Joe McKeever

Leadership Principle No. 10--Your Brother is Your Partner, Not a Competitor

Pastor Roy said to me, "I have it on good authority that Pastor Tom has come into my church on Sunday afternoons and nosed around, trying to find who visited our church that morning and if any of his members joined us."

We both called that taking insecurity to the next level.

There's a lot of insecurity in the ministry, unfortunately. Some pastors forget their assignment to take the gospel to the world and shrink their field of ministry to the neighborhood around their church. If someone else starts a church inside what they consider their territory, they resent it. If the new church prospers, they feel jealous. If they lose members to that church, they become deadly enemies.

I know from personal experience how it happens. You're leading a church that has been dying for years and you're looking for any signs of life and revival. Suddenly a family joins your church. The fact that they are moving their membership from another congregation in the same town matters very little. All that counts is that someone thought your church was attractive enough, that your ministries were important enough, and that your preaching was successful enough that they wanted to join you. Sometimes that is the only encouragement you get in a month.

Meanwhile, the pastor of the church that just lost that family may take the loss personally, depending on a lot of things. If his church is otherwise healthy and prospering, he will take it in stride. If he also is struggling to stay alive, an entire family jumping ship can be a death blow. If it turns out that you were guilty of enticing them in any way, the pastor understandably takes it personally and feels insulted.

Just so easily do neighboring pastors, even of the same denomination, become competitors.

Leadership Principle No. 9--Sometimes Leaders Must Follow; Do It Well

The year our church decided to spend two weeks constructing a new plant for Calvary Baptist Church of Matawan, New Jersey, our youth minister was in charge. Bryan Harris--now pastoring in Vallejo, California--was gifted with administrative abilities and experienced in leading construction teams, so we all followed his leadership. Within two weeks, a new sanctuary and educational building rose on that spot and everyone had the experience of a lifetime.

Two years later, when our church in Columbus, Mississippi, opted to erect our own educational building instead of contracting it out, we put Bryan in charge and the members all worked under his leadership.

The year we took our youth choir and some 20 adults to England for a two-week-mission of concerts and ministry, our minister of music Wilson Henderson was in charge. He was experienced at leading these trips and was close friends with David Beer, the British pastor who was our host in Tonbridge, England. Even though I was the pastor and technically his "superior," I took orders from Wilson.

Sometimes you are the leader, sometimes a follower. But no one is the leader in every situation. Whatever the occasion calls for, a faithful follower of Christ will want to set the example for those coming after you.

Leadership Principle No. 8--Remember Names, and Use Them

I've previously mentioned the lengthy conversation I had with C. C. Hope, Jr., some years ago when his wife was in surgery and we sat for hours in the waiting room of the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. At the time, he was one of the three F.D.I.C. commissioners in Washington, D.C., and past president of the American Bankers' Association. I told him I had heard of him before becoming his pastor.

In the summer of 1986, when I announced our move from Mississippi to become pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte, NC, a Starkville banker friend, John Mitchell, told me about Mr. Hope. He said, "You have a deacon in that church whom I really respect. C. C. Hope was president of the ABA. We had him down here to speak at a bankers' function. My wife had just broken her leg. The next time I saw him was five years later. He called me by name and asked about my wife, remembering that her leg was in a cast the last time he'd been here. I was stunned."

C. C. laughed when I told him that. "That's actually what did it for me," he said. "Remembering people's names."

Something Else

It's hot in New Orleans. Summer, which officially arrived last Thursday, did what she normally does--arrived in mid-May and threw a blanket over New Orleans and made herself at home like she owned it.

A group of youth and sponsors from Faith Baptist Church of Texarkana, Arkansas, are doing the summer camp at Highland Baptist Church this week. While spending Tuesday morning drawing all the kids, I said to one of them, "Good thing you're Southerners. You know about hot weather." He said, "Yeah...but this is something else."

Yes, it is. It's called the humidity.

When we moved to this city to attend seminary over 40 years ago, one of the first things Margaret and I did was buy an air-conditioner. We'd managed in Birmingham, Alabama, with only a window fan, but it was "something else" down here.

The Wednesday pastors meeting welcomed 25 today, about normal for the summer months. Thuong Le of the Vietnamese Baptist Church just returned from 2 months in his home country, teaching preachers, and brought with him a minister who is going to establish a work in New Orleans East where so many Vietnamese live. Pastor Le said, "After his initial 3 months are up, we hope to have found the finances to support him so he can continue the work."

(As always, for a complete account of the pastors meeting, go to www.bagnola.org where administrative assistant Lynn Gehrmann posts her notes.)

