News

(The Conversation) — Traveling in the new year? It is very likely there is a chapel or meditation room tucked away somewhere in one of the airports you’ll pass through. Sixteen of the country’s 20 largest airports have chapels, as do many more around the world.

(RNS) — The Lancaster Mennonite Conference, the largest group of Mennonite congregations in the U.S., has officially separated from the broader Mennonite community after a long-term disagreement over sexuality and the church.

VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS) — The two new Associate General Secretaries working with the American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) Office of the General Secretary ministry team were in Valley Forge, Pa., to begin their positions on Tuesday, January 2, 2018. Rev. Marsha Scipio joins the organization in the role of Associate General Secretary for Missional Initiatives and Partnerships, and Rev. Dr. Kevin A. Walden begins his service as Associate General Secretary for Congregational and Pastoral Effectiveness.

Fireworks, church celebrations and octopus dumplings are some of the ways countries around the world marked New Year's Eve in descriptions and images gathered by The Associated Press' writers and photographers.

 Here are the ten most read pieces on the Word&Way website in 2017. Thanks for stopping by and we hope to see you around a lot in 2018!

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP) -- Milton Ferguson, 89, the second president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, died today (Dec. 21) in Kansas City, Mo., after a brief battle with cancer.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- At its annual meeting this fall, the Colorado Baptist General Convention (CBGC) announced plans to sell its Denver-area office building and relocate to a smaller facility nearby. They are among a dozen of the 42 state conventions that partner with the Southern Baptist Convention that have sold, moved out of or attempted to sell their buildings in the past decade.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is an 80-year-old organization, representing 15 Baptist bodies. While in mid-Missouri to talk about religious liberty issues, BJC's Executive Director Amanda Tyler sat down for an interview with Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor.

JIBLA, Yemen (BP) -- It's been 15 years since I walked the dry, stony grounds of Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen, where a lone gunman murdered three International Mission Board medical missionaries on a December morning in 2002.

Intense religious expressions in the U.S. remain stable, while moderate expressions are in decline, according to sociologists Landon Schnabel of Indiana University Bloomington and Sean Bock of Harvard University.