Recovering God’s Design for Broken Families

Soon after arriving in 2008 as the new lead pastor of First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Jimmy Scroggins realized he was no longer in the Bible Belt. The realization occurred when seven of eight couples who signed up for a marriage preparation class were already living together—some after other marriages, some with children from multiple prior relationships in and out of wedlock, and most were not even Christians. A native of Jacksonville, Fla., Scroggins’ more than 15 years of pastoral ministry experiences there and in Louisville, Ky., were meager preparation for what he found in South Florida. Scroggins, […]

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Church personalizes missions for members

In what he hopes will be a “game-changer in terms of the Cooperative Program and our whole relationship with missions,” Hayes Wicker has led First Baptist Church in Naples, to launch the “Great Commission Connection.” The initiative aims to personalize missions by linking church members with missionaries and others who serve the denomination, while also boosting funding for Southern Baptists’ cooperative missions. The project already has resulted in connecting 507 families in the Naples congregation with about 1,500 Southern Baptist missionaries, the Florida Baptist Convention and faculty members of Southern Baptist seminaries. The church anticipates additional families signing up. “The […]

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