Published: July 02, 2009 08:36 am      

U of C refuses youth group

Staff/Wire report

A youth group from Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas has found a new mission trip for its summer mission/choir tour after being told by the University of the Cumberlands they weren’t welcome at the school.

The youth group’s leader, Fran Patterson, has tentatively decided to travel to Nashville to the First Baptist Church there, and help that church with local missions in and around Nashville, said Brent Beasley, Broadway Baptist Church’s pastor.

The youth group had been invited to come to the University of the Cumberlands to participate in the school’s Mountain Outreach program, which builds houses for disadvantaged people in the region. However, the Broadway Baptist Church was “disfellowshipped” from the Southern Baptist Convention last week because of the church’s tolerant stance on homosexuality.

Beasley said when a university official called on June 30 to say the youth group was no longer allowed to stay in the dorms or participate in Mountain Outreach, the official told Patterson that Broadway Baptist’s stance on homosexuality was the reason they were no longer invited to the university.

The youth group was supposed to arrive in Williamsburg on Friday. Patterson scrambled to find an alternative, and Nashville is what she found.

Beasley said he is unsure as to why the university would cancel Broadway Baptist’s invitation.

“I don’t know if they were pressured to do it, or what,” Beasley said. He said the youth group members are unaware of their new mission locale, but that he and Patterson met with them yesterday night to discuss the cancelation.

“I’m sure that some of them have heard what’s happened, but we’ve got it all lined up now,” Beasley said. He also said the group would have to get used to the idea of having to sleep on a gym floor now, instead of in dorm rooms, but he said the youth were adaptable and just wanted to serve God through missions.

The University of the Cumberlands was contacted by The Times-Tribune, but declined to comment.

Ivy Brashear and the Associated Baptist Press contributed to this report.