Despite a hurricane and its leftovers, like 20 inches of muck clinging to everything, and despite being pastorless, First Slidell holds true to its commitment to be an Acts 1:8 church.
SLIDELL – A year ago First Baptist Church here sat in up to 20 inches
of muck left over from Katrina’s keelhauling of the region Aug. 29,
2005.
Vivid memories persist of dead fish rotting on the gym floor and strewn
across what had been a spacious area of green grass and parking enough
for the pre-Katrina congregation of about 850.
Further testing the church, seven months after Katrina, the pastor left.
But five years ago the congregation had agreed to be an Acts 1:8 church
with simultaneous mission work going on locally – the church’s
Jerusalem; Greater New Orleans – Judea; the rest of the continent –
Samaria; and globally – the ‘ends of the earth.’
They determined to not let anything – not Katrina; not their pastor of
19 years following God’s call to Florida – sway them from their quest.
“We have been called to missions; we are a mission-sending church,”
said Carroll Townsend, missions pastor at First Slidell. “We are a
mission-sending people and no matter what, we do not need to shrink
from doing missions whether here in our city or elsewhere in the world.”
Their plans for a Jan. 10-14 Global Impact Celebration are on schedule.
SBC President Frank Page, the SBC’s National EKG Strategist Ken
Hemphill and Angola Warden Burl Cain, among others, are guest speakers.
“Last fall we decided to continue with Global Impact Celebrations,”
Townsend said. It will be the fourth annual one at First Slidell. “We
said, ‘Let’s go for the top, those who can keep us motivated,
encouraged and strengthened.’”
Page has agreed to speak at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10. and at noon Jan. 11 for a Senior Luncheon.
Ken Hemphill, national strategist for Empowering Kingdom Growth, is set
for 10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, which is billed as “Commitment Sunday.”
He’ll be joined by the Joshua Squad drama team.
Warden Cain is to speak at 8 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 13, at a men’s prayer breakfast.
“We want people from other churches to come to our Global Impact
Celebration, other churches in Slidell and our Baptist brethren from
around the state,” Townsend said. “We’re excited about missions and we
want to generate that excitement – get people interested in giving to
missions and going on mission trips.”
Though Page and Hemphill speak at all churches that invite them, if
they’re able to fit the invitation into their busy schedules, First
Slidell has ‘earned the right’ for high profile leaders to speak in the
church’s pulpit.
Many members were lost to Katrina’s wrath; though about 625 meet for
Sunday morning worship, that includes many faces new since a year
ago. Despite this, and the considerable expense of Katrina renovation,
First Slidell continues to give 10.75 percent of undesignated offerings
toward the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ method of supporting
missions and ministries of state conventions and the Southern Baptist
Convention. It was an 80/20 church in 2005, meaning at least 20 percent
of its offerings went to mission causes.
The church was intensely involved in disaster relief efforts across the
Greater New Orleans area, starting in Slidell. Most of the small city –
about 26,000 pre-Katrina – received a storm surge up to eight feet high
from Lake Pontchartrain.
“Thousands of volunteers stayed here in the months after Katrina,”
Townsend said. “The first volunteers had helped us clean up a place for
them, and as the volunteers who stayed went out with food and water and
chain saws, so did the name of First Baptist Church of Slidell.
“This opened up such a door – a window – in our community,” the
missions pastor continued. “Whereas before we were known in the
community and did many good things and opened the door for people to
come to us, such as our Living Nativity, Christmas and Easter pageants,
now we’re literally inundated with people coming up to say ‘Thank you.’
People are literally applauding and praising us. We say it’s not us;
it’s the Lord Jesus Christ working through us. So we’re not stopping.”
First Slidell isn’t stopping locally, nationally or globally.
For the third year, a mission team went in August to Lake Hills Church
in Bellevue, Wash., where they co-host sports camps in the evening, and
do a variety of helping tasks during the day, such as painting the
church’s interior and exterior.
A team went last May to Puebla, Mexico, to care for the children of
missionaries with the SBC’s International Mission Board, so the parents
could attend a two-week Chronological Bible Storying training session.
Teams went three times in 2006 to Santa Catarina, Brazil, where First
Slidell has gone for the last dozen years. Their new goal is to start
three churches a year; so far, they’ve started six.
Most recently, the church started a new ministry to reach the
increasing number of locals who cannot speak or read English, many of
whom came to help rebuild Slidell after Katrina.
The Global Immpact Celebration is designed to stoke the congregation’s continued interest in missions, the missions pastor said.
“When people of faith step out and follow the Lord’s lead – to a local
disaster relief site, to a penitentiary, or to an unreached community
in Brazil – we are allowing Him to take us places far more wonderful
than we ever dreamed possible,” Townsend said. “An excited congregation
can change the world.”