By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer
ALEXANDRIA (LBM) – The novel coronavirus outbreak may have disrupted plans to plant 30 churches in the state this year, but in the midst of challenging circumstances Louisiana Baptists still managed to start 15 new congregations.
Next year, the Louisiana Baptist missions and ministry team has a goal to plant 29 churches, which would bring the total of new congregations started since 2010 to 300.
“I am glad that we serve an unusual God in these unusual times,” James Jenkins, director of church planting for Louisiana Baptists, told the Baptist Message. “Pandemic or no pandemic, people need the Gospel. Planting 29 churches in the coming year is a God-sized goal that can be accomplished by God’s people working cooperatively to plant churches in every town, every city, every parish, to the very borders of Louisiana.”
Planting 300 churches by 2020 is one of 10 action steps identified in the President’s 2020 Commission Final Report, which was affirmed by messengers during the 2013 LBC Annual Meeting.
The strategy for church planting has been to target the regions of the state where most Louisianans live, with an emphasis on cities and communities along the I-10 corridor and southward where 3 million residents call home (out of the 4.65 million state population).
Jenkins said that 203, or about 75 percent, of the new church plants are located in southern Louisiana.
Moreover, he said the 271 church plants also reflect a goal to emphasize diversity — of the new congregations, 87 are African-American, 36 Hispanic, 12 Asian and 19 have another largely multi-ethnic makeup.
Most importantly, he added, the 271 church plants represent a focus on soul winning: 13,977 professions of faith and 4,094 baptisms since 2010.
“This year has been the most difficult of my career at the LBC,” said John Hebert, missions and ministry team director for Louisiana Baptists.
“Church planting is a person-to-person venture that has been grossly disrupted by the COVID pandemic. The system we’ve developed is somewhat responsible for achieving the 15 church plants we have managed this year. Our staff has focused on our training program and especially internet-driven training. In many ways we will come out of this stronger because we’ve given attention to new ways of doing our work.”
Carlos Schmidt, a church planting strategist for Louisiana Baptists, said he is excited about the six Hispanic church plants planned for 2021.
“Even though we have had a difficult year, God is still calling church planters to His harvest field, He is still providing sponsoring churches to support these new works,” Schmidt said. “Babies are born in difficult times, churches are born in the midst of COVID, hurricanes and other challenges.”
Lane Corley, a church planting strategist for Louisiana Baptists, said since 2010, 65 of the 271 churches planted have been replants of congregations that had previously closed. He said six churches that were started in 2020 were replants.
Corley said as many as 75 churches may face closure in the next three years unless some type of radical revitalization takes place and he encouraged Louisiana Baptists to pray about getting involved in replanting congregations across the state.
“Replanting is a way to redeem unused property and carry on the legacy of faithful Southern Baptists who started and faithfully served churches that have now experienced serious decline or closure,” Corley said.
Ronnie Mabile is among those who are replanting a church. Mabile, who pastored a church located 40 miles from Patterson (St. Mary Parish) before moving to Michigan in 2018, felt called back to Louisiana after passing by a vacant church building in the community during a visit to the state last summer.
Gulf Coast Baptist Association Director of Missions Steven Kelly informed him the association had planned to sell the property that formerly housed Calumet Baptist Church.
But, he offered that leaders were open to Mabile planting a church there, instead.
“He said they didn’t want to sell it and if God was working on my heart then they would pause until I gave them an answer,” he said. “We prayed about it and three days later told him God was calling us to replant the church.”
While COVID-19 changed the original planned start date of June, Mabile said they are on track to fulfilling God’s call to launch Redeemed Life Fellowship.
A core group held its first meeting inside Mabile’s house, Dec. 3, and plans to start home-based Bible studies as well as stream a message on Facebook, Jan. 14. They hope to hold services in the church building by Easter.
“We have to figure out how to be relational in person as well as relational digitally, and how to maintain that core group in the church,” he said. “We will continue to pray and move forward with the Gospel. We can’t stop. We been delayed long enough. It’s time to do the work God has called us to do.”
Andrew Hanna, pastor of Harvest Church in Treme, is another who recently accepted the call to plant a church in the state. Hanna is organizing a core group to start the church on Sept. 12, 2021. The group will meet at Phillips Wheatley Community School in the community, where Hanna is a physical education teacher.
“The Lord has really been faithful and what I’m most excited about is planting a church where we all work and live,” he said. “And it’s where we have a lot of relationships from being here the last couple of years. We want to be a faithful presence for the long haul. We are hoping the Lord will honor that in the long run.”
