Joe McKeever

Two Men and New Orleans

John McDonogh Senior High School on historic Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans was in all the news last fall, as the scene of a number of serious fights between students and between students and faculty. One of our pastors, Lionel Roberts of St. Bernard Baptist Mission, is on staff there, handling disciplinary problems, and he agreed to give Pastor Thomas Glover and me the grand tour this morning.

That's how we ended up in a meeting with Bill Cosby.

We arrived at 10 am and waded through several layers of security guards. They seemed to be everywhere, mainly standing around and looking people over, not checking IDs or passing people through scanners. Their presence is as a leavening agent, I suppose. Lionel pointed out they were not armed. "Most of these kids respect only law enforcement people with a gun on their hip."

I said, "Who was John McDonogh? There are schools all over New Orleans named for this man." Thomas Glover attended this school--he calls it "John Mac"--and said, "Some rich guy a long time ago who endowed a lot of schools in this city. When I was a student here, every year on his birthday, the schools would let out and we would all convene at his tombstone. It was a big deal." The phone directory lists a half dozen "McDonogh" schools, including three "senior high schools" with his name. This one was listed simply as John McDonogh Senior High School, but the other two have numbers, like "McDonogh 28 High School." I had no idea. Bet this is really confusing. (see post script at the end for more on McDonogh.)

That must have been some man. Thomas said, "There used to be more schools named for him, but they've changed the names of some."

"This school was built in the 1920s," said Lionel Roberts. I said, "It looks great. Fresh coat of paint everywhere." The result of post-Katrina volunteers, he said.

We met the principal, Mr. Jackson, an impressive-looking young man who was trying to juggle several things at the same time, so we swapped business cards and told him we are praying for him. He was very personable and you immediately felt a respect for him.

"Are all the students Black?" I asked. "We have a few Hispanic," said Lionel. "No whites."

I had brought along my sketch pad, so I said, "Does this school have art classes? Let's go there." Art teachers are always glad when a cartoonist drops in. Gives them a break from teaching and the kids love to get drawn and they might actually pick up a pointer in the process.

Active Churches

Saturday evening the First Baptist Church of LaPlace held its 50th anniversary celebration at the Shrine Auditorium in Destrehan, and hundreds came for the occasion. Pastor Bobby Burt welcomed his predecessor, longtime pastor Major Speights, who now lives in Texas. (In the 1990s, people would mistake Major and me for each other. That is one handsome dude.) Former staffers were recognized, and present and former members filled the place. I presented two plaques, one from the state convention and one from our association, thanking this terrific church for a half-century of faithfulness.

I told them, "On behalf of all the people in this room with the same color hair as mine, I want you to know: 50 years is not so long! I recall sitting on the front porch swing with my girl friend and saying, 'Next year will be 1957! That has such a futuristic ring to it.' Now it sounds like the Stone Age. But it wasn't so long ago, 1957, when some good people did a great thing and started this church."

Sunday morning, the "new" Christ Baptist Church of Harvey held its dedication services. Formerly the Woodmere Baptist Church of the same New Orleans suburb, they bought the entire campus of the House of Prayer Lutheran Church--a congregation that went out of business as a result of Katrina--and relocated to the lovely site at 3000 Manhattan Boulevard. They sold their old facility to their mission church, New Covenant Baptist Mission, at a bargain price. Dr. Harold Mosley--professor at the seminary--is the new pastor of Christ Church. Sunday he welcomed back the founding pastor (and a seminary classmate of mine from the 1960s) Art Edwards. In addition to these men, speakers included New Covenant's Thomas Glover and Randy Capote, most recent pastor of Woodmere.

In his printed remarks, Harold Mosley said, "It's true not everything is in its place yet, and we still have projects to complete but oh, what a glorious day to praise the Lord for what He has provided!" He continued, "We have plans in the works for new ministries to reach out to our new neighbors, build a new playground, modify the nursery area, acquire a permanent sign, start an Awana program, and the list goes on."

We congratulate FBC LaPlace as it gets its second wind and Christ Baptist as it makes a new start in a new neighborhood.

Iva Jewel Tucker, Cancer Survivor, Genuine Character

We've never actually met, but Iva Jewel Tucker is a dear friend of mine. She put in a full career at the Alabama Baptist, the weekly newspaper for our denomination in my home state, and worked alongside other friends, Editor Hudson Baggett and his secretary, our precious friend Lee Alys Orr. So we sort of feel we have a long history.

Iva Jewel is retired now and staying active. She once sent me a newspaper clipping showing her and a buddy riding their motor scooters around Birmingham. She must have told me her age, but as a gentleman, I promptly forgot it. She is, as we say, "of a certain age."

Now she has cancer.

Here is the story, exactly as she passed it on to me. I expect you to come away thinking what my wife did when she read this: "What a delightful person. We have to meet her." And let us note, Iva Jewel gave permission for us to write this and to use her name.

What We Learned From a Hurricane

Friday night inside the central dining hall of Alexandria's Louisiana Baptist Building, over 200 men and women attending the "Disaster Relief Roundtable" were feted with a banquet at which presentations were made to a number of dedicated volunteers.

If you'll allow me to say so, the best award was ours.

A special award to celebrate a long history of disaster relief work has been created and named, most appropriately, "The Freddie Arnold Lifetime Achievement Award". The first one went to--again, most appropriately--Freddie Arnold himself. I have no idea how it feels to receive an award which is named "for" oneself, but each year hereafter, other faithful DR workers will be receiving the Freddie Arnold Award.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy, or one more deserving.

"Was Freddie surprised?" my wife wanted to know. I expect he was clued in when he picked up the program and saw printed: "Presentation of Freddie Arnold Lifetime Achievement" by Dr. David Hankins, Louisiana Baptist Convention Executive Director.

What most surprised him was looking up and seeing his entire family walk in just prior to the dinner: wife Elaine, daughter Julie Johnston and son Zac, and son Kerney with Jacob and Katie. I picked up my notebook and moved over to their table to share in the joy of the occasion.

