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"You don't like your pastor. What else is new?"
"You say that like there's a lot of it going around."
"It's like a plague. I've been thinking of going back and reading Exodus where God sent the plagues on Egypt to see if this was one of them. Frogs in the street, blood in the Nile, unhappiness in the pews."
"Are you dismissing the subject? You're so pro-pastor that you can't see sometimes a church has genuine issues with a preacher and he needs to leave?"
"Not at all. I'm just voicing my unhappiness with the whole business. It hurts to see pastors and congregations at odds with one another."
"Do you want to hear my side of this matter? Do you have time?"
"I can make the time. This is important."
We sat there in my office quietly for a moment, then I said, "But first, would you let me tell you something on my heart? This is not about you or your church, but about the whole issue of the relationships of pastors and congregations."
"I'm a good listener," he said. "Shoot."
"One of the primary reasons for so much unhappiness in the pews with the preachers is faulty understanding of what God intends. I've come up with four half-truths which most church members believe. When we believe wrong, as you know, we do wrong and no good comes of it."
He was listening well, so I went on.
Brianne Painia was the only teenager on last night's program at the Second Anniversary of Katrina Prayer Rally, held in the impressive worship center of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans on Canal Boulevard. She sat just to the right of me the entire evening; I thought she was an adult, maybe the wife of one of the speakers. Then, she walked to the podium.
Brianne looked out at the houseful of worshipers and said, "When they asked me to pray a prayer on this program, I thought, 'It's just a prayer. I can pray. No big deal.' When people would ask me about it, I still said, 'No big deal.' Then they sent me the program and I saw that I'm praying just after two preachers, and I thought, 'Uh oh. Big deal.'"
But whoever put Brianne on the program knew what they were doing. She did precisely what she was asked to do and which every child of God is meant to do: she approached the Father's throne in faith and humility and prayed the prayer of faith on behalf of our schools, their leaders, and the teachers.
Fred Luter prayed first. Fred prays a lot like he preaches; he gets with it. He talks to God and talks to us in the same way--with energy and faith and conviction. When Fred Luter prays, there is no neutral ground.
During the Second World War, Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick of New York City's Riverside Church preached a series of messages which he published in a small paperback volume titled "A Great Time to be Alive." In the sermon by that title, he begins, "This certainly is a ghastly time to be alive."
Several paragraphs later, he says, "This is an especially hideous generation for Christians." Then, after a bit, he says, "Nevertheless, this is also a great time to be alive."
Fosdick tells of Victor Hugo who was the toast of Paris in his early years. His writings enjoyed great success and he was the glory of France. Then, Napoleon III rose to power and suddenly Hugo was an outcast, a condition lasting 19 years. Hugo hated the exile, but out of that period came his greatest writings. His biographer calls that time in Hugo's life "miraculously inspired" as he became twice the man he had been. Hugo said, "Why was I not exiled before!"
This is a great time to be alive, Fosdick said, because it drives us back to the fundamentals and calls forth the best work from us.
My thoughts exactly on this, the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
President Bush made his 15th visit to the hurricane-area this week. He touched all the right buttons, saw and talked to the right people, said the right things. What will come of it further no one knows.
Our Wednesday pastors meeting drew about 25 of our ministers and they were in a reflective mood. I felt I was representing all of Southern Baptists as one after another rose to thank the SBC, our LBC, and our association. Several pointed out through teary eyes, "I couldn't have made it without you," directing the remarks to all our people but looking only at me. Then, the joke became that they were eulogizing me, and we all had a good laugh.
Today marks the end of our weekly pastors meetings.
The Lord had something special in mind for me this weekend. One after another of old friends appeared and blessed my life.
It began Monday morning at Gardner-Webb University where I had traveled for the installation of Robert Canoy as the dean and president of the M. Christopher White Divinity School. I had not seen Robert since he was 12 years old, in 1970 when I left Emmanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, MS, to join the staff of the FBC of Jackson, MS. In the meantime, he grew up, was called to preach, went to college and seminary, earned a doctor of philosophy degree from our seminary in Louisville, KY, and pastored some significant churches.
We gathered in his office a few minutes before time for the installation luncheon where I was to speak. His parents were there. William and Dorothy Canoy, still living in Greenville, William retired now from the National Guard, their four children all grown up. We hugged, and Dorothy told the others in the room of my coming to their home in October of 1970 and leading her and the three boys to Christ. William, she said, delayed, and was saved the following year. I had the privilege of baptizing her and the boys, and how honored I am about that. This is one precious family, and what a good day's work someone did getting Robert to head that institution.
Wayne Ward, Robert's professor and mentor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was the featured speaker for the convocation in the school chapel. Earlier, at the luncheon, he hardly sat down as he met old friends and made new ones. At age 86, he is a wonder. I jokingly remarked to Robert that if his experience is like mine, people will come up saying, "You remember me. We met in 1976." Robert said, "Yes, but Wayne will say, 'I remember it exactly. It was on the bus at the convention in Norfolk and you said....'"
