Montana
STATE MEETINGS: Montana, Dakotas • Biblical Recorder
Montana celebrates baptisms, notes college closure
MONTANA CITY, Mont. — Baptisms in Montana are up 50% over the last four years, Executive Director Barrett Duke announced during the state convention’s recent annual meeting.
In other major news, Montana Christian College has closed, Duke said.
“It’s not one church; 70% of our churches are seeing people saved and baptized,” Duke told Baptist Press. “It’s exciting. We just have all our churches working hard to reach people.
“On a sad note,” Duke added, the college, established as Yellowstone Baptist College in 1974 as a separate entity from the Montana Southern Baptist Convention, has announced that it has closed. Connected through the Cooperative Program, the college “never had a large donor base,” the executive director said.
“The decision to close was made in late summer,” he continued. “The trustees came to the point of accepting that the donors would not be forthcoming this fall with the funds to operate, and they couldn’t find a way to move forward.”
The move of state convention offices from rented space at Fellowship Baptist Church in Billings to Helena, first announced last year, is on hold while suitable property at a reasonable price is located, Duke said.
The MTSBC’s 64th annual meeting took place Oct. 3-4 at South Hills Baptist Fellowship in an unincorporated town near Helena with 177 in attendance, including 63 messengers from 35 of Montana’s 124 churches.
Guest speakers included Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee, and Philip Robertson, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee. Robertson, a friend of first-term MTSBC President Randall Jackson, had already been invited to speak when Iorg, known to many in Montana, was installed in his new role. “We thought it would be good to hear from him,” Duke said, explaining the presence of both Executive Committee leaders.
Duke led in a panel discussion with Iorg and Robertson about the work of the SBC Executive Committee, including sexual abuse and financial issues, plus moving forward.
In addition there was worship, fellowship, reports from Duke, Darren Hales and the church strengthening team, Dave Howeth and the church planting team, and SBC entities, plus business.
Last year’s officers were re-elected: President Randall Jackson, pastor of Choteau (Montana) Baptist Church and Vice President Curtis Crow, pastor of The Bridge in Belgrade.
Messengers approved a $910,000 budget for 2025, down from $975,000 last year. The total includes up to $160,000 from the North American Mission Board (NAMB) for evangelism. The Cooperative Program’s 75/25 percentage split means an anticipated $156,250 is allocated for SBC global mission needs.
“We had a good crowd in the room and a great spirit,” Duke said. “Our folks are happy to get together. You could hear it in the worship and the fellowship. There’s just a great spirit in the state.”
Montana, with 14 church planters in the state, recorded 1,328 total baptisms during three COVID-clouded years, and 620 last year.
“You have to go back to 2016 before you find a year when our churches baptized more people than they did last year: 633,” Duke told messengers. “I’m glad to say we have shaken off the effects of COVID on our outreach efforts to our communities.”
Finances, however, have worsened over the last few years, fueled by COVID, dissatisfaction with national SBC entities and inflation.
“The MTSBC is struggling financially,” Duke said. “You’ll see in the board’s proposed 2025 budget that we’re looking at a deficit spending budget. The deficit is slight, and I believe very manageable. I’m confident that our churches can meet this need. However, we must get ourselves on a better trajectory.
“The Cooperative Program serves in helping us reach the lost and make disciples around the world,” the executive director continued. “Missions is a crucial part of a church’s ministry. Somehow, we must each do all we can to work together to get the word out about our great gospel partnership funded by the Cooperative Program.”
MTSBC’s 65th annual meeting is set for Oct. 2-3, 2025, at the Bridge church in Belgrade.
Dakota gives, prays
WILLISTON, N.D. — The largest line item in the Dakota Baptist Convention’s 2025 budget is for the Cooperative Program.
Unchanged from last year, Dakota Baptists allocate 25% of their budget for the cooperative work of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
“Over the 41 years of the Dakota Convention’s lifespan, we have directly benefited and been greatly blessed in many ways by the partnership with our brothers and sisters around the SBC,” Executive Director Fred MacDonald told Baptist Press. “The greatest benefit, however, is knowing that the name of Jesus is being carried around the world and that the churches of the Dakotas are a part of that effort.”
The 2024 Annual Meeting and Dakota Gathering took place Oct. 3-4 at Cornerstone First Baptist Church in Williston, N.D., Oct. 3-4 with a theme of “We Always Pray,” based on 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12.
Worship was led by Scott Ristau, associate pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Aberdeen, S.D. James Proctor, lead pastor of South Canyon Baptist Church in Rapid City, S.D., Josh Brown, pastor of Redeeming Grace Church in Rapid City, S.D., and MacDonald were keynote speakers.
Worship and fellowship were paramount, the executive director said. Business consisted of the 51 messengers from 29 of the two-state convention’s 82 churches approving the 2025 budget, 2025 calendar and resolutions, plus electing officers and new Executive Board members.
The $539,170 budget for 2025 is 1.7% larger than last year’s budget, with $115,000 allocated for national CP giving.
New officers for one-year terms include President Chip Holmes, pastor of First Baptist Church in Wolsey, S.D.; Vice-President Jeff Musgrave, pastor of WayPoint Baptist Church in Minot, N.D.; Recording Secretary Karen Holmes, member of First Baptist Church in Wolsey, S.D.; and Assistant Recording Secretary Debra Page, member of First Baptist Church in Miller, S.D.
In addition to a resolution expressing “sincere gratitude and appreciation” to the host church, Cornerstone Williston, messengers affirmed “the Cooperative Program as our primary method of funding our Great Commission cooperation at home and abroad.”
“The best thing that is happening this year in the Dakotas flows from our theme, ‘We Always Pray,’” MacDonald said. “There has been a renewed commitment to come before the Father’s throne on behalf of His work in the Dakotas.
“For example, during our state mission offering emphasis in September, we replaced the normal ‘week of prayer’ with a ‘month of prayer for the Dakotas,’” the executive director continued. “We put together a 30-day devotional book, in both English and Spanish, and made them available to the members of our churches. It was encouraging, knowing that so many across North and South Dakota were reading God’s Word and praying together throughout the month.”
For Baker State Missions, Living Hope Baptist Church in Fargo, N.D., led in giving with $6,010.58 for the state missions offering. Tanner Olson is pastor. Sovereign Grace Church in Aberdeen, S.D., followed with $5,000.00. Sam Ellyson is pastor.
“All of us who live and serve here know that our two states are great places to live but they are also two states with great spiritual needs,” Church Planting Strategist Stephen Carson said in his report. “Pray that God raise up families to come to the Dakotas to plant and pastor, along with raising up families in our Dakota churches with the vision to do the same.”
The next annual gathering of the Dakota Baptist Convention is set for Oct. 9-10, 2025.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.)
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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