Church guide

This June, Southside Baptist Church in Denham Springs is celebrating 50 years of ministry in our local community, state, nation and around the world. We would like to invite all of our former members, staff and other friends to join with us on June 30th as we join together for worship and fellowship at 10:30 AM. We will have a covered dish lunch afterward with Jambalaya provided by the church. Former pastor, Bro. Bruce McKenzie will be our guest preacher and Bro. Aaron Bond will be leading our music for the day.

The Southside Baptist Church choir will present "He's Alive" this Sunday morning, April 14th at 10:30 AM.

Today begins the Week of Prayer for North American Missions. Join us as we pray for those who are reaching North America with the gospel.

https://youtu.be/j1d5ViQVYHo <- go to this link and on Feb. 7th add your voice to the End it movement. A movement driven by believers and embraced by an unbelieving world. Even if you are not very active on social media you can do this. Post a pic of your hand with a red x and join others who have joined God in His heart to see captives set free both spiritually and physically. Happy New Year & God Bless!

Just a reminder that our Run for God group starts tonight with an information meeting at 6:30 PM. You can still sign up online at www.runforgod.com/class/southside-baptist-church-1 or you can come to our meeting tonight and see if it is for you.

Southside is starting a Run for God group on Thursday, Jan 3rd at 6:30 PM. This is a 12 week "couch to 5k" class that can be adapted for anyone's present condition. Last year, we had some that ran, others that walked. Whatever your goals are, we will help you get there. There is no cost for the class, but we will place a group tee shirt order (optional). To register sign up online at www.runforgod.com/class/southside-baptist-church-1 or attend our informantion meeting on Thursday, Jan. 3rd @ 6:30 PM

Day 8 Remember back in 2015 when Syria’s refugees were flooding out of the country in record numbers? Thousands died crossing a sea on what should have been a forty-five-minute boat journey. Rescue and relief organizations were out in record number. In the years since, many more refugees have filled the news cycle. More than a million Rohingya people have been forced out of their homes in Myanmar, taking shelter in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand with no hope or plan for the future. Uganda is also hosting more than a million refugees from South Sudan. And refugees from Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Nigeria join Syrians in their quest to somehow get beyond the reach of terrorist groups. But even though there are more refugees today than ever before in recorded history, for some of them, their story has led them to a freedom they never knew possible. God is working in the midst of their suffering to accomplish the highest good—his name being proclaimed by every tongue, nation, tribe, and people. And he wants his church involved in this work. That’s why Pastor Bryant Wright said he and his church, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, have invested heavily in refugee ministry both at home and overseas. “It’s a humanitarian disaster,” Bryant asserted. “It just makes sense to me to reach out with love and concern to them rather than withdrawing in fear. We are not naive about the dangers; we know they are there. But that doesn’t change our calling to reach out with the love of Christ.” There in the Atlanta area, members of Johnson Ferry Baptist are walking alongside nine Syrian Muslim families who are trying to rebuild a life. “They needed someone to sit with them and pray with them and be with their family,” said an IMB worker overseas who partners with Johnson Ferry Baptist. She has experienced the same kind of need in the country where she lives. She and other IMB workers are scattered across the globe to serve as a consistent presence in refugee centers and camps in Europe, Africa, and Asia, sharing Christ in refugees’ moments of deepest pain. As volunteers from the United States have come to partner with them, they have heard story after story of devastation and tragedy. They’ve heard about family members lost and long journeys on foot. And as they have listened to refugees’ stories and wept with them, they have also shared hope with them. “It was so hard,” one volunteer admitted. “These people challenged my narrow view of the world. They aren’t just news headlines anymore. Their faces left a lasting imprint on my heart, and I see them in my dreams. I now pray for them with such compassion and tenderness, just like I pray for my own family.”

