Joe McKeever

New Orleans Notes and a Personal Word

Friday through Tuesday, I'm in North Alabama visiting with my mother at Nauvoo. Saturday afternoon, members of our 1958 graduating class from Winston County High School are meeting at Jack's Hamburgers in Double Springs for some fellowship. Sunday morning, I'm preaching in classmate Lynn Pope's church at 8:30 am. (I'm depending on him to tell me Saturday afternoon where it is and how to get there.) Then at 10:30, I'll worship with Mom and the family at New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist. At 6 pm (I'm pretty sure), our favorite Nashville gospel trio, No Other Name, does a concert at New Prospect Baptist Church in Jasper, and our family absolutely has to be there! We'll be bringing them a dozen or so of Mom's turnovers--apple and blueberry--to eat on their late-night drive back to Music City.

("No Other Name" is the group in which Laura is the "girl singer." Laura works at the Baptist Press in Nashville and posts our cartoons on www.bpnews.net each day. They are an incredible group. Type No Other Name into your search mechanism and go to their website and listen to a sample of their inspiring harmonies. And if you're in the Jasper area Sunday night, come down Highway 5 to New Prospect and meet them. Laura's brother Sam sings in the group, as does their friend Chad. Laura's husband Chris is the manager. Keep your eyes on them. They are really something.)

Anyway, look for no regular postings on this website until Wednesday.

Now, from New Orleans....

Ten Things to Know About Romans

1. Romans is the Gospel According to Paul.

Granted, it doesn't look like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, in the way their Gospels told the story of Jesus' earthly ministry and interspersed it with His teachings. Paul does it in his own way.

Why is that important to know? Ah, we have the answer to that!

Right now, there are people promoting their religion in your neighborhood who want to give a new interpretation to Holy Scripture. One such group tells of an angel appearing to their founder with golden tablets on which had been written an ancient story. The angel provided special glasses for the man to look through and decipher the writings. The result was their new book, their new doctrine, and their new twist on the biblical message of Christ.

Now, in Galatians chapter 1, we find this from the Apostle Paul: "Even though we OR AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN preach any other gospel to you that what we preached, let him be accursed."

And then, as though underscoring what he had just said, Paul repeated it. (Gal. 1:8-9)

The point of that is this: we hold in our hands the very message Paul preached up and down the Roman Empire. It's called "The Epistle to the Romans." And Paul says anyone preaching anything other than that is declaring a lie and headed for judgment. Slice it any way you please and it comes up that way!

That's why it's crucial we help our people to get a solid understanding of Romans.

Someone asked a bank teller, "How did you learn to recognize all the different kinds of counterfeit money people try to slip past you?" She answered, "There's no way we could learn all the fakes. They just teach us to recognize the real thing. Once we know that, it's a simple matter to catch the counterfeits."

In teaching Romans, we are helping our people to know and recognize the real gospel of Jesus Christ. There could be no better preparation for dealing with the shams and fakes combing the streets of your neighborhood looking for the naive and unsuspecting.

2. Romans is deep.

A "Heads Up" About Romans

The Epistle to the Romans is the mid-winter Bible study book for Southern Baptists. It could possibly be the best Bible study pastors will ever do for their people.

I want to make our readers aware of a couple of things here, particularly for those who will be studying this incredible book or even teaching it.

1. For many years, I have prepared a series of cartoons to accompany the annual Bible study book. I'm working on the ones for Romans right now, and hope to have them ready to post on our website within a week. I'll be visiting with my Mom in North Alabama Friday-Tuesday and plan to take along my study/drawing materials and see if I can put together 20 or more cartoons. Then, we'll send them to Marty in North Carolina and as he can, he'll enlist the help of 10-year-old Darilyn and post them on the blog for your use.

My old friend Dr. John "Bud" Traylor, now living in Baton Rouge and teaching "Romans" everywhere it seems, has already been after me to get these cartoons done!

2. Having pastored for over four decades and having studied/taught "Romans" through the years, I have some insights to share on the epistle which should be of help to anyone planning to teach it. So, we'll be posting "Joe's notes on Romans" alongside the cartoons.

3. If you plan to teach Romans sometime this winter, whether in a three or four session setting or to preach a series of sermons through it, I have one huge suggestion to make. Right now, while your "pupils" still have time to prepare, get them to reading through Romans. And while you're at it, you need to do it yourself.

Somewhere I read that the great Bible teaching pastor G. Campbell Morgan said he never began to teach a book of the Bible until he had read it through forty-two times. I'm fairly sure that was the number he mentioned.

I have a suggestion on how to read through Romans: do it at one sitting. Don't stop to get out and see the sights or walk around in the neighborhood, just keep reading. At this point, don't get hung up on verses you find difficult or the parts you find yourself savoring. Just read the entire book.

There! That wasn't so bad, was it. Now that you've shown yourself you can read all 16 chapters at one setting without straining your brain, do it again within two or three days.

And then, after at least two full readings at a time, now go back and read it slowly. You might want to take a segment at the time. What segment?

Tuesday's Funeral in Mississippi

Francis and Dorothy Green lived in Metairie for all their married lives, the last 39 years. In the early 90s, someone recommended they attend the First Baptist Church of Kenner, and that's how I became their pastor. They were a wonderful and faithful couple and a joy to have as friends. Today we held her funeral in McComb, Mississippi.

I used to ask Dot, "Do you ever think of moving to Vicksburg, to be closer to your daughter Debbie?" Her only child. "Oh no," she would say. "This is my home." Then Katrina hit. They sold their flooded house in Metairie and bought another in Vicksburg and joined the First Baptist Church there. Today, their pastor, Dr. Matt Buckles, and I shared the honors at her service.

Dot was a painter. The first time she mentioned this to me, I thought, "Oh yeah. Sure you are." The way people are who take a 6 weeks class at a community college, then try to sell their amateurish doings for big money at an art sale. Then I saw her work, and believe me, she was an artist. In fact, she once served as president of the New Orleans Art Guild and belonged to several other guilds.

