Category: Reflections (2018-present)

November 7 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Baptist evangelist BILLY GRAHAM. This brought a couple of stories to my mind. The first is a personal story – one concerning my dad, A. JASE JONES, who served for 22 years (1/1/57-1/1/79) as Midwest Area Director with the Interfaith Witness Department of Read more . . .

(Click here for video of the entire program.) First, a few thank yous to: • George Mason and Wilshire Baptist Church, for hosting this dinner • Heather Mustain, for facilitating all of the preparations • Chef Elizabeth Ferguson and your staff, for the wonderful meal • David Hammons for taking care of the sound and Read more . . .

On July 21, 2018, the Sullivan Tower in Nashville – former headquarters of LifeWay Resources, the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) publishing arm – was imploded. In an article dated July 23, Baptist Press reporter ART TOALSTON covered the building’s demise and wrote about its namesake, Dr. JAMES L. SULLIVAN, longtime president of the Baptist Sunday Read more . . .

This week, SUZII PAYNTER announced she is retiring after 5 years as executive coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). I first met Suzii in the late 1990s during my visits to First Baptist Church, Austin, with my dad, JASE JONES, who was a member there. However, where I truly got to knowing Suzii was in Read more . . .

For me, CBF began – as it does almost every year – with the T. B. Maston Foundation’s CBF Maston Scholars Retreat. I’ve been privileged to serve on the Maston Foundation Board of Trustees for the past 10 years, and the annual student retreats at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in March and CBF in June Read more . . .

Though I missed the spirited debate over the invitation to Mike Pence, which occurred about an hour before I arrived at the SBC gathering Tuesday morning, I did hear a motion proposed to limit any such speaking invitations in future years to local political leaders. The most interesting motion I heard discussed was to defund Read more . . .

Last week, Downtown Dallas hosted both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) General Assembly AND the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Annual Meeting. No, there was no bloodbath in the streets, though I did hear of a few awkward encounters, in hotels & restaurants, between those wearing CBF badges and those adorned with SBC badges. In one Read more . . .

Thank you for your many gracious responses to the 1st issue of the “new” Weekly Baptist Roundup. I appreciate knowing that you missed it during its 10-month “hiatus.” ALL articles in the Roundup are, I believe, worthy of your attention, but I want to begin using this space to review the main happenings of the Read more . . .

(Originally published on the Texas Baptists Committed blog at texasbaptistscommitted.blogspot.com.) My remarks to the 2018 Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics (Suzii Paynter was the keynote lecturer for the 2018 Currie-Strickland Distinguished Lectures in Christian Ethics, held at Howard Payne University [HPU] in Brownwood, TX, on Feb. 15-16. Derek Hatch, HPU associate professor of Christian Read more . . .