When they opened the floodgates to allow the overflow from the Mississippi River to cross the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway into Lake Pontchartrain, one thing no one figured on was what might come in alongwith the water. Now, we hear that people are finding dead cows floating in the lake. Logs and trees are always coasting down the river, and now they are posing a hazard for boaters on the lake. The water from the river is very muddy and contains who knows what, whereas the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation has been at work for a generation trying to clean up our lake. So, now, here we go again.

Some readers can recall when you would take the family out to Pontchartrain Beach amusement park and go for a swim. When the park was closed, swimming was forbidden due to the pollution. Lately, the water has been approved for swimming, although there’s no good place to go in. Now, the authorities are warning citizens to be careful even getting around those waters. We’ve mentioned here about the snakes and alligators flowing into the lake–and thus into the city.

Old-timers (that would be my age and better) frequently tell me they see no need to own a computer, that they have done very well all this time without it. I never argue the point, but sometimes wonder how they would feel if they knew what they were missing. For instance….

Friday, while driving north to Alexandria, I was going over the sermon to be preached Sunday morning and found myself missing a tiny bit of information. I phoned my son Marty and left a message for him. “I’d like to know who began the ‘adopt-a-highway’ program. Who started it and when? I need this for my sermon.”

The next evening, when I arrived home and checked e-mail, Marty had sent me a couple of links providing everything I needed to know on the subject. He said, “Wikipedia has the information, and they provide some links for details.” That’s how I found that the man behind this adopt-a-highway program is James R. “Bobby” Evans, an employee of the Texas Department of Transportation, Tyler District. One day as he drove through Tyler, he noticed trash blowing off the truck in front of him, and started wondering if there was not some way to mobilize citizens to clean up the highways. He thought of encouraging people to adopt-a-highway and tried to get people interested. No group or civic club caught the vision, but a public information officer for the DOT named Billy Black did. He took that ball and ran with it, lining up groups, churches, clubs, and individuals to take responsibility for sections of roads. He designed the safety training and even the neat little reflective vests they wear.

I went to the link for the Texas Department of Transportation to find the dates. Evans had the brainstorm in 1984; Black got organized in 1985. Think of that. A program that is now in countries all over the world and has changed the quality of life everywhere considerably—and it is less than a quarter-century old.

One man can make a difference.

To make a difference, he needs a clear vision of what needs to be done, some solid counsel on all aspects of the matter, and a strong conviction in order to stay with the program until he pulls it off.

And, as Bobby Evans clearly demonstrates, he may end up needing a helper, someone with skills he doesn’t have. Someone like Billy Black.

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There was an Israeli town named Shiloh. For a while, after Israel was settled in the Promised Land, the tabernacle was headquartered there. But the real significance of the name for us today hails back to a promise in Genesis 49:10. Old man Jacob was dying and (mostly) blessing his sons. He says, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes.” Your Bible has a footnote in the margin, I’m guessing, that reads, “Shiloh means ‘he whose right it is.'” Ezekiel 21:27 is the other place that mentions the word in this context.

It’s talking about the Messiah. The scepter–that would be “the rule,” “the leading position”–and “He whose right it is” can only mean the One who is worthy of picking up the scepter and reigning. Worthy is the Lamb.

When Jesus was born in Nazareth, only one of the 12 tribes still had a spot of ground with their name on it. Judea. Judah, get it? Then, in A.D. 70, when the Romans beseiged Jerusalem, they demolished the city and erased Judea from the map. Present-day Israel came into being only in 1948.

Anyway.

Shiloh Christian Fellowship is back. This wonderful little congregation filled up their newly rebuilt sanctuary at 2441 North Claiborne Street in New Orleans Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. Pastor Michael Raymond was all aglow, and we were for him. There must have been 200-300 people filling the building with joy and love. Freddie Arnold was there, returned from two weeks of house-building at his place in Walker, Louisiana. We both agreed we have been to quite a number of these first-time-back-since-Katrina worship services, but this one was unique in one respect: Pastor Michael baptized eight people. Great beginning!

