As far as I can tell, every town of any size in the southeastern USA is hosting evacuees from the Gulf Coast region and especially New Orleans. In a program I was watching, participants agreed that these countless thousands consigned to shelters all over this part of the world are not White or Black, not African-American or Anglo or Hispanic; they’re all of this, but mostly they’re just poor.

This morning at Fairview Baptist Church in Columbus, MS, Pastor Mickey Dalrymple was interrupted in the sermon by one of his men who entered from the rear, walked to the front, and asked for a microphone. He needed twenty men to volunteer to help right then down at Hughes Elementary School where hundreds of evacuees (refugees or displaced persons; what to call them?) are receiving shelter. Was there a problem? No, he needed help in erecting hundreds of cots that had just arrived. Pastor Mickey told me at lunch that more evacuees are supposed to arrive today. I’ll be in their service tonight to share the New Orleans situation.

At the First Baptist Church of Columbus, the church I served from 1974 to 1986, Pastor Shawn Parker introduced us–Margaret and me, our son Neil and his wife Julie, and their three children, Grant and Abby and Erin–and then asked if there were others in the congregation as a result of Katrina. At least a dozen stood. And we are a full five hours north of New Orleans.

I’m convinced this happened today all over this part of America. I’m getting notes from as far away as Stamford, Connecticut, asking if we know refugees (evacuees, displaced) who want a place to live in their city.

Friday, on their way from North Alabama to this Mississippi town, Neil stopped at a bank in tiny town Carbon Hill–itself almost wiped out from a tornado 2 years ago–and asked if they would cash a check my brother had given him. He said, “As soon as they learned my situation, they fell all over themselves to help. They called Ron’s bank in Birmingham to verify, then handed me the money.” He named a nice upscale department store here in Columbus that invited him to bring his family in for two clothing outfits of their choice.

I expect Neil speaks for a lot of people when he says, “I’m not used to this. I’ve always been one giving to others. It was hard at first to let people give to me.” What he is finding is there is a special blessing in being on this end of the equation. It’s made more special by its rarity. That is to say, those who live by panhandling, by soliciting and receiving charity from others, never know the true joy of being ministered to in a time of genuine need by the Lord’s people. My family–and a lot of others–are finding that out right now.

I was thinking about NATURAL DISASTERS. Storms, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes. They can be awful. There’s something worse. There are UNNATURAL DISASTERS. That’s when selfish people prey on victims of the natural disasters, whether by price gouging or looting or sheer brutality. Our friend Michael Indest checked on the situation of First Baptist Church of Kenner and reported via the internet that while the church building looks untouched, the youth center in the next block has been broken into and apparently vandalized. Unnatural disasters. But there’s something worse. SUPERNATURAL DISASTERS. That’s what happens when people harden their hearts toward the needy and ignore opportunities to help the hurting. Instead of ministering to their brothers and sisters, they turn a blind eye and a deaf ear; they pull a Levite/priest stunt of rejecting the fallen man in the ditch. They were capable of so much better behavior than this.

Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? The victim was a natural disaster, the culprits were the unnatural disasters, the Levite and priest were the supernatural disasters. The Samaritan was the rescuer sent from God–like the Coast Guardsmen, the firemen, law enforcement people, the medical workers, the myriad of volunteers. They are the real supernatural disaster masters, aren’t they.

HERE’S MY DREAM FOR WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER…. Over the past 16 months as I’ve gone in and out of churches all over metro New Orleans, I’ve been struck by how alive and vibrant some are and how sickly and needy others seem. Some are healthy champions and others practically on life support. And the poor pastors of the sickly churches, it’s all they can do to get up the strength to re-enter the pulpit for another Sunday.

Our people in New Orleans have heard it from me time and again that our churches are ISOLATED and therefore our people are INSULATED. The members of one church do not know the members of another, leaders do not know other leaders, and everyone feels alone and lonely. Whenever a prophet arises and speaks up and calls for God’s people to break out of their cocoons, their shells of isolation, and get into the community and get to know their neighbors and to minister in Jesus’ name, he is met by stares of despair that seem to say, “You don’t know my situation. I’m so busy with my committee meetings and church programs and classes. I don’t have time for my family now, and you’re trying to put more jobs on me.”

So, what does the Lord do? He shut the whole business down. Closed all the churches in the New Orleans area, every last one of them. Then, He sent the pastors home to rest and be quiet and pray. It’s as though God is giving them time to reflect on what they would do if they could start their church anew, from scratch, from the ground up.

Here’s a good question for every New Orleans pastor: “If you could start from scratch with your people, what would you leave off? What would you start? What would you do different?” Because this is precisely the situation you have been handed. God has given you a burden for ministering in your neighborhood in ways that really make a difference, don’t ask anyone, pastor, just start doing it. If you’ve had dead programs that refused to lie down and go away, then simply do not restart them. Now, pastor, don’t use that terminology. Just tell your people, “We’ll get to that later as the Lord leads.” That’s not a fib; if God leads, you will get to it. But not until.

I have a vision–a strong hunger, a hurting almost–to see God’s people of all religious backgrounds and denominations fanning out into our neighborhoods, getting to know and love one another, knocking on doors of every home in the neighborhood, seeing who needs help, and moving in to help them rebuild their homes and their lives.

When we re-enter the city, we are going to have the greatest window of opportunity most of us have ever seen and may ever see again in our lifetime. If we are foolish, we will piddle this time away with planning meetings and discussions and forums. We will neglect the hurting people who live around us and convince them that we are irrelevant to real life. The greatest tragedy of Katrina, THE REAL SUPERNATURAL DISASTER, will be if our pastors and our churches miss this opportunity. Let’s don’t mess this up.

We’re meeting in Baton Rouge this Tuesday to talk about what to do once we’re able to go home again. The last thing I want to hear from our leaders is a program for our churches to carry out. The best I can figure, God’s plan calls for us to pull our people together, then send them into the streets with hammers and nails and handsaws and friendship. Good Samaritan type stuff.

When people ask me how to pray about New Orleans, I tell them, “Pray that God will show us what we need to do once we go back. For a short time we should have an incredible opportunity to touch people’s lives, to show the love of Christ. Pray that we do it right.”