F. W. Myers, author of a famous poem called “Saint Paul,” once asked a woman whose daughter had died what she thought happened to her soul. The woman said, “Oh, I suppose she’s enjoying eternal bliss–but I wish you wouldn’t speak to me of such unpleasant subjects.”

In A.D. 125, a Greek by the name of Aristides spoke of “a new religion called Christianity.” In a letter to a friend, he described this unusual faith. “If any righteous man among these Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort the body with songs of thanksgiving, as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”

As a result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter wrote, believers have been reborn to “a living hope.” (I Pet.1:3) Our hope for the future involves a resurrection of our own, followed by an eternity in heaven.

We who follow Jesus are limited by no small ambitions.

The biblical concept of hope includes two elements: desire and expectation. You want it to happen and you have every reason to expect it. God made us for Himself, so in our innermost being we want to live with Him. Jesus promised us that we would, so we expect to do so.

Dottie Rambo was killed Sunday when her bus went off the highway in Missouri. I seriously doubt if any gospel song writer has ever thought as much and written as much and sung as much about Heaven as this wonderful lady. And now she gets to find out for herself. She’s doing a duet with Vestal Goodman along about now, I surmise.

Today, after getting the news, I went to www.youtube.com and typed in “dottie rambo.” Over the next half-hour, I heard her singing of “Mama teaching the angels to sing” and “Build my mansion next door to Jesus” and the like. I was glad no one walked in on me. Heaven is a powerful and emotional subject, particularly since I have a father and a brother there now and anticipate moving there myself one day before long.

I had already been thinking about Heaven, thanks to running across some quotes from C. S. Lewis a couple of days ago.

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Sunday morning, I sampled the worship services of our four Southern Baptist churches still operating in Katrina-devastated St. Bernard Parish, just downriver from New Orleans. I started with Celebration-St. Bernard where Craig Ratliff is pastor, then worshiped with the two congregations meeting at Chalmette High School (St. Bernard BC and FBC-Chalmette where Paul Gregoire & John Jeffries pastor), then on to Delacroix-Hope Church down at the jumping off place, James “Boogie” Melerine, pastor, and ended up at Poydras BC where John Galey is the man.

I felt like the fellow who attended the tasting luncheon put on by the various restaurants around town. He sampled a little of this and a little of that, and when he got home he was full but he didn’t know what of.

It was Mother’s Day, and all the churches were honoring these special ladies. At Celebration, Craig had them come to the altar and the leaders crowded around them and prayed. At Delacroix, Boogie gave them gifts. Not sure if the other churches did anything specific for them.

Boogie preached from Matthew 15:21-28 “The Woman of Great Faith,” John Galey preached on Godly Women from I Timothy 2 (more about that later), and Craig’s sermon was “Don’t Throw Momma From the Train”, based on Proverbs 31. Intriguing title. The bulletin from Chalmette High School did not list sermon subjects.

Only one of the four churches is meeting in its original building. That would be Poydras, although they took great damage and extensive renovations were done. Before Katrina, there was no Celebration Church, St. Bernard Campus. In its place stood the FBC of Arabi. The floodwaters ruined the building and scattered the congregation, so they went out of business, bulldozed the structures, and gave the insurance money to Celebration Church of Metairie to begin a new work there. Previously, Craig Ratliff was the student minister.

The two congregations meeting at the high school–St. Bernard Baptist Church and FBC of Chalmette–saw their buildings ruined in Katrina. A new structure is being erected on the site of First Baptist, but St. Bernard’s building was gutted and seems to be standing wide open.

The Delacroix Hope building was completely blown away by Katrina, with nothing left standing except the concrete block pilings. They’re now worshiping in what used to be Creedmore Presbyterian Church on Bayou Road in the community of St. Bernard. Presently, they’re still in the fellowship hall, and it appears there is still much work yet to be done in the sanctuary.

