Behind the Levee

Lost Down Payment

2012-01-18T14:00:00.001-06:00

Her name was Love, this 12-day-old infant, and she was not supposed to be occupying space on the planet.

Baby dedication services during this holiday season included her, Love J’Dore, quiet in her mother’s arms before the congregation.

I introduced the baby, youngest among a dozen dedicated, and prayed for her and her family along with the other children and parents standing before us.

Her family promised that day, a week before Christmas, to teach her the truth of the gospel, and our church promised to help. This is how our church follows the example of Mary and Joseph when they came to the house of worship to present and name their newborn baby, Jesus.

Baby Love’s mother made an appointment and a down payment on an abortion when she learned that she was carrying this child. Brittnay, pregnant for the third time, felt that she could not endure another pregnancy nor care for another baby. She made her way, heavy-hearted, to the clinic in her neighborhood at the designated time for the abortion.

The clinic was closed permanently, she discovered when she arrived. She turned away from the shuttered clinic thinking about these things—and very aware of the tiny life inside her womb. She decided that this was a message from God to her and that this child growing inside her was important and precious. She gave that baby the gift of life, carried her full term, and when the baby was delivered, weighing almost 7 pounds, she named her Love.

I learned these things later, after Baby Love had already been presented to the church and after we all had spoken our vows. This child, at risk of termination before she drew her first breath, remains in my thoughts and prayers. We presented her to the Lord that day of dedication. We promised to help her mother and grandmother.

She made it into the world, Love did, but what will happen now? Will we keep our vows to her? If we keep our promises, maybe she will fulfill the promise she is to us.

Baby Love has been entrusted to us, her family, friends and community. Our responsibilities only began when her mother chose to cherish her rather than abort her. If she is ever to know the full import of her name we will need to nurture her in our playgrounds, schools, and clinics. She must sense a surrounding presence of protective care as she becomes aware of her own being in our world.

Our community is rife with violence in this new year. The cries of bereaved parents and siblings and friends rise up to heaven, and Baby Love lies in a crib in the middle of it all. Only despair and hopelessness compounded by fear and sorrow could bring such wanton slaughter to our streets. Somehow we have forgotten the promise and wonder in every new life.

We push back the darkness when we receive with faith and hope the life that God gives from the first flicker to the last dart on the EEG. The heavy responsibility accepted will be returned with immeasurable joy.

Life is a divine gift. Our own existence—and that of those around us—is a sacred trust. We announce this to our friends and family members each time we receive with joy the inconvenience and expense of a new life. Embrace each human life—the least, the little, and the lowest—and you bless us all.

Our entire community must respond to the hopelessness and despair that fosters the violence. Every single person can do so by reaching out to the frail, the infirm, and the most at-risk among us whether captured in the amniotic fluid or imprisoned by the culture of death.

If we give them love, these least among us, we unleash in them the promise of life. We crush the lie of hopelessness that ignites and feeds the hate.

Love gives its rich blessing and reward. And love makes its perpetual demand. Love cannot sit idly by while others struggle and fall. Love makes a way where there is no way. Love never turns away, never turns aside, never turns hopeless.

Love never fails.

Brittnay spared her baby, named her Love, and took on the expensive assignment of lifelong concern and care for another person on the planet.

Nothing in human experience is better and stronger—and filled with more promise—than this. Among the spectrum of human endeavors and occupations, the greatest is love.

Let Nothing You Dismay

2011-12-19T11:46:00.001-06:00

The death of a family member in and around the holiday season may accentuate the sense of loss that families feel. But the death may occur at any time of the year and change our experience of the holiday season. In some ways, we miss our departed loved ones most on these special days.

This year the sense of loss is very personal. It will be my first Christmas without my father who died December 2.

Many of us grew up celebrating Christmas with rich family traditions and wonderful meals together. We cherish vivid memories of father bringing in the Christmas tree and mother preparing the meal. We left milk and cookies on the fireplace Christmas Eve, woke up early, ran to the Christmas tree, and there discovered the gifts that Santa Claus left us overnight.

Christmas is all about the children, and the kids know it—and love it. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, turn their attention to creating pure delight one magical morning.

The gifts were unwrapped each Christmas morning at the Crosby house in a storm of flying paper and bows, squeals and shouts. All mysteries were uncovered in 15 minutes, and the rest of the morning was a leisurely float through the package debris sporting new outfits and playing with the coveted gifts that topped the list.

Hence the giant hole that the death of a dear one creates in the family at Christmas. Their chair is vacant, their role unfilled. I will never again see my father at the family Christmas gathering, and the thought of it makes me sad.

I know this is not a loss for which I will find a substitute. I must now adjust my expectations of the holiday season. However, I want my words and deeds to foster peace and faith within the family, and I intend to fiercely protect and preserve for younger family members the surprise, delight and joy of Christmas.

An old man named Simeon is part of the Christmas story though he shows up eight days after the birth of the babe in the stable. He expressed to Mary and Joseph a perspective on death that ought to be considered by every grieving heart at Christmas. Simeon took that tiny infant in his arms and said, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace” (Luke 2:29).

The benevolent attention of God is a central truth of Christmas. Our Creator watches over us with tender care. He intervenes on our behalf. He intends to do us good, not harm. This perspective makes the comfort and cheer of Christmas possible. Simeon expresses it by addressing God as “Sovereign Lord.”

Simeon’s hands are wrinkled and spotted with age as he holds the infant. He knows that his own death is near. That is fine with him now. He is ready to be dismissed. He has worked like a soldier at his post. He has been faithful and attentive. He has endured the hardships that life inevitably brings. He is at peace with his impending departure.

This reminds me of my father, so full of faith and song, ready to be dismissed, living in the promise. We sang to him as he was dying. For hours we gathered around the bed, mother lying by his side. We sang to Dad because he was the one who taught us to sing, to embrace life as God’s good gift.

“Peace on earth,” the angels sang at the Christmas birth announcement in the fields of Bethlehem. It is not a pipe dream, this peace. It can prevail in the believing heart that embraces the goodness of God even in the process of dying. Simeon was ready be dismissed in peace by the God who announces peace to the world at Christmas and creates that peace day by day and year by year as we learn to trust him in both the wins and the losses, the good times and the bad.

Death at Christmas is like everything else at Christmas. It is bathed in the light of God’s grace and set in the context of his promise. “All is calm, all is bright.”

Sunbeams Down the Path

2011-12-13T13:57:00.001-06:00

Our lifelong friends, Mac and Mary McDermott, were killed in an automobile accident near Gatesville, Texas, shortly after they left my father’s funeral. Mary died at the scene, and Mac died yesterday never having regained consciousness. Please keep their family in your prayers as they plan memorial services.

Mary was a young teenager in my father’s first pastorate in central Minnesota. She lived with us during a brief stint in Maryland.

The family met Mac, a soldier stationed at Fort Bliss, when we moved to El Paso. He was a member of the church where Dad was pastor. He helped my father build our home on the outskirts of El Paso from the stones and gravel they found in the arroyos.

My match-making mother invited Mary for an extended stay in El Paso and pushed her up the stairs at a fellowship meeting, insisting that she meet Mac. They fell in love, had a whirlwind romance, and were married for 51 years and had four children.

I saw Mary for the first time in nearly 50 years at the 60th wedding anniversary of my parents last year. Mary is the one who bought me the sailor suit I was photographed wearing as a five-year-old.

I saw Mac and Mary in the crowd as the family exited First Baptist Church of Gatesville after the memorial service for Dad. I stepped up to them, put both my arms around their necks, and hugged them close. I said, “Thank you for loving us when we were little. It made a big difference.”

Think of the ways we touch the little ones. This very Sunday we have 18 children who will be part of the parent/child dedication service. Our foster care ministry will bear fruit for generations on this earth as well as forever in heaven. The Early Learning Center and Bible study, missions, and music programs for the children are some of our most important work. Our efforts to bring Peace on the Playgrounds focus on the needs of children.

We send sunbeams far down the path when we love the little ones.

I Can See My Father Singing

2011-12-12T09:12:00.003-06:00

My father, Russell Bryan Crosby, took off on his last adventure the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He and Donna, his bride of 61 years, packed the car and left without telling a soul. “I’m dying,” he told mother. “Let’s see if I can breathe better where it is hot and dry.” They left before 6 a.m. and were nearly to Fort Stockton in far West Texas before anybody knew. Mother was behind the wheel, and Dad was navigating with waves and nods.

They traveled to El Paso, admired a rare rainbow, and stayed with a man who lived in our home as a teenager in trouble. Then they headed north into the mountains on a course that we often traveled when I was a boy. They crossed the high mountain pass at Cloudcroft, N.M., ate some fresh apples from an orchard, and admired the towering peaks draped in snow. After 1,350 miles on the road, they made it back to the family Thanksgiving gathering.

My mother knew it was crazy for them to travel so far when he was so sick. But she told us all how delighted she is that they made that trip, their last fling together.

I was singing with my family around the deathbed of my father just a few days later. Mother was lying beside him holding his hand, and he was breathing but no longer responding.

I leaned over and thanked him for making me sing when I was a boy. Dad insisted that I sing with my brothers, even though I protested loudly, and he taught me how to do it. Song became such a great part of my life.

Singing together as men around the deathbed of our father was such a healing, helpful, joyful, and sorrowful experience.

Dad gathered us boys when we were preteens. He stood the four of us oldest ones in a row with hymnbooks in our hands. He taught us how to sing the harmonies. He did it patiently, persistently, until we got it, learned it, and loved it.

We sang together for ten years, my brothers and I, and it was formative and magical for each of us. We grew in our musical skills beyond Dad’s ability to help, and that was okay with him. We picked up instruments that Dad never learned to play. We wrote songs. Dad pulled us together, focused our energies, and helped us understand the power and beauty of song.

I picture Dad standing behind the pulpit, head thrown back, eyes half closed, singing about Jesus with a passion that no one could miss. His love for the Savior never waned through all those years. Right up the last, he wanted to sing and talk about Jesus.

I hear him calling us together for suppertime with a baritone voice booming through the hall: “Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God are fed. He invites his chosen people come and dine.” We joined him in his song until, through the years, it became a chorus of a hundred voices. It is one of the songs our family sang as friends passed by the coffin in their last tribute to our father.

I do remember my father preaching, of course. He towered above us as children, delivering God’s word in creative and interesting ways with vivid pictures and stories that made the text come to life. He instilled in us a love for God’s Word. We learned it by rote from the time we could talk.

I see him, Bible open in his lap, sitting on a stump in the forest with sunbeams dancing around his perch, getting his Sunday sermon ready. My father meditated deeply on the Scriptures. He always had a thought he was toying with, an intriguing notion, a perplexing puzzle or paradox. I picture Dad, choked with emotion, carefully retelling the story of his text.

I also see my father heaving heavy stones to shoulder height, building our rock house in the desert of El Paso, always accompanied by tiny people under foot.

My earliest memory is a train ride with my parents. I remember standing next to the bench seat on the train with a bag beside me. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are the trips we took as a family. By the time I was 16 years old I had been in 27 of these United States.

We had several station wagons during my boyhood. The two I remember best are a big red Chevrolet and a smaller tan Buick. “How did so many of you travel in that station wagon?” I have been asked.

My reply: “You’d be surprised how many kids you can get in a station wagon if you stack them right.”

My second earliest memory is a snapshot from the hallway of the parsonage in El Paso. I woke up in my father’s arms as he carried me from the living room to my bed. The memory of being suspended and secure in his embrace stayed with me all these years. This memory may be the one that captures best how I understand and experience the Heavenly Father. Maybe trusting God comes easier when you know the strong arms of a loving earthly father.

My father’s life was all about Jesus—serving, exalting, and pleasing the One who went to the cross and accomplished such an amazing rescue for sinners like us. He experienced a powerful spiritual transformation when he asked Christ to save him as an 18-year-old. That experience was the emotional and spiritual centerpiece of his life. He found his personal foundation in Christ alone, and he anchored his family in Christ as well.

Needy Others

2011-11-29T10:25:00.000-06:00

God gives good gifts to us. In fact, every good gift comes from God (James 1:17).

We misuse God’s good gifts. The Bible actually has a word for the twisting of the good—“iniquity.” God does not prevent the squandering or evil use of his good gifts.

God continues to give to us despite our misuse of his good gifts. In fact, we are surrounded every day by the good gifts of God who provides all things for us to enjoy.

I cannot fathom this amazing grace of God though I experience it every day. I “wonder how he could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean” (from the hymn “I Stand Amazed in the Presence” by Charles Gabriel).

I have discovered this kind of undeserved love to be the greatest and most powerful force in my life. God sends his refreshing rain on the just and on the unjust, as Jesus said. This truth about God compels us to love our enemies and do good even to those who do evil toward us (Matthew 5:45). In fact, the good giving of God to unjust people is a core teaching of Christ and the Bible.

Sometimes I imagine myself a deserving recipient of God’s amazing grace, and I sense my own generosity withering like paper in a furnace of pride. Those in need around me I imagine as less deserving than myself. I find no good reason to transfer my hard-earned and well-deserved resources to those around me with such glaring moral failings.

I want to follow in the footsteps of the divine Giver, but I hesitate in fear that my own good gifts will be wasted or misused. Acts of charity sometimes appear to be counter-productive. How can I give in this environment of uncertainty and sin?

Love is tough as well as tender. All parents experience this truth. All human giving occurs from one needy person to the other. The needs of the giver may skew the giving so that it harms rather than helps. This is no fault of love. This is just more evidence of the caregiver’s limitations and needs.

The gift of good intention may be misused through the moral failings or limited understanding of the recipient. No caregiver can be absolutely certain that their expression of love will not be twisted for some evil purpose.

We do not escape this potential moral failure by giving to institutions. Individuals and institutions alike are susceptible to the temptations of greed and sloth.

I myself am comforted by the moral accountability of the recipients of charity. The giver of the gift is a moral partner with the recipient. I feel both sides of this responsibility as the pastor of my church. I will give an account on judgment day of my own generosity or lack thereof. I will also give an account of how I used the gifts of others.

The act of charity involves two parties, and each has their own unique opportunity and responsibility. Neither one can be held morally accountable for the other.

The closer the gift is to my own hand and eyes the more likely I am to evaluate correctly the impact of my gift. If I give my money where my hands are working, I know with some measure of comfort what my gift will do. We encourage our working volunteers to support with their money what they support with their time and energy.

Sometimes we feel compelled to respond to urgent needs far away. But we should always request—and even require—minimal financial accountability from those institutions we support including budgets, financial statements, and financial endorsement by watchdog groups (e.g., the seal of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability).

The loving gift is not minimized by asking hard questions about its use—it is affirmed and enlarged. Resources are limited. Therefore we are obliged to evaluate carefully the direction of our giving in order that we may do the most good with what we have to give.

May this holiday season find us generous of heart, active with helping hands, and wise in our loving gifts to those in need.

Thank You is Something You Say

2011-11-21T17:23:00.001-06:00

I worked as a high schooler on several turkey farms in central Texas. In the 1970s farmers in Mills County raised hundreds of thousands of turkeys mainly for the eggs. They shipped those eggs all over the world.
Sometimes a turkey would be injured, and the owner would want to cull it out of the flock. On one such occasion, the owner suggested that I kill a turkey with a stick and take it home to my family for Thanksgiving. I was eager to do so. I grabbed a stick about six feet long, ran after the turkey, and took a big swing, breaking the turkey’s neck. But then I realized, somehow, that I had taken too big a swath, for there were two turkeys down, killed instantly by my single blow. I felt terrible and wondered what was about to happen. The owner was amused rather than upset. Knowing the size of my family, he suggested that I take two turkeys home for thanksgiving. Is it correct to say that the Lord provided abundantly for our Thanksgiving that year?
God gave a calendar of events to his people in Leviticus 23. He scheduled seven events annually for his people. They are called “feasts.” These seven feasts are celebrations of the bounty and goodness of God. God invites his people to be his guests at the feasts.
My thanksgiving is threatened by anxiety and fear. It’s not that I am ungrateful. It is, rather, that I have no emotional energy left for gratitude because fear consumes it all. I am grateful for what I have but fearful that I will lose it.
My thanksgiving is also threatened by forgetfulness. I too often forget the grace of God in which I stand. When I overlook grace, I also overlook gratitude.
These observations are intended to help preserve and cultivate the spirit of gratitude:
First, thanksgiving is something you do: “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving” (Psalm 100:4). Thanksgiving was an event in the OT. It was an activity that humans engaged in—the giving of thanks. Jesus gave thanks over and over again on many different occasions including the night in which he was betrayed.
Among the Jews, the table blessing is always a blessing of God rather than of the food. It is not so much, "Bless this food," but "Blessed be God who gave this food." The little prayer, "God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food" captures the essence of the Jewish table blessing and the blessing as Jesus spoke it.
We are commanded to give thanks. Perhaps your situation is very bleak and you feel that you cannot give thanks. I suggest you set aside your feelings for a moment. Just do it. Do it in obedience. Give thanks to God. Think of things to say thank you for. Deliberately, meditatively give thanks. Feelings follow obedience in this matter of thanksgiving, not the other way around.
And thankful is something you are: “Be thankful unto him” (Psalm 100:4).
Those first pilgrims in Plymouth Colony almost had a day of mourning in 1621. They had suffered through a terrible winter and lost many of their friends and family members. Their little village was surrounded by the graves of children and parents and grandparents who had not survived. Mourning seemed appropriate. Instead, though, they turned their hearts to gratitude and celebrated a day of thanksgiving.
The first time that the Thanksgiving holiday was uniformly celebrated throughout these United States was in 1863 by presidential proclamation. The country could easily have observed a day of mourning then as well, given the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans during the War Between the States.
Every day can be a day of mourning or a day of gratitude. Perhaps a little of both is mixed into every day. But we must decide if we are going to receive each day as a gift or as a burden. Will we focus upon our loss or upon our blessings? It is up to us.
The Lord’s Supper could have been a meal of mourning. It is about the shed blood and broken body of our Lord. Instead, though, it is called the “cup of thanksgiving” which we drink, the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving.”
Gratitude is a sign of spiritual health.An ungrateful spirit is a sure sign of spiritual sickness. Note these words of the Apostle Paul from Romans 1:21: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Futility is the companion of the ungrateful spirit. You will never know such a downward spiral until you sink into self-pity and miserable contemplation. That sort of thinking is the true bottomless pit.
Darkness is the companion of the ungrateful spirit. Their foolish hearts were darkened when they refused to give thanks. Gratitude is the declaration that life is a gift to be received with thanksgiving. Darkness settles on the soul which cannot see life as a divine gift.
My father had a farm on Hogg Creek near Crawford, Texas, not far from the ranch of President Bush. One evening I was sitting in a deer stand with my rifle when a flock of buzzards came in and landed high up in the trees above me. There were dozens of the nasty birds, and I was disgusted with them.
Just before dark, though, a flock of wild turkeys came noisily through the woods. They decided that they liked these trees, too, and began to flap their way into the lower branches and limbs. They startled the buzzards, which took flight and found another perch for the night. Maybe your Thanksgiving turkey will run off the buzzards!
One more observation about Thanksgiving:
Thank you is something you say: “for the Lord is good...” (Psalm 100:5). God deserves to be thanked out loud.
The spoken “thank you” touches the speaker. Jesus said “thank you” so often to his father in Heaven, as noted in the Gospels. Think of the thousands of times that Jesus said thank you that are not recorded. It was a habit of his life to speak his thankfulness to God.
I find that my spoken words are important to my own well-being. Sometimes I have to talk to myself. The spoken word has a power to touch and change even the one who speaks.
The spoken word also touches the hearers. Others about you will be touched and encouraged by your verbalization of gratitude. This is one reason why public prayer is so important. The public prayers of Jesus were full of thanksgiving. Offer a public prayer of gratitude at your family gathering this year. Do not lunge into the meal without first pausing and acknowledging the great God who has given every good thing to us.
You will never know the full impact of your prayers of gratitude upon the hearts of your children. Children are inclined to be grateful and to offer their prayers without inhibition unto God. Yet when they hear your gratitude they learn that God is glorious and that all of our lives we are dependent upon him. They learn the proper posture for living.
So speak out loud that “thank you” to God this Thanksgiving. It will bless you and your family and friends. And it will bless the Eternal God who made all things for us to enjoy.

