The Swaggart Family at the Pulpit
Family Worship Center sits in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the home church of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, a Pentecostal work that has reached well past the city limits for nearly half a century. The mailing address is PO Box 262550, Baton Rouge, LA 70826. Brother Jimmy Swaggart launched his full-time evangelistic work in 1954 with his wife Frances, traveling the backroads of the South with little more than a Bible and a piano. He used to tell how he preached his first sermon standing on the back of a flatbed truck parked in Mangham, Louisiana, working through everything he knew twice in ten minutes to a crowd of forty or fifty.
In the years that followed, that small beginning grew into a local church, a Bible college, a K-12 academy, a preschool, a 24-hour television network, a worldwide Bible distribution effort, and an annual camp meeting that draws believers from across the country. Brother Swaggart was born on March 15, 1935, in the small Louisiana town of Ferriday, and he died on July 1, 2025, just days after his 90th birthday. The work he founded continues under his son, Evangelist Donnie Swaggart, who serves as Co-Pastor of Family Worship Center, and his grandson, Pastor Gabriel Swaggart, who serves as Associate Pastor. Frances Swaggart, who joined Jimmy in ministry in 1952 and has been a steady presence on the platform and in print for more than four decades, remains active in the work. The associate pastors Loren Larson and Bob Cornell appear regularly on the daily teaching program. The full slate of JSM ministers is published at jsm.org/jsm-ministers, along with a weekly schedule of who is preaching and teaching.
Sunday Mornings, Sunday Nights, and Wednesday Nights
Family Worship Center holds three weekly services in its sanctuary. Sunday morning worship begins at 10:00 a.m. Central Time, and a Sunday evening gospel concert follows at 6:00 p.m. Central Time, featuring the JSM Singers and Musicians. A Wednesday night service rounds out the week, with midweek Bible teaching that has long been a center of the congregation's life. For those who cannot attend in person, every service is broadcast live on SonLife Broadcasting Network, which means members and visitors across the country and around the world worship together with the home church in real time. Media church membership in the Family Worship Center congregation is free of charge and open to born-again believers in any country; the only qualification is faith in Christ.
The worship is shaped by the Pentecostal tradition that runs through the entire work. Services feature spirited congregational singing led by the JSM musicians and singers, with gospel music at the center, and preaching and teaching rooted in the Bible. The believers who gather in the sanctuary are joined by a much larger congregation through the broadcast, and the church treats that broadcast congregation as a real part of the Family Worship Center family. Members of the broadcast congregation are encouraged to tithe to Family Worship Center as they would any other church, on the principle that a believer owes his or her tithe to where the soul is being fed.
What They Believe
The statement of faith held at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries is a thoroughgoing Pentecostal confession, and it is summarized in full at jsm.org/what-we-believe. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God. There is one true and eternal God, Creator of all things, who has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - three Persons in one divine nature. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, performed miracles, died as the sacrifice for our sins, rose bodily from the dead, and now reigns at the right hand of the Father.
The church teaches that humanity was created in God's image but fell from fellowship with Him through sin, and that salvation is God's gift of grace, made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and received through repentance and faith. The Holy Spirit then transforms believers, producing a life marked by righteousness and holiness. Two ordinances are observed: water baptism by immersion, which publicly declares the believer's new life in Christ, and the Lord's Supper, which remembers Christ's sacrifice and anticipates His return.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is taught as a distinct experience that empowers Christians for holy living, effective ministry, and bold witness through the gifts of the Spirit, with the initial physical evidence being speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. The church also holds to divine healing through Christ's atoning work, available today through faith, prayer, and God's sovereign will. The blessed hope is the imminent return of Christ for His Church, the visible millennial reign of Christ on earth, the final judgment, and the new heavens and new earth. The Church itself is understood as the Body of Christ, called to worship God, proclaim the Gospel, make disciples, care for those in need, and build up believers through the power of the Holy Spirit. This mission shapes everything Family Worship Center and JSM do, from the Sunday pulpit to the television signal that beams the message of the cross to more than 300 million television homes worldwide.
SonLife Broadcasting Network: Church for the Whole World
SonLife Broadcasting Network, or SBN, is the 24-hour television network of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. It broadcasts the preaching and teaching of Jimmy Swaggart, Donnie Swaggart, Gabriel Swaggart, and other ministers, and it is the engine that turns a local church into a worldwide congregation. SBN launched its first telecast in 1973, and the network marked its fifteenth anniversary in 2025 as the longest-running media ministry in American broadcasting history. In September 2024, SBN launched on Freeview Channel 96 in the United Kingdom, the largest single international distribution step the network has ever taken. In the United States, SBN is carried on Dish 257, DirecTV 344, Verizon Fios 797, MediaCom 215, and AT&T 580, with additional providers listed locally. The full program guide is published through Gracenote and the SBN website.
