By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
BATON ROUGE (LBM) – After nearly 10 years of praying and planning, the Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge has opened its new Adoniram Judson, Jr. Missions and Ministries Center Annex.
Pastors, seminary staff and other Louisiana Baptist leaders from around the state gathered Sept. 9 at the BAGBR office to mark the official opening of the facility that was dedicated in honor of T.W. and Iris Terral. He is a former pastor of Lanier Baptist Church in Baton Rouge and was instrumental in starting the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary extension center inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
Tommy Middleton, director of missions for BAGBR, told the Baptist Message Terral was “due” the honor because of his contributions to Kingdom work in the state.
“We stand on the shoulders of T.W. Terral,” Middleton said. “He’s been impacting the work in this area for six decades. His footprint is quite large, spiritually, and he is deserving of great honor.”
The facility will house a church planting incubator — where new church starts can use space for office and worship, a New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary extension center, a pastoral ministry training space, and, a Louisiana Baptist disaster relief “hub” that will offer shower and preparation areas.
Jamie Dew, president of NOBTS, told the crowd at the ribbon cutting that the seminary was excited to have such a facility that will support the equipping of future ministry leaders.
“We exist for you,” he said. “You folks are the ones that are on the front lines. You folks are the ones doing Kingdom work and that God is using in a mighty way. Our job is to come alongside and train, support, and help and to enable and to empower. We have a desire to see an army, a generation of people, coming out of our campus back into our churches, back into the broken parts of this world, and there serve Christ and serve those people.”
T.W. Terral and Tommy Middleton were among those on hand to celebrate the opening of the new Adoniram Judson, Jr. Missions and Ministries Center Annex, which is dedicated to Terral and his wife, Iris. Brian Blackwell photo
Under the direction of Mike Shumock, who serves as missions builder strategist for Louisiana Baptists and is the coordinator for Baptist Builders, a construction missions group, teams worked since January with Louisiana Baptists to frame and install sheetrock, electrical wiring and plumbing systems inside the 1,700-square-foot facility.
Volunteers included members from Istrouma Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, Florida Boulevard Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, Faith Baptist Church, Livonia, First Baptist Church, Livingston, First Baptist Church, Sumrall, and First Baptist Church, Crosby, Mississippi.
“The vision of the church as being an incubator is what drew us to this project,” Shumock said. “This was in the area of missions to help start new churches and help them grow to the point where they could turn around get their own facilities.”
Shumock said the BAGBR project is the fifth one undertaken by Baptist Builder volunteers this year:
— In May, Mississippi Baptists helped rebuild a 5,000-square-foot education facility for Suburban Baptist Church in New Orleans, which lost several of its buildings after an EF-3 tornado touched down in the area Feb. 7, 2017.
— In early June, a team from Franklin Creek Baptist Association in Alabama, with assistance from a Wisconsin Baptist volunteer, helped the Korean Baptist Church in Leesville build a 3,000-square-foot multipurpose facility.
— In late June, members of El Renuevo Hispanic Baptist Church in Lafayette finished Moreauville Community Church’s 2,880-square-foot worship center and food pantry.
Other projects planned for 2019 include construction of a 1,200-square-foot addition to the worship center for Greys Creek Baptist Church in Denham Springs, which was heavily damaged in the flood of 2016; building an 8,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility at First Baptist Church in Napoleonville; constructing a 20,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility at First Baptist Church in Port Barre; and, building a 3,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility at Korean Baptist Church in Leesville.
To learn more about volunteering with the Baptist Builders call 225.975.0848 or visit facebook.com/groups/