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

2011-11-14T09:47:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is the only official holiday which we celebrate which is strictly of Christian origin. It has been from its beginning a day of turning to God and giving thanks for his goodness.

Gratitude is a central Christian virtue, indispensable for those who wish to be spiritually and emotionally healthy. We cultivate gratitude on a daily basis by a consciousness of God’s grace extended to us without limit. The reality of God’s forgiveness and bountiful provision for our eternal future is reason enough to give thanks “in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

The holiday itself prompts us to seek and follow the will of God. Giving thanks is “God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). The family and friends will enjoy a special sense of God’s presence in their group and in their lives as they give thanks to God for his wonderful blessings.

I suggest that you treat Thanksgiving as a celebration of the goodness and bounty of God--as a Harvest Celebration, so to speak. This is practice of long-standing among the people of God. You can do this in your gathering of friends and family in several ways:

First, make the reading of Scripture a part of the family gathering. I suggest reading one or more of these passages: Psalm 100; I Chron. 16:7 12, 23 36; Psalm 105:1 7; Psalm 118:19 29; Psalm 136:1 9; I Thess. 5:12 24; and Phil. 4:4 13.

Second, rehearse the wonderful works of God within your own family. Give testimonies of God's goodness around the table.

Third, sing around the table a song of thanksgiving such as the Doxology, Count Your Blessings, We Gather Together, Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart, or Thank you, Lord, for Saving My Soul. If your group will not sing, try quoting the Doxology or another familiar hymn.

Fourth, make much of the bounty upon the table, acknowledging it as a gift from God. Millions of people in our world have never seen such a feast as you will enjoy this Thanksgiving season.

Fifth, consider making a special offering to the Lord your God in connection with Thanksgiving as a concrete expression of your praise and gratitude.

Finally, the spirit of this holiday requires prayer. When your family and friends gather for a feast, someone in the group should offer a prayer of thanksgiving. While this may be a little unusual for your group, it will likely be well-received by all present on this day of gratitude.

This celebration of God’s goodness will lift our spirits, turn our thoughts heavenward, and fight back the powers of darkness that always seek to creep into our families and our own hearts. We do well by everyone around when we give thanks.

Overlapping Smoke & Rain

2011-09-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

My rain gauge caught 11 inches of rain already, and I am still trapped inside by trains of thunderstorms. The choking smoke from a wildfire in a marsh in East New Orleans combined with the rains of Tropical Storm Lee to make for an interesting backyard experience. Only in south Louisiana where God never completed the separation of water from land do such disparate disasters overlap.

I thought my house was on fire the first time I smelled the smoke. The ceiling fan in the small alcove outside my back door apparently sucked in the smoke. I searched the attic, garage, and every nook and cranny looking for flames. Finding none, I headed out into the neighborhood on my bicycle. A neighbor was the first to inform me of the fire in the swamp. After that it became front page news.

Marsh fires smolder in the peat moss below ground as well as in the reeds, bushes and trees. Drowning such a fire requires a lot of water. At first the smoke was captured and tamped down by the falling rain of Lee. Only after I recorded a full two inches of rain in my rain gauge did a visit to the backyard smell smoke free.

Every region endures some of nature’s surprises. Blizzards and landslides do not threaten us who live behind the levees. Marsh fires and tropical storms, however, occasionally disrupt life as we know it here below sea level. Rarely in my years here have these two, fire and rain, been mixed to create such a curious vaporous swirl.

We are living through a lesson of divine providence. Lightning started the great fire that burned our eyes, irritated our throats, and sent many of us to the doctor looking for relief. No human can take credit for that electrical bolt from a cloud. Yet I wonder how many nutrias, natural enemies of our levees, perished in the marsh fire? Maybe more than thousands of hunters could bag in our recent state-sponsored nutria hunt.

And the tropical storm which suddenly emerged over warm Gulf of Mexico waters and doused the stubborn fire was likewise beyond our power to create. Yet it did us a service by suffocating the flames.

We all complain about the weather, and I am sure we will continue to do so. We wish we could have sent TP Lee to Central Texas where 10 inches of rain would have provided great relief from a drought that threatens the very fabric of their agricultural industries. Had we been able to sell this storm, Texas would have paid top dollar for it, as one of my Texas brothers observed.

Towers of swirling smoke and rain wrap an impenetrable mystery beyond our sight and thought. No aircraft can invade its eye nor any radar uncover its path. Like the ancient sufferer Job we must confess, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3).

A sense of wonder and awe should grip us as visibility drops and we pass through smoke and mist. This curious blend assaults our senses and our comprehension, and we are forced to acknowledge the limits that we so often ignore.

Mountains may stand guard over human presumption and cast their shadows upon the feeble lights of human habitation. But no one on the planet senses better than we flatlanders what capes the Almighty casts over all our comings and goings.

We bow before the Power hidden in smoke and rain and seek to plot the coordinates that help us safely navigate the storm. We brace ourselves for the next natural wonder that will test our dominion of the planet—and our camp on this expansive delta.

The unconquered tumult displays design, power and beauty. Though we cannot fathom its depths nor scale its heights we must enjoy the adventure that makes our sojourn here always rewarding and surprising.

22 Principles for Leadership While Navigating Change

2011-07-27T15:01:00.001-05:00

(Presented at the Georgia Baptist Convention Music Conference, FBC Snellville, July 22, 2011)

1. Be Future-oriented, but informed by your past. Change happens more rapidly now than at any time in human history, and it is not going to slow down. When you are riding in a buggy it is one thing. But driving at 70 mph requires always keeping your eye on the road ahead.

2. Be indigenous. There is no point in being an “embassy” in the midst of your culture. Speak the language of the culture: “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19). Do it in such a way that a lost man “will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!” (1 Cor. 14:25).

3. Be Evangelistic. Always highlight the good news of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

4. Know your congregation. A “First Baptist Church” is not usually a church plant. You are working within parameters.

5. Do everything as well as you can do it—excellence.

6. Use a worship team to process, analyze, gain feedback, and plan the worship including the messages.

7. Love your people and be determined. Your love will do more to build unity and help people through transition than any arguments you may come up with. Especially in regard to worship, people are dealing with feelings not logic.

8. Listen. People will say that you do not listen if you fail to do what they tell you to do. But listen anyway. Listening is important because you learn things. It also tells people that you value them and love them.

9. Be honest. My leadership of worship is not about hearing God speak from heaven: “Sing hymns” or “Use guitars.” I am on my personal pilgrimage. I am fallible. I make mistakes. I am doing the best I can with the people God has given us to provide worship that brings us into God’s presence.

10. Be who you are, not who “they” want you to be. You will wear yourself out trying to be somebody you are not.

11. Give people permission to experiment and to fail. Some things we do only once and scrap them.

12. Use the gifts of your people. Equip the people for works of service. Every minister is an equipper.

13. Be faithful to God’s Word. Preach the Word. That is and should be the main event in worship.

14. Emphasize prayer. Call people to the front of the church to pray. Include prayer in all of your meetings. Keep up your personal prayer life.

15. Do the little things. It looks overwhelming when you take it all in, everything that has to be done. But sit down at your desk, pick up that telephone, and begin to make the calls that are your priority.

16. Cultivate a climate of peace—do not be anxious. Your anxiety is communicated to those about you, and it does not assist the Holy Spirit in his work.

17. Develop Rhino Hide. People are going to criticize you no matter who you are or how talented. You want to remain sensitive to others while learning how to go on joyfully and peacefully after hearing criticism.

18. Be the leading worshiper.

19. Stay for awhile. You cannot lead a church through change if you leave as soon as you hit choppy seas. Some things come with long tenure that come with nothing else.

20. Have the wisdom to know when to compromise so that you can keep going forward. You will not get everything you want every time.

21. Don’t covet your friend’s church or his worship leader or his choir or his facility or his budget or his praise team or anything else about your friend’s church.

22. Count your blessings every day.

Whoever believes should not panic!

2011-06-22T13:54:00.001-05:00

A lama stood in the main wading pool on the creek and refused to move even when our vehicle splashed muddy water on his shaggy coat. So Janet and I took the four grandchildren downstream a hundred yards and turned them loose where no Peruvian beasts of burden stood guard.

The two wandering lamas should not have been on the farm this spring. They belong to a neighbor who bought them as a breeding pair when prices soared and left them mostly unattended when the market collapsed.

The lamas, together with a rattlesnake, two raccoons, a skunk, and a curious jack rabbit, were part of a menagerie that fascinated the grandkids between picnics in the creek bed and wagon rides through the pastures. The most frightening moment came, not with wild beasts, but with the herd of Dorper ewes and lambs who thought we were about to feed them. They surrounded the wagon, black faces bleating loudly for food, and scared the children half to death, especially Jackson, age 5.

Jackson’s rendition of John 3:16 should calm our nerves: “…whoever believes in him should not panic but have everlasting life.” Substituting “perish” with “panic” may not convey the same meaning, but it stays true to the intention of faith. Panic is generally the emotional response when we have lost control of a situation. Faith informs all situations with this truth: God is in control.

The birds, said Jesus, have a lesson to teach us. Failing to sow or reap or store their food in barns they still enjoy the provision of the Father in Heaven. Therefore, “do not be anxious” (Matthew 6:31). Believing is the cure for panic.

Next time your heart takes off without permission and your startled body starts to hyperventilate remember these words from Undine Zengel, a relatively new believer in our church:

It is an amazing gift to be in God's Kingdom here on earth and to feel like one belongs no matter what the physical circumstances. Clinging to the living Word shields from all of life's storms so that they do not destroy us even if they do some damage. There is a part they can never reach.

Whoever believes should not panic.

Fathers & Peace on the Playground

2011-06-15T11:14:00.001-05:00

Thousands of children growing up in our community are fatherless. Many have experienced the death of their biological fathers, a very common situation in pockets of our population. One coach working in a high crime area of the Upper Ninth Ward was absent for two weeks while on vacation. A boy on the team asked the other coach, “Is Coach Jared dead?” For these young boys who have lost so many men in their lives, a two-week absence provokes such thinking.

The first pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, who is called the brother of Jesus, wrote that “pure religion” was “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). Scholars think it very likely that Joseph, the husband of Mary, died when Jesus and James were still children. In such a case the offspring may suffer what James, who knew what it meant to lose your father, called an “affliction”—oppression and distress.

This condition is most poignantly illustrated by Hagar and her young son Ishmael, banished and abandoned by his father Abraham, weeping in the desert, full of fear and confusion, looking to die.

Children who struggle under the distress of fatherlessness are in crisis. They need the intervention and involvement of good men willing to help fill the gap. Opportunities abound on the playgrounds for such surrogate fatherhood.

A team of volunteers from our church tried to start some positive activity on one of the playgrounds in New Orleans. Local gang members looked on this activity disapprovingly and sabotaged the lights to discourage gatherings and cover with darkness their own crimes and misdemeanors.

These playgrounds, open and green, are strategic spaces in the battle for the streets of New Orleans. They represent all the common spaces we share as a community. At one time they were the hubs of healthy neighborhoods. Many adults cherish great memories created on those playgrounds. That was the intention behind their creation.

Historically the men of our community have claimed the playgrounds. They must now be reclaimed if their neighborhoods are ever again to foster the safe environments and healthy relationships that strike at the roots of violence and crime.

The playground that looks unkempt and abandoned may actually be occupied, but not by positive role models and healthy attitudes. A playground not utilized and energized by fathers and other men with good intentions may serve a purpose diametrically opposed to the original intent.

Fathers—and all those willing to stand in for absentees—must rise from their recliners, find their baseball gloves and basketballs, and foster fun and peace on the playgrounds. Instead of shaking our heads over the condition of youth in our community, let’s start shaking their hands, learning their names, and teaching them how to dribble, pitch, and hold their tempers.

Some day when they look back upon their childhood those fatherless among us will give thanks for the men with steady hands who addressed the wounded hearts they did not know they had and became like dads to them.

This Father’s Day we remember the men who held us with strong arms, taught us to throw a curve ball, helped with vocabulary and algebra, and provided for us when we were young. They were not perfect, but they are giants in our minds. All our lives we may return the favor by caring for kids. Now that is some pure religion.

Thoughts on my 15th anniversary in New Orleans

2011-06-08T15:57:00.000-05:00

First Baptist New Orleans moved into the current church facility seven years ago this coming Sunday. The only place I ever worshiped longer than I have worshiped in our new facility is down at the old church on St. Charles and Napoleon. Together these two houses of worship have been my preaching point and pastoral assignment for 15 years.
These 15 years have been exhilarating and tumultuous. Relocation was itself a tremendous undertaking that required enormous financial and human resources. The emotional cost of relocation was perhaps its greatest price tag.
We had scarcely settled into the new facility—less than 15 months of occupancy—when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and our city, including our church neighborhood, was flooded and plunged into darkness. We returned to worship at the new facility seven weeks after the storm. We used a large generator to run the lights and fans until electrical power was restored to our facility three months later. We often worked from our kitchen tables until telephone and internet services were restored almost one year after the storm.
The annual hurricane season stirs up for many of us a host of unsettling memories. We lost our friends, our businesses, our homes, and our way of life in that terrible flood. We choked on the dust from ten thousand demolitions and gagged on the rancor of rotten meat from every freezer at the curb. We sank exhausted into borrowed beds week after week, commuted a hundred miles to work and school, and led and fed waves of volunteers who donned hazmat suits and helped us clean up the awful mess.
We set up structures and initiatives in the wake of Katrina that endured for the years of clean-up but are rendered obsolete by progress. We transitioned from normal to chaos to disaster relief to clean-up to rebuild. And now we are transitioning again to an emerging new normal.
This emerging era in New Orleans is what I want to talk about today. I want to do so using a metaphor that I often used after the storm—the open door. Before Katrina all the doors were closed. After Katrina, all the doors were open.
The crisis opened all doors. Some of those doors are closed now that the emergency is past and life is returning to normal.
Rev. 3:7-13: “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

The Student is Not Better Than the Teacher

2011-05-10T16:31:00.001-05:00

A friend told me last Sunday, “I want to take the country back.” He meant by this, I think, that he wanted to return to a time when the United States seemed to operate within a Protestant ethos.

My own sense of Christianity and the church is that we will always be a minority in a hostile culture, even when we think we are not. I never experienced a culture that I would call "Christian" in my upbringing. This includes my Bible-belt experience at a school in Central Texas in the late 60s. I was shocked at the behavior and conversation of my new "Baptist" friends. I couldn't believe they claimed to be Christians.

My family and our faith always felt like a minority view everywhere we lived. So the desire to turn back the clock to some previous era when America was Christian and we prayed and read the Bible in public schools does not resonate with me. I experienced public education hijacked by the local Catholic establishment. They wanted nothing to do with Christianity as I understood it. The local priest opposed our Bible study and warned students not to attend even though the cafeteria served fish every Friday and everyone came to school with ash crosses on Ash Wednesday (except me).

I am still working on the idea that the church is responsible for Christianizing the culture. I don't see this approach in the ministry of Jesus or the Book of Acts. I see Jesus as almost nonpolitical. He didn't join any of the existing political groups. He did not seem to have a social agenda that I can identify. His "render unto Caesar" remark seems to represent the summation of his political activism.

Instead, he was focused on preaching the good news and gathering together a group of people who would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. The gospel always has social implications that are to be lived out and preached. He announced his ministry in Luke 4 as focused upon the blind, the broken-hearted, the captive, and the poor. He healed the sick and cast out demons. He did not arm himself or his followers. He never took up the sword. He did not befriend the powerful elite of his day. He did not engage in social engineering.

Our Baptist heritage is bifurcated at this point. Some people tend to be more Calvinist in their approach to culture. They want to organize a Christian society, as Calvin tried to do in Geneva. That experiment most historians would judge a failure.

Other Baptists tend to follow the Anabaptist heritage of our forefathers. This is the heritage of a "free church in a free state," the notion that being the authentic church is the most powerful social strategy we can implement in any culture.

The Book of Revelation may in part be seen as a philosophy of history. You have the Beast trying to devour the people of God. The people of God are mistreated, hunted, and murdered. But their blood cries out for justice and their tears are remembered by God. God himself brings about justice when he intervenes in human history, defeats the devil, and brings a "new heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness."

This is not a very hopeful view, I know, in terms of this world. And it does not energize a social reform movement, so to speak. So I am trying to rethink the eschatology of the Bible and see how I might correct my perceptions.

Chuck Colson has suggested that we have a "cultural mandate" in the Bible that goes hand in hand with the Great Commission. He finds support for this, not so much in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but in the doctrine of Creation. In this view, everything belongs to God and should be under his dominion. The doctrine of creation may be where this fits, but I have always been "pre-millennial" about this matter. God made the world, and he will bring it under his authority at the end. I would be more satisfied with an understanding of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that calls me to engage the principalities and powers of my time, including the political structures that are unjust and ungodly. Some biblical teachers have taken this approach.

I believe I am a citizen of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the human society of which I am a part. My citizenship in heaven is of far greater importance to me. My citizenship on earth is a stewardship. It is a gift to live in a nation where government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Therefore, I should be participating in this government as a Christian responsibility. I suppose this is my major motivation for political action--the doctrine of stewardship.

When I think about using the political process to further my Christian agenda, I develop a sobering hesitation. The sword of the Spirit is an extremely sharp and fine instrument. It will discern even the intentions of the heart. The sword of the magistrate is a very blunt instrument. It will strike often where it is not intended. If I choose to use the sword of the magistrate to accomplish the will of God, I may be disappointed with the result. I may discover that my efforts to Christianize my society have only resulted in confusing people about what it means to be a Christian. People may begin to think that they are Christians if they maintain certain political viewpoints or vote for a certain party. That is part of the danger of seeking to use coercive power (the government) to impose my viewpoint on the culture. Authentic Christianity cannot be coerced. So whatever I achieve in the culture is a "middle axiom," somebody said, not a perfect manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

I guess part of me wants to say to Christians, What do you really expect? They hung Jesus naked on a cross. You think now that you're going to get the power to execute? "A servant is not better than his master. A pupil is not better than his teacher. If they did this in a green tree, what will they do in the dry?" I expect the culture to scorn me, ridicule me, persecute me, and marginalize me. I don’t want to be a doormat. But I don't live under the illusion that somehow I am going to receive accolades and the Key to the City because I stood for righteousness and truth (though I did receive the Key to the City from the Mayor one year, accidentally). More likely I will be tarred and feathered or run out of town.

These questions remain before me: What will lift the light of the gospel higher in this city? What is the most effective way to bring people to Christ? How can I do a better job of making disciples for my Lord? How to I express faith through love (Galatians 5:6)?

The Things Mothers Teach Us

2011-05-02T15:23:00.000-05:00

King Lemuel decided to share with the world the wisdom he had garnered during his ascent to the throne. These “sayings” of King Lemuel are the things “his mother taught him” (Proverbs 31:1). Restated this means that the king learned his really important lessons from his mother.

Maybe Lemuel’s mother was unusually wise and articulate. But I suspect that the king learned these things from his mother for the same reason that many of us found our mothers to be our best teachers: mothers love their children.

One night I was privileged to handle bedtime for the three preschool daughters of my eldest daughter. As I was tucking them in they started to plead, “Back scratch! Back scratch!”

“Okay,” I said, and I scratched their backs, but I could not perform the task precisely as their mother did, and they all fell asleep feeling slightly deprived.

Mothers scratch your back out of love, not duty. They hold you close, comb your hair, clean your ears, and wash your feet just because they love you. They are often our most powerful teachers, not just because they teach us when we are very young, but also because they teach us out of this context of unselfish love.

The things of which you think you are certain climb in number while you are a child. But if you are emotionally healthy and intellectually active, sometime in young adulthood that number of supposed certainties begins to decline.

