Originally, I had planned to leave Saturday, April 8, in late afternoon driving toward Charlotte, NC, to visit son Marty and his family before heading back to Anderson University Monday night for Tuesday’s speaking assignments, then back to New Orleans. The death of my brother Charlie that Saturday morning changed everything. For the whole family, of course. I left Sunday morning and drove to Nauvoo, Alabama, visited with Charlie’s wife Carolyn and their sons Patrick, Russell, and Chris, then spent the night with my folks. Once I learned that they were scheduling the funeral later in the week following an autopsy on Monday, I continued with the Anderson University assignment. So, Monday morning, I drove to Anderson, SC, and had a wonderful time Tuesday morning speaking to the student body, then to a group of administrators and pastors.

I’ll pause here long enough to share the gist of my message to the students. This was a missions-oriented service, and everyone knew my message would be related to the New Orleans situation. I said, “I’d like to start a conversation today, one I hope you will continue among yourselves. I’d like to ask you five questions.”

“One. Do you think God knew Hurricane Katrina was going to happen and do the damage that it did? The reason I ask is there is a new theology around called ‘Open Theism’ which claims that since something has not occurred yet, it’s impossible for God to know it.” I shared with them God’s call on my life to become director of missions for the Baptist churches of New Orleans 18 months before Katrina, and the story of Patricia Prechter (told here several days ago) who said God led her to join the National Guard in 1978 so she would be the chief medical officer on duty in the Superdome for those 10 days following Katrina. What do you think, does He know?

“Two. Do you think Katrina was God’s judgement on New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast for sin? Many have said so.” I told them of my letter to the editor in the aftermath of Katrina addressing this, pointing out that I am amazed at the certainty of those who know it was His judgment as well as those who are sure it was not. I suggested it may be; we deserve it; let us seek the Lord. If one says the storm was God’s judgment on New Orleans, he should be prepared to explain why the storm spared the French Quarter and destroyed the poorest section of town. “If the Lord should mark iniquity, who would stand?” Psalm 130:3 puts it well.

“Three. Is Romans 8:28 still in effect?” I told ways in which God had brought good from the destruction of Katrina.

“Four. Are you willing to trust God with your future?” After all, He knows the plans He has for you and you don’t. Can you trust Him?

And five. “Will you pray for us in New Orleans?”

I left Anderson Tuesday around 2:30 and drove straight through to Jackson, Mississippi, arriving around 10 pm dead tired. I was so tired that when two hotels in a row had no non-smoking rooms left, I took a smoking room just to have a bed. Big mistake. I was had trouble breathing all night and determined never to do that again.

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Yesterday, we held the appreciation event for First-Responders in the New Orleans Arena. I have no idea how many of our heroes got the message and attended. Fewer than we had hoped, obviously. But we had a great turnout of volunteers from various churches and the fellowship was great, and the heroes who did attend seem to have been touched by the kindnesses and gifts they received. Thanks to Cherry Blackwell and her team of volunteers for overseeing this.

Saturday was a doubly sad day for our family.

Around 8 o’clock that morning, my sister Patricia called from north Alabama to say that our youngest brother Charlie had had a heart attack and was being rushed to the Jasper hospital. At nine o’clock, she called back to say he did not make it, that he was dead on arrival. We were stunned. Age 62, the youngest of Mom and Dad’s six children. Charlie had lots of health issues and had been on disability for years, but he was not an invalid. In fact, Mom said he was at their house Friday, visiting, being his jovial self.

You can get a good snapshot of Charlie if you go to our website www.joemckeever.com and read his comments left at the end of various articles, usually signed Charles. He always says some variation of how proud they are of me, how he expected no less, how I’m following in the footsteps of our terrific Dad.

Charlie and Carolyn have three sons, Patrick, Russell, and Chris, and I don’t know, maybe 6 grandchildren, including Chris’ triplets. Burial at Nauvoo, Alabama, later this week after the autopsy.

Mickey Brunson died Saturday also. Mrs. W. C. “Bill” Brunson was the receptionist at First Baptist Church of Jackson, MS, in the early 1970s when I was on staff. A dearer, classier, kinder, more gracious human never existed. The funeral is set for Wednesday morning at that church. Depending on when Charlie’s service is set for, I plan to make it.

