Need prayer? Then you should give Lorelei Decker a bottle of nail polish. Every week, the Oklahoma City Putnam City North High School senior paints each of her nails (both finger and toe) with a different color polish to remind her to pray for the people who gave her the polish as they pray for

Read more →

Production of the Baptist Messenger moved smoothly into the 21st Century with no Y2K computer problems that were predicted as the world transitioned to the decade of the 2000s. The Messenger celebrated its 90th anniversary, became a four-color publication, outsourced printing for the first time and endured changes from shorter to longer stories, and from

Read more →

As traumatic events—the bombing of the Murrah Building in 1995 and the May 3, 1999 tornado—changed the face of Oklahoma in the 1990s, the Baptist Messenger, as well as the Southern Baptist Convention, also encountered challenges that altered their direction. For years, the Baptist Messenger depended on Southern Baptists’ news service, Baptist Press (BP), for

Read more →

As conservatives and moderates began to face off during the 1980s, it became increasingly difficult for state Baptist papers to present fair and accurate reports. In that sense, the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger fared better than many of its counterpart publications, and was one of the few Baptist state papers to grow in circulation in this

Read more →

The first issue of the Baptist Messenger in the decade of the 1970s rolled off the presses with the first name plate change in 20 years. Editor Jack Gritz wrote prophetic words in the first editorial of the decade when he predicted the next 10 years would be a time of challenge and change. Before

Read more →

The 1960s was the age of the Beatniks, Hippies and Beatles, as well as an event that changed the course of history in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, along with other tragic events that occurred in November 1963 in Dallas, Texas. All were the focus of editorials in the Baptist Messenger. By the

Read more →