One of my favorite verses on the death/burial/resurrection of Jesus is Acts 26:26. Easy to remember that way–26:26. Paul is on trial yet again, this time before King Agrippa and Governor Festus. He gives his testimony, telling why he’s living the very life he once fought against, and then transitions into the message which he now preaches. Good strategy. Like a modern candidate who gets asked one question but quickly moves into the message he wants people to hear.

Paul says, “I started preaching this message to those at Damascus, then to Jerusalem and Judea, and then to anyone who would listen, even the Gentiles. I told them they should repent and turn to God. That’s been my message. So why am I on trial? Good question. I’m being tried for preaching nothing but the very things which Moses and the prophets predicted. And what was that? That the Messiah (Christ) would suffer and rise from the dead, and that He would be the first to proclaim light to Jews and Gentiles.”

At this point, Festus interrupted. “Paul, you are completely insane. You have overtaxed your brain with all that learning”–no one ever accused the Apostle Paul of being ignorant, although many of his later defenders qualify in that regard–“and you have completely lost it.”

Paul answered, “I am most definitely not out of my mind, most excellent Festus. I’m simply preaching the truth. King Agrippa knows. He has been observing these things all along. Nothing has escaped his notice. Because….”

And here it comes.

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“I wish our leaders would speak out more on social and moral issues,” one of our pastors said today. “The newspaper calls the Catholics. Why don’t we Baptists have a voice?”

The speaker was quick to admit that he lives out of the area and is not up on the day-to-day events in the city. I told him that one of our leading pastors, David Crosby of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, is a frequent writer for the op-ed page of the Times-Picayune. His article against gambling ran last week and I forwarded it to the Baptist Press which is running it today on www.bpnews.net. David is an excellent writer and speaks clearly and forcefully on these matters.

I told how I was invited to write for the same page but found it harder to do than I thought and was not able to pull it off. Then the editorial writer called and said she had taken part of one of our blogs and whittled it down to proper size. It ran several weeks ago. The point being, we’re trying.

In presenting Pastor Greg Hand to the Wednesday pastors’ group, I began: “How would you like to pastor in the French Quarter? Everywhere you look, there’s a need. Nothing normal, no residential area as such, no vast green lawns, no children at play. Narrow streets clogged with traffic day and night. And yet that is where Greg and Wren Hand have chosen to live out the Lord’s call upon their lives.”

“Pray for us,” Greg began. “It’s hard.” Vieux Carre’ Baptist Church has been a lighthouse in that dark area for over 40 years, he said. Located one block over from Bourbon Street on Dauphine, the church is equipped to house church teams that come down to minister and witness in the Quarter. “We’re doing outreach to the homeless on Monday and Thursday nights,” Greg said, “and a Bible study Wednesday night. And something new for us–we have a Friday night outreach to the homosexual community. Led by a former member of that group whose life was transformed by Christ.”

“My wife and I are having a tough time,” said Pastor Kenneth Foy. “For one thing, we’re both unemployed.” They’ve just been back in the city a couple of weeks and he’s trying to re-establish his counseling ministry. “African-Americans don’t normally run to psychiatrists for counsel,” he said. “For one thing, there’s the stigma. And the other, is the cost. Instead, they go to the church.” So Kenneth is hoping our pastors will get the word out that he is here and available to help.

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Tuesday afternoon, I drove from our Lakeshore offices out Interstate 10 east toward St. Bernard Parish. It’s been weeks since I’ve been out this way and the changes are noticeable. What used to be Lake Forest Mall is now a pile of rubble. Apartment complexes damaged by Katrina are now vacant lots. A store is operating here, a tire dealership or automobile agency there, but mostly the place is deserted and shopping centers are defunct.

Interstate 510 South to Paris Road leading into St. Bernard, the report is mixed. Some places out of business for nearly two years, a law office in a trailer, the prows of boats still poking out of the canal where Katrina left them, some places doing great business. Some of the fast food restaurants look brand new and were filled at 1:30. Construction trucks speeding up and down a busy St. Bernard Highway.

Workers have torn down the educational building beside the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Chalmette. Builders for Christ is mobilizing hundreds of volunteers to erect a new, modern sanctuary over the remains of the old one. Right now, it appears they have their work cut out for them.

