The Renewing of the Ninth Ward

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Wednesday of this week, a friend from North Carolina who serves his association as its director of missions, the same assignment I have in New Orleans, flew in to town, stayed eight hours, and returned home at suppertime. In between, he saw the following: the headquarters of NAMB’s Operation NOAH Rebuild and talked to the staff there; the Lakewood section of New Orleans and the First Baptist Church; our associational offices, where he met with David Rhymes our evangelism strategist; lunch at Cafe Roma with three of our young pastors; the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where he met with Dr. Ken Gabrielse; New Orleans East as seen from Interstate 10, then St. Bernard Parish where he saw the Chalmette High School and toured Hopeview Church which is now serving as our Volunteer Village; Delacroix Hope Church in lower St. Bernard Parish where he met with Pastor Boogie Melerine; back through Poydras and a tour of the FBC of Chalmette; a tour of the worst hit place in our city, the lower 9th ward, mostly vacant lots these days; the section of new homes on Alvar Street variously called Musician’s Village and Baptist Crossroads; the Baptist Friendship House where Karina America gave him a quick tour; and finally, the Vieux Carre’ Baptist Church in the French Quarter where he visited with Pastor Greg Hand and assistant, Greg Wilton. Then, on to the airport.

I’m confident he collapsed once he sat down to wait for his plane. He’s interested in bringing groups down to help rebuild our city, and we wanted to be good stewards of his time.

At the multicolored Habitat homes on Alvar Street (and several blocks in and around there), I talked to several people who were working. She was from Chicago: “My husband grew up here, and he really has this city on his heart.” He was from Berkeley, California: “Our company brought some of us in here to work.” And Matt was from Seattle: “I’ve been here before. What keeps me coming back is the Baptists.” (Really. He said that.) “I’ve never known such wonderful people with such great hearts.”

Then, Thursday morning, the Times-Picayune ran a long article about these homes. Here are excerpts. And keep in mind, that what we call Baptist Crossroads, many others call Musicians’ Village. Jim Pate of Habitat told me they don’t try to differeniate.

Staff writer Leslie Williams wrote:

“On Alvar Street in the Upper Ninth Ward, the landscape speaks volumes about rebuilding efforts guided by Habitat for Humanity verses those of the free market and government.”

“Brightly colored homes–tangerine, powder blue, sienna, and yellow–with porches and gardens line the Habitat side of Alvar from North Roman to North Johnson Streets.”

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Conversation With the Director of Missions: Stand In His Council

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“I’m just a consensus builder, that’s all.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said.

“Then why all the flack? You’d think the church would be happy.”

“My perception, pastor, is that they are happy with you, just dissatisfied with what they perceive as a lack of leadership from you.”

“But I don’t get it. I’m trying to get everyone together on the same page before we go forward. I like unity and harmony in the church. Who can have a problem with that?”

“On the surface, that looks right.”

“Implying that underneath the surface, it’s wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Possibly. But not necessarily. Things that are right underneath also look right on the surface.”

“Come on, you’re hedging. Get to the point.”

“Well, sooner or later, you’re going to have to take a stand. To go before the church and say ‘This is what I perceive the Lord is leading us to do.’ It’s called leadership.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What?”

“That’s hard for me. I don’t like to make people unhappy. Going back to childhood, my nature has always been to please people. If I could do something to make my parents happy, I did it.”

“Pastor, I have some bad news for you.”

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The Best-Kept Secrets in New Orleans

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All day Tuesday, a group of 15 or 20 of us who comprise the board of New Orleans Baptist Missions met at the Baptist Friendship House at 813 Elysian Fields Avenue for our semi-annual get-together. It’s hard to tell who’s a board member and who a missionary of the North American Mission Board; we’re all on the same team. Dr. Wanda Lee was present. She’s a veteran missionary of the International Mission Board and the executive-director of Southern Baptists’ Woman’s Missionary Union, based in Birmingham. Dr. Richard Leach and Dr. Jean White of NAMB (Alpharetta, Georgia) were present. From our state convention, Mike Canady.

Local missionaries Larry Miguez, Linda Middlebrooks, Kay Bennett, Karina America, Jennifer Fannin, Skider Chatham, Dr. Tobey Pitman, David Maxwell, and Freddie Arnold were on hand. That leaves president of the NOBM board Dr. David Crosby, Loretta Rivers, Dr. Guy Williams, Gwen “Miss Chocolate” Williams, Mel Jones, and me. I’m sure I’m leaving someone out.

