I Do Love This Internet Thing

Here's what happened today. That would be Thursday, May 15, 2008.

Dean McKinley Dacus emailed. She started by saying that she came to know the Lord in a youth revival at our church in May of 1968--precisely forty years ago--and that I had baptized her. She was 14 and the only member of her family in church. Her father went to Heaven in August of that year and I did his funeral. So, she's reminding me of this. As though she needed to.

I said to her (via e-mail of course), "Dean, over these years, I have thought of you so often." I gave her a couple of reasons that I'll not put here, then added, "I asked you once, 'Do you have someone to talk with about these things that are worrying you?' You gave me an answer I've never forgotten. 'I didn't before. But now that Jesus Christ is in my life, I do now.'"

Now, put yourself in this pastor's place and imagine a kid from 40 years ago reconnecting with you. How good do you think that feels? A little foretaste of Heaven.

Dean mentioned that after I left at the end of 1970, Hugh Martin came as pastor of the church (that would be Emmanuel Baptist in Greenville, Mississippi) and how blessed she feels to have had two such terrific pastors in her life at such a young age. I passed that on to my dear brother Hugh Martin up in Philadelphia, Mississippi, so he can connect with her too. (more about Hugh below)

Isn't the internet wonderful! This generation is the first to be able to do this.

I am constantly being amazed and surprised by someone from the past discovering our website and reaching in to the present and making a connection.

I had an e-mail a few weeks ago from a church secretary in Florida who had found this website. She said, "You might not remember me, but you'll never forget my husband." When she told me why, I agreed that she was right about that. Here's the story.

Allowing for A Certain Amount of Waste

Last night as I was unloading groceries, my wife threw out two overripe bananas and put in their place the bunch I had just brought in.

Several years ago, Margaret and I decided that in order to keep fresh fruit in the house--at this moment, we have strawberries, blueberries, oranges, and bananas--we would occasionally have to throw out some that had spoiled. Rather than berate ourselves over letting it go bad and wasting money, we agreed to accept this as a necessary result of our determination to eat fresh fruit. We would allow for a certain amount of waste, you might say.

Waste allowance; a spiritual concept.

Not far from where I live, a church has built a fence around the vacant lot next door to the sanctuary. It's a lovely green expanse, set right in the middle of a neighborhood of middle-class homes in every direction, and now it might as well be located in the next parish. I have not asked anyone why they fenced in the lot but I think I know.

My guess is the neighborhood children were playing there and leaving trash behind them. Kids do that.

The leaders of the church spent several thousand dollars protecting their lawn. In doing so, they shut out the children.

Present at the Creation

When Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote his memoirs of those crucial years following the Second World War, he titled them, "Present at the Creation." Little did he know how true that was, for so much of the political world you and I are still dealing with was brought into being back in those days of the late 1940s.

This morning, I did as I usually do and called my mother on the cell phone. I was in New Orleans and she was on the farm, nearly 60 miles out in the countryside northwest of Birmingham. We greeted each other, exchanged pleasantries, and finally told each other "I love you" and that we would talk tomorrow.

As I ended the call, I found myself thinking what a miracle cell phone technology is. I am a child of 1940, and our family did not even get a telephone until I was in college. A long distance phone call 40 or 50 years ago was a cumbersome, expensive deal.

As a freshman at Berry College--that would be the fall of 1958--the student body was brought into the auditorium one Thursday night for an amazing demonstration. President John Bertrand introduced some gentlemen from the phone company who brought out heavy boxes of equipment and hooked them up. Then, they selected the student from farthest away and brought the girl from Alaska to the stage.

The men asked for her home phone number and---are you ready for this?---they direct-dialed it. They had bypassed the telephone operator. We were enthralled. The student spoke to her mother while we all listened in. We walked out into the night awestruck, knowing we had just visited the future.

Horse and buggy stuff, right? It is compared to this morning's cell phone call. Long distance has evaporated, and with unlimited minutes, the cost of each call is negligible.

Two hours after the call to my mother, the May 12 issue of The New Yorker arrived. The article titled "In the Air" by Malcolm Gladwell (he wrote "The Tipping Point") has been on my mind ever since. You'll find it fascinating, but what I want to share here is only secondarily related to the subject he was discussing.

Get Ready, Heaven!

F. W. Myers, author of a famous poem called "Saint Paul," once asked a woman whose daughter had died what she thought happened to her soul. The woman said, "Oh, I suppose she's enjoying eternal bliss--but I wish you wouldn't speak to me of such unpleasant subjects."

In A.D. 125, a Greek by the name of Aristides spoke of "a new religion called Christianity." In a letter to a friend, he described this unusual faith. "If any righteous man among these Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort the body with songs of thanksgiving, as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby."

As a result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter wrote, believers have been reborn to "a living hope." (I Pet.1:3) Our hope for the future involves a resurrection of our own, followed by an eternity in heaven.

