Dan Martin

GLORIETA, N.M. (BP)–The local church really is the hope of the world, Bill Hybels told more than 500 church leaders from 30 states at the first annual National Innovative Church Leadership Conference at Glorieta (N.M.) Baptist Conference Center, May 26-29.“Government does not have the solution to society’s problems,” said the pastor of suburban Chicago’s 16,000-member […]

TYLER, Texas (BP)–The salesman left Georgia in earlyDecember, intending to make one last sales trip beforeending his life in a motel room in Tyler, Texas. But instead of taking his life, he found it through adivine appointment with a nativity pageant at Pleasant HillBaptist Church. The salesman, Richard, told his story in a letter tothe […]

AUSTIN, Texas (BP)–The question has given rise to the oldest continuing controversy among Baptists, and particularly during the 150-year history of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Jesse Fletcher: Did Jesus die for everyone or for only a few? While enormously important to the future of Texas Baptists, the controversy over Calvinism “has been a relatively […]

ARLINGTON, Texas (BP)–Churches can flourish by linking adults and teens in meaningful relationships, youth ministry leader Richard Ross told youth leaders attending Baptist Youth Days at Six Flags over Texas amusement park. Ross, a Baptist Sunday School Board staff member associated with the True Love Waits teen abstinence campaign, said “churches which open the door […]

ARLINGTON, Texas (BP)–Churches can flourish by linking adults and teens in meaningful relationships, youth ministry leader Richard Ross told youth leaders attending Baptist Youth Days at Six Flags over Texas amusement park.Ross, a Baptist Sunday School Board staff member associated with the True Love Waits teen abstinence campaign, said “churches which open the door for […]

JARRELL, Texas (BP)–The few trees at Double Creek Estates left standing by the May 27 tornado that killed 27 people are beginning to grow leaves again. “I think it is a sign that life does go on,” said Kirk Dauphin, the Houston-area youth minister who led Day Camp and Teen Club activities the week of […]

GEORGETOWN, Texas (BP)–The five silver-gray caskets were lined end to end at the front of the auditorium of First Baptist Church, Georgetown, Texas. John and Paul were on one end. The 15-year-old twins were so identical it was easy to mix them up. They sang in the choir at First Baptist Church, Jarrell, and played […]

JARRELL, Texas (BP)–The bell in the squatty, square steeple at First Baptist Church, Jarrell, Texas, began clanging at 9:30 a.m. June 1, just as it does every Sunday morning, summoning the faithful. As the people gathered, the piano murmured comforting and familiar hymns which fill the heart and stir the soul: “Jesus is more than […]

JARRELL, Texas (BP)–There are as many stories as there are people in Jarrell, Texas. Some are tragic, like a family of five who were killed — a volunteer minister of music at First Baptist Church, his schoolteacher wife, their daughter and twin sons. Some are happy, like the people who were pulled from a cellar […]

JARRELL, Texas (BP)–Texas Baptists responded quickly to put their arms around victims of killer storms which obliterated a subdivision near Jarrell, killing at least 27, damaged the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, causing at least two deaths, and spread random violence across central Texas May 28. The most destructive tornado — said to be one […]