A Restoration Movement Church on Goodwood Boulevard
On a stretch of Goodwood Boulevard in East Baton Rouge Parish, just south of I-10 and only a few minutes from the Louisiana State University campus, Goodwood Church of Christ gathers every Sunday under four words that frame its ministry: "Motivated. Inspired. Broken. Disciples." The white-stuccoed building that has been home to the congregation since 1977 was designed by Baton Rouge architect Bill Brockway. It anchors a body of believers who describe themselves not as a denomination but as a group of Christians in the body of Christ, organized around Scripture alone and committed to the pattern of worship set out in the New Testament.
Two Sunday Mornings, in English and Spanish
Sunday mornings at Goodwood follow a simple structure that has been practiced by the congregation for nearly a century. English-language worship begins in the main auditorium at 10:00 AM. At the same hour, a Spanish worship service gathers in an auxiliary room for the growing Hispanic community in and around Baton Rouge. The Spanish assembly is followed at 11:15 AM by a Spanish Bible class. An evening service returns at 5:30 PM, and the building remains open through the early evening for small groups and fellowship. The doors are open Monday through Thursday from 9 AM to 4 PM, with hours extending to 8 PM on Wednesdays for the midweek Bible study, and they reopen on Sunday at 9 AM before closing after the evening service at 7 PM.
From 1847 to the Corner of Goodwood and Sharp
Goodwood is part of the Restoration Movement, the stream of American Christianity that emerged in the early 19th century preaching the restoration of New Testament Christianity and the unity of all believers upon the Bible alone. Movement preachers first reached Baton Rouge in 1847, when John Allen Gano came on a preaching tour and helped a local landowner, Charles G. McHatton, organize a congregation of eleven members. That pioneer church met on the corner of Laurel and Fifth streets, grew to about 120 members by 1850, and was visited in 1857 by Alexander Campbell himself, who arrived by steamboat from New Orleans and preached several lectures in the city. The original congregation faded around the Civil War, and the next six decades are what Goodwood's history calls a "lost period" for the Churches of Christ in Baton Rouge.
The earliest direct ancestor of the present-day congregation was a small group of eight or ten people who met at Dufrocq School from 1922 or 1923 to 1926. When that group broke up, two women, Mrs. Bernie H. Moore and Mrs. L. W. Braud, decided on a Sunday morning in 1929 to begin again. They turned to the McVea family, and on January 20, 1929, ten people gathered for the first service in the McVea home. In March they moved to Wolf's Bakery auditorium, a social hall used free of charge, and the young congregation placed its first ad for regular services in the State-Times on May 9, 1929. Attendance hovered between five and twenty through the 1930s. The men of the congregation took turns preaching when no regular minister was available, and on Sundays with no men present the women led the worship themselves.
In 1938 the group moved to Magnolia School, then to a new building on Convention Street in 1940, with A. K. Ramsey, Sr. preaching the dedication sermon. In 1941 Waldrop Johnson became the first full-time preacher, supported by Trinity Lane and five other Nashville congregations at $150 per month until the local church took over his support a year later. The mid-century ministers who followed were Carroll Ellis (1943 to 1948), Ira North (1948 to 1952), and D. D. Woody (1952 to 1954), and the church grew quickly enough that in 1952 R. C. Carter and Hal D. Payne were appointed as the first elders, with J. D. Anders, James Laird, R. B. McCoin, Joseph Pevey, and Robert W. Sanderson as the first deacons.
The Convention Street building was doubled in size during this period and a minister's home was built next door, but by 1954 attendance was again pushing the walls. The new North Boulevard building was completed in 1957 at a cost of $155,000. North Boulevard became one of the most prominent Churches of Christ in Louisiana, and a campus ministry at LSU moved out of the Huey P. Long Field House and into the Christian Student Center on Dalrymple Drive in 1965, funded by a $106,000 campaign and directed first by Weldon Hatcher and then by Raymond Buchanan.
In 1976 the elders chose to build again, this time on a parcel at the corner of Goodwood Boulevard and Sharp Road. Howard Emerson was hired as minister and Jerry Savage as assistant minister for the transition. The North Boulevard facility was sold to Baton Rouge General Hospital, and the congregation met at the Christian Student Center until the new building was ready. The first worship service at the Goodwood location was held in April 1977, and the building has served the congregation ever since. After Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Goodwood building sheltered more than 150 displaced New Orleans residents for a month, and the church helped distribute over $672,000 in relief funds to families and congregations rebuilding along the coast. Some of the members from the 1930s small group are still part of Goodwood today.
Elders, Deacons, and Ministers
Goodwood is led by four elders, appointed according to the qualifications laid out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and charged with shepherding the flock by consulting God's Word. The current shepherds are Richard Felix, Sr., Clayton Goodrum, Tommy Phillips, and Joshua Young. Under them, six deacons carry out the ministries of the congregation: Wade Baumgartner, Bobby Chelette, Samuel Goodrum, Chad Haviland, Jason Olivier, and Bert Ruckstuhl.