The network functions as a church for people who cannot attend a Bible-preaching church in person. Brother Swaggart often told of viewers in countries where gospel programming is illegal who risk their lives to watch SBN; for them, the broadcast is the only church they will ever have. Programs stream through watch.sonlifetv.com, where viewers can find live broadcasts and on-demand video. SBN also operates SonLife Radio, which extends the same teaching and music over the airwaves. The message Brother Swaggart said the Lord laid on his heart still drives the network: wherever the television signal goes, the Spirit of God will go with it, to save, to fill, to heal, to deliver, and to bless.
The Daily Round-Table
Three flagship programs anchor the broadcast schedule. A Study in the Word is a daily 30-minute teaching hosted originally by Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart with associate pastors Loren Larson, Bob Cornell, and others; the format walks verse by verse through biblical genealogy, history, prophecy, and end-time events, and the discussions are praised for the depth they bring to ordinary Bible reading. The radio version of the program, The Camp Meeting Hour, has aired on hundreds of stations across the country since 1969 and remains one of the longest-running religious broadcasts in the United States.
The Message of the Cross is a live one-hour round-table discussion that brings a panel of ministers and Bible professors together to study biblical topics in depth, with a systematic approach to each passage and an emphasis on the finished work of Christ. Brother Swaggart often told how the Lord first opened up Romans 8:2 to him during this very program, with Loren Larson sitting beside him and the truth of the cross laid out verse by verse. Frances & Friends features Frances Swaggart and Donnie Swaggart in conversation with guests, often taking calls from viewers seeking prayer or counsel. Classic Crusades preserves the music and sermons from Jimmy Swaggart crusades held around the world. Together, these programs carry the teaching and the music of Family Worship Center into homes on every continent.
The Schools on the Campus
The Baton Rouge campus is also home to three schools. Jimmy Swaggart Bible College, or JSBC, is a Pentecostal Bible college equipping Spirit-anointed students to fulfill God-ordained roles in world evangelism. The college is moving toward accreditation through the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS); the application was submitted in 2024 and a TRACS site visit took place in February of that year. Gabriel Swaggart has been adding general education courses - math, science, history, English - so that credits will transfer once candidacy is granted, and the college curriculum is being updated to match. Two campus buildings, the A.N. Trotter Student Life Center and the athletic center, are being overhauled as part of the modernization effort. Dr. Jimmy DuPree teaches a weeklong summer intensive on the practical aspects of ministry and pastoring, and Dr. Dave Watts teaches an in-depth approach to Bible study. Loren Larson has taught on the book of Ruth. World Evangelism Bible College and Seminary, the related seminary arm, also trains ministers for the work.
Family Christian Academy is the K-12 school of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, where families in the Baton Rouge area entrust their children to a Christian education. A companion preschool, FCA Preschool, serves the youngest learners. Together with the Bible college, the schools form a stretch of campus life that ties the local church to the next generation, and many of the children raised in the academy have gone on to serve in Family Worship Center and in ministries around the world.
Bibles Around the World
Bible Outreach is the worldwide distribution arm of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, and it is what the ministry considers its single largest work. The centerpiece is The Expositor's Study Bible, which Brother Swaggart developed at the instruction of the Holy Spirit over the course of twenty years. The notes are placed within the body of the biblical text rather than at the end of chapters or verses, so that any reader can find them at a glance; that placement was given to Brother Swaggart directly. The Expositor's Study Bible has been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, with Vietnamese and Hmong translations underway. A Vietnamese edition of the New Testament has been printed in 100,000 donated copies, and a first printing of Hmong New Testaments is also in motion. By the ministry's count, nearly seven million copies of The Expositor's Study Bible are now in the hands of pastors and Christian workers in more than 100 countries, and the stated goal is to push that number toward 100 million.
The Expositor's New Testament is also distributed to first responders, active-duty U.S. military, prisoners, and children through the Read-n-Grow Picture Bible program. Pastors receiving these Bibles have shared stories of walking miles to read one borrowed copy at a time, then suddenly holding their own. After hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, the ministry sent 5,000 New Testaments and 600 Read-n-Grow children's Bibles into the stricken regions of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. Bible-thon offerings fund the printing and shipping of these copies each month, and Brother Swaggart often called this work the greatest missionary outreach in the world today. Recent shipments have gone to Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Uganda, Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Switzerland, Malawi, Nicaragua, Chile, Poland, South Africa, Nigeria, Ecuador, Spain, Honduras, Ethiopia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Russia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Pakistan, Kenya, and India, with Cuba next on the list.
