A Muted Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans

This morning at 9:30 am Edgewater Baptist Church on Paris Avenue in the Gentilly section of New Orleans held its post-Katrina dedication. Since I was preaching at First Baptist of Belle Chasse, 45 minutes downriver, I ran by a few minutes early to greet Pastor Kevin Lee and to congratulate the congregation. This was the first time I’ve been inside their renovated facility since Katrina. It was stunning.

If you were to backtrack to my blog for September 30, 2005, and find the record of our first visit to Edgewater after the evacuation, you’d understand my elation. At that time, the condition of this neighborhood and the church was heartbreaking. I stood outside the buildings and wept, and then called Gary Richardson, one of its former pastors. I had to tell someone I knew would care.

Today, the educational portion of Edgewater has been restored to pristine beauty. The sanctuary section is still torn out to the studs and bone-like empty and dark, but the fellowship hall area is bright and exciting. And the people. It would appear to me at least a hundred friends were entering the buildings, most of them young adults. I was easily the oldest one on the premises.

Kevin Lee introduced me to the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Thomasville, Georgia, who would be the preacher today. I spotted Jim Shaddix, former NOBTS preaching professor/dean of the chapel and former pastor of this church and now pastor of Riverside Church of Denver. His church has sent a constant stream of volunteers to work on this building and in homes throughout the neighborhood. Jim said, “Would you believe–I’ve only urged people to get involved from the pulpit one time. They’re just a fantastic people.”

George Archer and his wife were present from Texas. He coordinated volunteer work for Edgewater for a couple of months early on. Other churches and volunteer groups were present, as were a large group of seminarians. Freddie Arnold represented our associational office. I scooted out at 9:35, headed to Belle Chasse.

At FBC-BC this morning, I preached the sermon found just before this article, “The Hardest Teaching in the Bible.” I called it “The Hardest Command You Will Ever Obey,” about the responsibility of church members to submit to one another and their leaders. Not exactly a popular subject, I grant you, but I believe with all my heart every church in our denomination needs to be reminded of the Bible’s teaching on this subject.

I hope the Father gives me the opportunity to preach this message in more of our churches.


They had invited me to do the children’s sermon this morning, so I brought along two hand puppets: a cow and a tiger. The half-dozen little ones were ages 3, 4, and 5. I said, “When I was a child growing up on the farm, we owned one of these two animals and kept it in the barn. My mother would go out and visit it every morning and every evening. Which one do you think it was–the tiger or the cow?”

“The cow!” said a little boy. I said, “Are you sure? You don’t think we kept a tiger in the barn?” He said, “No, they’re too wild.”

Which was precisely the point I wanted to make. “Tigers are indeed wild. But the cow isn’t. Do you know why?” A little girl said, “They’re nice.”

“Yes they are nice. Because the cow has been tamed. Hundreds of years ago, both cows and tigers were running wild. People could catch them, and they could tame the cow but the tiger always stayed wild. Why, the cow even gives us something that makes life wonderful. What do cows give us?” “They give milk!” “Exactly.” “I had a big glass of milk this morning, did you?” A couple of them did.

I said, “Today, I’m preaching to the youth and adults about the leaders of the church. Now, in a church there are two kinds of people: those who have been tamed by God’s Spirit and those who are still running wild and untamed.” A little boy said, “The wild ones are dangerous.” I said, “They certainly are. That’s why we choose leaders who are tame, who have been made gentle and sweet by the Holy Spirit.”

I was not sure how much of this the little ones were absorbing, but I was actually speaking to the adults now, in a sideways fashion, directing it to the kiddies but so the big people would overhear what was actually meant for them.

I said, “Leaders need to be able to tell who in the church is tamed by God and who is still running wild, because they will be selecting Sunday School teachers and mission leaders and workers to help the rest of us. They have to know how to select the right people.”

We prayed the Lord would lead the leaders of the church to make good decisions, and prayed for the children to grow up to be faithful members of the Lord’s family.

Professor Gerald Stevens of our seminary faculty will be preaching the next three Sundays at Belle Chasse. He will find a receptive people and a warm welcome there.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday everywhere, but only in an understated way in New Orleans since the Saints got cut off at the pass in Chicago two weeks ago. Our people are juggling conflicting emotions today. They’re still pretty excited about the year the Saints had, they’re rejoicing over accolades various team members are receiving for community leadership off the field, most are pulling for local son Peyton Manning to quarterback the Indianapolis Colts to victory over the Chicago Bears, and a great many are still smarting over the treatment our fans received in Chi-town. Sunday’s paper carries a couple of stories from columnists commenting on the latter.

Chris Rose writes that while the Chicago Bears team deserves to win, its fans most assuredly do not. And that is the prevailing opinion in this city today. If there is any justice in the world, our people feel, the Colts will bury the Bears and the drunken, ugly, rude (we could go on and on) fans would be embarrassed to show their heads around the league for a season or two. But a football game is never about justice, as it’s not about the fans behavior.