Sure enough, when Robert introduced us, Dr. Ward said, "Joe, I know you," and went into the time and place. I was stunned. How could he remember this and I not? Shame on me.
(A message by Dr. Joe McKeever, delivered at the Installation Luncheon for Dr. Robert Canoy who assumes the presidency of the M. Christopher White Divinity School at Gardner-Webb University on Monday, August 27, 2007.)
"Thou hast given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word." --Isaiah 50:4
"You have strengthened tottering knees; your words have stood men on their feet." --Job 4:4
Someone said Italy is putting a clock on the Tower of Pisa to make the point that just because you have the inclination does not mean you have the time.
The next time someone gives you his life-verse from Scripture, if you have both the time and inclination, ask for the story behind it. Here's why Job 4:4 means so much to me.
I was a small child for my age. In a class of a hundred seventh graders, I was the shortest boy. As a result, I adopted "the short person syndrome." To compensate for lack of size, the person with this condition speaks loudly, brashly, and boastfully. He seeks to be the center of attention, often at the expense of others whom he cuts down verbally. In my teens, I grew out of the shortness but, alas, kept the syndrome.
Even after God made me a pastor, I struggled with this weakness, this verbal terrorism. Then, in my 30th year, I experienced what a friend calls a watershed moment.
My wife and I had gone to a movie on Saturday night. The house lights were up and we greeted a number of friends in the audience. Across the auditorium, I spotted 17-year-old Brandi, a member of our church. She was cute and sweet and probably a little too serious about life at that age. Brandi did not get many dates, and tonight she was sitting between Alex and Betty, her next door neighbors. As we waved, I called across the theater, "What's the matter, Brandi -- couldn't get a date?"
The next morning Brandi's mother did something wonderful for me and courageous for her -- she held me accountable. She phoned the office and said, "Joe, it looks like you go out of your way to hurt my child." I was so clueless, I had to ask what she was talking about. I apologized to her, to Brandi, to Alex and Betty, and if I could, I would have assembled everyone in the theater to apologize to them. That was the day I began seriously working on mastering my tongue.
As a young minister, I was eager to learn how to present the gospel to people in one-on-one conversations and enrolled in every program I could find that promised to teach such skills. One in particular, I recall because of a tactic of introducing the presentation that smacked of manipulation.
They sent us out in teams of three, assigned to "take a poll" from door to door in a certain neighborhood. The form asked such questions as, "Which of these religious leaders do you know more about--Mohammed, Christ, or Krishna," and "What would you say is the biggest problem in the world today?" We knocked on doors, introduced ourselves, said we were doing a community survey, asked our questions, and wrote down what they said. Not that it mattered. The simple fact is we did not care how they answered the questions. All of the business about conducting a survey was just a lead-in to get to the point where we could ask, "In your opinion, how does a person get to Heaven?"
The plan called for the person to give a wrong answer, which we usually got. Anyone who has been around very long knows that the great majority of humans believes that being good, or at least more good than bad, is the ticket that opens Heaven's doors.
When they gave the wrong answer, we would ask for the privilege of taking a few minutes of their time to show them what the Bible says on this subject. That was actually why we came, and this is usually where the party at the door said "No, I don't think so," and sent us on our way.
That Saturday afternoon, before we left the church for our assignment, the leader took questions from his nervous pupils. Someone said, "What do we say if they ask us point blank what we're doing out here?" The leader said, "Tell them you're out sharing Jesus Christ with people. Be transparent. We have nothing to hide."
"I'm thinking of closing down our men's ministry."
"And you're telling me because---what? you want me to talk you out of it?"
"Or tell me how to salvage it without shutting it down."
"What's the problem?"
"The usual. It's a meet-and-eat affair, and very little else."
"Start at the beginning," I said. "What do they do?"
"We have this group of men who meet at the church for breakfast the first Sunday of each month. They'll have about 30 present. They eat breakfast and sit around drinking their coffee and visiting with each other. And that's all."
"That's all?"
"They might have someone bring a devotional once in a while. Or a visiting missionary to speak. But usually, it's just them."
He was quiet a moment, then said, "I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong. They're just not doing anything."
"Do you attend?"
"Not in several months. But I've gone often enough to know what they do."
"Let me ask you a question, pastor."
Several have asked for an update on Rudy French, pastor of Norco's First Baptist Church, who returned to Canada for heart surgery earlier this month. Thanks to the Lord, he's doing just fine.
Rudy and Rose are following doctor's orders and he's taking a month to rest up, something he did not do earlier this year when the same surgical procedure was done. This time, he's learned his lesson.
With so much going on down here, in the community and in his church, it's next to impossible for Rudy to tune everything out and let his mind be at rest. I counseled him that, if things went bad in the surgery and God called you to Heaven, what would we do here; so, pretend you're in Heaven for the next six weeks and then come back to earth. They actually took that bizarre bit of semi-wisdom and are working at doing just that. (It's fairly obvious why I never was much of a counselor.)
