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Baptist Message

"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

LBF reports 16-year high short-term fund rate

By Baptist Message staff (LBM) – The Louisiana Baptist Foundation has reached its highest short-term fund rate in more than 16 years. According to LBF Executive Director Jeff Steed, the annualized rate of 4.00 percent is being earned by churches and other ministry accounts all over the state. Like a savings account, the short-term fund allows churches to invest their money with no minimum balance or investment period, limitless and penalty-free withdrawals, deposits and accounts, and daily-earned interest that helps steward funds for Kingdom impact. Steed added that the fund often offers higher interest rates than those provided through a traditional bank while providing access and availability each business day by phone, email, fax, mail or in-person visit to the foundation office inside the Louisiana Baptist Building in Alexandria. “In the last 12 months, over $4 million was generated for short-term fund accounts for churches and other ministries,” Steed told the Baptist Message. “We are very grateful that God is continuing to bless the Foundation’s ministry through maximizing impact for those whom we have the honor to serve.” The short-term fund is one of many ways the foundation partners with Louisiana Baptist … [Read more...]

LCU graduates challenged to be light for Christ

By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – Several members of the Louisiana Christian University Class of 2024 encouraged their classmates to be a light for Christ during the college’s 169th Commencement, May 4, inside Guinn Auditorium on campus. The school conferred 195 degrees (146 undergraduate and 49 graduate) during two separate but identical ceremonies to accommodate the graduates and their guests, who received the messages from these graduates about their LCU journeys. “Saturday was the living testimony of what we do at Louisiana Christian University,” Acting President David Jeffreys told the Baptist Message. “Our graduates have been equipped and prepared to fulfill the Great Commission as they go and serve Him in all walks of life. Our students shared some incredible testimonies of how God has used the LCU family to impact their lives. They will be missed but will now forever be Wildcats.” In her speech, Noel Schonhoff told the crowd that LCU gave her the confidence and motivation for a fresh start in life. Most importantly, she said, she found Christ during a Fellowship of Christian Athletes retreat. “Up until I attended school at LCU, I may have attended church five times,” … [Read more...]

My reflection on the ministry of Billy Graham

By Steve Horn “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” - 1 Corinthians 2:2 NIV ALEXANDRIA, La. - Today, in Washington, D.C., a statue of Billy Graham will be unveiled. My understanding is that the statue depicts Graham pointing toward an open Bible. John 3:16 and John 14:6 are inscribed on the statue. This inscription is appropriate for the evangelist who in his last public sermon preached: I have one message—that Jesus Christ came, He died on a cross, He rose again, and He asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all our sins. My earliest memory of Billy Graham is watching his Crusades on television as a child with my mother. I would later in life learn that Billy and my mother shared November 7as a birthday. Indeed, he was the most famous preacher of my lifetime. The quality, however, that I admire most about Graham is that he never set out to be famous, just faithful. As I have reflected on Graham’s life, I note these characteristics. He was a man of integrity. Early in his ministry, he wrote out four principles to govern his ministry. He and his associates agreed together that they would secure … [Read more...]

Deadly storms cause damage, knock out power

By Baptist Message staff LAKE CHARLES, La. (LBM) – Severe storms knocked out power to thousands across Southeast Louisiana and produced multiple tornadoes that caused significant damage and at least two deaths in the state, May 13. According to storm reports from the National Weather Service, tornadoes touched down on the east side of Sulphur and also near the Sasol plant, before moving across Westlake and into Lake Charles. Teams were scheduled to survey the area, May 14. Damage in the area included the sign of a Walmart along with a gas station in its parking lot. Across the street, cars were overturned in a shopping center. A tractor-trailer also overturned on the Interstate 10 bridge in Lake Charles, blocking traffic on Monday evening. In Henderson, Pat’s Fisherman Wharf Restaurant posted on its Facebook page a video of extensive damage to its restaurant. The owners of Pat’s, which opened in 1948, believe possible tornado activity is the cause of the destruction that ripped off roofs and tore through structures on the landmark’s site. The site is a popular tourist attraction located on Bayou Portage just a few miles south of I-10 in Henderson, a small fishing community interconnected by bayous and canals … [Read more...]

Would Jesus preach “Critical Theory” today?

By Ron F. Hale “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism,” declared  Karl Marx (1818-1883). If only he could have heard and heeded the poetic words of James Weldon Johnson: "Young man – Young man – Your arm’s too short to box with God." Marx was a mere mortal, foolish to think he could dethrone the Almighty, yet the cultural rot and toxic ideology being witnessed on many university campuses today--spring from the mind of this revolutionary. The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923, in Frankfurt Germany on the campus of Goethe University. After the rise of Hitler’s Nazism, even secular Marxian intellectuals of Jewish decent were not safe in Germany. The school folded with Dr. Max Horkheimer receiving an invitation and home on the campus Columbia University in New York City in 1934 and remained until 1950.  Sometimes called the “Horkheimer Circle,” these academics and social scientists, included men like T.W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, Geog Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamen. Critical Theory is synonymous with the Frankfort School. These men trained others to translate the ideology of Marxism from economic terms into practical cultural terms. This new revolution would not promote … [Read more...]