“I’ve learned one thing from this whole Katrina experience,” said Dr. Chuck Kelley Saturday morning. He was addressing members of the NOBTS Foundation Board in their annual on-campus gathering. “What I’ve learned is this: Do Not Be Afraid.”

Dr. Kelley said, “Tragedy dogs the footsteps of every great Christian through the centuries.” He backed that up with stories of the hardships various saints have been called on to endure. And in our time, we are called upon to deal with the destruction and rebuilding of this city.

The gentleman who prayed the benediction said, “Lord, we thank you for Katrina. It was your will.” That was a sobering thought, and one I’ve never been bold enough to make. Once we claim that, immediately loved ones of the thousand-plus who lost their lives in this hurricane/flood demand some answers from us. If it is true, however, it means the Lord does not put the same value on houses and furniture that we do. For starters.

I sat in the meeting jotting down the lessons I’ve learned–and that I think our people have learned–from this Katrina experience.

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Bill Rogers, the 30-year pastor of Grace Baptist Church in the Bywater section of the Upper 9th Ward, has resigned, effective April 1. Charlie Dale has been in place the last two years as Bill’s associate pastor, with the understanding that he would get the job once the pastor retired. Charlie is so humble, he was willing to grant the church the freedom to revisit the issue, but the leaders were firm: you will be our new pastor.

We have reported here previously how Bill Rogers received his doctorate from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville last December. He’s youthful and has a lot to offer. Barataria Baptist Church down in the fascinating little community of Jean Lafitte, LA, has asked him to come down and preach for them this Sunday.

Meanwhile, Grace is hosting a group from North Richland Hills Baptist Church in Fort Worth over the next week. They will be painting the inside of Douglass High School, just across the street from Grace. On Wednesday, they’ll serve hamburgers at the church for the faculty and staff of the school. Thursday, they’ll have a block party with a live band (those dead bands are such a drag!), food, and fun. I’ll be there, sketching people. Then, on Sunday March 18, Joe Williams our NAMB chaplain will be leading a “Coping With Life’s Losses” conference at the church. The Texas youth will be covering the neighborhood during the week to invite everyone.

Grace Baptist Church is asking all of us to make the next few days “pray for the Bywater” time.

We found out today that Shiloh Baptist Church on North Claiborne Street is up and running. They’ve been shut down since Katrina. Pastor Edward Scott had relocated out of the state. Today, Friday, Freddie Arnold ran into Michael Raymond–whose church in the lower 9th ward was put out of business–and he reported that he’s been preaching for the Shiloh group.

This brings our total number of churches up to 93. That compares to 145 before Katrina.

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Someone e-mailed us asking about State Farm Insurance, saying they had heard our city had had real difficulties with the firm and wondering if they should cancel their policies in support. I replied that the true culprit–if you ask the average New Orleanian–is Allstate rather than State Farm. (I’ve been a State Farm policyholder for over 30 years and have had only good experiences with them. My home is insured by American National and they were more than fair in our post-hurricane dealings.)

Recently, Allstate sent cancellation notices to 4,772 policyholders in our part of the world, informing homeowners that “since this house is unoccupied” they were ending the policy. The Times-Picayune did story after story on residents who have rebuilt their homes and who have been living in them many months, but who received those cancellations. It turns out that Allstate’s investigators had done drive-by inspections only, spending an average of 60 seconds per house.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has ordered Allstate to re-instate all those policies immediately and to redo the inspections. Today, Friday, the newspaper announces that the insurance company is appealing that decision to The Division of Administrative Law, a state body which handles disputes with state agencies. A judge will listen to both sides and issue a ruling. The hearing must take place within 30 days.

Earlier, the state had informed insurers that they could begin canceling policies on any damaged property on which repairs had not begun by March 1.

After some 600 policyholders complained to Donelon about the cancellations, he sent his people into the city to test 18 of the complaints. In each case, they reported it should have been obvious to anyone–even sitting in his car on the streets!–that the homes were occupied.

By an odd coincidence, January’s Sugar Bowl in our city was sponsored by Allstate. A number of unhappy policy-holders pointed out the irony of that. I don’t know how long the contract has to run, but I’ll betcha it will not be renewed. This is one company locals do not like.

Quick rundown of local stuff.

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We began our weekly pastor’s meeting with the monthly “Executive Committee” meeting of our association of Baptist churches. John Galey, vice-moderator and pastor of Poydras Baptist Church, presided.

Scott Smith, chair of the administrative committee, reported that his committee had approved money for the Disciple-Now youth activities this spring and money for a Spanish Sunday School conference in June.

