(Note: I wrote this report on the status of our N.O. churches at the request of the Baptist Message, our weekly newspaper for Louisiana Baptists. It will appear in the August 30 edition, one day after the second anniversary of Katrina.)

Before Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29, 2005, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans (BAGNO) could count some 140 churches and missions. One month later, when we re-entered the area, we were able to identify 35 still operating. Today, two years after this life-changing event, we

Each Monday afternoon, I meet with three or four of our young pastors at a fast food cafe near my house. We sit there for an hour or more, drinking coffee or soft drinks, and sharing about our lives and ministries. Invariably, one of them will groan when I ask, “So, what are you preaching next Sunday?” He will say, “It’s only Monday, man–how would I know that?” and everyone laughs.

Today, I threw out as a conversation starter: “Give us your life-verse, the Scripture that explains you.” I started with mine, Job 4:4, “Your words have stood men on their feet.”

Carl’s verse was Acts 18:9-10, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you…I have many people in this city.”

“I was struggling with moving to New Orleans,” Carl said. “I had requested an assignment to one of several cities, none of which were offered to me. Finally, the company said, ‘How about New Orleans?’ Well, I had been here several times when I was a partying college student. I knew nothing but the French Quarter, and that was not a happy memory. Now that I was living for the Lord, I did not want to even be exposed to that lifestyle anymore. But as I was praying, the Lord spoke those words to me. I moved to New Orleans–to Kenner, actually–you came to visit me, I joined First Baptist Church, and God called me into the ministry there.”

“Yes, and you met your wife at our church,” I said. Evidence aplenty God was in it. He agreed.

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The pastor who reads only the New Testament to get his assignment, see his field, and understand the nature of his work will miss a great deal of vital information. The Old Testament is a book of illustrations of New Testament teachings.

Case in point.

Two passages from the 6th Century prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel take pains to show us the failures of the shepherds–i.e., the spiritual leaders–of their day. It’s impossible to read Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34 without seeing a reflection of ourselves and our situation in that mirror.

(Warren Wiersbe says when we first start reading Scripture, it’s a window to us. We gaze through it to see the characters of the Bible, how they lived, what they did. Eventually, however, if we stay with it, the Word becomes a mirror. As we gaze into it, we begin to see ourselves, our world, our situations.)

The passage from Ezekiel 34 rails against the failures of the spiritual leaders of that day. Bible students recall what days of crisis those were, with the nation of Judah being pulled on one side to trust in Egypt and being called by God to surrender to Babylon, with false prophets calling one way and true prophets another. The poor people had no idea where to turn. Eventually, the Israelis were defeated by the Babylonians, the population was carted off to foreign lands, and the city of Jerusalem was demolished. Thousands of God’s people died from war or starvation or other cruelties.

In the middle of this national crisis, a time when the preachers should have been at their best, they failed miserably. Ezekiel 34:1-10 lists five great failures of these so-called shepherds.

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A generation ago, Houston’s John Bisagno and E. V. Hill of Los Angeles were featured speakers at a conference I was attending. Hill, an eloquent fiery preacher in the best tradition of African-American stemwinders, had blown the windows out of the church with his message and left the congregation of a thousand on their feet cheering and shouting. As order settled in on the auditorium, our host introduced Bisagno. Brother John walked to the pulpit and softly related the most appropriate little story I’ve ever heard.

“Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Linus were lying in the grass gazing at the puffy white clouds. Lucy says, ‘If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation…What do you think you see, Linus?’

“Linus said, ‘Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean….That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor…and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen…I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side….'”

“Lucy says, ‘Uh huh…That’s very good… What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?’ And Charlie Brown answers, ‘Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind.'”

Bisagno looked out at his audience and said, “I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but after that sermon from Dr. Hill, I don’t think I’ll say anything now!'”

But he did. He was equally wonderful and just as enthusiastically received–ask anyone who heard Dr. Bisagno in his prime–but I’ve never forgotten his description of that comic strip from Peanuts.

In the comics for today, Sunday, August 19, 2007, that was the Peanuts strip that was reprinted. I’ve clipped it out, It’s a real keeper.

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The paper this Saturday morning tells of a lawsuit filed in Iowa over a 1939 experimental program conducted at the state university in which researchers worked to induce stuttering in the speech patterns of children by abusing them. Setting out to prove that this speech defect is a learned behavior that can be created, these so-called scientists focused on 22 children from a state-controlled orphans home for their research.

For a period of six months, Dr. Wendell Johnson and his staff of pioneers in speech pathology brutalized these children verbally. “Some were subjected to steady harassment, badgering and other negative acts in an attempt to get them to stutter….” One of the children, 84-year-old Hazel Dornbush, said, “It was awful…We had nobody to lean on to help us out.”

