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| Members of Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas on a post-hurricane mission trip in 2017. Learn more about growth at the church in Voices below. |
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Church growth is a sham
Church growth is a sham, and on most days I believe this to be true.
As a minister for more than 15 years in small progressive churches, I am aware that most liberal churches, especially Baptist ones, will never be considered megachurches. For me this leads to the haunting feeling that progressive Baptist and other mainline churches are declining. Maybe that's true. With that in mind, I also am aware that the terminology has changed and we tend to speak more of church health rather than church growth. And again, on most days, I still believe this to be true.
But, I have noticed that the church where I pastor is, remarkably, in a season of growth. Over the last 18 months Royal Lane Baptist Church has added more than 50 new members, along with many others who regularly attend but don't necessarily subscribe to the boundaries of official membership.
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Around the Alliance
A real treat
by Kate Perry
I wasn't going to sign up.
I had been lured to
the mountains one too many times by the promise of renewal in a picturesque setting. But after a dear friend's gentle nudging I registered and thought, "Regardless of how packed the schedule will be, I'll at least se
e a mountain, and that ought to soothe my soul."
There was time for fellowship and friend-making -- my favorite -- and the large-group discussion of Internal Family Systems (IFS) sparked a renewed commitment to self-grace and awareness. We were invited to dive in to ourselves and pour in even a fraction of the care and compassion we so freely give over to those we serve.
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| CAIRN participants engaged with one another. |
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News and Analysis
Cuba's historic crossroads
by Stan Hastey
Cuba stands at a crossroads unlike any other in the 59 years since a rebel army headed by Fidel Castro and his younger brother, Raul, defeated the supposedly far superior armed forces under the command of Fulgencio Batista.
Batista, the last in a series of corrupt and repressive Cuban presidents backed and kept in power by the United States for the previous half century, fled the island nation as three columns of rebel soldiers bore down on Havana during Christmas week 1958. Declaring victory on New Year's Day 1959, the three commanding officers - Raul Castro, Ernesto (Che) Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos - welcomed Fidel to Havana one week later, where the charismatic leader formally declared victory before a massive crowd of supporters convinced that a new day had dawned on the economically and educationally deprived nation.
Among the undeniably significant achievements of the Castro brothers' revolution have been the virtual elimination of illiteracy by means of a system of public education funded and overseen by the government from kindergarten through university graduate studies, and a public health system premised on prevention that boasts a lower infant mortality rate than that of the United States. These are measurable successes.
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| Cuban President Raul Castro (AP Photo) |
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Alliance News
Financially, 2017 was a very good year for the Alliance of Baptists.
The board had voted to adopt an "aspirational" budget. We knew we needed to make substantial improvements to our website, our "virtual home," since we don't have a main office people can drop in to when they're in town. Deployed staff work from home offices across the country, so the best way for people to "visit" us is on the web.
The website needed updating, so the board agreed to spend money accrued in previous years, counting it as an investment in our future. Our budget projected about $614,00 in income and $620,00 in expenses. That's not a balanced budget, but it was an investment in the future.
Thanks to that investment, plus the dedication and skills of our communications staff, the Alliance website is a more attractive and user-friendly virtual home.
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