Baptists reach out to New Orleans' untouchables

Our take: Couples from First Baptist Church in Florence, Ala., along with a church in the New Orleans area are partnering together to reach out to women trapped in the sex industry. Through prayer and gifts like food baskets, women working in strip clubs and trapped in the tough lifestyle of the body trades are being reached with love, support, encouragement and hope that there is more to life than what they currently experience. Some industry women have been able to escape pimps and other trappings with the help of Christians who have learned to see them as God does.

New Orleans' Bourbon Street is awash nightly in neon light and lewd images. Some in the crowd disappear into the strip clubs that line the street. Others come only to gawk. One Crossover team prior to this year's Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting -- all women -- came to pray.

Three couples from First Baptist Church in Florence, Ala., joined with Mosaic, a church plant in New Orleans' Mid-City area, during Crossover to serve alongside Inward, a ministry of women from New Orleans churches that is reaching women in the sex industry.

The Florence team served in New Orleans days after a strip club dancer was found brutally murdered and one day after Inward successfully helped another woman escape her pimp.

"These women [of Inward] are on the front lines of ministry," said Rickey "Ric" Camp, pastor of First Baptist Florence and vice chairman of the North American Mission Board's board of trustees.

Read more about Street workers, dancers get support from local Christians on The Baptist Press.