Waylon and Martha Bailey of Covington's First Baptist Church were the featured speakers. This incredible couple are heroes for many of us in a hundred ways. Martha gave a brief testimony about their church's heavy involvement in disaster relief in the first few days and weeks following Katrina's blow-through in late August, 2005. Time and again, she said, when their workers needed certain supplies a truck would pull up loaded with that very thing. It was a time of miracles.

Waylon began: "On August 29, 2005, the person in this room who knew the least about SBC disaster relief is the one standing before you. I had no idea what it was or how it functioned. I was given a crash course, however."

Waylon shared "10 Things I Learned on the Way to a Hurricane," and like a good pastor, passed out fill-in-the-blank sheets so everyone could take notes.

It Takes a Professional

We now know who opened the locked fence at the St. Bernard Housing Development and let in the protestors.

Garelle Smith, age 25, was arrested for tearing down part of the fence erected by the Housing Authority of New Orleans. That's when police made another discovery. The breaking-and-entering charge is the least of Smith's worries.

This man was wanted for murder. Police say last August 4, Garelle Smith gunned down Mandell Duplessis, 24, outside a FEMA trailer in Gentilly. The newspaper report is confusing, but it appears that Smith happened upon a group of robbers who had taken the residents of the trailer hostage and were looking for drugs and money. He started blasting and Duplessis was dead. It seems that Duplessis was not a robber, but an innocent party who happened to knock on the door of the trailer without a clue what was going on inside.

Okay, now.

Turns out Mr. Smith has quite the history. November 26, 2003, a local rapper called Soulja Slim--but whose mama named him James Tapp--was killed while walking across the front lawn of his Gentilly home. Police say Garelle Smith earned $10,000 in that killing-for-hire.

While police were investigating that case, Smith was sitting in jail booked with another murder, that of a recording artist called Funk, but actually Spencer Smith, Jr., who died in front of the St. Bernard Housing Project, riddled with bullets. (Apparently Garelle Smith had a thing against local rappers.)

Thursday's Times-Picayune: "Garelle Smith was charged with second-degree murder in Spencer Smith's killing, but the case disintegrated in court." Whatever that means.

Anyway, the cops have him now, all because he tore down a fence.

In Ron Dunn's book "Don't Just Stand There, Pray Something," he tells a delightful little story that comes to mind here.

God is Doing a Great Work

I wish you could have heard Lynn Rodrigue today. This pastor of Port Sulphur Baptist Church--get your map; it's way down the Mississippi River!--told of the rebuilding work God is doing in his area through church volunteer teams coming to help.

A team from Oklahoma arrived and went to work on the new church building. "The average age of those folks was 72," Lynn said. "You should have seen those women climbing around on the scaffolding! They were amazing."

A group from Virginia--the primary sponsors of this work--was down, and while they were there, they shot a video of the area and the work they were accomplishing. When they showed it back at home, an older gentleman who rarely came to church got under conviction and wrote a check for $10,000 to help Plaquemines Parish residents. Lynn said, "I had more fun going down the highway looking for people to help with that money."

"The strain between Catholics and Baptists is probably pronounced everywhere in South Louisiana," he said, "but nowhere more than where we live. The Catholic priest will not even look me in the eye, he has disliked us so much." Then something happened.

The Catholic church down there needed to be wired for electricity and they couldn't find anyone. A woman from the church asked Pastor Lynn. "We just happened to have a group in that day helping us, and they had an eletrician with them. He spent two full days wiring the church. When he finished, the priest was crying. He told the worker, 'Tell the Baptists anything they need, just ask and it's theirs.'"

Lynn said, "The people where we live do not want to hear the gospel. They want to see it."

Making Sense of the Nonsense

In peaceful suburban Kenner, the violence is rising, just as throughout metro New Orleans. Four murders in 2005 and nine in '06. Aggravated assault climbed from 162 to 231. Auto theft is way up, although some crimes decreased in number. Law enforcement people say part of the crime was bad guys preying on migrant workers, unthinkably cruel, if you ask me. Police chief Carraway says the spike in aggravated assaults is attributable to large numbers of people living in cramped quarters such as FEMA trailers and overcrowded apartments. Yep, that would do it.

Locals are griping about the president's failure to even mention New Orleans and the Gulf Coast rebuilding last night in his State of the Union message. I don't live in a trailer and my house wasn't flooded, so I'm not typical on this and might be a lot more upset if I did, but personally, I don't see a lot of value in having your cause given honorable mention in that annual laundry list of American problems. Possibly more importantly, the new congress seems to have the rebuilding of this part of the world on its agenda.

We had a small convention in town this past week, and as the 2,600 members of the Meeting Planners International--who knew they had an organization of people who plan meetings? and what did they do in our city? plan meetings?--said good things about the city as they departed. The hospitality was "flawless," said a spokeswoman for the group. "I have heard only amazing comments from our attendees."

Many attending that convention said they were surprised they found nothing to complain about. "It seems normal," said one.

Bear in mind they are talking about a) the Morial Convention Center, b) the restaurants and attractions and the French Quarter, and c) the downtown shops. All of that is back to speed, and if you stay in the downtown area, you'll see nothing out of place. Even street cars are running up and down Canal Street. Not the long St. Charles Avenue line, however, not for a long time.

But we're glad they found the city ready to host visitors and we hope other conventions, particularly those that canceled after Katrina, will be heading back. This economy was built around the concept of us having lots of company. Last summer, the Southern Baptist Convention opted out of the possibility of our hosting that annual meeting for 2008, out of fear the city could not handle that many visitors at once (anywhere from 10,000 up). However, the American Librarians Association met here 18,000 strong last summer and we pulled that off.

We're ready for company. Y'all come.

The Morning After

One of those weekends. The funeral on Saturday, two blogs early Sunday morning, Sunday morning worship at First Baptist Church, New Orleans, Sunday afternoon parked in front of the television cheering the Saints on, Sunday night moderating a church business meeting, trying to help them over a particularly bumpy time, and late that night, picking up one of our guests flying in to speak at the Louisiana Baptist evangelism conference going on Monday and Tuesday at FBC-NO.