We who follow Jesus are limited by no small ambitions.

The biblical concept of hope includes two elements: desire and expectation. You want it to happen and you have every reason to expect it. God made us for Himself, so in our innermost being we want to live with Him. Jesus promised us that we would, so we expect to do so.

Dottie Rambo was killed Sunday when her bus went off the highway in Missouri. I seriously doubt if any gospel song writer has ever thought as much and written as much and sung as much about Heaven as this wonderful lady. And now she gets to find out for herself. She's doing a duet with Vestal Goodman along about now, I surmise.

Today, after getting the news, I went to www.youtube.com and typed in "dottie rambo." Over the next half-hour, I heard her singing of "Mama teaching the angels to sing" and "Build my mansion next door to Jesus" and the like. I was glad no one walked in on me. Heaven is a powerful and emotional subject, particularly since I have a father and a brother there now and anticipate moving there myself one day before long.

I had already been thinking about Heaven, thanks to running across some quotes from C. S. Lewis a couple of days ago.

Four Churches in St. Bernard Parish

Sunday morning, I sampled the worship services of our four Southern Baptist churches still operating in Katrina-devastated St. Bernard Parish, just downriver from New Orleans. I started with Celebration-St. Bernard where Craig Ratliff is pastor, then worshiped with the two congregations meeting at Chalmette High School (St. Bernard BC and FBC-Chalmette where Paul Gregoire & John Jeffries pastor), then on to Delacroix-Hope Church down at the jumping off place, James "Boogie" Melerine, pastor, and ended up at Poydras BC where John Galey is the man.

I felt like the fellow who attended the tasting luncheon put on by the various restaurants around town. He sampled a little of this and a little of that, and when he got home he was full but he didn't know what of.

It was Mother's Day, and all the churches were honoring these special ladies. At Celebration, Craig had them come to the altar and the leaders crowded around them and prayed. At Delacroix, Boogie gave them gifts. Not sure if the other churches did anything specific for them.

Boogie preached from Matthew 15:21-28 "The Woman of Great Faith," John Galey preached on Godly Women from I Timothy 2 (more about that later), and Craig's sermon was "Don't Throw Momma From the Train", based on Proverbs 31. Intriguing title. The bulletin from Chalmette High School did not list sermon subjects.

Only one of the four churches is meeting in its original building. That would be Poydras, although they took great damage and extensive renovations were done. Before Katrina, there was no Celebration Church, St. Bernard Campus. In its place stood the FBC of Arabi. The floodwaters ruined the building and scattered the congregation, so they went out of business, bulldozed the structures, and gave the insurance money to Celebration Church of Metairie to begin a new work there. Previously, Craig Ratliff was the student minister.

The two congregations meeting at the high school--St. Bernard Baptist Church and FBC of Chalmette--saw their buildings ruined in Katrina. A new structure is being erected on the site of First Baptist, but St. Bernard's building was gutted and seems to be standing wide open.

The Delacroix Hope building was completely blown away by Katrina, with nothing left standing except the concrete block pilings. They're now worshiping in what used to be Creedmore Presbyterian Church on Bayou Road in the community of St. Bernard. Presently, they're still in the fellowship hall, and it appears there is still much work yet to be done in the sanctuary.

Hopeview Church where Jeffery Friend was pastor has been converted in the volunteer village for church teams coming in to work with Operation NOAH Rebuild. Further downriver, River's Edge Church is no more.

Our friends (readers) from outside this area who are unfamiliar with New Orleans should be reminded that St. Bernard Parish took the full brunt of the hurricane and almost no structure in the parish was left whole. You can drive down either of the two major east-west thoroughfares--St. Bernard Highway and Judge Perez Drive--and see entire strip malls still boarded up. Most neighborhoods are only sparsely settled.

All of these churches have lost members and all have gained new members who moved here since the storm. Three of the four I attended this morning had from 45 to 60 in attendance. Oddly, the smallest of the four prior to Katrina--Delacroix--now has the largest attendance, perhaps 60 to 70 this morning.

Couple of funnies....

An Important Word to A Very Few

A fanatic, they say, is someone who loves the Lord more than you do. Fanaticism is a charge frequently thrown at those of us on the conservative end of the religious spectrum in America today. We defend ourselves from such slander with assurances of our patriotism, our love for everyone friend or foe, and our dead-set ambition to practice the teachings of the Man of Nazareth. In fact, we sometimes say, we wish we were more fanatical about following Jesus than we are.

By that we mean, we wish we loved Him more, took His words more seriously, and were bringing every area of our existence into subjection to Him.

Enter any Southern Baptist church next Sunday--they're the only kind I have a close familiarity with, so we shall spare all the other brand names here--and you would be hard-pressed to find more than a half-dozen church members over-zealous in their Christianity. Most are like the rest of us, in a never-ending struggle to find the balance between this present world and the next, the physical and the spiritual.