A double-whammy. If it were not for the promise of the Lord that “whoever believes on the Son of God shall never die,” I don’t know how we could handle these blows.

Turning to the news today….

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We’re always glad to grab on to any good news we can find these days. Here are seven tidbits I’ve noticed, starting with a personal item.

1. Birthday number 94.

My mom and I are on the phone almost every morning, one of the blessings of cell phone technology. Wednesday, we spoke of Dad’s birthday coming up April 13. This will be number 94, if you can believe it. She asked if I had invited readers of this e-mail to send him birthday notes. “Not really,” I said. We’ve done that in the past, but I didn’t want to burden anyone or take advantage. Mom is not one to beat around the bush. She said, “It’s not too late.” Okay, mom.

At Pop’s age and with his various infirmities, the high point of his day is opening the morning mail. So, here’s the address: Carl J. McKeever, 191 County Road 101, Nauvoo, Alabama 35578. And if you happen to find this later and don’t make the April 13 deadline, remember: he reads the mail every day. (A note on any kind of paper carries as much weight with him as a store-bought card, so don’t go to any trouble.)

2. Lifeway returns

Walker Downs, former manager of our Lifeway Christian Store (aka Baptist Book Store) on the campus of our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, called today to say they’re coming back. “We’ll be open by May 1,” he said. That’s great news. We have missed that store!

“We’ll be hiring an all-new staff,” Walker said, and invites people to apply for the sales and stock positions. How? Go to the website and fill out an application: www.lifeway.com/jobs.

I invited the new manager to attend our Wednesday pastors meeting and tell our people about the plans for this “new” store. Welcome back, Lifeway!

3. Suburban Baptist Church is meeting every week now.

Pastor Jeff Box tells me they are running about 40 in attendance each Sunday. They have power and everything, and are meeting in the fellowship hall of their church. They’re located at intersection of Chef Menteur Highway and Schindler Drive in east New Orleans.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: Saturday, April 8 is our “First-Responders Appreciation Event” in the New Orleans Arena. We’re trying to honor all the medical/military/firefighting/law-enforcement/other people who helped New Orleans survive those first weeks after Katrina. Please help us get word to any you know. Admission is one’s identification tag or badge. We’ll have gifts and prizes and food, all free, of course. The hours are from 10 to 4. The arena is just behind the Superdome. Park in the Dome parking lot for $5.

Today, Wednesday, was the last of our three-hour pastors meetings. Had you told me pre-Katrina that we would be gathering our ministers every week for 3 solid hours of doing nothing but sitting and talking and listening, and that that would go on for over SIX MONTHS! I would have known something unusual must have happened. Next Wednesday, we shorten it one hour and begin at 10 am, closing at noon. We’ll continue at First Baptist-LaPlace through April, then move across the river to Oak Park Baptist Church beginning the first Wednesday in May (from 10 to noon).

At first, this morning, I thought the pastors were sending us a message that these meetings had about run their course. We have known all along that when that time comes–as it will–the way we will know is by the decline in attendance. We got underway with no more than a dozen present. But by the time we reluctantly closed the meeting at 11:40, the room was packed and no one wanted to leave. I was one o’clock getting away. It was evident we’re still addressing some real needs here. Several said this was the best meeting yet.

Boogie Melerine had 70 at Delacrois Hope last Sunday. They’re still meeting in a shed. Some had to sit on buckets, they’d run out of chairs. Grace is running 40 or more. The Brazilian mission at Emmanuel is running 70. Getsemani is running 40 in Frost Chapel at the seminary, and Alberto is about to baptize some in classroom 101, in the small baptistry normally used for baptism demonstrations rather than the real thing. A number of those present raved about the Sunday night presentation of the praise music from the choir and orchestra of FBC Jackson, Mississippi.

