Saturday the First Baptist Church of Waggaman held a block party, culminating the work of a fine group of adults and youth from Dallasburg Baptist Church in Wheatley, Kentucky. Matt Dye is their pastor.

“We held a Vacation Bible School all week,” Matt said in answer to my question. “And a revival at night. In the daytime, the adults landscaped the yards. We put in that fence over there. And a new baptistry in the church.” And that’s not all. “Yesterday, we handed out bottles of water to people at intersections and invited them to the block party. Plus, we’ve visited several hundred homes in this area.”

Waggaman is a long, skinny village lining the west bank of the Mississippi, just upriver from Northrop-Grumman’s Avondale Shipyards where my son Neil works as a corporate trainer. Many of the several thousand employees live in Waggaman. Bobby Malbrough has been bi-vocational pastor of the FBC here for a number of years. Before Katrina, he worked for Nunez Community College in St. Bernard Parish, a position that vanished along with most everything else in that parish last August 29. Bobby had invited me to the party, to sit under a tent and sketch people to my heart’s content as part of the festivities.

“We’re leaving early tomorrow morning,” Matt Dye told me. A long Sunday drive back to Wheatley, halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati. I could see what a fine job they had done on the campus. The church yards were lovely and everyone was having a great time at the block party. These Kentuckians have strengthened the Lord’s church in this area, and for that, we are in their debt.

The men of the FBC of Kenner held their monthly breakfast Sunday at 7:30. Johnny Barlow and these fellows have figured out how to have a Baptist Men’s ministry. They have no program as such, no speakers, just various ones of their group reporting on the work they are involved in and promoting the work they are planning. Bob Huffman gave an account on the progress of the new port ministry center at Global Maritime Center on Tchoupitoulas Street. “We need six new bookcases,” he said, “to display Bibles in all the various languages for the seamen coming into the center. We expect to give away hundreds and hundreds of copies of God’s Word.” Then he said, “We’ve received enough money to buy the materials. Now, we need men who know how to build bookcases. Maybe someone with a table saw. Let me know. We want to get this done this month.”

Danny Moore took early retirement from Dow Chemical and has joined the Kenner staff as administrator. He promoted an upcoming work day in which teams will restripe parking lots, making more room for seniors and visitors, and will paint the inside of the sanctuary in preparation for the new carpets, plus playground and fence alterations. New deacon chairman Tom Howell shared his vision on this church becoming a beacon for metro New Orleans.

As I headed home to get ready for church, it occurred to me the main reason I attend this breakfast. Not just to spend time with my son and grandson, although that is very special, and not for that great cholesterol-laden breakfast of huge biscuits, thick bacon, and sausage gravy. It’s the laughter, the fellowship. After an hour with these men, I feel uplifted. There’s a camaraderie and a joy in the Lord, a “glad to see you” which all men need.

I found myself wishing every man in the church was in on this. It may be the best hour of the month for many, as well as the best-kept secret in the congregation.

Sometime in the early 5th century B.C., Nehemiah called the people of God back to a genuine worship of the Lord. They had been in Babylonian captivity all their lives and now that they were returning to their ancestral homeland which God had promised them forever, changes needed to be made. In chapter 10, he lays out the pattern for observing the holy days, ministering the priesthood, and bringing the tithes and offerings. “Thus,” Nehemiah says, “We will not neglect the house of our God.” (10:39)

Not neglecting the house of God. That’s a large theme in much of the Old Testament. Of course, it refers to the Temple, which is no longer extant. And yet.

We do have our houses of worship, our church buildings. We call them Houses of God. I can’t find in Scripture where God commanded us to have such buildings, however, neither did He actually request that the Temple be built. It was David’s idea (II Samuel 7). Yet, once it was in the heart of the people to do it, God accepted it, had strong ideas on how to do it right, and laid down a great body of teaching on its construction, use, and upkeep.

The principles He gave hold true here, I think. Whether our house of worship is a plain storefront or a majestic cathedral or somewhere in between, certain guidelines apply. The buildings ought to be clean and the grounds attractive. Nothing should go on except what will glorify the Lord. The buildings are to be instruments for serving the Lord and not the objects of worship. Our church campus should reflect well on the Lord and even point people to Him.

Congregations have been struggling for hundreds of years on how to find the balance in caring for the church buildings.

Some churches overdo it. In downtown New Orleans, there’s a stately old church building standing beside the freeway near the Mississippi River. Some forty or more years ago, when the state was buying up land to build the elevated expressway, a good portion of that church’s parking lots were taken. In return, the church received a wagonload of money; I have no idea how much. The question arose within the church on what to do with the money. The priest got his way. To this day, as you drive toward the bridge, you can look to your right and see that money. It’s all there, even today: the gold-plate on the steeple. For that’s what the priest wanted done with the money. “I want to get the attention of the community,” he said. “I want them to notice our church.”