Missed my Sunday afternoon nap. My team lost. Two good excuses for being a little grouchy.

Margaret used to laugh at me when my team would lose. Years ago, it would be Alabama in one of their rare losses, and in recent years, it's LSU. This year, the Saints--it's always been the Saints except this year they decided to start a winning tradition after the biblical 40 years in the wilderness.

What she would laugh at is how I became philosophical after a loss. "Well, it was good for the other team to win this one. Our guys were getting too full of themselves. A loss can teach you more than a win. In the long run, this loss may be meaningless."

But I will confess flat out that the game Sunday for the NFC championship in Chicago meant more to me personally than all the other times I've cheered on "my" teams. I wanted this one so bad. What the Saints would have done in Miami for the Super Bowl really would not have mattered. Just getting there would have been the achievement we've all hoped for, for so long.

Monday morning's front page headline: "Thank you, boys." That's a play on "Bless you, boys," a sign on thousands of posters you see on game day. Probably originated from a nun who roots for this team. We have plenty of them. I won't bore you with it here, but Sunday morning's paper chronicled stories of priests and nuns who make no apology for their complete absorption in this team and who pray in church for it to win, wear Saints logos on their vestments, etc. I've not gone that far. Yesterday morning, walking on the levee and praying, the most I could do was pray for the well-being for everyone and for the Lord to be glorified by the outcome.

Forgive the repetition, but Yogi Berra said it for me. When a batter stepped up to the plate and squared off toward the pitcher and made the sign of the cross, Yogi, squatting in the catcher's position, said, "Hey buddy--why don't we just let the Almighty enjoy the game."

"RISING AGAIN" in St. Bernard Parish

Bruce Nolan is the religion writer (editor maybe) for the Times-Picayune and a friend to all our churches. In Sunday's paper, he focuses on the churches of St. Bernard Parish and the First Baptist Church of Chalmette in particular. Here's the article.

The excavator's heavy mechanical bucket pulled down a huge chunk of wall in what was once First Baptist Church of Chalmette's educational building. A shower of broken drywall, bricks an flailing electrical wiring tumbled to the ground as the church's pastor, the Rev. John Dee Jeffries, looked on from across the street. Soon a new church complex will rise on the same lot.

"So, is this a good sight or a sad sight?" someone asked him recently.

Jeffries, 58, considered for a moment. "Bittersweet," he said. "Bittersweet. Now, months ago, when they had to chain saw the pews into pieces to haul them out of the church. That was bad."

He paused again. "I'd prayed over those pews. Before services on that Sunday, before the people came, I'd put my hand on one and pray to God to bless the people who were coming and who'd be sitting there."

"So, yeah, that was bad."

But now it appears that Jeffries and his current flock, down to 75 from 350, have turned a corner in a long, rugged road.

Saturday's Send-Off

"About five years ago, when I was still pastoring this church, I was up here preaching about something, I forget the exact point I was making. Maybe it was about not judging people by the clothes they wear. Anyway, I looked down at the tie I was wearing, a bright purple. I said, 'Now, take this tie. This is one ugly tie. I hate this tie.' At that very second, as my eyes scanned the congregation, they landed on Marshall and Barbara Sehorn and I had one of those moments. I stood there in quiet shock, then said to the congregation, 'I just remembered who gave me this tie.'"

"The people fell in the floor laughing. When the laughter died down, I stood there for a bit, then said, 'I love this tie.'"

The redeeming thing about that incident for me the preacher, the culprit, the loudmouth who speaks before engaging brain, is that no one was laughing harder than Marshall and Barbara.

I told that at the beginning of our memorial service for Marshall Estus Sehorn Saturday afternoon at 2 pm in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Kenner. At the end of the little story, I said to Barbara on the front row, "I looked for that tie to wear today, but couldn't find it. I must have given it away." They all laughed again, she harder than any of them.

It takes a big man to get two funeral services. If you want to call them that. We cremated Marshall--well, Lake Lawn Funeral people did--over a month ago, following his December 6 death. Marshall had a bad respiratory problem all his life that escalated and worsened in the last few years. He suffered something horribly and was able to speak only with great difficulty. But today, he's doing just fine, thank you.

The earlier service was December 30 in his hometown of Concord, North Carolina. Half his ashes are being interred there, the other half at a cemetery in Metairie.

Stephanie Screen played her violin before and during the service Saturday. She's about to get her master's from Loyola and grew up in our church. The last few years, she would drive over to the Sehorns and play for them. For him, mostly, and Barbara understands. It was about Marshall and everyone's special love for this precious man.

Ken Gabrielse, our minister of music since 1992, led us in "Amazing Grace" with Allen Toussaint on the piano, and what a special thing that was. Then Ken sang "His Eye is on the Sparrow." Later, Ken said, "I can go on to Heaven now. I've sung Amazing Grace with Allen Toussaint!"

Marshall Sehorn and Barbara Darcey married in the late 1960's. "She was the love of his life," said Allen Toussaint, the Rock-and-Roll-Hall-of-Famer. "You ought to have seen him when they fell in love. He was something."

Those People in the Stadium

Recently on these pages I wrote of how coaches and pastors are different animals. My concern was for shallow-thinking church members who want to trade pastors--always upgrading of course--in their endless search for the genius who can turn their church into winners. They've bought into the sports analogy for churches and have long since forgotten the blueprint the Lord Jesus Christ--the only Head Coach of this team--laid out.

There's another aspect to this story. The people in the pews are vastly different from the fans in the stadium.

I grant that sometimes they're the same people. Church members attend football games, too. They've even been known to wear their team's jerseys to church. Pastors love to drop sports stories into their sermons. And of course, on high attendance day at church, a sports hero giving his testimony packs them in. Some of the biggest football fans in America are Christians.

So it's easy to get the two entities confused and start thinking of the church the way we think of our team.