Almost everything we write on this website about basic Christianity--loving, praying, studying the Bible, tithing, etc--is directed toward the great hordes of church members who, on a scale of one to ten, would rate themselves five or under in their dedication to Christ.

The following, however, we direct toward that small group of church members who, on a dedication scale of one to ten, come in at about eleven or twelve.

From the intriguing Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, today's lesson, boys and girls--you A students, you valedictorians, Phi Beta Kappas, over-achievers and perfectionists--has your name all over it.

1) Ecclesiastes 7:16 "Do not be overly righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?"

Hey, that's in the Bible. I didn't make it up.

Control Issues

According to the news reports from every direction, perhaps 100,000 residents of the small Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, formerly Burma, were killed by the recent Cyclone Nargis. It pushed into the lowest, most vulnerable section of the country with a storm surge that left only death and devastation in its wake. Over 2 million are said to be homeless. Meanwhile, the military junta ruling the country is blocking aid.

Those who know Myanmar say the ruling army is under the control of a group of poorly educated generals who are dead-set on keeping tight controls on the country lest the nations coming to help end up putting ideas in the minds of the people. Presumably, that would be ideas like liberty and free enterprise. Self-determination. Responsibility. Compassion.

Compassion seems to be in short supply with that bunch. Their only concern appears to be for themselves and their control over this nation that rivals Haiti in our hemisphere for the title of poorest-nation-on-the-planet.

We're told that so far--this is being written on Friday evening, six days after the cyclone hit--only a tenth of the neediest people have been reached with supplies necessary for life.

I appreciate the patience and perseverance of outside governments and agencies like the Red Cross that are trying to comply with the red tape and regulations being imposed by the generals before being approved to help their people. One wonders if the governments of the world could not simply rise up and say "enough of this foolishness" and land a few hundred planes at once and dare anyone to try to stop them as they fan out into the needy areas with food and supplies.

I mean, do we just let people die because the leaders who stole the country are unfriendly to outside help and unwelcoming to strangers?

On a different scale, every veteran pastor of any denomination knows this frustration. It's not just us Baptists, although it is most definitely us. It's a human problem, not just a religious one, although it is that, too.

Someone or a small group of someones have seized control of a church and insist on calling the shots. The fact that their congregation is needy and others want to come in and help matters little to them, particularly if the cost for receiving help is that they would lose control. They turn a cold shoulder to offers of assistance and prefer to let the church struggle and die rather than losing authority.

What I Learned at the 50th Reunion of My High School Class

We graduated in May of 1958 from the Winston County High School in Double Springs, Alabama. We were all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive, once it was over we quickly scattered in our own directions without a thought to the fact that we were seeing some of our classmates for the last time. We had no way of knowing that in a few short years our school would burn down or that by the 50th anniversary of our graduation, over one third of our members would no longer be living.

There is a reason only older people attend class reunions. They know.

The recent graduates are still in college somewhere or serving Uncle Sam or trying to get established in low-paying jobs and can't afford the trip back home. But mostly they don't come to reunions because they haven't figured it out yet.

They think they have forever. They think of the rest of us as oldsters, like ancient relics of a previous civilization that has no bearing on the world they live in today. They have no idea that the time between now and their fiftieth will seem like weeks. They will still be looking upon themselves as the younger generation when suddenly their twentieth reunion will be announced in the newspapers.

If they're like me, the twentieth will be the first reunion they attend. And if they're really like me, they will open the door and look in that room, taking in all the bald heads and unfamiliar faces, and decide this can't be my class and walk on down the hall looking for the real class. They will soon realize there is no one else in the building and that this is their class.

That's the moment when they start to grow up.

Their real education begins then. Everything up to that moment has been prep school. Today is the first day of class. This school does not let out for the rest of their lives.

As I see it, here are the lessons they begin to learn and the lessons that were firmly entrenched by the time of our fiftieth last Saturday afternoon in Double Springs.

1) Old friendships are pure gold.

Lynn Pope and I shared one of those old-fashioned double desks at Poplar Springs Elementary in the school term of 1951-52. A two-room affair run by a husband and wife, three grades in each room, this school had changed very little from the days my mother attended its predecessor a mile down the highway. Next year, Lynn and I moved on to Double Springs for junior high. He is the sole classmate with whom I shared seven years of schooling.

We thought of Double Springs as "town." We were rural and most of the others in the class were "town," as though of another species. The truth is most of our class members were bused in from outlying areas of the county the same way we were. There were 100 of us at the start of the seventh grade. Six years later, we were just over 50 strong, the 50th graduating class of that school.

If you can imagine having fifty or more brothers and sisters, that was us. We did just exactly what siblings do, too--we fought and argued, we laughed and went on trips and played games, we teased and cried and worked alongside each other. Over the years, we came to learn that these are the dearest people on the earth.

2) People are precious.