1. We're told that 40,000 Louisianians still live in FEMA trailers, down 50 percent from a year ago. Most of our people still in these boxes are having their homes rebuilt and will not be needing them much longer. And what of the others? That would be people who had been living in subsidized public housing for the most part and who have no place to go other than the FEMA trailer. We're told the federal government has workers doing nothing but seeking out rental property and matching it up with the trailer dweller. Trying to get them out and on their own.
The FEMA trailer has been a lifesaver for a lot of people and a royal headache for the government. We have not reported it here, but formaldehyde has been found at high levels in many of the trailers, creating a health concern for the residents. Watch for the lawsuits.
Somewhere I read about a city employee--not one of ours thankfully; this must have been in the Reader's Digest--who was backing his city truck up and crunched an automobile. The driver got out and discovered he had backed into his own car. So, naturally, he sued the city. After all, the city must have been at fault since a city-owned truck driven by a city employee was responsible. No word as to the outcome.
Nothing undermines the loyalty of your team members so much as them watching you lie to outsiders. They know better; they know you are stretching the truth or creating it from whole cloth, and to the extent you do that, you shrink in their eyes.
To our everlasting shame, perhaps no body of people on the planet plays fast and loose with the facts like preachers. You would think that we who deal with the Gospel Truth, whose Savior called Himself "The Truth," and who have as one of our basic tenets "Thou shalt not lie," that we of all people would hold to the facts as no one else. But it is not so.
In a conversation with a group of pastors about this, the stories flew, as each one thought of examples he had seen.
One said, "You get these flyers from preachers who want to come to your church. 'One of America's greatest evangelists!' it says. 'Pastor of some of the largest churches of our time.' And yet, you know the churches he has pastored and there's no way."
Another said, "And some of them report the hundreds of decisions that were made in their recent meetings. Why, Billy Graham would be hard-pressed to match those numbers. And if you check with the pastors where they held those meetings, they can't find all those converts."
"I had a preacher tell me that he actually did not know how many people attended his church on Sunday morning. He said they engaged in a bit of creative counting. He said it for a joke, but he was serious."
"I heard a staff member of one church say that when they counted the crowd on Sunday, they added 10 percent in the chance they had missed someone."
(Note: I wrote this report on the status of our N.O. churches at the request of the Baptist Message, our weekly newspaper for Louisiana Baptists. It will appear in the August 30 edition, one day after the second anniversary of Katrina.)
Before Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29, 2005, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans (BAGNO) could count some 140 churches and missions. One month later, when we re-entered the area, we were able to identify 35 still operating. Today, two years after this life-changing event, we’re up to 94.
"So, are your churches back to normal and operating?" is the question I field most often. The answer is, "Some are. Some are doing great. Some are gone forever. Some are meeting in someone’s living room or in someone else’s buildings. But all have been affected deeply and are changed forever."
Most of the churches we lost were small congregations or young missions. When the floodwaters devastated their neighborhoods and ruined their buildings and scattered their members, the smaller and more vulnerable congregations quickly ceased to exist. Only the stronger ones managed to pull enough of the scattered members back together to resume services in one form or another.
In many respects, this association is a microcosm of the Southern Baptist Convention. We have churches in every category you can think of -- displaced, struggling, normal, and flourishing. Most of the stronger, more successful congregations are those that moved quickly after the storm to establish ministry in their neighborhoods.
Each Monday afternoon, I meet with three or four of our young pastors at a fast food cafe near my house. We sit there for an hour or more, drinking coffee or soft drinks, and sharing about our lives and ministries. Invariably, one of them will groan when I ask, "So, what are you preaching next Sunday?" He will say, "It's only Monday, man--how would I know that?" and everyone laughs.
Today, I threw out as a conversation starter: "Give us your life-verse, the Scripture that explains you." I started with mine, Job 4:4, "Your words have stood men on their feet."
Carl's verse was Acts 18:9-10, "Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you...I have many people in this city."
"I was struggling with moving to New Orleans," Carl said. "I had requested an assignment to one of several cities, none of which were offered to me. Finally, the company said, 'How about New Orleans?' Well, I had been here several times when I was a partying college student. I knew nothing but the French Quarter, and that was not a happy memory. Now that I was living for the Lord, I did not want to even be exposed to that lifestyle anymore. But as I was praying, the Lord spoke those words to me. I moved to New Orleans--to Kenner, actually--you came to visit me, I joined First Baptist Church, and God called me into the ministry there."
"Yes, and you met your wife at our church," I said. Evidence aplenty God was in it. He agreed.
The pastor who reads only the New Testament to get his assignment, see his field, and understand the nature of his work will miss a great deal of vital information. The Old Testament is a book of illustrations of New Testament teachings.
