomed to getting phone calls in the middle of the night. But when Steve Hendricks, pastor of Graniteville First Baptist Church (S.C.), answered a call at 3 a.m. on Jan. 6, he was not prepared for what he heard.