What to Expect When We Open the Word

My friend Marilyn called the other day. Her adult son is scheduled to be interviewed for a church staff position and she had been prepping him. "It takes place at a lunch," she said, "and that may not be the best venue for showing off Robert's talents."

She explained that Robert could stand some improvement in his eating habits. "I told him to eat slowly, to cut his meat into small portions, and not to talk with food in his mouth. Basic stuff like that." Then she said, "It's important that he not go there hungry and overeat, so I urged him to eat a little snack in advance. After all, this is one dining experience that is not about eating."

I said, "That's in the Bible. The part about not overeating at an important meal."

"You're kidding." I assured her I wasn't, although I could not recall the exact proverb that made the case.

Later that day, she texted me that she had located the verse. Proverbs 23:1-2 reads, "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite."

I can't find anything in God's Word cautioning us against parking our chewing gum underneath the dinner plate, but I've known at least one candidate for a church staff position who could have used the advice.

Anyone who spends regular time in God's Word is constantly being surprised at what he finds there, how current is its counsel, and how practical its advice.

Take Luke chapter 17. I sat in church last Sunday prior to the sermon--someone else was to preach, so my mind was unencumbered--and was struck by how the various incidents in this chapter connect with each other, giving us a number of excellent insights on Christian living.

(Note: what follows works only if you first look up Luke 17, then read through verse 21.)

On the surface, that passage seems to be made up of unrelated bits of teaching: Jesus advises the disciples on how to treat a stumbling brother, He informs them that even mustard-seed faith can do wonders, He delivers a parable on how they should look upon themselves at the end of the day, and so forth.

A quick reading fails to see their inter-connectedness.

Then it occurred to me that this passage, all of it, is about expectations.

I. "What you may expect." Luke 17:1-6

The Hardest Funeral I Ever Held

Sometimes you pity the preacher. When everyone has been shocked into silence and stillness by a death of tragic or untimely proportions, he's the one who has to stand up and voice the grief and try to put the life of the deceased into focus. While they're grieving, he goes to work.

Charlie Dale pastors the Grace Baptist Church in the Bywater section of New Orleans. This weekend, two men in our city were walking on sidewalks and were killed by motorists. One took place 5 blocks from Charlie's church, the only in the central business district. Charlie will be holding the funeral of the latter one Wednesday morning.

If Charlie and other pastors are like me, even while they are in the midst of the mourning and grieving, when they are struggling to find just the right words, and while their hearts are being torn in two, they will feel a surge of inner joy that few others would understand. That joy is the evidence that God has called that pastor into this ministry, that he is doing the very thing for which God created him.

How many funerals have I conducted over 46 years of ministry? I made no attempt to keep records on such. But if you conservatively figure just one funeral a month, the number exceeds 500. Most were normal and fairly indistinguishable from the others. A few stand out.

The strangest funeral I ever held was for a 64 year old man and his 32 year old grandson. Now, stop and do the math on that. How could a 64 year old man have a grandson that age? The answer was that the old man (ahem; I'm 68) had died 10 years previously and the family had kept his ashes, but there had never been a funeral. Now that the grandson was dead and would receive a funeral service, the family included grandpa.

Purely N'Awlins

Early Monday morning, when I wish I could have slept, I went through the newspapers that had accumulated in my absence. Most of the news was old by then, but here are a few items readers might find of interest.

Steve Scalise, Republican, won election to Congress Saturday. He replaces Bobby Jindal, our new governor. Scalise won 3/4ths of the vote, easily defeating the Democrat, college professor Dr. Gilda Reed.

On the other hand, a Democrat has won the 6th District for Congress, for the first time since 1974. Now the problem for Congress will be learning how to pronounce Don Cazayoux's name. (Cazzah-you, I suppose)

New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin has become a superdelegate to the Democratic convention scheduled for later this summer. Okay, mayor, Hillary and Barack are calling.

The resident curmudgeon of the Times-Picayune, James Gill, has been writing for this paper for the past couple of centuries it seems. Locals are still talking--and the paper is still going on--about how FBI Special Agent in Charge James Bernazzani was sacked by the big man in Washington, D.C., for even talking out loud about running for mayor of this city. James Gill writes that Bernazzani is one ignorant fellow for losing his job over a position he cannot qualify for. Turns out that to run for mayor, one must have lived her for five years, something the G-man misses by a few months.

Someone wrote to the paper rather unhappy with Gill and the way he put down Bernazzani, calling him clueless. "We need ten more just like Bernazzani," he said, "while the one James Gill we have is one too many."

Ryan Perrilloux has been kicked off the LSU football team. He's a local boy and three years ago ranked as one of the nation's premier high school talents. When he signed at LSU, he beamed, "I'm going to win the Heisman all four years." Now, look at him. Coach Les Miles isn't talking, but those who do say he's immature, does not follow through on commitments he makes to the coach, and tested positive for drugs recently. Sad. He seems to be his own worst enemy, a not uncommon problem.

