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NASHVILLE (BP) — LifeWay Christian Resources announced that FUGE, StudentLife, Student Life for Kids and CentriKid camps, as well as World Changers projects scheduled for June have been canceled due to concerns stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak.

“We’ve been closely monitoring the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and following the guidance of government and health authorities to ensure we are taking the right actions to protect our campers, staff and the communities where we host camps,” said Ben Trueblood, director of students at LifeWay. “Due to the continued health concerns related to COVID-19, we’ve made the decision to cancel all camp programming for the month of June.

“While we are disappointed, we know this is the right decision to ensure the health and safety of all participants,” Trueblood said.

The precautionary move follows the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to cancel its annual meeting, which was scheduled for June 9-10 in Orlando. Numerous public events scheduled for the summer across the nation have been canceled or postponed out of concerns for public safety.

“At this time, we’re still planning to hold camps scheduled for July and August,” Trueblood said. “We’re taking things week by week and will continue to evaluate the situation.”

In the meantime, the LifeWay Students team is offering support and digital resources to student ministers during the COVID-19 crisis.

Source: Baptist Press

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP) — Bryan Gill said there was something “strangely special” about sharing the Lord’s Supper in his home, but in community with thousands of other believers from Birmingham’s Shades Mountain Baptist Church at the same time.

At the beginning of their service, which was streamed online April 5, church staff asked members of Shades Mountain Baptist — and any other Christ-followers who might be watching — to go to their kitchen and get what they needed. That meant a drink — juice, Gatorade or water if need be — and crackers or bread. Then at the end of the service, Pastor Danny Wood led them in taking the meal together.

It’s not an uncommon scene right now. As churches are figuring out what it looks like to be the body of Christ during COVID-19 isolation, they’re considering what that means for the Lord’s Supper. They’re asking what it might mean to celebrate communion with “the bread and the cup Zoomed for you” — as a recent Christianity Today article put it — or whether to do it at all. It’s an especially relevant question as some prepare to observe Good Friday, the day the first Lord’s Supper was instituted.

An article published last month by Christianity Today “Online Communion Can Still Be Sacramental” suggests one issue is the question of presence. Does physical presence have to mean sitting next to each other in person or can it mean “together” by way of a virtual connection or in an online room, like a Zoom video meeting? As most churches adhere to guidelines on social distancing and recommendations against gathering in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, communion is yet more uncharted territory.

Virtual communion

Churches who have decided that sharing the meal “together” can mean together virtually are coming up with creative ways to accomplish it:

— Some churches like Shades Mountain Baptist are asking church members to partake with whatever they have on hand at their house. A staff member then guides them through communion.

— The Baptist Church at McAdory in McCalla, Ala., offered packets of pre-filled communion cups with wafers attached that church members could pick up at the church and have on hand through the weeks of self-isolation. They would then partake when instructed to during the livestreamed service. Pre-filled communion cups are available from retailers like B&H Publishing or local Christian bookstores.

— Some churches are asking members to prepare ahead by buying grape juice and unleavened bread (bread without a rising agent) if possible when they’re shopping for groceries.

Jay Wolf, pastor of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, Ala., said he’s certain the Lord will use his church’s first virtual Lord’s Supper — set for Wednesday (April 8) at 6 p.m. via Facebook Live or Zoom — to “draw us closer to Him and to each other.”

“Part of our Holy Week tradition includes sharing communion on Wednesday evening,” he said. “After our time of intensive intercession for our world in crisis, we will shift to sharing the Lord’s Supper.”

Source: Baptist Press

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FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) — Pieces of papyrus sold as rare fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary a decade ago are “likely fraudulent” and the seminary might seek financial restitution, the school announced in a statement Monday (April 6).

“The Dead Sea Scrolls fragments were acquisitions of the prior administration,” the statement said. “Because we have had very little confidence in their authenticity, the fragments have never been on public display since the arrival of the new seminary administration in February 2019.”

The six fragments were purchased in two separate acquisitions in 2010 during the presidency of Paige Patterson, with seed money from Texas businessman and then-SWBTS trustee Gary Loveless. While the former and current SWBTS administrations have declined to reveal the purchase price, comparable pieces — although revealed to be forgeries — have sold for millions of dollars.

SWBTS made the statement in response to a media inquiry from Christianity Today. In response to an inquiry Monday from Baptist Press, a SWBTS spokesman referred to the statement.

“The fragments are in a secure location and have not been available to the general public in some years,” the school said in the statement. “The current administration’s lack of confidence in the fragments’ authenticity has been confirmed by an October 2018 report prepared for the seminary’s Board of Trustees by faculty associated with studying the collection. That report, which was recently provided to the current administration, found that by as early as 2016, some seminary faculty had become convinced at least some of the fragments were possible forgeries.”

