Monday night, I attended a church council for one of our congregations hurt by the storm. “We’ve lost one-third of our members,” said the leader. They’re pastorless at present, so he had asked me to sit in on their meeting. “If we get off base, call us back,” he invited.

After welcoming a dozen members into the home and calling for the opening prayer, the lay leader turned to his legal pad and began a lengthy liturgy of the needs of the congregation now that so many members were scattered elsewhere. Half the committees were in disarray, most of the Sunday School teachers might not be returning, and several leaders had not reappeared since Katrina. The worship leader’s school position was terminated for the balance of this school year, so she accepted a friend’s invitation to visit Paris, and is there now. (Now, that’s my idea of a great evacuation!) The meeting was called to decide what action to take.

They did the only thing they could do. They decided to wait until after the first of the year to see how everything shakes out. “Some will be back,” someone ventured. “Marie and Elsie say they’ll be home after the first of the year,” said another. “Let’s wait.”

Sometime in January, this little congregation’s leadership will assemble to reinvent their church. Now that our church is smaller, what committees, what programs, and what leadership do we need? No one is going to enjoy what they will be forced to do.

This same process is going on in 90% of the churches in this area, regardless of the denominational labels.

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Sunday morning at Metairie Baptist Church, some members of Lakeview Church–inundated by high levels of polluted floodwater following Katrina–told me they are at work cleaning out the bottom floor of their sanctuary and expect to bring the church building back to normal. “That is a well-built church structure,” one said.

Paul Gregoire, longtime pastor of St. Bernard Baptist Church in Chalmette says the same thing about his church. “We’ll be back,” he told me, even though as Director of Admissions, Paul has had to relocate temporarily to Atlanta with the seminary administration. Meanwhile, Pastor John Galey of Poydras Church and Pastor John Jeffries of First Baptist Chalmette have teams working on rescuing their buildings. The Missouri Baptist Convention has adopted St. Bernard Parish’s Baptist churches, for which we are more grateful than I can ever find words to express.

Pastor John Faull gave me time in the morning worship service of Williams Boulevard Baptist Church in Kenner to thank the congregation for their great service. To my knowledge, this was the first church of any denomination in the immediate area to be up and running, ministering and serving. Hundreds of state troopers from all over America converged on New Orleans to restore law and order. They worked out of the Troop B headquarters, next door to Williams Boulevard, and hundreds slept and ate in the church’s gymnasium. Even now, WBBC continues to serve hundreds of meals a day to law enforcement officers still on the job.

Brother John read several letters he has received recently, some from family members of troopers thanking the church for “taking care of my daddy.” One letter came from some children in Taiwan who held a bake sale in their yard and raised twenty dollars for hurricane relief, then sent the money along with drawings they had done.

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Several texts keep coming up in our post-hurricane conversations around the New Orleans area. I made a list the other day and was pleasantly surprised to find seven texts, that being the biblical number for completion.

JUDGES 5:2 After her great victory, Deborah sang, “That the leaders led in Israel and that the people volunteered, O bless the Lord.” Pretty good arrangement, when the leaders are doing their job and the people are doing theirs. Let either group quit and nothing gets done.

DEUTERONOMY 28:13 “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail.” God promises that His children who are obedient will be leaders wherever they go, not the reactors and definitely not just followers. Leaders do not ask anyone to elect them, they step up and lead. Leaders do not take polls to see what the people want; Godly leaders are more interested in what God wants, and they go forth to do it. A pastor friend told me this week he knew Rick Warren as a seminary student. He said, “I have copies of his notes from those years, notes which became the ‘Purpose-Driven Life’ best-selling book. Rick has worked on that all these years.” He was saying this leader was not compiling other people’s thoughts into a book which he would market, but spent all these years perfecting the insights God had given him. God makes us the head. Not the mayor, not an election. To the best of my knowledge, no one ever elected Billy Graham as the nation’s pastor.

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I was nearly–but not quite–offended when a friend from another state, a place that has received a lot of our residents, said, “Of course, our people do not have the tolerance for corruption Louisiana residents have.” I started to argue that we don’t tolerate it; in fact we put the crooks in jail–a half dozen judges from the New Orleans area in the past couple of years. And we must have some honest leaders, otherwise they would never have been exposed. But I kept quiet. And with good reason, it turns out.

