Fred Lynn Lowery (born March 16, 1943) is the retired former senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana, whose Sunday sermons under the title The First Word were broadcast between 1983 and 2013 on KTBS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Shreveport, and on several cable television outlets. The broadcasts reached a total weekly audience of 15 million.Lowery announced on May 5, 2013, that he would retire that year from his ministry.