The things which remain as personal certainties after the gauntlet of adolescence, education, marriage, parenting, bereavement, conflict, and grand-parenting are mostly the lessons your mother taught you. These sureties are solid ground for decision-making, relationships, and quality of life on the planet.

The king’s mother taught him to use his power for the good of others, to abandon selfish indulgence and focus on caring for his subjects in need. She cautioned him about wine and women which she said are not the prerogatives of kings but their downfall.

The king’s mother cared for him when he himself was helpless and needy and could not speak for himself—when he was a baby. That’s what mothers do. They encourage such behavior in their sons and daughters because they know it corresponds with fundamental truth and goodness.

This Mother’s Day we should rehearse the things our mothers taught us by word and example. Maybe the principles and virtues we learned from them will aid us in our current dilemmas, conflicts, and challenges. A mother’s tenderness, gentleness, and generosity should not be lost on those who now have opportunity to speak for the powerless and destitute.

If our mothers are still among the living, we should count ourselves blessed. They deserve a heartfelt thank you and a big hug if we can give it. If they have passed from this life we are still blessed to have known them and known their love. A moment’s reflection about that remarkable woman on this special day might bring a smile and a laugh. Remembering her we might even see the way forward to a higher road, a deeper love and a better life. Her selfless love continues to teach us our most important lessons.

Crosby Prediction

2011-04-15T10:32:00.001-05:00

I predict that Harold Camping, the elderly radio talk show host now predicting Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, and the end of the world October 21, 2011, will adjust his predictions to future dates after doing further calculations on May 22, 2011.

I believe my prediction will most certainly take place because “no one knows the day or the hour,” according to Jesus (see Matthew 24:36). Since Camping is working from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and the account of Noah’s great flood, I assume he can and will come up with calculations to support new dates for the world’s demise.

William Miller, a sometimes Baptist preacher, predicted the end of the world no later than March 21, 1844. He adjusted his prediction after the fateful day passed without incident, lighting on numerous dates in 1844.

Edgar C. Whisenant predicted that the Rapture of the church would occur September 13, 1988. As an American pastor, I received his free booklet, “88 Reasons,” which I keep as a more recent example of misguided apocalyptic fervor. Whisenant was insightful enough to realize that his date had passed without incident, so he then predicted September 15, 1988; then October 3, 1988; and then again selected a day in 1989, 1990, 1991, etc. By then no one was listening.

Camping is not insightful enough to realize that 1988 passed without apocalyptic incident. He is declaring that the church of Jesus Christ was abandoned by her Lord and conquered by Satan on May 21, 1988. His own nondenominational, un-churched and unaffiliated status protected him from this frightful prospect.

This is Camping’s second go-around for predicting the end of the world. His book “1994?” postulated the end of days in 1994 with a tad more humility. He thought at that time he could be wrong, but all uncertainty has passed now.

I first encountered Camping’s date on a huge downtown billboard in Accra, Ghana. Seminary students here in New Orleans are discussing the prediction, and various Christian ministries have gotten on board with Camping just as Trinity Broadcasting Company partnered with Whisenant in 1988.

Expectation of the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the age is an essential part of orthodox Christian theology. It should keep Christians future-oriented and eager to see God’s unfolding plan. It gives hope beyond human strength and wisdom. And it provides confines for human history that exalt the role of God in the world and set all human effort in the context of God’s sovereign rule.

Setting dates for the end of the world is a truly bad idea. While it reminds us that Christ could come any day, it also discredits our message of the Lord’s return and disappoints countless saints who assume the prediction to be true. I have personally witnessed the flagging enthusiasm for the gospel among those who thought they knew when the end would come and were disappointed.

The prophet profits from the prediction in countless ways including fame and fortune. The average Christian who is caught up in the zeal of the Lord’s return leaves the whole ordeal with a bad taste in his mouth.

Judgment Day is coming because justice is an eternal quality of our eternal God. May 21, 2011, is a great day to be expectant of the Lord’s return and continuing your faithful routines. If Christ’s return should catch you in the classroom instead of on the mountain, he will be finding you faithful.

Pitching Your Tent Toward Sodom

2011-01-26T13:38:00.000-06:00

Abram gave his nephew the option: Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right… (Genesis 13:9). Lot chose the more densely populated, fertile plain while Abram stayed in the mountainous region.

Abram surrendered his rights in order to make peace. This displays the character of Abram including his quiet confidence that God will keep his promises. It is also a model for us in relations with our neighbors. Those who are near to us may be dear to us or troublesome to us or both. Often we do good for all parties when we are willing to stop demanding our rights and let the other person make the choice. This is not always a solution, but it is one worthy of contemplation when conflict arises.

Lot is arrogant and greedy. He chooses the fertile Jordan River valley. And it is fertile indeed. In a dry and thirsty land the banks of the river are precious to all. Lot sees an opportunity to multiply his riches, and he takes advantage of his gracious uncle.

Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom (Genesis 13:12). These cities in the plain of the Jordan River have a well-deserved reputation. They are uncommonly wicked cities full of rape and murder and ruinous sexual activity.

New Orleans is not Sodom. God could not find 10 righteous people in Sodom. The church of Jesus Christ is alive and thriving in New Orleans with tens of thousands of committed believers. Many obvious differences could be added to this single but very significant distinction between the two cities.

Some cities are plagued with uncommonly high levels of destructive behaviors. We who live in New Orleans wish it were otherwise and are working to change it, but anyone can do the math. Knowing the moral failures of our city, we seek to protect those most vulnerable and at risk, especially the children.

Sometimes well-meaning people target especially wicked places for their witness and Christian work only to fall prey to the very people they were trying to reach. It is dangerous business pitching your tent near Sodom.

The story of the church of Jesus Christ in and around New Orleans includes worldwide ministries that made terrible blunders. This is not unique to our city, but we ought to note it for what it is. Some of the great churches that have been built in the last half century here have suddenly collapsed. Sometimes financial folly has been the culprit. Sometimes sexual sin has crept into the church of Jesus Christ. Pastors who aimed to live holy lives became victims of the aggressive sin around them. Scandals have arisen and been reported in our media on more than one occasion. And mighty men and women of God have fallen and pulled the church into ruin.

Such temptations come to all Christian leaders. My father taught us about Lot when I was a boy. He said that sometimes it is better to be on the mountain with Abram than to be on the plain with Lot. That is, sometimes discretion and prudence demand that we distance ourselves from evil places and people rather than seeking to be involved in changing them. Christian leaders must find their personal place in the tension between being in the world but not of the world, loving the world and not loving the world.

Lot is not deciding himself to be wicked and cruel as he pitches his tent toward Sodom. In fact he will later be characterized as “a righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7). Just because you live in or near a city does not mean that you endorse or participate in its wickedness. In this age of the internet, anyone who lives in any city, or in a rural setting, has easy access to pornography and depravity. Some people revel in the anonymity which the city affords, that people they know are not always looking over their shoulders. They are maskers without masks, taking forays into sin in the delusion that darkness will forever cover their tracks.

Relationships of accountability are of utmost importance for those called to work and witness in the great cities. Families and friendships must be counted dear and held close. Personal devotions should be meticulously maintained. Ethical boundaries should be drawn tighter rather than looser when pitfalls abound.

The cities have always attracted missionaries and pastors. Paul wanted to carry the gospel to Rome. Timothy became pastor in Ephesus, James in Jerusalem. The great cities are moved by our love and our witness, our prophetic word and faithful behavior.

The population of America has moved from majority rural to mostly urban in my lifetime. Most of the people who need our love and witness now live in cities. Put on the full armor of God, take up the sword of the Spirit, and join a team of believers with white-hot passion to reach the cities for Christ.

Choose Life

2011-01-21T15:22:00.001-06:00

A woman came to see me recently who was struggling with guilt about an abortion she had many years ago. She was worried that this might be an unforgiveable sin. She also wondered if current events of great difficulty in her life might be punishment from God for the abortion.

Some things are very hard to get out of our heads and hearts. Some things stay there forever.

An abortion is one of those things that is very hard to get over and get past. It is a traumatic, frightening event fraught with moral quandaries. It often occurs during a woman’s youth or young adulthood. Traumatic events in our youth tend to cast long shadows on our lives.

Going through months of pregnancy and giving a child up for adoption is a difficult, life-changing experience as well. Unlike abortion, however, adoption is life-giving rather than life-taking. While abortion provides no laughs or smiles, adoptions are literally full of joy, as our bustling church nursery with adopted, healthy babies can attest. I held a baby in my arms this past Sunday who is the product of a young woman’s choice to go through pregnancy and adoption rather than abortion.

I have experienced two reunions recently where adults who were given up for adoption as babies have searched for and found their biological parents. In both of these cases significant relationships have developed between mother and child mingled with lots of joy and grief. That is not always the outcome of these reunions, but sometimes it is.

As a matter of moral conviction, I urge young women in crisis pregnancies to choose life. Death is the solitary human experience from which there is no recovery. The law of reciprocity dates from the beginning of human social order. Death brings death.

Does God forgive the sin of abortion? Absolutely and completely. For any penitent sinner, God’s grace is greater than all of our sin.

We think we are boxed in, ruined by bad choices. We think we are walking dead-end streets, that our failures are final and there is no way out. We are full of despair, imagining that our lives are already over. We are walking in the darkness, and we imagine death to be our only choice.

The truth is something else. As long as we have the breath of life, we have new possibilities before us. There are no dead ends in grace. Every breath is a divine gift.

Will the woman be able to forgive herself? That’s another story. Can she get past her abortion? I am not sure she can. We do not really ever get past the impact of great loss. We integrate that loss into our minds and hearts. We work to do this in a healthy way. Sometimes we mature emotionally and spiritually in the wake of sin and death. Sometimes our grief becomes a ball and chain from which we seek liberation but without success.

I have been bouncing babies on my knees for many years, my own children and grandchildren and hundreds of others. I have walked the path beside those dealing with crisis pregnancies and witnessed nearly every imaginable outcome. No path is painless.

I prefer to deal with the mess that life always creates rather than the darkness and sterility of death. In my mind, abortion is another kind of violence that rips up life and leaves deep scars. Life is never easy, but it always deserves our respect and protection and in the end is the best choice.

Keep Those Resolutions!

2011-01-04T10:58:00.000-06:00

Small considerations frequently prevent people from making very important changes.

This truth has been circling in my mind since the New Year began four days ago. Annually, people resolve to do some very important things—the top five or so changes that they want to make in their lives—and almost always abandon them during the course of the year. Statistically, New Year’s resolutions have a short life span.

A study completed recently affirms the truth we all sense. Our bad habits are woven into patterns of behavior. The bad habits give us instant gratification while doing the right thing pays off only in the long run.

Take for instance all those who have resolved to lose weight this year by implementing new exercise regimens and new eating habits. For some, these lifestyle changes have become life-and-death matters. Yet they are likely to abandon these practices in the short term.

Health issues often prompt our new resolutions, but spiritual issues are also at the top of our lists. We resolve to attend worship each Sunday. We resolve to read our Bibles and pray daily. We resolve to give regularly and generously to our church. We resolve to get involved in helping the less fortunate.

These resolutions, too, are at high risk. The new toys we think we need compete with our charitable contributions. The rush of our morning schedule, promoted by hitting the snooze button repeatedly, interrupts new devotional regimens. Those extra minutes in bed on Sunday morning loom large when the alarm goes off.

Someone celebrated yesterday that they had made it through three days of daily Bible readings. I think we must do this. We must celebrate the small victories of our new intentions because the small considerations are the things that stall us, thwart us, and stop us.

My understanding of a holy life comes into play here. I am wondering if you and I can really overcome the desires of the flesh—more sleep, unhealthy food, higher tech toys—by just willing to do so. Is our will strong enough? We all consistently underestimate the power of temptation. We walk into a situation that compromises our good intentions expecting that we shall have the will power to say no. And we stumble and fall.

Holiness begins with a focus on God, not laws or rules. If faithfulness to God prompts us to make lifestyle changes, then we have a good beginning for true transformation. Our faith is powerful and will give us strength to maintain our commitments.

We need to help one another in making these changes. Friends and family members who respect and support our good intentions are less likely to parade the chocolate and ice cream through the den when NCIS comes on TV. If our friends are always dragging us back into destructive behaviors we may need to find some new ones. We are much more likely to secure the new life we hope for when our support group is cheering us on, not ridiculing and undermining us.

And we need to make the little changes that support our new directions. Discipline and will power must be at work from the moment we start our day, not just at the breaking point. Place new items on your nightstand. Change the sound of your alarm. Purge your refrigerator and stop purchasing “for friends” the food you should not eat. Set up automatic drafts for the charities you want to support. Leave the credit cards at home. Pack a lunch.

We establish new goals—or new commitments to old goals—at the beginning of each New Year. We are more likely to achieve these lifestyle changes if our goals are faith-based, supported by friends and family, and facilitated by a full array of small tweaks in our busy lives.

Christmas is Revelation

2010-12-20T11:23:00.001-06:00

A man hears from God. This is revelation. He responds in obedience and begins to order his life according to that revelation. He writes down the revelation. He builds an altar to the God who has addressed him. He tells his family and friends what he has heard from God. That is the beginning of religion, something which can be described by a human observer about the activities of another human being.

Most people do not want to simply be part of a religion. They want to know that the religion has a divine and supernatural reality behind it, that it is based on revelation.

The author of the Book of Hebrews starts his treatise by reminding the readers of a long history of God’s revelation among them: In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways (Hebrews 1:1). “Hebrews” are the people who sprang from Abraham, the father of the faithful. The ancient root of the word “Hebrew” may mean “to cross over,” referring to Abram leaving Ur of the Chaldees, crossing the Euphrates River, and coming to Canaan. This journey was in response to a word God spoke to him. God told him to leave Ur and go to this new land. This word from God was a revelation to Abram. The God of the universe spoke to him and wanted to be his friend. Abram responded by believing God and doing what God told him to do.

Thereafter followed a long succession of men and women who heard from God and sought to be faithful, people like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Ruth, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Every Sunday these first readers, followers of Jesus, heard readings from the ancient texts of Moses and the Prophets.

The God who had been speaking spoke again. This in itself is not something new. He is the God who speaks as well as the God who acts. This time, however, the nature of the revelation is qualitatively different. In contrast to how God spoke in the past through the prophets, this time he spoke to us “by his Son.”

The long history of prophetic speech is what Judaism is about. It was legal in the Roman Empire to practice the Jewish religion. This business about God’s Son was a new idea. And it was not legal in the Roman Empire to adhere to that religion. The author of Hebrews went right to the sticking point—Jesus Christ, his person and work.

THE NEW REVELATION IS FAR SUPERIOR TO THE OLD ONE: But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe (v2)

Anyone would prefer to deal with the Son rather than other messengers. When you are dealing with the Son, you are dealing with the Father. The new revelation is superior in every way to the old one because it is all about what the Son unfolds.

As would be typical with a Father-Son relationship, this Son is both the HEIR and the AGENT. He is the HEIR because the Father is giving everything to his Son. To use a Saints metaphor, this is like Tom Benson passing on the Saints to his granddaughter, Rita Benson LeBlanc. The Son is also the AGENT of the Father’s activity—“through whom he made the universe.” Rita Benson is stepping into the limelight as the new Owner. Everyone is going to have to deal with her now. The Son has been the agent of the Father for all Eternity. This was so even before the universe came into existence. So he holds this position of HEIR and AGENT for time and eternity.

The Son is described here in three other ways (Hebrews 1:3-4):
1. The Son is the RADIANCE of God’s glory. The glory of God RADIATES from the throne room like the sunlight radiating from the sun, and that RADIANCE is his Son. We have never seen anything like this on Planet Earth. We have heard second hand from the prophets. But we have never before heard from the Son himself who is the Father’s very essence.
2. The Son is the EXACT REPRESENTATION of the Father’s nature. We have had glimpses of God in the past. We have pieced together the revelations that came through the various prophets and patriarchs. We have a faithful representation of the God who made us and loves us, but it is done in PENCIL, in black and white, and the resolution is not too sharp.
Now comes the Son. He is the revelation of God in living color, in HD 1080p and Dolby sound. He is the 12 megapixel revelation of God.
3. He SUSTAINS ALL THINGS by his Powerful Word. The Son is the power which sustains this universe and holds it together. The very fabric of being would unravel without the Son holding it together.

This is the New Revelation, far superior to anything that came before, which makes us Christians instead of Jews or pagans or atheists or agnostics.

The Son’s work is described in one half sentence, “He had provided purification for our sins” (v3). This is what the Son of God accomplished. He came to deal with sin.

Then he sat down at the position of power in the throne room of heaven. He sat down because his WORK was DONE. This is the meaning of “it is finished” which Jesus uttered from the cross.

And this is the meaning of Christmas. God has “in these last days” spoken to us through his Son who revealed the very nature of God, died on the cross for our sins, and sat down at the center of the universe having completed the work he came to do.

And so

2010-12-10T11:05:00.001-06:00

You’ve got to get the love.

You’ve got to notice it, perceive it, and turn it over in your mind. You’ve got to get it.

Christmas at its core is about love. The world has gone on off on this theme and tried to own it. What the world does with love is turn it into things. The commercialization of Christmas was inevitable once the world ran with it.

The world gets Christmas wrong because they suppose it’s about our love—our love for our kids and our spouses and our fiancés.

That’s not the love at the core of Christmas. If we make our own love the core, Christmas loses its power and purpose, its hope and its joy.

We do not celebrate at Christmas the limited, flawed, temporary, fickle love that humans extend so feebly to one another. If every kiss really begins with Kay Jewelers, as the jingle implies, then “love” is for sale at the mall. You can get that kiss if you purchase for her a big enough diamond. This is stinking thinking, as someone said. It takes the idea of love, empties it out like an old box, and feels it with wispy nothings.

Christmas has been separated from the love that started it. It is almost unrecognizable now in many homes and almost all stores. You have to dig to find even a hint of the root of Christmas.

Christmas has “Christ” in it for a reason. His love, not ours, is the reason for the season.

We will have opportunities to sit down with various groups through this holiday season. We should consider it our privilege and responsibility to remind others from whence this celebration comes. God demonstrated his love for us by sending his One and Only Son. Especially among our children and grandchildren this truth should be known and reinforced.

God’s mission was to save us by sending his Son. Our mission is to make this truth known at home and around the world. Christmas, properly understood, is the heralding of God’s amazing love.

Join that angelic chorus in proclaiming the Savior’s birth in Bethlehem so long ago.

Ruby Bridges Went to School

2010-11-14T07:10:00.000-06:00

Ruby Bridges Went to School
By David E. Crosby, Pastor
First Baptist New Orleans
November 14, 2010

Little Ruby Bridges walked into William Frantz Elementary School in the Upper Ninth Ward the morning of November 14, 1960, escorted by four U.S. marshals. She and Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne at the McDonogh 19 Elementary School in the Lower Ninth Ward were the first black students after the federal court order mandating the end of segregation to attend a previously all-white elementary school.

Mandated integration was a windfall for private education in the South. Thousands of small schools, nonsectarian as well as religious, sprang up in the wake of the court order. De facto school segregation continued in many communities. Public education in the South sunk to new lows through these 50 years in part because white people who sent their children and grandchildren to private schools controlled public school boards and were often highly resistant to any school tax increases and marginally invested in the public school system.

The evident resistance to integration, not only in education but in all aspects of society, has been wide-ranging and far-reaching in its effect. Sunday morning worship continues to be the most segregated hour of the week in America. This reality seems to be changing as a new generation rises in our churches.

Race itself is a dimension of almost every discussion about education, economic development, criminal justice, religion, and medical services in our community though it is frequently unmentioned. As with gender or religion, our ethnicity is so thoroughly a part of our identity that to discuss it is to become intimate with and vulnerable to strangers in the room. Board rooms and court rooms are not generally peopled with good friends and family members. Who wants to open up such portals to the soul among those who do not really know you and probably do not love you?

