Want to see faith at its starkest? Take a look at Free Mission Baptist Church.

Now, it’s not much to look at, just a single rectangular brick building that might seat a hundred people. The front door opens to a cozy worship center and in the back, behind the pulpit, a few classrooms sit. Freddie Arnold says the church is prettier on the inside than the outside. But that’s not the amazing thing about this church structure.

What’s incredible about Free Mission is that it has been rebuilt and where that happened.

Free Mission Baptist Church is located on Egania Street smack dab in the heart of the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, the most severely ruined section of New Orleans as a result of Katrina’s floodwaters. This, the lowest part of the city, lies along the east side of the Industrial Canal on your way from downtown New Orleans to St. Bernard Parish. The levee broke just a few blocks west of Free Mission Church and floodwaters swamped the church as they did everything else in their path. The rushing torrent lifted homes off their foundations, jumbled them on top of one another, set houses down on boats and cars, and collapsed older homes. Most of the people who had stayed behind to ride out the storm were drowned inside their houses.

For months after Katrina, tourists drove up and down the narrow streets of the Lower Ninth, aghast at what they were seeing—a neighborhood in tatters. For more than a year, dead bodies were still being taken from collapsed houses.

Today, the Lower Ninth is mostly vacant lots, many with weeds knee-deep. Here and there a house has been rebuilt and a few homes are marked for restoration, but nothing has been done yet.

In the heart of all that, Pastor Johnny Jones and his small congregation have rebuilt their church. With money from the insurance and some volunteer help, the building was gutted and restored. The dedication of this structure has been set for this Sunday afternoon, March 22, at 2 pm.

Only faith goes into the Lower 9th Ward and rebuilds a church before the population returns.

When the people come home, Free Mission will be here, waiting.

Continue reading →

An article in the March 16, 2009, issue of a popular newsweekly (I’d say “Newsweek” but don’t want to send some of my friends into a frenzy of righteous indignation! Ha) bemoans the recent passing of financial experts, due to the economic mess our country — and the entire world — is experiencing.

“One of the not inconsiderable side effects of the current economic meltdown is the demise of the economic expert, if experts they truly ever were.” — Joseph Epstein

I remember hearing a fellow say a couple of years back, “America is the only country in the world where a fellow drives downtown in a Cadillac to take financial advice from a guy who rode the bus to work that morning.”

No more. After one loses his shirt — or, in the case of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, a few billions — he learns not to trust the experts and authorities, no matter how firm their promises, reliable their sources, and sweeping their confidence.

After reading two or three books recently on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s early days in the White House, I don’t recall who said this, but one feature of FDR’s presidency was his complete distrust of experts. He would listen to them, put little stock in what they advised, then would go with his gut, as they say. Often that meant doing the opposite of what the experts counseled.

One writer said Roosevelt acquired that skepticism as a result of his polio. When he did everything the medical experts ordered, he grew weaker and weaker. Finally, taking matters into his own hands and trusting his instincts in matters of his mobility and conditioning, he ended up having a productive political career, against all expectations of his medical experts.

This is the place where we should drop in some humorous definitions for experts. Since all I know are ancient and stale, excuse me for passing. (If you know a good, recent one, leave it as a “comment” at the conclusion.)

Louis Rukeyser was the original “expert” on television’s Wall Street Week, from a generation ago. For some reason, back then he pretty much had the field to himself. These days, the channels giving financial news and advice are as numerous as the sports stations.

Speaking before a chamber of commerce meeting in Jackson, Mississippi, Rukeyser made a point I’ve never forgotten. If you write a book predicting that the economy is going to keep growing and the Dow Jones Average climbing, no one will buy it. People figure, if everything is going to be fine, my investments will come out all right and I don’t need the book.

However, he said, write a book on the coming disaster, telling how the bottom is going to drop out, and your book will sell like snow-cones on a sultry summer day in New Orleans. The reason for this, Rukeyser explained, is if the economy is going to tank, the investor will want to plan for it and find ways to protect himself.

That’s why bad-news prognosticators in financial matters proliferate, and good news prophets are dismissed as na

Earlier this week, I got something off my chest about America’s most controversial radio celebrity, Rush Limbaugh. Marty posted it on the website and it went out to our 1200 subscribers Wednesday night. I stayed home on Thursday to do my taxes and take care of a few tasks, and then turned on the computer Friday morning on entering the office. I had quite a surprise in store.