One day she said to me, "Take your pick of all my paintings." I was like a kid in a candy store. The one I chose she had painted in June of 2002 and titled "Misty Bayou." It has hung above our bed ever since. Monday, I took it down and carried it to our office. Freddie and Ninfa removed it from the frame and laid it across the color copier and made a reduced copy of the picture, then ran off a number of copies. I carried it with me to McComb and gave to daughter Debbie to share with their family and friends. Margaret had given me notice that I was not to carry the original; she was afraid someone would try to talk me out of it. "You're such a softie, if someone asked for it, you'd give it away."

I was pleased to meet Dot's sister Kathryn. I said, "I have told a story about you for years. Now, I want it from your mouth so I can get it right." Dot had told me the funny story, and I had told and retold it so many times, the details were hazy.

Here's the story. Waylon Bailey--lover of great sermon illustrations--take note. This one is for you.

Kathryn said, "I was talking to my family about smoking. I said, 'I hope none of you will ever take up that filthy habit.' Megan, my 11-year-old granddaughter, moved over and put her arm around my neck and said, 'Grandma, that's one thing you'll never have to worry about with me. No cigarette will ever touch these lips.'"

"Megan was quiet a moment, then she said in all seriousness, 'Unless I'm drunk.'"

True story. I told it at the funeral, and added, "Dot loved a good story. And she got a special joy out of seeing people enjoy the stories she told."

That's why I told the other story in her service.

THE HOLY SPIRIT: Your Own Personal Private Tutor

From my earliest memory, I have known of and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. At the age of 11, I became one of His disciples. Ten years later, He decided I would serve Him in the ministry and called me out. As I write, I am 67 years old. You can do the math.

Through these years of reading Scripture, of praying, studying, obeying, trying to grow and striving to honor Jesus by serving His people, I have learned some things about the ways of the Lord. Few of these insights came in advance, but only after the events, when I looked back and gave thought to what the Holy Spirit had done, to how He had led and taught me.

Jesus promised His people that the Holy Spirit would be our Teacher. "He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." (John 14:26) "He will guide you into all truth...He will take of mine and will disclose it to you." (John 16:13-14)

The best I can figure, there are 984 ways the Holy Spirit uses to teach any of us. So far, looking back over all these years of serving the Lord, here are the top ten ways the Holy Spirit has taught me.

1. The Holy Spirit teaches us in our failures.

As a college student, I struggled in my attempts to witness for Christ. Before attempting to share with friends or strangers, I literally sweat bullets, the inner agony was so horrific. Then, after three or four years of this--by now I was a student in seminary--I picked up a booklet in a Christian bookstore that might as well have had my name on it: "Here's How to Win Souls." A Texas minister had put in print and even in photographs the method he used to present the gospel. I bought the booklet, studied it, learned it, and went across town and led someone to Christ using the principles Gene Edwards and the Holy Spirit had cooperated to send my way.

2. The Holy Spirit teaches us in our everyday experiences.

Tell Us Your Christmas Story... Please!

My Atlanta friend Jim Graham has a granddaughter--her first name is Graham; wonder why--who is so bright at the age of 9, she could qualify to be a McKeever! The ultimate accolade. Anyway....

This week, Jim told me something Graham did when she was 3 years old. "Darlene and I had gone overboard materialistically," he said, "and bought her a ton of Christmas presents. On Christmas morning, she was opening her gifts. After unwrapping the third one, she looked at me and said, 'That's enough. Give the others to Baby Jesus.'"

Out of the mouths of babes.

THE ONLY PRAYER FOR PEOPLE LIKE US

The clipping that dropped from my files is undated and evidently came from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. The thrust of the article was that the relatives of a victim killed in a bank holdup are suing the bank for failure to provide security. But that's not what caught my attention.

The four robbers who invaded Peoples Bank that day, taking more than $18,000 and the life of 79-year-old bank customer Willie Pearl Carter, did something truly bizarre. According to the shooter--he's identified as Ramon Laroi Shorter and a minister's son, now serving a long sentence in the penitentiary--they wore ski masks and carried .40-caliber Glock pistols. And they prayed.

Just before they entered the bank, the little group of bandits bowed their heads and prayed for success in their venture. Shorter says, "I know it's kind of awful to say we prayed before we do something illegal, but after we prayed, that's when we went in and did the job."

The bank bandits were not the first and won't be the last to seek the approval of God and the blessings of Heaven upon their wrong doings.

The wife who left her minister husband was certain she was in the will of God, and prayed for the Lord's blessings upon her new life with another woman's husband. She was so enthralled with her new circumstances, it just "had" to be the will of God.

The deacon who was embezzling money from the church offerings, often stood at the pulpit in the worship service and called down God's blessings upon both the gift and the giver.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there are abortionist doctors who bow their heads and pray for success in their procedures.

The evidence just keeps accummulating proving that man is lost.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 34--"Be Careful About Preaching Your Convictions."

As a young minister, I would preach the value of people having the courage of their convictions. Nothing was more important, I would proclaim, than standing by the values you hold dear. I said that and believed it.

In time I met some church members with convictions that needed to be abandoned. Out of their steadfastness--some would say stubbornness--to their convictions, they were running their church into the ground and destroying its witness to the community.

That was the day I quit preaching about convictions as a positive trait.

Joanie's husband suggested I call her at home. She was upset about some fundraising thing the young people were doing for their summer mission trip. She felt it was out of place in the church.

Over the phone, I explained to Joanie my deep sensitivity to this very issue, and how the youth minister and I had gone over every aspect of their fundraiser to make sure it was done right. But nothing satisfied Joanie. She was dead-set against the program.

Finally, I pointed her to some biblical principles on the subject. "These are very important, Joanie," I said, and explained how we were in line with them. I thought I made a good case and was surely winning her over.

When I paused, Joanie said, "I don't know what the Bible says, but I know what I believe."

I said, "My friend, you have just ended the conversation. I thought the issue was about what the Bible teaches. If it's only about what you believe, then there's not a thing in the world I can do with that."

