“I see lots of evidence that New Orleans is coming back,” said Terry Raines. This Virginia Baptist leader was addressing our annual associational meeting on Monday, October 30, along with other leaders from across the country. Terry has been here several times and says he can see signs of significant progress.

I thought of that today–Wednesday, October 8–while driving through various sections of town. On West Esplanade in Kenner, a huge low-income apartment complex is now an open plowed field, the result of demolition which was made necessary by the hurricane damage. The boarded up complex–occupying at least six full blocks–had been an eyesore for the last year.

Down other streets, new homes are going up, some of them costing huge amounts of money. On Elysian Fields Avenue, our connector between Lake Pontchartrain and Interstate 610, dead trees are spray-painted and marked for the chain saws. In all, there must be 500 such trees, at least a dozen per block, trees that were poisoned and choked to death by Katrina’s floodwaters. At Robert E. Lee Boulevard and Canal Boulevard, the strip mall is up and running. Signs of progress abound.

Plenty of the other kinds of signs, too–untouched homes, potholes, dead trees, weeds up to the rooftops, FEMA trailers, vacant lots, boarded up stores. But we’re learning to look past all that and enjoy the positive signs.

Youth on Mission is a 16-year-old organization, the brainchild of Harry Fowler, which involves teenagers in mission projects from one end of this country to the other. Harry has been to New Orleans on several occasions and, with assistant Bob Adams, has put hundreds of youngsters to work in rebuilding our city. The new brochure from YOM announces projects for 2007 in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and New Orleans. In fact, the front of the lovely brochure shows the youth working at our Baptist Crossroads in the Ninth Ward. You can’t miss all those colorful houses. Thank you, Harry, and YOM. Check out their website at www.yom.org.

Meanwhile, the young people of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Jasper, Alabama–just up the road from my home–are not plugging into someone else’s program; they’re creating their own. “Impact New Orleans,” they call their June 9-16, 2007, project. Their full-color leaflet which arrived in our office today shows the same colorful Habitat houses as the Youth on Mission brochure. (I’d give a dollar to know how many groups worked on these 40 houses. The other day I met some Junior League ladies from Toronto hammering and sweating!) Minister of Students Shawn Doss left New Orleans this summer with a burning desire to create a low cost/high impact mission experience for his Jasper kids. They’re partnering with Operation NOAH Rebuild and our association. The brochure says the group will be staying at Oak Park Baptist Church, and they’re doing the entire week for $150 per student. Shawn invites his people to check out Oak Park’s website: www.oakparkvision.com.

Readers who want to pursue such a trip for their group are invited to go to www.joemckeever.com and click on the house on the right side of the page, with the title, “If you are coming to help us.” You should find everything you need to know there, but if you still have questions, email us at joe@joemckeever.com.

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Dr. Joe is travelling this week, so Lynn Gehrmann has provided the minutes from today’s weekly pastor’s meeting, held at the New Orleans Chinese Baptist Church.

BAGNO held the weekly meeting with association pastors at New Orleans Chinese Baptist Church at 10:00 am. Freddie opened the meeting with some pastors sharing a blessing that happened during the past week.

Thomas Glover (New Covenant) — They closed on the Woodmere property yesterday. The fall festival on October 31st was a big success. One hundred people attended. Thirty plus prospects and seven professions of faith.

Ann Corbin (Global) — They have received a financial blessing.

Oscar Williams (Good News) — At a eulogy on October 27th, there were eleven people who gave their life to Christ.

James ‘Boogie’ Melerine (Delacroix Hope) — Last Wednesday night, October 25th, there were seven people at their prayer worship. Three of them, Catholic, had been attending worship services at Delacroix Hope. Boogie shared that some people do not like to pray out loud. He asked each person to just say one sentence and at the end of the prayer, some of them had tears in their eyes. He then asked who would be willing to give their testimony on Sunday. One of the ladies, gave her testimony on Sunday and so did her husband.

Tom Pewitt (Memorial) shared that last Thursday, October 26th, their Chairman of Deacons, Ray Gomillon, passed away. He was a Gideon and used to go the parish prison and hand out Bibles. Please keep his family in your prayers.

Mark Joslin (New Vision) — The framework of their building is up. Within the next week, they should be able to start on the walls.

