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Baptist Message

"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Unlike the world, Jesus knows how to be happy

By Jeff Ginn Every year the Gallup organization releases a “World Happiness Report.” It ranks the countries of the world as to their happiness. Happiness is measured, in part, with survey questions such as, “Are [you] very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” “Very happy” responses are worth three points. “Pretty happy” is worth two points and “not too happy” is worth one point. You might be interested to know where the United States ranks in the 2019 report. Let me go ahead and break the suspense: we are not #1. Despite our relative affluence and power, we don’t even make the top five or top ten. We barely squeak inside the top 20 at the #19 position. That’s ironic, isn’t it? There’s an entire chapter in the “World Happiness Report” that explores this disconnect. Chapter five’s title begins, “The Sad State of Happiness in the United States.” Here’s a paragraph from that chapter: “This decline in happiness and mental health seems paradoxical. By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever. The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades. This is the Easterlin paradox: As the standard of living improves, so should happiness – but … [Read more...]

LBC ministry to be featured at SBC

By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer MONROE – Christian Women’s Job Corps participants from the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries will have their handmade products on display during the upcoming national Woman’s Missionary Union meeting and also o­ffered for purchase inside the exhibit hall at the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. Since December, the women artisans have created the products that will be sold at the WMU’s WorldCrafts store. CWJC Director Tonya Hancock said the Children’s Home is honored they have been given the opportunity to share how Christ is changing the lives of many women facing high unemployment and widespread poverty in Monroe. The state program for the Christian Women’s Job Corps ministry was started in 2010 by the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries to provide encouragement, love, spiritual training, life skills, high school equivalency test training and other tools to have a better life, Hancock said. Recently, WorldCrafts, the fair trade division of WMU, invited the Louisiana Baptist women’s ministry to be a partner, leading to the opportunity in Birmingham this summer. “As a WorldCrafts artisan … [Read more...]

15 ‘resurrections’ at First Haughton sunrise service

By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer HAUGHTON – More than 550 people turned out at 6:30 a.m. for an annual Easter sunrise service at Hillcrest Cemetery in Haughton, 8 miles from the First Baptist Church in Haughton, which provided the music and message for the special service. Gevan Spinney, pastor of First Haughton, said the cemetery was a fitting backdrop to share the timeless story of Christ’s victory over death, and that 15 former sinners were rescued from a spiritual grave that day. “For many of those in attendance the cemetery has been a place of heartache and defeat, this Sunday morning it was a place of victory.” Spinney said. “We use this service as an opportunity to share the Gospel with our community and it is always a special service, but this year the Holy Spirit showed up in an especially powerful way.” Though the service was conducted by First Haughton, the event drew members from surrounding churches as well as people who rarely attend any worship service. Spin­ney said the service has be­come a tradition for those not connected to a church, which he sees as the perfect opportunity to share the hope of Christ. “Hillcrest sends out invitations to all the people who have loved ones buried there, … [Read more...]

Easter baptisms a bridge between the past, present

By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer MADISONVILLE – “We know the early church often would baptize on Resurrection Day, so we were able to celebrate like the early church did more than 2,000 years ago,” Pastor Lane Corley told the Baptist Message, in explaining the public testimony element of five baptisms celebrated on Easter at the Bridge Church. “A lot of families come to church anyway that day, including a good number who don’t regularly attend services, and it presented the perfect chance to share with them the theme of new life and transformation that is possible through Christ,” said Corley, who also serves as a church planting strategist for Louisiana Baptists. Corley said his congregation has held multiple baptism services each year since the church was founded in 2009, but that this was the first time they had done so on Easter Sunday. Dawn Black was among those who stirred the baptistery waters this Easter. She had professed her faith in Christ as a youngster, but did not understand the importance of obedience represented by baptism. As she grew older, her desire to attend worship services at a local church waned. However, her sister, Kallie, invited her to attend Bridge Church in late 2018, and within … [Read more...]

First Lafayette holds to Baptist traditions that ‘still work’ today

LAFAYETTE – When F.A.I.T.H. evangelism training first rolled out nationally in 1998, the outreach leader from First Baptist Church in Lafayette took note. Starting that year and every year since, the Louisiana church has had 50 to 60 people train twice a year in the F.A.I.T.H. initiative that combines evangelism with the caring ministry of Sunday School. “I tell our new people every time we promote the [twice yearly] orientation, ‘We do this because it works,’” pastor Steve Horn told Baptist Press. “Evangelism is something we have to be intentional about, or it doesn’t happen.” First Baptist Lafayette, where about 1,100 people worship each week in the church’s downtown location (1,400 on Easter), has majored on Sunday School and missional outreach throughout its 117-year history. Since probably at least the early 1960s, the church has given at least 10 percent of undesignated offerings to missions through the Cooperative Program, the way Southern Baptist churches work together in state conventions, across North America and overseas to spread the Gospel worldwide. Today it gives 10.5 percent, with plans to increase it incrementally to 11 percent. “I very much like the language of identifying with all Southern … [Read more...]

IRS gives Satanic Temple ‘church’ tax exempt status

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LBM) – Not even two weeks after tax day, the Satanic Temple, a self- described atheist group, celebrated that “for the very [first] time in history a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church.” The categorization allows the Satanic Temple to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions. According to LifeSite- News.com, the Satanic Temple website clearly acknowledges it is not a religion per se and does not believe in Satan, but simply uses the name as a “symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority.” But the group argued to the IRS that the “narrative structure by which we contextualize our lives” and which gives members a “sense of identity, culture, community, and shared values” qualifies it as a religion. The surprise IRS announcement followed by a month or so the ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that denied the minister’s housing allowance benefit to another atheistic group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation based in Wisconsin. … [Read more...]

Florida set to ban sanctuary cities

By Message Staff TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (LBM) – The chambers of Florida’s legislature have passed competing bills banning sanctuary cities in the state, with the House version imposing a $5,000-per- day fine for each day that a sanctuary-city policy is in place and including a rule to suspend or remove government employees or elected officials who defy the ban. But both bills require local and state law enforcement to honor any federal agency’s request for detention of any person believed to be a “removable alien” under federal immigration law. If the differences can be worked out, observers expect Gov. DeSantis to sign the reconciled bill into law, with Florida joining nine other states (Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas) to enact such a mandate. A 2017 bill that would have prohibited sanctuary cities in Louisiana was left to die in committee, but the impact of that legislative failure is uncertain. The Center of Immigration Studies lists New Orleans as a “sanctuary city,” however the city signed a 2012 federal consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice Louisiana which governs its conduct with regard to reporting the immigration status of “victims or … [Read more...]

New Orleans flood insurance coverage at risk

By Message Staff NEW ORLEANS (LBM) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared that the $14 billion spent to fortify the Greater New Orleans area against flooding in the wake of devastation by Hurricane Katrina is at risk of failure, putting the region at risk of being disqualified from participation in the National Flood Insurance Program. In a “Notice of Intent” to prepare an environmental impact statement as part of a re-evaluation report, USACE stated the previous work it had completed to upgrade the levees, floodwalls, gates and pumps to reduce hurricane and storm damage risk at the “100-year level” was in peril in part due to weak soils and subsidence (sinking). The statement said an “engineering analysis” indicated the measures previously taken could be for naught “as early as 2023 … absent future levee lifts.” At that point, USACE will notify FEMA of the loss of risk reduction, “which may result in the loss of accreditation required for participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.” … [Read more...]