Case in point.
Two passages from the 6th Century prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel take pains to show us the failures of the shepherds--i.e., the spiritual leaders--of their day. It's impossible to read Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34 without seeing a reflection of ourselves and our situation in that mirror.
(Warren Wiersbe says when we first start reading Scripture, it's a window to us. We gaze through it to see the characters of the Bible, how they lived, what they did. Eventually, however, if we stay with it, the Word becomes a mirror. As we gaze into it, we begin to see ourselves, our world, our situations.)
The passage from Ezekiel 34 rails against the failures of the spiritual leaders of that day. Bible students recall what days of crisis those were, with the nation of Judah being pulled on one side to trust in Egypt and being called by God to surrender to Babylon, with false prophets calling one way and true prophets another. The poor people had no idea where to turn. Eventually, the Israelis were defeated by the Babylonians, the population was carted off to foreign lands, and the city of Jerusalem was demolished. Thousands of God's people died from war or starvation or other cruelties.
In the middle of this national crisis, a time when the preachers should have been at their best, they failed miserably. Ezekiel 34:1-10 lists five great failures of these so-called shepherds.
A generation ago, Houston's John Bisagno and E. V. Hill of Los Angeles were featured speakers at a conference I was attending. Hill, an eloquent fiery preacher in the best tradition of African-American stemwinders, had blown the windows out of the church with his message and left the congregation of a thousand on their feet cheering and shouting. As order settled in on the auditorium, our host introduced Bisagno. Brother John walked to the pulpit and softly related the most appropriate little story I've ever heard.
"Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Linus were lying in the grass gazing at the puffy white clouds. Lucy says, 'If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formation...What do you think you see, Linus?'
"Linus said, 'Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean....That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor...and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen...I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side....'"
"Lucy says, 'Uh huh...That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?' And Charlie Brown answers, 'Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind.'"
Bisagno looked out at his audience and said, "I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but after that sermon from Dr. Hill, I don't think I'll say anything now!'"
But he did. He was equally wonderful and just as enthusiastically received--ask anyone who heard Dr. Bisagno in his prime--but I've never forgotten his description of that comic strip from Peanuts.
In the comics for today, Sunday, August 19, 2007, that was the Peanuts strip that was reprinted. I've clipped it out, It's a real keeper.
The paper this Saturday morning tells of a lawsuit filed in Iowa over a 1939 experimental program conducted at the state university in which researchers worked to induce stuttering in the speech patterns of children by abusing them. Setting out to prove that this speech defect is a learned behavior that can be created, these so-called scientists focused on 22 children from a state-controlled orphans home for their research.
For a period of six months, Dr. Wendell Johnson and his staff of pioneers in speech pathology brutalized these children verbally. "Some were subjected to steady harassment, badgering and other negative acts in an attempt to get them to stutter...." One of the children, 84-year-old Hazel Dornbush, said, "It was awful...We had nobody to lean on to help us out."
The state of Iowa is shelling out nearly a million dollars to these victims. Those that are still alive. Those who can be found.
The program was kept secret for many years and only revealed in a 2001 investigative story published in the San Jose Mercury News. The university apologized, and two years later the lawsuit was filed.
Much too little, way too late, far too awful.
Nothing will tempt the servant of God like the large amounts of money that flow into the coffers near the place where he labors. As the money comes into the offering plates--or through the mail or via bank drafts--his reasoning powers become tainted by those large numbers. He thinks to himself, "When I do well, the money comes in. When I do poorly, the money dries up. This is about me. The money is mine. I have earned it."
That, or some variation of it.
My family was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the late 1980s when Jim and Tammy Bakker of PTL fame (or infamy, depending on one's point of view) got in trouble and lost their multi-million-dollar ministry, with Jim serving a term in prison. Those who lived through that period may recall the sexual aspect of the downfall involving a young woman named Jessica Hahn. While that may have been the part of the story that caught the public fancy, it was the misuse of money which sent Jim Bakker to prison.
In most cases involving ministers, misuse of money does not end up with the man of God going to prison, but rather losing his ministry and his influence. The ongoing problem reminds me of the political corruption in my city of New Orleans--it is revealed so often, one would think the word would get out and the perpetrators would cease their lawbreaking; but it seems to go on and on, as though people are not paying attention and refusing to learn the law of nature which Paul pointed out to the Galatians a long time ago: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7)
A pastor I know served as a trustee of one of our denomination's boards, requiring him to journey to a distant city a half dozen times a year for two days of committee meetings. On his return, he would turn in his expenses to that agency's business office, which would issue him a check a few days later. I served on the same board with him and followed the same practice. It was standard procedure. But then he did something else.
Team members need a mechanism for telling you what they have found. Your co-workers must be allowed to tell you what's not working. Unless you arrange a method by which they can voice their gripes and get their suggestions before the proper personnel, the entire system is in jeopardy.