"Since we've been taking visiting church groups into New Orleans and the lower parishes," Rudy and Rose French reported, "we have felt that we need to be knocking on doors in our own neighborhood of Norco." Rose told us, "The problem was what to use to get people to open their doors and talk to us." She thought of the baskets of toiletries and household items they've been distributing in St. Bernard Parish--and that's where Rudy was today--and said, "The people of Norco did not have a lot of hurricane damage, so they don't need that. They needed something else." So she asked the Lord.

Leadership Principle No. 7--Discipline yourself.

This morning as I write, while walking on the levee by the river, I chatted with a neighbor I've frequently seen but had never met. He has an unusual morning routine. Instead of walking a long distance up and down the levee, he has marked off 1,000 feet and goes back and forth. "I do eight laps," he said. "That's 16,000 feet. About 3 miles." I congratulated him. It's the same distance I get in each morning, and I know what an effort it can be sometimes.

The man said, "I've lost 70 pounds up here." I was impressed, and this time I really congratulated him. Losing 5 pounds can be difficult, but imagine losing seventy!

I thought of a woman I met in Nashville this Spring. In the cafeteria at the Lifeway building, I was chatting with and sketching a number of church secretaries in town for their annual conference where I was a speaker. Several women walking by called greetings to the ones at my table. The lady I was drawing said, "See the one in the purple sweater? She works in our office." I glanced at the cluster of ladies exiting the doors. The purple-clad was a large person and easy to spot.

"She has lost over a hundred pounds," the woman said. She added, "There's an interesting story behind it. She was desperate to lose weight and felt she couldn't do it by herself. So, she looked into having stomach-stapling surgery. When the doctors examined her, it turned out she had a heart condition, and they refused to do the surgery until she lost a lot of the weight she was carrying."

A classic Catch-22 situation: she cannot have surgery to lose weight until she loses weight to make the surgery safer.

"Anyway," said the secretary, "she put herself on a diet and has lost half the amount she needed to get rid of. And she's decided to skip the surgery. She discovered she's strong enough to control her appetite without the aid of the doctors or drastic surgery." I call that a wonderful discovery.

Self-control is one of the bigger issues in this life. There are many facets to it. Here are several.

Dropping Names

Billy and Ruth Bell Graham. Clifford Stine. Brad Bradford. Jimmy Draper. And Mama Rose.

The Billy Graham organization sends out a prayer card with the famous evangelist's photo and dates of telecasts so we can pray. I post it on the fridge with a magnet and almost daily pray for him. I have told here of the time Dr. Graham spent an hour or more in my office, just before the funeral of his beloved friend Dr. Grady Wilson. As we chatted, I asked myself, "Do you pray for this man?" Realizing I didn't, I asked why not. My answer was the weakest thing: "He's a world-wide evangelist. And I'm only one person." Instantly, something inside me said, "And do you know anyone who is two?"

Ever since, I've prayed for Billy Graham. Even if--and perhaps because--he is a world-famous Christian leader, he needs the prayers of God's people. Particularly, in these days since the homegoing of his wife Ruth, I've lifted him up.

Monday night, I decided to type in the name "Clifford Stine" to a movie-star search engine and see what came up. Sometime in the early 1970s when I was on staff at the First Baptist Church of Jackson, Mississippi, I met this gentleman. He and his wife joined our church, and if memory serves me correctly, I baptized them. They were retiring from the motion picture industry in Hollywood, his wife had relatives in Jackson, and so they moved there. I picked his brain somewhat about what movies he had worked on and still recall the answers.

He was not an actor, but a director of photography and sometimes director of special effects, spending his whole career with Universal. The first movie he worked on was King Kong. Really. And in the 1950s when Universal was turning out all those scary sci-fi movies, Stine directed special effects on them. "The way we did the 'Incredible Shrinking Man,'" he said, "was by making larger and larger furniture." Low-tech by modern standards, but hey, it worked.

So, last night, his name came up and I learned that, yes, he worked on King Kong in 1933 as "the second assistant camera." He was 27 at the time. He worked on Gunga Din, Spartacus, Patton, The Hindenburg, two Abbott and Costello movies ("Meet the Mummy" and "Go to Mars"), and Doris Day's Pillow Talk. And about fifty others.

Leadership Principle No. 6--Learn from your failures and go forward.

I invited Adam to lunch with me, planning to speak to him about his relationship to Christ. His wife Christa appeared to be an active Christian and their two daughters were full participants in our church's youth program. Perhaps Adam just needs a little encouragement, I thought.

After he agreed to meet me, I asked Adam to choose the restaurant. "How about Jimmy C's," he said, and had to tell me where it was. I was new to the New Orleans area and hardly knew one restaurant from another in this city noted for great eating. We would meet at noon on Thursday.

