SBC Life Articles by Michael McCormack

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--When the NBA came to New Orleans for the All-Star break, thousands of eager recovery volunteers came as well.       One of those volunteers was Miami Heat All-Star Guard Dwyane Wade, who, in advance of the All-Star game, had heard of what the Baptist Crossroads Project is doing in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Southern Baptist seminaries aren’t known for their greenhouses. After all, growing plants in a controlled environment isn’t usually considered a core purpose for a theological institution. At New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, though, there’s another type of greenhouse aimed at cultivating church planters and missions-minded Christians for the 21st century. “Greenhouse” is a […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Answering 200 phone calls in a year isn’t hard to imagine. But for Michael Procella, an undergraduate student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s Leavell College, each call came with an eternal significance. Many of them had just heard a Billy Graham sermon or watched an evangelistic television program. When the toll-free number […]

More than two hundred volunteers from twelve states surrounded the piers and floor structure at 1800 Bartholomew Street in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward on June 11 to witness the wall-raising of the forty-first home to be built as part of the Baptist Crossroads Project. Construction on the new home marked the beginning of a […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary again set aside the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall to convey the love of God to a hurting city. For many students, that message of love was delivered through the pinging of hammers and the cranking of lawnmowers. And, like last year, evangelism teams scattered across the city […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Grass covers the lot where Elysian Fields Avenue Baptist Church building stood for nearly 50 years. Like thousands of structures in New Orleans, it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Even though the church building did not survive the Aug. 29, 2005, storm, members of Elysian Fields continue to impact the church’s community. Theirs […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Theological education is challenging enough. For many Korean students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS), though, theological education is harder still because it’s in a language not their own. But thanks to an expansion of the Korean language program offered at the seminary’s North Georgia hub, all that is changing. Seminary trustees […]

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--More than 200 volunteers from 12 states surrounded the piers and floor structure at 1800 Bartholomew Street in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward June 11 to witness the wall raising of the 41st home to be built as part of the Baptist Crossroads Project.       Construction on the new home marks the beginning of a new chapter in the partnership between New Orleans' Habitat for Humanity and the Baptist Crossroads Foundation. Initially, plans for the Baptist Crossroads Project included 40 homes in the Upper Ninth Ward. The initiative was the vision of David Crosby, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans.

ANGOLA, La. (BP)–Each graduating class of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary aptly may be called a “Katrina class” for the next several years: In one way or another, NOBTS students were all put to the test by the storm. The Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, home to the seminary’s first prison extension program, escaped the […]

PARCHMAN, Miss. (BP)–At Mississippi’s Parchman Penitentiary, 17 inmates and their families gathered in the prison’s visitation building to celebrate a first in the state’s prison system’s history -– a seminary graduation ceremony. Those 16 inmates made up the first graduating class of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s new Parchman extension center which began offering classes […]