By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

HAMMOND – Three associations in southeastern Louisiana are pondering consolidation of their administrative structure.

The North Shore Baptist Association office serves the people between Pearl River on the Mississippi state line and LivingstonThe executive boards of the three Baptist Associations served by Director of Missions and Ministries Lonnie Wascom each voted unanimously in their January meetings to recommend to their churches that they establish a new Northshore Baptist Association at their 2010 annual meetings.

By Bethany Hales, Special to the Message

NEW ORLEANS – A church that was decimated by Hurricane Katrina is now rebounding in a big way.

First Baptist Chalmette, averaging 300 or more in Sunday School attendance before Hurricane Katrina, lost 97 percent of its membership after the storm.

By Marilyn Stewart, Regional Reporter

NEW ORLEANS – Rebirth and a call to mission was the theme of the recent sanctuary rededication of New Orleans’ Gentilly Baptist Church. The service came four and half years after the facility flooded in Hurricane Katrina.

“Welcome to Gentilly Baptist Church, where hope is alive,” Dennis Cole, associate pastor, said to the people in the packed worship center.

SLIDELL, HAMMOND – Two congregations that started meeting as mission churches before Katrina, weathered the storm and in recent days both constituted into full-fledged church status.

Thompson Road Baptist Church in Slidell, formerly known as Cornerstone Baptist Church, constituted Jan. 17. Randy Boyett is pastor. It meets in a worship center and educational space constructed by the Louisiana Baptist Mission Builders.

Crossroads Community Church, which meets in a renovated former movie theater across the street from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, constituted Jan. 31. Asah Hudgins is pastor.

Paul Daily of Wild Horse Ministries and Andy Myrick team up at the 10th Annual Ropin for the Redeemer evangelist outreach

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

MONROE – Northeast Louisiana Baptist Association mounts evangelistic campaigns throughout the year.

Most recently – Feb. 6-7 – it was eighth annual Ropin’ for the Redeemer, a two-day event targeting country folks and wannabes.

The day-long event included a space walk and slide for children and miniature horses from the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home.

By Karen L. Willoughby

WEST MONROE and more – Northeast Baptist Association also ministers locally in many ways in addition to its evangelistic thrust, said Jerry Price, director of missions for NELBA and for Morehouse Baptist Association, which stretches upward to the Arkansas border.

The Northeast Association focus on ministering through the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home, Baptist Collegiate Ministry at the University of Louisiana–Monroe, Northeast Baptist School in West Monroe, Truckstop Ministries, and the Ray of Hope ministry centers in Monroe and West Monroe. The association’s ethnic work reaches out to Chinese- and Hispanic-speaking people. A seminary extension center “ helps prepare church leaders for Kingdom Ministry,” the DOM added.

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

Andy Johnson Pastor Cross Roads Baptist Church FarmervilleFARMERVILLE (BP) – When Cross Roads Baptist Church realized they had more income than budgetary needs last fall, it didn’t take long to decide how to spend it.

They upped their giving to missions through the Cooperative Program from 10 percent to 12 percent.

Cross Roads Baptist Church is a congregation of 100 in Farmerville Louisiana“The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 4:2 that stewards are to be found faithful,” said Andy Johnson, pastor of the Farmerville, La. congregation. “Rather than roll those finances over into a CD or put them away in a rainy day or a building fund, we decided that they would be put to better use for the Kingdom’s sake in the Cooperative Program.

“The CP missionary force is, in my opinion, one of the most important arsenals that we as Christians have today,” the 30-year-old Johnson said of the national and international outreach supported by 45,000 Southern Baptist churches. The missionaries “are on the front lines ... think of it as a military operation: You wouldn’t send the military into battle without making doubly sure that they were properly funded, armed and taken care of, would you?”

By Marilyn Stewart, Regional Reporter

Jim Louviere, shown with wife Michele, planted a church in Metairie that presents the message in the language of today s cultureNEW ORLEANS – If having a good time was the same as being happy, this metro area should be filled with contented people, or so notes the website of Crescent City Rock, a church plant in Metairie with five baptisms since its start in November.

