Even people who live in this city like to turn to one another and pose what, before inflation, was called ‘the 64 dollar question:’ Do you think New Orleans is better prepared for a hurricane than we were 2 years ago?

I answer an emphatic ‘yes.’ For a lot of reasons. Here are some.

1. The levees are stronger in many places and no worse anywhere than before Katrina.

2. At the entrance to a number of crucial waterways, the Corps of Engineers has installed massive and expensive floodgates to regulate the amount of water inside the city. Every workday, I drive over the “Hammond Highway” bridge in Bucktown, which spans the 17th Street Canal where the levee broke after Katrina and devastated the neighborhood around our Pontchartrain Baptist Church, and gaze upon what perhaps 50 million dollars have bought in the way of intricate, huge, impressive floodgates. We had nothing there before.

3. We have fewer vulnerable properties now than pre-Katrina for the simple reason that the storm cleaned out thousands of flimsy buildings. Okay, we still have lots of FEMA house trailers throughout Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes and I do not want to even imagine what a strong storm would do with those lightweight missiles. Turn them into kites?

4. Everyone knows a hurricane can actually hit the city now–previously, we had become blase’ about that ever actually happening–and everyone has a plan of some kind. When someone asked me my hurricane plan this week, I said, “Leave.”

5. We have fewer old and infirmed people who are without transportation and dependent on the city or state’s evacuating them. For a hundred reasons, most did not return after the storm. Many died in it, of course, and most of New Orleans’ nursing homes were shut down and have not reopened. They mayor can talk all he pleases about lining up buses for evacuation, but I’ll be surprised if they’re all needed. Our poorest and weakest citizens have not been able to return to the city and will not be here if a storm hits this summer.

6. Jefferson Parish has built safehouses for its floodgate operators so they can ride out a storm and keep the pumps working during anything that occurs.

7. Law enforcement people have learned from the mistakes and breakdowns of the last time. Thursday’s front-page article in the Times-Picayune announces that area police departments have a new $32 million communications system in place that will connect them with each other by flipping a switch. During Katrina, when the cell phone towers fell, the phone systems went dead. The new system boasts ten towers with lots of redundancy (meaning overlapping of signal areas). A storm might take down several towers but the system will still work. They’ve been trying it out and report a high degree of confidence in the results.

One of our pastors made a suggestion to his church leadership the other day that went like this: rather than keep all our church’s money in our tiny little parish bank (we shall remain anonymous here, okay?) which in the case of a hurricane will be out of business and our money unavailable, let’s open a backup account of some small amount at one of the big national banks just in case. Let’s set it up so that the pastor and one other leader can sign the checks. We won’t put much money in it, but just have the account there, and not touch it unless a hurricane shuts down our regular bank. The last hurricane taught us that a) church members will scatter from one end of the country to the other, b) the regular weekly income every church depends on to maintain its ministries and support its staff will disappear, and c) members will want to send money to their church to take care of the staff and emergency needs and will need some system for that.

“Whoever heard of such a thing,” he was told by his lay leadership. “The very idea of a pastor signing the checks.” And it was dropped.

It will take another hurricane to make some church leaders flexible and proactive.

Preaching at the First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, last Sunday was such a joy. (The only person who mentioned Hurricane Katrina was me.) Each of the two morning services had a full sanctuary, and at both times people were responding to the invitation to come to Christ, get involved in this church family, etc. All week long, I kept meeting people who were in that church for the first time and sensed the specialness of God at work there.

This is a thriving congregation with an excited staff who are involving the members in missions at home and all over the world. I sat in some meetings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in which mission trips and ministries were being presented, and was thrilled at what these good folks are doing. They’re involved in two mission trips to New Orleans this summer, one to Grace Baptist Church in the Bywater section where Charlie Dale is pastor, and another to build houses through Operation NOAH.