As I write this, the New Orleans Saints are preparing to play the Chicago Bears for the NFC championship tomorrow afternoon. The local paper is saturated with stories of fans--a word derived from fanatics--who have rooted for the Saints over 40 frustrating years and who are now giddy with excitement over this season and this playoff time, many of them die-hards who go into debt to buy expensive tickets in order to sit in frozen Soldier Field and cheer the team on. One family carried deceased Dad's cremated ashes to the playoff game with Philadelphia last weekend. (There's no indication they bought him a ticket.) The son said, "Our dad persevered through all those losing seasons, never giving up hope. We thought he would love to see this game."

People are decorating their houses and cars and yards with Saints paraphernalia. I expect they're doing the same up in Chicagoland.

It's fun being a fan. When you're winning.

Sometimes the Minister Needs to Stay Out of It

Tuesday, several of us had lunch at the wonderful Praline Connection on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, one of my favorite spots. It's a small restaurant, maybe a dozen tables, and their menu is all about "Creole Soul Food." We ate chicken livers and breaded pork chops and baked chicken. On the side, crowder peas and limas and greens--collards, mustard, etc. Dessert is usually a slice of sweet potato pie with praline sauce.

After that meal, you're good for a week.

Off to the side of the dining area, I noticed a stack of magazines I'd never seen before. The editors seem to have entered the market to boost the local economy and pride-in-the-city, and we're not against that. Flipping through the issue, I noticed a half-page ad supporting a local citizen with the unlikely name of Pampy Barre'. This man and several colleagues are regularly being featured on the front page of our daily paper as the objects of an investigation by the U.S.attorney in connection with corruption during the days when Marc Morial was mayor. C. Ray Nagin succeeded Morial who moved off to New York City to head up a civil rights organization. Morial was every bit as smooth as Nagin, and as one local columnist says, was as hands-on as Nagin is detached.

The investigation deals with a massive contract the city fathers signed just days before Morial left office, with a company called Johnson Controls. It was supposedly an energy-saving contract. For $81 million. That's a lot of energy. A number of politically connected big shots around town--and that's the only way to describe them--got their finger in that pie, refusing to let Johnson Controls get the contract unless they received kickbacks. Pampy Barre' was in that number.

So, this priest at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church--also Mayor Nagin's home parish--writes a big article in the local tableau defending Barre'. What a great guy he is. How generous he is to everyone who knows him. All he's done for the community.

I never met the man. The priest may be right.

The 'Who Dat' Nation

The editorial writer of our paper says the Saints are not our Savior, but are a lovely distraction.

Exactly 40 years ago this fall, just as the Saints were fielding their first team, I finished seminary and was soon called to pastor a church in Greenville, Mississippi. The first few games, we were still living in Louisiana and I would rush home after church each Sunday to listen on the radio. In those days, it was a rare game that was televised. We moved to the Mississippi Delta around the first of November and thereafter, it was almost impossible to hear the games. I would sit in my car and listen to WWL through the static and decipher what I could until the strain became too much and I gave it up in desperation.

At night I would sometimes sit in the car and tune in WWL and listen to the sportscasters interview coaches and talk about the team. I could not get to New Orleans and even if I were there, as a pastor I was tied up on Sundays and unable to attend the games, so I did what I could to soak up a little of this city's love for this team.

Eventually, rooting for the Saints became an endurance trial. They would fall behind early and lose big, or pull out in front and then find a way to lose toward the end. The hapless Chicago Cubs have nothing on the New Orleans Saints.

This week, the city is higher than a kite, basking in the glow of beating the Eagles last Sunday and playing the Bears this Sunday for the NFC championship and a ticket to the Super Bowl. The very idea of playing in the Super Bowl is mind-boggling.

I believe the "who dat" business originated at Mississippi's Alcorn A & M University years ago. It was something of a chant in dialect: "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say they gonna beat them Braves? Who dat? Who dat?" Somehow or other it floated downriver to New Orleans, "Braves" morphed into "Saints," and the chant caught on during the Jim Mora days when we actually began winning some games.

Recently they revived the "Who dat" business and it's all you hear now. Then somebody started calling this the "Who Dat Nation." WWL-Radio picked up on it and now bills itself as "The flagship station of the Who Dat Nation!"

Today a judge announced that a particular criminal trial slated to begin Monday will be postponed until Wednesday. His reasoning was that if the Saints win Sunday's game in Chicago, he would not be able to get enough jurors together for a trial.

What the Mayor Wants

I had forgotten this, but Richard Pearl of New Orleans did not. He writes in Tuesday morning's newspaper that at some point following Katrina, Mayor Nagin said he wanted all the citizens back including the criminals. "Well," writes Pearl, "He has his wish. The criminals are back. Soon that is all that will be left."

The other thing the mayor wanted--against the best counsel of every planning commission and study committee--was to allow any citizen to rebuild anywhere in the city he wishes. Advisors kept warning him the result would be a jack-o-lantern effect, with a couple of lights on this block, no one living on that one, a few people on the next block. And that is precisely what we have.

I hope you like it, Mayor. This is your legacy, sir.

The displaced residents of the Saint Bernard Housing Development have been quiet for the past few months but they are back with a vengeance. Yesterday, Monday, they marched up and down in front of the locked-down projects, vowing their determination not to leave until they got inside. "This is our home," they insisted.

There is no point in trying to reason with them that those are government-owned buildings, that you were living there either as a gift from the federal and state governments or receiving a substantial subsidy and those are not entitlements, and that no one should have to live in such sub-standard housing. They reason correctly that they have a right to go inside and salvage whatever they can, and that the upper apartments took no floodwaters and should still be intact.

There was not a lot of logic but plenty of rhetoric. They wanted inside.

World Missions at our Front Door

I've never told you the full story about Global Maritime Ministries. Our friends who read this blog live literally all over the world and I think you will find this fascinating.

Forty-five years ago John Vandercook saw a need in New Orleans no one was addressing. Here we had one of the busiest ports in America, with hundreds of ships a year arriving from all over the world, bringing thousands of foreign workers who would spend a few hours in this country and leave without ever knowing the first thing about us. What an opportunity if someone were to meet them, befriend them, show them some hospitality, and if possible, tell them about the Savior. Many seafarers live in countries hostile to the Christian faith, nations that not only bar Christian missionaries but forbid their own people from converting to Christianity.

