Six pastors from our now-out-of-business churches in St. Bernard Parish met for the first time since Katrina Tuesday morning, and they had lots of company. In addition to James “Boogie” Melerine of Delcroix-Hope, John Jeffries of FBC-Chalmette, John Galey of Poydras, David Howard of FBC-Arabi, Jeffrey Friend of Hopeview-Violet, and Paul Gregoire of St. Bernard-Chalmette, we had Dr. Danny Decker of the Missouri Baptist Convention, and Mike Canady and Larry Badon of the Louisiana Baptist Convention. Michael Raymond from Taylor Memorial church in the 9th ward was there, along with Freddie Arnold and me from the association, and our host pastor, Keith Manuel.
Keith has been interviewing people and writing for the Baptist Press, in these nearly-three months since Katrina. He bought a great camera and taught himself to take his own pictures. Anytime you go to www.bpnews.net and see a news item about the New Orleans area, check to see if it’s from Keith. He is a multi-talented pastor. You ought to hear him play the guitar.
Going to www.bpnews.net is a great idea. Do it once a day to keep up with what’s going on everywhere, not only down here in the swamps.
A brief synopsis of what the pastors shared….
Boogie Melerine is living in Florida. “We can’t find any of the pieces of our church or my home down on the island. I’m staying up here in a little trailer and right now, we’re having church in a deacon’s home. We’ve met for four Sundays and had attendance of 10, 10, 17, and 19. Before the storm, we were running 25. I don’t know if we had flood insurance. We had merged with the little church at Alluvial City and were planning to merge with Reggio, then we were going to sell out and buy some land inside the levee protection area.”
Everyone laughed. The levees didn’t hold; there was no protection.
John Galey lives in his home in Metairie. “Our church is structurally sound. The folks from the MIssouri Baptist Convention are helping us gut it out and bleach the fellowship hall from mold, and put a new roof on the church. We had no flood insurance. As soon as we get doors and chairs and electricity, we can have church.”
Paul Gregoire evacuated to Atlanta with the seminary, where he is registrar. He left home at midnight and drove straight through, arriving just in time for this meeting. “Today is my 20th wedding anniversary.” His wife is flying over and they’re going to have a couple days’ outing in Baton Rouge, I think. He’s been pastor of the St. Bernard church 23 years. “We had a lot of damage. Church Mutual Insurance is trying to pay us as little as possible. I went over to Murphy Oil Company and signed up for compensation for the damage they caused. They took the information and said they’d get back to me. We’ve not attempted to do anything with the buildings due to the oil, waiting to see what the refinery does. There’s going to be some class action lawsuits. The result is a great deal of delay. I’m sending a weekly newsletter to our members. Some of them are not returning. Four churches have shown an interest in helping us once I get back over here. The seminary is looking to return us either in January or March at the latest.”
Jeffrey Friend drove down from Pontiac, Michigan. “I just got married.” Stephanie was with him, beaming. They’ve been going together for some time, I hear, but we all agreed Jeffrey had outdone himself. “All my members have the desire to return, except one family. We were on the upswing before the storm. Don’t know if the building is salvageable. I’d love to see it gutted and used like a family life center. Our site is great. Violet needs us. The community will come back, in time. I’m committed to being a part of the comeback. We had no flood insurance.” Jeffrey has been receiving invitations to speak in churches all over Michigan about the New Orleans situation. “I’m booked into January.”
David Howard came in from Illinois. “We held a retreat with 90 of our members this past weekend in Monroe, following the state convention. Met at North Monroe Baptist Church. I even baptized one person. The church voted unanimously to put the future of our church, the property, etc., in the hands of a board of directors, of six people. Most of our folks are not coming back. We had flood insurance, but have no clue what the other insurance will do. We voted to merge with any of the other Baptist churches in St. Bernard that want to join together for the Kingdom. I’d like to see us buy 10 acres on high ground and be the first “big boy” on the ground. Our buildings are all going to have to come down.”