In the printed bulletin, the pastor is thanking Operation NOAH Rebuild, Baptist Builders, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, two Oklahoma churches in particular–the FBC of Watonga and FBC of Pryor, and Franklin Avenue Baptist Church of our city.

My guess is that the street on which Shiloh is situated–North Claiborne–wins the prize as the longest traffic artery in metro New Orleans. It begins down in Lower St. Bernard Parish as Judge Perez Boulevard, continues into Orleans Parish as North Claiborne. Crosses Canal Street downtown and becomes South Claiborne. When it arrives in Jefferson Parish it becomes the historic Jefferson Highway. In River Ridge, it runs one block from where I live. As it enters Kenner, it becomes Third Street, don’t ask me why. In St. Charles Parish, it’s now River Road. It ends at the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway. That must be forty miles or more of winding, snaking, twisting, following-the-bends-of-the-river pavement.

The portion of the city where Shiloh Christian Fellowship is located took lots of floodwaters and is still in the rebuilding mode. But they are coming back. The area desperately needs the active ministry of this congregation. (Someone asks, “If they are Southern Baptist, why don’t they call themselves Baptist?” Answer: I have no idea why they chose this name, but we have Celebration Church that is one of our strongest SBC churches in the state, but the name ‘Baptist’ is nowhere to be found in its title. Suits me. Whatever works for them.)

I preached Sunday morning at Calvary Baptist Church of New Orleans for their annual “missions fair” day. Sunday School was dismissed so people could visit the various mission-work displays in the fellowship hall, then have lunch. I walked into the room, saw an 8-year-old sitting by herself, pulled out my sketch pad and drew her. That was about 11 o’clock. When I got to the car, the time was 12:25 pm, and I must have drawn 25 or 30 children and adults. If you get the impression no one has to ask me to do this, that I love it and would rather do this than eat, you would be right.

Calvary is one of our finest churches in many respects. They’ve been pastorless since Keith Manuel joined the evangelism staff of the Louisiana Baptist Convention a year ago. Norris Grubbs, professor at NOBTS, served as their interim pastor until recently. Last Sunday, their remaining three staff members–Doug, Matt, and Mike–all announced their resignations as they move to other churches (Baton Rouge, Haughton, LA, and Savannah, GA). We wish these guys (and their families) well and thank them for their faithful work here.

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“Here’s what the publisher of this book does.” The speaker was John Van Diest. The setting was the meeting hall of the Louisiana Baptist Convention in Alexandria, where a roomful of authors and would-be-writers had gathered to sop up the creative drippings from the mind of this “Publisher of the Year,” so named by his peers in that industry. He was speaking of the first book from the pen of one of our most popular Christian pastor-writers.

“He has put out many books since this first one, each a best-seller,” Van Diest said. “But the publisher who has the rights to the first book keeps on reprinting it. Each time he does, he redesigns the cover, re-formats the book, and raises the price.”

“Aha,” I thought. “So that’s why I have multiple copies of the same book by this guy.”

One smart publisher. One dumb reader. One successful author.

Van Diest was speaking of current trends in Christian publishing. “The Christian bookstore is dying. They’re being put out of business by the internet and megastores such as Barnes and Noble.” He called our attention to the cover story in Christianity Today (April 2008) titled, “How to Save the Christian Bookstore.” The subtitle reads “(Hint: Stop making it so religious.)”

Let’s see now. The Christian bookstore is dying. And here we are, meeting for two days trying to figure out how to get our Christian books published. What’s wrong with this picture?

“My books sell for fifteen dollars.” The conference speakers had displayed a sampling of their books, some self-published and thus necessarily self-promoted. The plan, as I understand it, calls for the writer to engage a printer who might charge five dollars per book. The writer, then, makes ten bucks for each one he sells. If he sells them. “It’s up to you,” the author told a class. “You have to get out there and call on libraries and churches, speak to civic organizations and senior adult groups, and promote yourself.”

