By Philip Timothy, Message Staff Writer

ALEXANDRIA – Seeking the match to light a spiritual fire that would sweep the state, Louisiana Baptist Convention President Rod Masteller has begun a series of listening sessions statewide.

Dr. Rod Masteller LBC PresidentAccompanied by Louisiana Baptist Convention Executive Director David Hankins, and LBC Pastoral Leadership Team Director Bill Robertson, Masteller is attempting to canvas the state.

He’s already held a pair of sessions in Baton Rouge, one in Lafayette and the latest in Alexandria but plans on doing many more.

By Philip Timothy, Message Staff Writer

The Lord will open doors that no man can close, and close doors that no man can open!
 – Revelation 3:8

COVINGTON – When the Lord opens doors of service, boldly walk through.
Over the past 40 years, Johnny Huffman has learned to do so and has been blessed time and time again.

Johnny Huffman and Murrey Rabenhorst fill a 40-foot container with supplies for an earthquake-stricken orphanage in HaitiSince 1972, Huffman and his wife, Sissie, have run Fairhaven Children’s Home outside of Covington in rural southeast Louisiana.

By Heather Miller, The Daily Iberian

NEW IBERIA – For some, watching the coverage of the devastating earthquake that recently destroyed Port-au-Prince, Haiti, brought a sense of sadness and helplessness.

But for eighth-grade Highland Baptist Christian School student Amy Hayes, the tragedy not only hit closer to home than most, it inspired her to keep alive a mission that could have gone by the wayside when her relative died in the aftermath of the earthquake Jan. 12.

Hayes had never met her cousin’s wife, Jean Arnwine, who was on her first mission trip in Haiti delivering eyeglasses to clinics that treat the eyes of the overwhelmingly poor Haitian population. Arnwine brought with her to Haiti more than 800 used pairs of eyeglasses that she collected through donations.

GCR Task Force Recommendations

By Staff, Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

ALEXANDRIA – March 4 is the deadline for the LBC evangelism department to turn in its order to the printer for localized materials for Sharing the Peace of Jesus in Louisiana.
This means the deadline for churches to submit their requests is even earlier: Tuesday, March 1, for red door hangers that say, “This home has been prayed over,” and the Sharing the Peace of Jesus witnessing piece.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for us to build on the good name established by Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams over the last five years,” said Wayne Jenkins, director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s Evangelism and Church Growth team. “With all the problems facing people in America now, there is an openness for the Gospel. 

White Castle First Baptist Pastor Greg Wilton and wife Abby hold a Saints helmet found while gutting houses after Katrina

By Paul F. South, NOBTS Communications

WHITE CASTLE, La. (BP) – As Super Bowl week dawned in New Orleans, Greg Wilton’s face and a tarnished replica Saints helmet graced the front page of the city’s newspaper, The Times-Picayune.
Wilton, 27, tried to quell the buzz from family and friends, but this is no ordinary football helmet.
And Wilton, bivocational pastor of First Baptist Church in White Castle, La., a town of 1,946 where bayous and sugarcane stalks likely outnumber people, is more than, as he puts it, “a guy with a helmet.”
He’s a guy with a message to share.
First, about the helmet, which Wilton hopes someday to return to its owner. Rewind to the spring of 2006, seven months after Hurricane Katrina. Wilton, then a new graduate student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, joined a group of collegians working through the seminary’s MissionLab program during spring break to gut houses in New Orleans’ devastated Upper Ninth Ward, one of the Crescent City’s hardest-hit areas by post-Katrina flooding.

by Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

RUSTON – Members of Cook Baptist Church signed up for back-to-back, two-hour time slots recently, for the opportunity of reading the Bible aloud.

Families, Sunday school classes and other small groups, as well as individuals, sat in the foyer of the church a half-mile north of Interstate-20, and read from where the last person left off. It took 79 and one-half hours for 100 people to read from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 in the New King James version.

“We wanted to make a statement that America needs to return to hearing God,” said Mike Holloway, pastor since 2005 of Cook Ruston. “We want people across America to Hear God Speak – that’s the name we gave it – hear God speak to their hearts about their morals and lifestyles.

With uplifted arms, worshippers at the 2010 Evangelism Conference sing praises to God during opening session

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

BATON ROUGE – Soaring music, impassioned preaching, and warm fellowship all were part of the Evangelism Conference 2010, orchestrated Jan. 25-26 at Istrouma Baptist Church by the Evangelism and Church Growth division of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

Louisiana Baptists are responding to Haitians with their pocketbooks, prayers and relief efforts in a big way.STATEWIDE – As of presstime, more than $58,000 in checks has been received by the Louisiana Baptist Convention for Haiti relief.

This doesn’t count the money given with a credit card on the LBC website, or the offerings taken up at the Evangelism Conference, or the money sent directly to the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board or Baptist Global Response – the international arm of Southern Baptists’ Disaster Relief ministry.

Pam Tebow speaks to her son Tim during Senior Day ceremonies at the University of Florida. They will appear in a Super Bowl ad.

By Michael Foust, Baptist Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BP) – Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl ad featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother Pam won’t air until Feb. 7, but it’s already created plenty of buzz and even controversy.

The subject of the ad won’t be known until it is aired – the Colorado organization is only saying the theme will be “celebrate family, celebrate life” – but several pro-choice groups are assuming it will focus on the issue of abortion and are urging CBS to pull the ad.
On the flip side, fans of the former Florida Gator quarterback as well as Christians who align with the conservative beliefs of Focus on the Family are excited about the ad, even if they, too, are in the dark as to the specific topic.

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

ALEXANDRIA – Much has happened over the last nine years in the family of the churches that affiliate with the Louisiana Baptist Convention. The start of 2010 is a good time to show where we are, and where we’ve come from since 2000.

The last nine years are significant in that four hurricanes battered the state and each one was devastating in its own way. Katrina, which buffeted the state in 2005, will stand out in infamy for the floodwaters – some that stood eight or more feet deep for more than three weeks – which followed breaches in New Orleans’ levees.

The statistics below come from the Annual Church Profiles churches send in each fall. Therefore, this is not a complete picture of Louisiana Southern Baptists. It reflects only the churches that chose to turn in their ACP reports. That said, the numbers are worth examining.

By Staff, Baptist Message

ALEXANDRIA – A “new and improved” website greeted readers of the Baptist Message early in January.

In addition to all the articles and photos of the print edition of each biweekly issue of the Baptist Message, the online edition now provide expanded articles, web-only articles and additional photos.

“The new look is clean and sharp, with content that matches,” said Editor Kelly Boggs. “Its purpose remains the same: to tell the story of what God is doing through Southern Baptists in Louisiana and around the world.”

Boggs gave two reasons for the enhanced website: finances and content.

By Karen Willoughby, Managing Editor

Reports are coming in from all over the state of churches that gave more than ever before to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.STATEWIDE – Reports are coming in from all over Louisiana of churches that gave much more than ever before to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.

Churches big and small seem to have responded to the need of people across the globe to hear that God loves them and they can know Him personally.