Southern Baptist Convention Passes Resolutions in Response to #MeToo

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The Southern Baptist Convention officially acknowledged its come-to-Jesus moment by passing resolutions at its annual meeting on Tuesday (6/12). All this coming as leaders of America’s largest Protestant denomination aim for better responses to sexism and abuse.The #MeToo movement's spotlight on sexism and abuse, which began as revelations in the entertainment industry, now includes a sharp focus on the Christian community as a whole.Among the 16 resolutions passed by the SBC delegation in Dallas were measures acknowledging women’s involvement in the SBC, condemning abuse, and upholding the dignity of ministers, Christianity Today reported.Although the resolutions addressed women and the climate of sexual misconduct, they did not contain the exact language proposed by Jason K. Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. CT said that the adopted resolutions similarly stated:We deplore, apologize, and ask forgiveness for failures to protect the abused, failures that have occurred in evangelical churches and ministries, including such failures within our own denomination.Biblical headship blesses, honors, and protects wives and children and does not require them to submit to sin or to abuse.We call upon pastors, ministry leaders, entity leaders, and denominational representatives to pursue moral and sexual purity in all relationships before God and with others and to guard their life and doctrine scrupulously.“Especially as we reel from events of recent days, the value of women inside the SBC needs to be proclaimed from the biggest stages we’ve got,” Sarah Short, who’s attending the meeting from the Summit Church in North Carolina (Her pastor, J. D. Greear was elected SBC president, also on Tuesday), told CT. “Our brightest and most revered leaders need to say it with their mouths and our convention needs to adopt it as a resolution. It’s time.”READ MORE AT CHRISTIANITY TODAY

ERLC's Russell Moore on Courage, Need For New Moral Imagination

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Conversing with Mark Labberton

Russell Moore on CourageRussell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, reflects with Mark Labberton on the impact of the civil rights movement, the need for a new moral imagination in American Christianity, and more.As a public theologian, Russell Moore speaks and writes widely on the intersections of evangelical faith, politics, and social issues. Prior to serving as president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, he was the dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.Moore also discusses Carl F. Henry, an important voice in early American evangelicalism and one of the founding members of Fuller Theological Seminary. For more on the beginnings of Fuller Seminary, visit here.Editor's Note: This interview post was originally published at Fuller Theological Seminary's FULLER studio website.

Behind the Scenes Harvest America and NAMB Unify Christians, Churches

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Behind the scenes of Harvest America 2017 in Phoenix on Sunday (June 11), a huge urban outreach partnership between the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Crossover Arizona and Greg Laurie’s Harvest America was a success story on many levels.The two organizations joined forces to host a three-day evangelistic outreach in Phoenix that involved training, street evangelism and service projects before culminating in Harvest America’s Sunday night crusade, NAMB reported.“God is faithful to glorify His name! 38,000 people came to #CrossoverArizona with Harvest America, and 42,305 people watched the live stream from 83 different countries,” stated NAMB. “But it gets better—2,904 stepped forward in the stadium and decided to follow Jesus and hundreds more committed online! All glory and thanksgiving to God as we anticipate what He will do next year in Dallas.”NAMB also reported that another 494 indicated that they had made salvation decisions online.Fifty Crossover volunteers gathered on Saturday (June 10) to fix up Arizona homes, Josie Bingham wrote in an article for NAMB. "They repaired plumbing, cleaned houses, painted walls and landscaped yards during the 'Love in Action' service project at several transitional houses owned by Dream City Church and its affiliate, Dream Center.TogetherLA.net spoke with Joel Southerland, who is the Director of Evangelism with North American Mission Board, backstage at Harvest America on Sunday and was asked more about the partnership with Harvest.“What we’re doing here is called Crossover and it happens every year around the Southern Baptist Convention,” Southerland told TLA. “We do an evangelistic effort around our annual meeting and have been doing so since the late 80s.’He added, “We felt like this partnership would give us the biggest reach we’ve ever had for a Crossover event. Greg and his team met with us and it was great from the very beginning.”More than 400 churches in the Phoenix area and Arizona area partnered to host and participate in Crossover Arizona and Harvest America. More than 5,000 volunteers signed up to be a part of the event from Arizona and from around the nation. “It’s a really Kingdom-minded effort between Southern Baptist Churches and even non-Southern Baptist Churches of similar theologies that are coming together and preaching the gospel,” Southerland said.[gallery type="slideshow" ids="2904,2901,2905,2906" orderby="rand"]“For us it’s been a great experience of churches coming together,” he continued. “When we got together 16 months ago with the Phoenix leadership team and cast the vision, the leadership team from the very beginning was really excited about the ability to partner and have that unity around the city and have that unified vision of reaching as many people as we can with the gospel in the Phoenix area.”Southerland said that NAMB has a “great network of churches,” including in the Phoenix area where the Southern Baptist churches are greatly respected. “Harvest and Greg Laurie have a great reputation in this area. So, I think that when we take our great network and the network and reputation of Harvest and Greg Laurie that already existed it was just easy to match. I don’t think unity was ever a problem from day one.”When asked about the way urban outreach fits into the event, he said, “We have 32 focus cities all around the United States, all major cities, and Phoenix is one of those cities. We have a big church planting effort that goes on in all of those 32 cities. Doing it in an urban context fits right into our philosophy of ministry.”What about non-Southern Baptist churches with perhaps a different theology?“If your main goal is to reach people with the gospel we are willing to partner and see that happen,” Southerland said.