Readers of this blog have picked up my stories of Rudy and Rose French over the past two years. They came from Canada not long after Katrina and invested the next two years of their lives with us. When they relocated to Paris, Tennessee, some months ago, I encouraged Rudy to “write a book.” He did. It’s being published even as we speak.

We had a little hand in Rudy’s book. I gave him the names of a couple of publishers, he asked me to draw the cover, and I wrote the foreword. Lynn Gehrmann, our office’s administrative assistant, took the photo of Rudy and Rose that appears on the back. And we are determined to help them get the book in circulation. Whe it comes out, I’ll tell our readers how to order one.

Promoting and selling your book is the hardest part, everyone agrees. That’s why so many self-published writers end up with boxes of their creation cluttering the garage. It’s why some such printers are referred to as “vanity” publishers: they’re catering to the ego of someone who would never see his book in print otherwise.

“But there’s another aspect to this,” our speaker noted. Go the traditional route and have a well-known Christian publisher take your book, and two years will elapse before it hits the bookstores. Even then, you might receive 10 percent from the sales. “If you publish it and sell it yourself, all the profits are yours. You could make as much as 10 dollars per copy.” Good thing, because you will have a substantial bill from the printer to come due shortly.

How much is a thing worth? A book to read, a gallon of gas, a bottle of water, a house to live in? These days, the answers are uncertain, ever-changing, eye-popping.

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Here are the opening words of the obituary for Mr. Jamal El Dine Abyad who was buried today, Saturday, in Alexandria, Louisiana from the Cen-La Church of Christ….

“Biblical Plan for Man’s Salvation

Hear God’s Word…Romans 10:17, Mt. 7:24-27

Believe that Jesus is the Christ…Jn 8:24, Mrk 16:15=16, Heb 11:6

Repent of your sins…Acts 2:38, 17:30, Lk 13:3-5

Confess your faith in Christ…Mt 10:32-33, Rom 10:9-10

Be baptized for the remission of sins…Mark 16:15=16, Acts 2:38

Remain Faithful…Rev 2:10, Mt 7:21, Heb 5:8-9”

The article said about Mr. Abyad, age 57, “He wanted only to be recognized and remembered as a humble servant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

That’s what it said.

You don’t get those kind of obituaries in the city paper. Or almost anywhere else, I suppose. I just thought it was fascinating that the family would do that. I suppose it was Mr. Abyad’s idea.

Bible students will recognize that the last two points of that “plan of salvation” incorporate the understanding of the Church of Christ denomination into the message. Most Christians–certainly the ones I know–say that being baptized and remaining faithful are the results of salvation, not the means to it.

I was in Alexandria Friday and Saturday for the annual writers conference our state denominational paper, the Baptist Message, conducts. The lineup of teachers was outstanding, and included Art Toalston, the editor of the Baptist Press, our national communications office (and a longtime friend; Art used to be religion editor for the Jackson, Mississippi, Daily News and as early as 1980 started running my cartoons on the Saturday religion page; now he runs them at www.bpnews.net), and John Van Diest, the now retired but longtime publisher of great (read: bestselling) Christian books such as “The Prayer of Jabez” and the “Left Behind” series.

I took along the first three chapters of my intended-book on the “Leadership Lessons” we’ve posted on this website, then had a quarter-hour conference with Van Diest while he looked it over and told me what he thought. He thinks I need to aim for a wider audience than just “pastors and church leaders.” I told him I don’t care to water it down, that “this is my group and I intend to write something that will help them.”

“Did I discourage you?” he asked. I said, “Twenty years ago, you might have. But I’ve gone into this figuring I’d end up self-publishing.” He took the partial manuscript along and asked for some samples of my cartoons. I delivered three colored ones to him this morning.

My approach in situations like this is to lower my expectations. Curt Iles, who self-publishes his books and was one of our teachers, showed on the screen a display of some of the rejection slips he has received over the years. Not a pretty sight nor pleasant thought.

