I worshiped with the First Baptist Church of Belle Chasse this morning at 10:30 and with Sojourn at 5 pm. As unalike as two Baptist churches on the planet.

Belle Chasse is a pleasant little community downriver from New Orleans, just inside Plaquemines Parish, and the host of a huge Naval Air Station where a large contingent of military people live and work. And worship. The FBC has always been blessed by military families.

The church has fine facilities and a large auditorium. In the summer of 2004, Pastor Freddie Williford resigned and moved to a church in North Louisiana and they’ve been pastorless ever since. Dr. Paul Hussey has been their interim for most of that time, but he has resigned effective next Sunday. Their only full-time staffer is Richard Strahan, the worship leader and devoted minister.

Paul Hussey is a counselor and adjunct professor at our seminary. He told the congregation that a local radio station had already asked him to be on call this morning in case the Saints lost last night’s game. They thought he might want to do some grief counseling over the air. Thankfully, it wasn’t needed.

Sojourn is located at 2130 Magazine Street in the Uptown section of New Orleans. Now, we have Valence Street Baptist Church further down Magazine. It’s the third oldest Baptist church in the city, I believe, but they’ve fallen onto difficult times in recent decades and have a tiny congregation trying to maintain some huge and lovely buildings. I noticed tonight that the west side of their bell tower which took a great blow from Katrina is still covered with the once-ubiquitous blue plastic tarp, evidence that it still has not been repaired. Cipriano Stephens is their longtime pastor.

Faith Baptist Church is also uptown, meeting presently in the chapel of Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church on St. Charles, not far away. Faith’s congregation was sliced in half–from 100 to around 50–by the Katrina effect (families relocating), and they are still without a permanent pastor or permanent location. Professor (and former missionary) Tim Searcy is their longtime interim.

Sojourn was meeting tonight for the first time in their Magazine Street location, which is actually a storefront. James and Amy Welch moved here from Louisville, Kentucky, where they worked with Crossings, another innovative congregation, to begin this church focused on the post-modernist generation. (If you have to ask what that means, you ain’t in it.) (smile)

A word about Magazine Street. I wish more tourists knew about it. People visit this town and stay in a big hotel at the foot of Canal. They attend meetings at the Convention Center and eat in our famous restaurants and walk around the French Quarter. Then they take taxis back to the airport and think they have seen New Orleans. They’ve not come close to seeing New Orleans. They’ve seen other tourists and had the chamber-of-commerce treatment.

I suggest they take the drive down Magazine Street. It begins at Canal Street, just a few blocks from the river, and winds around for 3 or 4 miles until it ends at a riverbend. In the meantime, it is a collection of neighborhoods, tiny shopping centers, incredible small restaurants, expensive shops, banks, groceries, and the odd kinds of places that makes this city what it is.

And now in the middle of all that, we have Sojourn.

“This church is not about a place,” said James Welch. “A sojourn is a trip and we are all travelers.” He said people ask him, “Tell me about your worship.” He says, “Well, I was caught in traffic the other day and some guy really ticked me off and I was losing my temper. Then the Holy Spirit calmed me down and I worshiped the Lord right there.”

Not what they were asking for or expecting to hear. Which is a good line to use about Sojourn. Nothing you expect. No organization, no printed programs, no pipe organs. In fact, not much of the hundreds of things we use to tell the story on the rest of our churches: where you meet, who attends, what they do there, what they can do for me.

There might have been forty of us present, but we were not the people James and Amy (and their colleague Travis Fleming) are going to be reaching. This was a group of youthful supporters. Eleven were down from Louisville. They had helped to clean out the building, paint the insides, and set it up for tonight. A number were part of the seminary family. Freddie Arnold and I were from BAGNO and Steve & Dianne Gahagan from NOAH. Stephanie Screen played her violin and two Kentuckians played guitars and sang. I’m wagering James would love to have that trio all the time.

Apparently, James and Amy are artists. Their vision is to incorporate this church site (if they will let me get by with calling it that) with an art studio here, something they’re calling CONVERGE, if I recall correctly. Art showings for the community, meeting people, making contacts. Worshiping, spreading the gospel.

James emphasizes that we are not to expect him to go undercover for Jesus in the community and have people find out 5 years later that he actually thinks Jesus is “nice.” He believes in transparency but not offensiveness. In naturalness, being who you are, but without the necessity to surprise the people you’ve invited to a gathering by ambushing them with the gospel.

We’d appreciate prayer for James, Amy, and Travis in this new venture for the Lord in this crucial part of the city. So far we’re not having much of an impact over there in our traditional ways, so this is certainly worth giving our best effort. We appreciate the North American Mission Board and the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s support in this venture.

Sometimes when we’re talking to Baptists we remind them that “When you put your tithes and offerings in the plate at your church, you’re supporting this ministry.” The plan is called the Cooperative Program and it allows congregations everywhere and of every size to work together and give financial undergirding to this kind of revolutionary outreach.

I’m sometimes amazed at the diversity within the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in my capacity as director of missions for all our Baptist churches in New Orleans, I am likewise amazed at the diversity just within our own city.

I told you I love “Monk,” the USA network’s incredible program that defies description, other than to say that detective Adrian Monk is a victim of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. If you can let him do what he does without it stressing you out–not everyone can–the program is hilarious and so well-scripted. Anyway, what I was leading up to…

In one promotional segment, Monk is daydreaming about the perfect world. Everything is symmetrical and orderly. All houses are perfectly painted by the same pattern. Twin girls dressed identically are tossing a rope and Monk is jumping it. Meter maids are working almost like a dance team, they’re so in step. And then Monk realizes he has stepped on a wad of chewing gum, his reverie pops, and he’s back to the real world.

No one other than an OCD would want to live in such a cookie cutter world, where everyone is alike, all churches and neighborhoods are the same, and all people are carbon copies of each other.

“Thank you, Lord, for not making us all alike. How boring that would be. You obviously love variety and diversity. The sunset today was unlike any in the history of the world. Tomorrow’s sunrise will be another original. Not only are snowflakes and fingerprints one-of-a-kind, but so is every animal and every plant on the planet. You are so creative, you did not need to use the model of one creature to clone all the others. Each is an original.”

Put a sign at the entrance of Heaven: “Characters Welcome.”