By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor
MONROE – The Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home gave the land in 2010 for the new offices of the Northeast Louisiana and Morehouse Baptist Associations.[img_assist|nid=7688|title=Northeast/Morehouse Baptist Association building|desc=The 5000-square-foot facility was built on property donated by the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home. The Association Center is located across the street from the Children’s Home where the Executive Director’s home was previously located.|link=none|align=right|width=640|height=378]
Dedication of the 5,000 square-foot, one-story building that was built on about three acres across DeSiard Street at Kansas Avenue from the ground-level LBCH sign took place in June.
“It was our pleasure to offer the associations this property,” said Perry Hancock, president of the Louisiana Baptist Childrens Home. “They had a need and we had property that fit their need. We were glad to help in this, and make it possible for our associations to have a permanent home.”
Northeast and Morehouse Associations are most grateful, said Jerry Price, director of missions for the two associations since 2002.
“We were one of the few associations that had never owned property,” Price said. “This was a cooperative effort – Southern Baptists working together to make something happen. Now as all 80 of my congregations come to the office, they’re right across from the children’s home.
“This shows how we as Southern Baptists work together,” Price continued. “The [Children’s Home] trustees were very gracious.”
Northeast Baptist Association came into being in 1978 as a merge of the Ouachita Parish and Trenton Baptist Associations. Morehouse Baptist Association was formed in 1925, when 14 churches from the Bayou Macon Association met at First Monroe. It was one of 13 associations organized in Louisiana between 1905 and 1927, according to “House Upon a Rock,” a history of Louisiana Baptists written in 1973 by Glen Lee Green.
The earliest churches were Mt. Vernon West Monroe in 1837, Liberty Calhoun in 1847 and First Monroe in 1854 in Northeast; and Oak Ridge in Oak Ridge in 1849, First Bastrop in 1850, and Fellowship Bastrop in 1862.
For the most recent 20 years – since 1991 – the two associations had leased space from First West Monroe. They shared a building on the church campus with the First West television station.
“Can you lead us into a new building?” That was one of the first questions Price said he was asked before being called as DOM – he was moderator of Morehouse Association at the time, and pastor from 1996-2002 of Greenacres Bastrop.
“It was hard to find the right property at the right price,” Price said. “This is centrally located for the associations, and it’s near the airport, hospital and mails. People from our churches are coming this direction anyway, so it’s convenient.
“We’ve taken our time on the entire project,” the DOM said. “We wanted to do everything right.”
That’s in keeping with all Northeast and Morehouse Associations do. Among local mission/ministry endeavors are Disaster Relief volunteers and a shower/laundry unit; food and clothing ministry; Hispanic ministry; truck stop ministry and more.
In addition, members of Morehouse Association churches traveled on short-term mission trips to New Brunswick, Canada, and to Caribou, Maine. Cheniere goes to Kazakhstan, Greenacres goes to Belize twice a year. Cedar Crest has a partnership with Bulgaria, and First West with Wales. First West also has claimed an unreached people group. Several churches are involved with ministry on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Southwestern United States.
To help fund local endeavors – which since 2006 has been paying for toward a building – the associations each year promote a special one-week R. David Terry Associational Missions offering. To date, about half the $700,000 cost of construction has been given.
“It’s really been a blessing to see the churches come together for this,” Price said. “They’ve all been asked to give over and above their other associational gifts.
“I think we’re empowered when we work together to do things no church can do by themselves,” the DOM continued. “The association provides fellowship and training opportunities. … My role is to be a mission strategist along with a pastor to the pastors, and then to be a person of resource. What I do is a fulfillment to me of all the things I enjoyed being a pastor.”
The 5,000 square-foot building sets at an angle at the back of the lot, to better be seen from both directions, and it has a curved concrete driveway, with parking for 30 vehicles. Brian Ragan, a contractor who is a member of First Calhoun, won the bid to do the construction of what looks very similar to LBCH buildings: an aged brown brick with four ivory columns.
“Pecan Grove Park is right behind our lot,” Price said. “Bayou DeSiard is back there too. It’s a beautiful setting.”