One way to keep from being rejected is not to attempt anything, I’m well aware of that. At this point, since I’m exactly one year away from retirement, my plans for that time are to intensify my writing and begin publishing my stuff in a serious way.

Curt Iles showed a photo of him at work writing. He was out in the woods, sitting before a blazing fire, typing away on his laptop. I said, “Who took the picture–a bear?” He said, “I took it myself. Sat the camera down on a stump and ran back to my chair.”

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The levees are breaking–and it’s not even flooding down here!

News reports are flooding the airwaves (hope that’s the only thing that’s flooding) telling that the Corps of Engineers is finding leaks in various levees around the area. It’s the lead headline in Thursday morning’s Times-Picayune, but we’ve been hearing it for days. How can this be happening? The Corps wants to know.

The line that comes to mind from Scripture is this from Jeremiah 12:5, “If you have run with the footmen and they have tired you, how will you run with the horses?” If you can’t protect us in the sunshine, then we’re in big trouble when the storm comes.

They’ve moved the murder trial of local celebrity Vince Marinello to Lafayette. It gets underway in May.

Marinello, you may recall, is the former sports announcer for several stations who–according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office–waited outside the office of his wife’s therapist and, wearing a disguise, shot her to death and tried to make it look like a random mugger. He escaped on a bicycle. However, it came to light that witnesses saw him place the bike in his car trunk, and other witnesses saw him buying the disguise. The smoking gun, so to speak, was the “grocery list” of items he had to do in killing his wife that was found in his home. Not the smartest knife in the drawer if all of this is proven to be true.

The publicity–much of it just like what I’ve written above–has been so widespread Vince’s attorney’s have convinced a judge he could not get a fair trial here, so it was moved 100 miles west to Lafayette.

The Mississippi River is at flood stage for hundreds of miles. Locally, the authorities opened the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway upriver a few miles (between Norco and LaPlace) to siphon off some of the river water into Lake Pontchartrain. From there it can move into the Gulf easily.

Hundreds of residents gathered at the Spillway to watch the gates open. The last time this was done was in 1997, and I was among the sightseers. Not a lot to see. Water pouring through the few gates that are unlocked into the dry land where just days before people were picnicking.

The paper says people walking along the lakefront are finding lots of snakes and alligators that washed into Pontchartrain from the river when they opened the gates. Just what New Orleans needs–some dangerous residents!

Another of our churches is reopening this Sunday, April 20. Shiloh Christian Fellowship, located at 2441 North Claiborne in New Orleans, will have a dedication at 2 pm Sunday. Before Katrina, Edward Scott pastored this congregation. He relocated, and Michael Raymond–who lost his church in the Lower 9th Ward–was called as their shepherd. You’re invited.

The two candidates for the Democratic nomination for president are falling all over themselves in committing blunders. Will someone please give me credit for not mentioning anything about it here?

I told my sister Carolyn–that’s her little note at the end of this article–that commenting on the gaffes of today’s politicians is like clubbing baby seals: it’s easy to do, but afterwards you’re ashamed of yourself!

Do you know those little brass vases people buy and station at graves to hold flowers for their loved ones? Some bad guys in metro New Orleans have been driving through the cemeteries in trucks gathering them in like they were picking peaches. They cost $600 each, we’re told, and the thieves sell them for scrap metal, getting a few bucks each. Anyway, local police have been catching them and finding hundreds of the vases. These extremely foolish thieves will have time in prison to reflect on what they have done.

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In the previous article, part two of “Two Things for Pastors,” in which we tried to affirm pastors by saying that “they don’t understand and cannot know what it’s like to be you,” we left the matter there. However, one way the Holy Spirit teaches me is through the things I read. I am frequently amazed at how pertinent the next thing I read turns out to be.

