BaptistLIFE Online

Asian churches in the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware are invited to a special Concert of Prayer on Sept. 12, 6-9 p.m. at Hanuri Korean Church, 800 Randolph Road in Silver Spring, Md.

First Church, Essex pastor John Smith looks and sounds like a young Jimmy Stewart or Nicholas Cage, depending on one’s generational perception. The 34-year old pastor paces from one side of the podium to the other, waving his hands expressively as he preaches about stepping out of comfort zones and unleashing caged Christians. God is blessing that contagious enthusiasm.

Cardboard boat regattas, wacky wigs, a zorb coaster, which World of Weird Sports defines as “the sport of rolling down a hill at speed inside a giant inflatable ball,” Damascus Road, the seven-story waterslide, and Peter, “the reCHARGE” reporter, plus intense worship, incredibly gifted youth speakers and extreme Bible devotions on a mountainside in Western Maryland equals Amped, the new student ministry of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCM/D).

Racial reconciliation is his agenda, James Dixon, incoming president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention, said at the group’s gathering June 14 in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Fla.

Hollywood came to Tabernacle Church, Essex, to help promote the church’s annual Vacation Bible School. One of the co-stars of the new move “Get Low,’ starring Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, Amazing Grace, showed up to entertain the community. Of course Amazing Grace is as mule.

A local Christian band with ties to the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and First Church, Laurel, played its first national tour this summer.