We greeted each other, were seated in a booth, and gave our orders to the waiter. I went straight to the subject on my mind. "Adam, can I ask you about your relationship to Jesus Christ?" He was friendly and open and did not mind at all telling me his thoughts. Somehow along the way, he had studied under humanist teachers and they had provided a steady diet of atheistic reading for his young vulnerable mind, and it was my assignment, it appeared, to try to counter some of that.

The waiter brought our lunch, I said a short blessing, and we dived in. That's when the young woman showed up at our table.

She was dressed--or not dressed would be closer to the truth--in a flimsy, see-through shortie pajama thing that showed far more of her than it ought. I would not have been more stunned than if she had walked down the aisle of my church dressed like that in the middle of my sermon. Glancing around the restaurant, I saw she had company. Other attractive young ladies were similarly unclad and were visiting at the tables and chatting with diners.

Adam and I had visited Jimmy C's on the day of their weekly lingerie show.

Leadership Principle No. 5--Know when to give in.

Two cars met on a narrow one-way bridge. One man leaned out of his window and yelled, "I never back up for fools!" The other called out, "I always do," as he reverses his automobile.

Question: which of those two men is the stronger? Obviously, the one who gave in to the other.

Here's another.

The interstate traffic was heavy, fast, and aggressive. This was no place for timid drivers if they wanted to survive. Suddenly, a speeding car cut in front of two others without giving a signal and almost clipped the bumpers of both vehicles. The two drivers were shocked, then frightened, and then enraged. One driver took out after the offender, the adrenalin of his anger fueling his determination not to let the culprit get by with such behavior. The second driver calmed himself down and reminded himself that his goal was to arrive safely at his destination, and most definitely not to get revenge, not to teach other drivers a lesson, and not to let his anger get him into trouble.

Now, which of those two drivers is the stronger man? Clearly, the one in control of his spirit.

How does that line go from Proverbs? "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city." (16:32) The point is made in the opposite way in Proverbs 25:28, "Like a city that is broken into and without walls, is a man who has no control over his spirit."

The little church had decided that the two leading women of the congregation would get together and select the new carpet for the auditorium. Eloise wanted a neutral color. She said, "We're still not sure what color they're going to paint the walls and we don't want to clash with that. And, this color will go well with the choir robes." Evelyn, however, had her heart set on a bright red. "We had red in our last church and it brightened up the place so much. I'm not going to budge on this. It has to be red."

Church fights and congregational splits have been built on differences as slight as this. But Eloise was determined not to let that happen. She said, "Let's do it your way, then. I'm sure red will be fine. It's not as if this were the most important matter in the world."

Good for Eloise.

The Day of Small Things

The other morning, a TV news show featured the author of a book about transitioning from college life to the workaday world of a career person. The woman said, "One thing you should do is clean up your internet image." That was a new thought for me. She continued, "You want people to think of you as a professional person now, not the carefree kid of messy dorm rooms and frat parties."

I thought of one of our pastors. His e-mail address begins "tennizbum." On the other hand, another of our pastors has an address that begins with "Godsman." Knowing nothing of the two except their internet handles, which would you choose as your spiritual leader? (Tennizbum is a good guy. Just making a point.)

Sometimes these little details are clues to who we are in greater ways. I keep thinking about a staff member I used to know who was extremely lazy. One of his former pastors said to me, "I should have picked up on that quality about him from the beginning. The first time he walked into our church offices, he spotted a couch near the receptionist's desk and said, 'Oh boy--a couch! This is my kind of church!'"

Robert Cerasoli is a name we expect to hear more in the future. He's the new inspector general for the City of New Orleans. We've never had one of those before, but the office was created in 1995 when voters approved a number of revisions to the City Charter. An ethics board was called for, one that would hire an inspector general to study the workings of city government and root out corruption. Only recently did we get the ethics board and they've just now hired Cerasoli as the IG from a list of 21 applicants.

The assignment doesn't begin until August, but Cerasoli, a Massachusetts native, has been in town this week--at his own expense, he said on the radio; he's serious about this--meeting with officials and trying to get a handle on the exact powers, directions, and limitations of his job.

The newspaper says his salary is $150,718 and the budget for his office is $250,000 for the rest of this year, which doesn't sound like a lot. When you consider that U. S. Attorney Jim Letten's office has netted 28 convictions, guilty pleas, or indictments in an ongoing probe into city government just in the last year or so, it's obvious the inspector general has his work cut out for him.

Longing and Relocating; Working and Thanking

"I'm calling from USA Today newspaper. Jim Burton of the North American Mission Board in Atlanta said you might be able to help me."

If I can, I'll be happy to.

"I'm writing about the spiritual state of the people in your area, how they are adjusting to their post-Katrina lives--dealing with the problems of the devastation, the slowness of governments to help, the few neighbors returning, the difficulties in rebuilding, and so on."