I can still hear the echo from many years ago of a couple in my church who were taking issue with me over something I was doing or preaching. Again, I tried to move the discussion to biblical principles. The wife stunned me by insisting, "But we have our convictions!"

I tried as gently as I knew how to remind her that God did not send us to preach our convictions, but the Word of Christ.

A man I know has a conviction that the length of a person's hair will determine his eternal destiny. He believes it as surely as I believe in the authority of the Scriptures.

I met a woman who believes that smoking one cigarette would send her soul to hell.

I met a man who believes he can live any way he chooses and never darken the door of a church and still go to Heaven because he belongs to a church of a particular denomination.

Convictions are not the same as truth. They may be, of course, and ideally should be. But we should never make the mistake of giving our convictions an equal place with God's Word. I think it's safe to say that Hitler and Stalin had their convictions. The Jehovah's Witnesses who came to my door this morning have theirs. The Mormons have theirs, the Catholics theirs, and yes, I have mine.

Going Into the Unknown

On Christmas Day, 1939, Britain's King George VI, the father of Elizabeth II, decided to do something he detested and speak publicly on the radio. He had a speech defect known as a stammer, but determined he would revive a custom his late father had started and bring an annual message to the British people. This being the first Christmas of the war with Germany, he rightly thought they could use the encouragement.

While the king and his staff were working on his broadcast message, someone sent a clipping from the Times of London to Buckingham Palace. The little article contained a prayer of sorts that had been found on a postcard in the desk of a deceased Bristol doctor. That man's daughter had used it on greeting cards, one of which was received by a Mrs. J. C. M. Allen of Clifton, who had kept it. Realizing the words were appropriate for her country at the outbreak of the war, she passed the postcard on to the newspaper.

Just after 3 pm on Christmas Day, King George began with these words to his people: "A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle we shall remain undaunted. In the meantime I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you."

Then, he delivered the lines which had come their circuitous route, from the doctor's office to his daughter, to Mrs. Allen who sent it to the Times, and thence to the palace. Now, those words were being given to the world.

"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.'"

In his book "1940," Laurence Thompson tells what happened next.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 33--"Expect Hardship."

You do yourself no favor when you go up against a great challenge and expect nothing but smooth sailing all the way.

The football team that prevails on a Saturday afternoon is the one with coaches and players who anticipate difficulties. Obviously, that includes preparing for the game strategy of the opposing team, but it also involves key players getting injured, the weather turning bad, and the ball taking the wrong bounce. "What will we do if this happens?"

What actually separates the average coach from his superior colleague, I'll leave to those more knowledgeable than me. But surely one key element is that the winning coach consistently out-plans--and this means he "out-expects"--his opponent.

Paul and Barnabas were at a crucial point. They had set out months ago on this, the first-of-its-kind missionary trek, to take the gospel to villages and cultures that had never heard of Jesus Christ. They journeyed to Cyprus out in the middle of the Mediterranean (that was Barnabas' familiar territory), then north to Asia Minor--Paul's stomping grounds--where they went from city to city spreading the word. Now, everything inside them said it was time to stop and return home.

"Let's do this," one said to the other. "Let's retrace our steps and revisit the disciples we've made on our journey. Let's offer them some encouragement and assist them in their organization."

I can hear the other saying, "And we need to prepare them for the hardships ahead. We have to tell them the unvarnished fact, that only through much tribulation do we enter the Kingdom." (My version of Acts 14:22)

Between here and Heaven expect a lot of obstacles.

No rose-colored glasses allowed in this Kingdom, friend. When you chose to follow Jesus Christ, you set yourself against the culture around you, the standards of the world, and the way of life of almost everyone you know. You had been floating downstream; now you are swimming upstream. Expect it to be hard.

That's important counsel for new believers, true, but it's a necessary reminder to veteran Christian workers who set out to do anything important in this world for God.

The winning strategy for a pastor, the spiritual coach if you will, has a familiar look to it: going into a stewardship campaign or a building program or an outreach emphasis or any of a hundred other new directions for his church, he sits down with his leadership to plan for every eventuality. Who will do what? What will our approach be? When will each segment be added? What kind of report system and accountability structure will we have? What will it cost and where will the money come from? What have we left out?

And then this one: What trouble can we expect and how can we prepare for it?

There's a certain naivete' that afflicts servants of the Lord, that goes like this: "If the Lord is in it, it cannot fail."

The only problem with that is that it assumes God gets everything He wants. And this would mean the present state of affairs in the world and in the church is exactly what God wants.

Who in his right mind believes that?

Christmas, Politics, and the Internet

1) Wednesday, I stood in line.

The line at Honeybaked Ham in Metairie stretched back and forth inside the store and half a block outside along the sidewalk. The line at the post office in Harahan was only 20 deep, but only two windows were open and each customer seemed to be doing their entire month's mailing. The line at the bank was 20 deep. The line at Piccadilly Cafeteria at 3 o'clock, when everyone thought it would be cleared out, was lengthy.

The 'rush and crush' of the Christmas season is upon us, I suppose. Take a number.

2) The political season now shifts into high gear.

We have this celebrity here in New Orleans. In a city filled with characters, this guy is in a class by himself. I'll not name him for reasons in 3) below, but if I did, many readers would recognize him.

He's, let's say, 60 years old and looks 30, thanks to the wonders of cosmetic surgery. In fact, it's not exaggerating to say he is gorgeous. Broad shoulders, a Hollywood smile, jet black flowing locks, and apparently charm enough to make all the ladies line up and swoon. Several women have had a go with him. He throws weddings to make the queen of a small country envious, renting museums of art or a cathedral and endowing the word 'lavish' with new meaning. And when he and his current wife decide to go their separate ways, he sends her off with large alimony checks, although sometimes only because the judge orders it.

Everything the man does is outrageous. Now, got that?