We truly have some weird, weird politicians down here. Take this instance….

Friday’s Times-Picayune, front page, the chief of the New Orleans Harbor Police, Robert Hecker, is in trouble because he did his job. As the storm was raging, waters rising, Chief Hecker and his people were saving stranded citizens from rooftops, bringing them to shelter, doing the kind of heroic work every law enforcement officer trains for and lives for. Suddenly, Hecker gets an order from his boss, Director of Port Safety and Security Cynthia Swain, telling his to close up shop and get his people out of town for their own safety. Hecker was horrified. His spokesman said, “It’s mind-boggling. You don’t send away police officers in a time of crisis.” So, Hecker did a truly courageous thing.

He defied orders. He told his men what the boss had ordered and gave each permission to make their own decisions. But he stayed on the job, as did most of the others. And for that little bit of insubordination, Chief Hecker is in trouble. Swain has brought in the state attorney general’s office which is investigating him for malfeasance.

Makes you want to pull your hair out. Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard ordered the pump operators out of the parish at the critical hour, for their safety, he says, resulting in wide-spread flooding in some areas which cost zillions of dollars, and the citizens continue to be up in arms about his decision. The harbor police stay on the job and save lives and get in trouble.

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like this home.

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Each Wednesday, our ministers/pastors meet at First Baptist Church of LaPlace for fellowship and information. Around 50 of us gather there each time, but it’s never the same group.

Today, November 2, a young pastor who serves a non-Southern Baptist church in Kenner addressed the group. “I’ve been in this area for nine years, and I’ve been impressed with the work of Southern Baptists. I know what you believe and it’s the same thing my church stands for. After Katrina hit, I did not see any of my denomination’s people down here at all. The first people on the ground were Southern Baptists, and they’re everywhere, ministering in Jesus’ name. It’s outstanding. And I want my church to be a part of that. So I am here, officially requesting to join the Southern Baptist Convention.” Everyone applauded. We may have lost 30 or more churches from the hurricane, but we just gained one! (We’ll deal with the details at another time, and explain how one goes about becoming a member church in the SBC.) He brought a laugh of understanding when he added, “I would have been here a couple of years earlier, except I was waiting for one key deacon to go to Heaven.”

After prayer time, our two-hour-and-a-half meeting was jam-packed with one person after another rising to address the group. Disaster relief workers talked about cleanup, building people about permits, and financial people about insurance and loans. One pastor gave a report that Franklin Graham will be leading a two-day festival at the New Orleans Arena, next to the Superdome, on Saturday and Sunday, January 28 and 29. Another spoke of plans to invite all the “first-responders” to a banquet or barbecue to show them proper appreciation for all they did to secure the city. Others told of the counseling available for those having trouble dealing with this crisis. On and on it went. I felt sorry for Lynn Gehrman, trying to get it all down in the minutes.

The First Baptist Church of Covington, on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, has invited our ministers and spouses to have our Christmas banquet in their facilities, as their guests, no charge. We gladly accept and agreed on Monday night, December 5.

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Tuesday morning, some folks at Edgewater and Lakeview churches were masked up and tearing out sheetrock, pews, and other church innards. It remains to be seen whether the buildings will be salvageable, but give the folks credit–they’re trying.

“The only word to describe this area is ‘dead zone,'” said Tom Billings. The Director of Missions for Houston, Texas, flew in Tuesday morning and spent the day with Freddie Arnold and me before departing that evening. I’m afraid we showed him more of the devastation than he wanted to see. I took him up Canal Street and across Paris Avenue and Elysian Fields, then over to Algiers and back across the Huey P. Long into Kenner. Freddie took him to lunch while I did a funeral, and then showed him the greater devastation in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th ward. I expect Tom was happy to get back on the plane that evening.

“This is not going to be a quick fix,” he said. “We’re talking about years.” Indeed. In fact, Tuesday, the folks at Lifeway who were going to provide architectural workshops for our pastors notified me that they think it’s premature, that this needs to be scheduled sometime after the first of the year, that the pastors aren’t at the point of thinking of rebuilding yet. I believe they’re right.