Everyone waits to see what will happen at the Hornets-Spurs basketball playoff game tonight. Saturday night, at the break between the first and second quarters, the Hornets' mascot, SuperHugo, tried a stunt that backfired. He ran, jumped onto a small trampoline and vaulted through a burning hoop to dunk the ball. That worked fine. Then the people helping him could not extinguish the fire. The plan called for them to smother the flames, but when the fire did not cooperate, arena officials grabbed fire extinguishers and began spraying furiously. That put the fire out, but coated the arena floor with something like fine sand. A delay of some twenty minutes followed as workers labored to clean the mess and make the floor safe for the players. During halftime, workers came back out onto the court and tried to finish their job.

Such foolishness. I guarantee that stunt will never be performed here again, and it will be interesting to see if SuperHugo still has a job. Just play ball, I say.

Watching Saturday night's game from Nauvoo, you couldn't help but notice all the fans wearing gold t-shirts. Turns out the Hornets laid 18,000 of them across every seat in the New Orleans Arena. Neat.

One more sports thing. In Saturday's Kentucky Derby, one of our true "characters," Ronnie Lamarque--car dealer, singer, showman--had his horse, Recapturetheglory, come in fifth. Lamarque is the subject of a front-page article in Thursday's Times-Picayune. Underneath his photo, get this: "Vivacious car dealer has found God, quit drinking."

Wednesday through Sunday of this Week

Wednesday, I drove to Alpharetta, Georgia, the headquarters of our denomination's North American Mission Board. My first time to see this wonderful new building in the midst of a pristine environment. One block from Andy Stanley's Northpoint Community Church. Living in an old city, New Orleans, and one that tends to be rustic and rather dirty and these days, in great need, I find myself wondering how one gets up in the morning in his neatly manicured world and goes to work in a shiny new building where everything shines and everything works that is supposed to.

Thursday noon through Friday noon, six of us from New Orleans joined with Dr. David Hankins (Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention) and his right-hand man Mike Canady, as we conferred with Dr. Geoffrey Hammond (Executive Director of NAMB) and all of his senior staffers on the subject of a longterm partnership directed toward the rebuilding of the city, the church, and the ministries of New Orleans. My choice here is to write almost nothing about this meeting or take two hours to tell everything. I've just returned home, it's late Sunday night, and I'm tired beyond belief, so I'll tell the story later.

Friday, I drove to my folks' home at Nauvoo, Alabama, taking the cross-country route from Alpharetta through Marietta, Cedartown, over to Piedmont, Alabama, then to Gadsden, Cullman, Double Springs, and home.

Saturday was the alumni meeting for Winston County High School at Double Springs, where my siblings and I attended from 7th through 12th grades. (Ron graduated in '54, Glenn in '55, Patricia in '56, I in '58, Carolyn in '60, and Charlie in '62) Over the 50 years since my graduation, I think I've attended three or four of these school-wide alumni gatherings, but have been to quite a few of my class's reunions. The class of '58 will tell anyone who pauses to listen that ours is the best class ever.

The class of '58 had maybe 55 or so graduates. Over these years 18 have died. We had 24 there Saturday afternoon, including Quinton Daniels who drove in from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the day before, and--how about this one--Harold Brownlow who flew in from Indonesia.

Couple of reflections here....

Reigning on our Parade

Jazzfest last weekend was not rained out, but anything else would have been. In the downpour, people stood in puddles to their ankles to soak up Billy Joel and other musical offerings. Joel looked heavenward and said to the Lord, "Is that all you've got? Bring it on!"

Seems like we heard our president say something similar just before Iraq became its own kind of quagmire.

The people who run our convention center--the official name for which is the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center--have decided that does not communicate and they want to tweak it to become the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. Not any shorter, but clearer, they say. That sounded great to almost everyone except the Morial family. Ernest "Dutch" Morial was our city's first African-American mayor and the father of our most recent mayor, Marc Morial, who wrote the letter for the family protesting the change.

Officials insist they're not formally changing the name, but will refer to the convention center in this "new" way for marketing purposes. That's not good enough for the family and their supporters. Some are threatening that they will encourage Essence and other festivals/conventions of African-Americans to go elsewhere if this is not reversed.

A name is just a symbol? Symbols can be mighty important to some folks and to all of us at one time or another, we should never forget.

These are good days for the New Orleans Hornets, our NBA franchise. For the first time ever, the New Orleans teams advances to the second round in the playoffs, after beating the Dallas Mavericks 4 games to 1 in a best-of-seven series. Next, we will face the San Antonio Spurs, as I get it. Fans are ecstatic, packing out the New Orleans Arena. Last night--Tuesday--coach Byron Scott was named the NBA Coach of the Year.

Some fan said it's just like Mardi Gras all over again, all the enthusiasm.

