During the Second World War, Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick of New York City’s Riverside Church preached a series of messages which he published in a small paperback volume titled “A Great Time to be Alive.” In the sermon by that title, he begins, “This certainly is a ghastly time to be alive.”

Several paragraphs later, he says, “This is an especially hideous generation for Christians.” Then, after a bit, he says, “Nevertheless, this is also a great time to be alive.”

Fosdick tells of Victor Hugo who was the toast of Paris in his early years. His writings enjoyed great success and he was the glory of France. Then, Napoleon III rose to power and suddenly Hugo was an outcast, a condition lasting 19 years. Hugo hated the exile, but out of that period came his greatest writings. His biographer calls that time in Hugo’s life “miraculously inspired” as he became twice the man he had been. Hugo said, “Why was I not exiled before!”

This is a great time to be alive, Fosdick said, because it drives us back to the fundamentals and calls forth the best work from us.

My thoughts exactly on this, the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

President Bush made his 15th visit to the hurricane-area this week. He touched all the right buttons, saw and talked to the right people, said the right things. What will come of it further no one knows.

Our Wednesday pastors meeting drew about 25 of our ministers and they were in a reflective mood. I felt I was representing all of Southern Baptists as one after another rose to thank the SBC, our LBC, and our association. Several pointed out through teary eyes, “I couldn’t have made it without you,” directing the remarks to all our people but looking only at me. Then, the joke became that they were eulogizing me, and we all had a good laugh.

Today marks the end of our weekly pastors meetings.

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The Lord had something special in mind for me this weekend. One after another of old friends appeared and blessed my life.

It began Monday morning at Gardner-Webb University where I had traveled for the installation of Robert Canoy as the dean and president of the M. Christopher White Divinity School. I had not seen Robert since he was 12 years old, in 1970 when I left Emmanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, MS, to join the staff of the FBC of Jackson, MS. In the meantime, he grew up, was called to preach, went to college and seminary, earned a doctor of philosophy degree from our seminary in Louisville, KY, and pastored some significant churches.

We gathered in his office a few minutes before time for the installation luncheon where I was to speak. His parents were there. William and Dorothy Canoy, still living in Greenville, William retired now from the National Guard, their four children all grown up. We hugged, and Dorothy told the others in the room of my coming to their home in October of 1970 and leading her and the three boys to Christ. William, she said, delayed, and was saved the following year. I had the privilege of baptizing her and the boys, and how honored I am about that. This is one precious family, and what a good day’s work someone did getting Robert to head that institution.

Wayne Ward, Robert’s professor and mentor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was the featured speaker for the convocation in the school chapel. Earlier, at the luncheon, he hardly sat down as he met old friends and made new ones. At age 86, he is a wonder. I jokingly remarked to Robert that if his experience is like mine, people will come up saying, “You remember me. We met in 1976.” Robert said, “Yes, but Wayne will say, ‘I remember it exactly. It was on the bus at the convention in Norfolk and you said….'”

Sure enough, when Robert introduced us, Dr. Ward said, “Joe, I know you,” and went into the time and place. I was stunned. How could he remember this and I not? Shame on me.

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(A message by Dr. Joe McKeever, delivered at the Installation Luncheon for Dr. Robert Canoy who assumes the presidency of the M. Christopher White Divinity School at Gardner-Webb University on Monday, August 27, 2007.)

“Thou hast given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.” –Isaiah 50:4

“You have strengthened tottering knees; your words have stood men on their feet.” –Job 4:4

Someone said Italy is putting a clock on the Tower of Pisa to make the point that just because you have the inclination does not mean you have the time.

The next time someone gives you his life-verse from Scripture, if you have both the time and inclination, ask for the story behind it. Here’s why Job 4:4 means so much to me.

I was a small child for my age. In a class of a hundred seventh graders, I was the shortest boy. As a result, I adopted “the short person syndrome.” To compensate for lack of size, the person with this condition speaks loudly, brashly, and boastfully. He seeks to be the center of attention, often at the expense of others whom he cuts down verbally. In my teens, I grew out of the shortness but, alas, kept the syndrome.

Even after God made me a pastor, I struggled with this weakness, this verbal terrorism. Then, in my 30th year, I experienced what a friend calls a watershed moment.

My wife and I had gone to a movie on Saturday night. The house lights were up and we greeted a number of friends in the audience. Across the auditorium, I spotted 17-year-old Brandi, a member of our church. She was cute and sweet and probably a little too serious about life at that age. Brandi did not get many dates, and tonight she was sitting between Alex and Betty, her next door neighbors. As we waved, I called across the theater, “What’s the matter, Brandi — couldn’t get a date?”

The next morning Brandi’s mother did something wonderful for me and courageous for her — she held me accountable. She phoned the office and said, “Joe, it looks like you go out of your way to hurt my child.” I was so clueless, I had to ask what she was talking about. I apologized to her, to Brandi, to Alex and Betty, and if I could, I would have assembled everyone in the theater to apologize to them. That was the day I began seriously working on mastering my tongue.

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“I’m thinking of closing down our men’s ministry.”

“And you’re telling me because—what? you want me to talk you out of it?”

“Or tell me how to salvage it without shutting it down.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The usual. It’s a meet-and-eat affair, and very little else.”

“Start at the beginning,” I said. “What do they do?”

“We have this group of men who meet at the church for breakfast the first Sunday of each month. They’ll have about 30 present. They eat breakfast and sit around drinking their coffee and visiting with each other. And that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“They might have someone bring a devotional once in a while. Or a visiting missionary to speak. But usually, it’s just them.”

He was quiet a moment, then said, “I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong. They’re just not doing anything.”

“Do you attend?”

“Not in several months. But I’ve gone often enough to know what they do.”

“Let me ask you a question, pastor.”