Finding a vocabulary to discuss race is difficult. We fumble for words because we do not want to offend or deceive the listener, but we seem doomed to do one or the other. If we say what we are thinking we run the risk of broken relationships. If we skirt the real issues we propagate relationships built on mutual misunderstanding. Words have a life of their own once they are spoken. Detached from their context, intimate and heartfelt comments may be twisted and reinterpreted for political advantage. So we fall back into the safety of silence.

We are surrounded by fear. We are fearful about race itself and about the discussion of it. We fear losing ourselves as we open our minds and hearts to new relationships with a broader reach. We fear the loss of traditions and heritage. We also fear the loss of existing support structures and friendships should we step into the discussion about race relations. Words and actions have consequences in all communities.

Half a century has passed since that integration order, and we continue to work on the same problem. We struggle to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, even the very good ones. Jesus’ ancient tale about the Good Samaritan makes ethnicity the centerpiece in the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Our own “Samaritans,” whatever despised ethnicity that might be, we see as villains instead of heroes, subjects of suspicion and fear rather than admiration and respect. We who seek to follow Jesus tumble and stumble in a stuttering effort to obey this Great Command.

We are making progress. Many of our churches are more diverse than they were 50 years ago. The world is gathering at our doorstep, of course, and population trends have introduced new realities.

But attitudes have changed as we have drunk from the same fountains. The end of separate restrooms, restaurants, and schools was a beginning for greater common ground. Closer proximity tempered unreasonable fears and increased the cross-cultural dialogue.

The way forward is in part a personal and persistent effort at friendship, cooperation, and communication that recognizes and values our individual histories and emphasizes the shared concerns of living in the same space. Peace on earth is a dream that happens inch by inch, not mile by mile. Sometimes success is seen not so much in distance covered but in baggage set aside.

Today we acknowledge and lament the terrible injustices and deep wounds of the Jim Crow era. We ask forgiveness for the stubborn prejudices of race and class that plague us all and plague us still. And we celebrate the progress made, such as it is, toward mutual respect and neighborly love.

Surrender the Center

2010-11-03T10:42:00.000-05:00

The center of the universe is somewhere near the Superdome. In fact a big banner hanging from the rafters in the Dome reads, “World Champions.” So there should be no doubt.

My son-in-law is a world champion. He won the grand prize at the Memphis in May barbecue cook-off several years ago.

My brother lives in San Saba County, Texas, the “pecan capital of the world,” as the small wooden sign reads.

We all live in the geographical center of the universe—our own address. And we are all world champions in some way in our own minds. Does anyone make a better biscuit than you? Does anyone understand better how to master video games or paint nails? You’re the one!

This is why we assume the world is coming to an end if our family is struck by disaster—or our county or our country. We are the center of biblical prophecy, and the world cannot go on without us or without things as they are for us.

People in Haiti and Indonesia, in the wake of recent earthquakes and tsunamis, may assume that the final apocalypse is upon us all. The world, of which they are the center, is collapsing.

Citizens of nation-states, including these United States, consistently adopt this egocentric and ethno-centric perspective. THE world is coming to an end if MY world seems to be ending. Most good stories—e.g. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the television series Fringe—involve the end of the world. Fringe, as the story unfolds this fall, is not about the edge of things, as the name implies, but the middle of things. If the main characters do not act fast, the entire universe is going to collapse.

You are only being modest when you suggest that you are on the fringe of things. What you really mean is that despite the skewed perspectives of those who may disagree, you are on target and dead center.

Life as we knew it is over, that is for certain. The aging process alone guarantees this. From communication to transportation to social conventions to the passing away of loved ones and heroes, the world I became familiar with as a boy and young adult is gone forever. Conservation and conservatism, political and social, only pertains where things are passing away and wasting away, as they always are.

Age itself is one reason why elderly people are sometimes targets of the false prophets. When funerals begin to dominate my schedule, the biblical warnings about plagues and disease ring louder. The longing to return to the past—the secure and familiar world of youthful health, assurance and simplicity—is strong in all of us. The politicians exploit that longing in order to get elected, the radio hosts to sell advertising. And the false prophets connect with that longing in us in order to find a way to our wallets.

“All men are like grass” (1 Peter 1:24). This is truth about our temporary and transitory sojourn on Planet Earth, and it is our best protection against the falsehood that we stand at the center of it all. If you and I can resist the arrogance that pushes us toward the pinnacle we will be wiser and better and more faithful people.

We are not the center, but we can point to it: “The word of the Lord stands forever” (1 Peter 1:25). Some things do not wither or fade or age. Humility is deference to the transcendent Truth. To surrender the center—this is hope and peace and progress in a world that still brims with possibilities and opportunities. The center of the universe is not half way between a democrat and republican or a liberal and conservative. The center is the Creator God whose spoke it all into being and will one day give the final benediction.

God-forsaken

2010-10-25T09:21:00.003-05:00

Dr. Crosby,

I went to a talk recently on faith and doubt. One thing mentioned, quoting John Ortberg, was that Jesus doubted God on the cross when he asked, "Why have you forsaken me?" The speaker thought Jesus may have doubted God's plan without doubting his existence. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about Jesus' faith while on the cross.
Sincerely, *********

What a good question! Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 when he spoke these words. It is a psalm of David about the suffering of the righteous. David was lamenting that his enemies had not been defeated. He felt like God wasn’t helping him.

Psalm 22 is quoted in the New Testament more than any other psalm. In particular it is applied to the crucifixion. If you read Psalm 22:7-8, you see the foreshadowing of Jesus on the cross. Verses 14-15 and 17-18 describe details about Jesus in his death. In verse 24 the psalm declares that God has not hidden his face after all.

I think Jesus was experiencing the penalty of sin when he spoke these words. He died in our place, and our place is a terribly dark place. Paul describes our lostness as being “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Jesus experienced the absence of fellowship with his Father on the cross. That is what I believe. Since I also believe in the progressive understanding of Jesus about his own person and mission (e.g. Luke 2:52), being forsaken by his Father could have been a surprise to Jesus on the cross. But my own opinion is that Jesus knew fully what he was getting into, that this was the “cup” which he prayed in Gethsemane would “pass from me” (Mark 14:36). He quoted Psalm 22:1 on purpose because it expressed his own brokenness in bearing our sin and it referenced the psalm which described best the event he was going through.

I think there were times that Jesus was tempted to abandon the path his Father gave him, not just in the wilderness with Satan but also along the way with the stubborn unbelief of his disciples, the blindness of Israel’s leaders, and the terrible price he was called upon to pay. We all wonder sometimes why he didn’t come down from the cross or abandon the path of suffering and just nuke ‘em.

Jesus experienced being forsaken by the Father. Did he doubt in that moment the effectiveness of the Father’s plan? Maybe. Was he helping us understand the terrible consequence of sin? Surely.

These words of Jesus from the cross may stand in line with his prayer in Gethsemane: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” I don’t understand all that Jesus knew and felt in those hours before his crucifixion. But his prayer indicates that he was hoping for or looking for a way out. Yet he was completely obedient to the Father’s will, and he walked the path that was most difficult.

When we feel that God isn’t “there for us,” when it seems that we are going alone through our trouble, we question his love and sometimes we question his existence. Doubt is a frequent intruder both in our faith and in the atheist’s unbelief. We may be attacked by doubt at times. But so also are those who deny God’s love and/or existence. Some people simply become agnostic—“no knowledge,” insisting that we cannot know. Unfortunately, the agnostic builds his life the same way the atheist does. Agnostics never live as if God does exist and they will give an account to him one day. Instead, they order their lives as if God does not exist. They simply ignore him. I think that atheism and agnosticism are pretty much the same thing in the end.

The way of faith, believing in the God we cannot see with our eyes, is not without its intellectual supports and powerful arguments. But in the end it is FAITH which we exercise. Rarely Jesus saw GREAT faith in people. He encouraged his disciples by telling them that even a “little” faith could move mountains. We are often like the fellow who said, “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24).

Faith is not sight. Faith is not completely a leap into the unknown, but it is in part such a leap. Doubt is often the unwanted but persistent companion of faith. None of us are strangers to doubt. As long as we are in this world not a single one of us has absolute certainty about all that we believe or confess including atheists and saints and everyone in between.

Jesus lived and died as a human being in this world. I am comforted by his question on the cross. It helps me when I feel abandoned by God. As it turns out, the times that I have felt God-forsaken my feelings were actually mistaken. In retrospect I can see God’s hand at work in my life even in its most painful moments. Ultimately Jesus’ fellowship with his Father was fully restored and his descent into the darkness, which accomplished our salvation, was followed by his ascent into the Father’s presence.

FINISH STRONG

2010-09-27T10:48:00.002-05:00

I have received many testimonies of God’s grace and provision through these last weeks of fasting, prayer, and giving.

Teresa Bovia lost her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Joseph Bovia, on the battlefield in Afghanistan August 29. She writes:

The phrase "walking with Jesus" has a new meaning during this time in our life. However, I will also tell you that without Jesus I wouldn't be standing much less walking. As I look back over the events of the last days I see God's hand woven through each and every part of our loss. I would not begin to tell you we are through with our grief or that the tragedy is over, but what God is doing is drawing us each closer to him as we move through the grieving process.

Billy Benson writes the story of God’s grace in his marriage:

This certain young lady would later on pray for me as I went on a six week trip to the Middle East, and even adjust her schedule to be awake at the times I was awake. When I got back from the trip with a huge picture of God's love for all nations, God began to bring us together and we courted and were engaged for four months before getting married.

Cimbrey Brannan tells a part of their story:

When Mark and I began considering adoption, it was very evident to both of us that if God was leading us to begin the process, He would have to come through for us financially. Inter-country adoption is between $25,000 and $50,000, and that figure seemed impossible for two young married adults. Moreover, we were convinced that if God was calling us to adopt, He wanted us to do so in a fiscally responsible way.

Cimbrey recounts God’s provision through unanticipated pay raises, bonuses, and awards.

I was amazed that God was clearly providing for the adoption payments we would have to make this year. All the while, Mark and I have been able to give our monthly tithe to First Baptist New Orleans. God has given over and beyond what we could imagine.

We have only one Sunday left in our praying, fasting, and giving emphasis. Our offerings have been amazing, but we still have a ways to go. Let’s all participate to some degree, and we will see God’s provision for all our ministry needs.

Loving Muslims

2010-09-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

Religious liberty is falling on hard times around the world. This includes many countries dominated by Islamic majorities. True religious freedom includes freedom of assembly, speech, and the press and a guarantee of equal respect and treatment under the law. This is the only peaceful way forward in a world as small as ours.

The model for such religious liberty is right here in these United States where our Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (First Amendment, U.S. Constitution). This is a guarantee that all religions will be treated equally before the law.

I include the content and meaning of the First Amendment when I speak to Muslims at home and abroad. The Bible teaches that true faith in God cannot be coerced, that God seeks a free response of love from those he freely loves, that all individuals on the planet are made in God’s image. This is the religious seedbed out of which the First Amendment emerged.

The first Baptist pastor in America, Roger Williams, founded Rhode Island and invited Muslims to settle there without fear of reprisal. He also guaranteed all residents of Rhode Island that there would be no religious test for holding public office.

Building a mosque near the site of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may be foolish and ill-advised, but the demands of religious liberty require that our government officials step aside.

Government cannot block the building of this mosque without communicating to the world that we believe Islam was the true source of the terrorist attacks and that it is out of favor in these United States. Such a message sent by our government violates our First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion and negates its positive impact around the world. It polarizes Islam and Christianity on the world stage and reinforces the idea that our governments are involved in a “holy war.”

Some Christians believe that Christianity and Islam are squared off in the Middle East, Africa, and here at home. As a follower of Jesus I find no basis for taking up the sword against another religion. Nor do I believe that faithfulness to Christ requires fighting for world domination.

I find no grounds in the teachings of Jesus for the mobilization of military troops on behalf of the gospel. Quite the opposite, I hear Jesus calling me to pour out my life for the sake of the gospel.

If called upon I would fight and die to preserve this freedom which is ours as Americans, including freedom of religion. Since Christ must be followed from the heart I am not prepared to force anyone to deny their conscience or force them to espouse Christianity.

America is having a conversation about Islam and Muslims in our midst. What is the Christian point of view? We are to love Muslims as our neighbors. We are to care for them in their needs. We are to make room for those who are strangers among us.

Love prompts us to look for the good and the best in others. I believe that Christians can find much common ground with their Muslim neighbors. Since we are commanded to live in peace with all men these areas of common interest could be the focus of our discussion with Muslims rather than troubling texts or groups who express their faith with violence.

We are called to love our God completely and our neighbor as ourselves. Our commitment is to love Muslims—to work for their good, both here and around the world.

A billion Muslims are listening to this American dialogue about Islam. Many of them live in oppression and poverty. They can scarcely envision such a place as free and just as America given what they see and experience from their rulers and competing brands of their religion. They are wondering if the American dream is really true, if America is still the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We must send the message of liberty for all. We must fly the flag of true religious freedom. We must not reinforce the perception that Christians oppose Muslims and are seeking to overthrow them. Rather, consistent with the call of Christ, we must sound the trumpets of love and liberty. These notes, more powerful than guns and bombs, will be heard around the world by the oppressed and the downcast and will plant the seeds of the fruit we truly seek—peace among and within the peoples of this tiny planet.

Protect and Serve

2010-09-14T13:38:00.001-05:00

Herbert Bovia was wearing the blue uniform of the New Orleans Police Department when he arrived at his home in Kenner to receive the death message about his oldest son, Joseph, a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps felled by sniper fire Tuesday, August 31, in Afghanistan.

Teresa, Herbie’s wife, was home alone when three uniformed Marines knocked on her door: a chaplain, a captain, and a sergeant. They delivered the message every parent of soldiers in combat fears to hear and stayed with her until her husband and friends arrived to weep and console.

Herbie, a 30-year veteran of the NOPD, was a towering presence in the room. His hands trembled as he read a line from Joey’s handwritten letter that arrived the Monday before he died. In it Joey was wondering why he had volunteered for a third tour in Afghanistan. “Nonetheless,” he wrote, “I am at peace.” He spoke of the new recruits he was training for their dangerous mission and observed that they were “getting it”—the urgency and nobility of their work.

All his life this outstanding marine, 24 years old, had watched his father proudly don the police uniform and depart his home to put himself in harm’s way on behalf of others. Joey learned well the meaning of “serve and protect.”

Joey volunteered to help disarm roadside bombs in Afghanistan. When the unit he led and trained hit the field, he insisted on taking point. They were waiting on the bomb squad when Taliban fighters ambushed them.

The Bovias left with military escorts to receive the body of their son in Dover, Delaware. Joey was dressed in Dover and brought home for burial. More than 2,000 persons filed by to greet family members and to pay their respects to this fallen American hero. The solemn procession from First Baptist New Orleans to Garden of Memories cemetery traveled the streets escorted by officers of the NOPD and other law enforcement agencies who blocked all traffic even on the interstate.

Joey’s body was laid to rest with the calm assurance and confident faith that Joey himself was with the Lord Jesus in the Father’s House, just as Jesus promised. Joey trusted Christ at an early age and was a man of faith and prayer, courage and determination.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Bovia family both as a community and a country. Herbie has given his adult life to protect and serve our city, and now he and Teresa have given their oldest son in service to his country.

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). That is what U.S. Marine Sergeant Joseph Anthony Bovia did on August 31, 2010, on a battlefield in Afghanistan. He laid down his life for his friends.

New Orleans' Snaggletooth Smile

2010-09-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

Five years after Hurricane Katrina socked us and soaked us, we are tired, but we still sport that snaggletooth smile. We have hope and faith and dark circles under our eyes.

Our smile reflects a true hospitality and a determined hope for our future. Nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen. But how could they? They come to see our parades and ballgames, not our soup kitchens and crime scenes.

The past five years are a blur. We worked liked Trojans, lived one day at a time, and crammed eternity into the blink of an eye. Who knew five years was over—or would ever pass? We slogged through a Katrina time warp when all the clocks drowned. Like the kid in the backseat, I am perpetually wondering, “Are we there yet?”

Truthfully, we have not emerged from our submerged world no matter how much we long to be rid of it. Those sickening brine lines—marking the height of the flood and the depth of our misery—are still tattooed on fences, pillars, buildings, and on our souls. What simply could not happen did, slicing a horizontal reminder through everything we know. My vision may be better or worse, but the world looks different from here.

I have passed from feeling condemned to feeling confused to feeling useful to feeling hopeful. But I am ever one step away from the murk of disturbing memories. Honestly, my mind resists going back to Hurricane Katrina and the immediate aftermath. As time goes by the details fade but the overall impression of the great flood is sobering and painful.

Today hundreds of construction cranes cast their shadows on our half-recovered landscape, and they are towers of hope. Going east, those Twin Spans across Lake Pontchartrain are an engineering marvel, almost completed. New ramps and fly-overs are taking shape at the interchange of Interstate 10 and Causeway Boulevard. The Huey P. Long Bridge is bulging with giant new biceps for wider lanes.

Our most interesting bridge, the Danziger, once the largest vertical-lift bridge in the world, has become a symbol for police brutality and corruption. We are horrified and heartbroken by these revelations. Rampant lawlessness in our streets is certainly related to any disregard for the law among our police, in our courts, and in our culture.

The drive from the Industrial Canal east to Interstate 510 remains a disturbing and depressing journey. We cannot get comfortable with our current reality in the footprint of the flood.

People are generally optimistic, I find, but also frustrated at the slow progress in some areas. Unattended infrastructure problems detract from the work we have accomplished in our homes and neighborhoods. The astonishing levels of murder and mayhem cause widespread anxiety and confusion about the safety and stability of our city.

The faith community is vibrant and deeply involved and invested in the city’s restoration. We leapt up after the storm, addressed the immediate needs, and helped clean up the mess. Collectively, we deployed a million volunteers. We continue the work of rebuilding our city. The flood washed us out of our pews and into our streets. Thousands of congregations here and elsewhere have found renewed purpose and joy in the hard work of serving people in need. This may prove to be a permanent course correction for many households of faith.

Vast resources have been expended through our churches and affiliated nonprofits, as with all sectors of our community. We are delighted to see progress in housing, education, health care, and flood protection and eager to enjoy and highlight these permanent improvements to life in New Orleans.

We remember those who perished in the great flood. We acknowledge the historical significance of Katrina in our personal and collective lives. We embrace and assimilate the lessons we learned in our time of trouble. And we renew our resolve to fashion a more peaceful and prosperous future for the city that we love.

The Chief and the Immam

2010-07-16T12:49:00.003-05:00

We went to see the Chief today. He is a man of power and influence in the Songhai community here, and we should not try to do our work without his knowledge.

We missed him by ten minutes, but his brother was there. We talked to him and told him about our hope of returning to conduct medical clinics and educational programs. The brother was enthusiastic about our goals and said they would cooperate in notifying the people.

The immam who advises the Chief arrived as we were talking in the Chief's office. He, too, seemed supportive and eager to help.

We talked for 15 minutes and left with the impression that the Songhai community would readily receive medical and educational assistance. Their are no medical clinics operating among them, as far as we know, and the teaching of English is almost exclusively governmental.

Team members were entertaining school children when we returned to the school which was our meeting place. Denise was telling Bible stories. Yvette was helping an autistic young man and his family. Anna was visiting with a young mother and her child, asking about hair-braiding and how long it takes.

Chad, an intern from Tennessee, was trying to mimmick me, he said, by falling asleep on a bench. My clock never quite adjusted, so I perfected the art of cat-napping anywhere, anytime, but not without a lot of jealousy and protest from other team members. Any pictures or stories you may encounter about this are likely borne of frustration and ill humor.

Sim had gotten on the concrete floor with the children and was in need of help to rise. Adam was just taking it all in. And Fourcows (aka Kristen) was insisting that her father had raised the price on her dowry, putting it out of range of almost all prospects.

We are approaching dinner time here when we will enjoy a feast prepared by Adeline. She cooks American dishes and nails them every time.

At 9 p.m. we will leave for the airport and a endure long process of checking bags and going through customs. Flights leave in succession around midnight, and the lines are long. Our flight leaves at 1 a.m. Saturday morning. We hope to be home by noon.

