In our Wednesday pastors gathering, some 45 of us talked about the importance of learning names and remembering them. I have sometimes been accused of being good with names, and if so, it’s because I work at it. As pastor I would sit on the platform during the service scanning the congregation, going over the names. At the door, I dared to call the person by name even if I wasn’t sure, which meant sometimes I got it wrong. That is the very reason the average person never attempts to learn names or to call people by their names. “What if I get it wrong and embarrass myself?” Answer: anyone wanting to be good with names must run that risk and not let it deter him. You will make mistakes. No matter. Smile, get it right, and go on.

Joe Williams told us his secret. “Linda is great with names. So I stay close to her. She calls out their name and I smile and say it like I knew it all along.”

Rana Burt stopped by long enough to tell about their church van’s accident on the way to the Billy Graham Crusade. No one was injured, but the van is a mess. Her daughter Katie, age 8, was upset until Rana assured her the Lord was with them and had taken care of them. As they got to safety, there was a Bible lying on the road. (“What are the chances of that?” she asked.) Katie picked it up and the ribbon opened it to a passage beginning, “God protects.” Rana is getting up a group of ministers’ wives to make the trip to Chattanooga later this month to hear Beth Moore.

Eddie Scott, pastor of Christian Bible Fellowship on Alvar Street in the 9th Ward, joined us for the first time. Volunteers are gutting out their buildings and they’re looking toward getting the church up and running to minister to neighbors as they return. Eddie spoke of their evacuation and all the ministry Southern Baptists have given them during their crisis. “I’m so glad to be a Southern Baptist,” he said. “Some of the Brothers used to ask me why I’m Southern Baptist. Now they envy me.”

John Jeffries, Chalmette FBC, told of the SBA loans available to churches for rebuilding. “No grants are available,” he said. “Just loans.”

Tom Hearon of the International Mission Board came by. Tom and Bonnie, long-time friends of ours, are veteran SBC missionaries to South America and Italy, now assigned to the personnel department of the IMB working out of Nashville for a couple of years. The IMB has a fascinating program of allowing their people to leave the Richmond office for a week to serve in the hurricane disaster area. Great idea.

Freddie Arnold told of folding chairs being made available by a church in Arkansas. He told of Pastor John Galey (Poydras BC) who last Sunday gave his people two lists they could sign up for. He had 14 to enroll to help with the feeding unit at Riley School and 17 to sign up for a mission trip to Missouri. The Show-Me folks have done so much in St. Bernard Parish, John wants to show their appreciation by traveling there and helping in some needed ministry. Freddie told of a collegiate ministry that called him from out of state with 3500 students coming to work in New Orleans, but needing a place to stay. “Sorry,” he told them. “I don’t have a clue.”

Cherry Blackwell, Mission Service Corps director for Louisiana, gave an update on the First Responders Appreciation Event scheduled for the New Orleans Arena for Saturday, April 8. They’ve sent out large numbers of invitations through police, military, and medical units. “Next week,” she said, “I’ll have personal invitations for you to hand to your members who were among the rescuers and emergency workers after the storm.” We’ll be taking over the main floor and stage of the Arena. The administration of the building has cut the cost of our rental, which is great news.

Cherry told of a woman counseling police officers with emotional problems, the result of chronic trauma. “We will have counselors on site on April 8,” she said. Pastors are being asked to get their members lined up to come and welcome these heroes. She urges them to bring their entire families and to invite the church members to help. “If you don’t volunteer,” she said, “we’ll be calling you.” Good for you, Cherry. That’s how it’s done.

Jack Dorn, of the Billy Graham Rapid Response Chaplain’s team, came by to encourage everyone and tell of the computers he has dropped off at the associational office for churches or pastors needing one. As a chaplain, Jack used this time to reach out to our ministers. “Watch out for the ‘second injury’,” Jack said, and explained, “This is another traumatic injury coming on the heels of the destruction of your house or church or business. This new injury just adds to it and can push you over the edge. It might be not getting your insurance or the difficulty in getting cooperation out of FEMA.”

Pastor Bobby Burt, our host, restated the welcome his church has extended to us since late September, as we meet in their sanctuary weekly and they provide lunch. But they are about to run us out of the building for the renovation due to start in a few days. “This Sunday will be our final day in the sanctuary,” he said, “and Monday some churches who’ve been given the pews and pulpit furniture will be here to pick it up.” So, beginning next Wednesday, we meet in the church’s fellowship hall. “We’re coming full circle,” Bobby said, because this is where we initially met back in September. “However, the building has been renovated and prettied up since then,” he said.

Speaking of meeting in LaPlace, one of our New Orleans pastors sent word Tuesday, asking how much longer we planned to meet there before moving closer to town. LaPlace is at the edge of our association, some 15 miles west of the New Orleans airport. We handed out slips of paper and asked everyone’s thoughts on the subject. Anthony Pierce said, “I drive in from LaFayette for these meetings. It’s 130 miles each way.” But he wrote on his note, “I am willing to drive on into the city if it’s best for the greater number of the brethren.” Several marked their notes that they drive from 40 to 60 miles to get here and several 25 miles. Most indicated they would like the gatherings to be closer in, with several saying “It doesn’t matter,” and a few preferring we stay at LaPlace. That said, everyone is unanimous in treasuring the graciousness and hospitality of the LaPlace church. Pastor Burt said, “We feel this is something we can do for you all.” On the one hand, I feel that we’ve been like in-laws who have moved in on them and won’t leave, but on the other hand, they have never made us feel anyway but completely welcome in every respect.