The last hour of our session was devoted to a visit from Dr. Bill Taylor of the North American Mission Board, but recently retired from Lifeway as the director of church education (or some similar title; a lot of us call him “Mr. Sunday School”). Bill has a resume like few other ministers. Before heading up Sunday School for 40,000 SBC churches, he served on the church staffs of Roswell St. in Marietta, FBC LaFayette, Prestonwood in Dallas, and several other great churches. Early, he was making the point that he had served under pastors like Nelson Price, Perry Sanders, Jack Graham, and a couple of others whose names escape me now, all equally well-known throughout the SBC. He said, “They were all great pastors.” And in my heckling way, I said, “And with huge egos.” It got a laugh, which was all I was looking for, and he said, “No, I never worked with Joe McKeever.” (That brought a bigger laugh.)

Bill and his team of visiting educators (I listed them in the previous article) have been visiting the churches on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and listening to the ministers, and that was the plan here today. “We’ve not come to do anything for you,” he said, “but to listen. We want to hear what your needs are, your frustrations, your situation. And we’ll go back and think it through and see what the Lord tells us as to how we can help your churches.” They are well aware of the fatigue factor, here and with our Mississippi colleagues. So many “experts” want to come to help, but they need you to put them up, provide for them, and come to their meetings. “We will not do that to you.”

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A friend who is working on our church history was surprised today to learn that I kept a daily record of every day of the decade of the 1990s. Since I came to pastor the First Baptist Church of Kenner in September of 1990 and stayed for nearly 14 years, that means the 46 “wordless books” which I filled with my nightly journaling are a great repository of information on the church during those years. But under no circumstances would I let anyone see it. Not for years to come. I told him, “I called names. Some of that would be embarrassing to people.”

I told the church when I resigned two years ago about this decade-long journal and said, “Twenty-five years from now, anyone working on the church’s history may read it.” But not until.

I have kept my yearly calendars and promised my friend to go through them and make a few notes on the high points of each year. On Monday, I went through 6 years in an hour. And got an education.

It’s like fast-forwarding your life. You see what you left out of your ministry and what pops up too frequently. I noted, for example, the days I was sick. Back trouble here and flu there. Two or three times a year, several days at a time. But that was in the early years of the 1990s. No more.

Sometime in the mid-90s, I decided to go against the male pattern and find me a doctor. Men, they say, fear doctors and resist going for checkups. But in my mid-50s, I knew it was high time. My new doctor examined me thoroughly and prescribed a regimen of vitamins and minerals, as well as a baby aspirin a day, and pronounced, “I think we have saved you from a heart attack.” Then, I took it one step further.

I got serious about exercise. Instead of the occasional nighttime walk around my block, I stepped off a three mile route from home to the Mississippi River levee and down it and back. Three miles, 45 minutes. Every morning early. Then I bought some small weights and worked up a routine on the rug in front of the fireplace. I suppose we could call them home-made exercises, because I didn’t invite a professional trainer in. I didn’t buy anyone’s video. I just worked up some stretching/lifting/pushing to exercise the various parts of my body. It normally takes about 15 minutes, and often I do it both morning and night. The results were worthwhile.

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(Please invite every “first responder” you know–the medical/military/law enforcement/firefighting workers who served New Orleans during it’s first few weeks after the hurricane–to our Appreciation Event at the New Orleans Arena this Saturday, April 8. The arena is open from 10 to 4 and we’ll have lots of family events going on. First Reponders get in with their I.D.s as admission, and later in the day, we’ll draw for a new car. Our main difficulty is getting word to everyone.)

Fred Luter is back. This exciting pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, so devastated by six to eight feet of floodwater, has been living in Birmingham since Katrina and spending a lot of time in and out of airports and on the interstates. He served on Mayor Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission and has been preaching in major cities and conventions all over the country. These days, he preaches at 8 am to his congregation meeting temporarily at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, then later in the morning to another group at one of Baton Rouge’s largest churches, and twice a month to his folks in Houston at the First Baptist Church there.

Sunday night, he told me, “We had 1500 here at FBC-NO this morning. And probably 600-700 in Baton Rouge. And about the same number in Houston twice a month.” For a dispersed congregation without a meeting place, they are making the most of a difficult situation. Fred is the moderator for our Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, and we’re eager to have him attending our weekly pastors meetings.

Those pastors meetings–tell every pastor in our area you see–will continue at the FBC of LaPlace through April, then move to Oak Park Baptist Church in Algiers on May 3, meeting from 10 to noon, with lunch at 11:30.