To those searching for more, the church offers the hope that “Life rocks when built on The Rock.”

By Marilyn Stewart, Regional Reporter

NEW ORLEANS – A banjo player, Fusako Takada’s love of Jazz took her from Japan to New Orleans a dozen years ago. Though Takada didn’t know it at the time, her quest for music set her on a path to faith and new life in Christ.

While in New Orleans in 1998, Takada was introduced to the story of Jesus through the gospel music of the African-American community. Back home, Takada joined a gospel choir led by an American in Tokyo.

By Diana Chandler, Regional Reporter

Celebration Church has a global focus with a number of members serving abroadMETAIRIE – International Missionaries Walter and Purnima Bowen say they felt a comfort at Celebration Church that reassured them their Hindu and Muslim friends would be welcomed there with an agape love.

She, the daughter of a Kolkata, India, Christian minister and he, an Arkansan whose mother has served as a missionary to Johannesburg, South Africa, visited many area churches while students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the months before Hurricane Katrina.“If Christians don’t accept me and I’m a Christian, how are they going to accept someone I bring who is not a Christian?” She posed. “When we first came to Celebration that wasn’t the case. We felt comfortable enough to say we can bring our non-Christian friends here and they can be accepted.

Brandon Rodgers, Highland Baptist West Monroe student minister“I feel like I’ve progressed in my relationship so far.  In my prayer life, I feel like I’m really connecting with God because I hear Him talking back.  Through being in this youth group, I have learned ways to come before God in a humble way.  That’s one thing that has helped my prayer life also.”  

  Gregory Justus,
9th grade

By Al Quartemont, Special to the Message

Illinois student wins 2010 Smith Scholarship at LCPINEVILLE – In a room full of highly-talented and qualified high school seniors vying for the opportunity to have their college experience paid for, one of the 50 students in Louisiana College’s Granberry Conference Center Saturday, Jan. 30, stood out for a simple reason:

She was the only one not from Louisiana.

By Marilyn Stewart, Regional Reporter

Judi Folds, wife of Tokyo Baptist Pastor Dennis Folds, leads a Bible study at Bethel Colony for recovering addicts.NEW ORLEANS – Dennis and Judi Folds left Louisiana 30 years ago to follow the Great Commission and take the Gospel to a distant land. A team of Japanese Baptists – the fruit of the Folds’ ministry in Tokyo – recently came to New Orleans on the same mission.

The 12-member team from Tokyo Baptist Church partnered with five members from First Baptist Church, Minden, and one from First Baptist, Homer, to share the Gospel in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. As a result, three area residents came to faith in Christ.

“[The Tokyo team] has been a blessing to work with,” said Bill Crider, First Minden’s minister to senior adults/missions. “And the people here have been very receptive.”
Tokyo Baptist Church, founded by Cooperative Program-supported missionaries and American military personnel stationed there in 1959, averages 1,400 in five weekend services, with 50 nationalities in attendance. Services take place in English.

By Karen L.. Willoughby, Managing Editor

A young boy reads his Bible at Life Point Church In Marksville.MARKSVILLE – An emphasis on meeting community needs is growing a new church that meets in an 80-year-old building on this town’s Main Street.

What started with children now is spreading to their parents and other adults, said Jacob Crawford, church planter with his wife Allyson. About 70 people now attend Sunday morning services, out of a church family of about 120, two years after the services started with 10 people.

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor

Utility Baptist Pastor James Foster has challenged his congregation to be strong and courageous in the coming year.JONESVILLE – James Foster preached from the Old Testament book of Joshua on Jan. 3, after he’d sung to them a Florida Boys gospel hit: Canaan Land is just in sight.

“I believe God has wonderful things in store for us this year,” Foster preached to his congregation of about 110 people at Utility Baptist Church near Jonesville, but he could have been preaching to every Christian in Louisiana. “Be strong and courageous,” the pastor quoted from Joshua 1, in verses 6, 7, 9 and 18.