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The paper says residents of the Lakeview section of New Orleans fear “mansionization.” As flooded, ruined homes are demolished, some people are buying up two or three adjacent lots and building large estates on the property. In most cases, homeowners would welcome that in their neighborhoods. All it does is skyrocket the values of existing homes. Problem is, say the Lakeviewers, the character of our beloved neighborhood would be changed. We want the casual middle-class neighborliness we had before.

And down in St. Bernard Parish, authorities are still trying to keep homeowners from renting to anyone except family members. We don’t want to lose the identity of our neighborhoods, they say. They fear outsiders buying up large sections of the city, then renting out to whoever.

Change is difficult, particularly change that involves our homes and the surrounding community. And our churches.

Every church in metro New Orleans is in the midst of monumental change. Some are embracing the change, some are fighting it, some denying it and some sleeping through it. To paraphrase II Corinthians 5:17 slightly and use it out of context completely, “Old things have passed away and everything is becoming new.” Churches are losing pastors, staffs, key leadership, Sunday School teachers, and financial supporters as they decide to move closer to family or relocate for their jobs or simply get out of Dodge.

Meanwhile, their communities are being transformed as longtime residents move away and outsiders flow in, many of them speaking Spanish or Asian tongues. New pastors are arriving, bringing new ideas and new perspectives on our situation.

There has never been a time or place when the Lord’s teachings on new wine/new wineskins were more applicable than here and now.

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out and the skins be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” (Luke 5:37-38)

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Bill Day will love this story, I thought Saturday morning. The front-page article in the Times-Picayune was headlined “Local Revival,” and gave a run-down on the churches of each denomination that have been restored or are meeting in some fashion. In addition to pastoring Metairie’s Parkview Baptist Church, Bill is a professor at our Baptist seminary and in charge of the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Missions. He and a cadre of students have been compiling statistics on the churches of New Orleans. Then I saw it.

Underneath a large map with every church–every one of them–positioned in the metro area, and with various codes identifying which are open and which are not, in the finest print was this line: “Source: The Rev. Bill Day and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary–Leavell Center; Archdiocese of New Orleans; staff research.”

I was right; Bill will love this story. It’s his story.

Here is the beginning of religion editor Bruce Nolan’s article.

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Early after Katrina, I decided (and publicly announced) that a new facet of my job was connecting people. Churches would call asking us to match them with a local congregation or pastor whom they could assist. People with gifts of material or money would call asking for information on where to send it. That lovely tradition, I’m happy to say, is continuing.

This week, twenty of our churches are receiving $10,000 checks from one congregation not far from here. The amazing part of that story is that this generous church was itself severely hurt by Hurricane Katrina. As their people have returned and restored their church and their community, they’ve reached out to some of our damaged churches. Such wonderful friends.

Sunday, during lunch at Old Union Baptist Church near Nauvoo, Alabama, a schoolmate whom I had not seen in nearly 50 years slipped a church offering envelope to me. On the outside, she had written that I should put this where I thought best. Inside were five one-hundred dollar bills. Today, Wednesday, I handed a bill to each of five men of God and said, “It’s from the Lord.”

It’s the part of my job I love best. Serving as the arms and hands of some pretty terrific people.

Wednesday was our final meeting at El Buen Pastor Iglesia Bautista in Metairie, and the ladies in the kitchen did themselves proud with the terrific lunch. Pastor Gonzalo Rodriguez, his lovely wife, and their wonderful members have set new standards of hospitality for churches. In the dining hall, our people spontaneously rose to give a standing ovation to the kitchen staff. We are so blessed by their love and faithfulness. Gonzalo said, “It was an honor for us to serve the men of God in this way.”

Our attendance at the pastors meeting was in the low 30s since another assembly was going on across town. Tom Elliff, vice-president of the International Mission Board, spoke at seminary chapel this morning, then hosted a ministers luncheon at 11:30 to which all our guys were invited. We assured them last week that all who could should attend. Several indicated that they did not plan to go, and with this being our final session at Good Shepherd, Freddie Arnold and I decided to stay with the flock.

