Planting a new church can be one of the most rewarding, dynamic, cutting-edge, and Spirit-led assignments in ministry today. One can hardly read the book of Acts when the New Testament church was growing rapidly and not notice how active the Holy Spirit was in empowering God's people to start many local congregations.

There's a shakeup in the cult of neo-Darwinist pseudo-science, and that endearing, monotone high school teacher of "Ferris Bueller" fame is doing the shaking.

Mormonism started in 1830 with 24-year-old year old Joseph Smith Jr. According to Smith, he had several experiences, during which God, Jesus, and the angel Moroni gave him instructions. Part of the instructions was to dig up some gold plates buried by the angel Moroni around A.D. 400 on a hill just outside of Smith's town of Palmyra, New York. Smith dug up the plates, claimed they were written in "Reformed Egyptian," and that God had given him the ability to translate them. This translation became known as the Book of Mormon, an account of the ancient inhabitants of North America between 600 B.C. and A.D. 400.

While we recognize North Carolina Baptists have a convention of small churches, in fact the majority of churches in America are small. Big churches get all the attention for the very reason they are unusual.

I am appalled at the 2008 Staley Lecture subject on Christian unity. Steven Harmon, whom I respect but contend with on many theological necessities, provides evidence of unbiblical and anti-Baptist theology. Harmon's idea that equates Christian unity with Barack Obama's decision to not denounce his "former" pastor then seeks to support it by providing an overview of Ephesians is simply poor exegesis on his part.