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.

Everything is changing, although no one quite knows what changes will be permanent or how life in this city will look a year from now. I heard a political commentator say Senator Mary Landrieu must be taking a long look at her prospects for re-election a couple of years from now. As a Democrat, her strength lay in the African-American sections of New Orleans, areas now deserted and uninhabitable due to Katrina’s work. Citizens who voted for Senator Landrieu in big numbers are now scattered across America. The pundit wondered whether the senator will move to the right and become more conservative, to win the support of Republicans who put David Vitter into the other senate seat from this state two years ago.

Two dates are looming large on our calendars.

Saturday, November 19, we’re inviting everyone to join us for a PRAYER WALK in various neighborhoods of metro New Orleans. We plan to convene at Williams Boulevard Baptist Church at the intersection of I-10 and Williams Boulevard at 10 o’clock that morning for instructions and refreshments. Then, pastors will lead groups into their neighborhoods and send them out. (We plan to avoid the most dangerous neighborhoods where the debris and mold and mildew spoors would threaten the health of the walkers.) Wayne Jenkins of the Louisiana Baptist Convention office, who conceived the prayer walk and is organizing it, is inviting prayer teams from other states to join us for several hours of praying and talking with local residents we encounter. He’s having t-shirts printed up in bold “Saints” colors with the words PRAY NEW ORLEANS emblazoned on the front.

I’ve begun hearing from church groups in other states who are sending word that while they cannot be with us that day, they will be praying at that same hour.

On November 22, 10 am, the pastors of our churches in St. Bernard Parish are re-assembling at Calvary Baptist Church in Algiers to talk about the future. Our friends from the Missouri Baptist Convention who have adopted this parish will be represented, as will leaders from our state office. Freddie Arnold and I will be on hand, too. What we hope to accomplish is for everyone to get a sense of what God would have us do, which churches to bring back first, what ministries to re-establish.

We will appreciate the prayers of all God’s people, both for the prayer walking and for the gathering at Calvary.

We continue to meet with our ministers each Wednesday from 9 to noon at the First Baptist Church of LaPlace, some 15 miles west of the Kenner airport. I’m not certain if I’ve mentioned it here previously, but we’re inviting our pastors to make application for money for their personal needs, for their churches, and for their members. A committee of three has been working to allot the money God’s people have generously sent our way. Tony Merida of Kenner’s First Baptist Church, Gonzalo Rodriguez of Good Shepherd (Spanish) Church, and Lionel Roberts of the St. Bernard Mission are excellent representatives of our entire group and will do an outstanding job. I half-jokingly told them that if anyone was left out or any church omitted, the blame would fall on them and not me. Ah, the joys of delegation.

Thanks to the generosity of the Lord’s people, this is one more good reason for our ministers to make these meetings.