I told her people are more open to talking about God and receiving the spiritual assistance of others than we've ever known them to be. Our people who take baskets of household items door-to-door in the troubled areas are finding everyone hospitable. No one refuses to open the door and no one slams it in their faces. They appreciate any help offered and are glad to listen to someone with a witness.

But out in Jefferson Parish--the cities of Metairie and Kenner, primarily--there's an anomaly. (I didn't use that word. It only shows up in my writing, not my talking.) Every one of our churches, even the ones which appear to have received no hurricane damage, has lost members, some as many as 40 percent. And yet this parish's population is around the same as before the storm. This would indicate that while thousands are moving out, those moving in have not been attending church, or at least not in this parish.

Down the street from our associational offices on Lakeshore Drive in New Orleans sits the regional offices for the Lutheran denomination. Monday, one of their leaders sat at our break table and told a similar story. All their churches have lost members and their schools are all suffering. The people with faith seem to have grown in faith, but the churches have not grown numerically. A 'for sale' sign sits in front of their headquarters building. They're asking $1.3 million, and would love to relocate to the Northshore area.

Why they don't trust us

Our governor is in the nation's capitol today, asking lawmakers to come up with another $5 billion for the Road Home Program. The headline in Wednesday's paper announces this is going to be a "hard sell."

Congress doesn't trust our leaders. No wonder, when you consider the shenanigans of many of them.

Across the top of today's front page, we read that an ex-school board member has admitted to taking bribes from the brother of embattled Congressman William Jefferson to influence board policy. Mose Jefferson himself has been prominent in the news as the partner of his little brother William in all kinds of business deals, some of which now appear to have the potential of sending them both up the river.

Ellenese Brooks-Simms had presented herself as a foe of corruption in running for the Orleans Parish School Board in 2000. She was outspoken in her criticism of Superintendent Al Davis, particularly when it came out that Davis' elderly father, a custodian at Carver High School, had racked up enough overtime to bring his annual income to $70,000. Brooks-Simms was relentless in her outcries against cronyism and corruption, so Davis was terminated and Anthony Amato was hired. Within a year, Brooks-Simms and some of her pals on the school board were trying to oust Amato when the citizenry decided they had had enough of such shenanigans. In the 2004 election, she was voted out along with a number of other board members, and a council of responsible, more proven leaders was chosen.

Now, this prophet of righteousness, this thorn in the side of all who would try to cheat the public, this voice for goodness, Ellenese Brooks-Simms will be going to jail. She admits that she took $100,000 from Mose Jefferson in order to support a program for the schools called "I CAN Learn." The newspaper makes it clear the educational program as such is highly respectable and popular. The owner of the company says he hired Mose Jefferson as a consultant in order to introduce him to movers and shakers in the local educational community. "You can't just cold-call a superintendent," he said. The contract gave Jefferson $500,000 and stipulated that the agreement was immediately canceled by any "untoward activity."

"Untoward"--an adverb meaning adverse or vexatious. Yes, I'd say we have had--and perhaps still have--plenty of vexatious political leaders down here. Not all, thank the Lord. But we keep getting these revelations about the wheeling and dealing that has gone on behind the curtain, and pretty soon you decide not to trust any of them.

That's what congressional leaders in Washington are no doubt concluding.

Leadership Principle No. 4--Appreciate your support team.

I dropped by the governor's office before leaving town. He was a member of the church I'd been serving, and now that I had been called to another pastorate several hours away, I wanted to thank him for his encouragement and ask for an autographed picture. He was more than accommodating and effusive in his praise of my work.

Pulling out a poster-sized photo, the governor picked up a magic marker and wrote across the bottom, "To Joe McKeever--the greatest preacher in the world!" I thanked him and slipped out.

In the hallway, I bumped into an old friend who worked for the governor. I showed him the poster and said, "I can't hang that in my office! It's too 'over the top.'" He smiled and said, "Joe, he does that for every person who walks in the office. But the people who work for him are dying for a word of appreciation from him."

I've never forgotten that lesson.

Tampering with the mail?

Two pieces of mail arrived Monday afternoon that stood out from the advertisements and circulars.

The first was an oversize envelope from Congressman Bobby Jindal who has announced his candidacy for governor of Louisiana, hoping to succeed Kathleen Blanco who wisely decided not to try for a return engagement. The outside of the envelope shouts in bold red letters: "Photograph enclosed. Do not bend." My natural impulse was to toss it in the trash, but it's hard to do that with a photograph. Let's see what we've got here.

Inside was a nice 4 x 6" color photo of our congressman and his lovely Supriya, smiling up at me like I've just pronounced them husband and wife. Accompanying the photo is a letter back to Bobby which they've gone to the trouble of writing for me. Aren't they accommodating?