We're having a "New Orleans Summit" at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Georgia, this Thursday and Friday, May 1 and 2. Last Monday night in our annual Spring meeting, our association voted to adopt a lengthy list of adjustments and changes being recommended by a strategy team which has been working for a year. Now, some of us will be sitting down with leadership of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and NAMB to work out a possible partnership for the next 10 years or more. Representing BAGNO will be pastors Fred Luter, David Crosby, John Faull, and Dennis Watson. Mike Flores and I will go along to carry their bags. David Hankins and Mike Canady from LBC will be at the table.

In asking for continuing help from LBC and NAMB, New Orleans is not unaware of our massive debt to Southern Baptists through these (and other) agencies. We have been the grateful recipient of many millions of dollars of the Lord's money and untold thousands of man-hours from Baptists who have flowed our way to help rebuild the city and restore our churches. In the process, thousands of our residents have heard the message of God--after seeing it in action--and have prayed with their visitors and benefactors to receive Christ as Savior.

The Taming of the Disciple

The question I ask about the preacher in the news--he shall remain nameless here; this is not about politics--but after watching him at the National Press Club and other forums this week, my question is: Where is the man's humility? Where is the Christlikeness? The world saw plenty of the flesh, loads of meanspiritedness, an abundance of conviction and even eloquence and cleverness, together with a surplus of pandering to his audience. But where was the meekness and humility?

"Thy gentleness has made me great." (Psalm 18:35)

The Lord God is The Awesome Force in this universe. In order to deal with puny humans like us, His power had to be gentled, otherwise we could not have withstood it.

The sun which lights our solar system radiates its mighty power with temperatures in the thousands of degrees. And yet, by the time its rays reach your back yard, they gently ripen grapes and warm picnickers and melt butter. For the sun's light to bless this world, its strength has to be softened and slowed. The gentling elements include the 93 million miles of distance, our earth's atmospherere, and the rotation of the globe.

Thousands of volts of electricity surge through the power lines up and down your street. Were those lines run straight into your house, the energy would burn up every appliance and probably set your house afire. Transformers are installed on light poles up and down the street to gentle the power. Consequently, only 110 volts enters your home, enough to run the appliances, light your home, and operate the computer.

So, how was our great God so gentled that we might be able to know Him? "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." God came to earth in human form, as a baby born in Bethlehem, laid in a manger. "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1) Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14)

Jesus Christ is God the Father gentled.

Jesus said, "I am gentle and humble in heart." (Matthew 11:29) Not bombastic, not belligerent, not meanspirited, but gentle. Not cruel, not harsh and unloving, not power-mad or unkind. Gracious. Loving. Humble.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness...." (Galatians 5:22) Whom the Holy Spirit controls, He tames, and He produces in that one such character as can only be described as like Jesus Christ of Nazareth Himself.

Christians get off course at times and want to argue that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit's presence is this or that spiritual gift. Not so. The infallible manifestation of the Spirit and proof of His indwelling rule is the Christlikeness He produces in that individual.

The Original Morning Sickness: Anxiety

The best time to get run over in interstate traffic, I have decided, is the morning rush hour. Five mornings a week, I'm crossing town between 7:45 and 8:45 am and risking my life in the process. This morning, I was headed out of town for a meeting in Alexandria and noticed the same phenomenon in traffic headed the opposite direction. People are dying to get where they are going. I've come to a conclusion as to the root cause.

It's anxiety.

Some drivers are late to work or to class, some of afraid of being late, and the others are early and trying to stay that way. So they rush. They tailgate the motorist in front of them, they cut in front of the fellow to one side or the other who dares to leave a gap between him and the next car, and they dart in and out incessantly. A couple of miles up the road you notice they're stuck in traffic in the lane to your right or left, all their frantic lane-jumping having done them absolutely no good.

The problem is not their car's motor; it's their own inner motor. Something inside them is racing, dying to get to their destination, and they either do not know how to control it or turn it off or, what's just as probable, do not know that it's even there. They rush out of habit.

Yesterday morning the car that was bullying everyone on the freeway pulled onto a side street in the direction I happened to be going, and one block later turned off into a driveway. They were just going home. I felt like stopping and asking, "What was all the rush about?"

I think I know the answer. Their answer to my question would be, "Huh? What rush?" They are not even aware what they're doing. It's a pattern, a really bad habit, they've fallen into. They get in their car and the anxiety kicks in and they have to beat everyone else on the highway.

It's destructive, self-defeating, harmful to one's health, even suicidal. It's murder on their car, terrible on their tires, and a burden on their billfold. It endangers their families and the people in the other cars.

Let the city or parish install cameras at intersections to catch redlight-runners and they holler to high heaven, as though a sacred right of theirs has been taken away. They foolishly blame the rear end collisions on the officials who installed the cameras. Blame-placing, denial, anger---highway sports in America today.

Anxiety is a a problem we all deal with and a killer in a hundred ways. The highway is just one of locales.

