Sunday, October 18, 2026
Southern Baptists gave $212.5 million to the Lottie Moon offering, the most in IMB history, and Lifeway found that 93% of pastors won’t endorse candidates from the pulpit even if the courts say they may. Abortion is on the ballot in four states, evangelical and Catholic leaders spoke together on immigration, and the Supreme Court will hear a Catholic preschool case on Election Day. The PCA lost one of its founders at 101, and a Kentucky Baptist pastor’s arrest is a reminder of why churches guard the door. A week of generosity, restraint, and vigilance.
Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.
A record Lottie Moon offering. Southern Baptists gave $212.5 million to the 2025–26 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, more than $5 million above last year and the best total in IMB history. The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering brought in $73.6 million for NAMB, its second-highest ever and the fourth straight year above $70 million. The report pairs the totals with other markers: 699 church plants in 2025, the most since 2016; five straight years of rising baptisms; and IMB applicants up 500% since 2018. “With giving through the Lottie Moon offering at an all-time high,” said IMB President Paul Chitwood, churches are showing their heart for the gospel. Amid the convention’s quarrels, the plain fact is that ordinary churches keep sending. The 2026–27 season is starting now; resources are free at lottiemoon.com. The Pathway (IMB/NAMB)
NAMB trims its budget and closes its litigation committee. Meeting in Boston Oct. 5–6, NAMB trustees approved a $145.6 million budget for 2026–27, $2.7 million below last year, and dissolved an ad hoc litigation committee after the Fifth Circuit dismissed a longstanding lawsuit against the board in NAMB’s favor. Trustees also proposed changing trustee qualifications so that SBC states and territories without board representation can gain it; that goes to the Executive Committee. The Pathway
Kentucky Baptist pastor arrested on child exploitation charges. Kentucky State Police arrested Jared Salmons, 48, listed as pastor of Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Cornettsville, Ky., on 17 counts of distributing material depicting the sexual performance of a child under 12. According to the citation, he admitted creating AI-generated images. The Kentucky Baptist Convention called the news “deeply troubling” and asked churches to pray for the congregation, the families involved, and that justice be done. The charges are unproven. They also show that AI-generated abuse material is now part of the threat churches must screen and report for, and small rural congregations with one pastor and little oversight are the most exposed. Biblical Recorder
Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.
Kennedy Smartt, a PCA founder, dies at 101. Smartt died Oct. 15. He served on the original “committee of 12” formed in 1971 to explore a new Presbyterian church in response to liberalism in the PCUS, and at the second General Assembly he made the motion to rename the National Presbyterian Church the Presbyterian Church in America. He later chaired Mission to the World, directed evangelism for Mission to North America, and was moderator in 1998. Of his ministry he said simply, “I loved pastoring people and visiting with them.” He also resolved, during the split, not to break fellowship with his liberal brothers. Separation for the truth without bitterness toward people is a hard balance, and he kept it. byFaith
Muether on the Plan of Union. OPC historian John Muether’s piece, highlighted on Heidelblog, argues that the 1801 Plan of Union between Presbyterians and Congregationalists, a frontier partnership built for efficiency, ended up weakening confessional Presbyterianism. Clark paired it with a live Heidelcast on ecumenism on Oct. 14. Commentary, not news, but timely for any church weighing partnerships that look practical. Heidelblog Heidelblog
Founders: law and gospel. Founders’ current Sword & the Trowel episode has Tom Ascol and Tom Hicks on Hicks’s book God’s Two Words. The theme continues into the 2027 National Founders Conference, “The Law and the Gospel,” Jan. 21–23 in Southwest Florida, with Joel Beeke and Conrad Mbewe among the speakers. An announcement; the episode is undated. Founders Founders
Grimké Seminary was checked directly; its homepage showed nothing new beyond the Carey Center noted last week, and nothing dated. WORLD blocked direct fetches; its items here came from search results.
Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.
