The pastor said, “We’re not the same church we were before Katrina.” We were sitting in his office this Wednesday afternoon. He explained, “God has shown me just how introverted we were as a church before the hurricane. All our energies and ministries were directed inward.” I said, “A lot of our churches were that way.” “But we were slowly dying,” he said. “One of the things we are determined to do is minister in the community. A free car wash, giving help door to door, doing what we can to help the people.”

I rejoiced inwardly over his being given a clear focus from the Lord for his church. I told him of one of our local pastors who announced to his congregation recently, “We’re through having two hour business meetings to vote on spending a few cents on call waiting.” I told him that pastor’s congregation cheered his decision, and that his will, also. “Have you had any opposition?” I asked. “Not really,” he said, adding, “A little grumbling here and there, but nothing serious.” I gave him one of the mainstays of my quotes. John Wesley wrote a letter to a pastor, saying to him, in effect, “I hear you are doing a great work in that city. I am amazed Satan has not raised up a champion to oppose it.”

FamilyNet Radio is now broadcasting on Sirius, the new pay radio service. This morning at 7:30 am, in their live talk show portion, I was their guest for some 15 minutes as they interviewed me about the New Orleans situation. I didn’t say anything new, certainly nothing readers of this website haven’t seen fifty times, yet it’s good to find new audiences.

At our pastors meeting in LaPlace this morning, I suggested to our guys that they do what I’ve done, which was to take a leaf out of Chuck Kelley’s book. The president of our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has to speak before many different groups, often on the same subject, so he feels no need to re-invent the wheel each time. “When we were in the New Horizons fundraising campaign three years ago,” I told them, “I attended many gatherings where Chuck spoke, each time saying basically the same thing, but with great gusto and enthusiasm. He was quite effective.” Every one of our pastors gets opportunities to speak before groups or be interviewed in the media concerning the New Orleans story. “Get your story,” I suggested. “Pick out your favorite quotes, scenes, comments, and insights, and arrange it so you can tell it effectively. Sometimes you’ll have a half hour and sometimes two minutes.”

Here are some excerpts from today’s pastors meeting with around 50 attending…

Scott Smith told of the suicide in the parking lot of Highland Church last week. “It was the father,” he said, explaining that two men had parked their pop-up camper there several months ago while they looked for work. “The son had left and gone back to Colorado.” He does not know what the suicide note said, but they did manage to contact the son. “He said we could have the camper,” Scott said, although he had no idea what they would do with it. I said, “Tell him to send you the title and sell it to another construction worker, someone now living in a tent in City Park.”

We promoted the Billy Graham/Franklin Graham “Celebration of Hope,” scheduled for Saturday and Sunday of next week, March 11 and 12, at our N.O. Arena. All ministers and wives are invited to a luncheon and prayer time with Dr. Billy Graham on Thursday the 9th at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans. One of our pastors said, “I found out that our young people do not know who Billy Graham is.” We realized it makes sense, come to think about it. Anyone born in 1990 would be 16 today, and Dr. Graham’s health has limited his evangelistic activities all this time.

Pastor’s wife Mel Bellow told of witnessing to people at a drug house in her community, of passing out the “Celebration of Hope” materials, and of asking a man clearly under the influence of drugs, “If you died tonight or tomorrow, do you know where you would go?” He said, “I’d go to hell.” She said, “And when I asked if he would like to ask Jesus Christ to forgive his sin and save him, he said he would.” The man prayed with her to be saved. We will let the Lord who knows every hearts sort this one out; we give thanks for this dear lady’s faithfulness.

Thomas Glover told of three mission teams from other states coming to help his New Covenant Church. He said, “We’re beginning a pots and pans ministry. We’ll send these volunteers door to door in our neighborhood, offering these kitchen utensils to anyone needing them. One church said they wanted to distribute gift bags door to door and asked what we wanted to put in them. I told them, ‘Toiletries.’ I used to work in the inner city and I know that people on food stamps will have food, but they don’t always have toilet tissue and things like that. The volunteers will talk with the residents and give them these gifts and ask for prayer requests, then they’re going to say, ‘And what can we come back and do for you tomorrow?’ Whether it’s paint up or cut the grass or whatever, they’re going to strengthen our church’s relationship with our community, and that is really exciting.”

