Envisioning God’s Future Mission
CBF Field Personnel / Field Personnel / Missions

Envisioning God’s Future Mission

By Greg Smith “Work yourself out of a job. That’s one of your most important goals.” Cross-cultural mission presents challenges on several levels. Oftentimes it requires learning a new language, adjusting to new cultural norms, working with key partners across religious and social boundaries, adopting new patterns of living and many others. One of those … Continue reading

Meeting for Coffee
Leadership Scholars

Meeting for Coffee

By Beth R. Bailey As I walked into the door of Agora Coffee Shop in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I felt a sense of home, a sense of why many college students love to study, talk and read in this quaint coffee shop. I was meeting a Mary Washington student, Jessica, for coffee and to catch up. … Continue reading

Loads of Laundry. Loads of Love.
Featured / Missions

Loads of Laundry. Loads of Love.

Belmont Baptist Church creates long-term change in Charlottesville, Va., with CBF grant By Rickey Letson In 2006, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship launched a program called It’sTime. The eight-week study challenged churches to embrace a more missional perspective in their congregational life focused on purpose and passion, particularly as it related to their calling to meet … Continue reading

Persistent Planting
CBF Field Personnel / Field Personnel / offering for global missions

Persistent Planting

By Jessica Hearne, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Who knew it would be so difficult to grow watermelons? Isaiah certainly didn’t know when he started planting them on the Urban Farm five years ago. We can grow cucumbers just fine, and watermelons are kind of like cucumbers, so it shouldn’t be a problem, right? Maybe … Continue reading

CBF names two seminarians as 2022 Vestal Scholars
General Assembly 2022 / Newsroom / young Baptists

CBF names two seminarians as 2022 Vestal Scholars

May 12, 2022 By Aaron Weaver DECATUR, Ga. — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has selected Beth Rooney Bailey and Luke Perrin as the 2022 recipients of the Daniel and Earlene Vestal Scholarship. The Fellowship’s most prestigious scholarship, named in honor of former CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal and his wife, Earlene, was created in 2011 … Continue reading

Arthur Ashe versus the Confederacy
racial justice / Racial Reconciliation / Robert Jones

Arthur Ashe versus the Confederacy

With removal of Robert E. Lee statue, the Arthur Ashe Jr. memorial stands alone on Richmond’s Monument Avenue By Robert P. Jones The news broke this week that the Virginia Supreme Court has cleared the state to remove the last Confederate monument still standing on the city’s Monument Avenue, the massive tribute to General Robert E. Lee. … Continue reading

Finding God in the Pandemic
COVID-19 / Leadership Scholars

Finding God in the Pandemic

By Christie Thadikonda Where is God when it hurts? This has been an existential question for generations. As this question lingers in the minds of many including Christians, time has come to reflect on the presence of God. In his book God and the Pandemic, N.T. Wright encourages readers to move toward what can we … Continue reading

Susan Blanchard called as first director of Baptist House of Studies at Union Seminary
Newsroom / theological education / women in ministry

Susan Blanchard called as first director of Baptist House of Studies at Union Seminary

RICHMOND, VA – Rev. Susan Pierson Blanchard (M.Div. / M.A.C.E. ’97) has accepted a call to lead a new initiative for Cooperative Baptists beginning this fall at Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Richmond campus. As director of the Baptist House of Studies (BHS) program, Blanchard, an ordained Baptist minister, will help students navigate the institution and their ordination process.  “I have felt a strong … Continue reading

DACA and Frontline Workers
CBF Field Personnel / COVID-19 / Field Personnel / immigration

DACA and Frontline Workers

By Greg Smith From time to time since 2017, our immigration legal services program would get a call from a youth-age or young-adult immigrant asking, “Is it time yet? Can I apply for DACA?” Every time the question was asked, I would usually respond, “Have you ever had DACA?” and  if the answer was no, my response was … Continue reading

Asset-based Community Development and Policing Come Together in Danville, Va.
Feature

Asset-based Community Development and Policing Come Together in Danville, Va.

By Bekah Rhea On a relatively busy street in Danville, Virginia, is a home that, in the past decade, has become the epicenter of a thriving intentional community. In the springtime, you may recognize it by the flowers and plants attracting plentiful varieties of pollinators, giving the property the aura of a small Eden in … Continue reading