One.

“Our state convention has money set aside to help people in your part of the world,” the e-mail said. The executive went on to say they had reserved these funds to assist their own churches that were heading this way to meet expenses. However, he said, none of our churches have drawn on this fund lately, so we decided we would just go ahead and send the balance of the money to your association.

He sent that e-mail to me and to one of our leading pastors, a longtime friend of his, asking us to come up with a list of needs locally, from which he and his staff would choose the ones they wanted to devote the funds toward. We had fun doing that.

Monday, the email came from the financial officer of that state convention. She needed our tax identification number and for us to sign some papers. And, she said, you will be interested in knowing that the money coming your way will be $158,000 and some change.

Stunned? Indeed. Blessed? Absolutely. Excited? More than I can tell you.

That wonderful executive of that generous state convention–they shall forever be blessed around here!–will be sending a letter alongwith the check, saying what they want done with the money. (Just in case anyone reading this starts thinking of ways to use the money.) The fact is we have individual churches that could absorb the entire amount and still need more to be rebuilt. Still, it’s a great encouragement.

Two.

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Before this season started, Saints fans thought this might be the year. After last year’s excellent achievements under new coach Sean Payton and his all-star cast of players, starting with quarterback Drew Brees and running back Reggie Bush, this year looked to be a cinch. Even the prognosticators agreed. The talk shows were saturated with Super Bowl talk.

Alas, then the season started. The Indianapolis Colts handed us our head on that Thursday night before a national TV audience. We licked our wounds, picked ourselves up off the mat, and said, “Well, after all, that’s Payton Manning and the world champions; they’re supposed to be good.” Bring on the next opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The last few years, the Saints have not had a lot of trouble handling the Bucs. “To get to the Super Bowl,” the radio guys said today, “You have to be able to win games such as these.” And we certainly have the talent to do it. Not to say the will; we have that in spades.

I turned the game off three-fourths of the way through. It was pitiful. Our guys were dropping balls they should have caught, fumbling balls they should have held onto, and missing assignments like a bunch of rookies. Final score, Tampa Bay 31, Saints 14. But it wasn’t even that close. We got whupped.

The only good thing about dropping the first two games of the year is that it will end the noise about going to the Super Bowl. From now on, I suggest we have a rule that no one down here can even mention the Super Bowl until the season is half over and we have won 2/3 of our games.

Fans will recall that former coach Jim Haslett had a great first year too, just like Sean Payton, with both rookie coaches being named NFL coach of the year, and everyone making stellar predictions. Alas, it was all downhill from there.

The overwhelming thought that lingers with me is: “If going to the Super Bowl was as easy as we were expecting, everyone would be doing it, and we’d have accomplished it before now.”

But how about them Bengal Tigers. LSU appears to be the real thing. Next Saturday’s contest against Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks will answer a lot of questions.

Sunday morning, I called on three of our churches: the First Baptist Churches of St. Rose, Norco, and LaPlace. None of them are having an easy time of things.

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Last week, the jury in St. Francisville acquitted Sal and Mabel Mangano, owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in Saint Bernard Parish, of homicide for the 32 deaths patients in the days following Katrina. No one questioned that these people died; no one seriously questioned that most would have survived had they been evacuated. At issue was the conflicting announcements from various levels of government leaders about evacuation. It turns out that a number of nursing homes in the metro New Orleans area did not evacuate. The fact that only St. Rita’s had the large number of deaths made the Mangano’s the most apt target for prosecution, but the only thing that kept other nursing homes from being defendants is that they did not have the high level of flooding which drowned so many people.

The culprit in all this was the government, the jury said. And this time, they did not mean the federal government, but the local, parish, and state leadership that should have spoken early, clearly, and forcibly giving instructions to the community on hurricane preparation.

One aspect of this trial that has drawn a lot of talk is that Attorney General Charles Foti personally prosecuted it. This was a personal thing with him, we’re told, as he put the State of Louisiana and its resources into the case. To have it handed back to him in this way–his head on a platter might be a fitting way of putting it–was a great embarrassment. Furthermore, this is not the first such embarrassment Foti has suffered as a result of his post-Katrina prosecutions. Last year, he announced with great fanfare that Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses would be charged for homicides in the deaths of patients at the Memorial (Baptist) Medical Center in New Orleans. It got national coverage, and he was in the spotlight for months. Eventually, the New Orleans District Attorney and the grand jury considered Foti’s evidence and dropped the charges. The egg on our Attorney General’s face will never come off.

Filing for the governor’s race closed last week and New Orleans’ celebrity mayor C. Ray Nagin was not among those signing on. The odds-on favorite to win is U. S. Representative Bobby Jindal, a Republican who represents Kenner and this area. Polls show him at something like 60 percent. Walter Boasso, millionaire businessman from St. Bernard Parish–the state legislator who called for and eventually got the multiplicity of levee boards in our part of the world consolidated into just two–is a candidate. A number of other lesser knowns are running.