Without such a system, they will still gripe and belly-ache and criticize, but not to you. They'll do it behind your back and you will feel threatened and be tempted to respond harshly and it's all downhill from then on.
You can spare yourself a lot of grief by working out a system by which your church members, your employees, your team members can talk back to you.
The design engineers need to hear from the salesmen on the road who can tell them the customers' experience with the new gadget--what's working and what isn't.
At the end of one play and before the next one, the wide receiver must be able to tell the quarterback that he thinks he can beat the cornerback, that he's noticed something that fellow does which will allow him to outplay him. On the next play, the quarterback throws deep to the receiver who beats his man and scores.
The employees need a method for giving feedback to the foreman or the office supervisor.
The pastor needs to hear from his team members--the ministerial staff, the office staff, the custodial staff, everyone--as well as from the church members.
Make no mistake, if members of the team see something that isn't working, they're going to talk about it among themselves. But it does no good, and may even undermine what good they are doing, unless they are allowed to bring the criticism to the person who needs that information and can act on it.
I said to the church, "We've put a blank sheet of paper inside your bulletin handout today. Write down any question you have about how things are being done around here, or any suggestion you'd like to make. Next Sunday night, I'm going to take a half-hour in the evening service and respond to as many of your points as possible."
Leslie D. Weatherhead was a well-known British pastor, who served famous City Temple of London for many years. In 1945, he published a book of the sermons he had delivered to his people during the war that was just concluded. Only the first sermon had this as its title, but the entire book was named "The Significance of Silence." The book is available online, which is where I found it and learned quickly to treasure its content. (My favorite source of old books-- www.alibris.com.)
A pastor friend told me one day that he finds great sermon illustrations from this website, for which I am grateful. Waylon Bailey is going to love these three short vignettes.
About Gratitude
Weatherhead repeats a story Prime Minister Winston Churchill had recently told in a speech, about a sailor who dived into the waters of Plymouth Harbor to rescue a drowning child. Not long after, the sailor bumped into the little boy and his mother in the streets of Plymouth. The child nudged his mother and she stopped the sailor. "Are you the man who pulled my little boy out of the water?" The sailor was glad to acknowledge that he was, and thought possibly the mother might have in mind some kind of reward. "Yes, madam," he said proudly.
"Then," said the mother, with fire in her eyes, "where's his cap?"
One of the differences in us and China....
The newspaper for Tuesday morning, August 14, 2007, announces that the Chinese manufacturer of the Elmo dolls that have been flagged as dangerous to children, causing a massive recall, has committed suicide. He went down to the plant where the toys were made and hanged himself. The paper says suicide is the common reaction in that country when officials are disgraced.
But not in the good old U.S. of A. No, sirree. Over here, we justify ourselves, minimize our acts, call our misdeeds "a mistake" and "a lapse of judgement," and count on our naive supporters to immediately forgive us and to rail against anyone who dares call the miscreant what he is--a bum--and urge the fullest penalty the law allows.
Yesterday, in federal court on Poydras Street, Oliver Thomas, at-large councilman for New Orleans, pleaded guilty to receiving nearly $20,000 in kickbacks from Pampy Barre' in return for his assuring that Pampy kept the contract for managing three parking lots in the Quarter. Okay, he confessed. That's good. Something our embattled Congressman William Jefferson hasn't had the courage to do, even though he also was nabbed red-handed with audio tapes and the bribe money in his freezer.
U.S. Federal Judge Sarah Vance gave Oliver Thomas the what-for yesterday, calling this a "body blow to a community that is already reeling under a wave of public corruption." She added, "If this city is ever to recover, we have to have an end to this type of venality."
(I had to look it up. Venality-- a noun referring to selling one's services for misdeeds. Corruption due to bribery.)
Which raises the question: did Thomas put so little value on his integrity that he sold it--and the public trust, not to mention his political career--for less than $20,000?
The line, quoted here a few weeks ago, from "A Man for All Seasons," comes to mind. Thomas More says to Richard Rich, "Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world--but for Wales?"
For $20,000?
Something happened Tuesday at the pastors luncheon at Victory Fellowship, something I cannot get out of my mind.
A radio personality and evangelist from Dallas who has New Orleans on her heart and who now has a radio program on local Christian station Lifesongs 89.1, is calling for a full day of prayer and fasting on behalf of the needed revival in this city. (I'll try to find more information and post at the end of this article--or amend this part of the article.) Her group has secured the Morial Convention Center for that day and they are expecting 10,000 people to fill the arena. She told of various important leaders who will be leading in prayer throughout the day.
Now, I have not met the lady, share her burden for revival in this city, and hope the day is a great success. But when it comes to filling the huge auditorium that day, I cannot advise her on how to accomplish it, but I can sure tell her how NOT to fill it.
