Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary

Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary is an unaccredited religious institution located in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. The seminary was launched in 1952 by Arkansas native L. L. Clover, then pastor of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church of Minden, the sponsoring church, which was itself formed in 1930.The seminary is located in a new building at 102 Seminary Lane off the Homer Road adjacent to the Calvary church sanctuary. It is affiliated with the theologically conservative American Baptist Association, with headquarters at 4605 North State Line Avenue in Texarkana, Texas.
The seminary offers the bachelor's, master's, and doctor of theology degrees, with Hebrew and Greek. It is unaccredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Degrees from LMBIS are used primarily within the Missionary Baptist denomination. One of its first graduates, with a bachelor of theology, was Jimmy G. Tharpe (1930-2008), a native of Sibley in Webster Parish and a long-time pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle in Shreveport and subsequently the founder of Louisiana Baptist University, an Independent Baptist institution, also in Shreveport. Tharpe recalled having studied in Clover's home while the original seminary building on the Shreveport Road was being constructed. Though the school started with only two students, there were forty-four by the end of the first year. Not all were preparing for the pastoral ministry.
Numerous Missionary Baptist pastors in the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas region are graduates of LMBIS. Joe Morell, a missionary to Lithuania, formerly pastored Greenacres Missionary Baptist Church in Bossier City. Jerrell W. Head pastored churches in Texas and worked for a time as a missionary in Mexico before he began a mission in Stonewall in DeSoto Parish.Bryan Sellers, a 2000 graduate of LMBIS originally from Ruston, is pastor of the Valley Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Spokane, Washington.
Richard D. Methvin (born 1960), previously a farmer, assumed the pastorate of Eastside Missionary Baptist Church in Minden in 1998. Originally a mission established by Calvary church in 1955, Eastside unveiled a $2.3 million sanctuary early in 2008 to replace the previous main building constructed in 1965.Previous Eastside pastors also affiliated with LMBIS were Austin T. Powers (1896-1975) of Texarkana and Roy E. Chapman (1932-1994).

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