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Interesting and diverse Baptist gathering
Posted By katie allison granju
Baptists of all stripes are meeting in Georgia this week to try to find common ground:
Baptists will meet at the Georgia World Congress Center to hear music, testimonies and various guest speakers address theological issues and social topics during the four-day event. Organizers say the purpose of the meeting is to focus on the mission of Jesus.
The Rev. Mike Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee says he hopes the meeting will help redeem the name “Baptist.”
“People hear the word Baptist and they think, ‘quarrelsome,’ ” Smith said. “But it means more than that.”
Smith says that Baptists “have a passion to reach out to people in the name of Jesus and make a difference in their lives.”
Just how to do that, he said, is where they disagree.
One place to start, Smith believes, is fighting poverty.
Smith hopes he’ll meet other Baptists who want to partner on “compassion ministries.”
The meeting’s agenda was built around the first sermon Jesus preached, in Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton helped organize the meeting, leading to claims that it was politically motivated. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had originally agreed to speak at the event, but later backed out.
While Jimmy Allen, a former Southern Baptist Convention president, was one of the organizers, the SBC has not endorsed the Atlanta meeting and current President Frank Page will not attend.
Page was initially critical of the celebration, saying he would “not be a part of any smoke-screen left-wing liberal agenda.”
Jan 28th, 2008
Fried Chicken - never met a Baptist yet that didn’t agree with Fried Chicken. Maybe they’re soulsaving would go better with a 6 pc. box? Just a thought…