Hopeview Church where Jeffery Friend was pastor has been converted in the volunteer village for church teams coming in to work with Operation NOAH Rebuild. Further downriver, River’s Edge Church is no more.

Our friends (readers) from outside this area who are unfamiliar with New Orleans should be reminded that St. Bernard Parish took the full brunt of the hurricane and almost no structure in the parish was left whole. You can drive down either of the two major east-west thoroughfares–St. Bernard Highway and Judge Perez Drive–and see entire strip malls still boarded up. Most neighborhoods are only sparsely settled.

All of these churches have lost members and all have gained new members who moved here since the storm. Three of the four I attended this morning had from 45 to 60 in attendance. Oddly, the smallest of the four prior to Katrina–Delacroix–now has the largest attendance, perhaps 60 to 70 this morning.

Couple of funnies….

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A fanatic, they say, is someone who loves the Lord more than you do. Fanaticism is a charge frequently thrown at those of us on the conservative end of the religious spectrum in America today. We defend ourselves from such slander with assurances of our patriotism, our love for everyone friend or foe, and our dead-set ambition to practice the teachings of the Man of Nazareth. In fact, we sometimes say, we wish we were more fanatical about following Jesus than we are.

By that we mean, we wish we loved Him more, took His words more seriously, and were bringing every area of our existence into subjection to Him.

Enter any Southern Baptist church next Sunday–they’re the only kind I have a close familiarity with, so we shall spare all the other brand names here–and you would be hard-pressed to find more than a half-dozen church members over-zealous in their Christianity. Most are like the rest of us, in a never-ending struggle to find the balance between this present world and the next, the physical and the spiritual.

Almost everything we write on this website about basic Christianity–loving, praying, studying the Bible, tithing, etc–is directed toward the great hordes of church members who, on a scale of one to ten, would rate themselves five or under in their dedication to Christ.

The following, however, we direct toward that small group of church members who, on a dedication scale of one to ten, come in at about eleven or twelve.

From the intriguing Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, today’s lesson, boys and girls–you A students, you valedictorians, Phi Beta Kappas, over-achievers and perfectionists–has your name all over it.

1) Ecclesiastes 7:16 “Do not be overly righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?”

Hey, that’s in the Bible. I didn’t make it up.

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According to the news reports from every direction, perhaps 100,000 residents of the small Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, formerly Burma, were killed by the recent Cyclone Nargis. It pushed into the lowest, most vulnerable section of the country with a storm surge that left only death and devastation in its wake. Over 2 million are said to be homeless. Meanwhile, the military junta ruling the country is blocking aid.

Those who know Myanmar say the ruling army is under the control of a group of poorly educated generals who are dead-set on keeping tight controls on the country lest the nations coming to help end up putting ideas in the minds of the people. Presumably, that would be ideas like liberty and free enterprise. Self-determination. Responsibility. Compassion.

Compassion seems to be in short supply with that bunch. Their only concern appears to be for themselves and their control over this nation that rivals Haiti in our hemisphere for the title of poorest-nation-on-the-planet.

We’re told that so far–this is being written on Friday evening, six days after the cyclone hit–only a tenth of the neediest people have been reached with supplies necessary for life.

I appreciate the patience and perseverance of outside governments and agencies like the Red Cross that are trying to comply with the red tape and regulations being imposed by the generals before being approved to help their people. One wonders if the governments of the world could not simply rise up and say “enough of this foolishness” and land a few hundred planes at once and dare anyone to try to stop them as they fan out into the needy areas with food and supplies.

I mean, do we just let people die because the leaders who stole the country are unfriendly to outside help and unwelcoming to strangers?

On a different scale, every veteran pastor of any denomination knows this frustration. It’s not just us Baptists, although it is most definitely us. It’s a human problem, not just a religious one, although it is that, too.

Someone or a small group of someones have seized control of a church and insist on calling the shots. The fact that their congregation is needy and others want to come in and help matters little to them, particularly if the cost for receiving help is that they would lose control. They turn a cold shoulder to offers of assistance and prefer to let the church struggle and die rather than losing authority.