We heard reports about the ongoing ministries of the Rachel Sims Baptist Center and the Carver Center, both located in the uptown area of New Orleans and ministering to inner city children. Larry Miguez is over both centers, with Linda Middlebrooks assisting him at Rachel Sims and Jennifer Fannin at Carver. They are incredible servants of God, pouring out their lives for Christ in some difficult situations.

Lots of positive things to report. Rachel Sims and Carver are providing ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for some 22 participants at the moment. They have programs to prepare people to take their GED exams. Puppet ministries, after school homework clubs, and discipleship classes. They host volunteers in their buildings–i.e., church teams from outside our area–who come to minister in the inner city. Director Larry Miguez reports that the centers are almost totally booked for the summer of 2008. With Pastor Kelly O’Connor, they’ve started a mission church at Carver.

At the same time, these neighborhoods are experiencing an unprecedented level of violence. “Why such an increase in violence?” Larry Miguez was asked.

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LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 31–“Develop a Spine”

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Today, I had coffee with a friend of many years whom I served on staff with a long time ago.  At one point, he mentioned a pastor he served under after I departed.  “As fine a preacher as he was,” said my friend, “he so hated conflict he would do anything to avoid it.”

At one point, said he, the pastor arranged to be out of town when my friend the staffer was going to be needing him to take a strong stand.

That pastor impressed a lot of people by his preaching and disappointed quite a few who had needed him to show some courage and take a stand.

Let’s talk about that.

Perhaps the nicest guy ever to occupy the White House lived there only six months. After his March 1881 inauguration, James A. Garfield, our 20th president, was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, described in history books as a disappointed office seeker. Garfield died in September of that year. As for Guiteau, what he was, in the words of Andy Taylor referring to Barney Fife, was a nut.

In Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield, Kenneth D. Ackerman penned the most readable account of an historical event you will ever find. Now, I’m a history student (history major in both college and seminary), so I’m accustomed to slogging through the most boring books in order to learn about someone from the distant past. This book, however, is a page turner, and I recommend it highly.

Garfield’s nemesis was Roscoe Conkling, an egotistical senator from New York. He was a dandy dresser who worked out to keep his body looking sharp in a day when to be stout was proof of a man’s success. Conkling was a ladies’ man who broke his marriage vows regularly, his wife’s heart deeply, and other people’s marriages thoughtlessly. The power behind the political machine controlling New York politics, nothing happened without Conkling’s say-so.

In those days, one of the most powerful appointments a president could make was the head of the U. S. Customs House in New York harbor. Almost all foreign shipments arrived in this country through that port, meaning this office collected untold millions of dollars in federal taxes. Thousands of people worked under the authority of the director, and in the days before civil service, New York City political bosses took care of their people by filling those lucrative positions.

Until Garfield, the head of that government bureau was always approved by the boss of New York politics, in this case Roscoe Conkling. This was the price the president paid for receiving the support of Conkling’s machine. In our day, this would be like the governor of Virginia being allowed to select the head of the CIA or the Secretary of Defense since their headquarters are located inside that state. Presidents regularly caved in to Conkling’s bullying tactics.

Repeatedly, Garfield’s attempted to get along with Conkling, to give him what he asked for, to satisfy his demands which seemed limitless, anything to avoid a showdown with the man. Reading this account, one keeps waiting for the president to show some backbone and stand up to this tyrant.

Eventually Garfield did.

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Looking for Autumn, Finding More

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I drove to Birmingham looking for Autumn on Saturday, October 13. Nope, they didn’t have it. Then, Sunday afternoon, drove 60 miles north to see Mom and Dad, thinking they might be holding Autumn hostage up in Winston County. Again, nothing but warm sultry days and nights.

Friday, October 19, I flew to Washington, D.C., and found the first indications that Autumn is alive and well and considering coming south. A few trees were showing their colors and the air, while still on the warmish side, was fresh and breezy. I stayed 24 hours and could have stayed a year.

Saturday–yesterday–was election day in Louisiana. I voted last week since I would be out of town, and stood in line for 30 minutes for the privilege. Mostly, the election results appear encouraging.

