By Kelly Boggs, Editor   PINEVILLE – Louisiana College announced on Feb. 14 the college’s agreement to purchase and renovate the former Joe D. Waggonner Federal Building in Shreveport to serve as the home of LC’s Judge Paul Pressler School of Law.   [img_assist|nid=7169|title=LC Law School|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=75]“We are delighted to announce this decision,” said LC President Joe Aguillard. “The Federal Building offers all the space we will need to serve our students and provide a superior program of legal education.”   One of Shreveport’s largest landmarks, the building that will house the law school is situated near the Northern Louisiana city’s main business district.   Adjacent to the Shreveport Convention Center, the building is also located near the U.S. District Court for the Western District of La., and the La. Second Circuit Court of Appeal, LC indicated in a press release.   Original plans had the law school being housed in the CBN/United Mercantile Building, also located in downtown Shreveport. On Sept. 1, 2010, LC announced that $3.1 million of the historic building’s purchase price would be donated to the college by the building’s … [Read more...]

By Philip Timothy, Message Staff Writer   RAYNE – Just two weeks after attending a regional Disaster Relief training session at Acadian Baptist Center, the 10 from First Baptist Church Rayne who participated found themselves putting that training to use.   [img_assist|nid=7172|title=Rayne Tornado|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67]On Saturday, March 5, an EF-2 tornado, packing 130 mile-per-hour winds, cut a swath of destruction five miles long and three football fields wide through the northwest corner of Rayne, a small southwest Louisiana town west of Lafayette.   According to the state Fire Marshal’s office, 42 houses were destroyed, 48 sustained major damage, 79 sustained minor to moderate damage and another 514 some damage – primarily the loss of shingles or other roofing materials.   The savage storm also took the life of 21-year-old Jalisa Granger – who was protecting her child when a tree fell on her house – and injured 11 others.   [img_assist|nid=7173|title=Rayne Tornado|desc=The sign leading to Rayne High School was one of the many structures damaged by an EF-2 tornado packing 130 mile-per-hour winds that hit the southwest Louisiana town Saturday, March … [Read more...]

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor   CROWVILLE – Fellowship wasn’t a problem. Neither were finances. But Crockett Point wasn’t growing, baptisms last year were down by 25 percent or more, and Pastor Joe Senn had grown complacent, he now admits.   [img_assist|nid=7175|title=Crockett Point|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=75]“I was not hearing from God like I had been,” Senn said. “My personal relationship with God was not where it needed to be, same with my wife and everybody else. I had really grown cold, indifferent.”   He didn’t realize this, however, until he read a book he received at the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s annual meeting last November, Senn said. The book: Returning to Holiness, by Gregory R. Frizzell of Oklahoma.   “It talked about Solemn Assemblies and how to do one,” Senn said. “I kept saying, ‘This would be good for my church,’ but then it came to me, ‘This would be good for me.’ I was just dry, complacent. I had gotten to that place where you are content with the status quo.”   Perhaps a dozen churches across Louisiana have held a Solemn Assembly this year, some in response to Southern Baptist Convention president Bryant Wright’s call to … [Read more...]

By David E. Hankins, Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention   As Cooperative Program Day (April 11) approaches, the CP has been receiving high profile attention by Southern Baptists. We have been asking about the future of this 85 year-old missions funding network.   The good news is that the SBC in adopting the Great Commission Resurgence Report last June once again affirmed the CP as the primary means for supporting our common missions work as Louisiana Baptists and as Southern Baptists. The bad news is that we have not yet managed to reverse the rapid 25-year decline in the average percentage of church receipts forwarded to missions through the Cooperative Program (from 10.5 percent in 1984 to under 6 percent in 2009).   This decline represents the strategic Cooperative Program Challenge. The churches that make up our state and national conventions are the only ones who can successfully meet the challenge.   [img_assist|nid=7177|title=The CP Squeeze|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=464]What steps must be taken by the churches?   1. Southern Baptist churches must re-value our common ministries. Southern Baptist churches, by definition, are those … [Read more...]