Downriver, a newly restored mansion sits beside one the hurricane gutted out and which has not been touched since. People are rebuilding their homes up against the levees on the other side of which flows the mighty Mississippi. Either they have great confidence in the Corps of Engineers or the Lord or something. Scary.

Poydras Baptist Church looks good. Last I heard, they’re still meeting in their fellowship hall until the sanctuary is rebuilt. Half their membership still displaced.

Boogie Melerine was the object of this trip. He promised to give me a tour of the Creedmore Presbyterian Church a few miles south of Poydras, the church that the Presbytery of South Louisiana is donating to Boogie’s Delacroix-Hope congregation for their new site.

“I want to see your upholstery shop,” I told Boogie. “How can you put 70 people in there on Sunday?” He said, “We’ve had as high as 90.” Walk through his garage and you enter what functions as the fellowship hall of his congregation. Tables and chairs remain set up for Sunday. “We eat here after church every Sunday. About half stay.”

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“He who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.” (Zechariah 2:8)

Whether you honor the church or dishonor her, the Lord takes it personally. He is so bound up with the welfare of this group that in Scripture He calls the church “the Body of Christ”. When the Lord caught the church-assassinator Saul of Tarsus headed for Damascus to arrest more Christians, He said to him, “Why do you persecute me?” Saul blinked into that blinding light trying to make out that voice. “Who are you, Lord?” he muttered. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,” the Voice said. And Saul said, “Well, I’ve been planning to quit and now seems like a good time.”

I just made that last line up. But he must have thought it.

Pastor Jerry Smith published a long list of friends from all over the country who have aided Pontchartrain Baptist Church in its slow hard climb from the despair of Katrina. As I read over the list, the thought occurred that Jesus Christ has these folks on His list, too. They honor Him when they honor His church.

Pastor Thomas Winn and Grace Baptist Church of Jackson, MS. First Baptist Church of Clinton, LA. Calvary Baptist Church of Mt. Airy, NC. The Baptist campus ministry of Delta State University. Truett-McConnell College of Cleveland, GA. Colony Park Baptist Church of Madison, MS. Muller Paint Co. Sterling Electric. Donnie’s Plumbing. Terry’s All-Around Construction. Kayla Lyles. John Dambold. Bob and Linda Jackson and the NOBTS MissionLab. Mike Brady’s Red Beans and Rice. J & R Equipment Rental. Garden Specialities. Jeffery Raymond. Platts Supermarket of Creola, AL. Lynda Murrah. Des Allemands Baptist Church.

“In June of 2005, I resigned from this church,” Pastor Jerry Smith said today at the rededication of the Pontchartrain Church. “My health had gotten so bad, I couldn’t stand in the pulpit. I told them I’d stay on until they found someone. I’m still here.”

“When Katrina came, my wife and I had a disagreement. She wanted to stay and I wanted to leave. I had never left before. We went to Jackson, Mississippi, to be with our children. We watched the tragedy of this city on television. The hurricane came and went, then they said the levees broke. I’m hard of hearing. I asked my wife, ‘The levees did what?'”

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When my nearly 91-year-old mother on the remote Alabama farm says she heard that New Orleans is the murder capital of the world, the secret is out.

I tried explaining that it’s just New Orleans proper, not all the surrounding areas, that it’s a per capita thing, not the total number of murders, and that with the population of the city less than half what it used to be, that is not necessarily a high number. But no matter. The damage is done.

Now the bad press is bearing fruit.

“Groups call off meetings in N.O.,” trumpeted the headline in Friday’s newspaper. Two medium-sized trade groups scheduled to bring some 6,000 visitors to town and use 12,000 rooms over a weekend and therefore help the local economy have canceled their conventions. The two associations cited the high crime rate and the problems of the city’s slow recovery from the hurricane.

Argue all we want, it’s a done deal. Point out that the National Association of Realtors brought 25,000 to town in November, that Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society brought in 24,000 in February, and the American College of Cardiology a whopping 30,000 just last week. They all reported successful meetings in our city. When contacted, spokespersons for the two smaller conventions that just canceled cited concerns over the “unfortunate events” that have occurred in the city recently–presumably, the killings–and their belief that their members will not want to journey to New Orleans for this meeting. Since both organizations have contracts with the Morial Convention Center, canceling will cost them some bucks.

