Let ‘Freedom’ ring
Illinois Baptist in focus
Lindsey Yoder on blockbuster trafficking movie Illinois Voices P. 15
Recovery
news
Special Report:
PROTECTING KIDS from gender reassignment P. 7-9
SBC NEWS
McLaurin interviewed By new EC search team P. 3
ILLINOIS NEWS
Disaster Relief teams called to work here at home after big storms P. 4
Teen swimmer
PLUS: Nate Adams climbs the ‘hills’ in our flat backyard. P. 2
Protests locker room changing policy
Objections over ‘pastor’ limitation
P. 6
TABLE TALK
Running on empty
Greear backs Black church group’s call for prayer
Bettering our endurance
Nonprofit Organization U.S. POSTAGE PAID Springfield, Illinois Permit No. 964
P. 13
Future leaders, current church
mission
P. 11
News journal of the Illinois Baptist State Association
AUGUST 1, 2023 Vol. 117 No. 8
IB MEREDITH FLYNN ON
IllinoisBaptist.org
Dumbo’s love language P. 16
Nashville, Tenn. | A network of 4,000 Black churches within the Southern Baptist Convention has called for a season of prayer and dialogue after an action by messengers prohibited application of the term “pastor” to women serving in any ministry capacity. Their challenge has received support from former SBC President J.D. Greear. In a July 3 letter to Southern Baptists and current SBC President Bart Barber, President of the National African American Fellowship (NAAF) Gregory Perkins said that “many of our churches assign the title ‘pastor’ to women who oversee ministries of the church under the authority of a male Senior Pastor, i.e., Children’s Pastor, Worship Pastor, Discipleship Pastor, etc.,” Use of the term pastor to describe these various shepherding and ministry functions by those churches does not mean they advocate female senior pastors, he explained. At the SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans, messengers passed the first of two votes required to amend the SBC Constitution to P. 3