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We graduated in May of 1958 from the Winston County High School in Double Springs, Alabama. We were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive, once it was over we quickly scattered in our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing some of our classmates for the last time. We had no way of knowing that in a few short years our school would burn down or that by the 50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.

There is a reason only older people attend class reunions. They know.

The recent graduates are still in college somewhere or serving Uncle Sam or trying to get established in low-paying jobs and can’t afford the trip back home. But mostly they don’t come to reunions because they haven’t figured it out yet.

They think they have forever. They think of the rest of us as oldsters, like ancient relics of a previous civilization that has no bearing on the world they live in today. They have no idea that the time between now and their fiftieth will seem like weeks. They will still be looking upon themselves as the younger generation when suddenly their twentieth reunion will be announced in the newspapers.

If they’re like me, the twentieth will be the first reunion they attend. And if they’re really like me, they will open the door and look in that room, taking in all the bald heads and unfamiliar faces, and decide this can’t be my class and walk on down the hall looking for the real class. They will soon realize there is no one else in the building and that this is their class.

That’s the moment when they start to grow up.

Their real education begins then. Everything up to that moment has been prep school. Today is the first day of class. This school does not let out for the rest of their lives.

As I see it, here are the lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by the time of our fiftieth last Saturday afternoon in Double Springs.

1) Old friendships are pure gold.

Lynn Pope and I shared one of those old-fashioned double desks at Poplar Springs Elementary in the school term of 1951-52. A two-room affair run by a husband and wife, three grades in each room, this school had changed very little from the days my mother attended its predecessor a mile down the highway. Next year, Lynn and I moved on to Double Springs for junior high. He is the sole classmate with whom I shared seven years of schooling.

We thought of Double Springs as “town.” We were rural and most of the others in the class were “town,” as though of another species. The truth is most of our class members were bused in from outlying areas of the county the same way we were. There were 100 of us at the start of the seventh grade. Six years later, we were just over 50 strong, the 50th graduating class of that school.

If you can imagine having fifty or more brothers and sisters, that was us. We did just exactly what siblings do, too–we fought and argued, we laughed and went on trips and played games, we teased and cried and worked alongside each other. Over the years, we came to learn that these are the dearest people on the earth.

2) People are precious.

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My friend Marilyn called the other day. Her adult son is scheduled to be interviewed for a church staff position and she had been prepping him. “It takes place at a lunch,” she said, “and that may not be the best venue for showing off Robert’s talents.”

She explained that Robert could stand some improvement in his eating habits. “I told him to eat slowly, to cut his meat into small portions, and not to talk with food in his mouth. Basic stuff like that.” Then she said, “It’s important that he not go there hungry and overeat, so I urged him to eat a little snack in advance. After all, this is one dining experience that is not about eating.”

I said, “That’s in the Bible. The part about not overeating at an important meal.”

“You’re kidding.” I assured her I wasn’t, although I could not recall the exact proverb that made the case.

Later that day, she texted me that she had located the verse. Proverbs 23:1-2 reads, “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.”

I can’t find anything in God’s Word cautioning us against parking our chewing gum underneath the dinner plate, but I’ve known at least one candidate for a church staff position who could have used the advice.

Anyone who spends regular time in God’s Word is constantly being surprised at what he finds there, how current is its counsel, and how practical its advice.

Take Luke chapter 17. I sat in church last Sunday prior to the sermon–someone else was to preach, so my mind was unencumbered–and was struck by how the various incidents in this chapter connect with each other, giving us a number of excellent insights on Christian living.

(Note: what follows works only if you first look up Luke 17, then read through verse 21.)

On the surface, that passage seems to be made up of unrelated bits of teaching: Jesus advises the disciples on how to treat a stumbling brother, He informs them that even mustard-seed faith can do wonders, He delivers a parable on how they should look upon themselves at the end of the day, and so forth.