As a rule, I work to protect this blog from being a travelogue about where I’ve been and what I did or saw or felt. So, I’ll keep my remarks about Alexandria, Virginia, and the Washington, DC, area brief. Surely, I must have reported here sometime previously about Pastor Don Davidson who came to FBC Alexandria less than two years ago from Mt. Hermon BC in Danville, Virginia. For my money, there is no finer pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention than Don, and very few better preachers, if any. His wife Audrey is such a strength to that church and Don’s ministry. If ever a pastor and wife were a team, they are it. For example….

Don and Audrey have a gift, the talent, and a great love for hospitality. Last Sunday, for example, they had people over for Sunday lunch and another group over for supper after the evening service (which was a concert, which lasted 2 hours, and which meant supper was served at 9 o’clock). Now, to say someone has a gift for hospitality might suggest they like to cook and feed people. That’s part of it, but a tiny part. They just love people. They never meet a stranger and two minutes after meeting them, you have three sensations: a) I feel I’ve always known them, b) they are really interested in me, and c) I like them.

My lasting sensation about the Davidsons’ ministry at this great and historic church is this: I wonder if that congregation realizes what they have. Do they know how blessed they are. What a special thing the Lord has done for them.

I’ll tell you one church that knows: Mount Hermon in Danville. But my hunch is they realized it only after the pastor had moved away and they started looking for the next one. (This is not to diminish in any way the ministry and specialness of Mount Hermon’s new pastor, Danny Davis. It’s simply to make a point here, that churches often take for granted the outstanding leadership God has sent their way as though somehow we deserve this and there are plenty more out there as good or better than him and if he leaves, we’ll just go pick another from God’s preacher-garden. So, so wrong.)

In our city, that very thing is taking place at a couple of our churches. I can show you one pastor in particular and the minister of music in another church who are doing incredible work for the Lord and yet the members are acting bored with their leadership. Both men have been at their churches several years, and knowing the fickleness of the human heart, I surmise church leaders are thinking it’s about time to bring in new blood.

With all my heart, I wish our congregations and their leaders would quit comparing themselves to some standard of perfection somewhere and start appreciating what they have and get busy supporting their ministers. Get their eyes off men and onto the Lord Jesus Christ. Realize they are not going to be asked at judgment what the preacher did but what they themselves did or did not do.

“If you know these things,” Jesus told His disciples, “blessed are you if you do them.” (John 13:17) The blessing of God is not given to those who know His truths. Not to those who hear them, learn them, love them, study them, memorize them, quote them, distribute them, preach them, teach them, like them, enjoy them, or parse them. Only to the obedient.

After all, what good are floodgates and communication systems and emergency plans unless we put them into practice.

Would someone who reads this please get on your knees and thank God for the ministers He has sent to your church and promise Him that you will give them your support and appreciation. Would you please go to your church next Sunday and stand up for your Lord by supporting the leaders God has assigned to your church (see Acts 20:28 if you doubt He did). And please, whenever you find a cluster of complainers in a remote corner of the foyer, confront them and call this what it is: unbelief and a failure to trust God. Call them to start believing that the Lord is God and capable of using even your church if they will quit belly-aching and start trusting, if they will get their eyes off man and onto Christ, if they will quit murmuring and begin obeying.

Bottom line: your pastor and your other ministers are more than likely much better than you know. They are probably working under difficult conditions, with very little encouragement and inadequate pay and a constant barrage of criticism. No one has yet seen what a great job they might do with a steady flow of support and affirmation. Why not try that approach? You’ve certainly given the opposite approach plenty of effort.

Do not have a reception for them. Don’t buy them a plaque of appreciation. Don’t write them a note “just to remind you that we love you.” Do something. Get up off your couch and a) go do your church job well, b) speak up to other church members about appreciating and supporting our leaders, and c) challenge the nay-sayers. Stand up. Speak up. Wise up. Protect your church from the harmful destructive effects of carping and negativism.

Make discreet inquiries about what your ministers are being paid to make sure the church is doing what it should and a little more. You will never regret being generous, friend. And if your lay leadership is not helpful, stand up in a church business meeting and make your point. Be kind. We don’t need another problem member. Be sweet; we’ve had enough division to last a lifetime.

The storms are coming; are you ready?