By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – Matt Cate, discipleship pastor with Istrouma Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, has been tasked with a new mission: to champion discipleship on a state-wide level. Cate, whose first day as Louisiana Baptist Sunday school/discipleship strategist was April 20, said he is excited to work with churches toward the goal of helping others become disciples and then in turn make disciples. “My philosophy of discipleship is pretty much Matthew 5 to 10, where Jesus reached large groups with the Sermon on the Mount, and then also smaller groups with His disciples,” Cate told the Baptist Message. “One of the parts we often look over in discipleship is that Jesus eventually sends them out. And I am going to help Louisiana Baptists accomplish that.” The son of an Air Force master sergeant, Cate moved with his family around the country as a youngster. During a youth Bible study taught by his parents, Ed and Linda Cate, at Cannon Air Force Base chapel in Clovis, New Mexico, Cate trusted in Christ at age 10. He sensed a call to ministry nine years later while at a discipleship group at First Baptist Church, Bossier City. Six other young men in that group, too, … [Read more...]