By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – Reggie Bridges, pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Ruston, will be nominated for president of the Louisiana Baptist Convention during the 2021 annual meeting.
Eddie Wren, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Rayville and a past LBC president, alerted the Baptist Message, August 18, of his intentions to make the nomination, specifically highlighting Bridges’s “heart for evangelism.”
The LBC annual meeting is scheduled to be held Nov. 16 in the North Monroe Baptist Church.
STATEMENT OF SUPPORT
Wren said he met Bridges in 2014 “on a vision trip to Los Angeles as we journeyed out west to consider supporting a church plant in Burbank, California,” adding that Bridges is “active in evangelism at home, too.”
“Reggie has proven himself to be a servant leader of Louisiana Baptists as he has served our state well at all levels of Southern Baptist Life,” Wren also emphasized.
In support of his statement, Wren listed Bridges’s denominational service with the Committee on Committees for the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as his 2007-2013 term on the LBC Executive Board (Bridges also is serving a term now, that runs through 2022).
Wren also noted Bridges served on the Georgia Barnette State Missions Offering Committee (2010), as a trustee for Louisiana College (2014-2017) and on various committees with the Baptist Associations of Southeast Louisiana and Concord-Union Baptist Association.
BY THE NUMBERS
The database of the Annual Church Profile shows that the Temple Baptist Church in Ruston has increased its support for cooperative missions and ministries from 5.0 percent of undesignated gifts forwarded through the Cooperative Program in 2014 (Bridges’s first full year) to 8.9 percent in 2020 (latest reporting year).
During 2020, those contributions amounted to $290,000 through CP and $30,016 to the C-UBA from undesignated receipts amounting to $3,267,760.
The congregation also supported the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, $160,089, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, $80,066, and the Georgia Barnette State Missions Offering, $36,310.
Additionally, TBC averaged 1,120 in Sunday worship service and baptized 45 new believers in 2020. The congregation has witnessed 297 baptisms combined during Bridges’s tenure, 2014-2020.
CANDIDATE’S RESPONSE
Bridges told the Baptist Message that he was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and served as pastor of two congregations in Mississippi.
“I wasn’t born here, but I got here as soon as I could,” he said, noting that he came to the First Baptist Church in Zachary in 2005 and served there through most of 2013.
Bridges described First Zachary as “a wonderful, growing congregation,” and likewise complimented Temple Baptist as a “truth-saturated, people-loving, mission-oriented church.”
“I am humbled and overwhelmed about Eddie’s intention to nominate me, and excited for the opportunity God might give me,” Bridges said.
“I pray that I will continue the effort to unite Louisiana Baptists around the truth of the Gospel,” he said. “It is sufficient and inerrant. And I hope to move us forward in our commitment to reach our communities, this state and the world with His Hope. There is so much opportunity to make a difference, now, more than ever before.”
PERSONAL DATA
Bridges holds a Bachelor of Arts in Bible and English from Blue Mountain College in Mississippi. He earned the Master of Divinity in Biblical Languages, the Master of Theology, and the Doctor of Philosophy (major in preaching, minor in theology) from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
He shared that he was nurtured in his faith in “a Timothy-like experience” which included surrendering his life to Jesus at 12 years old and leading music for a small SBC church at the age of 14. Shortly afterward, he was formally named minister of music and youth by that Mississippi congregation, Blue Springs Baptist Church. Later, at age 16 he was ordained to the ministry by his home congregation, Birmingham Ridge Baptist Church in Saltillo, Mississippi.
Bridges served as a teaching assistant and graduate fellow while pursuing his seminary studies. Also, he has served as an adjunct professor at various NOBTS extension centers.
His focus on theological education led him to form a partnership with NOBTS to establish the Temple School of Ministry and Missions “to equip ministers, missionaries and lay leaders with the theological foundation and the practical experience to be servant leaders in their families and their local churches as they live out their calling in Christ, he said.
He and his wife Leslie (Neaves) have four children: Abigail (18), Hayes (15), Rhett (12) and Ainsley (9).
FINAL THOUGHTS
Wren said he is excited about the future for the LBC and that includes his hope that Bridges will be elected because “his evangelistic focus is contagious.”
“Reggie is not a man who simply talks about evangelism, he participates in evangelism and leads the church to support evangelism with resources and time,” Wren underscored. “I am excited about Reggie Bridges leading Louisiana Baptists as president of the Convention.”