"Dear Bobby, Thank you for sending my personalized photograph of you and Supriya. I will display it proudly as a part of your campaign leadership team. I agree our state needs a fresh start. Enclosed is my gift of:" and then I have my choice of marking $1,000 or $500 or even several lesser amounts.

Underneath all that, I can check one of the following: "My photograph arrived in good condition" or "My photograph is damaged. Please send a replacement." And below that is a long list of jobs which I can volunteer for.

I mean, what nice folks, making it so easy for me to give away my money and commit my time and energy. And did you notice how smoothly they transitioned from talking about the photo to volunteering me for his campaign team?

The other piece of mail was not even that up front with its identity and purpose. In fact, the only thing found on the face of the envelope other than my name and address was this: "Warning: $2,000 fine, 5 years imprisonment, or both for any person interfering or obstructing with delivery of this letter. U.S. Mail TTT.18 SEC. 1702 U.S. Code."

One Baptist Church in Ten?

I preached last Sunday at West St. Charles Baptist Church in Boutte and tried to prepare them for the changes they could expect under a new pastor they will soon be getting. A couple of weeks earlier, I did the same for FBC Belle Chasse as they welcome a new pastor any day now.

This morning, I preached at FBC of Norco and tried to help them appreciate the changes they are already experiencing under the new pastor God sent them some 6 months ago.

I've chronicled here the complete revamping that occurred at this small church a few miles west of the New Orleans airport after Rudy French came as pastor. I told them, "Everywhere I go, I tell the Norco story--how you were willing to redo your building and your programs in order to host visiting church teams that would come and help you reach people for the Lord." I explained, "Now, we have a number of churches set up for hosting teams of volunteers to go into the city and help rebuild homes, but you are the only church geared up to take those teams from door to door and tell people about the Lord Jesus Christ."

Worship leader Ben Blackwell announced that in vacation Bible school this week, FBC Norco enrolled 89 children and perhaps 20 adult workers, and had 24 children saved. That's an incredible ratio. Minister of Education Kenneth Tew announced that tonight he will be meeting a team of 7 volunteers at the airport, a group of Coloradans coming to minister in the area while staying in their facilities.

This church is slowly but surely making a difference in the community.

I suppose they would not be a typical Southern Baptist church if this transition had not been difficult for some of them. That's what I tried to address this morning.

Growing Up and Getting Married

Jason and Brina were married Saturday behind a Slidell plantation house that backs up to Bayou Liberty with all the swamps and cypress and thick undergrowth--and probably a few alligators and other critters--one would expect in South Louisiana. It was a gorgeous setting for a June wedding.

The ceremony took place in front of the swimming pool. At the rehearsal I cautioned the groomsmen and bridesmaids to be careful. "We don't want anyone appearing on America's Favorite Videos by falling into the pool in your wedding clothes." A few minutes before the wedding, when I sought out the bride and her maids to make sure they're clear on the proceedings, Brina smiled, "You don't think Jason is going to throw me into the pool, do you?" I said, "Surely not." Not Jason. Her sister Dina said, "If he tries, I'll stop him." Oh yeah.

I've done a few weddings in outdoor settings over the years--including one at a plantation house a few miles upriver from New Orleans that was held on February 2, 2002 at 2:02 pm--but never without remembering something I heard on the radio. A soft rock station was playing America's favorites and the host invited listeners to phone in stories about their requests. A woman called. "We were getting married in a public park. It was a beautiful setting, and even though people were jogging and sunbathing near us, we had that little corner of the park to ourselves. Suddenly, at a quiet moment in the ceremony some kid walks through the park carrying a boom box on his shoulder. It's blaring out the David Cassidy song, 'I Think I Love You! (So what am I so afraid of?)'" The caller said, "Everyone broke up. It was so perfect. Ever since, that has been our song."

Leadership Principle No. 3--Earn the Right to Lead

I'm thinking about two deacons, both warm-hearted effective men of God. It wasn't always that way.

"I don't want him on the deacons," I told the committee assigned to recommend the next group to be elected by the church. "Trust me on this. He has no business bearing this responsibility."

I hoped they would drop the matter there. The man in question, I'll call him Malachi, had been a deacon for several terms, was inactive at the moment and was being considered for re-election.

Pastors know things about church members few others do, as a rule, and yet we don't want to talk about these things in open forums. Or anywhere else, for that matter. (I once asked in a personnel committee meeting, "Can we speak in confidence here?" The chairman said, "Pastor, I wouldn't say anything in this room you don't want repeated." That was good advice.)

After the committee adjourned, one of the men followed me into my office. "I have to know,"he said. "What is this secret about Malachi that disqualifies him from serving as a deacon." When I hesitated, he said, "He's meant a lot to this church through the years. There may be something we can do for him."