Jindal was a boy wonder in the state government in the 1990s. Governor Mike Foster put him in charge of the state hospitals, and Jindal only 25 years old. From all reports, he did excellently. Congressman David Vitter says years ago when he interviewed Jindal for some kind of scholarship program, he came home and told his wife that he had met someone who made him feel dumb. No question about Jindal’s brain power. There are other questions about him.

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“I feel like I’ve struck gold. Or won the lottery.”

“You are enjoying your new church, I gather.”

“Honestly, they are wonderful. I’ve just been there six months, but already they have shown themselves to be a classy bunch. They’re so different from the other two churches I pastored, I don’t know what to think.”

“I love hearing this. And hear it all too seldom.”

He said, “You know my father has been ill. He lives in Tennessee, and they’ve called in Hospice. That means six months or less to go. Well, my church told me to go up there as often as I feel like I need to, to spend time with my folks. I’ve taken them up on it, but I’m always back for Sunday services and usually Wednesday nights too.”

“They sound understanding.”

“That’s not the half of it. They even took up a special offering to help with my car expenses with all this traveling. I mean, I’ve never heard of a congregation being so kind.”

“How’s the church doing?”

“That’s the other great part. It’s thriving. We’re adding new members almost every week, and everyone is so excited. I can’t wait to get there on Sundays.”

I said, “Do you know why this church is that way?”

He said, “Well, the short answer seems to be that they’re Christians.”

I laughed and said, “I don’t have to tell you of all people that not all Christian churches do church right. Some of them are really hard on their preachers and staff, demanding a lot and giving very little in return.”

He said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

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This woman goes into the pharmacy. “I want to buy some arsenic.”

The druggist says, “We can’t sell you arsenic. Why do you want it?”

She says, “I want to kill my husband.”

“You want to buy some arsenic to kill your husband? May I ask why?”

She says, “Because he ran off with another woman. And, sir, that woman is your wife.”

The druggist says, “Why didn’t you tell me you have a prescription?”

That little joke from Dr. Bill Taylor, keynote speaker at our annual “Ridgecrest on the River” event held today on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, opened his message. Bill has a prescription for what ails many of our churches.

I sat in on several conferences throughout the day, then introduced Dr. Taylor at the plenary session at 2 o’clock. Here are some of my notes. You will thank me for not printing all of them out here; I’m a pretty thorough notetaker and it runs to several pages.

Bill Taylor: “Someone has written a book ‘New Ideas from Dead CEOs,” about Mary Kay, Walt Disney, Ray Kroc, and others. I’m thinking of writing a book ‘New Ideas from Dead CE’s,’ referring to Christian Educators.” Using powerpoint, he threw on the screen photos of some of his predecessors at the helm of SBC education for Lifeway: Arthur Flake, Frost, Barnette, Washburn, and Harry Piland.

“All the CEO’s in that book and all the CE’s in mine have one thing in common: NEXT. They were interested in ‘what’s next?’ They embraced the future. They were not looking back to 1900, they were not criticizing the new guys.”

“Christianity is the fastest declining religion in America,” Taylor said, quoting the North American Mission Board. “If we are to turn things around, we absolutely must change. Expect change, embrace it, enjoy it, and execute it.”

He listed five major changes that will be required of the churches of the SBC and much of America.

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While we on the Gulf Coast have experienced our own version of 9-11 just two years ago in the form of a devastating hurricane, we all still feel the sadness of September 11, 2001. We will join the rest of the nation in remembering next Tuesday, the 6th anniversary of that awful event. We will think of the thousands who died in their offices, those who died rescuing them, those who died on the plane and in the Pentagon, and all who were affected by these deaths. We will remember that day, recall the pain, and recommit ourselves.

The wound from 9-11 has mostly healed, but it has left a lasting scar on the soul of America. We are determined not to forget.

However, let us bear in mind that remembering is often a problem for us.We recall what we need to forget and turn loose of the very things we should remember.

In some ways and some areas, but not all, remembering is a necessary part of the human experience. We write notes to help us remember a grocery list or chores. We carry calendars and day-timers to get us to important assignments on time. We work to remember appointments, anniversaries, and the names of people. Teachers give tests so that we might remember the lessons they have presented to the class.

“Do this in remembrance of me” has been carved across the front of Lord’s Supper tables in almost every Protestant church in the land. Our Lord ordered this memorial supper to keep before us the matter of His death. “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death until He come.” He gave us baptism–the original kind, full immersion–to keep His burial and resurrection before the church and the world. With these two ordinances, the Lord’s Supper and baptism, we portray the great events of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection to one another and the world.

In many situations, not remembering but forgetting is the right action. Some matters cry out to be erased from the mind and never brought up again. The slights of a friend, harsh words from a lover, the failure of someone we counted on, all should be forgotten. Love keeps no account of evil, we read in I Corinthians 13. God forgives our sin and then assures us, “I will remember it no more.” That’s Hebrews 10:17, a quote from the Old Testament.

Forgetting is a handy device of the human spirit that allows us to close the doors on sad events and unpleasant chapters and go forward. Unkind words, harsh treatment, neglect, cruelty, misfortune, accidents, great pain–we need to forget. “Forgetting those things which are behind,” Paul wrote, “I press forward.” (Philippians 3:13)

“How can you treat her so well after what she did to you?” someone asked a friend. “Oh,” she answered, “I distinctly remember forgetting that.”