This could be an opportunity staring us in the faith, John thought.* If someone had the faith--and gumption--to begin the process. First, he would have to find out how to board the ships. He would have to be credentialed as a chaplain. Figure out a means to bridge the language gap. Secure a vehicle for driving the crewmembers into town or to a church service. Line up volunteers to help. Find the time for this. And the energy. And of course, the finances. (*That really was a typo. I meant to say "staring us in the face." But "staring us in the faith" really says it, doesn't it?)

The sheer scope of beginning such a ministry would have frightened away many a lesser person. But in 1963, Rev. John Vandercook organized the New Orleans Baptist Seamen's Service in the downstairs of his home and began visiting ships' crews on a regular basis. One year later, John went full-time in this ministry, a tremendous step of faith for a one-armed preacher with a wife and a full set of children.

When I arrived on campus at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1964 I heard stories of this man and his ministry. You'd have thought the work had been around for years. Seminary students spoke of driving church buses to pick up seamen at the docks and take to their worship services. Churches would welcome them and provide lunch. At times, the student volunteers would drive the visitors to a a mall or a grocery store just so they could see how blessed Americans are. As far as they were available, they gave Christian literature and sometimes Bibles in the person's language. Occasionally, they engaged them in conversations about Jesus and even led some of the seafarers to know Jesus Christ.

Putting the Goods on Display

I noticed something Sunday evening at Sojourn, the new startup church on Magazine Street in the Uptown area of New Orleans. The building which James Welch selected and rented for his new arts center/worship site was formerly a store and is situated in a block of stores, cafes, and banks. The front of each one is mainly huge glass windows. Turn the lights on inside, fill it with 40 young adults sitting around on folding chairs with soft drinks in their hands, stand some people down front strumming guitars and stroking the violin, and everyone passing down the narrow street will see what you're doing.

A number of pedestrians stopped in front of the windows and gazed inside. No sign or lettering on the window indicates anything about what's inside. The people on the sidewalk were just seeing people having fun and enjoying music. At least three opened the door and came inside without an invitation. A couple of them turned out to be druggie-types who talked too loud and seemed not to know what planet they were on, but the third stayed.

When was the last time people going past your church were sufficiently intrigued to stop and come inside without an invitation?

Churches are notorious for putting on great shows, having wonderful music, the members enjoying each other--but hiding their activities inside closed buildings, away from the eyes and ears of the community. The result is that no one has a clue what goes on inside and no one would dare walk up and push open a door just to see.

And yet, ask the church members and they would tell you outsiders are welcome and in fact, much of what they're doing inside their buildings is directed toward the benefit of these very outsiders.

What's wrong with this picture?

Two Churches at Opposite Extremes

I worshiped with the First Baptist Church of Belle Chasse this morning at 10:30 and with Sojourn at 5 pm. As unalike as two Baptist churches on the planet.

Belle Chasse is a pleasant little community downriver from New Orleans, just inside Plaquemines Parish, and the host of a huge Naval Air Station where a large contingent of military people live and work. And worship. The FBC has always been blessed by military families.

The church has fine facilities and a large auditorium. In the summer of 2004, Pastor Freddie Williford resigned and moved to a church in North Louisiana and they've been pastorless ever since. Dr. Paul Hussey has been their interim for most of that time, but he has resigned effective next Sunday. Their only full-time staffer is Richard Strahan, the worship leader and devoted minister.

Paul Hussey is a counselor and adjunct professor at our seminary. He told the congregation that a local radio station had already asked him to be on call this morning in case the Saints lost last night's game. They thought he might want to do some grief counseling over the air. Thankfully, it wasn't needed.

Sojourn is located at 2130 Magazine Street in the Uptown section of New Orleans. Now, we have Valence Street Baptist Church further down Magazine. It's the third oldest Baptist church in the city, I believe, but they've fallen onto difficult times in recent decades and have a tiny congregation trying to maintain some huge and lovely buildings. I noticed tonight that the west side of their bell tower which took a great blow from Katrina is still covered with the once-ubiquitous blue plastic tarp, evidence that it still has not been repaired. Cipriano Stephens is their longtime pastor.

Faith Baptist Church is also uptown, meeting presently in the chapel of Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church on St. Charles, not far away. Faith's congregation was sliced in half--from 100 to around 50--by the Katrina effect (families relocating), and they are still without a permanent pastor or permanent location. Professor (and former missionary) Tim Searcy is their longtime interim.

Sojourn was meeting tonight for the first time in their Magazine Street location, which is actually a storefront. James and Amy Welch moved here from Louisville, Kentucky, where they worked with Crossings, another innovative congregation, to begin this church focused on the post-modernist generation. (If you have to ask what that means, you ain't in it.) (smile)

All Saints Day in N'Awlins

BEFORE THE GAME

New Orleans and surrounding parts are all agog today. The Saints are playing the Philadelphia Eagles tonight for the NFL division championship. The winner goes to the NFC championship next weekend, and the winner of that to the Super Bowl in Miami on February 4.

You'd think we've never been here before.

We haven't. Well, we've played in post-season playoff games. Four of them, to be exact, in 40 years of Saints football. And we've won exactly one. But this year figures to be different.

It feels different. The other times in previous years, honestly, we felt like impostors. Maybe the ball will bounce our way, anything can happen, we might luck up. This time, Saints fans feel like the team is honestly good enough to go all the way.

Today's Times-Picayune splashed a headline across the front page: "All Saints Day!" It is indeed. Everywhere you look--and I put in 65 miles around this town today--people are wearing their Saints regalia. Even the doormen at swanky hotels. My son Neil took his three children to Academy Sports and let them buy Saints jerseys. Two opted for quarterback Drew Brees and the other for Reggie Bush's shirts.

The paper ran a feature about Jackson, Mississippi, today, how the citizens are rooting for the Saints and buying up all the team's caps and shirts they can find, a direct result of the team holding their training camp at Millsaps College last summer. Couple of funny stories....

