Recently I got to sit down with Minister of Missions from ten different Louisiana churches, ranging in size from 75 to 1,800 attenders. The purpose of the meeting was to communicate with them a bit about church planting in our state, but I was really curious about what it would be like to get these missions leaders together and talking about their missions engagements around the world. I was not disappointed! Just these 10 churches reported:

• 15 new churches currently sponsored
• 26 overseas missions engagements in at least 12 different countries
• 4 national missions engagements
• 9 state missions engagements
• 9 local missions engagements
• 4 unreached people groups adopted
• 5 multi-site campus developments

And remember, this is just 10 churches!!! It speaks to me about the impact that Christ followers working through their churches can have on our world. We recently reported that Louisiana church based compassion ministries had given out 635 tons of food to people in need so far in 2016. And we can only track probably less than 1/3 of the churches doing this type of ministry in our state. If we could see the full impact of the tens of thousands of churches on our world, we would see THE THING that’s holding back darkness, famine, devastation from this earth. And we would see heaven being populated from every tribe and tongue. Take away the church and this world is a dark, dark place.

Thanking God today for His work through His people in our world.

A few highlights:

• First Baptist West Monroe has send out nine missionaries from their church over the past 10 years.
• Cedar Crest Baptist Church in West Monroe sponsors a national pastors conference for pastors in Bulgaria! They also paid to translate, print, & distribute Experiencing God in Bulgarian.
• First Baptist Hornbeck hosts a Youth Camp in the summers for Jr. High & High School students from all over their area.
• Istrouma Baptist in Baton Rouge hosts an English as a Second Language ministry (ESL) that includes people from six nations.