Sitting across the table from a friend one day this week, I don't know how the celebrity's name came up. He said something that shocked me. "Did you know he has implants in his shoulders and biceps? To make himself look more impressive." I did not know and was stunned that any human on the planet could be so vain as to pull such a stunt.

My friend said, "I've stood close to him and you are knocked over by those broad shoulders. I mean, he is something!"

The naive country boy in me is still trying to absorb this. Why would anyone do this? Why would anyone want this? Why would a medical doctor use his/her skills for such foolishness? What is the point? Why go to so much trouble to look good when there's nothing but silicon behind it? Who does it impress and why would he want to impress such shallow people?

And then I read Jim Graham's column on the current political situation as candidates for the two parties vie for their party's 2008 presidential nomination. See if you don't agree it all ties in together....

Giving Thanks Again

I love the tale that comes out of Benjamin Franklin's childhood. He noticed a daily routine that went on in their household. His mother would take meat from a barrel where it had been salted and stored, would cut off enough for that day, slice it, cook it and serve it to the family. Everyone would gather around the table, bow their heads, and Ben's father would offer thanks to the Lord.

"Father," the young future genius said, "I have a suggestion. Instead of giving thanks for the little portion of the meat we consume each day, why not give God thanks for the entire barrel of meat at one time?"

I heard that story from Dr. Wayne Dehoney of Louisville a generation ago. It came to mind this week as news arrived of his homegoing, only a few weeks after his beloved wife had died.

Dr. Dehoney told the story and added, "Isn't this just like us. We want to cram all our thanksgiving into one day a year, when God would have us to be grateful every day."

We generally think of giving thanks as a duty to other people who have served us or helped us in some way. It is that, but so much more.

Giving thanks is something I do for myself.

So Many Gideon Bibles

Sunday at Port Sulphur Baptist Church, Pastor Lynn Rodrigue said, "Eighteen years ago, I was in a motel in Alabama more miserable than I had ever been. That night, I picked up the Gideon Bible and read it and gave my heart to Jesus Christ."

He said, "I cannot tell you that everything changed for me immediately. The next morning, I got up and went on to work. But I found myself with a hunger to read that Bible and learn what it says. That hunger grew stronger and stronger and I got more and more into the Word."

And that was how he knew Christ had heard his prayer and saved him: the new love he had for the Lord's word.

Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word....He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me." (John 14:23-24)

One chapter later, He said, "Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." (15:3)

In His great prayer of John 17, Jesus prayed, "Father, the words you gave me I have given to them, and they have received them...." (v. 8)

Among the fifty or sixty wonderful cards I received from friends and family members after our Dad's homegoing, at least six said a certain number of Gideon Bibles are being given in honor of Carl J. McKeever. Mom says she has received several with the same message. Together, it probably means a hundred or more Gideon Bibles in Dad's memory will be out there serving the Lord.

A family member who read one of those cards asked, "What do they do with the Bibles?"

One Church Says 'Thanks'

Port Sulphur is a little community thirty miles downriver--and we're talking about straight downriver!--below Belle Chasse, which puts it some 40 miles from New Orleans and at the halfway point of the thinnest, skinniest parish in the state, Plaquemines. I said to my son Neil, "Think of having a county in Alabama that would be 10 miles wide and reach from Nauvoo to Birmingham."

Sometimes one mile wide seems more like it. Driving down state highway 23, you see the Mississippi River on your left and the wetlands just off to your right. Orange farms pop up frequently along the uneventful drive, then once in a while a huge installation of some kind on your left sitting alongside, atop, inside the levee for quick loading onto the river, and dwellings of all kinds. A mansion here, a trailer park there. Names of little unknown towns appear only as road signs with nothing, and I mean nada, in between that and the next town. This used to be a thriving area, but Katrina is not to blame for all the absence of people; the oil bust of the 1980s gets credit for that.

Port Sulphur Baptist Church was one of five Southern Baptist churches in lower Plaquemines prior to Katrina. This church, Buras-Triumph, and City Price churches managed to maintain congregations large enough to carry on ministries. Riverview at Buras and Venice (at the end of the road) were drying up, down to only a handful of hardy souls.

Katrina put them all out of business. Between the hurricane-force winds and the storm surge, almost nothing in this part of the world survived. The churches were gutted and their beams twisted and everything they owned was ruined. Church members scattered along with another million residents of our part of the world in every direction across America. Many are still where they landed and will not be coming back.

The major difference I noticed between post-Katrina Plaquemines Parish and this morning was how clean and neat everything appears. All the destroyed houses have been removed, the litter is gone. A lot of rebuilding is going on and it will be another five years before any sort of normalcy is restored. But it's so much better than it was.

Sunday morning, Pastor Lynn Rodrigue announced to the houseful of worshipers, "God has done a mighty thing for us." We were seated in the newly rebuilt sanctuary, gathered for the formal dedication of this worship center. Behind us and to our left were new buildings which housed Sunday School classes, offices, bathrooms, a kitchen, and the weekday school. Lynn told me recently they're up to sixty students (I think that was the number). He was delighted because, among other reasons, that is the break-even number financially.

Sam Porter, disaster relief director for Oklahoma Baptists, was on hand. He said, "People where I live ask, 'Why would someone rebuild on ground that is below sea level?' I answer, 'Well, someone down there might ask why would you rebuild where you have 57 tornadoes a year? The answer is: it's home!'" (He got a chorus of amens.)

Sam told the congregation, "There's a map in the conference room at the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans with the metro area divided into zones. We Oklahoma Baptists have taken the zone which includes the Ninth Ward, the area around the French Quarter, and Franklin Avenue. Virginia Baptists took this area. But we have been glad to partner with them down here."

Nichole Bulls was on hand from the Virginia Baptist State Convention to accept our appreciation and to offer up a prayer for the healing of this region and the empowering of the future ministries of this church.

What the Voters Said Saturday

I don't think I've ever seen an actual election with real candidates where one won with 91 percent of the vote. That happened Saturday when Newell Normand won election as sheriff of Jefferson Parish. He defeated Peter Dale, chief of Harahan's force.

