By Trennis Henderson
The Baptist Paper Regional Correspondent
I’m grateful for The Baptist Paper’s vision and mission reflected through the staff’s commitment to producing content that highlights “truth with compassion.”
Editor Jennifer Rash and her team of professional communicators seek to keep Baptists and other readers informed and inspired through timely, thought-provoking news, features and editorials.
Whether addressing challenging denominational issues, inspirational missions and ministry features or practical aspects of daily Christian life, the national publication goes in-depth to cover key issues of our day. It is a vital calling worth pursuing.
My wife, Pam, and I joined The Baptist Paper team three years ago as traveling correspondents. After serving throughout my ministry career in Christian communications, Pam and I both found ourselves in a season of transition several years ago.
While discussing future ministry opportunities one day, Pam asked me, “What would you be doing if you could do anything you wanted to do?”
After pondering her insightful question, I responded that I would love to get back to the foundation of why I felt called to Christian communications decades ago — to cover significant missions and ministry stories that hopefully can make a difference in readers’ lives.
Answering the call
After much prayer, discussion and soul-searching, we approached national Woman’s Missionary Union about a ministry partnership that would involve us traveling the country as WMU’s national correspondent team — with me conducting interviews and writing feature coverage while Pam shot photos and produced related videos.
As a former weekday preschool director at churches in Kentucky and Arkansas, Pam graciously stepped outside of her comfort zone to pursue our new venture. During our years on the road, I’m proud to say she has honed her skills and repeatedly been honored by professional peers as an award-winning photographer and videographer.
To make our dream a reality, we sold our house and cars back in 2018, bought a small RV and partnered with WMU on a three-year journey that would connect us with incredible missions stories all across the U.S. As we wrapped up our WMU partnership, we approached Jennifer about the possibility of a similar correspondent role with The Alabama Baptist.
The timing and content of her response clearly pointed to God’s ongoing call for our itinerant communications ministry. She said TAB was getting ready to launch a new national publication in 2021 and she would be glad to partner with us as regional correspondents. As we traveled from state to state, she also invited us to meet with leaders of local churches, associations and state conventions to introduce them to The Baptist Paper.
As a result, we had the privilege of joining TAB Media Group and visiting Baptist leaders in a variety of ministry settings. Our coverage has ranged from “Man Cave” men’s ministry and the “Hillbilly 100” race ministry to ministries related to autism, drug rehabilitation, Native Americans and much more.
Pursuing ministry of grace
Throughout my Christian communications career, one of my guiding Scripture passages has been Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.”
My personal application of that verse as a Christian journalist is, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your computer keyboard (or social media, etc.), but that which is good for the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the readers.”
As Pam and I transition into retirement and expand our grandparenting adventures, we pray that our colleagues at The Baptist Paper will continue to produce content “which is good for the use of edifying.” May it ever be so.
