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"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Origins)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley The Southern Baptist story to date can be summarized in three words: growth, plateau, and decline. In 1845 in Augusta, GA, individual Baptist churches from across the South came together to form a Convention of churches that would hold two conflicting realities in permanent tension: true congregational autonomy for every church and deep missional cooperation to prepare ministers and fulfill the Great Commission. After the ravages of the Civil War, Southern Baptists grew steadily until World War II. After World War II, the growth became explosive, driven by aggressive evangelism and even more aggressive discipleship, making Southern Baptists the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. The growth began slowing in the sixties, although baptism numbers did not peak until the Jesus Movement in the early seventies. In spite of the Jesus Movement spike, the period of plateau had begun for Southern Baptists, and from that point the statistics began to flatten out. The numbers moved up and down, but the peaks were lower and the valleys more frequent. The days of steady, continual growth were over. I suggest the turning point from plateau to decline can be traced to the year 2000, when records indicate a … [Read more...]

Horn calls Louisiana Baptists to focused prayer on Thursday

By Message Staff ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – Louisiana Baptists' Executive Director Steve Horn is asking members of the Louisiana Baptist family of congregations to devote Thursday to focused prayer and fasting for God’s intervention in the current challenges facing the country. Horn said he is not trying to organize an event. Instead, he said Louisiana Baptists are a praying people and his call to prayer is meant to organize what they already are doing but with united hearts and minds as a faith community. The basis for his call to prayer, he shared, is Nehemiah 1:4 - When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. “I realize that this is short notice, but the present circumstances of our nation demand an immediate prayer and fasting response,” Horn told the Baptist Message. “Because of the short notice, I am requesting everyone help get the word to churches through social media and associational e-newsletters.” … [Read more...]

Governor’s Phase Two opens church gatherings to 50 percent capacity

By Message Staff BATON ROUGE, La. (LBM) – Nearly three weeks after the state entered Phase One of reopening the economy, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Monday that churches and many other businesses in the state may increase their percentage use of seating when a new order is issued Friday. Under the new guidance from the state fire marshal, Department of Health and Governor’s Office, congregations will be allowed to fill up to 50 percent of a worship center’s capacity, compared to a limit of 25 percent under the current order that ends after Thursday. Louisianans will be under the new order June 5 through June 25. “We are seeing signs of progress,” Edwards said about the fight against the pandemic during his Monday news conference. “Louisiana is headed in the right direction. “We still have work to do,” he continued. “We still have some restrictions that have to be in place. We are not going to be fully back to normal for some time and certainly not likely until we have a vaccine that is safe, effective, mass produced and then administered to some significant percentage of the population. But we are moving in the right direction.” Other businesses that now can open, with the same maximum occupancy limit of 50 … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley on the state of the SBC (Background)

By Dr. Chuck Kelley The year 2000 marked a profound turning point for the Southern Baptist Convention. The beginning of a new century brought a new and unexpected problem to Southern Baptists: prolonged decline. Not noticed at the time, the official SBC statistics from the 2000 church year proved to be a harbinger of things to come. It started with baptisms. Because Jesus identified baptisms as a marker for making disciples in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), the number of baptisms recorded by its churches has always been an important measure of progress for Southern Baptists. For much of SBC history, the proportional growth in the total number of baptisms consistently exceeded growth in the total number of SBC churches. As the number of churches grew, so did the number of baptisms by those churches. However, in the 2000 church year those trend lines crossed. The number of churches continued climbing, but the number of baptisms by those churches began dropping. That year proved to be a sea change, not an anomaly. A new phenomenon in the Southern Baptist story began to unfold. The graph above was prepared by Dr. Bill Day of the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Church Health at New Orleans … [Read more...]

Chuck Kelley series on the SBC (10 of 10 articles)

Article 1: Introduction Article 2: Background Article 3: Origins Article 4: Bully Pulpit Article 5: Evangelism Article 6: Great Commission Resurgence Article 7: Pastors' Task Force Article 8: Evangelism Task Force Article 9: Where We Are Now Article 10: Revival Needed … [Read more...]

Can you see the light?

By Stewart Holloway PINEVILLE, La. (LBM) - For over two months now, my oldest son, my mom, and I have spent most Friday mornings at my mom’s clearing overgrown brush. What was planted as a fruit orchard in an open pasture almost thirty years ago has grown into a wilderness of every kind of vine and tree imaginable. How did the orchard get that way? For one, my dad seldom pruned anything. He liked to plant things and watch them grow. Therefore, the fruit trees and grapevines grew too big. That l...ed to the second problem: procrastination. As other trees started to come up among the fruit trees, even though I mowed the area through high school and college, I was not allowed to cut those trees. “We’ll cut them later.” Well, we never did. Daddy said “later” until he died thirteen years ago. When I moved here, mom said, “Sometime we need to cut those trees.” I too said, “Later.” Now, here we are another twelve years later! Guess what? The little trees aren’t so little anymore and now there are a lot more! We have worked hard cutting down trees, pulling vines, and hauling brush to our now three massive piles. We are nowhere near through. However, when we stopped on Friday, we rejoiced because we could see all the way through … [Read more...]