By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer
ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – Royal Ambassadors in the state experienced growth in 2025, and state leaders say the ministry is poised for another banner year.
Attendance at the annual Survivor Camp saw its highest attendance since before COVID, and additional chapters were added. Additionally, Callen Breaux, a sixth grader from Temple Baptist Church in Ruston, won the national Royal Ambassador Pinewood Derby during the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Dallas, the second consecutive year the winner was an RA from Louisiana.
Louisiana Baptist RA Consultant Steven Ancelet said he has witnessed first-hand how RAs has positively impacted boys to grow into Christ-like young men.
“It has shaped their world view and what they can do to spread the Gospel,” Ancelet told the Baptist Message. “It seems that ministers and church staff are seeing the value in RAs also. Some churches have moved away from RAs in recent years and are now returning to it.
“The special thing about RAs that separates it from other biblically based training for boys is that RAs has a mission focus,” he continued. “These boys understand that they can make a difference in the world through missions work.”
RISING INTEREST
Two RA camps drew record crowds last year.
RA Congress, held April 4-5 at Tall Timbers Baptist Conference Center in Woodworth, drew 115 participants.
Meanwhile, a Sept. 5-6 event hosted by the Acadian Baptist Center in Eunice registered 173 attendees, the highest number since before COVID. Moreover, 14 boys and three dads gave their lives to Christ.
Ancelet, a member of First Baptist Church, Lafayette, was involved with RAs at the church alongside with Hartie Spence Jr., long-time director of Survivor Camp who lost his life in a glider crash near Salt Lake City Utah, on Aug. 1. Ancelet said leaders like Spence have been instrumental in shaping the lives of young men and helping the organization to grow statewide.
“We have contacted many churches in 2025 concerning RAs and there have been many comments about how Spence inspired them or helped them,” Ancelet said. “We want to carry some momentum and excitement into 2026 about RAs.”
In addition to camps, Ancelet knows of at least five churches in the state who are interested in starting, or restarting, RA groups in their churches.
“The state is ready, willing and able to help them get a successful RA program up and running,” he said. “This would bring the number of churches in Louisiana with RA groups to about 30.”
National RA Consultant Keith Gates, a member of First Baptist Church, Winnfield, said that Louisiana continues to have an extremely vibrant RA program.
“Not only have they managed to win the National RA Race two years in a row, they also have been successful in the far greater task of seeing young men make decisions for Christ,” he said. “Across the Southern Baptist Convention leaders are realizing that RA provides much needed missions education for young men as well as an opportunity for those young men to be mentored by Godly men like Steve Ancelet and Hartie Spence. We are very proud of the work that Louisiana is doing to create Ambassadors for Christ.”