Normand actually ran the sheriff's office through much of Harry Lee's years as sheriff, we're told, and Harry had groomed him to be his successor, sending him to the FBI schools and such. From all reports, he's an able leader and we're fortunate to have him. Apparently, the electorate agreed.

A political analyst on television last night was awed by the numbers, as were the rest of us. "Even Harry Lee himself would not have pulled 91 percent of the vote!"

In other elections....

Smoke and Mirrors and a Little Honey

First.

A federal judge has refused to stop the demolition of four public housing developments in New Orleans that have been the focus of pickets, prayers, lawsuits, and sit-ins in the two years since Katrina damaged them so heavily and expelled all their residents. Ever since, they have been boarded up, wired off and locked down.

These four projects--C. J. Peete, St. Bernard, Lafitte, and B. W. Cooper--are, to my mind, symptomatic of what was wrong in New Orleans for the last half-century. They were poverty centers, hot-beds of discontent, high-crime areas, and a paradise for drug pushers.

In their place, the city will be erecting mixed income developments to include subsidized housing for the poor at the market rate. The cost of renting living space in New Orleans is through the roof these days.

To be sure, the new developments will accommodate far fewer residents that the crowded tenements they replace. That fact is drawing criticism as well as promises from plaintiffs to appeal the decision of the judge. The next level for this matter would be the U. S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals which meets in our Hale Boggs Building downtown.

Friday's Times-Picayune reports that demolition could begin as early as December.

Second.

The Corps of Engineers has announced plans to close MR-GO. This is the waterway that cooperated with Katrina to flood the Ninth Ward and take so many lives. Residents of that area and St. Bernard Parish have called for its closing ever since, and are celebrating the announcement.

Honor Thy Parents; You Will Soon Wish You Could

Sometime in the early 1970s--before the technology revolution put a camera on everyone's phone and a phone in everyone's pocket--I had some extra money and called my sister Carolyn in Jasper, Alabama.

"I want you to find a photographer and send him up to see Mom and Dad. Tell him to follow them around and take lots of pictures. I'll buy a lot of black and white 8 by 10s from him."

The result is an album of photographs of Mom and Dad, with him on the tractor and her taking him water, her working in the kitchen, and so on. It was not the album I had envisioned, because they knew the guy was coming and dressed up too much for it. I wanted them in everyday clothes, acting normal, looking like they always do. Most of the photos seemed posed, but even so, I'm glad to have it.

That day the photographer said something to my sister I will never forget. "Your brother is so smart to do this. My father died recently and I don't have one picture of him."

And him a professional photographer. I confess to being shocked by that.

In 1979, I had some more extra money. (I get some about once every decade.) On an airplane with a lot of missionary-types--we'd been at some meeting of the International Mission Board--I approached a photographer on the staff and said, "I have $400 to buy a camera. I don't know the first thing about them. What should I buy?"

He and a colleague conferred briefly, then said, "An Olympus OM-1." And that's what I bought.

Over the next 10 years, I took pictures at every family gathering, and every time I went home to see the folks. I shot pictures of our kids and grandchildren, and some of them really turned out well. I learned quickly something that serious photogs know: if you get one really great shot from a roll of film, you have beat the odds.

Anyway, that's how I happen to have a lot of unposed, great photos of my parents and siblings and children and grands today. That camera disappeared in 1990 when someone stole my car from in front of First Baptist Church-Kenner. We recovered the car, but the camera was gone. State Farm more than compensated me for its loss, but by then Olympus was no longer manufacturing that camera. I went to a Canon EOS Rebel--the type with a little Japanese scientist inside. Problem is, I don't speak Japanese. The point of that is I never got my rhythm back for shooting family pictures with this high-tech camera.

And don't get me started on digital cameras. The battery runs down every day or two. I store the pictures, then don't get them printed out and end up losing them.

Okay, enough of that. Then there is one more thing I wanted to mention to you about honoring your loved ones.

Things That Remain

1. "Why do I keep coming to these conventions?" someone said in my hearing. The person next to him started enumerating the reasons. Business of the denomination, information from our agencies, that sort of thing. But I kept the question in my mind. After all, the first such meeting I attended was 40 years ago, and that was in Mississippi. Later, it was North Carolina, then Louisiana. There is indeed a sameness to them, and tons of good reasons for attending. However....

Monday evening as I was leaving the convention center, I bumped into a good friend who had just flown into Alexandria from Texas where he had been in an important meeting. He was bringing me up to speed when a second friend walked up. "I started not to interrupt," he laughed, "until I saw who you were with!" We stood there for 5 minutes chatting, then decided to seek some coffee. The Holiday Inn had just closed their restaurant, someone said there was a cafe down the street and we took off walking. Six or ten blocks later--after doubling back on another street--we found it. The Diamond Grill was just the place.

We sat there for an hour, having dessert and coffee and catching up on each other's lives. And I thought, "This is it for me. This is the reason I come to these things. The fellowship. I need this like a dying man needs his next breath."

2. Here's an idea for a sermon.

Family Pictures

This is Bessie Lowry McKeever, the mother of Carl J. McKeever.
Born 1895 and died 1982. Joe took this around 1980.
She was an incredible and godly woman.

This photo of Carl J. and Lois McKeever with their six children
was taken perhaps in 2005. Front row: Carolyn, Pop, Mom, and Patricia.
Back row: Joe, Charlie, Glenn, and Ronald. (You can see why Carl could
never deny any of these sons! They are all his clones, and
each one a character, as are the girls!)

A Street Car Named Inspire

Yesterday, they kicked off the return of the famous street cars to St. Charles Avenue, doing it as New Orleans always does: with a parade. The cars have been running on Canal Street (from the river to the cemeteries) for perhaps a year now, but this is the first time we've had them back on St. Charles. The run is shorter than before, only to Napoleon, but that still gets Tulane and Loyola students to class, and gives tourists the best ride in town through the incredible mansions of Uptown.

