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Last November, faculty and students at William Jewell College and Second Baptist Church in Liberty, Mo., made a commitment to “Get Stronger” by strengthening their global presence. Through this collaborative effort, they realized a need in Thailand and Myanmar to aid immigrants and refugees in southeast Asia. In January, five members of Second Baptist and two William Jewell students traveled to Thailand to take the next step.

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) As she drives her family’s donkeys to a new borehole at the base of the Uuni Hills in eastern Kenya, Eunice Wambua says the water it provides is much cleaner than what she used to get from a dam several miles away.

“It was dirty water and we believed it colored our teeth brown,” she recalled.

In February, B&H Academic — a division of the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing house — released the first in a 12-volume set of “The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon.” The books are edited by Christian George, who found the sermons a few years ago. George serves as curator of The Spurgeon Library and assistant professor of historical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

A recent Gallup Poll reports that family dining is still a part of everyday life for the majority of U.S. parents. Fifty-three percent of adults with children younger than 18 say their family eats dinner together at home six or seven nights a week. But what about those who do not observe this ritual? Could this percentage be increased?

“Payday Advance.” “No Credit Necessary.”

The promises hide economic exploitation and political inaction. Yet in this darkness, churches are responding with an alternative message, a sign of hope.

A documentary released last fall by EthicsDaily.com (also known as the Baptist Center for Ethics) made its Missouri debut on Feb. 1 in Kansas City. “The Disturbances” covers the previously-untold story of missionaries saving lives in the midst of genocidal violence in Nigeria in 1966. In a matter of days, thousands — and perhaps as many as 30,000 people — were killed due to their tribal identity.

The Baptist Home and Missouri Baptist University submitted legal responses on Jan. 31 to urge a judge to dismiss motions for summary judgment filed by the Missouri Baptist Convention on Dec. 2. The MBC requested the Court rule in its favor without a trial, claiming its 2016 victory in the case against the Missouri Baptist Foundation should serve as precedent in the cases against the Home and MBU. However, the institutions rebut the MBC’s claim that their cases are “nearly identical” to that of the Foundation’s case.

(RNS) For centuries during Lent, Christians have sought to grow closer to God through praying, fasting and giving to the poor.

Now they can also mark the 40-day period of penitence that precedes Easter by posting pictures to Instagram, reading a regular reflection in their email or watching a priest answer questions on Facebook Live.

On Valentine’s Day, some Kenyan pastors handed out red roses as a sign of love to HIV-positive youth suffering stigma and discrimination.

The gesture was meant as a way to reach out to youth, many of whom feel rejected by the churches.

Do we measure the success of our churches by the number of people present each Sunday, the square footage of our buildings, the number of degrees held by our pastoral staff or the amount of money that is given to annual missions initiatives? Although I appreciate and value what these things mean to a congregation, I wonder if those criteria are the best way to measure whether a fellowship of believers is fulfilling its call to participate in the building of God’s kingdom.