You don't fill an arena that size by announcing it on the radio. You don't fill it by promoting it with local ministers. You don't fill it with billboards and newspaper ads. You don't fill it by spending large amounts of money getting the word out. You don't fill it by getting the pastors to announce the gathering to their people and printing it in their church bulletins. And, if it doesn't sound like heresy, I'll go so far as to say you don't fill it by getting on your knees and praying for hours that believers from local churches will have their hearts broken for revival and pack out that place.
As important as all of these may be, that's not how it's done.
You can do all these things and more, then walk into the arena that day to find 200 people sitting there.
I know this from sad experience.
City councilman Oliver Thomas, widely known as a good guy to everyone down here, is the latest politician to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Sunday morning's headline reads, "Thomas expected to plead guilty," except it was in all caps. Underneath: "Alleged shakedown involved parking contracts," and "Convicted restaurateur Stan 'Pampy' Barre' tipped off the feds.'
The lead paragraph calls this "the most dramatic development to date in a sprawling probe of corruption in New Orleans city government." The senior member of the City Council, Thomas has 13 years of service, and is in his second term as one of two 'at large' members. He has been vocal about the foolish statements of our mayor, about the crime problem in New Orleans, and about the need for better leadership. Most had speculated he would run for mayor next time around.
Turns out, any running he will do will be around the yard at the big house.
Pampy Barre' has had his sentencing delayed while he cooperates with the local U.S. attorney's office. Apparently when it became obvious he was going down, he decided to take some of the local hypocrites with him, particularly if it would ease his own time away from home. Barre' owned a parking company which won the rights to manage three city-owned lots in the French Quarter, but with the understanding that Oliver Thomas would receive a kickback. No word yet as to the amount of money we're talking about.
Sunday morning, I sent this "letter to the editor" of our newspaper: "Could we have a new law that says whenever a leader violates the public trust, the level of punishment he or she is given will be determined by the public outrage over their misdeeds. If we get such a law, we can safely predict that some of our crooked politicians will never see the light of day again."
With Freddie Arnold accompanying the "Unlimited Partnership" members on a get-acquainted trek to Jackson, MS, Nashville, TN, and Alpharetta, GA, the office was much less busy than normal. Freddie's grandson, Zac, who was born with spinal bifida and is now perhaps 16 years old, had emergency surgery Tuesday night at Children's Hospital, and was much on our hearts this week.
I spoke at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church in Baton Rouge on Thursday, was interviewed on Moody radio on Friday morning as a result of a recent blog titled "Tolerance and Faithfulness," and Saturday afternoon, attended the rededication of Poydras Baptist Church, beautifully redone since Katrina. Seminary students are arriving in the city daily and many are calling for appointments to bring their resumes by, wanting to be considered by churches looking for pastors or staffers. Tuesday night, I "worked" at a neighborhood meeting as a part of the national "night out against crime," and on Saturday night, attended the New Orleans Zephyrs Triple-A baseball game against the Roundrock Express, with my son and grandchildren.
Easily, the high point of my week was four prayers.
"The thing to bear in mind," I told him, "is that God doesn't mind troubling you. Not at all."
"Well," he said, "there must be some good reason behind it. It sure doesn't make sense to me."
I said, "So, your neighbor is harassing you."
"Persecuting is more like it. He throws beer cans into my yard. He has stood in his front yard cursing me, not 15 feet away. And I mean, bad cursing, of the worst kind. I was embarrassed for the other neighbors to hear it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg."
"What do you think is behind it?"
"I've tried to find out. I even called the guy who owned my house before me, to see if he had acted that way with him. He hadn't. In fact, he said the neighbor was always easy to get along with. Made me wonder if we were talking about the same person."
"Are you sure you haven't done something to set him off?"
"I've racked my brain. I've even asked another neighbor, Bob up the street. Bob's known him for years and just says he's weird and I shouldn't take it personally. It's hard not to, especially since it just seems to be me."
"I may have an idea. It's very possible that it's all about God."
"Say what?"
"I thought it was over," he said. "But they've made it worse."
He had pastored in our town, then moved to another state. From the occasional reports he sent our way, it seemed a great match, him and that church. Once when I dropped by to visit him, on my way somewhere else, he told of record numbers of people coming to worship, joining the church, and being baptized. Then, abruptly, the church leadership turned on him and forced him out.
On this day, he sat in my office and told what happened.
"I'm a hugger," he said. "And someone circulated the rumor that I had inappropriately hugged some lady. They wouldn't even tell me who it was so I could defend myself. They just wanted me out."
I said, "Who wanted you out?"
"A good number of the deacons and their wives. Not all of them. In fact, when I resigned, the chairman and vice-chairman resigned with me, in protest. They've joined another church in the next town."
"That's a good sign," I said. "Of what?" he asked.
"That they thought you were being unfairly treated."
"Oh, I was that. That's the whole point of my coming to see you, to ask you what you think I ought to do. The entire thing was a put-up job from start to finish."
"What do you think was behind it?"
