He stood six foot six, wore a size 13 shoe, his head was crowned with a full shock of gray hair and his beard would make a Viking proud.  Joseph H. “Bear Joe” Lunsford was a man of the mountains, and a mountain of a man. Born in Suches, Union Co., Georgia in 1853 at the southern base of Blood Mountain, his life spanned more than eight decades and his legacy was left in stone. Bear Joe Lunsford spent his life in the mountains as a farmer and lay preacher.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) - Eleanor Gorin, born on March 5, 1921, grew up in the first house built on Cherokee road in Louisville and received Christ after meeting Corrie Ten Boom, the famous Holocaust survivor. It was the late 1960s, in the middle of the Jesus movement, when Gorin says “the Holy Spirit jumped across the water,” all the way to the Isle of Bermuda, where she and her husband were living at the time. There, Gorin became involved in a seven-person prayer group of “hungry, thirsty, cultural Christians.”

ONTARIO, Calif. -- Gateway Seminary President Jeff Iorg spoke on the tension of maintaining pastoral integrity, while practicing forgiveness and restoration for leaders who engage in egregious behavior in the school’s first chapel service of the spring semester.  “When a pastor behaves in an unethical or immoral way,” Iorg said, “our response must be biblical, practical, balanced, and measured.”

DALLAS — GuideStone has released one of its most popular publications, the annual Ministers’ Tax Guide. The publications includes tax highlights includes information about annual contribution limits, standard business mileage rates, and key features from The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It also provides  step-by-step filing instructions for ministers’ personal taxes and comprehensive examples and sample forms.

MACON, Ga. – Melissa Wells, a certified sign language interpreter, was expecting a Deaf co-worker to show up at Tabernacle Baptist Church on a recent Sunday morning, so she  was prepared to sign the songs and sermon.

MARIETTA, Ga. – Training church leaders and volunteers in how to help children and teens suffering from trauma has quickly become one of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s most popular ministries. Foster care mobilizer Tera Melber said more than 350 people have undergone the training being offered through Mission Georgia, a Mission Board initiative that seeks to help the state’s most vulnerable populations.

MARIETTA, GA – Corporations rarely cast a twenty-year vision and churches may never look that far ahead, but Dr. John Hull, pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Marietta is doing just that. A committee or task force is being formulated to do the groundwork to chart a course to make the church as effective and productive as possible in 2043. Pastor Hull has been urging the church to become a maximum church by emphasizing that Eastside exists for the purpose of connecting people to the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.

GHENT, Belgium--A big blue bear sits on a park bench, arm extended to the side as if inviting people to come and talk. Writing on the bench does just that, invites passersby to sit and talk because “Warme William listens.” While people sit and talk with the inanimate bear, an International Mission Board missionary parks a bicycle pushing a small cart, starts a generator and turns on an espresso machine. The missionary is also ready to listen. The big difference is that the missionary can actually hear, build a relationship and most importantly, introduce a loving Savior. The bear can’t do anything.

WAKE FOREST, N.C.--Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary rededicated the academic building on its west quad Tuesday, naming the building in honor of the late Ralph Logan Carson. Carson, who served for 15 years as a professor of Christian theology at Southeastern, is remembered for his integrity, his love for Scripture and the Church, and his passion for the Great Commission. Born blind to a single mother in rural McDowell, North Carolina, Carson first encountered the Scriptures at the Negro Division of the North Carolina State School for the Blind and Deaf, where he lived from 1939 until 1951.

FORTH WORTH, Texas -- Be a servant, remember your calling, be relevant, and keep an eternal perspective, preached O.S. Hawkins, senior advisor, ambassador-at-large, and senior professor of pastoral ministry and evangelism, at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Texas Baptist College chapel on Thursday.