Our team is tired, but we are happy. We have had a marvelous experience in Africa. All of us want to return. The Songhai people have captured our hearts, and we are eager to follow up with more teaching, more learning, and more opportunities to incarnate the love of Christ.

Timber Market Madness

2010-07-16T01:29:00.006-05:00

Two girls about 12 years of age stopped to gaze at a mob scene in the Timber Market in Jamestown. Sim was in the middle of a jostling crowd with fifty outstretched hands. He was the only one who would own up to having any CDs left to give out, and people were loudly demanding that he give them one.

I was on the periphery enjoying the view because, as I told them, "I am finished." That is, I have no more CDs. The two girls stood before me, one with fifty bags of water balanced in a bowl on her head and the other balancing a bowl of food but without any cloth beneath the bowl. It seemed to roll around on her head as she talked, and she was skilled enough to keep it centered.

They asked politely in English what was going on, and they wanted audio CDs, these two girls. I suspected they might not be Songhai, and the CDs were in the Zarma language. I had heard many times this week, "I cannot hear Zarma." These amazing people are all tri-lingual, but Zarma is not widely spoken.

"Are you Songhai?" I asked them, and they said yes. But I was suspicious. Here in the Timber Market people were now claiming to be Songhai so they could get a free CD.

"Mate gum," I said to them, a traditional Zarma greeting (or close). They went wide-eyed and dissolved into giggles without upsetting the balance of their burdens. I realized then that they were indeed Songhai and that this was very likely the first time in their lives they had heard a white man speak Zarma. I am one of only a very few white guys on the planet that can greet someone in Zarma (more or less).

I became one of the 50 demanding CDs from Sim who delivered some of the last two to the girls. We hurried out of the market lest we cause an even bigger scene. Everywhere the Songhai people walked carrying CDs others wanted to know what they had in their hand and where they got it. Hence, the discreet and private conveyance of the initial CDs to a small, select group of men that Gomer, the missionary, already knew turned into people hurrying down the dusty roads between long racks of rough lumber looking for white people bearing gifts.

After eight days, we're still learning how to do this properly.

Earlier, one veteran laborer in the vast Timber Market in the Jamestown area of Accra had estimated for us that 1,000 Songhai work there. I think they all tried to get their hands in Sim's backpack.

Even Muslim men wearing long shiny robes and round caps and toting prayer beads wanted CDs. They could have been--and probably were--suspicious of these white Christians. But they were also curious, I am sure, about the contents of a CD about Jesus.

I longed to snap some pictures, but my camera stayed in the backpack until I saw a king-size wooden bed sitting in the middle of the road between the lumber racks. Following the lead of one of the Songhai who thought his wife might be interested in the bed and took photos with his cell phone, I whipped out my camera and caught the bed and its craftsman with hundreds of boards in the background. The Timber Market may be the size of eight or ten city blocks. The scale of African life is way to wide and deep and high to capture in a photo or a film. All of my senses are under continual overload everywhere I go.

The poorest residents of Accra live in the Jamestown area, the center of which is James Fort Prison. It is an ancient structure on the seashore where slaves were held before their transport across the Atlantic. Ghana was one of the favored areas for slave traders. What a sad and tragic part of Africa's history--and the history of the world.

Some of our team members have taken African names like Freckles, Peppers, and Fran. Our youngest member, Kristen, is now "Fourcows." We should have her officially engaged before the end of the day. Suitors are everywhere.

Suitcases are bouncing down the terrazzo staircase. People from all over the world come and go at the Baptist guest house with dizzying rapidity. My coffee needs refreshed as the world wakes up, and my last day in Africa (this trip) opens before me.

Trampled by Dance Troupe

2010-07-15T05:00:00.002-05:00

The drums were not for us--all 12 of them.

The dancers were not dancing for us as a preliminary to the showing of the Jesus Film. They were conducting one of their three weekly two-hour practices.

And they were terrific. I wish they had been wearing their costumes.

We found out later that this troupe performed in Sweden and Norway last year.

They had the community center rented. We did not.

We watched them, though, fascinated by their energy, stamina, and synchronized choreography. They pounded the concrete with their bare feet. I could feel the vibrations beneath my feet. I think the entire concrete slab was throbbing.

The 12 drummers drumming were also chanting with the 12 dancers dancing. They were truly amazing, and the total effect in the darkness of an African evening made for an unforgettable, if accidental, experience for we Americans.

We postponed the showing of the Jesus film until a later date. We did not want this scheduling conflict to cause a rift within the community. We thanked the dancers for allowing us to watch their practice, and we told them it was fine that we had to wait. Some of them were members of Christian churches in Accra, and they were disappointed that the film would not be shown.

The sound for the film was not working, we discovered later, and the advertisements had not been distributed, so it was just as well. We settled in our hearts that God would use this delay to make the public viewing an even more effective event when it does occur. As far as we know, the Jesus film has never been shown in Accra in the Zarma language.

We have had a long discussion about whether to give shoes to the onion boys who are teaching us Zarma and learning English simultaneously. Their culture does not wear shoes, but it is a rural culture, not urban, and the hazards of wearing sandals are evident from the condition of their feet. These wounds are dangerous because of sanitation conditions.

The onion boys might or might not wear the shoes, though they have expressed real interest in them. And they might or might not wear them properly. For now, we have decided against the shoes.

The gift of learning English is truly precious to them. They are learning to write their letters and numbers. They are learning the names of body parts and articles of clothing. They are bright and motivated. They know that English spoken and read and written will open up a new world of opportunities for them.

The ladies will teach in the primary school again this afternoon, after the lessons with the onion boys (they sell onions by the roadside for those not following this blog), and we men will go to the large timber market or lumberyard run by Songhai men. This is a rough environment, according to our missionary, and the ladies should not venture into it. Advances to the ladies are common everywhere we go, but they could be mistreated at the timber market.

The Baptist guest house where we are staying is a revolving door for missionaries from around the world of all different Christian denominations and groups as well and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) doing al kinds of engineering and medical work among the Ghanaian population. We are encouraged to see how many Christians feel the calling to help articulate and demonstrate the gospel for these wonderful people. Dozens of tribal groups are represented in Accra, and dozens of languages. While most Africans we have met speak several languages, communication is still a critical need, especially for new immigrants like the Songhai.

The time here is a little past 10 a.m. This is the slow part of the morning for selling onions and a good time to talk to the Songhai men.

So I am out of this internet cafe and off to the roadside where I will sit under a tree and practice my newly acquired Zarma vocabulary.

Coffee Candy at Sunset

2010-07-14T13:48:00.002-05:00

The sun is down now, and I am in an internet cafe off a small courtyard where we will shortly show the Jesus film to a crowd of Songhai. The film is in Zarmama, their native language, and I know they will be intrigued.

Today we have distributed dozens of CDs and DVDs among the Songhai. We have seen a good-sized lot full of thousands of bottles and Songhai boys washing them in a large concrete trough. They sort the used glass bottles and recycle them as a business. Everyone at the lot wanted CDs.

A drum is sounding in the courtyard. It stands more than three feet tall and is 18 inches wide. It is part of the presentation, but I don't know how. Another drum has been added, higher pitched.

I looked for small, individually wrapped coffee candies up and down the main street here in Nima but without success. I found them yesterday from a young man with a trey of candies balanced on his head. They were inexpensive and delicious. A lady with a small stand promised me she would have them for me tomorrow when I come by.

We are situated across from the Nima market, a maze of hundreds of shops varying in size from the tiniest stands to the large timber market. Along the street are many women plying their wares, especially great sacks of corn and beans and peppers. They are eager for visitors to see and buy.

The people here seem to have marriage continually on their minds. All of the women have been propositioned multiple times, and even Sim became the object of a young woman's admiration. Denise still doesn't believe this, but I was there and I know it is true. I just witnessed a man and woman in a tugging contest at the front gate of the courtyard. He told me that she was pursuing him, but that she was too short for his tastes. I told him that I thought she was fine-looking and a woman of good character. At that point, she released him and ran away. I have never been a great match-maker.

The coffee candy will wait until tomorrow. The Songhai are gathering, and I am eager to see what happens with this public viewing of the Jesus film. We are learning their ways, and they are learning some of ours. So far the friendships have been rewarding, and all of our contacts with the Songhai have been pleasant.

Our youngest team member, Kristen, has been propositioned the most. I finally contacted her father and asked he would me to broker a deal and at what price. Kristen insisted she was worth a billion, but her father set her price at four cows.

Listen to the drumbeats!

Religious Fervor in Ghana

2010-07-13T01:37:00.003-05:00

The Second Coming of Christ will be May 21, 2011, according to a prominent billboard in Accra. The end of the world will be October 21, 2011.

Predictions continue even though "no one knows the day or the hour" and "it is not for you to know the times or seasons" (it's in your Bible). What we do not know we make up, and what we know for sure to do (feeding the hungry, prayer, sharing the gospel, etc.) we ignore.

Religious signs and sayings are everywhere in Accra. Taxi drivers display their faith. Signs on school buildings mention "blessings" and "glory." Businesses have names with theological and biblical terms in them.

The headmaster of one school we visited said that she was a member of a "powerful Charismatic church." This church is known throughout the country.

I have seen two churches with annual themes for 2010. One featured "The Year of Fruitfulness" with Psalm 1:3 as the year's verse and the other "Abundance." Themes of abundance and prosperity are very common in the preaching, teaching, and advertising of Christian churches here.

Only a few weeks ago the president of Ghana told the world that Ghana "is a Christian nation." He meant by this, I assume, that Christianity is the dominant religion of the country. The Ghanaian constituion guarantees religious liberty. No religion receives tax support here.

The president may have been prompted to make this remark because many Muslims are migrating south to Ghana and Accra in search of jobs. The Sahara Desert is growing. Their agricultural livelihoods are disappearing. They come to Ghana to work, to sell their products, and to send their money back home. This is true of many tribal groups including the Songhai with whom we are working. Boys 12 years of age have left their homes in Niger to live and work in Accra for months.

The growing presence of Islam is obvious and problematic for many Ghanaians. Christianity and Islam coexist in Africa but not always peacefully. Tribal laws and values are shaped by religious persuasion. Religious conversion may be--and often is--the end of family ties, friendships, business relations, and educational opportunities. We have discovered only one Christian among the thousands of Songhai who are new residents of Accra. And we have heard the personal testimony of Muslims who convert to Christianity at great personal and economic cost.

Even so, Ghana is a gerat mission field with many opportunities for presenting the gospel of Christ and building friendships across religious, denominational, and tribal boundaries. New immigrants have dreams of getting good jobs, going to school, and building new lives in the great urban sprawl that is Accra.

We are learning a little Zarma, the tribal language of the Songhai, as we are teaching them English. Loving Muslims means having a genuine desire to know them and to see their hearts and hopes. The love of Christ will open our hearts to them as they open their hearts to us.

Religious fervor, Christian and Muslim, will be part of the landscape here in Accra for the foreseeable future. The coexistence of these two powerful religions here is not just theoretical. It is the daily experience of life.

I am no expert on Islam. This is one of few opportunities in my lifetime to build friendships with Muslims and learn their ways. Those I have met have beautiful smiles and warm hearts. Their struggles are just like ours. If genuine love of neighbor prevails, then peace should also prevail and fear of one another should dissipate.

My church in Houston sponsored an Arab Christian church that met in our facility and interacted with us weekly. Fahed Karmoot was their pastor. I know that we cannot represent Christ well when we are intimidated, afraid, and ignorant of one another.

How Christianity and Islam relate to each other may determine more about the peace and prosperity of Accra--and the world--in the 21st century than any other factor. We who know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord must lead the way in love and understanding--loving Muslims just like they are and checking ourselves daily for faithfulness to Christ in every word and deed. When Christian faith is warm-hearted and passionate and truly looks and sounds like Jesus, it is the most compelling force in the world.

A World Beyond Imagination

2010-07-12T13:23:00.003-05:00

We walked today where few westerners have ever been--in the deep recesses of the market in Nima. These gracious and beautiful African people allowed us to trudge through their world in single file. We walked wide-eyed down narrow dirt paths that divide hundreds of small businesses into a giant maze of astonishing sights and sounds.

The unexpected we encountered at every step--a sawmill humming in the middle of the maze, a flour mill with white-powdered boys filling sacks, a pungent spice mill, a meat market with everything available raw or cooked, a vegetable market, and so much more all crowded and carved into the vacant urban land.

Our presence was strange to the many merchants who saw us. They seldom if ever see people like us walking those trails. Yet they greeted us with wide smiles, using their English and interacting as they could. We paused to talk along the way.

I bought a Muslim prayer mat hoping it will remind me to pray for these dear people. When the Muslim call to prayer sounds out through the maze, only a few people stop to pray. The vast majority go on with their work or discussions even those you would expect to observe the moment of prayer. Islam here, like Christianity in the USA, is often more cultural than it is devotional.

People were curious about us being Americans. Our nationality is not at all obvious to them. They think first we are European. Neither our dress nor our dialect necessarily give us away. When they learn we are American, we often hear "Obama!" His name is known widely here, and people are enthusiastic about him. Some wear t-shirts with his picture and hang Obama posters in their shops.

American music can be heard on street corners and in shops, even Lil Wayne. "New York" hats and Celtics t-shirts are fairly common. We have not picked up on any anti-American sentiment in Ghana though it may be here somewhere.

Taking pictures is problematic. The camera takes you out of the flow of humanity and objectives the people you are seeking to befriend. One team member was pelted with peppers when she innocently snapped a picture in a marketplace. Some are excited to be photographed but other are wary and even angry when they see the camera. We have often left them hidden when we longed to capture on film those giant snails or that boy dusted with flour or that enormous pile of citrus beside the road or the man at the grinder covered with spice. We ask permission before we snap, but even then onlookers may object.

We continue to pray for avenues of continuing engagement with the Songhai people. Our objectives would be to 1) befriend them, 2) help them in appropriate ways, and 3) introduce them to Jesus, our Savior and Lord.

Poverty and deprivation look similar to me whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa. People whom Jesus loves need medical attention, education, and jobs. We want to be wise in our relationships with the Songhai. We are beginning to feel as a team that this may be God's calling for us. No other Christian church, as far as we know, is reaching out to the migrant population of Songhai in Accra. They are largely invisible even to the locals, but we have met and seen hundreds of Songhai here.

We are about to leave to visit with the onion boys. Their ages range from 12 to 26. They sell onions by the side of the road. We look forward to talking with them again and learning more about Zarma. Maybe they will learn a little English--and a little more about Jesus--from us today.

Sounds of an African Dawn

2010-07-12T01:51:00.004-05:00

I woke up early this morning to a thousand birds singing near and far, high and low. The foreground featured half a dozen different chirps coming from the backyard. Just beyond them were half a dozen choruses ranging left to right. And back further still was a mat of song with individual sounds barely perceptible.

Some fowl cruising high above added his lonely cry to the roosters waking up. I whispered a prayer for this new day in Africa.

The ceiling fan beat out its rhythm as I pulled back the sheet. The staff of the mission house were already stirring in the kitchen and backyard. It is a leisurely morning. No one seems to be in a hurry. African time is not a commodity to sell but an experience to savor.

This culture has a rich texture full of bright colors and soul music. Yesterday at church the music leader sang a song in their native Twi language, and the congregation responded antiphonally with feeling and power. They were caught up in their music, their worship, and it was inspiring.

The pastor wore a full length robe with a gold and black pattern. His congregation dressed just as brightly.

The pace and pulse of Africa will get you thinking. Maybe rushing through life in grays and khakis is the low road. Heaven might look and sound more like this colorful rhythm.

Today we try to help the "onion boys" with their English and get to know the Songhai in the communities where they are majority population. The onion boys are Songhai who market onions by the side of the road. The Songhai are descendants of a once-dominant tribe that built an extensive empire across West Africa. Now they are displaced and generally impoverished. The expanding Sahara has devoured their traditional livelihood, and the urban centers have not been an easy adaptation.

We met a Songhai youth yesterday who, after years of cultivation in Niger, trusted Christ. He is the only Christian Songhai we know among the thousands who live here.

The coffee is brewing and breakfast is about to be served. Better move on with the morning!

First Day in Accra

2010-07-10T16:12:00.004-05:00

Ghana is a linguistic blizzard. Maybe monsoon is a better word since we are only 5 degrees north of the equator. I have met a hundred Africans already, and they all speak at least four languages, even those who cannot read one.

All of western Africa seems represented here in Accra to some degree or other. Mustapha is a Beasa man and is one of our guides for the week. His 19-month-old son, Moses, can already get around in four languages. He speaks with all four laced together in one communication stream. One of his languages his own father does not know. Moses is learning it from his friend next door who is from a different tribe.

Tribal descent is vital to true understanding and truly confusing for a foreigner. If somebody hadn't told me, "That's a Songhai," I would have had no idea. Tribal markings help only if you know what you're looking for.

The live, giant snails, dried fish and a basket full of cow's feet were highlights of our trip through the Makola Market this afternoon. People were everywhere, generally sweet and polite, and we were wide-eyed white people more curious to everyone else than the agricultural anomalies impressing us.

Accra has 3 million people in it. I believe we passed them all at least once. This city is in motion. The sounds and smells are arresting. Construction is everywhere. A cubic foot of open sidewalk is an entrepreneurial opportunity. Taxis and tro-tros jam the roads. Drivers ride their horns while chatting with passing motorcyclists.

This is day one, and already Africa is overwhelming me!

For an interesting (yawn) story about our day, check out Anna's blog.

Wineskin in the Smoke

2010-07-06T14:24:00.001-05:00

“I am like a wineskin in the smoke,” wrote the Psalmist in Psalm 119:83. The metaphor takes my mind back to the high Andes Mountains in northern Peru nearly 20 years ago, to a cemetery of Incan warriors and a little man in that cemetery who had a tiny pot to sell.

He told us that he found the pot while digging around in those open graves. The huge pyramid-shaped stones that once covered the graves and been blasted apart by grave robbers. All the gold was stolen. But stirring with a stick in one crypt, he hit something, he said, and it turned out to be the little pot.

It had been sitting in this house for a long time, he told us, but he would sell it to us. I took it in my hand and handed him the money. The pot smelled like smoke and was tarnished with soot.

“What happened to this pot?” I asked Larry Johnson, the missionary. He told me that the Quechua Indians did not build chimneys or smokestacks in their homes. The smoke curls up from the perpetual fire used for cooking and heat, rises to the ceiling, and creeps around the top of the room until it finds a crevasse or crack through which to escape. In doing so, the odor of smoke permeates their clothing and blankets, and the soot coats everything.

A Bedouin tent in the Middle East does not have a chimney. As with the little Quechua houses, the smoke from their fires curls around the tent until it makes its way out.

A wineskin is a bottle made of leather. The leather needs to be dried when it is new, but continual drying will ruin it. A wineskin in a Bedouin tent, hanging on a line, would be coated with soot and partially dried and cooked by the smoke. It would eventually be dried and cracked, tested and damaged by heat and smoke. The metaphor calls to mind a tent rather than a palace, and indicates a nomadic life, maybe even the life of a fugitive.

Think of King David no longer in the palace but on the run from his enemies, hiding in the hills, living in tents. This psalm points to the contrast between good times and bad, between the palace and the tent, between sitting on the throne and running from those who want to kill you. It is a variation on the theme of life’s extremities.

The psalmist was in a very difficult part of life’s journey, and the difficulty had lasted for a very long time. He was worn out, confused, and crying out for help.

Despite his trying circumstances he confessed again, “I have put my hope in your word” (Psalm 119:81). Threaded throughout this psalm are the polarities of painful despair and irresistible hope. This hope that has survived such pain and trials is anchored by the word of God that does not change with changing seasons. When your hope is anchored in God’s word, you are spiritually and emotionally prepared for life’s surprises.

And you weather the trials, no matter how severe, because you know that God is honest and faithful and always keeps his word.

My Word, My Heart

2010-06-23T11:11:00.001-05:00

My father insisted his boys memorize Psalm 2 word for word from the King James Bible. The first line reads, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” The text is filled with strange words in unfamiliar order, and the concepts are tough to assimilate.