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This preacher made me mad Monday. While driving back from Alabama, I found a certain preacher on the radio and for some inexplicable reason, listened to his entire broadcast. Perhaps it was because he billed himself as “a true prophet of God for these last days.” Perhaps I lingered to see what kind of egomaniac would be so filled with his own sense of self-importance as to call himself that. Maybe I wanted to see what kind of prophecy he would utter. (I had never heard of him and, I think fortunately, I don’t recall his name.)

Alas, the man lived down to my worst expectations.

He was all negative. “The church is backslidden,” he said repeatedly, adding that “we are in the Laodicaean period of church history.” This reference is strictly a conjecture from preachers with time on their hands that the seven churches of Asia Minor (Revelation 2 and 3) actually represent seven stages of Christian history. There is not a single strand of evidence for that, but for those who enjoy negative preaching–delivering it and hearing it–the thought has a certain appeal.

Over and over the preacher slammed the Christian church. At the end of the broadcast, when they identified the church he pastors in Jacksonville, Florida, I found myself wondering if the smearing he did of the whole church also applies to the congregation he leads. What do you want to bet it doesn’t.

The preacher was dead certain of other false doctrines, too, such as the probability of backsliders losing their salvation. He quoted and misquoted scripture to prove his point. I kept wondering, “What about the Lord’s statement in John 10:28-29 that ‘no man’ or ‘no one’ can snatch them out of His hand.”

Sure enough, he mentioned those verses. Well, actually, he made a less than respectful reference to them. He admitted that the devil cannot get you out of the Lord’s hand and that no one else can, but you can do it yourself. Interesting bit of theology. The devil isn’t, and other people aren’t, but I am stronger than God, according to him. I can do what no one else can: I can make me lose my salvation.

I wish I could have a few minutes with that preacher to ask a couple of questions. If one loses his salvation, can he get it back? Show me one person in all the Bible who lost his salvation and then was saved a second time? Hebrews 6:6 says it is impossible for someone to be saved twice if he were to lose his salvation.

I’d like to ask him: why don’t you read the whole Bible before you start preaching your pet doctrines? And after you have read it, why not believe it? Jesus said, “He who believes on the Son of God has everlasting life.” (John 3:36) How simpler could He put it? But if I can have it and lose it and get it back and lose it again, friend, it ain’t eternal!

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I’ve told you about Chris Rose, the former humor columnist for the Times-Picayune whose life was forever changed by Katrina and her aftermath. He still writes for the paper and he still possesses the quickest wit on this side of the globe, but he’s forever changed. Now we know why.

Driving in from North Alabama Monday afternoon, I heard someone on New Orleans talk radio refer to Rose’s Sunday column. Late that night, I was comfortably in bed and de-stressing from a long drive when my son Neil called to say I should read Rose’s column. Tuesday morning, I did.

“I pulled into the Shell station on Magazine Street,” Rose begins, “my car running on fumes. I turned off the motor. And then I sat there. There were other people pumping gas at the island I had pulled into and I didn’t want them to see me, didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to nod hello, didn’t want to interact in any fashion.”

“Outside the window, they looked like characters in a movie. But not my movie. I tried to wait them out, but others would follow, get out of their cars and pump and pay and drive off, always followed by more cars, more people. How can they do this, like everything is normal, I wondered. Where do they go? What do they do?”

“It was early August and two minutes in my car with the windows up and the air conditioner off was insufferable. I was trapped, in my car and in my head. So I drove off with an empty tank rather than face strangers at a gas station.”

Trapped. Empty tank. Good metaphors, Chris. After beginning with this classic incident of depression, Rose interrupts to confess he never believed in depression or taking pills. That was for desperate housewives and fragile poets, he writes.

No longer. “Not since I fell down the rabbit hole myself and enough hands reached down to pull me out.”

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“Are you going to mention the guy who killed his girlfriend and cut her up and cooked her?”

I wasn’t planning to. It’s been in all the news this week, and Thursday, the Times-Picayune gave it most of the front page and several full pages inside.

“You might as well. The nation is talking about it.”

At Gentilly Baptist Church Thursday night, visiting with the Arkansas Baptists who have made one end of the educational building their headquarters for rebuilding this city, I noticed one of the ladies engrossed in our newspaper, reading every word of this sordid story. On my drive home, scanning the radio dial for the last game of the National League Championship Series, I came across some talk show host in some city gruesomely savoring each detail of this story. What got me was his comment at the end. “New Orleans most definitely did not need this. I mean, it’s always been a spooky city to me. And now this.”