We're told the line will be extended on to Carrollton by next Spring. The ride is $1.25 and a trip down memory lane. To my knowledge--which is limited, of course--New Orleans and San Francisco are the only American cities that have retained these street cars.

I was born in 1940 and can still hear the street cars from Birmingham downtown streets in my mind, going back to the late forties. The sound was so distinctive--the creaking, metal-on-metal shrieking, it was beautiful. Later, Birmingham modernized and went to trolleys, those fore-runners of city buses that ran on electricity by means of overhead poles and hot wires. They were quieter, the rails were pulled up from the streets which made automobile travel easier, but something was lost. Whatever it was that was lost, we still have it, at least on Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue.

When you come to this city, you absolutely have to ride the street car. Admittedly, it's not very comfortable--the seats are wooden planks--but you're doing it for the experience.

I will confess to having sat at a sidewalk cafe' having a late lunch and reading my newspaper while the tourists went by on street cars, taking in the sights of which I was a part. I felt so European.

Leaving Yesterday's Pain Buried

My friend Raymond McHenry tells of Paul McCartney's inspiration for his latest album, "Memory Almost Full." The former Beatle said he saw that phrase on his cell phone and found it a metaphor for our lives today. He said, "I think we all need to delete stuff every so often."

In the last few years of my father's life, his mind began to turn on him and become his enemy. Old hurts and slights which he had either dealt with or had buried decades earlier began to reappear and reassert themselves into his consciousness. On several occasions as we sat and chatted, he brought up the time when he was 18 years old, the eldest of what would become 12 children, and his mother ordered him out of the house. He and the brother just younger than him, Marion, whom everyone called 'Gip,' were constantly fighting and Grandma told Carl to get his things and get out.

"That wasn't right," he would say. "I was doing right, and all Gip wanted to do was have fun and get out of work any way he could, and yet she threw me out of the house."

Not being there, all I knew of that incident was what he related, and I had no inclination to find out any more of the situation. Both Dad and Gip were now elderly, and Gip was a fine loving Christian man living in the mountains of Virginia, and we naturally felt that whatever conflicts they had known in their youth should be left there. On a logical level, Dad knew it too. But there was nothing logical about this bad memory that hounded him and robbed him of his peace.

I tried the logical approach. I pointed out that by age 18 he had been earning his keep for nearly 6 years, and that Grandma knew he could take care of himself. I reminded him that with a houseful of children, she must have been stressed out, and with her two oldest sons fighting, she just wanted some peace and took the quickest route to get it. "If anything," I said, "she was showing her trust in you, that you were responsible enough to leave home and take care of yourself."

Nothing worked.

I made a mental note to keep in mind as I move into the older years that the brain can pull this kind of cruel stunt and unearth old slights long buried and presumably forgotten, and to be on the lookout.

Eventually, as Dad's condition deteriorated in the year before his death, the memory of that old hurt faded and he did not mention it again.

One technique I tried in order to gain some peace for him is worth remarking on here.

For Pastors Only (Like that's going to stop anyone from reading this!)

"Joe, where do you find those great sermon illustrations?"

"I love to preach and teach, but the hardest part for me is the sermon illustration, finding just the right story or quote to reinforce what I'm teaching."

Okey dokey. You've come to the right place, friend. I've got a deal for you, and it's not the Joe McKeever Sermon Illustration Service (which doesn't exist, thankfully) for only a couple of hundred bucks a year. Nope. It's far better than that.

But you have to stay with me to the end. Okay?

1) Martin Van Buren, our eighth president, wrote an autobiography in which he laboriously laid out the details of his life. Unfortunately, the commander-in-chief wrote all those pages without once mentioning his wife.

Now, that's a great sermon starter for Mother's Day or a message on the home. After all, no one is more important in the home than the wife and mother, and yet, let's face it--we take her for granted.

2) Paul McCartney's latest album is titled "Memory Almost Full." The former Beatle says the inspiration came from a phrase he saw on his cell phone. In a recent interview from Paris, the 65-year-old musician said, "It seemed symbolic of our lives today. Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. And it doesn't matter if you're my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often."

You can tell that story in the sermon introduction and then light out in a hundred directions. Think of Paul in Philippians 3 as he forgets those things that are behind. Gordon MacDonald once wrote that he could look at the clutter on your desk and tell the shape you were in spiritually. Uh oh.

I'm two years older than Sir Paul, but in recent years have noticed I have a harder time remembering people's names. I used to have a reputation for being great with names, but it seems that my memory bank is filled. Now, the only way I can retain a new name is to drop an old one!

A pastor friend sent me a note the other day about cleaning out the clutter in his office. He made that into a sermon illustration, making the same point as McCartney's. This very day, my Mom said she and sister Carolyn are plowing through the clutter on the dining room table that accumulated over the last week following Dad's death with the coming and going of so many friends and loved ones. We all have to clean out and throw away sometimes.

Playing with a Full Deck?

Growing up in rural Alabama, I learned early on to listen to preachers with discernment. Mainly, I would hear some of them wax eloquent (or as the kid said, 'wax an elephant') on major sins of our time. Among the mortal sins capable of sending one to hell was card playing.

That's when I wanted to stand up and say, "Oh, come on! Card playing? Give me a break."

We played Old Maid. And Go Fish. And in my teen years, rummy.

Rummy became our family game. Not 'gin rummy.' Just 'rummy.' With our own rules, I suppose. Deuces wild. No betting of course. Nothing, absolutely nothing, going on at this dining room table except great fellowship between family members. For a large family--mom and dad and six children--made up of people who could not in a hundred years manage to utter those syllables 'I love you,' the fellowship and camaraderie of playing rummy accomplished the same thing. We loved each other dearly.

Dad put us up to it. In our young childhood, Pinochle was his game, and he and his buddies would sometimes play it all night long in our living room. If they gambled, I couldn't tell it.

But somewhere along the way, he taught the older children how to play rummy. Once he found out we could play as well as he could--almost--the war was on. This was not the old man humoring the little children by condescending to play with them; we were a match for him in every way.