A medical doctor called from Mississippi. He will be doing specialty training with a local hospital for a year or two, and wants to find employment for his wife who is a trained pastoral counselor. If they’re unable to find her a position, he says, they will live on the Northshore (anywhere from Hammond to Covington to Slidell) and he would commute. “She’s deathly afraid of moving to New Orleans,” he said.

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“Dear Joe: Enclosed is our check for $3,319.72. During the evacuation for Hurricane Katrina, Boulevard Baptist Church in Lake Charles was an evacuee site. A church in Decatur, Illinois sent them $4,000 to minister to Katrina’s evacuees. This is the remainder of those funds, unused due to Hurricane Rita coming to town.”

They sent the money in our direction so we could use it to minister to churches and pastors. Lynn in our office and I talked of several congregations in our association, then sent checks of $1,000 to three churches and a check for the remaining $319.72 to one of our pastors who will find a good use for it.

Such fun. One of my favorite things to do. I’ll be writing a thank-you to Boulevard Baptist Church in Lake Charles and to their director of missions, my counterpart, J. P. Miles.

This afternoon, I wrote a thank-you to the Presbytery of South Louisiana. Those Presbyterians have quickly become some of our favorite people.

I’ve mentioned here how Pastor James “Boogie” Melerine of the Delacroix-Hope Baptist Church in St. Bernard Parish has seen his church attendance triple since Katrina, from 25 to 75, and that they’re now meeting on his property while they look for a place to meet permanently. The little Creedmore Presbyterian Church down there has seen its membership dwindle over the years, and drastically as a result of Katrina. Boogie has talked to the remaining members about merging and investigated the possibility of buying the church buildings.

Today, Wednesday, Boogie brought a letter to our weekly pastors meeting, one he had received from The Rev. Dr. Alan Cutter, General Presbyter of the Presbytery of South Louisiana, headquartered in Baton Rouge. Here’s the letter. You will recognize the final sentence as the one that drew the murmurs of appreciation from the 50 or so ministers and guests present.

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One. No one ever starts tithing if he waits until he can afford it.

Everyone I know needs a little more money than they have now. Suggest that they take the first 10 percent of their income and give it to the Lord through His church, and you’ve asked them to do something extremely difficult. It’s a tremendous faith decision and was probably even meant by the Lord to be hard.

So, underline this, highlight it, capitalize it: BEGINNING TO TITHE IS TOUGH! Always has been, always will be–for everyone. No exception.

And yet, there is a little deception that plays in the back of our minds. “We will start tithing when we get the next raise.” A better job. Past these bills. When the kids leave home. Come into our inheritance.

But it’s a deception. It is not going to happen. If you’re not tithing now, having more money is not going to make it easier to begin.

Anyone who begins to tithe does so when he cannot afford it. You just take it off the top, write that check and with perhaps a little fear and trepidation, give it to the Lord in prayer, and go forward. Faith.

Expect it to be hard for a while and for your fears to well back up each payday. Do not do this automatically; do it prayerfully. Let your check-writing and your offering-giving be acts of worship, both at the kitchen table and in the church pew.

We might should emphasize that tithing is not the end-all and be-all of the Christian. It’s one aspect and only one of a full Christian life, one characterized by devotion to the Savior, dedication to the Word and prayer and worship, and by obedience in every area of life. We must never mislead some carnal church member to think that if he starts tithing, he’s going to get something from God.

First, give yourself to the Lord, then give what you have to Him. In turn, He will give Himself and what He has to you, and you will come out the winner, believe me!

Two. After the first year or so, tithing becomes easier.

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Two main items in the news caught my attention. First, the one about money.

Despite the money insurers have paid out to Katrina victims over the past year, we learn now that the big insurance companies have just had their best year ever. The Times-Picayune reports that Allstate–much maligned in this part of the world for its stingy payouts to their customers–earned a whopping $5 billion last year. State Farm’s profits were up 65 percent. St. Paul Traveler’s earnings rose sixfold in the fourth quarter, and American International Group (AIG) saw its profits rise eightfold. Profits are expected to be high in 2007 too.

Anyone smell a rat? Listen to some of these companies and you would think they are about to go belly-up and cannot afford to insure people in this part of the world any longer. (As obscene as the gas company profits are–and we’re all stunned to learn of the billions they earn at a time when the gas prices keep going up–at no point do they suggest they ought to quit selling their product. Insurance companies do however.)