Everyone deals with anxiety in its various manifestations. You start a new job and can't sleep the night before. You have to leave town early tomorrow and afraid of oversleeping, you toss and turn tonight. You have an important painful confrontation tomorrow, so tonight's rest is a total loss. Some would call it worry. It's likewise a form of fear. One thing it is not is faith.

Anxiety is worry and fear on steroids. And whatsoever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Meeting with a group of pastors, I threw this out to them: "Give me your best counsel. What do you do to fight anxiety?" Here are some of their answers.

My Preaching Schedule (and other stuff)

April 27 -- 10:30 am - Highland Baptist Church, Metairie
6:00 pm - Parkview, Metairie

May 1-2 "New Orleans Summit" at NAMB, Alpharetta, GA (planning the details of a partnership between NAMB, our state convention, and our association for the future)

May 3 -- My high school class' 50th reunion. Double Springs, Alabama. Lordy!

May 9 -- 10:00 am - Senior Revival, First Baptist, Franklinton, LA

May 16-17 -- DOM Retreat at Vidalia, LA

May 25 -- 10:30 am New Prospect Baptist Church, Jasper, AL

June 7-11 Southern Baptist Convention, Indianapolis (and DOM annual meeting)

June 13-14 Deacons retreat, Five Points Bap Ch, Northport, AL

And then, after a quiet summer (I hope!), toward the fall of the year....

September 7-10, Revival, First Baptist Church, Fulton, MS

September 21-23 -- "Senior Bible Study/Revival" FBC of Long Beach, MS (One of the Lord's great post-Katrina churches)

November 17 -- Alabama Directors of Missions, Montgomery, AL

November 18 -- speak twice at the Alabama Baptist Convention, Montgomery

November 24 -- "M Night," Muskogee, Oklahoma (You didn't know they were still doing M Night, did you?)

Only in N'Awlins

This weekend and next are Jazzfest, the annual blowout at the Fairgrounds Racetrack that brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city every year at this time. Almost any one of the headliners would fill the New Orleans Arena at big prices, but for 50 bucks you can see every one of them. It's the bargain of the year---if you don't mind wading through a hundred thousand of your closest friends. (Last year's festival drew 350,000 paying customers over the two weekends.)

Today, Friday, for example, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss entertain from 3:30 until 4:50. At the same time, acts are taking place on ten other stages throughout the Fairgrounds area. Sheryl Crow will follow Plant and Krauss. Stevie Wonder will be in town. Billy Joel, Tim McGraw, Jimmy Buffett, Frankie Beverly, Al Green, Randy Newman, Widespread Panic, you name it. (I have no idea who that last group is, but you've gotta love their name.) Hundreds and hundreds of bands and acts and choirs and programs. Like drinking from a fire hydrant.

Go to www.nojazzfest.com for complete information. Next weekend, the program begins on Thursday and goes through Sunday. If you are coming, pay close attention to details on how to ride public transportation to the fairgrounds. You won't find a parking place anywhere near there and police patrol it full-time writing tickets.

Church choirs get into the act, too. Franklin Avenue Baptist Church's choir does that incredible thing they do from the AIG Gospel Tent today at 5:55 pm.

"We want to bring a whole year's worth of music here in a week," said organizer and promoter Quint Davis. "We have a great national lineup." He says this festival is different from all the others, including Austin City Limits. "We're a festival for grownups."

Whatever that means.

Interestingly, most of the groups on the programs are from in-state.

The front page of Friday's paper tells the story of Rosalie 'Lady Tambourine' Washington. "She's one of those only-in-New Orleans institutions. To some, she's a star; to others, a nuisance. Either way, she has been a constant presence for more than a decade to those crowded under the Gospel Tent at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell."

Anecdotes a Preacher Would Kill For

I think of an anecdote as a short, catchy story, the kind pastors love to insert in just-the-right-spot to pep up a sermon. The word comes from the Greek and literally means "things not given out," or in other words, "unpublished."

Winston Churchill called them "the gleaming toys of history." They are hard to define, but we all know a good one when we find one. Here are some of my favorites, for what they are worth.

During the 1957 World Series between the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Yankees, slugger Hank Aaron came up to bat. Yogi Berra, the Yankee catcher, noticed he was holding the bat wrong. "Turn it around," he told Aaron. "So you can read the trademark." Hank never looked back, but said, "Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit."

And brother, did he hit.

A patient afflicted with chronic depression called on the famous British physician John Abernethy. After examining him, Dr. Abernethy said, "You need amusement. Go down to the playhouse and hear the comedian Grimaldi. He will make you laugh and that will be better for you than any drugs." The patient said, "I am Grimaldi."

Great comedy is said to emanate from great suffering.

Franklin Adams belonged to a poker club that counted among its members an actor by the name of Herbert Ransom. It was said that whenever Ransom was dealt a good hand, you could tell it in his face. In light of that, Adams proposed a new club rule: "Anyone who loks at Randsom's face is cheating."