Freddie told Tom Billings the best thing Houstonians can do for us is pray. While this is on target, it’s hard for people to voice the same prayers over and over for years when you are not present to see how the prayers are being answered, and whether they are. That’s our challenge–to keep them praying. New Orleans may be the biggest prayer challenge our people have ever faced.

Wayne Jenkins has a plan.

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November arrived pleasantly Tuesday morning. It brought rain. Not a lot, not enough to mess up unrepaired homes, not enough to shut down construction and cleanup work all over the city, but enough to settle the dust. We’ve had almost no rain since Katrina hit, over 2 months ago. October had 0.04 inches of rain, which is about as near to none as you can get.

The New York Times reported that the Bring Back New Orleans Commission which our mayor appointed, of which Pastor Fred Luter is a member, has been experiencing in-fighting. Horrors. Do you mean to say that this group of strong leaders, each with definite convictions on what should be done, actually disagreed? All I can say is, Lord, I hope so. I’d hate to think we had one or two strong leaders and a bunch of “yes-men” on that board. They say the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship. Under Saddam, Iraq had almost no dissension, certainly none that lived to tell it. And these days, over 225 separate political parties have registered to represent Iraqi voters. Sounds a little strange to us, but it sure looks like democracy. Eventually, those folks will find commonality with each other and form fewer, larger parties. But the road from here to there is plenty of discussion, some arguments, debates, and attempts to get together. That is what is happening in New Orleans on a quieter level.

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“I CAME TO SEE WHAT GOD HAD DONE”

The city is allowing residents of the Lower 9th Ward–that most devastated portion of New Orleans–to return only by bus. Gray Line Tours has regularly scheduled runs in and out of that portion of the city. The hourlong tours leave each 30 minutes, from 8 am to 4 pm, ending on Sunday. The area is so dangerous, authorities are not allowing riders to get off and walk around to investigate their destroyed homes or neighborhood. The media says they are still finding dead bodies in houses, two or three a day.

Friday’s Times-Picayunes recorded some of the comments of those seeing the area for the first time. “This used to be a park.” “Houses sitting on top of cars. Fridges on houses. I’m hoping and praying there was some lives saved.” “Nothing there. Like there was never nothing there.” “I came to see what God had done.”

God has done a lot of things here, and He’s still at work.

Greg Hand, pastor of the Vieux Carre Baptist Church on Dauphine Street, one block over from Bourbon, called me Friday. “You need to come see our place,” he said. The Louisiana Baptist Builders have torn out the termite-infested wood throughout much of his building and rebuilt it. “They moved our kitchen into a larger room, and are laying tile. It’s just gorgeous.” The builders are preparing the small church’s facilities to host church groups coming to witness and minister in the Quarter.

Greg said, “Oh, and on the third floor, the workers uncovered a lot of baking pans. We knew that this used to be a bakery in the late 1800s and here is the evidence.” I asked him to hang on to them; I want to see them.

The owner of the bar down the street invited Greg to attend the poetry reading the evening before. What was that like? “Honestly, I’m not sure,” Greg laughed. “Poetry in a bar is not my thing. The owner introduced me to the twenty customers and said if anyone had a problem, I was a good one to talk with. A lady came over and said she needs help in cleaning out her place, so we have a team that’s going over to help her. This may be a breakthrough.” Pray for Greg and Vieux Carre Baptist Church.

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We go to church. I had no specific place I had to be Sunday morning, so I dropped in on four churches on the West Bank. West St. Charles in Boutte, Chuck Lowman, pastor, was first. Rudy French, an independent missionary from Canada, was there, waiting to preach for Chuck who was out of town. Rudy and his lovely wife Rose have moved to Baton Rouge temporarily to make themselves available to serve the Lord anyway He leads in this part of the world. They are an inspiration to all of us.