Con Maloney owns an appliance store in Jackson. Last summer he ran a promotion to sell HDTV sets, and promised that if the Saints win the Super Bowl, he will refund the price of the set minus the sales tax. He sold a million dollars worth. At the time, of course, no one gave the Saints even a slim chance. They're still a long way out, but it has become a distinct possibility.

Maloney confesses he has bought a half-million dollars of insurance in case he has to fork out those big bucks. He says the publicity will be worth the other $500,000 if it does indeed come to pass.

A bar owner in Jackson decided to buy a couple of season tickets for 2007-08 and run a promotional contest. The Saints ticket office said they'd have to put him on a waiting list. He's number 2,600.

This has been a big day for us.

At 10 o'clock this morning, Global Maritime Ministries on Tchoupitoulas held their annual "board and friends" meeting, followed by a dedication of the new port ministry center at 1:30 pm. This big building is incredibly beautiful and well-furnished. As we gathered, you could see a number of foreign-looking men sitting before computers. "They're off the Carnival cruise ship 'Fantasy,'" Philip Vandercook told us. "Normally, they'll have 25 crew members to drop by the center when they're in town."

Freddie Arnold chaired the building committee for Global Maritime, so had to be present at the afternoon dedication, while I drove to Chalmette for the 2 pm ground-breaking service for the "new" First Baptist Church. I would estimate 150-200 people gathered inside the gutted out sanctuary, many of them coming an hour early, just to dream about re-establishing their beloved church. Pastor John Jeffries has done a masterful job working with architects, Builders for Christ, and the Louisiana Baptist Builders.

By the time the nearly 2 hour service ended, Freddie Arnold had arrived and was able to address the crowd. Among the guests were several St. Bernard Parish leaders, Missouri Baptist leaders, and Dr. David Hankins, the executive director of Louisiana Baptists.

At one point, when they ran a video showing photos of the flooded sanctuary with its mildewed pews and ruined walls, as well as the destroyed educational building, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Someone might be tempted to say this were just so much lumber and material, but don't tell them that. This was their church and it was precious to them.

Some of the members drove in a long way to be present. The hymn leader said, "This is my first time back."

Enough Already!

The last time I saw signs yelling "Enough!" was in the mid-1980s just below Charlotte, North Carolina. We had moved there to pastor a church and were taking our first tour of Heritage Village, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's personal Neverland. Everywhere you looked, signs and bumper stickers announced "Enough is enough," a reference to the barrage of criticism they were taking from the media and other outsiders who suspected things were not as they should be in PTL-land. We know now who was right.

Thursday, at the downtown New Orleans march to protest the city's alarming murder rate, "Enough" blared at you from many a sign and poster. People are tired of being shocked by the morning news that more murders occurred overnight. One sign read, "Silence is Violence."

The official estimate is that 3,000 people of all colors and races were marching. They came from several directions and met in front of City Hall for a rally. The funny thing about it--we'll say it's funny but I doubt Mr. Nagin thought so--is that many of the speakers were railing at the mayor, wondering where he is, calling for his resignation, evidently without a clue that he was standing right behind them.

Pastor John Raphael, Jr., gets my vote for our next preacher-leader. He was the instigator of this march and has been rallying the city from the pulpit of his New Hope Baptist Church (presumably a National Baptist church). In fact, a dozen years ago signs popped up all over certain sections of the city calling out "Thou shalt not kill." A large billboard with that message was erected at Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard and South Claiborne Avenue. They were Pastor Raphael's idea and paid for by New Hope Church.

These days, that same billboard has one word: "Enough!"

At the rally, Mr. Raphael, whom I do not know, said, "We have come to declare that a city that could not be drowned in waters of a storm will not be drowned in the blood of its citizens." Great line. An important declaration.

A Baptist Meeting, and a Tithing Story

Sojourn, the new start-up church directed toward post-moderns, holds its first worship service on Magazine Street this Sunday at 5 pm. James and Amy Welch came down from Louisville, Kentucky, some months ago to begin this ministry which is being sponsored by First Baptist of Kenner.

Saturday morning at 10 am, the board of Global Maritime Ministries on Tchoupitoulas Street is holding its annual meeting. That afternoon at 1:30, they'll be dedicating their new Port Ministry Center. Everyone is invited. Check out their website.

And also that afternoon, at 2 pm, the First Baptist Church of Chalmette (St. Bernard Parish), will be holding ground-breaking and dedication services for its new buildings. Freddie Arnold will be at Global Maritime and I'll be at Chalmette. Two grand occasions, long-awaited.

Steve Gahagan reports that since Operation NOAH Rebuild (the North American Mission Board's presence in our city) has been in operation, they have hosted 5,997 church volunteers from across America. They have 1,293 homes on their list still to be worked on. The volunteers have reported 123 professions of faith.

On a similar note, our Arkansas Baptist friends working out of Gentilly Baptist Church headquarters report having completed 52 houses with 1420 volunteers, who report 82 professions of faith.

Those figures--123 and 82 professions of faith--are wonderful, each one precious to the Lord and to us, but only a small fraction of the total number. Several of our churches have had extensive evangelistic outreaches over the 16 months since Katrina, with many hundreds of people indicating they prayed to receive Christ.

The total number as always is: God knows. And rest assured, He does. He alone knows.

Life in New Orleans

Sportscaster Jim Henderson says one thing people have always loved about New Orleans is that it appealed to all your senses. You enjoyed the sights--the grand homes, the historical buildings, the river; you loved the sounds--the music; you could taste the city--its cuisine; and you can even smell it--sometimes the smell of coffee roasting at a nearby plant and at other times, less appetizing aromas.

Life in this city these days is a matter of "Ds." It's always been daring. Since Katrina, it has been difficult. And now, it's downright dangerous. The crime rate is soaring off the charts. And that's not just in Orleans Parish proper. Last year, Jefferson Parish, always thought of as a safer alternative to the city, registered 78 murders. That is more than double the previous year.