At the end of a beaten-up road in Tanzania, a small hospital occasionally gets as full as it can get, and then runs on empty. “One time we didn’t have any more Ketamine, a drug used for anesthesia, and we had been doing a lot of C-sections,” said Larry Pepper, an IMB doctor who serves at the Baptist Hospital in the town of Kigoma. “Another time we didn’t have enough suture material.” And another time, sick children were sleeping two or three to a bed for lack of space. That’s the scene Ben Hale, missions pastor at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, walked into several years ago when he came to the hospital to see what his church could do to help. “I was moved,” Ben noted. And there in that crowded hospital, the two men began to dream. Ben saw the vast needs—both medical and spiritual—and Larry shared how the hospital has been a vehicle for getting the gospel into area villages, some of which had no believers yet. “Long story short, we were able to help them build a pediatric wing,” Ben said. “We’re hoping it will be a platform for the gospel not only for the patients but that it would open up doors for more church planting and gospel sharing in the area.” So far, it has. Five construction workers came to Christ as the pediatric unit was being built. And with a quarter of the facility dedicated to maternal health, Larry’s wife, Sally, has been able to start new ministries to mothers. The new wing also paved the way for the IMB to send a pediatrician to join the hospital’s work. “It has been a really great partnership with the Dawson congregation,” Larry announced. “We’re grateful.” But it’s not the only time in the past twenty-two years that he and Sally have found themselves in humble gratitude to a church. Over and over, churches have stepped up to cover the hospital’s needs—needs like Ketamine for C-sections and suture materials for surgeries. “Churches of all sizes have helped,” Larry said. They have supported the Peppers’ work through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the funding source that keeps them on the field. They have provided equipment like wheelchairs and oxygen concentrators, a vital resource in a place where oxygen tanks are sparse. They have sent construction teams to make repairs on the facilities. They have led their children’s ministries to raise funds to feed malnourished children at the hospital. “We’re just two people,” Larry said. “But we find that when other people get a passion to come alongside us, God uses it to further his kingdom.”

Keith W. said when he looks across his church and identifies the highest-impact individuals, the ones who are highly evangelistic disciple makers, they have some unifying factors. One of them is that they’ve spent time in East Asia. “They come back, and their perspective on their life and on the world is completely changed,” remarked Keith, who serves as lead pastor of Resonate Church, a Washington State-based church with campuses in Idaho and Oregon. “They see lostness where they had just seen regularity, and they see themselves as missionaries more than when they left.” Over the past three years, more than eighty students have participated in Resonate’s partnership with IMB workers in East Asia, traveling there to serve for ten weeks in the summer or two weeks on Christmas break. “We put them into a college campus and by being in that context, their lives are radically changed,” Keith said. “To be able to say ‘I’m here for a specific reason for a short time’ develops that courage muscle. As they try stuff there, the receptivity of college students begins to create an optimism that gets carried home with them. It builds a courageous spirit, and that permeates their identity.” It also makes a lasting impact on the East Asian students they meet while they’re there. “We’ve seen thirteen college students decide to make a decision for Christ,” Keith said. “There are four house churches that have been started in the past year or so.” All this started in 2014 when Keith and his wife, Paige, went on a trip to East Asia and saw the incredible opportunities there to reach the region through its university students. Keith and Paige came back and told the stories, and eight Resonate members decided they wanted to relocate their lives to East Asia. Keith wanted to make a habit of sending students there to get their feet wet in missions. It was a double blessing as it bolstered students’ hearts to come back and think missionally at home while supporting the work of their partners on the field. “One of the things I most wanted to do with this was have every student see they are empowered to start something for the kingdom,” Keith explained. “Going to East Asia not only opens their eyes to the lostness; it shows them that they can do something about it.” It’s created a pathway of direct development for missionaries, Keith said. “If you want to accelerate your disciple making, put them in a context overseas. People start to see their world as a place where they were sent as a missionary.”

Day 5 J.D. Greear says his church’s partnership with IMB missionaries is more than just a partnership—it’s a front-row seat to some of God’s most exciting work in hard-to-reach places. “The most significant things in the world are happening through the church that God is building,” said J.D., pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, “We pray, we give, we go—not because we have to, but because of what God has promised he’s going to do among the nations.” Previous Next One place they are seeing that play out is in Ukraine, where IMB missionary Russell Woodbridge is helping Ukrainian believers learn how to plant churches. Together, they have an amazing opportunity to offer hope to people from eastern Ukraine who lost everything when they fled the war there in recent years. They’ve seen people baptized and churches started. “It takes all of us working together to reach the nations for Christ,” Russell said. And his home church is excited to be a part of that. Partnering together “provides opportunities that maybe you couldn’t do if you were by yourself,” J.D. explained. It helps us engage in ways that are meaningful and not just a flash in the pan.”

In their home in São Paulo, Brazil, Scott and Joyce Pittman have a giant map of the city plastered across their wall. It’s a picture of the work still to be done in the metro area of twenty-two million people. And now that image is plastered across the hearts of the members of Highland Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Kentucky, too. Ever since the Kentucky Baptist Convention kicked off a partnership with the Pittmans in São Paulo, teams from Highland Baptist have traveled regularly to the city to participate in a variety of ministries. They arrange basketball camps, children’s clubs, and women’s events, all through a partnership with a specific local church. It’s a relationship forged for the sake of offering encouragement and support to the believers there. Highland Baptist is “no superstar missions church,” Chris Platt, pastor of Highland Baptist, points out, but the annual trips have bolstered the work in Brazil and made the church see that it is “one piece of the puzzle.” “God’s leading the way, and we are really growing in missions,” he said. “You’ve got missionaries doing what they can and the church doing what we can. I think our partnership has created something tangible. It puts a face on missions.”