I told you this family is populated by characters and only characters. The nature of the foursome would change every time someone swapped seats with a sibling. Ronnie is quiet and intense; Glenn is funny and laughs loud. Patricia is intense, Carolyn funny, and Charlie--well, Charlie was all of the above. "I couldn't rummy with a rummy machine!" I recall him saying, and have smiled at that ever since. Me, I don't care who wins. I love the fellowship of the give and take, the foolishness, the competition, between these whom I love with all my heart.

Oh, for the record, Mom did not play. Not once. She hovered nearby, however, making sure everyone had popcorn or ice cream or a glass of iced tea.

My sons grew up playing rummy and have taught their children the game. The 10-year-old twins can hold their own with anyone in the family.

So, why do preachers no longer call card-playing sinful? If I had to guess, it's because they finally looked around and discovered that sinfulness is a matter of the human heart, of rebellion against God, of selfishly using, abusing, and misusing another human being, of neglecting the things of God. But to play a harmless child's game with those you love, nope. Not in a hundred years is that a sin. In fact, it blesses us so much, it ought to be taught in Sunday school!!

Not long ago I ran across a sermon from a friend which he preached a quarter century ago, in which he was declaring dancing to be of the devil. That's another one that usually got lumped in with card-playing in those days.

Now, I doubt not that playing cards while gambling or any kind of lewd dancing is wrong and leads the participants into all kinds of trouble. So, this is not to deny that. Anything that leads people into sin is a form of sin.

Stay with me here a moment.

Overwhelmed

We just returned from Alabama. The family all knows about the nearly 70 "comments" you have left on this blog and several have urged me to thank you here. My sister Carolyn is printing them out so Mom can read them.

I started out trying to respond to each of them, and I may yet. Add to those another large number that bypassed the "comments" section and came straight to my internet mailbox. Then, tonight when we checked the mailbox in the front yard, a dozen or so cards were in the three-days' mail.

Some of our dear friends called us, and others sent flowers. And several even attended the service. That was most overwhelming of all.

Thank you. So very much.

Monday, I borrowed Carolyn's computer and typed the program for the service. On one side, we just photocopied the obituary, on the right we listed the order of the speakers (Pastor Mickey Crane, my nephew Steve McKeever, our sister Patricia Phelps filling in for our brother Glenn who decided he could not do this, me, and then our brother Ronnie; interspersed with two songs each from our three Kilgore cousins--Johnny, Mike, and Rebecca--and our cousin Dr. Bill Chadwick), and on the back side a poem I wrote for Dad several years ago called "The Last Mantrip," comparing the coalminers' ride out of the darkness to the top of the mine and daylight to the last trip we make in Christ, leaving behind the darkness of this world and arriving in His glory. It's not great poetry, but Dad liked it and even had it printed in the National Journal for the United Mine Workers Union. That was very special.

Anyway, I typed it and then found a printer who could print it out at that moment so we would have it for that evening, to give out at the wake and next morning at the service.

Monday noon, while waiting on Mom and Patricia to return from getting their hair done in Double Springs, I sketched out a drawing of Pop's empty chair and colored it, and decided to run off copies to give to special friends. The printer said, "No, I don't have a color printer." He told me who did, but promised it would cost an arm and a leg. That's when I decided to run by the First Baptist Church (of Jasper; which is where Carolyn lives and the wake would be held).

I Am Well Aware...

I am well aware that when our parent dies, it feels like no parent has ever died anywhere in the world, not like this. So, thank you for indulging me in this.

I know that when people plan their own funeral services, they make such elaborate plans you would think it was the ruler of a sovereign nation with unlimited resources. Death has such a finality about it, it feels as if we should do something really significant. In our case, Dad left no instructions about his funeral. The obituary, prepared by my siblings, says Tuesday's service will be held by--get this now--Pastor Mickey Crane, mom and dad's longtime preacher, but also by Rev. Ron McKeever (my big brother), Glenn McKeever (one year younger than Ron, and not a preacher, but eloquent about life and death and those he loves), me, and Rev. Steve McKeever (Ron's eldest child). Bring your lunch.

When you read the blog about "My Father," notice the large number of comments from friends old and new, near and far, some dearer than brothers and some whom we've never met. I am overwhelmed. In addition, almost that many friends who read the blog skipped the "leave a comment" section and sent e-mails directly to my address. I'm trying to answer each one.

This Sunday morning, my 13-year-old grandson Grant will accompany me on the 7 hour drive to north Alabama. The rest of the family comes in Monday for the Tuesday funeral.

I plan to take notes on some of the Carl McKeever stories that are told and retold over the next 2 days, and post some of the more interesting ones here. Just to make you aware.

Saturday night, my Mom said, "It feels so lonely." My niece was on her way down to spend the night with her. I said, "After nearly 74 years of marriage, I'm certain it does."

We will appreciate prayers for Mom.

My Father

Can you be thankful and sad at the same time?

Carl J. McKeever died this morning.

That is the saddest sentence I have ever typed.

He was born April 13, 1912 in the Slick Lizard community just outside Nauvoo, Alabama. His mother, Bessie Lowry McKeever was 17 and his father George was 20. Carl was the first of their 12 children. George would die in his mid-40s of a heart attack, leaving Bessie carrying the yet-to-be-born Georgelle.

Carl dropped out of school in the 7th grade to help earn a living. He carried water for a planer mill for two years, then went to work inside the coal mines, working for his father, doing a man's work for a man's wages. For the next 35 years, he worked the mines in North Alabama, Virginia, and West Virginia, without missing one day from accident or sickness. That's not to say he did not have an accident or wasn't sick; it's more a tribute to his work ethic. We found out after his retirement from disability that he had broken his back in those difficult years of the 1940-1950s and had just gone on to work.

In 1930 when Carl met Lois Jane Kilgore at the New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, two miles north of Nauvoo, everything changed for him. Her family life was the essence of stability. This was a church-going, salt-of-the-earth farm family. John Wesley "Virge" Kilgore and his wife Sarah Noles Kilgore had nine children--Lois was in the middle of the pack--each one a winner and each devoted to the others. Carl did a good thing when he married into this family on March 3, 1934.