WATCH Harvest America 2017 from Phoenix [VIDEO]

Greg Laurie: Harvest Christian Fellowship Joins Southern Baptist Convention

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[ictt-tweet-inline hashtags="" via=""]I’m happy to announce a new partnership with the SBC, focused on bringing the Good News to our country and the world![/ictt-tweet-inline]Harvest America 2017 Southern Baptist Convention storyRIVERSIDE, Calif. — Greg Laurie, founding pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, has announced that Harvest Christian Fellowship will join the Southern Baptist Convention:“Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus told his disciples to take the Good News of the gospel to the entire world. I believe we are the first generation that can actually accomplish that task. Because of today’s technology, we have more opportunities for global evangelism that any generation before us and to accomplish this we must renew our emphasis on evangelism as never before. Most importantly, we must unify our efforts. We must learn to walk in common purpose and common vision. I believe the need is urgent and the time is now.“On June 12, I announced that Harvest Christian Fellowship would be joining the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Harvest is an independent congregation that will continue fellowship with the Calvary Chapel family of churches as well, and this decision does not change our theology, philosophy of ministry or our history. It merely extends the reach of our fellowship within the Christian world at a time when the vision and mission of Harvest remains — as it has been for 42 years — focused on the teaching of God’s word and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

WATCH Harvest America 2017 from Phoenix [VIDEO]

“Long ago, I came to realize I am called by God to simply do two primary things: to teach God’s word and to preach the gospel. This is the calling of the Lord on my life. Other than my personal walk with the Lord, and loving my wife and family, this is my only focus. My passion is to reach as many people as possible with the Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ until my final breath. One of the reasons why we proclaimed 2017 ‘The Year of Good News’ is because I intend on even further amplifying my focus on gospel proclamation. It’s also why Harvest Crusades, with the assistance of the Southern Baptist Convention, organized the Harvest America 2017 crusade on June 11 at the University of Phoenix Stadium. It’s why we’ll do it all again next year in Dallas on June 10, 2018.“We need a national revival as much as at any time in our nation’s history. We must pray for it, work toward it and do everything possible to prepare the ground for it. We must preach and pray until it comes. This is why we’ve chosen to extend a hand of fellowship to the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest protestant denomination of churches. We’ve chosen to partner in total, unrelenting pursuit of our nation’s next great awakening.“I know the effect of the revival we seek firsthand because I came to Christ during the last great American revival, often referred to as the ‘Jesus Movement.’ That revival emanated primarily from Calvary Chapel in Southern California, and I learned to preach the gospel and to teach God’s Word myself within the Calvary Chapel movement under the example of Pastor Chuck Smith. Since that time, I’ve invested my life in the Calvary fellowship of churches while working with countless Christians from nearly every other denomination. I’ll continue to do just that, and I also look forward to continuing to build bridges between our communities. It has also been my privilege to be friends with evangelist Billy Graham (himself a Southern Baptist) for many years, and from him I learned how to preach the gospel.“I believe that the time is right to reach across the church and to lock hands in total support of the rapid advance of the gospel in our nation and in our world. I believe this decision is a powerful step in that direction. I appreciate the SBC’s focus on evangelism as well as their outreach in missions and relief ministries that touch our world every day in a significant way.“I look forward to partnering with them and all believers who have a passion for evangelism. The need in our country and the world is so great.”

Photos courtesy of Harvest America Phoenix 2017This post originally published at Greg's Blog.