If you recall, we spoke of the lordly women working at the POW centre in Calcutta and one in particular who so misunderstood the patients and were urging them, now that they were out of prison, to return to England and “do your bit for the country.” Eric Lomax, whose story we were relating, was dumbfounded by such profound ignorance. And we said, “They didn’t understand.”

Now I may have found out why.

The next book I picked up for my bedtime reading is a diary of the Second World War years. “To War With Whitaker: The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939-45” gives the story of Hermione Ranfurly whose husband Dan was a British Count and who led an incredibly busy six years while the world tried to self-destruct. She tells of hobnobbing with the likes of Churchill, Eisenhower, and other notables. (Note to Ginger: a British count is at the opposite end of the social spectrum from an Alabama no-count. In case you were wondering.)

Dan Ranfurly was a member of a British fighting group called the Sherwood Rangers. He was captured and held in an Italian prison camp for a couple of years. Lady Ranfurly’s diary gives us snippets from letters he wrote to her from the POW camp. As you read the two samples below, remember what Eric Lomax was being subjected to at the very same moment in a Japanese camp on the other side of the world. The contrast is stunning.

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1) What’s a Pastor to Do When Those Anonymous Letters Start Arriving

Don Wilton, pastor of Spartanburg’s First Baptist Church, tells how he handled the anonymous letters in his book, “See You at the Finish Line”(Thomas Nelson, 2006).

From Wilton’s description, these hostile, anonymous letters were not like any I’ve ever received. The writer went to a great deal of trouble to make them, cutting out every letter from magazines and pasting them into words and sentences on a page torn from a religious publication. At first, the letters came to the church, then they started showing up in the mailbox at the Wilton home. As time went on, their tone became more and more critical, more and more hostile.

Early on, the Wiltons decided to tell no one and to do nothing but pray for the writer of the letters. One day, as Karyn returned from the mailbox, she was laughing. They had received another hate letter, but this one was different. “You will not believe what our friend has done,” she said to Don. “He forgot to take the mailing label off the magazine before he sent it!” There it was–the writer’s name and address on the back page.

The Wiltons knew this man. He was a veteran member of the church, a family man, and a deacon. From that moment, they began to pray for him by name, asking the Lord to show them how to handle this.

One day, Don called the deacon and asked him to come by his office for a few minutes. When he arrived, the pastor told him that someone had been sending critical letters to his home, making ridiculous and untruthful accusations. The man’s face reddened, and his fists clenched as though for a fight. He said, “Pastor, are you accusing me of sending those letters?”

“Oh no,” Don said, gently. “I’m not accusing you at all. But I do think you need to know that the writer sent the letters on a page torn from a religious publication. The last one he sent still had the mailing label on the back. And it had your name on it.”

As that soaked in, Don continued. “This person must have taken your magazine. Maybe someone is trying to set you up.”

“I asked you to come here today,” he said, “so we can pray for this person. We need the Lord’s direction on how to handle this.”

The man was shaken. He stood up and said, “I’ll find out who’s doing this, pastor. I’ll not have someone using my name like that!”

The letters stopped. For several months, that deacon was absent from church. The Wiltons continued to pray for him and his wife. Then one day he showed up at the church office.

“Pastor,” he said, “I wanted to let you know I found out who was sending those letters to you. I’ve dealt with him and he has left the church. I’d rather not tell you who it is. He wants you to know he’s deeply sorry that he caused you pain.”

With that, the man turned and walked out of the office. The matter was never mentioned again and the letters ceased. Don writes, “That man was a faithful and loving member in my church for many years to come. I love him, and to this day I know he loves me.”

The enemy would have the pastor retaliate in anger and vindictiveness. God is glorified when we seek His guidance through prayer, then wait for His leadership.

Nothing tells the story on us better than how we handle criticism. Nothing says maturity like praying and waiting on the Lord.