The Text and Canon Institute moves to Midwestern. The institute, which researches how the Bible was copied, canonized, and translated and produces resources for churches, is now based at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary under co-directors John Meade and Peter Gurry. The relaunch was timed to the anniversary of William Tyndale’s death. “It cannot be a matter of indifference to Christians how we got” the Bible, Gurry said. Church members meet skeptical claims about the text on social media long before they hear an answer in church; this is a resource worth passing to teachers. The Pathway (Midwestern Seminary)
Three questions about AI for disciple-makers. Jason Thacker of Boyce College and the ERLC offers a simple test for any new technology: what is gained, what is lost, and what is changing. AI can ease routine work, he writes, but discipleship grows through relationships, not just information. He quotes the Brentwood Statement on AI and Christian ministry: “Godly wisdom cannot be gained quickly nor pursued in isolation.” A useful frame for staff discussing AI in sermon prep or counseling. R. Scott Clark took up the same subject this week, on AI and idolatry. The Pathway Heidelblog
Justification, again. Heidelcast began a look at justification on Oct. 18 in its series comparing Rome, Constantinople, and Geneva, and the blog ran two excerpts from Samuel Rutherford warning against “justification by cooperation.” Teaching material, not news, but a reminder that the doctrine is still contested, as Reformation Sunday on Oct. 25 approaches. Heidelblog
Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.
Pastors won’t endorse from the pulpit, whatever the courts decide. A Lifeway Research survey of 1,003 Protestant pastors found 93% do not plan to endorse candidates during a worship service; 5% do. Actual pulpit endorsements have been rare: 2% in 2024. Public approval of the practice has risen, from 13% in 2008 to 29% in 2024. The law is unsettled. The IRS agreed in a 2025 settlement that churches could endorse through their “usual channels,” but a federal judge in Texas rejected that settlement in March, and the appeal sits with the Fifth Circuit. “What pastors say from the pulpit has far more to do with their religious convictions than avoiding tax penalties,” said Scott McConnell. Most pastors already know the line between teaching and campaigning. The Pathway (Lifeway Research)
Abortion on the ballot in four states. Voters in Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia will decide abortion measures on Nov. 3. Missouri’s would repeal its 2024 abortion-rights amendment, banning abortion except for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, and rape or incest, and would bar gender transition procedures for minors. Idaho’s would legalize abortion up to viability; the Latter-day Saints gave $1 million to oppose it. Virginia’s Question 1 would add reproductive freedom to the state constitution, and Question 2 would remove its definition of marriage; nearly 400 Virginia pastors signed a letter opposing both. Pew finds 46% of voters call abortion “very important,” down from 56% in 2022. Pastors in those states should teach the issue plainly, from the text; everyone should pray. Religion News Service WORLD
Evangelicals and Catholic bishops on immigration. The Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue on Immigration, a partnership of the National Association of Evangelicals and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, released a joint statement Oct. 13. It grounds its appeal in the image of God (“This dignity comes from God, not government”), affirms the government’s right to enforce the law and secure borders, and voices concern over family separations and detention. It proposes no specific policy. The ERLC is not named as a participant; it left the NAE-linked Evangelical Immigration Table last year. Religion News Service
Catholic preschools head to the Supreme Court on Election Day. On Nov. 3 the justices will hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, over Colorado’s exclusion of Catholic preschools from its universal preschool program because they will not accept the state’s rules on sexual orientation and gender identity in admissions. Becket’s Mark Rienzi argues the state has defined “universal” to shut out Catholics. After Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson, the question is whether a state may set conditions a faithful school cannot meet. Churches that run preschools or Christian schools should follow it. America Religion News Service
Religious voters, divided. Pew reports that white evangelical and white Catholic registered voters favor Republican House candidates, while other religious groups split or lean Democratic. Trump’s approval has slipped in every religious group; white evangelicals are the only group where more approve (58%) than disapprove (40%). Pew Research Center Pew Research Center
Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.
A Black Baptist church from 1776 rededicated. Members of First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, Va., founded in 1776 and one of the oldest Black congregations in the country, celebrated the rededication of their reconstructed church. Religion News Service
“By serving my enemies, there are no more enemies.” Rosette Mansour, a Lebanese Baptist whose family was lined up against a wall by Syrian soldiers in 1990, later found healing by serving Syrian refugees in Beirut alongside her son. A short, worthwhile read on Matthew 5:44. The Pathway (Baptist Press)
A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.
Two numbers from this week belong side by side. Southern Baptists gave more to Lottie Moon than ever before, and 93% of pastors say they will not endorse candidates from the pulpit even if the law lets them. Both show what churches do when they are clear about their mission: they send missionaries, and they keep the pulpit for the Word. The third story is the hard one. A pastor in a small Kentucky church is charged with producing abuse images, and his members may never have imagined it. Faithfulness in missions and preaching does not excuse a church from watching its own leaders. So ask your board this week: does every person who serves with children here, including our pastors and elders, go through the same screening, and who would we call the same day if we learned of abuse? And then: what one thing will we tell our people about the Lottie Moon offering this December so they know where their gift goes?