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.”

The wives cut out as they usually do for the final hour, led by Linda Williams and Cherry Blackwell, then rejoined us for lunch. Those of us left were divided into four groups, with Bill and his team-members leading each section, asking questions, listening, making notes. I was in and out, but overheard some of Bill’s group. He had nine ministers around him. No one was bashful.

Bill said, “I am aware that your task down here is like pushing a rock up a hill. You don’t need us to come tell you how to push it. You need a hand.”

John said, “I need some adoptive churches that really mean business. We had a long list of churches to sign on as adopting us. But they haven’t come through. Several of them, I phone at least once a week and they never return my calls.”

Darryl said, “Some of them send you this long form to fill out. They want to know every detail about your church and your budget, ministers’ salaries, etc. It would take a secretary a week to fill that out. And then they will decide if you are worthy of their help.”

Bill: “They haven’t driven the streets of New Orleans.” Then he added, “I think those churches meant well when they volunteered to adopt you. But they found it was a much bigger job than they anticipated.”

David: “We need medical clinics down here. With the warm weather, we have an impending health crisis. You can drive down the streets and smell the mold in the houses. One crew of volunteers entered a house to gut it and found two barrels of water left over from the hurricane. Swarms of mosquitoes hovered over it. We have one of our ministers in the hospital with hepatitis and another with Ecoli. We may be facing an epidemic. In a few days, we’ll have thousands of vacant houses with knee-deep grass in the front yard. Imagine the problems that will create.”

Donald: “In my yard there are swarms of these biting gnats. The first time I went in my (flooded) home, I was there only 4 hours and was sick 10 days.”

Chuck: “Twenty churches volunteered to help us. We’ve heard from four.”

Bill: “At least you heard from four.”

Alberto: “We had five adoptive churches, but one has done all the work.” He cannot praise Mountain Creek Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, too much.

I told Bill Taylor later he had opened a keg of pain and now it would be difficult to seal it up again. We both felt that just expressing it had been helpful to the ministers.

Not all the pastors have had frustrating experiences with the adoptive churches. Several have really been blessed and helped. I told the group that Freddie Arnold and I have been invited to speak in several states on the New Orleans situation and we always tell the audiences, “This is a great time to be a Southern Baptist in New Orleans.”

Bill Taylor emphasized the importance of keeping the New Orleans story before Southern Baptists. “I told the folks at NAMB,” he said, “that they have to keep New Orleans as their number one focus for a long time to come.” Bill said, “The problem is that up in Nashville where I live, my wife and I might go out to eat at Chili’s, go to a movie or go to the park. I love to jog. And sometime I will say, ‘I wonder how they’re doing in New Orleans. I haven’t heard anything lately, so I guess they’re back up and running.'” He added, “That’s how people are. Unless you continually keep this story before them, they move on to other things.”

Which is the main reason for this website. So many friends around the country tell me they started receiving it from a mutual friend who thought they ought to know what’s going on down here.

Eleven of our pastors’ wives were in Chattanooga last week. Several for the Kay Arthur meeting and the others for Beth Moore. They were all sky high this morning, bubbling over with the blessings they’ve received.

Jennifer Smith said, “I’ve heard Beth Moore before, but this was the first time I had heard her address only pastors’ wives. There were 3,000 of us there, from 35 states.” Jennifer said there was so much pain in many of the women. The pastor’s family life was a major issue for most, and infidelity was a subject on the hurting hearts of a large number.

Bill Taylor said, “Let me say a word about pastors. I told you I’ve been a staff member in a number of great churches. But the fact is, no staff member has a clue what kind of stress the pastor is under. And I didn’t either until my son became a pastor.” He told of his son’s church, of an issue they had faced, and of the death threats he received. Bill said, “The church members have no way of knowing about those death threats. And they don’t know when the pastor is in the hospital at three o’clock in the morning.”

Pray for the pastors. And for their wives.

In my time with the pastors, I gave them a sermon idea based on a familiar item we see on every street in New Orleans these days.

“You know how Scripture talks about your life like it’s a house. II Corinthians 5:1 is one, but our favorite is Revelation 3:20. Jesus says, ‘I stand at your door and knock. If any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in….’

“I have gotten that wrong all these years. Often, when presenting that to children, I would draw a picture of a house that Jesus wants to enter. It would be a lovely suburban house, the type you might live in. But that’s exactly wrong.

“The house Jesus is talking about is one of our flooded, ruined, devastated houses. The shingles are missing, the outside walls carry the high water level stains, and the inside is ruined. And here you are (I sat on the piano stool, dropped my head, and pulled myself down into a sad pile of depression), in tears, wondering how you’re going to rebuild your house. You’re crying. You need more help than you’ve ever needed before.

“Suddenly Jesus knocks. He wants to come in. And to ‘sup with you,’ He said. But He doesn’t just come in and share your meal. He has a lot of work to do before mealtime.

“Your house has to be gutted out. All the ruined carpet pulled out into the yard. All the spoiled furniture. Everything. Finally it’s empty. Then, the Lord says, ‘The wall board, too.’ You think, ‘No, Lord. That’s part of my life. I need it.’ But it has to go, because it has been polluted and ruined, too.

“Then He pulls out all the insulation, that pink stuff that has shut you off from the world around you. It’s ruined too and has to come out. He drags it out and piles it on the front sidewalk.

“What a pile of trash and junk all that makes. You look at that garbage and think, ‘This was my life? How sad.

“Finally, He pulls out all the electrical wiring. You will have to be rewired for His kind of power. The old wiring was corroded and ruined, and if He were to send His power down that circuit, it would overload it and set the whole place afire. It has to be rewired. For His power.

“Now you’re a new person. You look pretty much the same as before, only fresher. And cleaner. But you’re not the same, and never will be again. Jesus Christ has remade you. And He has come to dinner.”

“O Father, purge from my life everything soiled, everything diseased, and all that is unholy. Gut it out. Rewire me and remake me according to Thy plan. Then fill me with Thy presence, and use me for Thy glory. Amen.”