By Kelly Boggs, Editor Louisiana Baptist Message I recently read an Associated Press report concerning the comedian Gallagher. The prop comic had been hospitalized after collapsing during a performance in Rochester, Minn. Gallagher’s manager, Craig Marquardo, indicated that his client was in stable condition. Marquardo also said that he did not know why the comic collapsed. The final paragraph in the report said, “Gallagher, whose real name is Leo Anthony Gallagher, is best known for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer.” As I read the words “best known for smashing watermelons with a sledge hammer,” I thought to myself, “What a way to be remembered.” I can only imagine Mr. Gallagher’s future funeral. “We have gathered here to pay our last respects to our friend and our dear family member,” the minister might say. “We shall never forget his mastery at mashing melons.” At the grave site we might be greeted by a beautifully carved headstone reading: “Gallagher was his name, whacking watermelons was his game.” As I pondered the last line in the report on Gallagher’s health plight, I asked myself, “How do I want to be remembered?” The truth is that how we live is how we will be remembered. If you want to be thought kind, … [Read more...]

By Ed Steele, Professor of Music Leavell College at NOBTS   How are songs written? How do these things happen? Is there a magic spell that comes on someone, or do angels deliver words and music? What is this thing called “inspiration” from which some of the great songs are born?   Some songs were written through new insights of the Scripture, like Thomas Chisholm’s “Great is Thy Faithfulness, ” as he was reading Lamentations 3:22-23.   Sometimes when we hear words, God illuminates them and new meaning seems to jump out at us. It is like hearing them for the first time. Sometimes just emphasizing different words does this.   Take for example I Kings 19, when Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel and is hiding in a cave at Horeb. Twice God asks him, “Why are you here, Elijah?” More than just to repeat a question, it might be that God was emphasizing different words each time he asked. For example: Read the statement emphasizing this way: “Why are you here, Elijah?” “Why are you here, Elijah?” or even, “Why are you here, Elijah?”  Such happenings provide new understanding and help us gain new insights into what God might have been trying to say to the prophet.  New insights and understandings are … [Read more...]

By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor   [img_assist|nid=7182|title=A Beautiful Sign|desc=A young Native American signs The Lord;s Prayer during The Gathering for Spiritual Awakening in Oklahoma City in early March.|link=none|align=left|width=66|height=100]OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (BP) – Native Americans from 15 states and three Canadian provinces participated in The Gathering for Spiritual Awakening March 2-4 at Southern Hills Baptist Church. It was an event designed to remove barriers and build bridges that would bring Native Peoples across North America to a personal relationship with Almighty God.   The tools presented would work just as well in non-native churches.   “We came from Nebraska expecting something miraculous because we need a miracle,” said Ron Goombi, a North American Mission Board missionary to Native Americans in Kansas and Nebraska. He brought people from eight tribes in the two states. “Our suicide rates are so high the tribe doesn’t know what to do. The water system is breaking down. … We need to live beyond the barriers we have.”   In the United States, 95 out of every 100 Native Americans do not have a personal relationship with God. This was a statistic repeated … [Read more...]

By Mark Kelly, Baptist Global Response   Note to readers: A mission team from First Minden had plans to travel to Tokyo March 24-31; those plans are now on hold, said Senior Adult Pastor Bill Crider at deadline, after talking with Tokyo Baptist Church.   [img_assist|nid=7185|title=Empty Shelves in Japan|desc=Families in Japan are struggling to find food in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake.|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=480]TOKYO – A two-member disaster relief assessment team is on the ground in Japan and a second team will follow in a week, Baptist Global Responses Executive Director Jeff Palmer has announced.   The first team arrives as the estimated death toll from the March 11 earthquake soared past 10,000, and nuclear plant operators worked frantically to prevent meltdowns in several reactors crippled by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, according to news reports.   Thousands of survivors are coping with near-freezing temperatures for hundreds of miles along Japan’s northeastern coast, which was wrecked by the one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami.   The first assessment team arrived in Tokyo on March 12 and made contact with a representative of … [Read more...]

By Staff, LBC Communications   ALEXANDRIA – If the 2 million Louisiana residents without a personal relationship with Christ were to meet Him today, most likely it’s the state’s 547,947 Southern Baptists who will make the introductions.   The Georgia Barnette State Missions Offering helps.   Georgia Barnette was the first Executive Director for Louisiana WMU. Through letters, messages, and example, she continually encouraged Louisiana Baptists to follow God’s command to “go and tell.” She led Louisiana Baptists to know the importance of giving and volunteering. Her work and passion for reaching Louisiana for Christ was honored in 1936 when the offering was given her name.   “While the largest percentage of the funds serve as the capitalization for new church starts, there are many other missions projects funded by the offering, including compassion ministries that were especially needed with the challenge of the winter,” said John Hebert, LBC missions and ministry director. “The state missions offering is a significant funding source for mission projects throughout the state of Louisiana.[img_assist|nid=7187|title=Top GBO … [Read more...]