Sunday night, April 2, the incredible choir and orchestra of the FBC of Jackson, Mississippi, brought an evening of inspiration at the FBC of New Orleans. The local choir joined the Jackson group, making a choir of several hundred. These friends had boarded buses Sunday after morning church and ridden three hours to get here. After the program, they rode back home. Most did not get home until after midnight, and went into work Monday morning sleepwalking. But how they blessed us. Just their presence was a-plenty, but the musical program was so stirring.

Among the participants was Professor Benjamin “Benjie” Harlan, one of God’s great personalities and a well-known composer of Christian music. Dr. Graham Smith, retired (I think) from the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, did recitations from James Weldon Johnson’s “God’s Trombones,” sure to stir anyone’s heart. I handed him a cartoon in which someone is commenting that James Weldon Johnson showed up tonight and did his best Graham Smith imitation. Listening to Graham, I found myself hoping some young people were being awakened to the power of the human voice in announcing God’s truth. I can still remember the time this really hit me. I was a student in seminary, we’re talking the 1960s here, when Professor Wilbur Swartz stood in chapel and read from the Gospel of John, chapter 1. Until then, I had no idea that passage was as deeply moving as it became that day. Bible reading for me has never been the same. Graham Smith has the kind of power in his voice to awaken young believers.

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They’re making a big Hollywood movie in town these days, and disrupting our disrupted lives. They close lanes on the bridge over the river some days and other days, take over the ferry which runs from the foot of Canal Street to Algiers. Lots of big explosives and plenty of extras hired. The word is that this is a sci-fi movie starring Denzel Washington in which he has this “second sight,” hence the name Deja vu, which alerts him to the work of terrorists before it occurs so he can stop it. Oh, that it worked that way.

Every day we relive our Katrina story all over again, even while trying to move into the future.

A typical day’s headline stories will describe efforts to save our eroding wetlands, the deal-making over the towing of the thousands of flood-ruined cars in New Orleans, and Katrina-affected politics. Lots of politics. In Kenner, Saturday, voters put Mayor Phil Capitano in a run-off against former councilmember Ed Muniz, the mayor with 30% and Muniz with 33%. Retiring Police Chief Nick Congemi was an also-ran at 27%.

In New Orleans, each of the 23 candidates for April 22’s mayoral election is still trying to break out of the pack.

Columnist Stephanie Grace writes Sunday that originally Mayor Nagin was a shoo-in for reelection. Then Katrina gave him more challenges than he knew what to do about and scattered the electorate across America and suddenly he looked vulnerable. Campaign funders went looking for alternatives and honed in on Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and Audubon Nature Institute’s CEO Ron Forman. What they did not count on was both men running. Meanwhile, she says, no one paid any attention to two lesser knowns, Rob Couhig and Virginia Boulet.

So, in the mayoral debates, while the front-runners were boring us with their platitudes, so afraid to slip up that they refrained from saying anything, Couhig and Boulet did something unusual: they told us what they thought. “They’ve done it by talking about policy, sharply questioning their opponents and, most of all, airing their personal frustrations.” Good for them. And in the long run, good for all of us. Maybe they will start a trend.

Saturday saw a big march across the Crescent City Connection, the double bridge over the river into Algiers and Gretna, led by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, a couple of Reverends always in search of a cause. They called this a reminder of the September 1 incident when Gretna police turned away New Orleanians fleeing the flooding of their city. Since they were walking, they decided to protest the April 22 election which, they say, strips evacuated citizens of their voting rights. The courts and respected leaders have pointed out that while this election may not be perfect, it’s fair and legal and the right thing to do. Those scattered throughout Louisiana will have branch election sites, and those outside have received invitations to vote absentee. Secretary of State Al Ater says Jackson and others want him to set up voting sites in Houston, Memphis, and Atlanta, but he accurately points out that the laws governing Louisiana do not necessary apply in those other states. If someone votes fraudulently, will the Tennessee cops arrest him for violating Louisiana law?