SWBTS also announced it would discontinue the SWBTS archaeology program “as part of campus-wide budgetary reductions necessitated by the financial challenges associated with COVID-19.” More details on the program’s discontinuance are anticipated after the SWBTS Board of Trustee meeting, which is scheduled to be held online Tuesday (April 7).

Patterson did not respond Monday to requests for comment made through several channels. But while president of SWBTS, he lauded the acquisition of the fragments.

“One cannot overestimate the significance of these valuable artifacts for Southwestern Seminary, for Fort Worth, for Texas and for all the Americas,” Patterson said in October 2010. “I cannot but express my gratitude to our Lord for enabling us to be a significant part of this ongoing vital research.”

Patterson was terminated by the SWBTS Board of Trustees in May 2018, according to a statement released then by the school, over his “handling of an allegation of sexual abuse against a student during [Patterson’s] presidency at another institution and resulting issues connected with statements to the Board of Trustees that are inconsistent with SWBTS’s biblically informed core values.”

Source: Baptist Press

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By Hugh Johnson*

I woke up confused Sunday morning. The bedside clock read 6 a.m., but my iPhone said 7 a.m. I had forgotten it was Sunday. And I had definitely forgotten that in this part of Europe the clocks had “sprung forward” at midnight on March 29.

In previous years my family has relied on the semiannual reminder in church to reset our clocks so as not to be late (or early) for the following Sunday’s services. But this year there was no local church service the week before, nor helpful reminders of the time change on the TV news the night before. Coronavirus has consumed the TV headlines just as it has almost every other aspect of daily life. Each day during the global lockdown has seemed like any other. No routine. No rhythm. No normal.

One of life’s joys as a missionary is the many opportunities we have to see, almost daily, how faithfully God provides when our skills, education, professional knowledge and language abilities are inadequate. Although painful, we have been able to count it a blessing to be brought low, and we find ourselves thankful. We’re thankful to God and we’re thankful for the ways He is using you.

As our family and millions of others around the world adjust to many more weeks or months of a new home-based “normal,” we need to find innovative ways to connect with family, friends, work colleagues, fellow local believers and ministry contacts. Our circumstances challenge us to look outside our familiar patterns of life and to see opportunities to do things differently. We can let God use this global crisis to stretch and shape us. We can look beyond ourselves to the needs of others. In our weakness and loss of control over our daily lives we can put into practice the words of Philippians 4:19: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

During this pandemic, we are forced to trust God like never before and to live the truth of Paul’s words in Philippians 4:11-13: “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Source: Baptist Press

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As the world continues to sludge through life in the midst of a global COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s persecuted people of faith are easy scapegoats.

Experts at the US Commission on International Freedom (USCIRF) say during crises like this religious minorities are at greater risk.

Commissioner Jim Carr uses the example of the Shincheonji Church in South Korea. More than a million people have signed a petition calling for it to be banned after a member caught the coronavirus and unknowingly infected others.

“About a month ago they had a young adherent who went to church there, not knowing anything about the virus, with a fever. Later on, they learned that she had coronavirus and the government decided, after finding 10,000 of their citizens with the same virus, they attributed 5,000 to her. And in South Korea they were very tough on this small religious group, a very private group, they were ridiculed on social media and had a variety of problems,” Carr told CBN News.

It’s a similar story in other countries.

“I’ve got examples of something similar in Cambodia, and Pakistan, and around the world that religious minorities are being blamed for something they probably did not do,” Carr added. 

In contrast, he gives an example from his own community in Arkansas.

“There’s a small church that had 25 or 30 people who, I think, went on a missions trip, or a couple of their members did, and they got the virus and nobody ever thought for a minute they did this on purpose and nobody blamed the virus in our community on them. As a matter of fact, we prayed for them,” Carr noted. 

USCIRF urges countries to maintain religious freedom while protecting public health.

“Where I live they just call that common sense,” Carr said. 

In America, many churches will be shuttered this Easter Sunday. For many Christians around the world hiding their faith is a matter of life and death and Carr says he agrees this is a moment when Americans can feel a sense of solidarity with the persecuted.

“I think it’s a time right now for Christians to let their light shine. The little children’s song, ‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel.’ I think it’s just very important now that we as Christians let our light shine,” he explained.  “Care for the needy. Care for those who have been hit by this virus, and I think it’s an opportune time for us to do something magnificent.”

FOR CBN NEWS CONTINUING COVERAGE ON COVID-19, CLICK HERE. 

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