Scott told how his church (Highland, Metairie) received a phone call last week. “Someone was calling from Georgetown University of Washington, DC. They had a group of 20 students coming down to gut out houses in the 9th Ward and their accommodations had fallen through. They got our name from the FEMA list and wondered if they could stay with us.”

Scott explained that this is a terrific group of young adults, very respectful, hard-working. “They even attended our Sunday night worship service,” he said, and added with a grin, “I don’t think many of them are Christians. Just think–now we’ve got the world coming to us!”

Keith Maddox is the new interim manager of Camp Living Waters, the historic campground at Robert, Louisiana, jointly owned by our association and several others in this part of the state. He has resigned West St. Charles Baptist Church of Boutte where he served as worship leader and youth/education man for the past decade. Already, Keith has made a big difference in that camp, and is urging our churches to bring their people for conferences. I told the pastors, “If ever there was a man matched to a position, I believe it’s Keith Maddox and Camp Living Waters.”

Rudy French reported on the ribbon-cutting at FBC Norco last Saturday. “We registered over 140 people, and heard some great messages. Two hours of them, in fact.” He went on to say that the present accommodations can take care of 20 guests per night, but he’s got 35 coming next week. “Eventually, I want to be able to host 80 people,” he said.

A residual effect of the new vision Rudy has brought to that church is the 8 visitors they had in church Sunday. One young woman prayed to receive Christ in the service.

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Tuesday night, our family attended the Billy Joel concert at the New Orleans Arena along with 10 or 15 thousand of our closest friends. If you like Joel’s music–“Piano Man,” “The Longest Time,” “She’s Always a Woman to Me”–you’ll understand why a couple of oldsters like Margaret and me were there. Not many our age made the trek, though. Too much trouble. Too expensive (tickets were over 80 bucks). Easier to buy the CD and stay home.

In a word, he was great. He gave a terrific show; he is an incredible musician. But it was loud. Man, was it loud. Some of the numbers, I sat there thinking, “I’m sure there is a kernel of music somewhere on the inside of all that noise.” But I think I know why they made it so loud, added the blinding lights, and rocked that building: for the young people. He was appealing to the youth. And apparently he did, because they were there in surprising strength. They knew the words better than I did.

Couple of times I thought my cell phone was going off. It was my body vibrating.

At the end, I decided that even though Billy Joel is of my generation or close to it, I am most definitely not his target audience. And I’m okay by that.

Earlier that evening before we left the house, our back door neighbor Bill called as I was setting out the garbage cans. “Joe, you got a minute?” I said, “Just about that.”

He said, “I preached a sermon recently, and now my home church wants me to preach it there. I need your help.”

Bill is a United Methodist. He owns a farm in the country and lives and works here in the city. We’ve been neighbors 13 years. He’s a good guy. Quiet. A family man.

“What did you preach about?” I asked. He said, “That we need to return Methodism to the old ways.” I said, “What old ways?” He answered, “To the ways of John Wesley.”

I said, “Okay, so what are the bad things you see in your denomination these days?” He answered, “Hillary Clinton is a Methodist.” That is exactly what he said.

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I’ll begin with some good news: Kenneth and Angela Foy are back after an absence of 18 months. For years, he was pastor of New Life Baptist Mission on Gentilly, not far from the seminary campus, while also serving as a counselor at our Brantley Baptist Center for the homeless. Angela worked as a legal secretary for a downtown law firm, alongside my daughter-in-law Julie.

“We evacuated to Grove City, Ohio,” they said. They attended the First Baptist Church there. “We were surprised to find they were Southern Baptists and they were surprised to find we were, too!” they laughed. “Those are the most wonderful people,” they said, referring to the church members and Pastor Jerry Neal. Angela said, “They hated to see us go.”

It’s still uncertain what they will do here, now that they’re back. The law firm long ago filled the vacancy left by Angela’s absence, and Kenneth and his scattered congregation had to sell their small church building. “We couldn’t handle the mortgage plus our house payment in Ohio.” Now, they’ve got their Ohio house on the market and planning to return to New Orleans permanently.

“We thought about relocating to Baton Rouge,” one of them said. “But we ran into someone here who said, ‘What do you mean going to Baton Rouge! We need you here!'” Kenneth said, “I couldn’t get that voice out of my mind. I think the Lord was using her to tell us we’re supposed to be in New Orleans.”

I’ve written the Ohio pastor to thank the church for taking such good care of the Foys. In the meantime, Kenneth is looking for opportunities to preach. These days, we have very few African-American churches and the ones we do have, post-Katrina, are struggling to make a go of it. We’ll appreciate prayers for the Foys.

John Claypool used to preach a sermon which he entitled, “Good Luck, Bad Luck–Who Is To Say?” The story on which he based the message is priceless. (Preachers, take note!)