I said, "He's being seen regularly at the casino, gambling. It appears he's going there every day and staying for hours."

The leader said, "You know this for a fact?" I told him of a certain church-member-in-name-only whom I bump into occasionally, who had told me this. "And you believe him?" I said, "Oh yes. He has his faults, but dishonesty is not one of them."

"Then, let's talk to him," he said. Talk to Malachi.

They're Talking About New Orleans

The Southern Baptist Convention voted in San Antonio today to meet in New Orleans in June of 2012. The last time they gathered here was the year 2000, and before that it was 1996. I have vivid memories of both times, since I chaired the Local Arrangements Committee, charged with hosting the event.

Jay Adkins, the young pastor of FBC Westwego went to the microphone in San Antonio and urged them to come earlier. "We need you now," he said. A young pastor from Oxford, Mississippi, echoed his point and emphasized repeatedly, "Let's take this city for Christ."

Vice-President for Convention Affairs (or some such imposing title) Jack Wilkerson addressed the convention and made the following points. 1) Normally, we meet in the Super Dome, but since the Hyatt next door has not reopened, that's out. 2) We want to meet in the Morial Convention Center and the Hilton next door is operating. 3) It takes a good 5 years to secure accommodations for this meeting in order to reserve the second week of June. (Jack said we always try to hold it prior to Father's Day.) 4) We have financial commitments with the cities where we are now scheduled to go, and if we cancel one to move to New Orleans, we will a) lose a lot of money and b) lose faith with those cities.

So, the messengers voted to come here five years from now. I'll be long off the scene, and a rusty age 72. I told Jack Wilkerson recently that he would, too. He said, "Maybe so." Ha. I guarantee it. He and I will sit in the senior citizens section. If they have one.

Immediately after that vote, SBC President Frank Page told the thousands of messengers in the arena, "You don't have to wait until 2012 to go to New Orleans. My church (FBC Taylors, SC) has been down there 9 times, working to rebuild the city and bear a witness for Christ. Hear the call of the Lord, friends. They need our help in New Orleans and all across the Gulf Coast, areas still coming back after the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. Hear the Lord's call!"

Getting Serious About Your Bible

Bobby has been holding down his part of that pew for the last several years now, hearing nearly a hundred sermons and several times that many hymns and choruses, and he has come to a decision. He is tired of being lost when the minister asks everyone, "Turn in your Bibles to Luke 5," or John 3, or Psalm 119.

Bobby patiently turns until he finds the passage in question, then follows along with the reading and sits back and listens to the minister open it up. And Bobby feels lost. Without a proper understanding of the Scripture--what it is, what it means, what God intends--he might as well be dropping in on a meeting of scientists and him the custodian. He's in way over his head.

And that's how Bobby came to his decision: he's going to get serious about reading his Bible.

Two rows behind him sits Margie, and she's made a similar decision. Margie has been a member of First Church for thirty years. She and Thomas joined back when the children were small and they were looking for a church with a good program for the little ones. The children are grown now, with families of their own, but First Church is home to Margie and Thomas and as familiar as their living room. But lately Margie has become dissatisfied with her spiritual life.

That's why she has decided to get serious about studying her Bible. She figures rightly that it's a shame she has been a believer all these many years and is still so ignorant about God's Word. She has made a decision to remedy that situation.

Bobby and Margie have not actually done anything about their decisions to get to know God's Word; they've just made the decision. And they're at a vulnerable time.

This is the moment when the enemy presents his two greatest lies about God's Word. Now, he has plenty of misrepresentations in his armory of weapons, slanders, and tricks and some are pretty dastardly, even outright evil. But the two lies he selects to use on Bobby and Margie are rather subtle.

To Bobby, the baby-believer who is ready to dip his toes into the ocean of God's Word and get acquainted, the enemy uses this one: "It's too deep. You will never be able to grasp it. No one does. Even the pastors and professors can't agree on what the Bible says. It contradicts itself. This is beyond you, Bobby. Leave this to the scholars. Go back to sleep."

He's lying, Bobby. Seriously and big-time lying.

Potent Stuff

Sunday night, when I arrived at West St. Charles Baptist Church in the west bank community of Boutte, a huge bus was pulling into the parking lot. Some 30 or so teens and maybe 6 or 8 adults all wearing green t-shirts got off and headed into the church. This lively bunch of vivacious folks were from Second Baptist Church, Odessa, Texas, here to assist the church in its Vacation Bible School this week.

"Where are y'all staying?" I asked, thinking they could be boarding in the Volunteer Village downtown or in one of several churches set up to host volunteer teams. "The Ramada Inn in Luling," they said.

Since it was their first time in New Orleans since the events of August/September 2005, I adapted my sermon to give them information on the city, its ordeal, and some of the blessings of the Lord we've enjoyed in these many intervening months.