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Several have asked for an update on Rudy French, pastor of Norco’s First Baptist Church, who returned to Canada for heart surgery earlier this month. Thanks to the Lord, he’s doing just fine.

Rudy and Rose are following doctor’s orders and he’s taking a month to rest up, something he did not do earlier this year when the same surgical procedure was done. This time, he’s learned his lesson.

With so much going on down here, in the community and in his church, it’s next to impossible for Rudy to tune everything out and let his mind be at rest. I counseled him that, if things went bad in the surgery and God called you to Heaven, what would we do here; so, pretend you’re in Heaven for the next six weeks and then come back to earth. They actually took that bizarre bit of semi-wisdom and are working at doing just that. (It’s fairly obvious why I never was much of a counselor.)

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1. We’re told that 40,000 Louisianians still live in FEMA trailers, down 50 percent from a year ago. Most of our people still in these boxes are having their homes rebuilt and will not be needing them much longer. And what of the others? That would be people who had been living in subsidized public housing for the most part and who have no place to go other than the FEMA trailer. We’re told the federal government has workers doing nothing but seeking out rental property and matching it up with the trailer dweller. Trying to get them out and on their own.

The FEMA trailer has been a lifesaver for a lot of people and a royal headache for the government. We have not reported it here, but formaldehyde has been found at high levels in many of the trailers, creating a health concern for the residents. Watch for the lawsuits.

Somewhere I read about a city employee–not one of ours thankfully; this must have been in the Reader’s Digest–who was backing his city truck up and crunched an automobile. The driver got out and discovered he had backed into his own car. So, naturally, he sued the city. After all, the city must have been at fault since a city-owned truck driven by a city employee was responsible. No word as to the outcome.

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(Note: I wrote this report on the status of our N.O. churches at the request of the Baptist Message, our weekly newspaper for Louisiana Baptists. It will appear in the August 30 edition, one day after the second anniversary of Katrina.)

Before Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29, 2005, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans (BAGNO) could count some 140 churches and missions. One month later, when we re-entered the area, we were able to identify 35 still operating. Today, two years after this life-changing event, we

Each Monday afternoon, I meet with three or four of our young pastors at a fast food cafe near my house. We sit there for an hour or more, drinking coffee or soft drinks, and sharing about our lives and ministries. Invariably, one of them will groan when I ask, “So, what are you preaching next Sunday?” He will say, “It’s only Monday, man–how would I know that?” and everyone laughs.

Today, I threw out as a conversation starter: “Give us your life-verse, the Scripture that explains you.” I started with mine, Job 4:4, “Your words have stood men on their feet.”

Carl’s verse was Acts 18:9-10, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you…I have many people in this city.”

“I was struggling with moving to New Orleans,” Carl said. “I had requested an assignment to one of several cities, none of which were offered to me. Finally, the company said, ‘How about New Orleans?’ Well, I had been here several times when I was a partying college student. I knew nothing but the French Quarter, and that was not a happy memory. Now that I was living for the Lord, I did not want to even be exposed to that lifestyle anymore. But as I was praying, the Lord spoke those words to me. I moved to New Orleans–to Kenner, actually–you came to visit me, I joined First Baptist Church, and God called me into the ministry there.”

“Yes, and you met your wife at our church,” I said. Evidence aplenty God was in it. He agreed.

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The pastor who reads only the New Testament to get his assignment, see his field, and understand the nature of his work will miss a great deal of vital information. The Old Testament is a book of illustrations of New Testament teachings.

Case in point.

Two passages from the 6th Century prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel take pains to show us the failures of the shepherds–i.e., the spiritual leaders–of their day. It’s impossible to read Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34 without seeing a reflection of ourselves and our situation in that mirror.

(Warren Wiersbe says when we first start reading Scripture, it’s a window to us. We gaze through it to see the characters of the Bible, how they lived, what they did. Eventually, however, if we stay with it, the Word becomes a mirror. As we gaze into it, we begin to see ourselves, our world, our situations.)

The passage from Ezekiel 34 rails against the failures of the spiritual leaders of that day. Bible students recall what days of crisis those were, with the nation of Judah being pulled on one side to trust in Egypt and being called by God to surrender to Babylon, with false prophets calling one way and true prophets another. The poor people had no idea where to turn. Eventually, the Israelis were defeated by the Babylonians, the population was carted off to foreign lands, and the city of Jerusalem was demolished. Thousands of God’s people died from war or starvation or other cruelties.

In the middle of this national crisis, a time when the preachers should have been at their best, they failed miserably. Ezekiel 34:1-10 lists five great failures of these so-called shepherds.

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A generation ago, Houston’s John Bisagno and E. V. Hill of Los Angeles were featured speakers at a conference I was attending. Hill, an eloquent fiery preacher in the best tradition of African-American stemwinders, had blown the windows out of the church with his message and left the congregation of a thousand on their feet cheering and shouting. As order settled in on the auditorium, our host introduced Bisagno. Brother John walked to the pulpit and softly related the most appropriate little story I’ve ever heard.

“Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Linus were lying in the grass gazing at the puffy white clouds. Lucy says, ‘If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation…What do you think you see, Linus?’

“Linus said, ‘Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean….That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor…and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen…I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side….'”

“Lucy says, ‘Uh huh…That’s very good… What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?’ And Charlie Brown answers, ‘Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind.'”

Bisagno looked out at his audience and said, “I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but after that sermon from Dr. Hill, I don’t think I’ll say anything now!'”

But he did. He was equally wonderful and just as enthusiastically received–ask anyone who heard Dr. Bisagno in his prime–but I’ve never forgotten his description of that comic strip from Peanuts.

In the comics for today, Sunday, August 19, 2007, that was the Peanuts strip that was reprinted. I’ve clipped it out, It’s a real keeper.

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