Camp Meeting, Crossfire, and Powerhouse
Each year Family Worship Center hosts three large conferences. JSM Camp Meeting is the flagship gathering, described as an old-time way to receive a new touch from the Lord. Preachers and teachers present the Word plainly and without compromise, and the JSM musicians, singers, and choir lead the congregation in extended times of praise and worship. The 2024 Resurrection Camp Meeting ran March 27-31, the 2025 edition was held April 16-20, and the next gathering is on the calendar at jsmcampmeeting.org. Conference-goers describe the atmosphere as a little bit of heaven on earth, with the Spirit of God moving through extended services and gospel music that lifts the room.
Crossfire International Youth Conference is designed for young people ages 13 and up. Five days of anointed worship, Spirit-filled preaching, and engaging workshops draw young people from around the world, with the goal of seeing lives transformed, faith strengthened, and lifelong friendships formed. Powerhouse International Kidz Conference runs alongside it for children ages 6 to 12, hosted by Powerhouse Kidz, the children's ministry of JSM. The 2026 IKC theme is God's Masterpiece. Both conferences are held at Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge and run from Wednesday evening through Sunday evening, with registration handled through cfiyc.org and powerhousekidz.org.
Crossfire Youth Ministry and Powerhouse Kidz
Between conferences, Crossfire Youth Ministry and Powerhouse Kidz sustain a steady ministry to young people in the Baton Rouge area. Crossfire's International Youth Conference is the headline event, but the ministry runs throughout the year with regular meetings, outreach, and teaching for teenagers. Powerhouse Kidz carries the same DNA down to the elementary years, with children's ministry that gives kids the chance to grow in their faith and to experience Christ for themselves. Together, these ministries make up the largest age-specific outreach of Family Worship Center outside the Sunday services themselves, and they are the main on-ramp for families with children who want to plug into the church.
The Evangelist Magazine
The Evangelist is the monthly magazine of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, a 52-page full-color publication that carries articles by Jimmy Swaggart, Frances Swaggart, Donnie Swaggart, and Gabriel Swaggart, along with special product offers and personal notes from Brother Swaggart. The monthly From Me to You column by Brother Swaggart, the JSM newsletter, and the family's regular writings all find a home in the magazine, which has long been a way for viewers and supporters to stay connected with the ministry between camp meetings and conferences. A free trial subscription is offered at shopjsm.org, and back issues going back years are available as PDF downloads.
World Evangelism Fellowship, Radio, and Prayer
World Evangelism Fellowship ties JSM to a network of missions-minded believers and ministries around the globe. Frances & Friends often carries updates from the field, and Bible Outreach regularly reports on shipments of The Expositor's Study Bible to countries where it has not gone before. The Expositor's Study Bible recently reached India for the first time and is being prepared for shipment into Cuba. Missionaries and ministry partners distribute the Bibles in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
SonLife Radio carries the broadcast ministry over the airwaves, and listeners can find a station and streaming links through sonlifetv.com. The prayer line at (225) 768-7000 is staffed for those who want to call in with a request, and a worldwide prayer meeting is held every Saturday at 9:00 a.m. Central Time. Anyone, anywhere, is invited to set that hour aside and pray alongside the Family Worship Center family for souls to be saved around the world.
How to Connect
Anyone who wants to attend a service in person can find Family Worship Center through fwcbr.org. Those who would rather join from home can watch every service live through watch.sonlifetv.com, where the daily teaching, the round-table Bible study, and the classic crusade archive are also available. Donations, gift items, and the magazine can be ordered through shopjsm.org, and a prayer request can be submitted online or phoned in to the prayer line at (225) 768-7000. The main office line is (225) 768-8300, with orders and donations served at 1-800-288-8350 and the radio station at (225) 768-3288 or 1-800-342-8430.
Family Worship Center stands today as it has for decades: a Pentecostal church in Baton Rouge, a worldwide broadcasting network, a Bible college, a K-12 academy, a preschool, a Bible distribution mission, and a camp meeting ground, all under the hand of the Swaggart family and a team of ministers and staff who continue the work that began with a young man preaching everything he knew in ten minutes on the back of a flatbed truck in Mangham, Louisiana.