There were 18 comments at the end of that article (and more since) and almost that many bypassing the blog and coming directly to my e-mail. They were equally divided, in case you’re wondering. Some could not believe I would be so na

The first time I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio in New Orleans nearly 20 years ago, I was embarrassed. I thought, “What a terrible preacher — yelling and screaming.” Little did I know!

In time, I came to enjoy the fellow’s rants as much as the next person. He was a showman, sometimes spoke the truth, often crossed the good-taste line in the interest of entertaining and making his point. He was clearly an egotist of the first order, and it was fun to see him drive liberals up the wall.

I could never take a full three-hour dose of the man, but it had nothing to do with his political views. His “preaching” style was unbearable. He got on my nerves. He loved the sound of his own voice too much. It took him forever to make a point. He would begin talking on some subject and interrupt himself to chase a rabbit, then interrupt the interruption. I was one of the conservatives and it irritated me. No telling what the liberals were thinking!

My opinion is that Rush Limbaugh has had his day. What made him strong has now done him in. (I’d teasingly say that I’m writing his obituary here except for the fact that that task has been done countless times over the past 20 years and he’s still very much with us!)

What I mean is he has outlived his usefulness. Look for more radio stations to drop him as they realize his support base has deteriorated and it’s now safe to do what they’ve wanted to do for ages: cancel him.

He has no one to blame but himself. And that’s where preachers can learn an important lesson.

Continue reading →

You know who John Updike was. This famous author died on January 27 of this year after a bout with cancer. A friend sent me his Easter poem and it blew me away. I had no idea the guy was a believer, but his words here are far more eloquent than anything I’ve ever thought or said about this greatest of all Christian events. Here it is in its entirety….

SEVEN STANZAS AT EASTER

By John Updike

Make no mistake, if He rose at all

It was as His body;

If the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

Each soft Spring recurrent;

It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

It was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

The same valved heart;

That — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

Analogy, sidestepping transcendence;

Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages;

Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not paper mache,

Not a stone in a story,

But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,

Make it a real angel,

Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle

And crushed by remonstrance.

(from “Telephone Poles and Other Poems” by John Updike, 1961. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House.)

Continue reading →

“Hey, I’m the boss of this outfit. I’m not accountable to anyone.”

No right-thinking pastor or mayor or bishop or even CEO would be so foolish as to utter those exact words, but believe me, some of us are living them out.

During this morning’s drive across New Orleans, headed to the office, I listened with interest to the NPR report of a bill being presented to the Connecticut state legislature that would result in a committee of parishioners overseeing the finances of the Catholic Church in that state. The bishop, as you might expect, is alarmed and Bill of Rights proponents (we all fall into that group, I trust) are concerned.

What brought this about, we’re told, is something the previous bishop (or maybe he was only a local church priest) did: embezzled a million dollars to finance a lavish lifestyle including a Florida condominium which he shared with — ready for this? — his boyfriend.

The matter was made worse by that priest’s refusal to allow anyone to look at the parish books. Consequently, parishioners felt they have no recourse to make certain this does not happen again other than going to the legislature.

As a pastor to pastors, I am forever counseling (and urging and preaching!) openness to our church-shepherds. While I’m not in favor of monthly church business meetings where members go over every little decision and every tiny expenditure with a microscope — this is a form of tyranny that should not occur or be condoned by God’s people — nevertheless, there needs to be a proper accountability for every leader. In most cases, a good finance committee will fill the bill.

“The Gambit” is a weekly, free New Orleans magazine devoted to the goings-on in this town, everything from where to find the best crawfish etouffee to what entertainers are playing in the city to the shenanigans at City Hall. In an editorial titled “A Culture of Arrogance,” the paper chides New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin for going back on his election promises of transparency and integrity. His administration has been characterized by everything except that!

Continue reading →

The first time I encountered this, I was just out of college and serving part-time on the staff of Central Baptist Church in Tarrant City, Alabama, next door to Birmingham. Pastor Morris Freeman was educating his young pre-seminary prot

In the old Snuffy Smith comic strip, cartoonist Fred Lasswell would sometimes have him rushing from one place to another, uttering, “Time’s a-wastin’!”