Citizen Bill Davis writes in a Sunday letter, “My constitutional rights will be violated if people who have lived elsewhere for eight months are allowed to vote in the upcoming elections.” He says, “The vast majority of the remaining evacuees will not be coming back anytime soon…. It is unfair for us to be governed by people elected by those who are no longer residents of our city.”

On another subject, Jarvis DeBerry writes in his op-ed column, “Skyrocketing cost of insurance could cripple recovery.” That’s been my thought all along, that regardless what our politicians say, if a homeowner cannot get insurance or can’t afford it, his rebuilding ends right there on the spot.

In Saturday’s paper, someone pointed out a new thought for me. With, say, 100,000 homes in New Orleans lying unoccupied and spoiled, who’s going to cut the grass in the yards? The growing season is well upon us, which in New Orleans means lawns will require mowing almost weekly. With tall grass comes all kinds of vermin. One more headache which we do not need.

I wrote here Saturday evening that the Final Four basketball playoffs were a welcome respite for our citizens. Well, hardly. We watched as Florida demolished upstart George Mason University in the late afternoon, and then had the privilege of watching UCLA hand LSU its head in the evening contest. Neither game was even close. Sunday morning in a 30 minute local news broadcast, not one word was uttered about the LSU loss. I suppose it hurts too bad. The LSU women are in their own Final Four, with their game Sunday night. Go, Lady Tigers.

Sunday morning at Oak Park Baptist Church in Algiers, a large team of volunteers from the First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, SC, was on hand. With special guest speaker (and member of Oak Park) Col. Patricia Prechter of the National Guard to speak of her experiences in the Superdome during the Katrina event, a large group of her friends and people from the community came, making it the largest crowd in that sanctuary since the hurricane scattered the congregation.

If one likes titles, Pat Prechter is to be envied. She is Colonel, Dean, Doctor, and a lot of other things. According to Lt. Col. Marie McGregor, she is the first and only “full bird colonel” in the Medical Detachment of the La. National Guard. Academic Dean Judith Miranti of Holy Cross College, where Prechter is Dean of the Nursing School, said, “I make no claims about Pat being a steel magnolia. But it is her faith that has made her service so special.”

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I’ve learned this week of three church mergers being discussed in our Baptist association. Only one am I at liberty to mention. The flooded-and-decimated First Baptist Church of Arabi has voted to “merge” with Metairie’s Celebration Church. This basically means their building site, soon to be bull-dozed and cleared off by St. Bernard Parish, will be deeded over to Celebration as will some of their financial assets. This will allow Celebration to begin an extension of their ministry there, on the other side of New Orleans.

Celebration Church is a Willow-Creek-model, I think it’s fair to say, with cell groups meeting during the week. Pastor Dennis Watson is their founding pastor, having come from the First Baptist Church of Chalmette over 15 years ago, so he’s familiar with the area of their new ministry. Celebration has grown to be one of our largest churches, second in the association only to Fred Luter’s Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. Last year, just a few days before Katrina vented her wrath on our area, Celebration merged with Crescent City Baptist Church in Metairie, a congregation that had fallen onto hard times. They began having services at both sites, and the future looked great. The hurricane did a lot of damage at both locations, but flooded the larger Airline Drive site, with millions of dollars in damage. Volunteers restored the “Crescent City” site on Transcontinental, and they have been meeting there ever since. Work continues at the Airline location. Ministry tents occupy most of the parking lot.

With one of the other two merger discussions, leaders are discussing and praying and getting excited about what this could mean. As one pastor said to me Thursday, “I know the Lord can use small churches, but if you won’t take this the wrong way, Joe…” I said, “Go ahead.” “We are cursed with too many tiny, struggling churches in this city. We need some stronger churches with more effective ministries.” I agree wholeheartedly.

I took some flack in this website months ago for saying this very thing. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not against small churches. I like to quote Francis Schaeffer: “There are no small churches and no big preachers.” He makes a great point. But it’s not entirely the case. A church is too small when it never has enough workers, never has enough money to do anything but keep its own building up, never sees beyond its front door. There are some great small churches and some that desperately need an infusion of members and vision and resources before they will become effective.