Week of Prayer - Day 3 Missionaries from Central America serving in Southeast Aisa. Who would have thought that?

Week of Prayer for International Missions - Day 2

This week is the week that we as a church pray for international mission efforts to help those in need around the world. Each day this week we will share a video of a missionary that shares a little bit of their story. Check back each day for updates.

Revival Services at Southside Baptist Church This week Southside will be holding services that are designed to help bring us back into alignment with God’s plan for His people. Just as your car occasionally needs to be realigned for proper operation and control, we also need the same process in our lives to keep us on the right track. We are delighted to have Bro. Mike Courtney preaching God’s Word to us and Bro. Scott Lesley leading us in music for these special worship services. We hope you will consider joining with us as we are challenged in our daily walk with Christ. Service times are Sunday 10:30 AM and 6:00 PM and Monday and Tuesday at 7:00 PM.

Our Mission Team will be sharing about their recent trip to Nicaragua in the morning service at Southside Baptist Church on Feb. 18. Thanks to all who have supported them to make this trip possible.

Day 8 Remember back in 2015 when Syria’s refugees were flooding out of the country in record numbers? Thousands died crossing a sea on what should have been a forty-five-minute boat journey. Rescue and relief organizations were out in record number. In the years since, many more refugees have filled the news cycle. More than a million Rohingya people have been forced out of their homes in Myanmar, taking shelter in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand with no hope or plan for the future. Uganda is also hosting more than a million refugees from South Sudan. And refugees from Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Nigeria join Syrians in their quest to somehow get beyond the reach of terrorist groups. But even though there are more refugees today than ever before in recorded history, for some of them, their story has led them to a freedom they never knew possible. God is working in the midst of their suffering to accomplish the highest good—his name being proclaimed by every tongue, nation, tribe, and people. And he wants his church involved in this work. That’s why Pastor Bryant Wright said he and his church, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, have invested heavily in refugee ministry both at home and overseas. “It’s a humanitarian disaster,” Bryant asserted. “It just makes sense to me to reach out with love and concern to them rather than withdrawing in fear. We are not naive about the dangers; we know they are there. But that doesn’t change our calling to reach out with the love of Christ.” There in the Atlanta area, members of Johnson Ferry Baptist are walking alongside nine Syrian Muslim families who are trying to rebuild a life. “They needed someone to sit with them and pray with them and be with their family,” said an IMB worker overseas who partners with Johnson Ferry Baptist. She has experienced the same kind of need in the country where she lives. She and other IMB workers are scattered across the globe to serve as a consistent presence in refugee centers and camps in Europe, Africa, and Asia, sharing Christ in refugees’ moments of deepest pain. As volunteers from the United States have come to partner with them, they have heard story after story of devastation and tragedy. They’ve heard about family members lost and long journeys on foot. And as they have listened to refugees’ stories and wept with them, they have also shared hope with them. “It was so hard,” one volunteer admitted. “These people challenged my narrow view of the world. They aren’t just news headlines anymore. Their faces left a lasting imprint on my heart, and I see them in my dreams. I now pray for them with such compassion and tenderness, just like I pray for my own family.”

At the end of a beaten-up road in Tanzania, a small hospital occasionally gets as full as it can get, and then runs on empty. “One time we didn’t have any more Ketamine, a drug used for anesthesia, and we had been doing a lot of C-sections,” said Larry Pepper, an IMB doctor who serves at the Baptist Hospital in the town of Kigoma. “Another time we didn’t have enough suture material.” And another time, sick children were sleeping two or three to a bed for lack of space. That’s the scene Ben Hale, missions pastor at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, walked into several years ago when he came to the hospital to see what his church could do to help. “I was moved,” Ben noted. And there in that crowded hospital, the two men began to dream. Ben saw the vast needs—both medical and spiritual—and Larry shared how the hospital has been a vehicle for getting the gospel into area villages, some of which had no believers yet. “Long story short, we were able to help them build a pediatric wing,” Ben said. “We’re hoping it will be a platform for the gospel not only for the patients but that it would open up doors for more church planting and gospel sharing in the area.” So far, it has. Five construction workers came to Christ as the pediatric unit was being built. And with a quarter of the facility dedicated to maternal health, Larry’s wife, Sally, has been able to start new ministries to mothers. The new wing also paved the way for the IMB to send a pediatrician to join the hospital’s work. “It has been a really great partnership with the Dawson congregation,” Larry announced. “We’re grateful.” But it’s not the only time in the past twenty-two years that he and Sally have found themselves in humble gratitude to a church. Over and over, churches have stepped up to cover the hospital’s needs—needs like Ketamine for C-sections and suture materials for surgeries. “Churches of all sizes have helped,” Larry said. They have supported the Peppers’ work through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the funding source that keeps them on the field. They have provided equipment like wheelchairs and oxygen concentrators, a vital resource in a place where oxygen tanks are sparse. They have sent construction teams to make repairs on the facilities. They have led their children’s ministries to raise funds to feed malnourished children at the hospital. “We’re just two people,” Larry said. “But we find that when other people get a passion to come alongside us, God uses it to further his kingdom.”