Monday morning, David Rhymes stepped into my office to see if I could come have prayer with representatives of several church groups he was briefing about the work they would be doing this week. A dozen people, mostly teens, were in our conference room. "Where are you from?" Benton, Louisiana. Jasper, Alabama. (Since that is right up the road from my home in north Alabama, we had lots to talk about.)

I gave the visitors a brief rundown on our situation and we prayed for them, thanking God for the encouragement of their presence. I asked David how many volunteers are in town right now just from our Baptist churches. "Anywhere from 500 to 1,000," he said, "and it's that way every week right on through the summer."

We feel so blessed.

Leadership Principle No. 1--Delegation

I was the minister of evangelism at the FBC of Jackson, Mississippi, in my early 30s. That would be the early 1970s. My pastor, Larry Rohrman, was frequently invited to speak out of town and sometimes he would invite me along. I think he wanted a driver more than company. On one of those occasions, he said something that has stayed with me ever since.

"See that little church," he said as we traveled down a country highway. "In many cases the pastor of that little church can preach just as well as or better than the pastor of the big, growing church. But the difference is that he can't turn loose of jobs. He has to do everything himself. The other guy, however, puts people to work. He matches the right person to the right job and everyone wins. They get satisfaction from doing their job in the church, the work gets done, the pastor is freed up for other things, the church grows, and the Lord is honored."

Some pastors can delegate; some cannot. One pastor sees a task that needs doing and starts thinking of who has a gift or the aptitude or at least the willingness for this and he enlists them. The other pastor sees a job and does it. Both are godly, dedicated men of the Lord, but only the first is being fair to his people.

Along about the same time as that conversation with my pastor, I attended a national conference on church management in Atlanta. There were 700 of us packed into the auditorium of that downtown hotel. In the middle of the opening session, as our host was presenting the schedule of the week, a hotel employee approached the platform pushing a vacuum cleaner and proceeded to clean all around the speaker.

At first, the speaker ignored him. Then the employee said, "Sir, can you move over here and let me clean under your feet?"

Our leader was visibly perturbed. He said, "Buddy, could you do that some other time? We're trying to have a meeting here."

Leadership Principle No. 2--Followup.

(Note to pastors: Many years ago, a church member paid the fees for me to take a one-day Dale Carnegie Management Course. The one great lesson I've carried with me these 40 years is that "if you delegate a task, you may assume it will not get done unless you follow up on it." It's an invaluable lesson. I ran across the point being made this week in a book on the Battle of New Orleans, and feel it's worth passing on.

Bear in mind that the no. 1 principle of management (or leadership) is delegating--matching people up with the right jobs--and the no. 2 principle is following up on that assignment.

Toward the end of this, I'll drop in my own horror story on the matter of following up. Just because I learned it in a class in the late 1960s does not mean I would get smart and actually practice it. How does that line go--too late smart, too soon dead.

Let's call this: "What Andrew Jackson wished he had done" or "How Jackson Came Close to Losing the Battle of New Orleans.")

The best lessons we ever learn are the ones we got wrong and suffered from and thus determine not ever to let happen again. Which is to say, experience is the best teacher.

After General Andrew Jackson entered New Orleans late in 1814 and took charge of its defense, he toured the perimeters of the area, found the city to be exposed on all sides, and assigned officers to various tasks.

In his book on the Battle of New Orleans, "Patriotic Fire," Winston Groom writes: "...there were any number of bayous, streams, and canals that, left unguarded and unobstructed, could have allowed the British through. Jackson ordered all of these blocked by felled trees, with guards from the state militia posted to watch them." Then, Groom ominously adds, "Lack of diligent enforcement of this order proved to be his greatest mistake."

Here's what happened.

Standards for Leaders and Plans for Leaving

Everyone down here is depressed over having a congressman under indictment for fraud and racketeering. We're still trying to keep Washington's focus on helping us rebuild this city, and now our chief advocate representing Orleans and parts of Jefferson Parish will be using all his resources to stay out of jail.

William Jefferson has been charged by the FBI with a long list of corrupt activities, all of which he is denying. Half our people are calling for him to resign from Congress and the other half are trying to put the best face on this, saying things like: "You're innocent until proven guilty." Which is not true, of course.

In a court of law and only there, you are considered innocent until you are proven guilty. But it's inane to say a person is innocent until he's proven guilty.

Up in Mississippi, they've arrested some old KKK member for a 1964 murder of a couple of Black teenagers and he will be going to trial soon. Now, it's been 43 years and he hasn't been proven guilty. Is there anyone around who would say the guy is innocent because of that? No, the point is that the courts must treat him as innocent and the burden of proof is on the state. But whether they prove it or not has nothing to do with whether he's innocent. If he did the crime, and even if he's the only one who knows it other than God, he's still plenty guilty.