What does your face reveal about you?

For the first half of the 20th century, George Ade was a popular humorist and playwright. Once, after delivering an after-dinner speech that went over well, a famous lawyer followed him on the program. He thrust his hands deep in the pockets and said, "Doesn't it strike you as a little unusual that a professional humorist should actually be funny?" When the laughter subsided, George Ade said, "Doesn't it strike you as a little unusual that a lawyer should actually have his hands in his own pockets?"

And what are your hands doing these days?

I've told this one to whatever doctor was examining me at the moment. Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of West Germany when he was in his 90s, was being examined by his doctor. "I'm not a magician," the medical man said. "I cannot make you younger." "I haven't asked you to," said the chancellor. "All I want is to go on getting older."

The Greek general and politician Alcibiades was telling Pericles, who was 40 years older than he, how to govern Athens effectively. Pericles was not amused. "Alcibiades," he said, "when I was your age, I talked just as you do now." The younger man said, "How I should like to have known you when you were at your best."

When are you at your best?

Smilin' with These Three

First, a gentleman from Raceland.

You know how you drive through sections of Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines Parishes and see house after house that appear to have been abandoned? There will be lovely homes newly rebuilt, some houses in the process of rebuilding, and then here and there a residence with high weeds and shuttered windows and you wonder about them, who owns them and what their plans are. But one thing you know--that's someone's house.

Jesse Bryant did not know that.

This resident of Raceland, a small town forty miles west of New Orleans on U.S.90, picked out two such seemingly abandoned properties on the east side of our city and drove home-made signs into the yard announcing: "I, Jesse Bryant, do take possession of this abandon (sic) property." As though that were all it took.

Then, he broke into the houses and had the locks changed. A deputy sheriff noticed the sign in one yard and stopped to check on it. He was informed by Mr. Bryant that he had assumed ownership of the houses since they had been abandoned. The deputy called the owner who came out and was not real pleased.

They arrested Mr. Bryant for burglary and criminal trespassing. He admitted he had been planning to take possession of other abandoned properties in the area.

One of the houses is owned by the Road Home Corporation, and the other is being renovated by its present owner, a local resident.

Mr. Bryant has been reading too many western novels in which people stake out claims on available land, or possibly watching too many infomercials offering great riches by claiming repossessed houses and reselling them.

My guess is the judge will not throw the book at him, but give him probation. After all, he was not malicious. Just dumb. Really really dumb.

(Update a few days later. The Times-Picayune reports that the Lafourche Parish officials, after reading in the New Orleans paper about Bryant's doings, decided to check him out locally, since he's from Raceland. They discovered he had pulled the same shenanigans there, and in fact, had taken possession of a house across the street from his 87-year-old mother. His brother has been living in that house. When asked about her sons, the mother replied that she has enough troubles of her own without meddling in theirs.)

Second, Elizabeth Luter, the extreme opposite of the first fellow. One smart lady.

Listen to the Holy Spirit

My friend Rudy sat in my office today and told me the definitive story that drives his witness.

"I was living in a northern state and driving an hour and a half each way to work inside Canada. On the way, I drove through this Indian reserve, a real poor place with lots of ramshackle houses. This particular morning, going past the reserve I noticed a fellow working on a car and lying half-way under it. At that moment, the Holy Spirit told me to stop and witness to him. I didn't do it."

"All the time I drove on to work, I kept thinking, 'I should have done it.' But I knew I would have been late for work if I had. All day, it ate at me. I should have stopped."

"That evening on my way home, I decided I would stop by his house and find the man I'd seen under the car that morning. To my surprise, there were cars everywhere and a crowd had gathered. I got out of my car and said to them, 'I want to see the man who was working on his car here this morning.' Somebody said, 'He's dead. He got killed in a traffic accident today.'"

"That was one lesson I had to learn the hard way," Rudy said, "and one I will never forget. When the Lord says to do something, do it."

Rudy may be the most consistent soulwinner I know. He told me of the time he went fishing with a friend and some fellows he had never met. "My friend is a Christian," he said, "but he sort of compartmentalizes his Christianity. He introduced me to these guys and said, 'Watch yourself today. Rudy is a preacher.'"

"That did it. They clammed up and hardly said two words to me. I knew I was going to have to loosen them up or we'd never get to know one another. I have a favorite little joke that I decided to tell them. I said, 'Say, do either of you know how to sell a duck to somebody who is hard of hearing?' They looked at each other, and one said, 'What was that?' The other said, 'Do we know how to sell a duck to somebody who is hard of hearing?' They looked at me and said, 'I reckon not.'"

Rudy said, "WANNA BUY A DUCK??!!" at the top of his lungs.

The men burst out laughing and kept laughing for the next five minutes. (Rudy's wife Rose said, "That's a guy joke. I think it's stupid.") Rudy said, "But that loosened them up and we had a great time that day, and yes, I did tell them about the Lord."