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The front page of Sunday’s Times-Picayune begins a three day series on “The Fight to Save a Disappearing Coast,” referring to the wetlands between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. “LAST CHANCE,” booms the headline across the top of the page.

Kerry St. Pe is the director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, an effort to save one of the Gulf Coast’s most fragile and critical zones. A map on his office wall shows the satellite image of the great expanse of marshes which protect New Orleans from the ocean which we call the Gulf of Mexico. On the picture is a warning, announcing that these marshes will vanish by the year 2040. When that happens, the sea will be at New Orleans’ doorstep.

That map was produced 3 years ago. And it’s dead wrong.

St. Pe says, “People think we still have 20, 30, 40 years left to get this done. They’re not even close.”

“Ten years is how much time we have left–if that.”

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I told the children, “People think of missionaries as unusual people who go to strange lands and do amazing things. But the facts are far different. Missionaries are normal people who go anywhere–perhaps to your own town–and they do simple things.”

“Basically, what they do,” I said, “are four things: 1) they talk to people; 2) they build relationships with people; 3) they ask questions; and 4) they look for ways to help people.”

From 600 to 800 children and their adult church workers gathered Saturday for the annual Mission Jamboree (M-Jam) conducted by the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s Women’s Ministry Division of which Janie Wise is the leader. We met at Louisiana College in Pineville. Jim Chester–Baptist preacher, funny-funny man, and magician/illusionist–formed the parenthesis for the day’s conferences by doing a program at the beginning and the end of the day. He was as effective as I’ve ever seen anyone with hundreds of children. Every pastor who watches Jim do what he does will run out and buy himself a magic kit. He’s that good. And he frequently ties in his tricks with spiritual lessons.

In between Jim’s stuff, several of us “missionaries” were leading four conferences, back to back, with the group divided into segments that would fit into the smaller auditoriums.

After telling what missionaries do, I gave the children a sterling example of the 21 volunteers from the First Baptist Church of Buford, Georgia, who worked in New Orleans this week.

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First, the background. A couple of days ago, the Times-Picayune ran a feature about St. Mark’s Catholic Church and School in Chalmette. That would be in St. Bernard Parish, of course. They ran a photo of a classroom filled with hurricane and flood debris that has not been touched since Katrina hit over 18 months ago. Catholics are incensed, of course, but most have come to accept that due to the scope of this disaster, the decreased population, and the limited funds of the diocese, some of their churches are closed forever.

Thursday, this letter to the editor ran. The writer is listed as Rita Oalmann of the community of St. Bernard.

“I was appalled to see that St. Mark Catholic Church in Chalmette had not been cleaned out yet.”

“The Archdiocese of New Orleans should have called the Baptists. They would have cleaned it out, no questions asked, as they have been and still are doing at other locations in St. Bernard Parish.”

You can’t buy that kind of great publicity.

And in other news….

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Rudy French is teaching us all lessons on faith. When someone mentioned at our Wednesday pastors meeting that he had seen the signs from FBC-Norco inviting everyone to the ribbon-cutting of the church’s new mission center this coming Saturday–March 3, 11 am–Rudy told this story.

“They tell me that Henry Ford used to have a sign on his desk that said: ‘Think You Can. Think You Can’t. Either Way, You’re Right.’ Well, every church has some ‘think you can’t’ members. And even after all the wonderful things the Lord has done at First, Norco, we still have some like that. I wanted to advertise for our dedication this Saturday but some people just don’t see the need. It costs money. Then I saw these little ‘stick in the ground’ signs. They cost 10 dollars each. I didn’t have the money, but I bought 30, and we put them up around the area. Some of you saw them in LaPlace.”

“Our ribbon-cutting is not until this Saturday, but would you believe, we had four visitors last Sunday–people who saw our signs and decided to come worship with us! And just think what’s going to happen on Saturday!”

Rudy laughed and told how the sign in front of that church was still advertising Christmas services. He told a church member that it should be changed every week, and the man volunteered to see to it. “I looked out the other day and he was up on the ladder putting up the letters. And the man holding the ladder for him was our oldest member–89 years old! Neither one of them have very good eyesight. They would pick up a letter and squint at it and say, ‘Does this look like an ‘A’?” But praise God, they’re keeping that sign up to date and even thinking up good sayings to put on it!”

Steve Gahagan, Operation NOAH Rebuild, told the 35 pastors present of a woman calling their offices this week, shouting, “I got it! I got my money!” She had received a check for the full amount the Louisiana Recovery Authority is awarding people with damaged homes, over $150,000. She was ecstatic. Steve said, “That’s about to happen more and more. We’ve been moving slow about rebuilding because we didn’t have money to buy the materials. But as more and more people get their money, that’s not going to be the problem.”

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