People who know tell us that insurers are themselves insured, that they do not bear the full weight of liability for the properties they insure, and that if a catastrophe hits, they are protected. Otherwise, one big hurricane could wipe them out. Okay, makes sense. And, apparently, that’s what happened.

J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the non-profit Consumer Federation of America, is coming down hard on the insurance companies. Hunter says the reason their profits are so high is that they have used Katrina and other major hurricanes to justify “overpricing insurance, underpaying claims and reaping unjustified profits” at the expense of homeowners and business owners. He expects these companies will continue to prosper because they are increasing costs, upping deductibles, and excluding high risks from the policies.

Eileen Frank, a former resident of our state and an insurance broker in New York, disputes the insurance industry’s claim that they have already paid out 95 percent of the claims made since Katrina. Many others are still pending, she says, and cites personal examples of being shunted from one adjuster to another with the people she was trying to help.

Frank gave an example of a homeowner whose insurance she handled recently. Prior to Katrina, he paid $2,000 a year for insurance; now it’s three times that. Worse, the policy now has a deductible for wind damage in an amount equal to 5 percent of the house’s value. That is, if my house is worth $200,000 and we have a hurricane, the first $10,000 of damage is my problem.

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One reason this city has always held such a fascination to Americans is due to so many flavors of nationalities–people from all over the world live here. Case in point.

Saturday, down in St. Bernard Parish, the annual “Los Islenos Festival” was held, even though most of the members of this group are living elsewhere since Katrina. In the 1700s, residents of the Canary Islands moved to this most eastern of our bayou parishes and their people have been here ever since. The parish started the festival some 30 years ago to honor this part of their heritage.

And why were Canary Islanders of all people moving here? I’ve not been there, but we’re told that the islands making up this little colony in the eastern Atlantic has some of the loveliest scenery on the planet. It turns out that Spain–owner of the Louisiana territory at that time–paid the Islanders to move here to protect the colony from the British, the Canary Islands being a Spanish territory.

Drive up the highway a few miles and we have neighborhoods populated by thousands of Vietnamese. West of New Orleans is a little fishing village named “Des Allemands.” French for “The Germans.” We have the Irish Channel and St. Patrick’s Day parades and all kinds of Italian events. And did we say we have Cajuns?

We have several Korean Baptist churches in New Orleans, one Chinese, one Vietnamese, two Haitian, and at various times have had works with a number of French-speaking congregations as well as West Indian, Middle East, Portuguese-speaking, and such. And that’s not to mention the dozen or so Hispanic churches.

Mostly, what you will find in our churches is a blend of members whose lineage can be traced to exotic locales on the globe but are now just Americans. I’m confident other large cities have the same situation–Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles–but it’s so gratifying to see congregations whose makeup looks a lot like Heaven must.

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No one questions that New Orleans proper has lost a major percentage of its pre-Katrina population, but the debate continues as to exact numbers. Now comes the first official U.S. Census Bureau numbers. Before the hurricane, the city showed 484,674 residents. The July 2006 number is 223,388–down by 54 percent. To no one’s surprise, some are questioning the accuracy of this report.

The problem in counting population is that people are distributed so unevenly, which prevents pollsters from counting a few blocks in a neighborhood and then making assumptions for the entire area.

Anyway, here are some more numbers. The western half of metro New Orleans–Jefferson Parish–counts 431,361 residents, making it the most populous parish in the state. That’s a 5 percent drop from the 2000 census. East Baton Rouge Parish comes in second now, with 429,073, up by 3.9 percent from 2000. To no one’s surprise, the Baton Rouge folks are raising serious doubts about that. It would appear that that city’s population has exploded, judging by two infallible barometers: the traffic and the cost of housing.

The folks on “New Orleans’ Northshore”–that would be the Interstate 12 corridor from Hammond east to Covington and on to Slidell–are likewise arguing that their numbers are much higher than the census shows. Again, it’s the traffic and the skyrocketing price for housing that convinces them the numbers are high.

Columnist Stephanie Grace writes that over a year ago she predicted that even though Governor Kathleen Blanco’s popularity index was abysmally low, once she starts handing out billions of federal dollars to local homeowners that situation will reverse itself. She wrote, “There aren’t too many politicians who can manage to look bad in those shoes.”

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