2) When You Feel No One Understands, Pastor…

I was reading Eric Lomax’ account of his World War II experiences in “The Railway Man: A POW’s searing account of war, brutality and forgiveness.” Born and raised in Scotland, Lomax joined the British Army’s “Royal Corps of Signals” just ahead of the draft in 1939. Before long, he was in Singapore, helping to protect this anchor of the British Empire in the Far East. A few weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they took Singapore. On February 16, 1942, Eric Lomax became one of the thousands and thousands of British soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese for the duration of the Second World War.

From that day in 1942 until the POWs were liberated in August of 1945, Lomax was tortured and beaten, subjected to every kind of imprisonment and psychological torment, starved, isolated, grilled for days on end while deprived of sleep, and nearly killed on several occasions. He weighed just over 100 pounds when the Allies entered the prison.

Now, here’s what I wanted to tell you….

As they were being returned to their homeland, the transports stopped off in Calcutta at a huge residence that had been converted into a reception center for returning POWs. The center (Lomax calls it a “centre”) was run by a group of women volunteers whom he describes as “brisk self-confident women used to servants and to getting their own way.” One afternoon, as Lomax and a friend were resting on the veranda with their tea, one of these take-charge dowagers approached. “Well, gentlemen,” she said, “I am certain that since you were prisoners-of-war during most of the fighting, you surely will be eager to get back into it and do your bit for the country now.”

Lomax says, “There wasn’t a trace of irony in her voice.” No doubt she was picturing these men as laying up in camps bored and restless with nothing to do. The ignorance of the woman was overwhelming. Lomax writes, “We held the sides of our chairs tightly and said nothing.”

There was nothing to say. Such ignorance defies an appropriate rejoinder. The woman just didn’t understand.

Now, the Apostle Paul. The text is Second Corinthians chapter 11. The almost inconceivable is happening. This church in Corinth, Greece, which he personally began and whose leaders he selected and trained, this congregation that has been so dear to his heart, is rejecting him in favor of a group of flashy, shallow, smooth-talking pretty-boys who have arrived on the scene in Greece ready to “put this church on the map.”

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Dear James,

I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I suppose I’m the right one to unload on, having fought a few of these church battles over the years and with the scars to prove it.

Once a small group was meeting in the foyer of my church every Sunday to pool their hostilities and plan their attacks against me. Finally, I decided to call the attention of the congregation to what they were doing. In the sermon I said, “I want you who are doing this to know two things: God is using this in my life to make me stronger. And two, you will have to stand before Him and give account for what you are doing to His servant. When that time comes, I wouldn’t be in your shoes for all the money in the world.”

The good news in my case is that I outlived my opponents. Either they gave up or moved away or it could have been a couple of funerals, but the opposition died out and the last few years in that church were a dream. It was worth going through the storm to enjoy the sunshine on the other side.

Anyway, I want you to know I’m hurting for you. And I want to mention a couple of specific areas in which I am praying for you.

First, I pray that the day will come when you will look back at this as the best thing that has ever happened to you. Well, one of the best things.

I’m thinking of Eli, a preacher I knew from the time he was a college student. When he became a pastor, he was a holy terror. He packed the crowds in and reported huge numbers to the denomination, but he seemed to be angry all the time. I ran into him ten years later and he was a different person. His wife had divorced him and the church had fired him. He became a broken man. But then the Lord put him back together. At the time, he was serving on the staff of a church in a different state and having a significant ministry to people who had been chewed up and spit out by life.

I said to Eli, “Looking back at your previous ministry, you probably see a different quality in the work you’re doing now.” He laughed. “I’m doing the greatest work of my life. Everything I did before God broke me was in the flesh for my own glory.”

I heard an old preacher say once, “Sometimes the Lord has to get us flat of our back so we will look up.”

Anyway, James, I pray the Lord will use this in your life.

I remember something my Dad used to say about his six children. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for one of them, and I wouldn’t give you a dime for another.” One day, that’s how you will feel about what you’re going through right now.

The other thing I pray is that you will get past the hurt and the pain and the Lord will heal you. And, I have some specific suggestions on how to do that.

Let me tell you a story.

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