He was quiet a moment, then said, "All you have to do is look at their record. This church has had 10 pastors in the last 25 years. Counting the months in between, that figures out to about 2 years each man. Barely time to get your bags unpacked and the pictures hung."
"What's the problem, do you think?"
Nothing like an eight-year-old kid to put you in your place.
At Neil's request, I was drawing people tonight, Tuesday, at the Delta neighborhood monthly meeting. I sketched people of all ages before, during, and after the session at which a police officer responded to questions about neighborhood safety. At one point, I was surrounded by a group of children from 8 to perhaps 12, basically entertaining them quietly in the rear of the room while the meeting went on.
Eight-year-old Matthew told me he loves to draw. "While you're not doing anything," he said, "can you teach me to cartoon?" Yeah, right. It takes years, kid. I gave him a pen and some paper, and sketched out a horse for him.
"Look at that," he said. "I could never draw a horse. And here some old guy draws me a horse."
I'm still smiling at that.
The front page of Time for August 13, 2007, features what surely must be the simplest picture ever to adorn that celebrated magazine's cover--a grassy levee atop which is something that looks like a concrete wall. "Special Report: Why New Orleans Still Isn't Safe" crosses the top of the page. In the center, filling the sky, so to speak, we find this:
"Two years after Katrina, this floodwall is all that stands between New Orleans and the next hurricane. It's pathetic. How a perfect storm of big money politics, shoddy engineering and environmental ignorance is setting up the city for another catastrophe."
Pathetic? That's putting it out there.
We reported here a few days ago that the August issue of the National Geographic deals with the same subject. One obvious difference is that the Geographic's photographs were better, in color, and bigger, more striking. But they make the same point. This city faces big trouble.
The article, written by Michael Grunwald, establishes right off the bat something the people down here have been trying to get across to our friends in the nation's Capitol:
"The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2. The city's defenses should have withstood its surges, and if they had we never would have seen the squalor in the Superdome, the desperation on the rooftops, the shocking tableau of the Mardi Gras city underwater for weeks."
Grunwald says FEMA got the blame, but the culprit was the Corps of Engineers. He says American citizens were outraged by the government's poor response to the disaster, but they have yet to deal with the government's responsibility for the mess.
When the Bible uses the word "comfort," the Greek word (a form of "paraklesis") is translated in two ways--sometimes as "comfort" and sometimes as "exhortation."
There are two ways of encouraging a fellow. Sometimes a pat on the back does it; at other times it takes a kick in the seat. It's a wise leader who knows which is required. It's an even wiser leader who then knows how to administer just the right dose of the required treatment.
The coach on the sidelines walks over to two players who just muffed a play. This is his team and he knows these young men, so he is well aware what it takes to motivate each one to give his best. To one, he walks over and puts his arm around him. "Bobby, you can do better than that. Come on, man. I believe in you." He walks over to the other one and yells, "Jason, what in sam hill do you think you're doing? That was absolutely the sorriest thing I've ever seen on a football field! Now, get back in there and show me why I shouldn't kick you off this team!"
Or something to that effect. Each coach has his own style.
I was checking out at the grocery store down the street and got in the slowest lane. When my turn came, I found out why. We had a trainee on the cash register and a veteran employee was showing her what to do. As the young woman, probably a teenager, rang up the first item, she held the key down too long and it registered that I was buying three of them. Now, the older lady was having to punch in the codes for reversing that action and clearing the printout. It was time-consuming.
I was working overtime not to be impatient, so I said, "Take your time. You're new, aren't you?" The teenager nodded, clearly embarrassed. The older woman said, "She's doing fine. She just has too heavy a touch on that key. I did it myself when I was new."
I said to the teenager, "You're blessed to have such a patient teacher. Not everyone is that good with new employees." She nodded in agreement, and the older woman smiled appreciatively.
I happen to have a little personal experience along that line.
"The former pastor is coming back to our church. He wants it back."
I said, "Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. He wants to take over your church?"
"Right. He started the church 15 years ago. Then about 7 or 8 years ago, he left with a little group and began another church, more of a Pentecostal type, I suppose you would say."
"And what happened?"
"The hurricane scattered his members and now he has only a small group, not enough to hold church with, so he has apparently decided he'll just come back and take over our church."
I said, "How long have you been the pastor?"
"Five years." I said, "Do you know this man?"
He said, "A little. I've met him. A year or so ago, he showed up in our services and while I was making announcements, he walked to the front and snatched the microphone out of my hand and started speaking."
"And you let him?"
"I didn't think I had a choice. I didn't want to create a disturbance."
"He had already done that for you. How long did he speak?"
"It must have been 15 minutes."
"And then what happened?"
"All right, start at the beginning and tell me what happened."
He fidgeted a little, leaned forward in the office chair, and said, "At first, we were excited about him becoming our pastor. We're a small church, you know, and he was an outsider. He came in after the storm, seemed to have an unusual vision for what a little church like ours could do, and we bought it."