They notice it all right. For all the wrong reasons, if you ask me. Which nobody did.

When the good folks of Wheatley, Kentucky, wanted to bless the Lord and strengthen the church in metro New Orleans, they laid sod and built a fence at the Waggaman church and invited the neighborhood to worship. When the men and women of Kenner want to strengthen their church’s witness in their community, they will clean up and paint and make repairs and knock on doors.

Later in the Nehemiah story, the man of God rebuked the people. He discovered that an enemy of the Lord’s work was given an office in the temple’s storeroom, that the people were not bringing their tithes and offerings, and that consequently the priests and singers who would normally be leading services at the Temple were in their fields earning a living the old fashioned way, by the sweat of their brow. Nehemiah said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” (13:11)

Sunday morning, Margaret and I worshiped with the FBC of LaPlace, the church that hosted our weekly pastors meetings from September of ’05 through May of ’06. Mission Pastor Carlos Lopez had reported that their sanctuary renovation was completed, and I wanted to see.

The sanctuary was built perhaps 20 years ago when Major Speights was their pastor and nothing had been done to the interior since. They tore out the old carpet, put in tile everywhere except in the aisles. The floor of the platform appears to be a cherry hardwood, and the entire front of the auditorium was redesigned in a strikingly modern manner. The screens have disappeared, although large panels are in place on both sides of the baptistry for projection. Pews were replaced with opera seats, each one spacious enough for the adult-sized American our society is now producing.

Pastor Bobby Burt was attending a conference, to our disappointment, but we got in on the ordination of Minister of Students Brent Isbell to the gospel ministry. Brent is a product of the great Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, where my longtime friend Nelson Price pastored, and is working on his masters at our seminary. The service was a family affair, with his brother-in-law Brian Marston and father-in-law Kent Jennings speaking. His mentor David Upchurch preached and his father Ron Isbill prayed the ordination prayer.

Brent’s life-verse, he said, is Acts 20:24. “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” A packed text. MY LIFE: only an instrument in the Lord’s hands and not an object unto itself. MY PURPOSE: to complete the job the Lord gave me. MY MINISTRY: to tell everyone of the gospel of God’s grace. My life is for Him, my ministry is from Him, and my gospel is about Him. I am only a steward.

“A few weeks ago, the deacons of my church announced there was no longer a place for me on our church staff,” one of the visiting speakers told the congregation. “They said they wanted to reallocate the church’s financial resources.” As a longtime pastor and now director of missions for all the SBC churches of our area, I sat there mulling over what he said and, I’m afraid, did not hear much of what he said afterward.

I can understand a church terminating a minister if he loses his integrity, proves to be a liability to the church, or has a moral failure. But to cut one off because “we are reallocating the church’s resources” is a serious matter. I wonder what those leaders think they are doing; I wonder where was the pastor; I wonder if they were honest with that young man; and mostly, I wonder if they are prepared to give an account to the Father for their actions.

I began pastoring churches in 1962 and kept at it for the next 42 years. I will state categorically that in those early decades one never heard of churches terminating ministers except for serious sin, if I may get by with that generality. These days, it’s an epidemic. A church is not growing the way some people think it should, or they sense a “malaise” in the church, or they get bored with his preaching, and presto, he’s gone.

I can hear those church leaders now: “He just wasn’t a good fit for our church.” “We felt the need for new leadership.” “He wasn’t reaching the younger generation.” “He was out of touch with the older folks.” “He was trying to make too many changes too fast.” “We need someone who is more youthful.”

God help us. God forgive us; we know not what we do.

The climax of the ministerial ordination is the laying on of hands, when ordained ministers and deacons file by, place their hands on the candidate’s head and say a few words of encouragement or challenge. When my time came, I said, “Brent, your life verse is Acts 20:24. Let me remind you of verse 28. ‘Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.'” I said, “Brent, I remind pastors that the church is the Lord’s. He bought it with His own blood, and they should give it back to Him.”

Perhaps we need to remind deacons and other leaders that the Holy Spirit made your ministers overseers of that congregation. The vote by your congregation was merely to endorse what you believe God had already done, that He had chosen this man for your church. Undoing that is a serious, serious matter.

It’s one thing to neglect the House of God. It’s another thing entirely to undercut it and weaken its witness by trying to undo in the flesh what God did by His Spirit.