But I learned it anyway and can recite it word for word to this day.
The picture from Psalm 2 of God laughing has visited me at many opportune moments. When tempted to defy God’s word, these words scroll before me: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”

This memorized word kept me from defiant actions against God more than once. I did not want God to “vex” me “in his sore displeasure.”

My text for this Sunday (June 27, 2010), Psalm 119:9-16, I also memorized as part of Dad’s creative club activity for boys in the church, “Hawley Loyal Legionnaires.” I was loyal, and I received a lot of patches on my jacket for memorizing those verses as a seven-year-old.

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.” That is how Psalm 119:9 goes in my mind. I learned early that if I heeded the word of God, not just memorized it, I would live a cleaner life.

Memorizing Bible verses at that tender age embedded God’s truth in my mental, moral and spiritual development. It is not a cure-all or a certain guarantee of faithfulness to God. But hiding the word deep in your heart surely will change both your ROM (read only memory) and your RAM (random access memory).

The word of God “is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Hide this in your heart, and you are ready for battle.

Guarding the city

2010-06-15T08:31:00.002-05:00

Contemplate the fate of cities in our world through the centuries. They rise and fall like tides on the sea. The great cities of today are often built upon the rubble of great cities of the past. Historically, losing a city completely, whether to sudden catastrophe or long decay, is nothing new to the human race.

Cities are living social systems, and they are mortal. They are vulnerable to war, economics, weather, disease, and changing demographics both natural and sociological. They respond to positive and negative input from natural resources, commerce, education, medicine, and public morality.

Cities dominate the landscape for humans. They are the centers of learning, business, transportation, and healthcare. They are also centers of moral and ecological pollution.

Only 4 percent of the human population of the world lived in cities in 1800. Today 45 percent of all humans reside in urban areas. But 2025 that number will grow to 60 percent.

We are on target as followers of Jesus to pray for and focus our work in the City of New Orleans. We are the church of Jesus Christ in our city, and we have an enormous opportunity and challenge before us. Through the preaching and teaching of the good news of Jesus Christ, through practical deeds of kindness and love, and through addressing systemic evils and injustices in our city, we promote the welfare of all citizens and bless our city.

God is the only one who can protect our city. “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Psalm 127:1b). God is already and always at work in New Orleans. Therefore, we find out what God is doing in our city and join him in his work. We do not ask God to join us. We seek to join him.

How do we identify the activity of God in our city? We know that God cares for those in need. This truth is explicit throughout scripture. “ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). If we reach out to those in need, we are following the hand of God. If we speak words of comfort to the bereaved, we are following the voice of God. God is ahead of us with the hurting, and he does not leave their sides. God does not simply make weekly or monthly forays into needy places—he lives there. His heart is with the wounded.

We are surrounded by need — overwhelmed by need. When we realize that God is with the hurting, the next step is to find the people along our own path who need us. We follow Christ when we reach out to them. The way of the cross is the way of suffering. The suffering that persons around us endure is tragic and inexplicable. But it is the one reality which most often opens us to divine intervention and insight. God wants us to feed the hungry because he wants them to eat. But he also wants to speak his love to them.

Our city is so in need of God’s hope and healing. Let’s engage the persons and structures as we have opportunity, and let’s do so knowing that God is the one who must give deliver on the hope and healing.

I Have Seen the Lord!

2010-03-29T17:39:00.001-05:00

“I have seen the Lord!” This is Mary Magdalene’s report to the disciples.

Seeing the empty tomb is startling, confusing, and amazing. Seeing angels is fearful and astonishing. But seeing Jesus is the best possible news in this universe. Mary saw Jesus when she was left alone in the garden.

Soon it would be Peter who would say, “I have seen the Lord,” and then John and the other disciples. Thomas missed the first group meeting with Jesus and refused to believe when he was told they had seen the Lord. Like so many of us, he had to see for himself. And when Jesus invited him to put his finger in his wounds and “be not faithless, but believing,” even doubting Thomas abandoned his skepticism and embraced Jesus as “my Lord and my God.”

The two people on the Road to Emmaus walked and talked with Jesus and did not realize until he broke the bread. I think that is when they saw the wounded hands. They returned to Jerusalem and told the disciples, “It is true! The Lord is risen! (Luke 24:34).

Saul of Tarsus would see the risen Christ on the Damascus Road and believe. In his first letter to the church at Corinth he wrote that Jesus was seen by over 500 people at one time (1 Corinthian 15:6).

These testimonies of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, together with the evidence of the empty tomb and the coming of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to the church of Jesus Christ.

We come to the garden alone. Each one of us enters the garden with personal questions and beliefs. We stand before the empty tomb alone in mind and heart. Here before the tomb we make our personal decision and live with that personal choice.

Saints Triumphant!

2010-02-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

Jesus rode a colt on his triumphal entry, and our football team did the same last night.

I never prayed that the New Orleans Saints would win the Super Bowl, although I was running in circles in my living room, screaming my head off when it happened.

I prayed with the team in their chapel services several times, but I did not pray for them to win. Win or lose, my prayers were that they would respond with the Christian character I know many of them possess. I prayed that they would give God the glory, speak unselfishly, and embrace their role as civic leaders and cheerleaders in a city still struggling to gain its footing.

I prayed for the New Orleans Saints. The players are young men with great athletic abilities under an intense spotlight. They respond spontaneously when the microphones are thrust in front of them. They face great temptations and great opportunities all at once.

My prayers were answered last night. By and large, the Saints responded to their astonishing victory with joy and self-restraint, celebration and thanksgiving, and often an explicit acknowledgment of faith in God. I was proud of them.

The term “Saints,” meaning “holy ones,” comes right out of the Bible. It is used most often in the letters of the Apostle Paul to refer to the members of the churches. It points to the holiness of God which he applies to us through the death of Christ upon the cross. We are “set apart” for God when we trust Christ as Savior and Lord. Saints are special in that they have been set apart for the purposes of God.

“Saints” also comes right out of New Orleans. We are and have been the “city of the saints” from the names of our streets to the names of our many churches (Catholic, Protestant, and others) to the monuments in our parks. You will not visit a city in America with more visible religious roots or more spiritual public culture.

The team here uses a religious term to designate their players. We use a religious symbol—the fleur de lis—as our team emblem. Down here in the bayou, we mean it. “Bless you, boys,” is our common commendation for these star athletes. Three archbishops have blessed this team with their interest and widely publicized attendance at games. Their presence is always front page news. So also is the display of the bones of Mary Magdalene and Ash Wednesday.

The local newspaper put a religious spin on the pilgrimage of our Saints. “Hell froze over” when we won the NFC championship, and we were “at heaven’s gate,” according to the headlines. The Saints went marching in last night. We were all in their number. Monday’s front page said it all: “Amen! After 43 years, our prayers are answered.”

The country—and maybe the world—have been cheering for us because we were the underdog. Our city and region are still struggling back to normalcy from a disaster of staggering proportions. The Saints have given a resounding answer to the question, “Can New Orleans recover?”

We are happy to be “America’s team” this year. We have been the subject of prayers and the destination of thousands of mission teams since Hurricane Katrina visited our shores. This outpouring of benevolence, perhaps unparalleled in the history of America, is followed appropriately by a great victory which all caring souls can embrace. As the Indianapolis Colts knew, the Super Bowl was a road game for them and a home game for the Saints.

New Orleans is an enigma, especially to those who view it from the outside, but also to us who live and work here. The city of the Saints is known to be one of the country’s flesh markets. The television shots bounced back and forth last night between Sun Life Stadium in Miami and the wall-to-wall, throbbing party on Bourbon Street. Is there any other place on earth where people dressed like nuns and popes lead parades of revelers? Is there another city where “revelers” is common lingo for Super Bowl enthusiasts?

Professional athletic competition may be mostly about entertainment, but it is also about character. The courage, determination and team work of the athletes inspire us to greater effort and better performance in our own contests of faith and strength.

The Saints are leading the charge in a city that aims to do better on every front. With the highest per capita murder rate in America and the lowest literacy rate and the highest rate of child hunger and rampant public corruption, the urgent needs in New Orleans transcend our tourist-focused Bourbon Street. The time for prayer has just begun.

The city elected a new mayor Saturday, Mitch Landrieu. Now there is a man to pray for! The son of a former mayor and brother of a current United States senator, “Mitch” won a landslide victory in the primary against five opponents—as startling a win as the Super Bowl.

The church of Jesus Christ, full of worshiping saints, is marching boldly into the future of this city, energized by the Holy Spirit, full of hope and faith, and prepared to do battle for the souls who live here. With the Good Samaritan as our model, we plunge into the fray eager to demonstrate the care of Christ in “the city that care forgot.”

Homeless Shelter Cold Snap

2010-01-11T16:27:00.001-06:00

Beth is an employee of Winn-Dixie. She works at night in the bakery. She also has experience working in a pharmacy. She is articulate, bright, and interesting. I met her Friday night at the Allie Mae Williams Auditorium. She is homeless.

She was working to husband her funds so that she could spend the night Sunday night in a hotel. I saw her again Sunday night at dinner at the temporary homeless shelter, and she told me that she would not be spending the night. She came to eat, but she had a hotel room for the night.

Beth is pleasant and full of smiles. I do not know why she is homeless. I do not think it has to do with drug use or mental illness.

Rocky is a big talker. He, too, is interesting and cheerful and homeless.

Thanks to all who helped and gave and served and prayed us through this cold weekend just past. We communicated the love of Christ to many homeless people who told me how grateful they are for the food and other goods we provided them. We worked alongside city employees, Unity for the Homeless, and other churches to man the center and feed the people.

God is good to give us new friends and new connections to people who are very precious to him.

Soggy Days

2009-12-15T09:09:00.001-06:00

My life behind the levee is all about water.

The rain gauge overflowed this morning for the second time in four days meaning that I have received at least 18 inches of rain at my house in the last eight days. More is on the way. I am catching tiny rivulets in pans in front of the fireplace and have been in the attic and on the roof searching for the leak.

My brother, Jonathan Paul, was born on this day 51 years ago. That also was a blue day for me. I already had three brothers, and I wanted a sister really badly. They tell me I was inconsolable when the sad news came, so they named the little boy “Jonathan” because he was the best friend of David.

I felt a little better, but it greatly distressed my older brother, Timothy, the eldest child, who thought that this fifth sibling should be named in reference to him rather than a noisy five-year-old like me. So Jon’s middle name is “Paul” because Paul was the close friend of Timothy.

You make the best of rainy days. And usually in hindsight they are not as disappointing as they seem at first. Jonathan Paul turned out to be useful to Tim and me in a number of ways. He made an interesting target when we got our new pop guns, and he took the girl’s part in our quartet.

Something good will come of all this rain, I am sure. The storm drains in the parking lots at the church were clogged a few days ago, and the lower parking lot turned into a retention pond. But at least it kept a little water out of the cemetery where caskets are at risk of bobbing when the water rises (a casket was stranded on church property after Hurricane Katrina).

I am in New Orleans, thankfully, where every drop of water that falls inside the levee system is channeled to giant pumps that spew it into the lake. I watched a flooded street once turn into a river running toward the drains, and then two creeks on either side of the street’s crest, and then small streams. You could almost hear the giant sucking sound as every drop disappeared into the storm sewers. It took all of 15 minutes to go from an eight-inch-deep lake to moist asphalt curb to curb.

The water was waist-deep in the baptistery Sunday as I baptized a Jordanian man who placed his faith in Christ as a teenager but waited to be baptized until both his father and mother trusted Christ as well.

Salem grew up in the desert where 18 inches of rain falls over a two-year period. John the Baptist walked into the Jordan River to baptize because half of the fresh water in that part of the world is in that one, not-too-wide, river. Galilee is the water pipeline for the rest of Israel.

I have stood in ancient baptismal pools along the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The rabbis devised complex systems for capturing rain water and transporting water from nearby wells and streams.

Herod the Great actually built swimming pools at the impregnable mountain fortress of Masada. The water to fill these large pools was carried by slaves and beasts of burden up the precipitous cliffs along hazardous trails. The radical Hebrew sect that later occupied Masada had sufficient water in hand for a thousand people to endure a two-year siege by the Romans.

Baptists immerse new followers of Jesus in pools of water just as John the Baptist did. God’s abundant supply of all good things is strikingly illustrated in this powerful ritual that began in such a parched part of the world.

My father laments that Central Texas always needs rain. The further west, the more pronounced the need.

My yard in New Orleans is green today, and the roses and hibiscus are blooming. Soggy days are now and always have been God’s promise of blossoms and buds to follow.

Commercializing Christmas

2009-12-08T11:26:00.002-06:00

My brothers and I were some of the original people to commercialize Christmas. Dad was trying to make ends meet one year, and he decided to sell Christmas candy in the suburbs of El Paso. I was about twelve, I think, and Tim was fourteen, Tom was eleven, Danny was nine, and Jon was almost eight. Our younger siblings waited in the station wagon.

I remember those colorful tin cans we carried from house to house. They had pictures on the outside of the candy on the inside. It was the hard candy that is good to suck but terrible to chew - sticks in your teeth and you have to rub it out with your tongue! I never could resist chewing that candy. It just melted too slow for me.

We thought we were on silver stocking lane in that subdivision. Looking back, I realize it was just an average middle class neighborhood, but I didn't have any idea about socioeconomic classes back then. I figured everybody wore hand me downs and took their lunches to school in grocery sacks.

The people in those houses were very nice to us. I suppose I would have been the same way, it being Christmas and us being young boys trying to make some money for a "needy family." That's what we told them if they asked we were raising money for a needy family. I think some of them guessed that the needy family was us!
So that's how we did our part to commercialize Christmas when I was a boy. I didn't know then that we could count the shopping days until Christmas. It would have helped us sell more candy. It's hard to communicate a sense of urgency about buying candy unless you have some kind of deadline to do it in.

Have a great holiday season, and don't let the pressure get to you. Remember that the time you spend together as a family is more important than what's in the boxes. Have your family in church for the Christmas concerts and the Christmas Eve Service. Sing the songs loudly enough so you can hear each other. Think about the words: "Silent night, holy night, all is calm."

THE EFFECT OF CARING

2009-10-27T14:40:00.001-05:00

Caring for another human being has an effect. The effect is felt both by the giver and the recipient of the care.

Caring is an experience. It originates in heart and soul. It occurs in time and space. It affects and connects giver and recipient—I and thou discovered in the moment of caring.

Caring has power—amazing power. It is healing and transformational. No one in the matrix of care remains unchanged. Caring carries us from the inertia of self-absorption into the energy of dynamic relation.

The greatest feeling in the world is not created by illegal drugs. It is experienced through the power of caring.

You have not lived until you have cared for another person with no thought of a return favor. Literally, this statement is true. Life itself unfolds and multiplies only in the process of giving.

Acts of compassion are generally seen as blessings bestowed upon those in need. And they are.

However, Jesus taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). If we describe the blessing of giving accurately, we will first address the greatest blessing—that bestowed upon the giver. This is the primary and most predictable effect of care.

Caring for a person in need is liberty. It is liberation from the black hole of selfishness. Caring for another person wrenches my mind from the prison of self, from the trap of regrets and doubts, into the mysterious and exhilarating journey of concerned relationship.

Caring for a person in need is therapy. The most common sicknesses in the human heart are guilt, sorrow, anger, and shame. They are products of a fixation upon what used to be or could have been or should have been. This orientation backward robs the present of its potential and frustrates the universal longing for meaningful relationships now. The sick of heart are best advised to become care-givers. Meeting the needs of another person is the best way to your own healing.

Caring for a person in need is hilarity. The Apostle Paul wrote, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). The Greek word translated “cheerful” is hilaros from which we get the English word hilarious. God loves a hilarious giver—a cheerful, joyful, happy giver.

You will be happier and more satisfied with life. Your family will enjoy better emotional and spiritual health. Your church will experience a new unity and greater sense of purpose and mission. The community around you will acknowledge your caring ways, and a new reputation of love and concern will emerge.

Like eagles that mount the lofty heights, people who express their love through practical deeds of kindness soar above and beyond the doldrums of life. Jesus came to give us abundant life. He modeled this abundance in his own giving ways. And he challenged his followers to imitate the servant spirit exemplified in washing the feet of others. Foot-washing, along with his crucifixion, was his premier example of an abundant life lived according to God’s will.

The Care Effect: More Blessed to Give

2009-10-26T10:44:00.000-05:00

I checked the street sign one day to see if it said “Skid Row,” craning my neck up and around. Dad always said that the Rescue Mission in El Paso was on Skid Row, and I thought he meant the street outside the doors of the mission. Maybe Skid Row is the side street, I thought, not the main drag.

My father took my brothers and me with him to Skid Row every other Sunday. He preached to the gathered assortment of street people, hitchhikers, alcoholics, and ladies of the night. We boys sang hymns in four-part harmony.

Dad always closed his message with an invitation for the assembled crowd, weary and hungry. He invited them to trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation. When the flush-faced, inebriated middle-aged man fell upon the railing at the front, kneeling to pour out his soul, one of us boys would kneel down beside him and pray with him.

Dinner followed the worship service. The mission had no money to give my father for his message, but they graciously fed his family. We sat down beside the street people and gratefully ate the fare. Often we departed with exotic leftovers, dates expired, from nearby grocery stores—lobster tails and strange cheeses.

This stretch of my childhood, when my father was only marginally employed, was the time when we were most economically deprived as a family. We returned to El Paso from Minnesota after repossessing a home my father built. We had a place to live on Easy Way near Canutillo, but Dad did not have a church to serve.

So trips to the Rescue Mission became our routine when I was 11 or 12 years old. Dad taught his four oldest children—four stair-step boys—to sing a capella in four-part harmony. We sang, Dad preached, and we prayed with those who responded.

I was introduced to the Care Effect at that Rescue Mission. My own soul warmed in the experience of caring. We helped the clients bring in from the sidewalk their possessions, captured in pasteboard boxes. They wore ill-fitting hand-me-downs. I did, too. I learned to care for these people, as my father did, and the caring transformed a time of hardship into an era of wonder and joy that I have never forgotten.

It marked my soul, those months of ministry at the mission. The effect of those days surfaced over and over again through the subsequent years. The vivid memories linger in my mind and heart to this very day. My understanding of life and my self-understanding were shaped by the activities and experience of caring for the down-and-out.

Dad took us to the orphanage across the border in Juarez, Mexico. We met and played with children abandoned by their parents. I held a toddler whose desperately poor mother rubbed hot peppers in her eyes so that, as a blind infant, she would generate greater sympathy and make begging more productive.

These childhood experiences of ministry to the poor were some of the first laboratories in which I learned the desperation of poverty and the power of caring. But they were not the last.

I have been a pastor for 35 years, and the poor have always been with me, just as Jesus said they would be. I find joy in seeking to lift the downtrodden, comfort the broken-hearted, and care for the dying. I mark the moment when I meet a person in need. The contact point is in and of itself sufficient reason for my involvement regardless of any future outcome. I do not justify my ministry by “results.” I attempt to view the moment of service as complete in itself.

The Care Effect is what happens to me if I am able to give myself fully in the moment of need, engaging the other person with sincere love. The act of caring draws my soul outward and upward—an exercise of the heart. I may feel satisfaction later with the results achieved, or I may be disappointed at the apparent futility of my effort.

Regardless, the pure joy of caring for another, the blessedness of giving, is its own reward.

THE END IS COMING!