I am a product of a small, rural, wonderfully-effective church, the New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church of Nauvoo, Alabama. But it was the larger church in the city–Birmingham’s West End Baptist Church–with a full-time staff, exciting youth ministries, and visionary laymen that built on the earlier foundation and had the greater impact on my life.

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In Greek mythology, Elysian Fields was the final destination of good souls after death. The Fields were a land of song and sunshine where the air was sweet and cool. The good souls existed there in the flowery meadows for eternity.

In New Orleans, Elysian Fields is the name of one of the hundreds of boulevards, this one stretching from the Mississippi River, alongside the back of the French Quarter, all the way north to Lake Pontchartrain. A block from where it begins by the river sits the French Market. A couple of blocks north and one block west on Frenchman Street lies one of our favorite restaurants, the Praline Connection, where you can get a plate of crowder peas and turnip greens, fried chicken or meat loaf or breaded pork chops, then top it off with a slice of sweet potato pie with praline sauce, all for less than ten dollars. It’s as New Orleansy as they come.

A block or two further up Elysian Fields sits the Baptist Friendship House, where NAMB missionary Kay Bennett and her staff do an incredible job of ministering to troubled women and needy children of this section of the city. These days, while the neighborhood lies mostly vacant, the Friendship House is hosting volunteer church teams from Oklahoma. Gradually, the homes in the area show signs of returning to life. They have electricity, but the last I heard, no phone service.

As you get closer to Interstate 10, the signs of the floodwaters that followed Katrina are everywhere, the high water marks on the sides of houses and businesses, most still lying vacant. In the area around Interstate 610, and north to the lake, it’s a dead zone. The yard plants are dried and dead, businesses untouched, the houses still adorned by their National Guard insignia from the first days when searchers would check the homes for survivors and spray the results on the outsides or roofs.

The traffic lights are still out. It’s a gentleman’s game at the four-way stop signs with a dozen vehicles lined up behind you and that many staring at you from each direction. Elysian Fields is a wide street, with six lanes in places, and no one is choreographing the movements through these cross streets. You pull up, look around, wait, and go forward, hoping for the best.

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Tuesday, Dr. Roger Freeman came by to visit. This outstanding pastor of Clarksville, Tennessee’s First Baptist Church formerly shepherded the FBC of New Orleans, leaving in 1993. I have great memories of his kind spirit and gracious manner. While we were catching up on each other’s news, his wife Priscilla called on his cell phone. I asked to speak to her and said, “I want to tell you my Sarah story.” Sarah is their 16-year-old, but she was about 7 when this happened. I figured they might have forgotten the incident.

That day, little Sarah was feeling sad for a certain lady in the church whose husband had just died. “She’s all alone now,” she said. Then she brightened up and said, “But she’s not alone. Jesus is with her. He’s in all fifty states and foreign countries.”

Roger laughed and said, “I had forgotten that! It was worth the drive down here to hear that story about my daughter!” I made him promise to tell me other ‘Sarah stories’ as he thinks of them.

Over the years many of my preacher friends have given me stories from their children which I still tell. Like the one from William Carey College’s Larry Kennedy’s son Steve, of the time he attended his first big church wedding and watched as the groomsmen filled the front of the church and the maids entered. As the bride glided down the aisle, Steve leaned over and whispered, “Mother, does she already know which one of those men she’s going to marry or is she going to decide after she gets there?”

I tell the story of Knoxville’s Central Baptist Church-Bearden’s Larry Fields whose little son John was asked to be a ringbearer in a wedding. John was notoriously independent and unpredictable, so when he behaved beautifully and never complained once about the tuxedo he wore, mom and dad were baffled. What could the bride have done to get John’s cooperation? The riddle was solved at the reception when John stalked up to the new husband and wife and asked loudly, “Where’s my fire truck?”

I know stories from Sans Souci’s Paul Moore’s daughter Rachel, from Vallejo’s Bryan Harris’ three daughters and son, and an entire encyclopedia-ful from my own children and grandchildren.

Children are precious. Even when they’re grown, they’re still our children. If you doubt that, ask my mom. Her six children are ages 62, 64, 66, 68, 69, and 70. (I asked her once if having senior-adult children made her feel old. She said, “No. It’s not my problem.”)

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