Keith W. said when he looks across his church and identifies the highest-impact individuals, the ones who are highly evangelistic disciple makers, they have some unifying factors. One of them is that they’ve spent time in East Asia. “They come back, and their perspective on their life and on the world is completely changed,” remarked Keith, who serves as lead pastor of Resonate Church, a Washington State-based church with campuses in Idaho and Oregon. “They see lostness where they had just seen regularity, and they see themselves as missionaries more than when they left.” Over the past three years, more than eighty students have participated in Resonate’s partnership with IMB workers in East Asia, traveling there to serve for ten weeks in the summer or two weeks on Christmas break. “We put them into a college campus and by being in that context, their lives are radically changed,” Keith said. “To be able to say ‘I’m here for a specific reason for a short time’ develops that courage muscle. As they try stuff there, the receptivity of college students begins to create an optimism that gets carried home with them. It builds a courageous spirit, and that permeates their identity.” It also makes a lasting impact on the East Asian students they meet while they’re there. “We’ve seen thirteen college students decide to make a decision for Christ,” Keith said. “There are four house churches that have been started in the past year or so.” All this started in 2014 when Keith and his wife, Paige, went on a trip to East Asia and saw the incredible opportunities there to reach the region through its university students. Keith and Paige came back and told the stories, and eight Resonate members decided they wanted to relocate their lives to East Asia. Keith wanted to make a habit of sending students there to get their feet wet in missions. It was a double blessing as it bolstered students’ hearts to come back and think missionally at home while supporting the work of their partners on the field. “One of the things I most wanted to do with this was have every student see they are empowered to start something for the kingdom,” Keith explained. “Going to East Asia not only opens their eyes to the lostness; it shows them that they can do something about it.” It’s created a pathway of direct development for missionaries, Keith said. “If you want to accelerate your disciple making, put them in a context overseas. People start to see their world as a place where they were sent as a missionary.”

Day 5 J.D. Greear says his church’s partnership with IMB missionaries is more than just a partnership—it’s a front-row seat to some of God’s most exciting work in hard-to-reach places. “The most significant things in the world are happening through the church that God is building,” said J.D., pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, “We pray, we give, we go—not because we have to, but because of what God has promised he’s going to do among the nations.” Previous Next One place they are seeing that play out is in Ukraine, where IMB missionary Russell Woodbridge is helping Ukrainian believers learn how to plant churches. Together, they have an amazing opportunity to offer hope to people from eastern Ukraine who lost everything when they fled the war there in recent years. They’ve seen people baptized and churches started. “It takes all of us working together to reach the nations for Christ,” Russell said. And his home church is excited to be a part of that. Partnering together “provides opportunities that maybe you couldn’t do if you were by yourself,” J.D. explained. It helps us engage in ways that are meaningful and not just a flash in the pan.”

In their home in São Paulo, Brazil, Scott and Joyce Pittman have a giant map of the city plastered across their wall. It’s a picture of the work still to be done in the metro area of twenty-two million people. And now that image is plastered across the hearts of the members of Highland Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Kentucky, too. Ever since the Kentucky Baptist Convention kicked off a partnership with the Pittmans in São Paulo, teams from Highland Baptist have traveled regularly to the city to participate in a variety of ministries. They arrange basketball camps, children’s clubs, and women’s events, all through a partnership with a specific local church. It’s a relationship forged for the sake of offering encouragement and support to the believers there. Highland Baptist is “no superstar missions church,” Chris Platt, pastor of Highland Baptist, points out, but the annual trips have bolstered the work in Brazil and made the church see that it is “one piece of the puzzle.” “God’s leading the way, and we are really growing in missions,” he said. “You’ve got missionaries doing what they can and the church doing what we can. I think our partnership has created something tangible. It puts a face on missions.”

Week of Prayer - Day 3 Missionaries from Central America serving in Southeast Aisa. Who would have thought that?

Week of Prayer for International Missions - Day 2

This week is the week that we as a church pray for international mission efforts to help those in need around the world. Each day this week we will share a video of a missionary that shares a little bit of their story. Check back each day for updates.