Pastor Le Ngoc Thuong of the Vietnamese church told of planning to start a mission among the Vietnamese of Eastern New Orleans, an area where Catholicism and Buddhism are strong. I called on Ken Taylor of Elysian Fields Avenue Church to lead us in praying for this effort. Ken said, “I was with a group the other day praying that the Lord would open up a mission to the Vietnamese in that area.”

Ken Taylor told of the Elysian Fields church meeting weekly in the home of Dr. Bob Jackson. “We had 27 last Sunday,” he said. He and I plan to meet on Friday to talk about where to go from here, since their entire church plant will soon be demolished.

Bob Marye of Habitat told of the foundations being set up for the summer’s “Baptist Crossroads” project of building 40 new homes. On March 7, he said, they dedicated the first home of any kind built in Orleans or any of the other parishes since Katrina. “We are acquiring property in Central City for some new Habitat homes which will be occupied by First Responders needing transitional housing. After they move out, we’ll turn the houses over to the typical Habitat homeowners.”

Richard Leach and Claude Rhea of the North American Mission Board were present. Richard oversees the work of our four mission centers in New Orleans: Friendship House for women and children in crisis, run by Kay Bennett, Brantley Center for the homeless, run by Toby Pitman and David Rhymes, and Rachel Sims/Carver Center administered by Larry Miguez and Linda Middlebrooks. “We have put them at your service,” he said. “They are committed to helping your churches.”

Richard has been reading New Orleanian John Barry’s book, “Rising Tide,” about the 1927 flooding of the Mississippi River. He said, “I was surprised to learn that the Baptist Hospital in New Orleans was founded in 1928 as a result of Baptists wanting to do something to minister to the needs of the city.” (I thought to myself how glad we should be that the hospital was sold in the 1990s and that the destruction of the hospital as a result of post-Katrina flooding is Tenet’s problem, not ours. Meanwhile, the money brought from the sale of the hospital does all kinds of good in the area and is administered by a wonderful group of friends who make up the board of the New Orleans Community Ministries. Former hospital administrator Byron Harrell oversees the work. They are funding half the cost of our Baptist Crossroad Project, building the 40 homes in the Ninth Ward this summer.)

Joe Williams, our FBI chaplain/NAMB counselor, spoke of the upcoming conferences they’re scheduling for ministers and spouses. “We should have named them ‘mental fatigue’ sessions, for that’s what it is,” he said. “I tell people ‘Never doubt in the darkness what you learned in the light.'” His workshops on hope and healing will begin the second week of April, each one taking 5 to 6 hours, and involving groups of 16 ministers and spouses.

Matthew Hughes, minister of music at Riverside Baptist Church in River Ridge, told the group of his wife’s new book, “Winds of Hope: a 31-day journey of encouragement.” Rebecca penned these daily devotionals while they were in evacuation, and at a friend’s urging, combined them with some others she had previously done, and the result was this terrific little book. Here’s an excerpt from day 16: “The first official week of home school at our house was the week before Hurricane Katrina. We spent that week memorizing Psalm 121, knowing nothing about how much we would need those words during our upcoming storm experience. After the hurricane, we were displaced, and my daughter attended school so I could work. Each morning before she left for her new school, we would repeat Psalm 121. The words of that scripture passage came alive as the Lord accompanied us throughout each difficult day.”

Riverside Baptist Church is having a book-signing party for Rebecca on Tuesday night, March 21, from 6 to 8 pm. Address: 9220 Jefferson Highway, River Ridge, LA 70123. The books are $10.95 and may be ordered from the church.

Over a lunch of spaghetti and meatballs, some of our pastors pulled aside into a classroom with Richard Leach and Claude Rhea to brainstorm on the future needs of our area. Leach is in charge of the evangelization aspect of the new Project NOAH, talked about here previously. The question he posed was: “What do we need if we are to reach large numbers for Jesus in the next two years?” That is, what changes do we need to make, in what areas are we going to have to develop new skills, what can we learn from the community? Anyone who knows pastors and our love for talking will understand that Leach and Rhea had a hard time getting a word in edgewise over the next hour.

Hey, we’re Baptist preachers. Talking is what we do best.

You might even say it’s our name.

I announced to the pastors the departure of our association’s administrative assistant Meredith Johnson after 15 years. She and husband Nathan have moved to Florida for his business and he’s minister of music of a church there. Originally, Meredith’s resignation was to be effective at the end of November, but Katrina had other plans. She stayed on and assisted us through this period when we needed her expertise in so many ways, particularly financial. Some of the pastors today wrote her notes of appreciation which we will bundle together and put in the mail.

With only 59 of our 140 churches and missions in full operation, we are downsizing our association’s office operations accordingly, and will be functioning with the remaining two secretaries, Lynn Gehrman and Ninfa Rodriguez.

Bill Day, pastor of Metairie’s Parkview Church and professor of evangelism at NOBTS, informed us that as far as they can tell, out of the 1500 churches in existence in metro New Orleans prior to the hurricane (of all denominations), only 325 are back in operation.

We’re so grateful to those who are praying for us.