We have elected Bobby Jindal as our new governor, and this without a runoff. He was running against a crowded field (12 candidates), but mainly against Walter Boasso of St. Bernard Parish. Boasso is a self-made millionaire and the state senator who kept the matter of consolidation of the levee boards before the people of this state. When the timid legislature refused to take the lead, Boasso went to the public via the media and the citizens raised up with one voice to insist that this foolishness be stopped. That’s when a lot of our elected officials in Baton Rouge “came to Jesus,” as my friend Lonnie Wascom puts it. They saw the hand-writing on the wall and ran out in head of the crowd, trying to re-establish themselves as leaders. We ended up with two levee boards, one for each side of the Mississippi. I once told Walter Boasso, “You are my hero.”

But I voted for Jindal.

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LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 30–“Be Kind to Your Predecessor; Someday You’ll be One.”

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There’s something about us preachers. Maybe it’s in the DNA. It’s one more indication of our fallen nature, as though we need more of those. Here’s what we do.

In order to make myself look good, in order to impress you with my situation, in order to show you what a great job I’ve done at this church, I put someone else down.

The first time I saw it to know its true character, a preacher acquaintance had gone to pastor a downtown church in a huge city. He was always a let’s-think-outside-the-box type, before anyone had ever thought to put it that way. He was an innovator, a motivator, a let’s-get-‘er-done type. And that’s what he did at that church.

Within a year, he had that church packed to the rafters with people he had attracted by his unorthodox ways, captivating preaching, and bright personality. He was baptizing a thousand people a year when no one else on the planet was doing that. And he led that church to relocate, to get out of the concrete jungle where they owned no parking and to erect a great campus on the interstate where they would be visible to the world. He was a natural born fund-raiser and inspired his people to contribute millions of dollars–not one or two, but many millions–to pay for that vast acreage and the spacious state-of-the-art buildings. Everything he did was the biggest, the best, the brightest.

Most of us were understandably in awe of him.

When the invitations to speak in other places began to pour in, opportunities to tell the story of his church and how God had used him there, he saw this as an open door to help other pastors and churches to reach their communities. That’s when most of the pastors of my generation learned about him. And it is fair to say that along with most everyone else who ever heard him, we sat in awe of his preaching and fell in love with his personality. He became a genuine star.

“When I arrived,” he would tell his audiences, “that church was dead, dead, dead. There might have been 300 souls sitting in that cavern of a building, all of them waiting for the undertaker. They had not done anything for years.”

Prior to his coming, the previous pastors had been status-quo types who could not see the vast opportunity God had placed before them. He didn’t use the actual word, but we all knew those guys had been real losers.

He went on, “One day I asked the treasurer, ‘What is this $60,000 doing in a savings account?’ He said, ‘It’s for a rainy day.’ I told him, ‘Good lord, man! It’s been raining for years!!'”

We all laughed. Great fun, good entertainment for the preacher crowd, sharp put-downs for the sightless leadership many of us in the audience were saddled with in our churches. It felt good to see someone go in to a dead church, weed out the do-nothings, and establish a mighty work of faith.

One day something occurred to me. With the nation-wide publicity this preacher brother is getting for the phenomenal work God has done through him in that city, with the acclaim that comes through resurrecting a dead church and building one that is attacking the very gates of hell, with all of us bowing before this preacher in our best “we’re not worthy” manner, I wonder.

I wonder about his predecessor. Who is the pastor who served that church before him, back when it was “dead, dead, dead.” And how is he feeling along about now? Is he still pastoring, or I found myself hoping, was he in his grave so he doesn’t have to listen to this?

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LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 29–“Love the Church Or Go Into Some Other Line of Work”

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My friend John was a flockless shepherd, a pastor lacking a congregation. It’s an awkward place in life for a preacher to find himself. Like being a lover without a sweetheart, a physician with no one to help, a teacher with no pupils.

“I have to preach,” he said to me. “Preaching is everything to me! Preaching is my passion.”

I said, “That’s not good, John. Preaching was never meant to be your passion. Jesus Christ is supposed to be your passion.”

Give John credit; he heard that. “Wow,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a bucket of ice water. Thank you for bringing me back to reality.”

Personally, I’m not sure the Lord calls anyone to preach, as the expression goes. He calls us into His service to do whatever He commands. That may indeed be to preach the gospel in pastoring or evangelism, but as with my situation, often the specifics change. After 42 years of pulpit ministry, I moved into administration and the pastoral care of pastors. I still preach, but irregularly and in churches everywhere. Yet, I’m still in the ministry, still wearing the uniform, still heeding the Master’s commands.

We’re supposed to love the Lord our God supremely, first of all and most of all. Everything else comes next. Including a deep love for His church.