Tuesday, Mayor Nagin and other local officials held a news conference to announce plans to combat the increase in violence. They'll be asking the NOPD to speed up investigations, assigning sheriff's deputies to routine police duties in order to free up police officers for serious crime work, and increase drug and alcohol traffic checks between 2 and 6 am. So far, they've not announced a curfew but it's being discussed.

In the letters section of the paper, Fred Cargo of New Orleans thinks a curfew is a bad idea. All you have to do, he says, is chart the times of all the murders in 2007 so far. Two occurred after 11 pm; the others took place at 1:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7 pm, 8 pm, 8:45 pm, 10:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 3:45 pm, 7 pm, 5:30 am, and 7:24 am. Good point, Fred.

One of the mayor's suggested crime-fighting techniques is a "clergy family intervention" program, in which "priests would visit victims' families." Priests? Good idea. We may assume that was meant to cover all us non-priests--pastors, rabbis, and such.

Last Sunday's Times-Picayune devoted several pages to showing how home values have changed since Katrina. Turns out it's a great time to buy a big house in New Orleans. If you don't mind its being a fixer-upper and living in a neighborhood of high weeds and big rats.

Standing Guard

I'm sorry for the people who were hurt in this, but I love a bizarre story, and this ranks among the strangest of the new year.

In Clarence, New York, not far from Buffalo, 47-year-old Tom Montgomery worked in a tool factory. He and his wife have two teenage sons, and I suppose old Tom was bored. That's when he went online and pretended to be someone he wasn't.

On the internet, he told the 18-year-old West Virginia beauty he was a Marine just back from Iraq. Mister Macho man. Good looking, muscular, tough, all that.

Tom went to the young lady's website and found she was everything he hoped: beautiful, smart, and interested in him. Well, she was interested in him the way he described himself.

They began chatting back and forth as people do these days. The middle-aged man romancing the teenager through cyberspace. As I got the story, the young woman was unnamed for reasons that will appear below.

At work, Tom would brag to his co-workers about this sweet young thing he was stringing along. One of the men who heard his tales was Brian Barrett, a part-time factory worker and full-time student at Buffalo State College where he hoped to become a teacher. Nice guy, everyone says. Give you the shirt off his back.

One day, Tom's wife found an e-mail from the sweet young West Virginia thing and figured out what her man was doing. She blew the whistle and sent a note to the teen informing her that Tom was most definitely not a Marine, not just back from Iraq, and not anything at all like he was presenting himself.

At some point along the line, Tom had told the West Virginia girl about his co-worker Brian Barrett. For reasons not clear, she managed to go online and track Brian down and introduce herself. They began emailing each other also.

Gradually Brian and Tom became rivals for the affections of the young lady. The bizarre thing about that is that neither of them had met her and neither even had plans to drive to West Virginia and meet her. But a rivalry grew up between them.

Last September 15, Brian got off work and was sitting in his car in the plant parking lot when someone drove by and pumped his body full of lead using a 30 caliber gun.

Football Coaches and Pastors: Different Animals

There's something about the football mentality of Americans, particularly men, that makes us apply lessons learned on the gridiron to the rest of life, areas that do not compare in any manner whatsoever. The church, for instance.

"If we could just get us a pastor like Bill Parcells." Bear Bryant. Vince Lombardi. Joe Gibbs. Fill in the blank.

"Well, all I know is that Tommy Bowden came into Tulane--always a doormat in college football--and within two years, had led them to an undefeated season and a bowl game and national ranking. Don't tell me it's not about the coach. And if you can do it in football, you can do it in the church. All we need is to find the right pastor."

Take Sean Payton. First year coach of the New Orleans Saints. First year as an NFL coach, period. And now named "Coach of the Year" in professional football by the Associated Press. He received 44 votes, with the second-place coach, the Jets' Eric Mangini receiving only 3. Pretty convincing. He is most definitely a leader, a general, a motivator of men, a winner.

But he's not a pastor.

Baptist Crossroads Project and Musician's Village: Clearing It Up

If you were to get down a map of the city of New Orleans, you could locate the Ninth Ward as a section of town just under Gentilly, behind the French Quarter, bounded on the South by the Mississippi River, and on the East by St. Bernard Parish. The infamous "lower" Ninth is the portion between the Industrial Canal and the St. Bernard Parish line and is where the levee by the Industrial Canal blew and did so much jawdropping damage.

The portion of the Ninth Ward on this side (i.e., the downtown side) is the Upper Ninth, and that's where the Baptist Crossroads Project was focusing in the year 2004. It's a spotted area, in the way much of New Orleans is, nice homes adjacent to slums, good neighborhoods a block from high crime areas. Originally, the Baptist Crossroads plan was to buy up forty blighted lots--vacant lots or condemned buildings--by paying the back taxes, then clean off a space and, under the direction of Habitat for Humanity, build forty new homes. Help forty families turn their lives around.

It all started with one statement from our mayor, an instance where he said something right.

David Crosby and I were among a large group of pastors invited to breakfast with Mayor C. Ray Nagin at the Fairmont Hotel one morning early in 2004. At one point in the middle of his message, Hizzoner said, "Studies have proven that home ownership is the most important factor in lifting a family out of poverty." He said that and went on with his talk. David never heard another word. He was caught, snagged, hooked, as surely as if the Holy Spirit had thrown him a line with a lure and jerked it, setting the barb, and was reeling him in.

When we walked outside the hotel, David said, "Joe, we ought to build some houses." I said, "What?" (No one ever accused me of quickly picking up on subtle nuances from the Holy Spirit.)

That was the inception. Out of that idea, the Baptist Crossroads Project was born. At first, David simply shared the dream with various friends and church members. And then Byron Harrell called.

The Angel and the Mule in the Pulpit

Nothing points up how out of touch I am with current culture in this country like reading a list of the top-selling CDs of the last year. Or the top ten movies. Or the best-selling novels. I don't recognize any of them. And this current crop of popular singers--who are they? I hear their music on the radio and it all sounds alike. And the gospel music sounds like the rock stuff.