Kevin Lee of Edgewater told what happened yesterday, Mardi Gras Day. “Jason Sampler saw a police lady sitting in her car down the street and walked down and invited her up to the church for some water. He found out she lived in a devastated area and her house had not been touched. We got her address and told her we’d send a crew over to gut out the house.” Kevin said, “She told me she belonged to Desire Park Church, and I said, ‘I met a man from that church the other day. I had to spend 6 hours at Mighty Automotive in Jefferson while my van was being repaired and I talked to the employees there. This man told me his house was destroyed too, and I told him we would send a crew over to help gut it out.” The policewoman said, “That was my husband. He came home and told me about it, but he lost the paper with the name of the church and the phone number.” It’s what we refer to as a “God thing.” The Lord working overtime to get His people together to minister to each other.

Like something Gonzalo Rodriguez said. He was beyond exhausted, yet had to travel 280 miles to a speaking engagement. He was accompanied by his friend from Honduras, Reverend Ramon, whose last name I forget. Gonzalo gave him the car keys, directed him to the interstate, and said, “Wake me when we get to the exit where we turn off,” and went to sleep. Not a good idea, it would seem. When he woke up and took the wheel, he had trouble finding the right exit. Then he realized Ramon had driven a hundred miles past their turn-off. As they drove back, it was raining and the temperature was near freezing. They passed a hitch-hiker and Ramon suggested they give him a ride. “I don’t think so,” said Gonzalo, reminding his friend that this was not a safe thing to do. The Honduran said, “I feel differently about this.” Gonzalo said, “All right, let’s turn around and go back. Let me look at his face and I’ll decide.” They stopped for him. Gonzalo, ever the cautious one, had Ramon get in the back seat and they put the visitor in the front. “I wanted him there in front of me,” said Rodriguez. (The pastors were laughing by now, but realizing they would have felt the same way.) The man told Gonzalo and Ramon he had been standing out there in the freezing rain for four hours, and that he had been recommitting himself to the Lord, asking Him to please show mercy and let one of His children stop and give him a ride. A God thing.

At 11 o’clock, we held a meeting of our associational executive committee with John Galey presiding, in which we elected Gonzalo Rodriguez, Tony Bellow, and David Lema to the administrative committee. We voted to accept the Plaquemines Association in a merger with BAGNO, and I told them about the leaving of our administrative assistant Meredith Johnson who has moved to Florida. Meredith has been with the association exactly fifteen years and is as fine as they come. This afternoon I spoke with Fred Dyess, my predecessor, who hired Meredith soon after he became director of missions, and we swapped stories of her amazing ability to turn out great work at record speed. We will miss her much. I announced to the pastors that with fewer than half our churches and missions operating, our income has been greatly curtailed, our program has been reduced severely, many of our churches are in crisis mode, and we will be operating for the foreseeable future with the remaining two secretaries, Lynn Gehrman and Ninfa Rodriguez.

I went over our records Monday and typed a list of every church and mission still in operation, made a second list of those out of business, whether temporarily or permanently remaining to be seen, and a third smaller list of the few churches in the gray area. According to my figuring, we have 58 churches and missions operating normally. We lost 73 churches and missions. And 7 are either questionable or in-between.

That last group, the “gray, in-between” category deserves explanation. Take Edgewater Church, now meeting in a tent on their property while their gutted church awaits rebuilding. They are not “out of business” and yet not operating normally. Same with the churches of Arabi/Chalmette, now meeting together in the Chalmette High School cafeteria. None of those churches are back at their church site with normal operations. On the other hand, neither are they “out of business.”

Add the numbers up–58 plus 73 plus 7–and you get 138. Prior to Katrina, we would have said that between BAGNO and Plaquemines, we have 80 churches and 60 missions, for a total of 140. I’m not sure where the other two are. Perhaps Reggio and Alluvial City, both of which had merged with Delacroix Hope in the same general area of St. Bernard Parish. All three churches were completely destroyed by the storm.

That’s our status today. It changes almost weekly.