Mark Kelly

HIDALGO, Mexico (BP) – A Baptist woman is hospitalized in critical condition after a beating tied to unjustly applied local customs and laws in an indigenous Catholic community in Mexico, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reported.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (BP) --- The 14-year-old daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor was reportedly among 26 people killed when an armed man opened fire during Sunday morning (Nov. 5) worship services at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a congregation about 35 miles southeast of San Antonio. The pastor, Frank Pomeroy, and his wife were both out of town when the attack occurred, said Mitch Kolenovsky, a field ministry strategist with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, who contacted

MEXICO CITY (BP) --- In the aftermath of an earthquake in central Mexico that killed at least 217 people, Southern Baptists are moving to assess opportunities for response. The 7.1-magnitude quake struck Tuesday (Sept. 19), exactly 32 years after an even-larger tremor devastated large areas of Mexico City and killed about 10,000 people. This new earthquake was centered about 76 miles southeast of the city and affected five states.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Encouraging reports of transformed lives have come flooding in as Southern Baptist hunger ministries accounted for their stewardship of Global Hunger Relief (GHR) resources in 2016. -- California: A man who received a Bible later confesses he had been contemplating suicide and changed his mind because of what he read in Scripture. -- Lesotho: A severe drought ruined a woman's crops and left her little seed to sow for the next season. Then a truck arrived in her community, filled with seeds ...

Four key Southern Baptist pastors will be casting vision for the Cooperative Program in different regions of the country as part of the “young leaders” initiative of the SBC Executive Committee.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Pastor Gary Smith was shocked by what he saw at the opening of a new middle school. In 1991, when he had been called as pastor of Fielder Church in Arlington, Texas, the city was predominantly white. His congregation was made up of middle-class folks who drove into Dallas to work. At school, the cheerleaders were all white. Now, just a dozen years later, Smith was looking at a cheer squad of 24 girls -- all but one black.

Arlington had changed dramatically, but Fielder Church was still white—and declining. The pastor knew the church had to change as well, if it was going to survive.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Lauren Chandler had good reason to thank God. "Most of my life was pretty charmed," she says. "I grew up in a home where my parents loved Jesus and each other, loved my brother and me. My life had a natural flow where things just kind of worked out for me." In 1999, Lauren married Matt Chandler, a passionate young preacher who would become lead pastor of one of the fastest-growing churches in America, The Village Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The willowy, blue-eyed blonde would be a Dove-nominated singer-songwriter and an in-demand speaker at dating and marriage conferences. She and Matt had two beautiful children, and she was pregnant with their third.

SILVER SPRING, Md. (BP) -- The entire refugee family huddled in terror in the back room of their Riverdale, Md., apartment. For hours, a piercing shriek had filled their home. As new arrivals from a developing nation, they had no idea the alarm was warning them about deadly fumes in the house. Finally, their neighbor, Eric So, was able to get into the apartment, where he found an unlit burner on the stove was spewing gas. A spark could have set off a horrible explosion. Even without a fire, the family soon would have been overcome by the fumes.

LAS VEGAS (BP) -- The third and final debate of the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump focused on various issues of concern to many evangelical Christians: the U.S. Supreme Court, abortion, immigration, personal character, and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, hosted the 90-minute debate between Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday," moderated the event.