A quick reading fails to see their inter-connectedness.

Then it occurred to me that this passage, all of it, is about expectations.

I. “What you may expect.” Luke 17:1-6

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Early Monday morning, when I wish I could have slept, I went through the newspapers that had accumulated in my absence. Most of the news was old by then, but here are a few items readers might find of interest.

Steve Scalise, Republican, won election to Congress Saturday. He replaces Bobby Jindal, our new governor. Scalise won 3/4ths of the vote, easily defeating the Democrat, college professor Dr. Gilda Reed.

On the other hand, a Democrat has won the 6th District for Congress, for the first time since 1974. Now the problem for Congress will be learning how to pronounce Don Cazayoux’s name. (Cazzah-you, I suppose)

New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin has become a superdelegate to the Democratic convention scheduled for later this summer. Okay, mayor, Hillary and Barack are calling.

The resident curmudgeon of the Times-Picayune, James Gill, has been writing for this paper for the past couple of centuries it seems. Locals are still talking–and the paper is still going on–about how FBI Special Agent in Charge James Bernazzani was sacked by the big man in Washington, D.C., for even talking out loud about running for mayor of this city. James Gill writes that Bernazzani is one ignorant fellow for losing his job over a position he cannot qualify for. Turns out that to run for mayor, one must have lived her for five years, something the G-man misses by a few months.

Someone wrote to the paper rather unhappy with Gill and the way he put down Bernazzani, calling him clueless. “We need ten more just like Bernazzani,” he said, “while the one James Gill we have is one too many.”

Ryan Perrilloux has been kicked off the LSU football team. He’s a local boy and three years ago ranked as one of the nation’s premier high school talents. When he signed at LSU, he beamed, “I’m going to win the Heisman all four years.” Now, look at him. Coach Les Miles isn’t talking, but those who do say he’s immature, does not follow through on commitments he makes to the coach, and tested positive for drugs recently. Sad. He seems to be his own worst enemy, a not uncommon problem.

Everyone waits to see what will happen at the Hornets-Spurs basketball playoff game tonight. Saturday night, at the break between the first and second quarters, the Hornets’ mascot, SuperHugo, tried a stunt that backfired. He ran, jumped onto a small trampoline and vaulted through a burning hoop to dunk the ball. That worked fine. Then the people helping him could not extinguish the fire. The plan called for them to smother the flames, but when the fire did not cooperate, arena officials grabbed fire extinguishers and began spraying furiously. That put the fire out, but coated the arena floor with something like fine sand. A delay of some twenty minutes followed as workers labored to clean the mess and make the floor safe for the players. During halftime, workers came back out onto the court and tried to finish their job.

Such foolishness. I guarantee that stunt will never be performed here again, and it will be interesting to see if SuperHugo still has a job. Just play ball, I say.

Watching Saturday night’s game from Nauvoo, you couldn’t help but notice all the fans wearing gold t-shirts. Turns out the Hornets laid 18,000 of them across every seat in the New Orleans Arena. Neat.

One more sports thing. In Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, one of our true “characters,” Ronnie Lamarque–car dealer, singer, showman–had his horse, Recapturetheglory, come in fifth. Lamarque is the subject of a front-page article in Thursday’s Times-Picayune. Underneath his photo, get this: “Vivacious car dealer has found God, quit drinking.”

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Wednesday, I drove to Alpharetta, Georgia, the headquarters of our denomination’s North American Mission Board. My first time to see this wonderful new building in the midst of a pristine environment. One block from Andy Stanley’s Northpoint Community Church. Living in an old city, New Orleans, and one that tends to be rustic and rather dirty and these days, in great need, I find myself wondering how one gets up in the morning in his neatly manicured world and goes to work in a shiny new building where everything shines and everything works that is supposed to.