The state of Iowa is shelling out nearly a million dollars to these victims. Those that are still alive. Those who can be found.

The program was kept secret for many years and only revealed in a 2001 investigative story published in the San Jose Mercury News. The university apologized, and two years later the lawsuit was filed.

Much too little, way too late, far too awful.

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Leslie D. Weatherhead was a well-known British pastor, who served famous City Temple of London for many years. In 1945, he published a book of the sermons he had delivered to his people during the war that was just concluded. Only the first sermon had this as its title, but the entire book was named “The Significance of Silence.” The book is available online, which is where I found it and learned quickly to treasure its content. (My favorite source of old books– www.alibris.com.)

A pastor friend told me one day that he finds great sermon illustrations from this website, for which I am grateful. Waylon Bailey is going to love these three short vignettes.

About Gratitude

Weatherhead repeats a story Prime Minister Winston Churchill had recently told in a speech, about a sailor who dived into the waters of Plymouth Harbor to rescue a drowning child. Not long after, the sailor bumped into the little boy and his mother in the streets of Plymouth. The child nudged his mother and she stopped the sailor. “Are you the man who pulled my little boy out of the water?” The sailor was glad to acknowledge that he was, and thought possibly the mother might have in mind some kind of reward. “Yes, madam,” he said proudly.

“Then,” said the mother, with fire in her eyes, “where’s his cap?”

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One of the differences in us and China….

The newspaper for Tuesday morning, August 14, 2007, announces that the Chinese manufacturer of the Elmo dolls that have been flagged as dangerous to children, causing a massive recall, has committed suicide. He went down to the plant where the toys were made and hanged himself. The paper says suicide is the common reaction in that country when officials are disgraced.

But not in the good old U.S. of A. No, sirree. Over here, we justify ourselves, minimize our acts, call our misdeeds “a mistake” and “a lapse of judgement,” and count on our naive supporters to immediately forgive us and to rail against anyone who dares call the miscreant what he is–a bum–and urge the fullest penalty the law allows.

Yesterday, in federal court on Poydras Street, Oliver Thomas, at-large councilman for New Orleans, pleaded guilty to receiving nearly $20,000 in kickbacks from Pampy Barre’ in return for his assuring that Pampy kept the contract for managing three parking lots in the Quarter. Okay, he confessed. That’s good. Something our embattled Congressman William Jefferson hasn’t had the courage to do, even though he also was nabbed red-handed with audio tapes and the bribe money in his freezer.

U.S. Federal Judge Sarah Vance gave Oliver Thomas the what-for yesterday, calling this a “body blow to a community that is already reeling under a wave of public corruption.” She added, “If this city is ever to recover, we have to have an end to this type of venality.”

(I had to look it up. Venality– a noun referring to selling one’s services for misdeeds. Corruption due to bribery.)

Which raises the question: did Thomas put so little value on his integrity that he sold it–and the public trust, not to mention his political career–for less than $20,000?

The line, quoted here a few weeks ago, from “A Man for All Seasons,” comes to mind. Thomas More says to Richard Rich, “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world–but for Wales?”

For $20,000?

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Something happened Tuesday at the pastors luncheon at Victory Fellowship, something I cannot get out of my mind.

A radio personality and evangelist from Dallas who has New Orleans on her heart and who now has a radio program on local Christian station Lifesongs 89.1, is calling for a full day of prayer and fasting on behalf of the needed revival in this city. (I’ll try to find more information and post at the end of this article–or amend this part of the article.) Her group has secured the Morial Convention Center for that day and they are expecting 10,000 people to fill the arena. She told of various important leaders who will be leading in prayer throughout the day.

Now, I have not met the lady, share her burden for revival in this city, and hope the day is a great success. But when it comes to filling the huge auditorium that day, I cannot advise her on how to accomplish it, but I can sure tell her how NOT to fill it.

You don’t fill an arena that size by announcing it on the radio. You don’t fill it by promoting it with local ministers. You don’t fill it with billboards and newspaper ads. You don’t fill it by spending large amounts of money getting the word out. You don’t fill it by getting the pastors to announce the gathering to their people and printing it in their church bulletins. And, if it doesn’t sound like heresy, I’ll go so far as to say you don’t fill it by getting on your knees and praying for hours that believers from local churches will have their hearts broken for revival and pack out that place.

As important as all of these may be, that’s not how it’s done.

You can do all these things and more, then walk into the arena that day to find 200 people sitting there.

I know this from sad experience.

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