CP Report Card: Check your church’s missions giving • Pages 10-12
Volume 108, No. 11
IB Insider
‘Run and not grow weary’
Nehemiah’s breakdown – and mine page 5
JULY 28, 2014
Students go to IBSA camps pursuing spiritual growth and new friends. And giant water slides and wild green wigs.
“Super Summer changed my life.” Read three exciting stories, pages 8-9.
Border crisis leads The News Briefing page 2 “The sermon is too long” page 15 B101: Do you really love the church? Clip & share pages inside
What are these young detectives up to? page 3
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Prayer week emphasizes kids State missions offering to aid underserved people and areas By Eric Reed
“Last year my wife and I gave the largest offering we’ve ever given to state missions here in Illinois,” IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams said. “And it wasn’t because the Illinois mission field is bigger or needier or more deserving than other mission fields we care about. “It was because we feel a growing, personal responsibility for the lost people who are nearest us.” The Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer (MIO) has taken on new importance over the past three years, as IBSA’s national partners reduced funding to some Illinois missions work through IBSA. Through its “Send North America” emphasis on major metropolitan areas, the North American Mission Board has focused on church planting in 32 cities, including Chicagoland and metro St. Louis. But that means there are other kinds of planting, missions, and church strengthening that are increasingly the responsibility of Baptists in Illinois.
MAP QUEST – The promotion kit for Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer will be mailed to churches in early August. Ministry to kids and families is the theme. Look for the unique chalk-art poster, and a video showing the map drawn right before your eyes.
“Church planting is certainly a significant priority for our churches’ work together here in Illinois, but it is not the only priority,” Adams said. “We deeply appreciate our church planting partnership with the North American Mission Board, yet there are
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mission illinois Offering & Week of Prayer
September 14-21, 2014
5,000 licenses issued to same-sex couples By Lisa Sergent
Springfield | A new survey shows 21% of same-sex couples in Illinois have opted to wed since it became legal in the state June 1, but a second survey asks how long those marriages will last. And two more new polls cast doubt on the percentage of homosexuals in the U.S. Equality Illinois, a group that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in Illinois, surveyed the state’s 102 counties and found at least 3,274 marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples and 1,694 civil unions have been converted to marriages. According to the most recent U.S. Census, 23,409 same-sex couples reside in Illinois. Using this data, 21.2% of same-sex couples in the state have married or plan to marry. The group stated the exact number of licenses issued or civil union conversions is difficult to determine because not all the state’s county clerks recorded whether licenses were issued to same-sex couples, while others recorded conversions together with licenses, not separately. Nine counties reported no licenses issued to same-sex couples or civil union conversions and five counties did not respond to the survey. What might the future hold for these couples? The National Review’s blog, The Corner, reported this month Continued on page 3