In recent days, I keep finding more and more time-wasters in my life. Recently, when my children and grandchildren began forwarding stuff from Facebook in my direction — photos of themselves, comments about what they’re up to — I decided I’d better get an account so I can stay informed. Whoa. What a pandora’s box that opened up.

“I want this-person (fill in the blank) to be my friend.” “You are now friends with that-person (fill in the blank).”

Now, don’t misunderstand. I treasure every friend and want all I can get and intend to enjoy the ones I have even more. But on this Friday morning, I quickly saw that my Facebook jottings (replying to this friend, commenting to that one) used up a full hour. Was this good or not? I’m of two minds on that.

Most days, when the mail comes, either in this office or at home, it’s a rarity to receive an actual first-class letter. Those are almost relics of the past. We can cry over it, worry about what the world is coming to, and find plenty of old-timers who agree, but it’s not going to change a thing. This generation stays in touch through the internet and sites like Facebook. (I am aware there are other similar sites out there, some for Christians only and such, but please — no one tell me about them and urge me to join. One is enough.)

The early Jerry Lewis had a line I’ve quoted for years which fits here: “Enough is enough and too much is plenty!”

I’ve decided the people who can get the most benefit from sites like Facebook are retirees. Most of them (soon to be me, too) have more time than folks with jobs. But for normal people with families and small children and jobs and other demands, they have to really watch it or these things can sponge up all their time and energy and brain power.

I heard a fellow say the best way he’s found to spend time on a plane is with solitaire on his laptop. For others, it’s Sudoku. And for someone else, it’s a favorite movie on DVD.

And did we mention texting?

Continue reading →

“Why shouldn’t I be afraid? There’s good reason to panic!”

All through Scripture, every time a heavenly entity shows up, the first thing he blurts out to puny humans is, “Don’t be afraid!” And with good reason, we might add. After all, if an angel suddenly appeared in this office or my living room — I’m talking about the kind of mighty angels we see in Scripture, not some chubby cherub from medieval paintings — my first impulse would probably be to have a heart attack on the spot.

We rarely have the response of the humans who receive this command not to be afraid, but doubtless some could have argued that there is plenty of reason to be afraid. In this day when “men’s hearts are failing them out of fear” (Luke 21:26), we have no trouble whatsoever finding causes for our torment and panic and worry.

However — and this is the heart of the Christian message — we have even better reason not to be afraid, to be courageous and bold even.

Here are three favorite variations on this theme found in God’s Word —

“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (II Kings 6:16) The prophet Elisha spoke to his servant who had just gone out for the morning paper and found himself face to face with the army of the Arameans who were encircling the city, there to arrest Elisha. A moment later, the prophet asked God to open the eyes of the servant. Suddenly, he saw the skies filled with the hosts of heaven. It was quite a reassuring moment.

“Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of the multitude which is with him, for the one who is with us is greater than the one with him. With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” (II Chronicles 32:7-8) King Hezekiah is addressing his citizens who have taken a look at the mighty Assyrian army just outside the gates and are ready to hand them the deed to the place. Sennacherib, the pagan king, cannot believe that Hezekiah is hesitant to surrender. After all, he has conquered everything in his path, including the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Now, tiny little Judah and its capital of Jerusalem are balking before him. The very idea! He sends messengers to Hezekiah with one of the greatest questions anywhere, a real testament to the faith of this leader. He asks, “What is this confidence you have?” (32:9) I love it! (Sure wish someone would ask me that.)

“You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” (I John 4:4) This reads like John has been studying his Old Testament stories, doesn’t it. In 1960, as a sophomore at Birmingham-Southern College and a newly baptized member of West End Baptist Church, the youth named me as pastor for their annual Youth Week in the church. Consequently, I got to preach the Sunday night sermon. (Mind you, this was a full year and a half before the Lord showed mercy and called me into the ministry.) The text — I have no memory whether it was assigned or what — was this passage from I John 4:4. Struggling with building a sermon from it forever burned its assuring truth into my mind and heart.

In both the II Kings 6 and II Chronicles 32 passages, it’s helpful to note that no one had to ask the people to look around and see all the reasons for panic. They were obvious. The enemy was at the gate and he was roaring with threats. Hearts were failing. The most natural thing in the world was to shiver in one’s skin and shake in his boots.

God doesn’t like it when His people fear.

In fact, He’s offended by it. Fear before the enemy is a vote of no-confidence in God and gives courage to the wrong people.

Continue reading →