By Steve Horn, Pastor, First Baptist Church Lafayette Do you still enjoy getting Christmas cards? With the use of e-mail and social media, I suspect there is an overall decline in sending and receiving traditional Christmas cards. People, of course, do Christmas cards in different ways. Some cards have rather generic messages related to Christmas. Others take the Christmas season to send family updates of the past year. We get a lot of picture cards which are also nice, especially when those cards are of people that we do not see often. This December, I have titled my sermon series “Christmas Cards from God.” We are going to explore some passages which give to us messages from angels, which are messages from God. Therefore, just as Christmas cards send messages, angels send messages from God. The first message is “Do Not Be Afraid.” That seems to be a message that we need to hear for a lot of different reasons. It is one of the messages of Christmas. That was the message to Zechariah, Joseph, Mary, and the shepherds. (Matthew 1:18-21, Luke 1:5-17, Luke 1:26-30, and Luke 2:8-11) Now, in order to be faithful to the Scriptures, let’s be clear about the matter. The message “Do not be afraid,” from the angels to each one … [Read more...]

By Joe McKeever Those of us who love the Christmas season–I plead guilty!–often are in the market for ways to make it more meaningful. I polled some friends and would like to share some of the results. Give more. Give yourself.  Give the unexpected.  Give ten times as much as they expect.  Give more than ever before. Shop less.  Buy fewer.  Spend less.  Stress less. Quit giving to the adults; give only to the children. Give no more than 3 presents per child. Emphasize the personal aspect. Write more notes.  If you send Christmas cards, write personal notes on them.  Don’t be afraid to tell people you love them, even if you need to vary the verb and make it “I treasure you.”  (Or, cherish, adore, appreciate, or thank God for you) Okay. Now, our ten ways to transform your Christmas season…. 1)  Never pass a Salvation Army kettle without dropping in some money. My friend Annie got me started on this.  Recently, I noticed on her Facebook page that she was re-emphasizing this commitment, and told how after finding herself with only big bills on one occasion, she has made it a practice of having a number of ones and fives in the front of her purse, just for this reason. I suggest the Lord’s people do … [Read more...]

By Mike Johnson These days, the assault on religious liberty never takes a holiday—even at Christmastime. For this reason, every conscientious citizen, and all of us who work to defend our most fundamental freedoms, can’t take a break.  In some places, like Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, people of faith will get steamrolled by local officials unless we take a stand. On December 10, my good friends and colleagues at Liberty Institute filed a federal lawsuit against Jefferson Parish on behalf of Vintage Church, after parish officials entered the church, fingerprinted the pastor, and issued a criminal summons against him for the horrific crime of being “too loud.”  Apparently, the noise level of 60 decibels—the equivalent of a running dishwasher or a conversation in a restaurant—is just too much to tolerate from a worship service. While parish ordinances single out churches for strict sound limitations, they impose no such restriction on much louder categories of noise like power tools, lawn mowers, and construction activities. This is not the first time Jefferson Parish has wound up in federal court for trampling upon the First Amendment rights of Christians. Back in 2004, I represented a number of other churches in a similar … [Read more...]

By Waylon Bailey, pastor, First Baptist Covington “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13). I had never really thought about what Paul meant as he wrote to young Timothy (based on what we know in Scripture, Timothy would be between 34-39 years old at this point. See William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary, 157). He encouraged Timothy to do three things: exhort, teach, and read Scripture publicly. During one of my sermons Sunday, I noticed the congregation following the public reading  of Scripture with an unusual devotion and attention. They were into what God was saying through Holy Scripture. I made a quick mental note of this (one of my humorous sayings is that you can’t preach and think at the same time!) to consider what had happened. I believe we have made much too little of the “public reading of Scripture.” This says something to the preacher. It’s easy to dismiss the public reading of Scripture as something prefatory to the sermon, but Paul makes exhorting, teaching, and the public reading of Scripture equally important. All three are essential to worship and to the life of the believer. What should we make of this? The … [Read more...]

By Lane Corley, LBC church planting strategist In Louisiana, there are 32 Associations of Southern Baptist Churches. Each Fall, my job as Church Planting Strategist with the Louisiana Baptists allows me to attend 6-8 of their annual meetings. This year, I attended meetings in several different parts of the state. I love Associations & Associational Annual meetings, because I love LOCAL. And it’s in the local that you can get a glimpse of the Southern Baptist Convention at the ground level. For those of you who don’t know, Associations are basically regional networks of Southern Baptist churches that affiliate based on their geography. We have associations with as few as 15 churches and as many as 120 in Louisiana. Each Association has a Director (the DOM), a slate of officers, and ministry teams that have various functions from church revitalization to disaster relief. Each Association has 2-3 Executive Board meetings each year. Executive Boards are made up of pastors and members of local Southern Baptist churches. Each Association has one Annual Meeting, usually in the Fall, where business is conducted and budgets are set for the following year. Churches voluntarily give a set amount or percentage of their budgets to the … [Read more...]

By David Crosby, Pastor, First Baptist New Orleans Razor wire now stretches along a 110-mile Hungarian border. The razor wire protects the Christian culture of Hungary from the Muslims, according to Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Jesus is the Christ from whom the word “Christian” is derived. I doubt that Jesus himself would applaud Orban’s use of the word “Christian” to defend his treatment of these desperately poor and frightened neighbors lying at his gates. He would more likely condemn it. Labels like “Christian” or “Muslim” when applied to a nation-state are no longer primarily religious terms. The government and military leaders who use these terms seldom faithfully represent the religious labels they use any more than do their enemies. That makes little difference, though, to those who have captured the word “Christian” behind their razor-wired geographical territory. Cynical politicians know that the fastest way to whip any group into a frenzy is to say that their religion is being attacked. Leading the charge to protect religious belief is a sure road to popular acclaim. Thus do we replace Jesus crowned with thorns with Jesus protected by razor wire. The living Lord Jesus would surely be on the outside of … [Read more...]