Big, big difference. (You've just stumbled onto a pet peeve of mine. Sorry.)

The other pet peeve is congresspeople (is that a word?) and other leaders who try to subdivide their lives into categories--one part for my official functions, another part for my private business affairs, and so on. And so we have Mr. Jefferson on the front of Saturday's Times-Picayune saying, "Did I sell my office or trade official acts for money? Absolutely not."

Ready for the Next Hurricane?

Even people who live in this city like to turn to one another and pose what, before inflation, was called 'the 64 dollar question:' Do you think New Orleans is better prepared for a hurricane than we were 2 years ago?

I answer an emphatic 'yes.' For a lot of reasons. Here are some.

1. The levees are stronger in many places and no worse anywhere than before Katrina.

2. At the entrance to a number of crucial waterways, the Corps of Engineers has installed massive and expensive floodgates to regulate the amount of water inside the city. Every workday, I drive over the "Hammond Highway" bridge in Bucktown, which spans the 17th Street Canal where the levee broke after Katrina and devastated the neighborhood around our Pontchartrain Baptist Church, and gaze upon what perhaps 50 million dollars have bought in the way of intricate, huge, impressive floodgates. We had nothing there before.

3. We have fewer vulnerable properties now than pre-Katrina for the simple reason that the storm cleaned out thousands of flimsy buildings. Okay, we still have lots of FEMA house trailers throughout Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes and I do not want to even imagine what a strong storm would do with those lightweight missiles. Turn them into kites?

4. Everyone knows a hurricane can actually hit the city now--previously, we had become blase' about that ever actually happening--and everyone has a plan of some kind. When someone asked me my hurricane plan this week, I said, "Leave."

Lots to Miss in New Orleans

One of our newspaper columnists was absent for a number of weeks. I didn't know what had happened. One day this week the column reappeared and he admitted he'd taken his family away on an extended vacation. We wanted to go someplace normal, he said, somewhere you could go a whole day through and not once hear the word "Katrina."

We all know the feeling. Consider the following and see if we make our point.

The front page of Friday's Times-Picayune was made up of these lengthy articles:

1) "Road Home gap hits $5 billion." This federal program of providing up to $150,000 to each homeowner whose residence suffered extensive damage from Katrina or her floodwaters has been known to be seriously underfunded, but the amount keeps escalating. Now they're saying we will need an additional $5 billion, a staggering amount. And while the governor and state leaders have been crying for Washington to make up the difference, leaders in our nation's capital have pointed the finger southward, suggesting that since Louisiana is projecting a budget surplus, we ought to come up with much of the money ourselves. The front page article suggests state legislators working on the 2008 budget are feeling the pressure to do just that.

2) "State rejects 5-year storm model." A California company called Risk Management Solutions, Inc. comes up with projected costs of damages and insurance rates in hurricane-prone states for a five year period. In this case, the rate of increase in the dollar cost of damages and insurance is so alarming that the state of Florida has rejected the RMS projections and Louisiana is following suit. These were guidelines to have been used by the state insurance commissioners' offices in making projections about rates, etc.

3) "June 1." Yep, that's the big bold headline. Underneath are these: "It's hurricane season: Six months of bracing for the worst while hoping for the best." "Corps chief promises 100-year protection." I'll spare you the details.

For the Chosen

"We've been chosen," writes Ann Corbin. She and husband Steve are MSC volunteers assigned to the Global Maritime Ministries, working out of Reserve, LA, a few miles upriver from New Orleans. However, often they're working the ports in this city also.

The Corbins have been selected to be among the recipients of the "Christmas in August" promotion for the year 2008. This is a joint missionary effort of our National Woman's Missionary Union and the North American Mission Board in which the stories of these missionaries are "told" to church groups all over the country, and those groups are invited to send resources their way. Hence the name "Christmas in August."

In many publications of the WMU and NAMB, the story of Steve and Ann's missionary work will be featured and readers will learn what supplies they can use for their ministry. They might, for instance, ask for office supplies, building supplies, or other items which they can use. Or, they might simply request gift cards for Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, etc., which they can use with the seamen and port workers who come to their port ministry centers for hospitality and witness. Some missionaries have gotten so much response to this August emphasis they've had to rent storage space to hold it all.

Some 35 to 40 missionaries in all will be featured in the "Christmas in August" promotion. Most churches will choose one or two or three missionaries and focus on their work. There's no way of knowing what level of response Steve and Ann may expect.

Anyone know of a good, cheap vacation place for Steve and Ann in the Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg area of Tennessee? They'll be headed to a conference in the Carolinas and want to have a few days vacation in mid-July. Their e-mail is steveandann@portministry.com.