fbpx
×

Log into your account

We have changed software providers for our subscription database. Old login credentials will no longer work. Please click the "Register" link below to create a new account. If you do not know your new account number you can contact [email protected]
NAMB closing 2 Baptist centers in La.
Mickey Noah, Baptist Press
November 03, 2010
6 MIN READ TIME

NAMB closing 2 Baptist centers in La.

NAMB closing 2 Baptist centers in La.
Mickey Noah, Baptist Press
November 03, 2010

NEW ORLEANS — The Rachel

Sims Baptist Mission and the Carver Baptist Center — now owned and operated by

the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) North American Mission Board (NAMB) —

will close effective Dec. 31, 2010. Effective Jan. 1, 2011, ownership of both

properties will transfer to the New Orleans Baptist Association.

“The closing of the two ministry centers and the property transfer reflects

NAMB’s process over the last 12 years of giving NAMB-owned properties to local

Baptist associations or churches,” said Richard Leach, the mission board’s team

leader for servant/ministry evangelism in Alpharetta, Ga. The New Orleans

Baptist Association (NOBA, formerly the Baptist Association of Greater New

Orleans) is an association of 107 Southern Baptist churches in the New Orleans

area.

“For several years, dating back before Hurricane Katrina, our three entities —

NOBA, NAMB and the Louisiana Baptist Convention — have discussed a new Southern

Baptist ministry strategy for New Orleans,” Leach said.

Under the “2020 Vision” strategy adopted by NOBA in 2008, NOBA, the Louisiana

Baptist Convention (LBC) and NAMB remain full partners in the “rebuilding of

New Orleans for the glory of God.” The strategy agreement includes the transfer

of assets from NAMB to NOBA.

“The Baptist community in New Orleans is grateful for the historic partnership

we have shared with NAMB,” said C. Duane McDaniel, executive director of the

New Orleans Baptist Association. “From the founding of the SBC in 1845 — when

the Domestic Mission Board (now NAMB) was commissioned to reach the great city

of New Orleans — to more recent years when Southern Baptist volunteers through

NAMB poured in by the thousands to help rebuild the city after Hurricane

Katrina, New Orleans has been the focus of our cooperative efforts to share the

gospel.

“Now, five years post-Katrina, we are turning the page to a new chapter,”

McDaniel said. “Building on the foundation that has been laid, we are looking

to the future, excited about the possibilities for partnering with NAMB, LBC

and churches across the SBC in a newly envisioned mission/rebuild strategy to

reach New Orleans through church planting, compassion ministries and volunteer

mobilization.

“There is yet much to be done in this city, and we believe our very best days

are ahead of us,” McDaniel said.

Photo by John Swain

The Rachel Sims Baptist Mission in New Orleans will close Dec. 31 and be transferred to the New Orleans Baptist Association on Jan. 1. The mission, founded in 1910, is one of many such centers the

North American Mission

Board has turned over to local Baptist associations and churches. A second

ministry in New Orleans, Carver Baptist Center, also will close, while a third,

Baptist Friendship House, will remain open.

The Carver Center —established in 1951 — is located at 3701 Annunciation St.,

while the Rachel Sims Baptist Mission – founded in 1910 — is located at 729 2nd

St., a mile and a half from each other on the edge of the city’s Garden

District. Both centers are primarily involved in after-school ministries for

children.

Leach said Larry Miguez, director over both of the centers, and Linda

Middlebrooks, director of programs at Rachel Sims, will retire under the

current retirement incentive now being offered to all NAMB employees age 54 and

older with at least five years’ service. Jennifer Fannin, assistant director at

the Carver Center, will have the option of accepting a severance package from

NAMB.

“Words cannot express how much we appreciate and applaud the dedicated

Christian service of Larry, Linda and Jennifer,” Leach said. “Only God knows

how many lives they touched and reached for Jesus Christ during their many

years of service.”

A third Southern Baptist ministry center in New Orleans, Baptist Friendship

House -– located at 813 Elysian Fields Ave. and founded in 1944 — will continue

to operate as a ministry for homeless women with children.

The Baptist Friendship House is a ministry that responds to the growing number

of displaced, homeless women with children in need of food and overnight

lodging, medical assistance, education and job training. Under NOBA’s new 2020

Vision strategy, the center’s ministry may be expanded.

Kay Bennett, the center’s director since 1997, will continue in that position —

her salary paid by NAMB — although effective Jan. 1, 2011, she will be under

joint supervision of NOBA and NAMB.

“In the homeless women’s ministry, our program has ministered to 27 women and

their children each night since January of this year,” Bennett said. “In

addition, our food ministries have provided food to 76,192 people during the

first three quarters of this year.”

Bennett said, “One reason Southern Baptists created the old Home Mission Board

was to evangelize and minister in New Orleans. And we’re going to continue to

do ministry in New Orleans. Here at Friendship House, we will continue to help

people rebuild their lives — to continue to minister to homeless and abused

women and their children.”

“As NAMB and as the Home Mission Board, we’ve enjoyed many decades of ministry

in New Orleans,” Leach said. “NAMB will continue its historic partnership with

NOBA and the churches of New Orleans for years to come.”

Leach said Baptists were never more involved in New Orleans than during the

aftermath of Hurricane Katrina following the Aug. 29, 2005, calamity. Thousands

of Southern Baptists from across the United States donated their time, talents

and resources to help rebuild New Orleans after the hurricane.

“Southern Baptist work in New Orleans today is better and stronger than it has

been in the five years since Hurricane Katrina forever changed the city and

churches of New Orleans,” Leach said.

As a result of the closings, mission teams that already planned and scheduled

2011 mission trips to the Carver and Rachel Sims centers will be notified and

an attempt will be made to re-schedule at other venues at a later date.

“NAMB encourages all Southern Baptists to continue to pray for the city of New

Orleans, to support the churches of the New Orleans Baptist Association and to

send volunteers to partner and work with New Orleans Baptists to meet the great

spiritual and physical needs of this mission field,” Leach said.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Noah is a writer for the North American Mission Board.)