Everyone around here–including myself–hastens to add, “I love Chicago itself. I have some great friends there.” Then they start rehashing the ugliness exhibited by the Chicago fans, a wound that will not quickly go away. Chris Rose ended his column by inviting anyone who wants it to take his ticket to the Saints-Bears game next year, for he has no intention of going back.

I logged on to the Chicago paper’s website and read some of the hundreds of comments pro and con left there by sports fans after the football game 2 weeks ago. The main sentiment from Chicagoans seemed to be, “New Orleanians are cry babies. This happens in every game.” To which we would add, “It only happens on your home field. No other fans act this way.”

Sorry. Didn’t intend to get on that. You can see it still smarts.

I’m delighted that both the Colts’ Tony Dungy and the Bears’ Lovie Smith are followers of Jesus Christ and do not mind saying so. That is every bit as significant as the fact that they both are African-Americans coaching in the Super Bowl for the first time.

Now comes news that the NFL is cracking down on the churches showing tonight’s game in their fellowship halls on big screens. It’s illegal, they say. When I first read that in the Baptist Press I thought it had to be some kind of joke, it’s such lunacy. A media report says the NFL has a longstanding relationship with sports bars permitting them to show the games to fans, but no such relationship with the churches.

I predict the NFL will get its house in order real quick and back off this foolish tactic, the worst public relations venture in sports history. If they don’t, they will soon be left with no fans except drunken bums such as the ones we discussed above. And I don’t think the new NFL commissioner Roger Whatsisname wants that.

The NFL has time to threaten lawsuits against churches for supporting the league, but cannot do anything about hostile fan behavior in its stadiums. What’s wrong with this picture?

District Attorney Eddie Jordan has decided not to ask for the death penalty for the seven NOPD officers charged with murdering the two men on the Danziger Bridge in the days following Katrina. He’s still charging them with first-degree murder, but that will probably not stand up. They were cops on duty, responding to reports of rioting, and at the worst, were probably guilty of negligent homicide.

People are upset and writing their editors over the too-weird/too-small checks they are being promised from the Road Home fiasco. The contractor charged with sorting through the applications–over 100,000 of them!–for federal money, a company called ICF, has a mammoth job on its hands, and says it’s stymied by the layers of bureaucracy in our part of the world. Residents are learning their homes are being greatly devalued by poorly trained ICF adjusters, and the math formula used to determine the money homeowners will receive is driving people bananas. When asked why Mississippians have already received their checks and only some 300 Louisianans have theirs, ICF answers that it’s about the local red tape.

As a result, more and more former residents of our city will be electing to take what little money they receive and not rebuild, but relocate to safer cities and other states.

We learned this week that nearly one-half of the houses in St. Bernard Parish are scheduled to be demolished.

John Jeffries, pastor of St. Bernard’s FBC of Chalmette, says the construction of their new church complex will require hundreds of additional volunteers.

Front page headline Sunday morning: “10,000 flooded New Orleans homes withering away.” This is about 10,280 homes that were untouched after Katrina and cited as not having been gutted and boarded up. Some 9,608 homeowners had to be notified of court hearings on their malfeasance. 2,217 citations were mailed, 252 court hearings held, and 95 homeowners complied before the hearing. 92 were given another 30 days to comply, 65 homes were cited as public nuisances, and exactly none have been ordered by the courts either to be gutted or demolished. Somebody’s wheels need greasing!

Senators Barack Obama and Joe Lieberman were in town this week, taking the obligatory Katrina tour and seeing up close how little rebuilding effort is going on in this city. Even though they are critical of what the Bush Administration has and has not done, even though Washington has sent billions our way and the money is in Baton Rouge if the ICF would turn loose of it, and even though it probably has 2008 political overtones, still we appreciate their concern. Since the president did not think enough of the situation here to even mention it in his State of the Union address, many of people are feeling forgotten.

One more reason we are thrilled by church groups coming our way all the time to help build and rebuild.

Driving from Gentilly across the city to the Crescent City Connection this morning headed to Belle Chasse, the blighted scenery is quite enough to put the little football game in Miami tonight in proper perspective. Someone will win and someone will lose. Some will celebrate and others will cry.

Meanwhile life here goes on. Slowly and with great difficulty.

3 thoughts on “A Muted Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans

  1. Great post today, Joe! You covered a lot of territory and you hit the nail on the head on each subject.

    Part of my family (and part of my heart) is in NOLA. I always enjoy your work. Thanks for being such an effective “pastor” to the pastors of BAGNO. I know how much your ministry means to my son there.

    God bless!

  2. Joe, I remember walking through the Edgewater building with you after Katrina. This is good news indeed. I’m delighted some Houston folks have been such an integral part of the recovery story.

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