Cross Point Baptist Church
Northwest Louisiana Baptist Association
BOSSIER CITY – Tony Meinhardt, pastor at Cross Point Baptist, said he thinks the new year will be exciting for his church.
On Jan. 11, the church will have its building dedication, just two and a half years after the group first began to meet.
With a brand new building that is just over a month old, the church has increased from a weekly attendance of about 70 to over 100, Meinhardt said.
“We were meeting at an elementary school before, but since we have our new building we have grown tremendously,” Meinhardt said.
No big events are scheduled at this point, but church members are formulating outreach tools to let the community be aware of the church.
Having been in the ministry for almost 30 years, Meinhardt said he is excited to see what God is doing at Cross Point Baptist.
Cross Point’s new building hosts a blended group of believers that does not target any specific age group.
“My goal is to see the church grow,” Meinhardt said, “and to reach out to all age groups with the love of Christ.”
Ouachita Baptist Association
ACME – On the banks of the Black River stands a painted white wooden church building. Founded in 1926, Acme Baptist Church still meets in its original building.
According to church secretary Sandra Hughes, with ceilings over 18 feet high the building has marvelous acoustics.
“The church was built when there were no microphones,” Hughes said, “People who sing say that the sound is so alive in the building.”
Acme Baptist has added five Sunday school rooms and a kitchen to its original building over the years, and with damage from Hurricane Rita, it was able to get new floor in the classrooms and kitchen, Hughes said.
The church serves an older residents. The town is small and rural, with agriculture and fishing as its main source of income, and most young people with children have moved out of the area to find better jobs, the secretary said.
The church has been without a pastor since June and has a total membership of 25.
“The church just keeps going forward and doesn’t question where the results will fall,” Hughes said. “We’re small and struggling, but we haven’t closed the doors.”
North Sabine Baptist Association
CONVERSE – February will be three years for Pastor Richard Enterkin and his wife Jeanine at Union Springs Baptist Church in Converse.
Jeanine Enterkin is excited and said that the church has been growing since their move from Monterey.
“Choir has been real exciting,” Enterkin said.
According to Enterkin, when she first arrived at Union Springs, the choir had 14 people. Now the choir has outgrown the choir loft with 28 members who sang for the recent Christmas Cantata, which had 165 people in attendance.
“We had to add pews in front of the choir wall,” Enterkin said. “We’ve even been asked to go to other churches to sing.”
The church building is a small brick building built in 1976 and has since had a fellowship hall added on to that. Union Springs Baptist usually has 115 people in attendance for worship and about 70 for Sunday school, according to Enterkin.
“Right now we don’t have enough Sunday school rooms,” Enterkin said. “I guess that’s a good problem to have.”
The church is involved in several different ministries and one of those is called Care Caps. Union Springs Baptist partners with a local Methodist church and once a month makes caps for chemo patients.
The month of November reached the 1,000 mark of total caps made through this ministry at Union Springs.
Enterkin said Care Caps has grown to include many other churches and some unchurched people in the area.
Two years ago, the church also started a ladies Bible study called Mary and Martha.
Alternating weeks, the group will have a Bible Study, then some type of outreach to the community.
Enterkin said that the best part about the church is its sense of community.
“People get to church 30 minutes early to drink coffee and visit before services,” Enterkin said. “We even have a great relationship with other churches in the community, and from other denominations, too. In our area, all of the churches reach out in love to each other.”
Beauregard Baptist Association
RAGLEY – At 62 years and retired from the Boise Paper Mill, Bill Smith is a first-time pastor who serves through Faith Baptist Church in Ragley.
Smith was in the paper-making business from 1959 to 2004 and a supply pastor since 1970.
According to Smith, when he began as pastor of Faith Baptist in 2007, there were 18 people attending church and now there are nearly 80 every Sunday.
“This is a church with broken hearts and broken homes,” Smith said.
With many addicted to drugs and alcohol in the area, the church has started a drug and alcohol addiction meeting on Monday nights.
Now families are coming back together and healing is taking place, Smith said.
“We believe that Jesus Christ is the Solid Rock, the Way of Redemption, and the True Deliverer from any stronghold,” Smith said.
According to Smith, the church is growing, with eight baptisms in 2008. The 95 in VBS set a record last year.
“People are motivating people; families are inviting other families,” Smith said. “That’s one reason our church is growing.”
St. Tammany Association
COVINGTON – The people of Hope Church in Covington started meeting six years ago in a fire station without an air conditioner. Each Sunday the fire trucks would be moved, and church members would mop the floors and set up chairs.
“What got our group grounded in the beginning was that you didn’t come to church to be comfortable. You set up chairs and had to clean before you could even begin worship,” said Jennifer Miller, church secretary.
The church has since bought an old café and truck stop that it is meeting in every Sunday. Renovations are being looked into, Miller continued.
Without a pastor, the church is still going strong with two services on Sunday morning and 85 people attending.
“The church has a good mixture of people: a number of older people and many new babies,” Miller said.
According to Miller, the church’s focus on missions has been its passion.
A family from Zimbabwe attends Hope Church, and the church supports the family’s home church in Zimbabwe, plus nine church plants in the area and six pastors in rural Zimbabwe.
The church has also taken two evangelism and outreach mission trips to Zimbabwe and two to Chiapas, Mexico.
“As a new church we have given thousands of dollars to missions,” Miller said. “We are still a mission church and have others supporting us, but we see that the world is more than our little area, and we have to reach out and make disciples.”
Northwest Louisiana Association
SHREVEPORT – Western Hills Baptist Church will be celebrating 50 years of service in 2009. With 110 people attending most Sundays, Pastor Joey Ketchum says, the church is thriving.
“We have a Joy Club, senior adult luncheon every second Tuesday of the month, about 30 homebound folks we minister to, and Kingdom Kids on Wednesday nights, just to name a few,” Ketchum said.
Perhaps their strongest ministry is the Western Hills Wheels Ministry.
This is a motorcycle, mountain biking, and street biking ministry, Ketchum explained.
“Some folks that wouldn’t normally go to church will get together and ride with us and we do a devotion at the end,” said Ketchum.
The ministry started with one man in the church and has grown to regularly include 15 people, Ketchum said.
Through the Western Hills Wheels Ministry, the church has a motorcycle rally to raise money for a Mexico mission trip each year in June.
Seven to ten church members go on the trip to Mexico each year and do vacation bible schools, church building, or any other work that is needed.
Ketchum, who has been pastor at Western Hills Baptist for three years, said he has seen a shift in membership.
“When I came to the church, the attendance was 40 and the median age was 75,” Ketchum said. “Now attendance is 110 and the median age is 45. The Lord has blessed us with lots more young folks.”
The church is looking at having an antique car and motorcycle rally as an outreach in the future, the pastor said.
“It’s going to be a big event,” Ketchum said. “It’s all to get people to come to church who usually wouldn’t step a foot in the door.”