Yesterday, a number of us met in Hammond, Louisiana, at the North Shore Associational office to begin laying plans for “Adopt-A-Church,” the plan to match New Orleans churches up with sponsoring congregations all over the country.

I think the storm was still raging when Roger Freeman, pastor of Clarksville, Tennessee’s First Baptist Church, sent me an email suggesting that we partner churches in his state with New Orleans churches. I thought it was a great idea, and made special sense coming from Roger, who pastored New Orleans’ First Baptist Church in the late 80s into the mid-90s. He knows and loves our city and these churches. The editor of the state paper was working with Roger on this partnership.

A couple of days later, I began to hear that other states were thinking of the same type linkup. Then, last Tuesday in Baton Rouge, I learned that the North American Mission Board in Atlanta was proposing the same thing nationwide. That’s where we are now.

Several times a day I’m getting emails from people informing me their church is ready and willing to come to New Orleans to help a church rebuild. They know we’re not ready for company yet. In fact, we’re not even home yet. Although daily we hear reports of some residents being invited to re-enter very soon. As soon as it happens, we’ll be open for business and ready to welcome teams from the churches…so long as they understand a few things.

Understand that New Orleans is going to be different. No tours this time to exotic locales. No dining out in your favorite restaurants. It’s all work this time.

Understand that this is going to be hard and dirty and you will be uncomfortable. Today in Hammond I was told of two chain saw crews that arrived from another state to help, but turned around and went home when they discovered we had no air-conditioned accommodations for them to stay in.

Understand that adopting a church in the New Orleans area is actually a commitment, a covenant, between your church and the local congregation. NAMB is recommending that the time period be at least one full year and perhaps two. “All manner of help will be needed,” their literature says, including “mission trips, rebuilding trips, care packages, appropriate financial support, and encouragement for the staff who have been through numerous challenges.”

Understand that in bringing a team to help us rebuild, at first you will need to send a scouting party in to look over the situation and talk to local leaders to see what your group will be doing. Then you go back and select the workers you decide would be right and assemble the materials and tools you need. The Florida Baptist Convention is asking their people who come to plan to be completely self-sufficient. Know what that means? It means at least at first, you need to be able to prepare your own meals and everything.

Understand that your accommodations at first will probably be on the floor of some church’s fellowship hall in sleeping bags you brought with you. Showers may be the wash basin in the bathroom on the hall. Sorry, but that’s going to be uncomfortable for some; we surely understand. It’s a serious situation down in New Orleans, and all along the Gulf Coast, to be sure. Anyone coming in to help us needs to understand this is in the nature of a sacrifice.

Understand that you may be working from can to can’t, from dark in the morning until dark in the evening. I still recall a group from a church I served in Mississippi going to New Jersey and working for two weeks to build a complete church, and one of the men remarking to another, “I don’t work this hard for money.” That’s the point. Do it for Jesus.

Understand that if your church decides to adopt one of our churches, you will not be able to come in and put in some program you found to your liking back at home. This is a local church with members and deacons and pastors, and we ask visiting teams to respect that. They will establish their own directions as the Lord shows them, and sponsors will want to come in and help them fulfill it.

Understand if you sponsor a church in New Orleans, you’ll not have it all to yourself. That’s good, of course, because the needs of every church are so huge as to be beyond the capability of most other churches to meet. So, you’ll have plenty of partners. My dream is for each of our churches to be adopted by as many as a dozen churches around the country.

So, tomorrow, I’ll be meeting with a group of New Orleans Baptist pastors here in Jackson, Mississippi, at the First Baptist Church. We’ve sent the word out in every direction, but have no idea whether we will have a handful or a dozen or twenty or more. But, we’ll be asking these pastors who among them wants to invite your church to sponsor them. Then, I’ll be passing this information along to Mike Canady in the Louisiana Baptist Convention office, and you will go to his website www.lbc.org to make the first contact.

You’ll be interested in knowing that someone is attending this meeting with some money to give to each of these pastors, to help them get through this crisis. Maybe we should have announced that earlier; that should get them here!!

David Crosby walked around his church today. The First Baptist Church of New Orleans is largely untouched by the water that flooded the nearby neighborhood and washed over the cemetery lying near the campus. In the photos he took, it looks great. I will tell you, candidly, however, that David is not as elated as you might think. Because his church is not a building; it is the people, and his people are scattered over many states. Last Sunday three services of FBC people were held…in three different states. I understand each service had perhaps 50 or 75 in attendance. That is enough to break any pastor’s heart.

Pray for this church, and all our congregations, please. Thank you. Beyond words, thank you.