I said, "You liked his preaching?"
"He's a pretty good preacher. Not the greatest in the world, but we're a small church and we've never been spoiled in that regard. But he was fresh and, I think the word is, driven."
"Anyway," he continued, "we called him as pastor."
I said, "If I recall, you wanted him pretty badly. He kept turning you down and you kept calling him back and insisting that he consider becoming pastor of your church."
Long silence. "We thought he would do our church so much good. The people really liked him."
"And from where I sit, he has done the church a lot of good."
He said, "From the outside, it would appear that way." Another long silence. "But it's like some families that look good to the neighbors but it's another story inside the house."
"So what happened?"
"He came in and started spending all that money to revamp the buildings to host outside church teams that were coming to help rebuild the city."
I said, "Didn't the church vote to do that? And someone in the congregation gave the money for it?"
"Yes, in a way. The congregation just didn't realize what it was getting. He started acting like he was the construction boss or something. Giving orders. Making decisions on what wall to tear down, which rooms to install bunk beds in, choosing the stoves for the kitchen. We're not used to that."
"You're not used to what?"
Historians analyzing the greatness of Abraham Lincoln are frequently perplexed as to how one who started so far back in the pack with few natural talents and attributes managed to win the race, securing his place in history as the greatest of all our presidents. What was there about him?
I'd like to suggest that one key factor, particularly in the younger Lincoln, was the quietness of the world in which he lived and what he did with it: he thought. He read a lesson, then mulled it over as he walked from one village to another or as he did his chores. He did not do what the average person would do, read something and check it off the list and go on to the next lesson. What he read lingered with him because he focused on it and thought about it. Some say Lincoln never went on to new book until he had mastered the content of the one he was studying.
Imagine jerking up someone from the 21st century and plopping them down in the middle of, say, 1825, when Mr. Lincoln was 16 years old. His first sensation would surely be of the overwhelming silence. No freeways with heavy traffic 24 hours a day, no planes filling the skies, no radio, no television, no phone, no trains, and very few factory whistles if any. To be sure, everyone else had the same amount of silence and the same absence of distractions from pure, deep thought as did Lincoln.
The difference is that Lincoln used the quietness wisely; he thought about things.
Blaise Pascal observed, "All the evils of life have fallen upon us because men will not sit alone quietly in a room."
Did you hear the one about New Orleans' Mayor C. Ray Nagin?
In Chicago recently to address a convention, he was walking down Michigan Avenue and noticed in the window of a tailor shop a beautiful sport coat. He walked inside and asked the proprietor if he had it in his size. The man said, "Each one is specially made, sir. I'd be happy to make you one."
The mayor said, "I'm just in the city overnight. Let me buy the material and I'll have it made back in New Orleans." He brought the material home on the plane.
A few days later, the mayor's tailor came by City Hall. He measured the mayor, studied the material, and said, "Mister Mayor, would you like a pair of pants also?"
Nagin said, "I'd love a pair of pants. Are you sure there's enough material?"
"I'm sure of it. In fact, I can probably get you two pairs. And how about a vest?"
"Now wait a minute," said the mayor. "I bought just enough material in Chicago for a sports coat. Now you're telling me there's enough there for a sports coat, two pairs of pants, and a vest. How could that be?"
The tailor said, "Mr. Mayor, there's something you need to understand. You are a much bigger man in Chicago than you are in New Orleans."
The most historic hotel in this city for generations has been the one known through the years as the Roosevelt, and most recently as the Fairmont. It has been shuttered since Katrina, with the owners making no plans to reopen. Tuesday's Times-Picayune announced that the 114-year-old structure is about to be sold, and the new owners have plans to rebuild and reopen it as a Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
The hurricane flooded its basement with 10 feet of water which destroyed the mechanical equipment. The wind blew rain into nearly every guest room. After the storm, workers began cleaning out and drying out the building when they discovered the hotel had sustained far more damage than originally thought.
A local hotelier says the city needs this hotel back if we're going to attract a certain class of visitor, but occupancy will be a concern for a few years.
The August 2007 issue of National Geographic features a photograph of New Orleans on its cover, and this large question: "New Orleans: Should it rebuild?" Across the picture, we read: "levees failing/storms increasing/ground sinking/seas rising."
In a large sense, it's a moot question because the city is rebuilding at this very moment. Almost 24 hours a day, people are at work. On one block, Mr. Boudreaux is hanging sheetrock in his house. In the next block, the LeBlancs are landscaping their yard. Vacant lots in the next block indicate where the Bourgeois and Landry families demolished their ruined homes. A new modular house is going up across the street. The heavy duty construction trucks burning up the through streets testify to the rebuilding going on here. It's happening.
Whether it should or not is another question. And basically pointless, since people are going to do what they're going to do.
It's like the questions we used to field from outside religious leaders: "How many of your churches are you planning to bring back?" and "What is your strategy for which churches to restore and rebuild?"