Two preaching ministers serve the church. Richard Felix, Sr. serves as minister over the English-speaking congregation. Mario Olguin joined the staff from Matamoros, Mexico, where he had preached for fourteen years, and now ministers to the Spanish-speaking community of Baton Rouge alongside his wife, Lourdes (Lulis), and their two daughters, Diana and Keyla.
What Goodwood Teaches
The Bible, accepted as God's inspired Word, is the only reliable source for questions of faith and practice at Goodwood. Salvation, in the church's reading of Scripture, is the response of a person to God's grace in faith: believing that Jesus is the Son of God, turning from sin, confessing Christ, and being baptized into Him. The Lord's Supper is observed each first day of the week in memory of Christ's body and blood, gathered together with singing, prayer, public teaching from Scripture, and the collection of offerings as the New Testament acts of worship.
The congregation stands inside the Restoration Movement tradition and explicitly states that it is "not part of a denominational organization," preferring to be known simply as a group of Christians in the body of Christ who aim to be the church outlined in the New Testament. The mission statement reads, "Faithfully leading through intentional action, transforming lives by the power of the Gospel, into lives of full devotion and discipleship." Four values shape the church's shared life: motivation by evangelism, commitment to unity, generosity, and a willingness to think creatively about the work God has given the body.
Discipleship from the Cradle to the College Years
Goodwood organizes its ministry around the conviction that children are not only the future but the present. The children's ministry follows a rotation curriculum that walks young people through the stories of the Bible using video, games, drama, arts, crafts, and hands-on activities, with teachers continually looking for fresh ways to introduce children to the love of God and to His story. The youth ministry gathers students for Bible studies, retreats, service projects, and devotionals hosted in the homes of congregation members, with Sunday-evening and Saturday time slots available.
For students in college and young professionals, Goodwood operates a campus ministry that is a registered organization at LSU and is working toward registration at Southern University, with a continuing reach to students at Southeastern Louisiana University and Baton Rouge Community College. Sunday-evening devotional and game nights, Wednesday-evening meals before the midweek Bible class, tailgates during football season, and on-campus meetings for coffee, prayer, and conversation fill out the calendar. A minister or deacon is frequently available on campus for conversation. The campus ministry's social accounts go by the names "LSUTigersforChrist" and "SUJagsforChrist."
Adult life at Goodwood includes a Ladies Bible Class that meets at 11:00 AM on the second Monday of each month, working through studies such as Beth Moore's guide to James, with lunch to follow. "Young at Heart," a fellowship for senior adults, gathers for lunch with the office staff on the first Tuesday of each month beginning at 11:30 AM. Adult Bible classes meet throughout the week, and Wednesday evenings bring the wider congregation together for the midweek Bible class. A small Prison Ministry team carries the work of the church behind the walls as well.
Matamoros, the Covadonga Jungle, and the Neighborhood
In 2019 Goodwood helped plant a church in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville. The Spanish-language ministry is the primary support for that work, and the preacher in Matamoros is a local evangelist who lives and works in the city; Matamoros is also the hometown of Spanish minister Mario Olguin. Goodwood also partners with Anthony Sanches in the Selva LaCondona, where he has planted and maintains nine churches among communities in the Covadonga Jungle who are generally closed to outside religious influence, and supports Mission GTO, a ministry of the Lake Harbour Drive Church of Christ in Jackson, Mississippi, that trains preachers and plants churches around Guanajuato, Mexico.
Closer to home, Community Outreach has long partnered with Audubon Elementary School, working alongside teachers and staff on service projects and seasonal events, including Christmas activities each year. Across its history, Goodwood has helped start daughter congregations in Walker, Comite, and New Roads; supported missionaries in Honduras, Haiti, Romania, and Brazil; and stood up to provide shelter, food, and long-term rebuilding assistance to neighbors along the Gulf Coast after Katrina.
A Library for the Christian Home
Goodwood publishes a substantial library of study material for personal and family discipleship. A Family Devotionals series walks families through six lessons on Atonement, Expiation, Propitiation, Justification, Sanctification, and Resurrection. A "Talk About It" series covers Mental Health, Physical Fitness, Family, and Discipleship and Intergenerational Relationships. Nine lessons on "What is the Church?" move from "Sacred Things" through "Shepherds" to "Unleashed" and "A Consuming Church," and a ten-part walk through the early chapters of Genesis supports the Binge Reading the Bible teaching. A series of journaling prompts on spiritual disciplines covers Praise, Prayer, Service, Fasting, Celebration, Creativity, Honoring the Commands, and Simplicity, with bonus material on Experiential Prayer Ideas and blank note pages. Sermon series are also offered through an RSS feed so families can continue the conversation at home.
Plan a Visit
First-time visitors can join the English-language worship service in the main auditorium at 10:00 AM on Sunday, the Spanish-language worship service at 10:00 AM in an auxiliary room with a Spanish Bible class to follow at 11:15, and the Sunday evening service at 5:30 PM. The Spanish Bible class returns on Wednesday at 8:00 PM. Visitors can fill out an online attendance card to let the church know they stopped by, and services are livestreamed. The office can be reached at 225-272-8936 or office@goodwoodchurch.org. Online giving is available, and the family of faith at Goodwood looks forward to welcoming new faces into the work of discipleship that has marked its life since 1929.