Edward "Doc" Louviere and wife Patricia are founders of Circuit Riders Christian Fellowship Ministries. While residents of Galliano, LA, they travel throughout the southern and eastern states and into many foreign countries doing the work of missions wherever they are needed. While Doc is an excellent preacher of the gospel, they have realized that preaching is only one part of doing the work of missions. God has led them into many facets of ministry helps for needy people. They have founded youth ministries that afford young people who feel called into missions work an opportunity to learn about missions in the mission field. They are taught by experienced missionaries and instructors the proper etiquette and attitudes while ministering in different areas of the country and foreign nations. This hands-on experience is an unforgettable and valuable training tool for young ministers. They host annual women ministry sessions for ladies who are involved in the ministry. These retreats are refreshing and hailed as very beneficial by the attendees. There is also a prison ministry, a film ministry and a motorcycle ministry affords teams of ministers to minister in all of those particular fields. This ministry is hands-on and in the trenches with the gospel message. Doc and Pat covet the prayers of all Christians for this great work. They believe that prayer has opened the door and established all of these ministry outreaches. They also tell their congregations where they minister that is prayer that keeps the ministry moving forward.
Pat Louviere is the founder of the women's ministry of Circuit Riders CFM, Daughters of Destiny. This women's ministry reaches out to the poor and broken-hearted, the neglected and abused, the widows and the lonely.
Song of Solomon 2 : 1 - 2 1 I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. 2 Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young wom
In the horse and buggy days, there were a limited number of ministers who could be supported by small communities to preach the gospel. Churches in various towns organized together to send ministers in circuits to cover the vast frontier. These traveling ministers on horseback were called circuit riders.
Today, ministers of Circuit Riders Motorcycle Ministry continue this powerful work by touching and changing the lives of people on the roads through the Word of God. It's mission is to minister to bikers and others who do not fit into traditional churches and to disciple men and women of integrity to carry forth the Word of God in their lives.
John Wesley's Methodist plan of multiple meeting places, called circuits, required an itinerating force of preachers. A circuit was made up of two or more local churches (sometimes referred to as societies) in early Methodism. In American Methodism circuits were sometimes referred to as a "charge." A pastor would be appointed to the charge by his bishop. During the course of a year he was expected to visit each church on the charge at least once, and possibly start some new ones. At the end of a year the pastors met with the bishop at annual conference, where they would often be appointed to new charges. A charge containing only one church was called a station. The traveling preachers responsible for caring for these societies, or local churches and stations, became known as "circuit-riders", or sometimes "saddlebag preachers". They traveled light, carrying their belongings and books in their saddlebags. Ranging far and wide through villages and wilderness, they preached daily or more often at any site available, be it a log cabin, the local court house, a meeting house, or an outdoor forest setting. Unlike the pastors of settled denominations, these itinerate preachers were constantly on the move. Their assignment was often so large it might take them five or six weeks to cover the territory.
Brother Harwood in New Mexico, when asking how to begin his work, was told: "Get your pony shod. Then start out northward via Fort Union, Cimarron, and Red River until you meet a Methodist coming this way...thence westward and eastward until you meet other Methodist preachers coming this way. All this will be your work....I saw at once that I had a big field."
Francis Asbury (1745 - 1816), the founding bishop of American Methodism, set the pace. He traveled 270,000 miles and preached 16,000 sermons as he traveled the circuits. Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) described the life of the circuit-rider. He wrote in his autobiography: "A Methodist preacher, when he felt that God had called him to preach, instead of hunting up a college or Biblical Institute, hunted up a hardy pony, and some traveling apparatus, and with his library always at hand, namely, a Bible, hymn book, and Discipline, he started, and with a text that never wore out nor grew stale, he cried, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.' In this way he went through storms of wind, hail, snow, and rain; climbed hills and mountains, traversed valleys, plunged through swamps, swollen streams, lay out all night, wet, weary, and hungry, held his horse by the bridle all night, or tied him to a limb, slept with his saddle blanket for a bed, his saddle-bags for a pillow. Often he slept in dirty cabins, ate roasting ears for bread, drank butter-milk for coffee; took deer or bear meat, or wild turkey, for breakfast, dinner, and supper. This was old-fashioned Methodist preacher fare and fortune."
Not only did the preacher face physical hardship, but often he endured persecution. Freeborn Garrettson (1752-1827) wrote of his experience: "I was pursued by the wicked, knocked down, and left almost dead on the highway, my face scarred and bleeding and then imprisoned." No wonder most of these preachers died before their careers had hardly begun. Of those who died up to 1847, nearly half were less than 30 years old. Many were too worn out to travel.
What did they earn? Not much in dollars. Bishop Asbury expressed their reward when he recruited Jesse Lee, "I am going to enlist Brother Lee. What bounty? Grace here and glory hereafter, if he is faithful, will be given."
Dr. Robert Simpson
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