Thursday noon through Friday noon, six of us from New Orleans joined with Dr. David Hankins (Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention) and his right-hand man Mike Canady, as we conferred with Dr. Geoffrey Hammond (Executive Director of NAMB) and all of his senior staffers on the subject of a longterm partnership directed toward the rebuilding of the city, the church, and the ministries of New Orleans. My choice here is to write almost nothing about this meeting or take two hours to tell everything. I’ve just returned home, it’s late Sunday night, and I’m tired beyond belief, so I’ll tell the story later.

Friday, I drove to my folks’ home at Nauvoo, Alabama, taking the cross-country route from Alpharetta through Marietta, Cedartown, over to Piedmont, Alabama, then to Gadsden, Cullman, Double Springs, and home.

Saturday was the alumni meeting for Winston County High School at Double Springs, where my siblings and I attended from 7th through 12th grades. (Ron graduated in ’54, Glenn in ’55, Patricia in ’56, I in ’58, Carolyn in ’60, and Charlie in ’62) Over the 50 years since my graduation, I think I’ve attended three or four of these school-wide alumni gatherings, but have been to quite a few of my class’s reunions. The class of ’58 will tell anyone who pauses to listen that ours is the best class ever.

The class of ’58 had maybe 55 or so graduates. Over these years 18 have died. We had 24 there Saturday afternoon, including Quinton Daniels who drove in from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the day before, and–how about this one–Harold Brownlow who flew in from Indonesia.

Couple of reflections here….

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Jazzfest last weekend was not rained out, but anything else would have been. In the downpour, people stood in puddles to their ankles to soak up Billy Joel and other musical offerings. Joel looked heavenward and said to the Lord, “Is that all you’ve got? Bring it on!”

Seems like we heard our president say something similar just before Iraq became its own kind of quagmire.

The people who run our convention center–the official name for which is the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center–have decided that does not communicate and they want to tweak it to become the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. Not any shorter, but clearer, they say. That sounded great to almost everyone except the Morial family. Ernest “Dutch” Morial was our city’s first African-American mayor and the father of our most recent mayor, Marc Morial, who wrote the letter for the family protesting the change.

Officials insist they’re not formally changing the name, but will refer to the convention center in this “new” way for marketing purposes. That’s not good enough for the family and their supporters. Some are threatening that they will encourage Essence and other festivals/conventions of African-Americans to go elsewhere if this is not reversed.

A name is just a symbol? Symbols can be mighty important to some folks and to all of us at one time or another, we should never forget.

These are good days for the New Orleans Hornets, our NBA franchise. For the first time ever, the New Orleans teams advances to the second round in the playoffs, after beating the Dallas Mavericks 4 games to 1 in a best-of-seven series. Next, we will face the San Antonio Spurs, as I get it. Fans are ecstatic, packing out the New Orleans Arena. Last night–Tuesday–coach Byron Scott was named the NBA Coach of the Year.

Some fan said it’s just like Mardi Gras all over again, all the enthusiasm.

We’re having a “New Orleans Summit” at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Georgia, this Thursday and Friday, May 1 and 2. Last Monday night in our annual Spring meeting, our association voted to adopt a lengthy list of adjustments and changes being recommended by a strategy team which has been working for a year. Now, some of us will be sitting down with leadership of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and NAMB to work out a possible partnership for the next 10 years or more. Representing BAGNO will be pastors Fred Luter, David Crosby, John Faull, and Dennis Watson. Mike Flores and I will go along to carry their bags. David Hankins and Mike Canady from LBC will be at the table.

In asking for continuing help from LBC and NAMB, New Orleans is not unaware of our massive debt to Southern Baptists through these (and other) agencies. We have been the grateful recipient of many millions of dollars of the Lord’s money and untold thousands of man-hours from Baptists who have flowed our way to help rebuild the city and restore our churches. In the process, thousands of our residents have heard the message of God–after seeing it in action–and have prayed with their visitors and benefactors to receive Christ as Savior.

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