Next, I dropped in on the First Baptist Church of Avondale where Marc Daniels serves. Marc is a fascinating man. He used to be Jewish, and was led to Christ by his wife and the ministry of this very church, as I recall. And now he’s the pastor. Marc owns a Ph.D. in biology and serves as a professor at the William Carey School of Nursing, New Orleans campus. He was standing outside on the church parking lot, greeting people arriving for Sunday School. When Lisa drove up with her young daughter Monique, Marc said, “She was saved last Sunday night. Just walked into the service for the first time. None of us knew her. I preached to the saints on having a servant heart. Afterwards, Lisa introduced herself and said, ‘You were talking to me.’ We prayed and she gave her life to Jesus. She’s going to be baptized soon.” Lisa told me she works at a Best Western motel, and was now living temporarily in New Iberia.

My third church Sunday morning was the First Baptist Church of Westwego. (All these communities are on U.S.90. west of New Orleans.) Pastor Jay Adkins was also standing in front of his church, welcoming worshipers. He greeted me warmly and I asked for a couple of minutes to address his people. Inside, perhaps 50 people sat on folding chairs in a sanctuary stripped bare of water-damaged sheetrock and ceiling materials. The carpet had been discarded and blue plastic covered the roof, including two holes opening to the sky above. One side of the auditorium was lined with “Dole” banana boxes, filled with foodstuffs they’ve been giving to the community. “I heard about your new redecorating,” I told the congregation, “and wanted to see for myself. I love the skylights!” They laughed. This is one happy, relaxed congregation. You would love to be a part of this loving fellowship. I thanked them for the ministry they have performed in this part of the city, almost from the first day following the storm.

Then I drove back out Highway 90 to the First Baptist Church of Luling in time to hear Pastor Todd Hallman preach on Romans 8. He’s a good communicator and sure seems comfortable leading the church. Under the previous pastor, Dwight Munn, Todd was the minister of music. When Dwight left for West Monroe, everyone said, “Todd, how about you?” It was a great choice. He gave me a couple of minutes at the end so I could thank the members and staff for their wonderful ministry. I mentioned Judges 5:2 where Deborah sings, “That the leaders led in Israel and that the people volunteered, O praise the Lord.” Sometimes leaders try to lead and no one follows, so nothing gets done. And at other times, people volunteer but no one leads; again, nothing happens. The ideal situation is for leaders to lead and the people to step up and volunteer, which is what we have been seeing all over greater New Orleans.

I am well aware that once you start singling out churches for praise, you run the risk of omitting others that also served faithfully. But it’s a risk worth taking, to give honor where it is due. I invite readers to drop down to the end of this article on our website and leave your own tributes to churches doing a great job.

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The Times-Picayune for today. Fascinating stuff. For instance…

1. “Want Answers? Don’t Ask FEMA.” reads one front page headline. Reporter James Varney says “…getting FEMA to release any information has proven a maddening process….” FEMA says it has to protect the privacy of all the people it’s helping. Local officials cry, “Can’t you at least tell us who is at the various locations around the country so we can contact them?” Nope; sorry.

2. “Jeff chief admits disaster plan flawed.” Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard has purchased a full page ad in tomorrow’s paper to defend his behavior during and after the hurricane. He’s tried this before, but to little effect. Paper says he’s spending $38,000 of the parish’s tax money to buy four such ads. On the levee this morning, an 84 year old neighbor stopped me to say, “I’m campaigning for Aaron Broussard.” I knew he was setting me up. “For what office?” “Dog catcher.”

3. “Officials knew about weak soil under levee.” Diagrams in the top center of the front page show how the flood walls beside the canals were built atop peat, which is decayed organic matter from long ago. Soft, soft, soft. Back in 1981, soil samples were taken and the truth was learned. Just 8 years ago, that soft soil became part of a lawsuit filed by a construction company against the Corps of Engineers. No one can plead ignorance. Except the truly ignorant.

This area of the world is the delta of the Mississippi River. There’s not a rock or a hill within a hundred miles. The ground is soft, the streets are terrible. So we drive pilings down until we hit something solid, then we build our structures atop them. At least, that’s the plan. When they were building one of our churches on the West Bank, some years back, the builder said they had to tie a chain on the pilings to keep them from disappearing into the soft soil. Then they built their church. There are major cracks in the walls of that house of worship at this very moment. Anyone remember what Jesus said about building on the Rock and on the sand? Matthew 7.

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