Click to Login or Sign Up

Baptist Message

"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Vendors sought for CENLA missions and ministry fair

By Baptist Message staff PINEVILLE, La. (LBM) – The Central Louisiana Baptist Association is seeking vendors for its upcoming missions and ministry fair. Slated for May 1, 6-8 p.m., at Trinity Baptist Church, Pineville, the event schedule includes worship, a message of encouragement and a time for participants to visit tables of various state mission organizations. Organizer Richard Bullock, also pastor of College Drive Baptist Church, Pineville, said the event will inform participants about the mission opportunities in the area, motivate them to pray for, give and become involved further in local missions, and champion missions in their own churches. Bullock expects more than 20 vendors at the event. “I encourage everyone to come hear and see what God is doing through the faithfulness of His people,” Bullock told the Baptist Message. “I believe God will open doors and pour out blessings upon His people as we are faithful to His call to missions and ministry.” Contact Bullock for more information, gmbull50@yahoo.com, or 318.729.7199. … [Read more...]

Parents’ hope alive after son’s death

By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer TERRY, Miss. (LBM) – Pastor Lee Faler and wife Jordan are effusive about God’s faithfulness to them after losing their son to brain cancer. Rankin was only 6 years old when he died. Faler said despite the pain, he and Jordan were buoyed by what he described as “God’s endless love” while they traveled through a dark valley. “This has shown me how strong Jesus’ love is for us,” Faler, pastor of First Baptist Church, Terry, told the Baptist Message prior to a recent revival service at Boeuf River Baptist Church, Winnsboro. “He is not just sufficient to save. He is sufficient to sustain. It was something we knew in our heads but now we know it in our hearts because He’s walked it Himself and He’s walked it with us. “Your trials can make you better or they can make you bitter,” he continued. “I don’t know exactly when it happened for me. But somewhere between August and right now, the Lord ignited a hunger in my heart for Him -- to the point that my prayer has been ‘God if I can’t be white hot and I can’t have the fire, then I have too much in Heaven waiting for me. Take me home if I can’t be useful.’” CHALLENGED The journey began in March 2021, when they returned … [Read more...]

LBCH’s new foster care approach engages associations

By Brian Blackwell, Baptist Message staff writer MONROE, La. (LBM) – The Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries has introduced a new model to help associations better engage churches in foster care and adoption ministry. “While each individual church may be involved in foster care and adoption ministry independently, this model encourages a coordination of efforts to serve the foster care community as an association,” Kerri Byrd, director of Connect1Child foster care and adoption services for the LBCHFM, told the Baptist Message. “The model helps to prevent a duplication of services among member churches and provides a more streamlined approach to meet urgent needs.” Under this new approach that was introduced during a meeting at the Eastern Louisiana Baptist Association in late January, an associational foster care and adoption ministry coordinator (trained by LBCHFM staff) will organize foster care and adoption ministry efforts throughout his or her association. Through this model, the association can establish support groups for foster parents, provide life essentials for foster children and sponsor events for foster families. The coordinator will serve multiple roles: -- recruit a foster care … [Read more...]

EASTER REFLECTIONS: Who killed Jesus?

By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM)—Perhaps there is no more controversial question than “Who killed Jesus?” In the early 1960s there was a contentious debate among scholars about whether Jews or Gentiles had killed Jesus. There were charges of anti-Semitism on the one hand and counter claims of bias against Italians, with neither ethnic group wanting to bear the burden of having murdered Christ. The matter had reached such a boiling point that in 1965 the Catholic Church (Vatican II) attempted to negotiate a neutral position, publishing a treatise of sorts on the matter, “Noestra Aetate,” in which it declared that “Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ” but that such blame “cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” But despite the attempt to assuage Jewish umbrage, the document still asserted that “some” Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death. On the other hand, historian Mark Allan Powell wrote about the other prevailing view that Jesus was “a Jewish victim of Roman violence. “A Gentile Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, condemned Him to death and had Him tortured by … [Read more...]