Now, just as my friend John focused too intently on preaching and possibly put it ahead of his loyalty to Christ, some do that with the church.

I was listening on my car radio to Wallace, another pastor friend, who was making an evangelistic appeal. He said something like, “If you are lost, if you are seeking direction in life, you are carrying guilt over a life of rebellion and neglect, you want to find new meaning and forgiveness and purpose in life, my friend, you need a new relationship….” At this point, I knew what was coming. He would tell the listeners about Jesus Christ and salvation.

But I was wrong.

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LEARNING THE MASTER’S LESSONS

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I’m 67 years old, I’ve been a Christian since I was 11, I’ve been reading the Bible since I was 8, and I’m still making discoveries in the Word.

Everyone knows the two miracles in Jesus’ ministry when, on two separate occasions, He fed over 5,000 people and over 4,000 people. In both cases, the menu was loaves and fishes, it was a miraculous multiplication of resources, every person present had all they could eat, and baskets filled with leftovers were gathered up.

On at least two occasions afterwards, the Lord called the attention of His disciples to those miracles in an attempt to make certain they had grasped the meaning and learned the lessons the miracles meant to convey.

In Matthew 16, Jesus directed the disciples’ attention to these miracles. As the disciples prepare to cross Galilee, the Lord overhears them arguing over who was supposed to bring bread. “Why are you worrying about bread? Do you not understand or can’t you remember the two miracles? In the feeding of the 5,000 with the 5 loaves, how many basketsful did you pick up? And the 7 loaves that fed the 4,000, how many baskets you picked up?” Then, further reinforcing that this is not about meeting their material needs, Jesus said, “How is it that you do not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread?”

And that’s all He said. Nothing more. No belaboring the point, as I would have done. No haranguing them, no repetition of the lessons of the loaves and the fishes, nothing. He had given them the tools and expected them to figure this out.

So, then–what is the lesson of the loaves and the fishes? To find the same answer as the disciples, we have to answer the Lord’s questions. In the first miracle, how many baskets of leftovers were picked up? Twelve. In the second, when 4,000 were fed, seven were picked up.

In the scriptures, the number twelve represents the people of God. Twelve tribes in the Old Testament, twelve apostles in the New. In Revelation, 24 elders stand around the throne, representing the saints of both the Old and New Testament days.

Seven means completeness or sufficiency. Seven days in a week, seven lamps on the menorah in the Temple, and so on.

Twelve baskets and 7 baskets: “Jesus Christ is sufficient for the people of God.”

That was the lesson, and what a great one it was. The Lord’s sufficiency for His people is found all through the Bible. We think of the Old Testament name for God, “YHVH YIREH,” commonly referred to as “Jehovah Jireh,” meaning “The Lord will See To It,” or “The Lord Who Provides.”

Think of the opening words of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Then, everyone’s favorite verses, Philippians 4:13 and 4:19.

So, the Lord said to the disciples, “Stop worrying about bread. Did you not learn that I am sufficient for your needs?”

He had performed the miracles and sent the lesson, but they had not given any thought to His intended meaning for them and were no better off than before.

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CONVERSATION WITH THE DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS: “Pay Thy Workers”

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“I appreciate your coming by, pastor. There’s something I need to talk with you about.”

“Always glad to see my director of missions. What’s going on?”

“I want to tell you a little story about a pastor I met this week. I was speaking at a senior adult thing at Camp Living Waters up at Loranger.”

“I love that place. We take our kids there every summer.”

“After my message, various ones were coming by to express thanks or to ask a question. Then, this pastor came by. He reminded me that I had drawn a cartoon for him several years ago. Of course, I didn’t remember it.”

“Anyway,” I continued, “it had to do with a revival he had preached in another pastor’s church. He drove a couple of hundred miles to get there, spent four days in the town doing everything he could to help that church, including preaching six sermons. And when it was over, he said, they gave him 75 dollars. That, and two cases of toilet cleanser.”

“Are you serious?”

“That is exactly what I asked. He said he was. The cartoon I drew showed him hanging around the church with all that toilet cleanser. And someone is saying, ‘I think he’s waiting on the turnip greens.'”

“Turnip greens? I don’t get it.”

“It’s the way they did things in the old days, you know. They’d pay the preacher in vegetables.”

“Oh. That was rather cruel, wasn’t it.”

“It was. This man has a family to provide for, bills to pay, and a car to maintain. And they hardly gave him enough to buy the gas.”

“And your point for me is?”

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