Darrell Raney is a layman. But that has not stopped him from being on mission with God. A member at Oklahoma City, Southern Hills for more than 20 years, Raney has taken on the role of church renewal coordinator, the lay person in charge of church renewal events, including Lay Renewal Weekends. What exactly is

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Messenger Insight Podcast: Representative James Lankford from Baptist General Convention of Ok on Vimeo. Oklahoma Representative James Lankford talks about his first year in Congress and about the key role of ministry in America today.

In addition to nine major speakers, the State Evangelism Conference Jan. 30-31 at Oklahoma City, Southern Hills will offer 15 breakout conferences on Tuesday morning. The conferences, from 9-10:15 a.m. and 10:30-11:45 will be led by various speakers on topics covering evangelism, witnessing and discipleship. The list includes “Keys to an Evangelism Plan for Churches,”

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FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) —The potential contribution to Dead Sea Scroll scholarship of nine scroll fragments owned by Southwestern Seminary was underscored when several SWBTS professors discussed their research to date during the Society of Biblical Literature’s 2011 meeting in San Francisco. “Southwestern’s scrolls contain readings of Old Testament passages that are nowhere else attested,”

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At just three weeks, before most women even know they are pregnant, a baby’s heart begins to beat. Its DNA is already determined—male or female, short or tall, aptitudes and personality. But, how many young adults know this? For the entire life of our young adults, abortion has been legal and supported by our government,

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SAND SPRINGS—Al and Christine Shasteen are like many Oklahoma couples who hold down jobs, raise children and go about their business each day. Their path to parenthood, however, is nothing short of extraordinary. “Our family has grown in its own, unique manner over the years,” said Christine. “Although our oldest child, Lainey, is biological, my

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(Luter to speak at Evangelism Conference). Fred Luter Jr.  was a street preacher in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans when, in 1986, he was called to serve as pastor to a small congregation on Franklin Avenue, a mostly black area in the Crescent City. Called to the ministry three years earlier, Luter, although knowing

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MUSTANG—Karen Watts never imagined that when she simply asked the F.A.I.T.H. Riders at Mustang, Chisholm Heights to pray for her husband, Terry, while he was deployed to the Middle East  in 2011, it would lead to an “Extreme Makeover: Motorcycle Edition.” No, Ty Pennington, star of the recently cancelled television program, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,”

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by Dana Williamson Associate Editor LAWTON—A candle shop, a bake shop, a clothing boutique, a toy shop, a cafe, a trading post, a post office—11 shops in all, plus a park. That’s more than a lot of rural Oklahoma towns can boast these days, and this particular Victorian village is encompassed in a church gymnasium.

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SHAWNEE—The purpose of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s annual Oklahoma Youth Ministry Forum (OYMF) is “to provide training, encouragement and challenge for Oklahoma Youth Ministers and Leaders.” More than 150 student ministry leaders took part in the 2011 OYMF Nov. 18-19 at Shawnee, Immanuel. The conference was designed to address specific key topics in

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