Early on in their relationship, Dad made a profession of faith and was baptized in the creek that runs between the church and the Kilgore place, three miles up the Poplar Springs Road. He joked that thereafter the creek was called Blackwater. Which it is.

I will not attempt to try to capture in a few words all that this man was. He was a contradiction on many levels, in many ways. Until his middle years, his language was profane (but not obscene; there's a difference) and he had a temper. When he disciplined his six children--I'm number four--it became an experience you would not soon forget. I would not say he had a love for the bottle in those early years, but a weakness for it would be closer to the truth. He never missed a day of work, always took care of his family, but Mom used to say he could come within a mile of a still and become intoxicated. Thankfully, he gave up even the occasional drink nearly 50 years ago. But I still remember some of those times. You don't forget them.

Luke 14:14 -- Worth Treasuring

One of the ways I know the Lord is sending me a message is when I'm reading a familiar scripture and suddenly, something I'd never seen jumps off the page and grabs my attention. That happened Thursday morning of this week.

In a passage where our Lord is urging His audience to turn their focus from the rich and well-to-do toward the needy and helpless, Jesus says, "When you give a party (reception, banquet), do not invite those who can return the invitation. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." These people do not have the means to repay you, Jesus says, however, "you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

That line stood out in bold print: "You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

All the bells went off inside. What a great promise. Jesus looks into the distant future and sees a time when debts will be paid, when rewards will be handed out, when the faithful will receive the recognition God has promised.

The line from Proverbs comes to mind: "He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord and He will repay him for his good deed." (Pr. 19:17) Jesus is foreseeing that precise moment when God pays the debt in full. It's a thrilling thought.

Later that morning, a pastor friend in Kentucky emailed me about his work with a commission seeking to curtail gambling in that state. They also deal with other moral issues, including the control of alcohol and drugs. He sent some pretty disturbing statistics, enough to discourage many a volunteer in this line of work.

I wrote him back that he must not get discouraged, that anything he can do to protect children and families from these scourges is a great work. That's when Luke 14:14 came to mind. "You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." I said to him, "You may never know this side of the judgment just how many lives you save, how much good you do, how many children you bless." He agreed that it means working by faith, knowing you're doing the work of the Lord and trusting Him to use it.

That's tough, as we both know so well.

I Will Pray Anyway

(A little something based on the 7 portions of Luke 18)

"Pray or quit," the Lord said. I don't pray easily--it's an uphill effort to stop my pace, quieten my mind, and force my thoughts toward God--but I certainly do not want to weaken and quit. I will pray anyway.

Jesus told a story we call the parable of the unjust judge. Every Bible teacher I know has his own twist on this--some saying it teaches persistence, some that it is giving a reverse image of reality, that God is not like the judge, we are not like the widow, and prayer is not about breaking down God's reluctance but laying hold of His willingness--but I know one thing for sure.

Sometimes I feel God is not listening to a thing I say. I will pray anyway.

The Lord told of two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a self-righteous Pharisee who walked up and addressed God as an equal, the other a bashful tax-collector too ashamed to come near or look up. Both were praying, but Jesus said only the one who admitted to his sin made contact with a forgiving God that day.

Sometimes I feel self-righteous and sometimes unworthy. I will pray anyway.

When the parents brought little children for Jesus to bless, the disciples were protecting Him and hurrying them away, lest the noise and hubbub disturb the Lord. He put a stop to that and held the children up as the very models of what God wanted in each of them.

I'm usually like the erring disciples, and often not very childlike. I will pray anyway.

A man we call the rich young ruler approached Jesus with the question every soulwinner lives for: 'What must I do to inherit eternal life?' When the Lord told him, he didn't like the answer and went away sad. That set off a discussion among the disciples over who can be saved and who cannot. Surely, they had thought, someone so obviously blessed by the Lord as this man had a leg up on the rest of us. Turns out he didn't and that his wealth was actually an obstacle to his faith. Who knew?

Sometimes I trust in the wrong things to make me right before God. I will pray anyway.

What We're Up Against

District Attorney Eddie Jordan says he has resigned, but the Secretary of State's office says no one has notified them, and nothing happens until they get the word. Meanwhile, Keva Landrum-Johnson has presumably taken over the office. She's a highly respected prosecutor, we're told, and a hire of the former DA, Harry Connick, Senior.

Meanwhile, no one still has any ideas as to how the DA's office can pay the $3.7 million judgment as a result of Jordan's discriminatory firing of whites and hiring blacks. He's gone, but the damage is done, and the bill has to be paid. With the talk of asset seizure, the newspaper points out that taking over desks and computers in the office of the district of attorney will not come close to raising that amount of money.

The NBA Hornets began their first full season in New Orleans since Katrina, and the last I heard, they still had lots of empty seats to fill. Only 7,000 season tickets have been sold, leading some to question whether this city can support more than one professional sports team. Pastors have started receiving promotions in the mail, encouraging them to bring church groups to the games. Point of Grace, the popular Christian trio, will be featured one evening when they hope to attract lots of our folks.

Those who keep up with the goings-on in New Orleans or who get their N.O. news only from this blog will recall the lawsuit against the police force of the West Bank town of Gretna. In the awful days following Katrina, when the city was being featured on national television--exposing the misery at the Superdome and Convention Center, the chaos inside and out, people drowning in their homes, and first-responders rescuing people from their housetops--some residents of New Orleans who were trying to flee the city were turned back from crossing the downtown bridge (proper name: The Crescent City Connection) leading into the Algiers section of New Orleans and on to Jefferson Parish. Members of that police department and deputies from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's office closed the bridge to pedestrians.

Back then--and ever since--the defenders of this completely irrational act insisted that the West Bank had nothing to offer the people of New Orleans. I find that incomprehensible beyond belief. The West Bank had something New Orleanians needed badly--high, dry ground!