John Jeffries drove down from Baton Rouge where his wife Genny has been moved into a private room at the hospital after having had surgery 10 days ago. “I’ve never seen such evidence of Christ in all my years of ministry. People are blessing us on every hand. We even had a good experience with the State Farm people. They insured both the church and my house, and were great. The agents prayed with us every time. Sometimes I suggested it, sometimes they took the lead. The church owned 5 small houses across the street, and all had significant damage. The educational building was written off totally. The sanctuary had a lot of wind damage, but we’re not sure what the insurance will do. I figure it’s going to take four to five million dollars for us to get back where we were. The Missouri Baptists have been tearing out the carpets and taking the chainsaws to the pews, like Freddie Krueger’s worst nightmare. Some of our people will come back. The old people say they’re too old, too tired, and too afraid to return. Early on, no one was planning to return, but as time goes on, more and more are changing their minds. On Saturday, December 10, at 10 am, we’re having “The Gathering” in Baton Rouge at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church, inviting all residents of St. Bernard who live in that area to worship with us. Several ministers of different churches are going to participate, and we plan to go on meeting every Saturday after that.”
Danny Decker of Missouri said, “Our state convention is making a five year commitment. This is going to take a long time, folks. I do not see this parish coming back quickly. The parish government has not even set the requirements on what people have to do to rebuild. The insurance companies have not sent checks. Many people are going to find it too costly and too difficult to come back. Some of those who evacuated to our state woke up yesterday to 16 degrees outside. They may be coming back after all!!”
Danny said, “I’m concerned about not trying to build structures until we know what’s going to be here. I’m impatient, the same way you are, and I understand your impatience. But we’re going to have to wait.
“Most of our people do not understand that. They only know the typical hurricane where you go in 2 days after the storm and start to work. But down here, it’s different. The flood water was polluted and sat in these churches and homes for weeks. Everything died. We will have to rebuild from the ground up.
“We’re hearing less and less about the needs. The news media are moving on to other stories and not telling people about you folks down here. Our Baptist people think the needs have been taken care of. Our people are uncomprehending. They are not going to believe this until they come and see it for themselves.”
Mike Canady said, “We’re seeing the same thing. Choose any state. If they’re not used to hurricanes, they think they can just get up and come down and do cleanup and rebuild and go home. Then they move on to the next challenge. But we’re just starting to work down here. We have to fight Katrina fatigue, not only among our own people, but throughout the country. Each of us must constantly communicate with our own network. I hope you will keep in touch with us through the Louisiana Baptist Convention’s website www.lbc.org.”
Danny Decker: “Our Missouri people are famous for their ‘show me’ attitude. They’ll give you one chance. I want to make sure we don’t do anythng to sour that one chance. We have retirees who will bring their campers down and live on site and help you. What I need is direction. What you need, how many people can plug in, step one, step two, step three.”
Freddie Arnold: “We have five issues here: schools, government guidelines, insurance, what kind of community will we end up with, and the churches providing for themselves and others. I think we should approach bringing this parish back as a “church plant.” Because this is what we’re doing–starting a new church in a “new” community. So, we’ll need to think outside the box. We need multi-purpose buildings, and new vision for the facilities and sites. We will have multi-ethnic memberships.”
Toward the end, we reminded the pastors of several key points:
1) While the pastor is key, he is not the church. Even if you can contact only a few members, you should be doing that. Any decision to be made should be made by everyone, not just you.
2) If you decide not to return to this area and the church will not be rebuilt, consider deeding the property to the association. We will serve as your stewards of both the property and any insurance money until such a time as a church can be rebuilt on that site, or whatever you dictate.
We set another meeting for Tuesday, January 17, 10 am, at Calvary Baptist Church in New Orleans (Algiers).
After singing the doxology and praying, we adjourned to the Piccadilly Cafeteria down the street. I gave David Howard a ride to the airport.
I came home to start contacting as many ministers as I can, inviting them to our Christmas banquet, December 5 at First Baptist-Covington, 7 pm. Thanksgiving is in two days; the season is upon us. A Christmas season like none many of our people have ever experienced.