[This is adapted from Dr. Luter’s sermon to Franklin Avenue Baptist Church on May 31, 2020. The full service can be viewed here. Dr. Luter is pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, and formerly the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.] It’s hard to believe that this is the twelfth
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[Steve Noblett is the Executive Director of the Christian Community Health Fellowship in Memphis, TN. This article is posted with permission from the CCHF website.] In 2005, New Orleans took a direct hit from a category 3 hurricane. For over 100 miles both sides of I-55 were jammed with folks
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Yesterday afternoon as I was collecting my thoughts for this devotional, CNN reported that 70% of COVID-19 fatalities in Louisiana are African Americans, even though African Americans comprise only 32% of the State’s population. Governor Edwards observed that most of the fatalities have involved persons with multiple co-morbidities. In other
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“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins
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John 12:23 “…The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” The New Testament talks about two kinds of time. Chronos is the one we all use on a daily basis. It’s the way we measure the passing of life, the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and
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[Dr. Rex Butler is the John T. Westbrook Chair of Church History at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary] During Spring 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic dominates our lives, our families, and our ministries. When you turn on the TV, the news is all Coronavirus, all the time! Medical advisors and
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Dear NOBA Pastor, In his LPB roundtable discussion last night, Governor John Bel Edwards commended you, the pastors and faith leaders of Louisiana, for your compliance with his executive orders aimed at “flattening the curve” and stemming the surge of Coronavirus cases in our state. Your response was immediate and
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“Peace on earth, and goodwill toward men,” the angel said when Jesus was born. Peace on earth is something you hear around this time of year. It’s a well-wish, like Merry Christmas, and so we strip the phrase of its power—not maliciously, but we do well when we remember the
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Recently, a letter was released online in which Dr. Paige Patterson expressed his concerns at the election of Dr. Fred Luter to the SBC presidency. Because this letter directly involves one of the pastors in our association, and because, as associational workers and pastors in a majority African-American city, we’ve
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Associational ministry is a work of extremes; we work on the peaks and in the valleys of church life. When a new church is planted, or finds cause for some new ebenezer, we are there to celebrate the great thing God has done with energy and vibrancy, like a friend
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