I will spare you most of the details. The essence of the story is that 28 year old Zackery Bowen took his life Tuesday night by jumping off the top of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel in the quarter. In his pocket, police found a suicide note instructing them to go to his apartment at 826 No. Rampart, located over a French Quarter voodoo shop, where they would find the body of his 30 year old girl friend, Adriane “Addy” Hall, whom he had strangled. What they found was a dead body, dismembered, and worse. Some of the body pieces lay in cooking pans with spices sprinkled on top. No evidence of cannibalism, police say, as though this were good news.

In his note, Bowen wrote, “This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took.”

As if that would. Were she my daughter, ten deaths like his would not atone for the life of my child.

Horrible story. Shocking in every aspect. Bowen said he was a failure in everything he tried, and even listed them: school, jobs, military, marriage, parenthood, morals, love. Friends say he served in Iraq and Bosnia while in the military, although this has not been confirmed.

Would you let me make one minor point here: he came to New Orleans from Los Angeles. He left his wife and two children and moved here. So, don’t blame it all on New Orleans.

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Here’s the plan for the future pastors meetings. We will assemble one more Wednesday, October 25, at Good Shepherd (Spanish) Baptist Church. Then, the first three Wednesdays of November (Nov. 1, 8, and 15) we are the guests of the New Orleans Chinese Baptist Church which is actually located in Kenner. (See directions below) We will skip November 22, Thanksgiving Eve, as many people will be out of town. After that, we move to the associational offices at 2222 Lakeshore Drive in New Orleans. The plan is to meet there each week at 10 am, but have lunch only the first Wednesday of the month. Got that? And at this point, we don’t see beyond this arrangement.

There’s too much going on of too great importance to drop back to monthly meetings.

The Chinese Baptist Church is located on Continental Drive in Kenner. Drive west on West Esplanade, past the Esplanade Mall, across Chateau Boulevard, past the Kenner Library on your right. As you pass Anastasia Alexander Elementary on your right, look for Continental on your left. The church is the second building down that street. Hong Fu Liu is the pastor and he promises great Chinese eating.

We have been spoiled. Last Fall when we began these weekly gatherings in LaPlace, the wonderful secretary Karrie would do the lunches alone, sometimes ordering po-boys, sometimes cooking lasagna and preparing a salad. It was terrific and everything we could have asked for. Then, for May through July, we met at Oak Forest Baptist Church, a congregation with a lot of senior volunteers who delighted in feeding the preachers. So the meals kicked up a notch. We’ve met at Good Shepherd since July, and these wonderful people are setting impossible standards. In addition to the incredible Hispanic meals, fresh flowers adorn every table. If we stay there much longer, I expect to see waiters at each table taking orders!

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Tuesday, up to Nashville and back, via Southwest Airlines. Met with some of our best friends at Lifeway to discuss future support for our Baptist work here. Nothing to announce yet.

In the airport, standing in line to board for the return trip, Karen Campbell introduced herself. She and husband Kelly are NAMB missionaries to Appalachia in East Tennessee and Karen has been volunteering in the office of Operation NOAH Rebuild. She’ll be here for 10 days this time. Where are you staying? In an RV there at the office. How will you get there tonight? Steve and Dianne Gahagan are picking me up. Where is Kelly? Representing us at a church meeting in Columbia, TN.

And now a few words about the new New Orleans Saints.

It’s not so much that the team is 5-1 on the year so far. And it’s not just that the Saints beat big-time rival Atlanta on our first time back in the Dome and last Sunday, the powerhouse Philadelphia Eagles. The fact is the team was 5-1 just four years ago, in 2002 (before losing the final three games of the season and failing to make the playoffs). And in 1991, they started the season with a straight 7 wins (and, as I recall, got knocked out of the playoffs in the first game). But there’s something very special about the team this year.

Coach Sean Payton is not like any coach we’ve ever had. A front page article in Tuesday’s Times-Picayune elaborates on just how he is different. What this tells us about Coach Payton is a something I wish every pastor in America would take note of.

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