On November 12, 2001, Brad and Connie Bull — good friends and Baptist Joint Committee supporters — gave birth to a son. The proud parents quickly sent me a picture of John-Clarke Leland Bull.

Brad and Connie had named their son after two Baptist heroes: John Clarke, Baptist minister and co-founder of Rhode Island, and John Leland, Baptist evangelist fighting for religious liberty in Virginia. (Their daughter, Delyn, is named for Brad’s paternal grandmother who agreed to marriage only if her Methodist fiancé became a Baptist!)

Not all of us are sufficiently steeped in our Baptist heritage or committed to religious liberty that we would name a child after multiple ancestors. But it is important that we all understand how critical it is to communicate to the next generation the principles that underpin our commitment to religious freedom and our appreciation for the price paid by our predecessors to ensure it for us.

I know I am, and the Baptist Joint Committee surely is. Let me briefly outline for you three ways in which we are determined to do this.

For the past 30 years, the Baptist Joint Committee has had a very effective internship program. Started by James Dunn — with Bill Underwood (now president of Mercer University) as the first intern — the program has developed over the years into one of the premier internships on Capitol Hill. We generally enjoy six, sometimes seven interns each year. Some are in between college and graduate school (often law school or seminary), some are still undergraduates, and others have finished their schooling.

The benefits of the internship program go both ways. The interns learn a great deal, are modestly compensated for their efforts and absorb the new commitment to religious liberty that makes the Baptist Joint Committee unique. The Baptist Joint Committee, on the other hand, benefits from the interns’ hard work and, perhaps more importantly, from the interns then becoming ambassadors championing the cause of religious liberty on their college campus, law school or seminary and throughout their careers.

We now have an alumni group of some 150 former interns leading our churches and colleges, making laws in state legislatures and spreading the gospel of religious liberty in their daily lives.

Another prong of our strategy to reach the next generation is being implemented through the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State. Through the incredible generosity of Buddy and Kay Shurden, who endowed annual lectureship on college and seminary campuses on an annual rotating basis, the Baptist Joint Committee is taking the initiative to the students themselves. In April of this year, we completed our sixth Shurden Lectureship with Melissa Rogers delivering insightful and inspiring messages to students at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky. Because of the Shurdens’ commitment, these lectureships will go on in perpetuity. Next year we will be at Mercer University. We then go to Stetson University in 2013 and Baylor University in 2014.

A third way in which we are reaching out to young people is through our Religious Liberty Essay Contest. Open to high school juniors and seniors and now in its sixth year, the contest seeks to engage high school students on a religious liberty topic. It offers a top prize of $1,000 and a trip to the nation’s capital, $500 for second place and $100 for third place. When we first started we received only a handful of essays. This year we netted more than 370 qualified essays from 43 states, far surpassing our previous high of 74 in 2009. We plan to announce this year’s winner sometime before the Baptist Joint Committee’s Religious Liberty Council Luncheon at the CBF General Assembly in Tampa this June.

How can you help? Tell us about promising potential interns; earmark gifts for the Shurden Lectures so that someday we will be able to fund two lectureships a year; encourage your children and students who attend your churches to participate in the essay contest.

By the way, the Bull family is doing well. In fact, they showed up at the BJC offices last month. (John-Clarke was a little chagrined to learn that I had kept his baby picture in my desk drawer all these years.) Brad and Connie, professors at Tennessee Baptists’ Carson-Newman College, are furthering the education of John-Clarke and Delyn through tours of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the U.S. Capitol, the monuments on the National Mall and, yes, a visit to the Baptist Joint Committee. You should come see us, too!