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Mickey Caisson of the North American Mission Board said today, “I tell people the best thing they did in New Orleans after the hurricane was to get the pastors together. That weekly meeting became a place for them to minister to each other and encourage one another, yes, but it was also a place where outsiders came to meet with the pastors, to bring information and get connected with the people needing help.”

He added, “I can show you lots of places that came through disasters where they wish they had done that.”

His comment, spoken in our conference room Wednesday afternoon, was especially meaningful, coming as it does just after the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Last Wednesday marked the last of the weekly pastors’ gatherings. Today, the first Wednesday of September, was the beginning of our new schedule. From now on–and indefinitely we hope–the pastors will gather the first and third Wednesdays in our association Baptist center from 10 to 11:30 am.

We had 40 or 50 in attendance this morning, and began with our monthly associational executive committee meeting. We approved two new church starts, one an African-American mission at the Carver Center in Uptown, the other a Vietnamese mission in New Orleans East.

As if to underscore the heart of these weekly meetings as encouragement, pastor after pastor emphasized the blessing they had received from coming together, getting to know one another, praying with one another, praying for each other. And the fellowship. Just talking. Being in each other’s presence.

Who knew when we started this that God had this blessing in store.

Harry Lewis, vice-president of the North American Mission Board, was visiting in our offices this afternoon. He asked Freddie Arnold and me, “What are the chief lessons you have learned?”

We named three and could have given him a dozen.

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As the caravan stretched out for miles across the burning desert, one camel says to another, “I don’t care what they say–I’m thirsty.”

Some people say Christians don’t get discouraged. But you don’t care what they say, you get discouraged. And tired. You think about quitting.

“One more hurricane and I’m gone.” One more family moving away from my church. One more heartache, and I’m quitting.

Dr. David Hankins was preaching to some 25 or 30 couples–New Orleans pastors and wives–who were attending the retreat Hankins’ staff at the Louisiana Baptist Convention office had arranged for us. The above was part of his introduction.

We had driven up on Friday afternoon, feasted on barbecue at the LBC building that evening, heard Evangelism Director Wayne Jenkins do an incredible comedy routine, had Saturday to ourselves, enjoyed a fish fry and the Pine Ridge quartet that evening at Kingsville Baptist Church, and now on Sunday morning, we were completing the weekend with a 10 o’clock worship service. Hankins was speaking to a group of warriors who battle discouragement and fatigue daily, and his message could not have been more apropos.

His text was I Kings 19:9ff, the hard times Elijah went through following his great victory at Mount Carmel. The man of God was tired, spent, lonely, hungry, and discouraged. “Just let me die,” he said repeatedly.

“How did Elijah get this way?” David asked. He did it the same way the rest of us find ourselves down in the dumps and thinking of tossing in the towel.

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“You don’t like your pastor. What else is new?”

“You say that like there’s a lot of it going around.”

“It’s like a plague. I’ve been thinking of going back and reading Exodus where God sent the plagues on Egypt to see if this was one of them. Frogs in the street, blood in the Nile, unhappiness in the pews.”

“Are you dismissing the subject? You’re so pro-pastor that you can’t see sometimes a church has genuine issues with a preacher and he needs to leave?”

“Not at all. I’m just voicing my unhappiness with the whole business. It hurts to see pastors and congregations at odds with one another.”

“Do you want to hear my side of this matter? Do you have time?”

“I can make the time. This is important.”

We sat there in my office quietly for a moment, then I said, “But first, would you let me tell you something on my heart? This is not about you or your church, but about the whole issue of the relationships of pastors and congregations.”

“I’m a good listener,” he said. “Shoot.”

“One of the primary reasons for so much unhappiness in the pews with the preachers is faulty understanding of what God intends. I’ve come up with four half-truths which most church members believe. When we believe wrong, as you know, we do wrong and no good comes of it.”

He was listening well, so I went on.

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Brianne Painia was the only teenager on last night’s program at the Second Anniversary of Katrina Prayer Rally, held in the impressive worship center of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans on Canal Boulevard. She sat just to the right of me the entire evening; I thought she was an adult, maybe the wife of one of the speakers. Then, she walked to the podium.

Brianne looked out at the houseful of worshipers and said, “When they asked me to pray a prayer on this program, I thought, ‘It’s just a prayer. I can pray. No big deal.’ When people would ask me about it, I still said, ‘No big deal.’ Then they sent me the program and I saw that I’m praying just after two preachers, and I thought, ‘Uh oh. Big deal.'”

But whoever put Brianne on the program knew what they were doing. She did precisely what she was asked to do and which every child of God is meant to do: she approached the Father’s throne in faith and humility and prayed the prayer of faith on behalf of our schools, their leaders, and the teachers.

Fred Luter prayed first. Fred prays a lot like he preaches; he gets with it. He talks to God and talks to us in the same way–with energy and faith and conviction. When Fred Luter prays, there is no neutral ground.

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