2009-10-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Nothing sells books and movies like predicting the end of the world. Janet and I saw a new commercial this week for “2012,” yet another cinematic adventure in this literary genre.
Eschatology is the theological study of last things. Much of the excitement about “Bible prophesy” is not actually about Bible prophesy at all. It is the same excitement that comes with the movie “2012.”
The Bible makes it clear that the Lord Jesus will return one day. It also makes it crystal clear that no one knows when this will happen except the Father in heaven.
Eschatology is not about when or how. It is about who and what. Jesus is the end of all things. That is the who. And God wins. That is the what.
Jesus told us about the end of time so that we would live for him in the here and now. His childish disciples pled with him for dates and charts about the end of time. He refused to succumb to their foolish curiosity. They asked him many times. He gave them this answer: “It is not for you to know” (Acts 1:7).
People, it is not for us to know. The prophets of the Bible were generally forth-telling, not fore-telling. They were speaking the word of God to the leaders and the people. That was their task. When they digressed into fore-telling, predicting future events, they always did so in order to challenge the people of the present to live for God and to abandon their sinful practices. That is the purpose of prophetic utterances—to point the people of God to their true source and their true behavior.
The “when and how” boys are opportunistic and entrepreneurial. They sell millions of books generation after generation despite their mistaken and often fraudulent claims. The sheep keep coming back for more.
All the charts are wrong. None of them actually come from the Bible. They are pieced together by humans who write into them their preconceptions, biases, systems, and errors. The true center and purpose of eschatology is not timelines but ethics—how I live here and now. Get that right and you are ready for end whenever and however it comes.

2009-09-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

The suicide rate in New Orleans is almost twice the national average, according to a recent survey (The Times-Picayune A-1, Sept. 22, “Area’s mental health getting worse”). At least 219 New Orleanians have tried to take their lives so far this year. According to health care professionals, our city suffers from a level of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder much higher that pre-Katrina and higher than other parts of the country.

One physician guessed that among Lakeview residents “ninety percent are on anti-depressants.” While I am sure that number is exaggerated, I would agree that suicide rates indicate serious and widespread emotional troubles among our post-Katrina population. This is supported by information from health care professionals working with the city’s school children.

I met with a pastor this week who did not see the article cited above but began the conversation talking about the depression plaguing his people.

We are people of faith. We want to speak the positive, joyful word of hope to our friends and neighbors. We have confidence that God will see us through the rebuilding phase of our terrible disaster.

We also wrestle with doubt, anxiety, and despair despite our strong faith in God. Sometimes we berate ourselves for these emotions, but they are honest feelings that affect us mentally, spiritually, and even physically.

King David struggled with doubt, anxiety and despair. He wrote poems about feeling forsaken, abandoned and alone. He cried out to God in those times with an honest heart.

Honesty is the best policy. God already knows that we are afraid and anxious. He knows when we are down in the dumps. Let’s get honest with God in prayer. Let’s talk honestly with other believers about our struggles. Let’s pray for those we know who are fighting depression. And let’s NOT condemn one another or ourselves for lack of faith in the face of these feelings.

David gave his troubles to God, and so must we. David knew how to repent of sin, and so must we. David eventually climbed out of the pit of despair, and so will we.

What 9-11 Means to Me

2009-09-11T10:58:00.001-05:00

What 9-11 Means to Me
By David E. Crosby, Pastor
First Baptist New Orleans
September 11, 2009

Three months after the disaster we stood in line for hours to view the wreckage of the Twin Towers. A CNN crew happened to be on site, and my wife and I were interviewed about why we came and what we hoped to learn. That 60-second clip of our comments was aired repeatedly around the world for several days.

Thousands of people died that day as a result of misguided religious zealotry. I felt a need to stand at the site of their deaths to cry out to God and to express in some small way my sorrow for their loss and my solidarity with friends and family members who were grieving.

The Apostle Paul commented on his own murderous religious bent by highlighting it as an illustration of zeal: “as for zeal, persecuting the church” (Philippians 3:6). Later he conceded that his own detractors “are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

Zeal is often not based on knowledge but on fear, insecurity, ignorance, flawed cultural and traditional norms, and twisted interpretations of the sacred texts.

9-11 is but one horrific illustration of how religion gets sick. The sickness of 9-11 is not the zeal but the murder. The wholesale slaughter of noncombatants in any war is forbidden by the individual conscience as well as the world religious systems. Hundreds of people from around the world became that day eight years ago, not collateral damage, but targets for destruction.

Any religious thinking which approves and encourages such tactics and behavior is a blight on the planet. We simply cannot continue the awful legacy of settling religious disputes and advancing religious causes through violence.

You may argue that 9-11 is not an illustration of “religious disputes.” I would agree. It is not simply religious disputation that precipitated this disaster. But in the minds of many Muslims as well as Christians, we are waging Holy War in Iraq and Afghanistan and the many other places where Christians and Muslims are perpetrating violence upon each other. Nineteen suicide bombers died on 9-11, and they would declare with one voice that they did this in the name of Allah.

Protection of people and property requires the bearing of arms. That is a sad truth. The power of the sword is given to the mayor, the governor, the president—our elected and legitimate governmental authorities. They wield that sword because evil people must be restrained. They should always take up the sword with a great sense of the final judgment when they will give their account unto God.

Individuals may at times take up arms to protect their person and property with a response proportionate to the threat.

But our faith in Christ does not call us to take up arms to advance Christianity or fight other religions. Our faith demands that we lay the weapons down. The sword—any weapon—is too weak to accomplish what Christ intends to do--changing the hearts of people. That cannot be accomplished by coercion, only persuasion.

So the followers of Jesus do as Christ did. We wield the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. We fight our battles with love and good deeds, with faith and self-sacrifice. At our best, we refuse to use the power of government to advance our religion. We know that such advancement is illusory, that by using government to advance Christianity we are polluting both the true nature of the church and the true purpose of the government.

9-11 is a day when I remember the limitations of weaponry. I give thanks for a Savior who willingly put up the swords and then laid down his life. By such wisdom, faith, and sacrifice, Jesus demonstrated the true nature of faith in God, paid the debt for all our misguided zeal, liberated us from the grip of darkness and destruction, and changed the course of human history.

Now it is our turn to change the apparent course of human history: to insist that government limit its scope to the temporal concerns of humanity, to insist that our faith in Christ (and other faiths as well) cannot and should not be advanced by coercive means, to demonstrate our faith through love and self-sacrifice, and to lay down our lives that others may know the Savior who alone can rescue the wayward heart.

Storms

2009-07-22T08:49:00.001-05:00

You cannot fight the fierce gale. All you can do in a whirlwind is seek shelter. The farmers and ranchers in the wide open spaces from Texas north to Nebraska dug storm shelters near their homes like the one you see in “The Wizard of Oz.” When they saw or heard a “twister,” the family piled into the manmade cave and closed the door until the howling wind subsided.

Storms are a part of life wherever you reside. They come upon us suddenly, topple our favorite trees, and damage our homes and businesses.

I grew up listening to a popular gospel tune, “When the Storm Passes By,” published in 1958 by Mosie Lister. The last part of the chorus, sung in four-part harmony by some then-renowned quartet, went around and around in my head: “Hold me fast, let me stand, in the hollow of Thy hand. Keep me safe till the storm passes by.” The voices stopped suddenly on “safe,” just for a second, and then came back to finish the line.

Some things are just gone after the storm. We cannot find them let alone repair them.
Whirlwinds are terrible, but they make good parables. Proverbs 10:25 says, “When the storm (“whirlwind” in KJV) has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.”

Warren No Hate-Monger

2009-01-02T16:39:00.000-06:00

December 30, 2008

President-elect Obama has not betrayed his faithful constituents by selecting Pastor Rick Warren to offer the prayer at his inauguration—he has affirmed them. This would include both my yellow-dog Democrat activist sister-in-law and most of my African-American preacher friends here in New Orleans.

Warren has directed thousands of dollars to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the years since Hurricane Katrina. His work among those afflicted with HIV is well known. These are only two of his many efforts to alleviate suffering in the world.

Warren’s evident concern for the physical suffering of people, together with his purpose-driven approach to Christian spirituality, has earned him the respect of millions of people from all religious and political affiliations, including President-elect Barack Obama.

Obama’s decision to ask Warren to offer the prayer at his inauguration indicates the breadth of Obama’s vision and the depth of his perception of American life and culture.

Protests about this choice by the new president issue, not so much from Warren’s sermons, which are characterized by love, as from a deep-seated bias against religious truth in general and traditional Christianity in particular.

Warren is convinced that the claims of Christianity are true. Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He seeks to persuade others to follow Jesus as Lord.

Really believing in Jesus as the Savior is Warren’s chief religious conviction and, for his detractors, his fundamental offense. It is no longer politically correct to believe any exclusive religious claims. Faith itself must be seen as guesswork in our brave new world, not something you get worked up about. In the new thinking, “intolerance” is defined as believing anything to the exclusion of anything else.

Religious faith itself is the culprit in this new thinking, and Rick Warren—and the rest of us who believe the exclusive claims of Jesus--are jihadists.

Those who protest Warren’s selection think they have identified the Enemy, but they’ve got the wrong man.

Passionate faith centered in love does not threaten, but actually promotes, a better world, as illustrated by Warren’s behavior. The real enemy is any faith—or no faith—separated from love as its key imperative.

The obligation of true faith in God is not the elimination of other faiths but the love of neighbor, family, and even one’s enemies. True faith loves those who disagree and seeks their good, not their ruin. True faith seeks to make peace, not war, to bind up rather than to wound.

We should not fear passionate faith that is full of conviction and seeks to persuade others to believe. Such faith is the source of our greatest philanthropy and a building block for our finest future on this planet.

The real enemy is the end of faith, the disappearance of religious conviction, when love no longer has compelling force or divine obligation. If you think the secularists will rescue the wounded and hurting, you did not live through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The vast majority of the volunteers who came to our rescue by the thousands were driven by passionate faith focused in love.

We have a new president with deep religious convictions. His inauguration is enhanced, and his vision clarified, by Warren’s offering the prayer.

Louisiana Baptist Convention 2008

2008-11-10T08:34:00.001-06:00

Louisiana Baptist Convention 2008
Meeting in New Orleans Monday and Tuesday

An employee of the Road Home program will move into his own new home in January, years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the home he lived in for many years. Another family announced last week that they will be returning to their refurbished home in Old Metairie by the end of this year. New Orleans has a long way to go before all displaced families fulfill their desire to get back home. In fact, our community faces years of rebuilding in all dimensions including streets, housing, education, businesses, and healthcare.

“Second Wind” is the theme for this week’s meeting of the Louisiana Baptist Convention here in New Orleans. Baptists descended in force upon our city to help with the initial relief efforts. “Yellow caps” were everywhere preparing and serving millions of meals in the devastated areas.
Baptist volunteers, along with many others, plunged into the work of picking up debris, clearing fallen trees, towing ruined cars, and cleaning flooded homes. LBC President David Hankins has challenged Baptist churches across the state to “get their second wind” in the work of recovery and restoration in the New Orleans area. Some 2,000 messengers from 1,600 churches will gather to take care of this and other business.

The local association of Baptist churches, which includes a hundred congregations, has already reorganized its work to address recovery issues in the city for the next decade. Specialists in recovery and rebuilding will join those involved in more traditional efforts such as church planting and homeless ministry. The state convention and national Southern Baptist entities are focused on the health and well-being of New Orleans for the long term. The local association lost 60 congregations due to the devastating flood. The restoration effort will not be limited to restoring congregations but will attempt to create and restore rehabilitation programs, schools, medical services, housing, and general economic development.

The great flood and its aftermath may have been forgotten in some parts of the country. But Louisiana knows the difficulties of New Orleans, and Louisiana churches understand and have made the long term commitment to restoration of our devastated region.

Tomorrow You Will Eat Your Words!

2008-09-29T10:25:00.001-05:00

If Jesus himself were running for political office, I would not give him an endorsement as pastor of my church.

But Jesus is not now—nor will he ever be—running for political office. He taught us clearly that politics itself is far too feeble a tool to get done what he is trying to do on this earth. Jesus is not blind to politics and politicians—he sees right through them.

The church is a force for good in this world because it is beholden to no politicians. It speaks and ministers by the authority of no earthly government. It salutes the flag of God Almighty and answers to him alone.

This transcendent task and independent status of the church is essential to its nature. If the church becomes the benevolence branch of government, it loses its own soul.
So the church rightfully insists that government not intervene in its internal affairs.
The vote is a sacred trust in our democracy. It is our most fundamental right and responsibility as citizens. Every eligible citizen should be registered to vote and should take the time and make the hard choices on Election Day.

Pastors should not be endorsing political candidates as part of their official duties in the church. Such an endorsement trivializes the house of worship and threatens the constitutional separation of the institutions of church and state.

Tax exempt status has been granted to the churches for generations because churches are partners with government in seeking the well-being of the citizenry. Churches and other houses of worship seek to care for the sick and dying, reach out to the poor and needy, and help those who cannot help themselves.

Additionally, churches are supported financially through the voluntary gifts of citizens who pay taxes. Taxing these charitable gifts amounts to double dipping by government.

Pastors who endorse political candidates threaten the balance of this arrangement between the church and the government. They do so, not because they are denied opinions on current issues, but because they seek to reconstitute government in their own image.

The founders of our country did not want pastors running the affairs of government. Such an intrusion would violate the democratic principle of elected representation. So the U.S. Congress was prohibited by the First Amendment from making any law which established a favored religion or prohibited the free exercise of any religion.

That means that churches do not do their work with tax money, and government does not do its work with church money. The institutions operate separately but jointly in an effort to bless the citizenry.

Pastors are at liberty to address any and all moral issues in this country, complimenting and criticizing government and government leaders for successes and failures as they see them. These comments do not threaten their tax exempt status.

But when churches start acting like political parties, rallying their constituency and endorsing candidates for office, they are intruding on the institutions of government and seeking by religious means to achieve political goals. Their tax exempt status is in jeopardy.

Houses of worship are properly concerned with eternal standards of behavior like justice, truth, and love. Pastors endorse these qualities of human conduct as ideals toward which we strive both as individuals and as societies. Pastors are responsible for speaking out when these standards are violated whether that failure is individual or systemic.

Individual politicians and political parties never embody these perfect virtues perfectly. A word to the wise: if you choose today to endorse a candidate or a political party as “Christian,” tomorrow you will eat your words.

Not Again!

2008-08-27T17:40:00.001-05:00

The cancelations are rolling in. Formal Katrina remembrances are being replaced by an unstoppable barrage of unwanted, terrifying memories. Productive work is now on hold. All eyes are on the Gulf of Mexico and the unseeing, unfeeling specter of Hurricane Gustav.
He has me churning already. His powerful winds and deadly aim at New Orleans are dredging up suppressed memories of midnight runs, stranded plans, and emotional partings.

An emergency meeting to batten down the hatches turned into a torrent of tormented remembrances. Pets are a problem. The elderly need help. Temporary office accommodations are available in Montgomery, Alabama.

The post-Katrina newcomers are staring at me, maybe a little mystified. I am waving my arms too much. My voice is strained, and my animation seems bigger than the situation calls for.

Someone voices the “no evacuation” sentiment. A Katrina survivor who fished his loved ones out of the flood jumps back in his chair, shaking his head violently. “No, sir! I’m not staying.” No one knows how to escape this gaping fissure running through our collective lives.

Lunch is now the hour of dark speculation and ominous prediction. “If we flood again, that’s the end for New Orleans. No one will come to help us.”

Everything in me resists. I don’t want to do this, not even think this.

But my mind steals inexorably to the edge of the cliff. I peer into a murky, imagined future where New Orleans has become the modern Atlantis after Gustav completes a deadly one-two punch.

Close the shutters again. Find the power drill and long screws. Cover the windows. Load the files. Fill the gas tanks. Remember how we missed the tools and computers last time. We know this routine.

Move the valuables to the second floor. Clean out the freezer. Take—what? Am I preparing for a three-day vacation or three weeks of waiting for the bowl to finally empty?

I am screaming inside—and shaking. My worst nightmare comes at me hour by hour from every quarter in vivid color with all the numbers perpetually displayed: 75 mph sustained winds, 4 mph WNW. These spinning currents are peeling off the scabs and breaking open the unhealed wounds of Katrina’s beating.

My usual “tropical storm confusion” about when to say what to whom is compounded by an unshakable sense of doom gripping the back of my neck. I don’t want to go there. How do I stop myself? What will this storm cost me? Everything?

Our levees seem so formidable when I push my bicycle to their crest. But they shrink to tiny scratches in the sand when viewed from these thunderheads. I feel panic. Did the Corps of Engineers fix those weak spots along the Industrial Canal? What about the MRGO?

My brother’s bedrooms are full, and our son has too much on his plate. We will evacuate to Texas, my wife has decided, so she can tend to her aging father for a few days. How many days, I wonder.

Someone is singing. My heart slows down. I cannot live in this emotional quicksand. My refuge in this storm of memories is a firm faith anchored somewhere beyond government, nature, and science.

I wrench my mind back to all the familiar faces, people that I love. Here lie the real values of my life. These I can protect. My possessions may be looted, soaked or mildewed, but if my loved ones are safe, I have scarcely lost a thing. This, too, I learned from Katrina.

Back to the task at hand. Make sure we have a good plan when the Mayor blows his horn. And this time we get on the correct side of the contraflow so we can actually go to Texas.

The Omnipresent Storm

2008-08-19T11:31:00.002-05:00

Friday the 29th is the third anniversary of the landfall of our omnipresent storm, Hurricane Katrina, the most powerful storm to strike America since scientists began measuring such calamities.

Hurricane Katrina was three times the size of Rita or Andrew or Camille in the sheer energy it generated, lifting the waters of the sea at least 10 feet above sea level for a span of 200 miles. This storm surge, 30 feet high at the midpoint, filled Lake Pontchartrain to unprecedented levels and toppled the walls of the city’s drainage canals at seven different locations.

And there you have it—Mother Nature’s swirling gift that just keeps on spinning.
Not a day goes by—maybe even a waking hour—that I don’t somehow encounter this storm in my memory. Driving through Lakeview I see a new home and think, “They didn’t elevate it much. I guess they’re betting on the levees.” I see a vacant lot where a home used to sit and wonder, “Is that family living nearby or still displaced by the storm?”

I walk our church parking lot and lament the loss of trees, poisoned by salt water, that we worked so hard to keep alive the first year at our new site. I’ll think to myself, “Where is that cabinet we used for display?” and then remember, “Oh, yes, we lost it in the storm.”

If my surroundings don’t remind me of Katrina, the people around me are sure to do it. Every conversation about education, healthcare, housing, economic development, or criminal justice has its Katrina component. I visited the Orleans Parish House of Detention a few days ago and was reminded that hundreds of inmates still live in tents—remnants of the great storm.

Someone moves away, and I think of Katrina. Someone new arrives, and I think of Katrina. Is this coming and going related to the storm? Often it is.

Pick any day. Three of the five front page stories in our local newspaper will likely feature some dimension of recovery from the storm. Brad Pitt is building homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. Potential locations for the new VA hospital are being debated. A billion dollars is available to rebuild Orleans Parish school facilities.
The great storm stalled directly above us and continually pumps its downpour on our city. Across the span of our individual and collective lives, we have had precious little relief from this barrage in these three years.

And there’s more to come. The reminders will not evaporate with the passing of August 29.

Am I stuck in this fierce wind forever? Can my mind ever paddle out of this flood?
It’s too soon to tell, I guess, even after three years. As long as gaping caverns in our streets threaten to devour my vehicle, I will think of Katrina. Until the new hospitals are part of our skyline, until the inmates are eight to a cell instead of 14, I will think of Katrina. Until the schools, the levees, and the vast stretches of flood-blighted neighborhoods are rebuilt, I will always think of Katrina.

And, I guess, if our new approach to public education really works, and students enjoy an environment more conducive to learning, I will enjoy some measure of gratitude for Katrina. If Charity Hospital re-emerges as a state-of-the-art haven for the sick, I will give thanks for Katrina.

For heaven’s sake, if the Saints win the Superbowl or the Hornets top the NBA, I am going to be thinking of Katrina—the difficulties we have overcome, the problems we have solved, and the joy we have experienced in the journey from what felt like a watery grave to what looks like a successful community bequeathing a spirit of courage and determination to coming generations.

True Love

2008-07-22T10:29:00.000-05:00

Janet and I celebrated 36 years of marriage July 17. That’s a long time.

I often remind couples during the wedding ceremony that they are making a promise for a lifetime. They make this promise without knowing what the future holds. Many challenges await them, but they promise to be faithful.