I'm trying hard not to be an old fogey about these things. I buy CDs of Alison Krauss and Union Station, the best blue-grass band ever, and they're not ancient. I love Neil Young, but he is. My favorite is the songsters of the big band era; "old" goes without saying.

Now, I'm not against going to a movie occasionally, if it's the right kind. Lately, there have been some good ones out there. Late Thursday afternoon, I bought a ticket to see "The Good Shepherd," a story of the old OSS and the beginnings of the CIA. After an hour of this movie, I found myself puzzled to the point that I left.

I wondered who, for instance, decided that the best way to tell a cinematic story is to cut it up in bits and pieces and disorient the viewer? In that movie, a scene from 1961 is followed by one from 1939, then we cut to 1945. Back and forth. None of it made sense. Do these people not know you tell a story by starting at the beginning and going forward to a conclusion? Or would that be too simple, too juvenile? Did Kurt Vonnegut create this fractured-storytelling business with "Slaughterhouse 5"? At least his made sense, eventually.

I wonder what is the process movie-makers employ when they decide, "Let's make the hero a sad, silent, miserable type. And let's give him an unhappy home life. Let's have his child be emotionally abandoned and overwhelmed by sadness. Oh, and let's make the United States as unscrupulous and murderous as its enemies."

Perhaps the biggest questions of all are: why do movie critics rate these shows so highly? and why am I paying good money for this?

"I don't need this," I rationalized, and walked out and went home to supper.

Building the Fellowship

Ask any director of missions and he will tell you one of his biggest challenges is strengthening the connection between his pastors and other ministers. Even after the incredible post-Katrina blessings we've enjoyed, we still have to work at building the fellowship.

Wednesday, as our weekly pastors meeting resumed following the holidays, as the pastors entered the room, they sat alone or with the person they came with, usually at a table by themselves. But we encouraged them to move together, then played a little game we used to open Lay Evangelism Schools with.

"Where did you live at the age of 4 and how did you heat your home? Start with the person with the shortest hair and answer that question." In two minutes, each table was finished. Second question.

"At what point in your life did Jesus become more than just a word to you?" That took longer and some began opening up. Third question.

"What is your biggest prayer request for the pastors and churches of New Orleans?" After they answered, we prayed, table by table, taking all the time anyone wished.

"My prayer," I told them, "is that our ministers will be in this city because God put you here, not because you feel you have no other choice."

Class of 1958

Here is the picture from the 'Old Friends' post you read about:

And my somewhat enhanced version:

Shaking Out in the New Year

Gradually, the local picture becomes clearer. Less smokier, shall we say.

The statewide ban on smoking inside Louisiana restaurants went into effect January 1. Some local eateries are hollering that they will lose business, although no one has explained who they will lose it to. As much print as this change is receiving, you would never know that the law has no teeth in it, that lawmakers are counting on the public to enforce the ban. Anyone acquainted with human nature has to be skeptical.

Keith Manuel and Bob Moore are leaving. Keith, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in the Algiers section of New Orleans and one of our leading ministers for over 7 years, will be joining the staff of the Evangelism Department of the state Baptist convention. Bob, associate pastor of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, is moving to a Montgomery, Alabama, church in a similar capacity. Both are fine men who will leave major holes around here.

Calvary Church is hosting a reception for Keith and Wendy Manuel (also Keith, Jr., Jeremy, and Hannah) this Saturday afternoon, January 6, at the First Baptist Church of Belle Chasse.

Keith promises that with his new state-wide duties, he will be back this way often and we have not seen the last of him. Since Katrina, he has developed newswriting talents and taken photos of the New Orleans area that have appeared in publications everywhere. Yet, prior to the hurricane, he didn't even own a camera. Necessity was the mother of this creativity. Baptist Press has run many Keith-Manuel-articles on local people.

David Crosby is back. The ten-year pastor of the FBC-NO has returned from a three-month sabbatical. Over lunch Tuesday he said half seriously, "The bad part is everyone expects me to have come back rested up." For several weeks, he and Janet visited friends and family in other parts of the country, but over the past month, they've been back here doing funerals and weddings and meeting with church leaders, although his staff has been preaching. He returns to the pulpit Sunday, January 7.

My first question to him was, "After three months away, did you find it hard to come back?" The answer was no, that he was ready. I told him I'd just taken two weeks off and did not want to come back this (Tuesday) morning. But, I got out of bed early, did my usual morning routine and was in the office on time. An hour later, a pastor called needing my assistance and soon I was glad to be back in the saddle.

Fireworks and Faith

It's Sunday night--New Year's Eve--and I find the sound of fireworks down the street oddly comforting. They sound like "normal."

My first acquaintance with neighborhood fireworks came on a mountaintop in West Virginia in the late 1940s. Our neighbors, the Howells, went all out on the Fourth of July and New Year's and provided a treat all the children would never have had otherwise and no doubt recall to this day. The six McKeever offspring would get upstairs in our bedrooms and open the windows, providing a ringside seat since the Howells lived only three houses away. I'd never seen anything like it. The poverty in a coal-mining camp in those days was something to behold, and even though no doubt the "adults" in the camp called Affinity pooh-poohed the Howells' spending that kind of money only for it to go up in smoke and bangs, it was a wonderful occasion for the kids.

That to me made it a good investment.

When we moved to the New Orleans area in September of 1990, it never occurred to us that locals would do anything more than the residents of Charlotte, NC, or Columbus, MS, where we had lived for the previous two decades. New Year's Eve was a shocker. Driving home late that night from a friend's house where we had gathered for supper, you would have thought a heavy fog had settled in. It was the smoke from fireworks. And the noise--every kind of noise, from the house-rattling boom of rockets to the sharp blast of bombs to the rat-a-tat ear-assaulting bang-bang-bangs of hundreds of firecrackers at once. Forget about trying to sleep through that. Just let it run its course; next day's a holiday anyway.

Oddly enough, here in Jefferson Parish, fireworks are illegal. Each year Sheriff Harry Lee makes public pronouncements about his intentions to arrest violators. He might as well be trying to hold back the sunrise.