How can two people, not knowing the future, make a promise of faithfulness one to another?

God’s love is the guarantee of the promise. Love never fails, as the Apostle Paul eloquently reminds (1 Corinthians 13:8). The gift of God’s love is the reason that two people can make a promise for a lifetime without knowing the future.

The power of love is not that we love God or one another. It is that God loves us. Can you capture this with your heart and head? God loves you—passionately and beyond explanation. This love is the central power of the universe. It holds together the Trinity. The Three are One because of divine love.

So two can become one through the power of this love.

The freedom to love is granted us by the Creator God. Love must be free to be real. How could anyone coerce true love?

Love freely given and freely received—this is the ebb and flow of the divine nature and the true description of the greatest cosmic force. You will never run across anything greater than the love of God.

What are you waiting for? Leap into the current of love and discover what the Creator intended for your life.

Immediate Neighborhood - Lakeview

2008-06-27T11:57:00.001-05:00

The population around our church is now almost 40 percent of what it was before Hurricane Katrina hist our shores. We consider this great news.

The bad news concerns blighted properties. The Lakeview Civic Improvement Association estimates that 1,400 properties remain blighted.

All of Lakeview, population 24,000 before the storm, went under water, some of it as deep as 11 feet. Lakeview is the neighborhood into which the breached 17th Street Canal poured its flood waters.

More good news—900 homes in Lakeview are under construction. When these homes are occupied the population should jump to around 13,000. Many of the new residents of Lakeview are young people. Our church is eager to reach out to these families.

The excellent elementary school, Hines Charter, should be housed in new facilities in Lakeview by the end of next year. This will be a huge incentive for young families to relocate in our area.

Lakeview now has 1,900 vacant lots as a result of widespread demolition of flooded properties. Many of these lots will be purchased by neighbors next door and become green space.

Even more good news--our Early Learning Center, the only full-time day care facility in Lakeview, now has 112 children enrolled and is gaining new enrollees almost daily. This ministry is bringing new faces to our door step and provides us an opportunity to teach little children about the love of God. Our excellent faculty uses the LifeWay curriculum for age-appropriate learning.

The best news of all—First Baptist New Orleans has an opportunity to reach out to these new residents with the message of salvation in Christ. We are privileged to be part of an active community. And we are called to communicate the love of God found through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Changing Central City - Prayer Walk Saturday!

2008-06-27T11:55:00.001-05:00

Dozens of churches in Greater New Orleans are mobilizing Saturday to strike at the root of violence in our city. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of members of local churches will walk through the streets of Central City praying for the residents there and praying for an end to the bloodshed.

Central City is an important part of our community and home to thousands of our citizens. The area includes some great churches, schools, neighborhoods, businesses and public instititutions.
It also continues to be plagued with drug wars and senseless killing.

Churches from across the region will converge at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 28, at New Hope Baptist Church, 1807 LaSalle Street, just off Claiborne Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Groups of 50 persons will fan out in the area, praying for needs and talking with residents.

All Christians are invited to participate in this unique, interdenominational effort sponsored by the Greater New Orleans Pastors Coalition.

Southern Baptists will host a major evangelistic and prayer effort in Central City in November. The prayer walk this Saturday, June 28, is part of a continuing effort to saturate our community with prayer and witnessing.

Only God’s love can change the culture of violence that makes New Orleans the perennial homicide capital of America.

This is Daddy

2008-06-10T13:55:00.001-05:00

“This is Daddy’s truck,” Hope told me when she was two years old. She was pretending to drive, her little hands barely moving the steering wheel. I reached for the steering wheel. “This is Daddy’s truck,” she said again, protectively.

She loved her Daddy, that was clear to me, and she missed him every hour when he was away.

Fathers have a special place in the lives of their children.

I spoke of my father last Sunday in the message—the wrestling matches when he pinned me and my four brothers all in a pile in the living room floor. I have wonderful memories of a Dad who loved me.

I forget sometimes that some people—lots of people—did not grow up with a loving father. A person reminded me this week of that painful reality.

The absence of a loving father is one of the great tragedies of the present time for millions of children and adults. It is a wound that does not heal easily.

Loving fathers are in great demand. There is no role in the family where so little means so much—a little time and attention, a little listening and talking, a little affection and direction. So many kids are longing for it—just a tender look or loving touch from Dad.

Fathers, you are heroes, know it or not. You cast a shadow that lasts a lifetime.

Kneeling at Their Work

2008-05-16T16:31:00.001-05:00

Update from New Orleans

A former president in his mid-80s is entitled to do whatever he wishes with his time. So it wrinkled my brow to see President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, on their knees affixing boards to a porch in the Upper Ninth Ward this week.
I decided, watching them work, that this presidential couple really believe they are changing the world with these small acts of kindness. Looking around, I saw many of the hundreds of volunteers who graced our city this week pausing in their own work to observe this famous man and woman accomplishing their humble service. These young faces, eyes shining, are portraits and symbols of faith and hope. They come to our city with the express purpose of lifting our spirits, holding up our arms, and joining us in the grunt work that moves our community forward.
Former presidents in their 80s seem empowered to say whatever they wish, as President Carter has demonstrated over high-level objections. They also appear empowered to do whatever they wish. And driving nails to build decent and safe houses for working people is just what this president wants to do.
He and Rosalyn are all smiles as they greet people, grab their tools, and hit the deck with gusto. They request routinely that admirers not interrupt their construction time so that they can get something done.
Harry Connick, Jr., and Ellis Marsalis dropped by to greet the volunteers and visit with the Carters. I thanked Harry for giving high visibility to our work of rebuilding, but he turned that thank you right back on me. The Carters did the same, and instructed me to pass on their gratitude to my congregation.
Sometimes, around some people, it is hard to get a thank you in edgewise. I suspect that people who are busy trying to change their world are also very grateful as a matter of disposition.
Our environment here in New Orleans is being changed one hammer stroke at a time. For us, the progress is visible and palpable. It may be hard to extrapolate our progress to the rest of the world, but all the same principles apply whether we are looking at changing a city or changing a world. The accumulated effect of millions of tiny hammer strokes is the rebuilding of a devastated region. If multiplied throughout the world, the goal of eradicating poverty housing seems truly within reach.
Of course, the only people who hope for and expect such a transformation in our city or our world are the people swinging hammers. Hope springs eternal only when we are busy building what we hope for. If despair or resignation benched us, our inactivity reinforces the despair and quells the hope.
Billy Puckett, construction manager for the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, challenged a thousand volunteers one morning this week to persevere in their good work. Perseverance, he said, would build character. And character produces hope.
When you see the Carters kneeling at their work, your own heart swells. You start to imagine a world where people give of themselves in this way. You begin to believe that people can make a difference. Their determination and courage ignite hope in you, the observer. Maybe genuine hope has always traveled on these arcs of imagination and admiration that connect people. Maybe hope always emanates from the sweat of honest labor and the embrace of active love.

Unique and complicated

2008-05-12T11:56:00.001-05:00

Unique, interesting, and charming—these are great descriptors for the Crescent City.

But it is also tough duty these days to live here, and we do ourselves no favors by insisting otherwise.

I just spoke to a former resident who relocated and is enjoying the experience of "normal"—a landscape without Katrina litter.

Every time I drive through New Orleans East, particularly at Read Boulevard, I fight a surge of despair. The vacancy—empty frames and windswept lots and abandoned medical facilities and sparse population—thunders with emotional and physical challenges for our people.

And it wears on us all whether we are directly involved in rebuilding or whether we are trying to do life without reference to the greatest devastation of our times.

Encouragement flows, as it always does, through healthy relationships of mutual support. Family and friendship circles sustain us. Tempting as it may be when we are weary, when we are conserving our energies, we should not withdraw from the oasis of loving connections. Now we need our dinner parties and holiday gatherings and summer vacations and backyard barbeques more than ever before.
Do not waste energy blaming those who have relocated. Instead, view the rebuilding of New Orleans as a great relay with many runners. Some carry the baton for short distances. Others invest for the long haul. Every assignment in this setting is unique to the individual gifts and temperament. We are not "abandoned" when friends leave. That is simply one stop on the road to getting healthy when we are grieving.

And we are grieving, make no mistake, each in his own way. The losses continue to weigh heavy upon us and our community. At some point we must accept the realities of our new way of life, create and sustain the new relationships that are required, and settle into a pace that we can manage for the years to come. Anger, resentment, and jealousy work against our greatest good and must be rejected in favor of contentment (not resignation), peace (not inactivity), and joy in the journey.

Can people be healthy and happy in the wake of great devastation? Of course they can. Right now in New Orleans, great friendships are flourishing, marriages are growing stronger, and families are learning to lean on each other as never before.

Great teams are being built in all sectors of our economy and community. These dynamic new connections are already lifting us beyond our pre-Katrina environment in many instances. The chaos--the sloshed and sloppy soup of flooded New Orleans—together with the influx of great resources has produced here the richest seedbed in the world for new ideas, art, poetry, social structures, business relationships, and break-through alliances.

Tomorrow’s amazing advances are germinating now in our city’s slippery scramble toward its emerging order.

Some will pass up this chance of a lifetime. Some will contribute significantly from a distance or in short tenure. Others, sensing the moment laden with potential, will dive into this history-making mix and discover the wave that carries them to their greatest accomplishments.

Honestly, not everyone is cut out for post-Katrina New Orleans. But for those who want to slip "the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings," for pioneer stock and cliff-dwellers, this flattened expanse of swamp by the river is the Promised Land of opportunity.

This is where we are, where we live—this bustling nexus of hope and despair, glitter and litter, yearning and possibility. Hear the saxophone on the breeze, a mournful and beautiful improvisation, a brand new tune for our times.

Esther

2008-05-07T08:40:00.000-05:00

Esther is a woman of courage and virtue, a fitting place to be as we think of Mother’s Day. She is in a very difficult position. Her life is filled with limitations. She is young and inexperienced, and the future of her family and her nation is in her hands. Her adoptive father, trying to encourage her and help her do the right thing, says to her, And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14).

Everyone should consider these words of Mordecai to Esther. We do not select our time, and much about our place is also assigned to us.

You are at this moment blinking on God’s GPS screen. He knows right where you are. Is it possible that you, too, have come to this exact time and position to accomplish the purposes of God?

No matter how alone you feel--or how afraid--you are in the presence of your memories, your loyalties, and your enemies. Always. Your memories chronicle the story of your life. Your loyalties constitute the pledges and promises that you have made and that have been made to you. Your enemies remain present because you are not yet delivered from the presence of the world, the flesh, or the devil. One day you will be, but not yet.

Make your choices knowing that God alone controls the compass and the timepiece.

Rebuilding

2008-04-29T08:59:00.001-05:00

No interventions of the supernatural "miracles" are recorded in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. However, prayer, faith, courage, and hard work are on every page. In truth, God was mightily at work through these times, restoring the house of worship and the Holy City.

Nehemiah wants to show reverence for God. This is how he describes his motivation for courageous and faithful living. He knows that his behavior is an outcome of and a declaration of his faith.

God could have snapped his fingers and restored Jerusalem to its full grandeur. Instead, he moved the hearts of his people and strengthened their hands for the difficult work of rebuilding. And through the process, inch by inch, he forged stronger bonds among them and drew the people to himself.

Ezra and Nehemiah restored the worship of God. They opened the word of God and brought it to the center of worship. They read for the people all that God had done for previous generations. They reminded the people of all that God promised them and of their obligations in the covenant of love.

And they turned a nation back to God.

We all enjoy instant answers. We like immediate rewards. We chafe under the restraints of development, cultivation, delay, and incremental process.

Residents of the City of New Orleans could decide to move to bright and well-manicured suburban areas with new schools and no crime. We do not have to live in a community struggling to lift itself from the muck.

We continue the work of rebuilding our community because we believe that this community is important to our security and economy as a nation. We believe that its rich culture and heritage are important aspects of America’s soul. And we believe that God has planted us here to help shape her future through faith and good works.

We pray for revival and for the harvest of souls that will surely follow the pervasive sowing of love and good deeds here. But no instant cure for the ills of New Orleans is likely to emerge. Instead, God has called us to a long journey of courage, faith, and determination.

The journey itself must become delightful and rewarding for each of us. We must learn to celebrate the small steps taken on a daily basis. We must mark with praise and thanksgiving the turning points as they occur and as we notice them.
And we must, like Ezra and Nehemiah, find our strength and focus in the worship of God, the power of prayer, the reward of good deeds, and the healing effect of God’s word.

Jerusalem

2008-04-16T13:35:00.005-05:00

The temple in Jerusalem was built by Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonian army in 587 B.C. The second temple in Jerusalem was built by Herod and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.
The city of Jerusalem was destroyed as well, in both instances. Jerusalem stands today as a viable city among the cities of the world, and Israel stands as an independent nation among the nations of the world.

The crosshairs of history seem always trained upon that city which David selected as the seat of his empire. Geographically the city sits at the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is built on the logical path by land from Africa to Europe and from Asia to both Africa and Europe. It is an intersection of trade routes for the bulk of the planet’s land mass.

But this alone does not explain its prominence in world history or in the modern era. Jerusalem is King David’s capital for the Jews. It is the city of the prophets for the Muslims. And it is the city of Jesus’ passion for the Christians. Jerusalem, in other words, stands out among the cities on the planet as a center of religious thought and life. The majority of people in our world today may in some way be said to look to Jerusalem for their religious roots.

Sunday is the first day of this year’s Passover celebration for the Jews. We turn our thoughts to the city where God deployed his One and Only Son for the ultimate expression of love in human time and space. Here he gave the perfect Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

Franklin Avenue Church Returns Home

2008-03-28T08:03:00.000-05:00

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

March 28, 2008

Franklin Avenue Baptist Church will worship next Sunday in their refurbished worship center. This is a significant milestone for that congregation and for that part of our community, and it deserves notation.

The great storm threw our congregations together. We were stunned, stumbling through the debris, overwhelmed by the chaos. We got our legs under us, though, and steadied each other in the damp darkness.

We donned the masks and boots and plunged together into the wreckage with our big snow shovels and wobbly wheelbarrows. We discovered that everyone is the same color in a hazmat suit.

We scrambled to high ground and set up camp. We labored to make sense of life, to discover old friends, to develop new ones.

We worked together, ate together, cried together, laughed together, prayed together, and learned to be comfortable together.

During those months that grew into years, we came to care for one another, respect each other, and value our growing friendship. We learned to really love each other.

The era of sharing the same church building must come to an end. The guest-who-has-become-family is moving on and moving out now, going back home to their rebuilt facilities in the 8^th Ward. That is as it should be, I know, but I lament it nonetheless.

I have grown accustomed to their life and laughter, their proximity physically and spiritually. My Sunday morning routine, altered by hundreds of new worshipers filling up the building very early, includes handshakes and greetings from these new brothers and sisters of mine. Every Wednesday evening we talk and walk together. Throughout these weeks we have met intentionally and accidentally, and every meeting has strengthened the tie that binds.

I will miss them when they are gone—no doubt.

From Musician’s Village to New Orleans Mission to City Hall, we have walked these streets and halls together since Katrina purged our dirt and dreams. The months of sharing facilities have led into many shared ministries. The women of our churches work together in ministry and Bible study several times a week. Our men pray together weekly and study the Scriptures together. Health and recreation ministries have been combined for these years along with Vacation Bible School, music camp, and outreach to our hurting city.

Every week I observe and hear from someone about the tremendous dynamics unleashed through the multiple interactions of our congregations, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church and First Baptist New Orleans, one predominantly African-American and the other mostly white. Pastor Fred Luter and I have co-hosted numerous events since Hurricane Katrina including the great gathering of pastors to hear Billy Graham. It has been an incredible experience, and it is for me the most positive product of the terrible storm. It could be her greatest legacy for our churches and our city.

The lessons of this crisis mode, with its work-together, live-together necessity, are earth-shaking. They should not pass from our minds and hearts. These new truths that have surfaced with the ebbing tide must bring permanent change. Let’s not waste this storm by regressing back to who we used to be.

The hurricane forced us to gather on the high ground, the unflooded areas. It removed the distance between us. For some displaced groups that has caused multiple exchanges of gunfire over disputed turf. But for many others it has meant turning the “neutral ground” into “common ground” and “higher ground.” The higher ground in our city is the place where we work together and learn to love and respect each other.

This is our last Sunday to share worship facilities with our new friends. We have made a mutual pledge that it will not be the end of our partnership in ministry in this city. We have experienced a glimpse of what it means to love one another across the boundaries that usually divide us. We will not back away from this divine call.

Easter for the Weary

2008-03-18T07:33:00.001-05:00

Easter for the Weary

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

March 18, 2008

The birds decided that my tiny tomato plants were good food, so they pecked off almost every leaf. I contemplated replanting but decided to give those tattered stems a chance to rejuvenate.

All it took was a few days. Not only are all nine of them still alive, but they are spreading new leaves and branches, looking healthy and determined.

The first dimension of life to demonstrate exciting recovery after Hurricane Katrina was the natural order. Vines with blossoms draped piles of debris. Twisted trees turned skyward, grew ten feet in that first spring, and opened new leaves to the sun.

Easter is a reminder that the cycle of life goes forward undaunted by life’s storms. The pines of southern Mississippi are sprouting right now amidst the rotting wood of tattered forests. The giant oaks of our urban forest that were beaten and broken by Katrina’s fury are filling in the gaps this spring and will soon display their oval canopy.

Almost three years post-Katrina, we humans continue to struggle mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We are contemplative creatures, often tormented more by the reasons for than the realities of our losses.

We must remind ourselves now, in this see-saw Road Home world, of the lessons we embraced immediately after the great storm. These are the truths that still sustain us going forward.

We learned that we can live without the accumulated piles of possessions. The furniture, automobiles, and houses we lost proved to be replaceable after all. If we are dismayed that our current fortune is not as large as our former, we must remind ourselves of those great mountains of debris. All material goods are at some stage on their way to the landfill.

We learned that adaptation is a key to survival. We transported our children to distant schools and patched together an educational experience that eventually got them into the college of their choice. We lived with relatives and really got to know them. We formed relationships that still nurture our families and our souls. If life post-Katrina continues to require adaptation, so be it. Change is an evidence of life—and the spice of life.

We learned that we are stronger than we thought. We flexed new muscles in our bodies, hearts, and brains. We operated on faith, hope, and love. We worked evenings and weekends restoring what was lost and broken, helping our children and our neighbors. And in the end, our Herculean efforts were rewarded. The house is nicer, the furniture is new, the threads on our backs are finally in style, and our neighborhoods are humming with activity.

We look back amazed that we made it through the last 32 months. We look forward and wonder if we can make the next 32.

That is where Easter comes in. Easter is an annual celebration because we need it every year. It comes in spring because our faith needs the evidence of nature’s incredible resilience. We spy tiny green shoots creeping through the cracked concrete and baby ducklings paddling on the industrial canals. And we know this planet is designed for rebirth and renewal.

Three days after his burial, the tomb of Jesus was empty. The executioners were scrambling for explanations and Jesus’ grieving friends were astonished and confused. What day is this? It is Sunday, the first day of the week.

Every week now we believers worship on Sunday. Every Sunday is Resurrection Day. The tomb could not hold our Lord, and the tomb cannot hold us. Life triumphs over death, joy comes in the morning, and hope overflows like an artesian well.

Update on New Orleans' Homeless

2008-03-14T17:00:00.002-05:00

Homeless men are now sleeping each night in the emergency shelter at New Orleans Mission built and funded in large part by First Baptist New Orleans and our Baptist partners.

Mayor Ray Nagin has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project and actually redirected a recent speaking honorarium to the mission rather than to his own personal pocket. This indicates both his seriousness in addressing homelessness and his personal support for the mission’s approach to this need.

Expanded services are now being provided at the mission thanks in large measure to Baptist interest and response to the need. Both the North American Mission Board and the Louisiana Baptist Convention aided in this project. The mission will open a new family shelter within the next few weeks. A day room will be opened to provide clean and safe space for daytime activities for the homeless. Chaplains and case workers are being added to the mission staff.

Ron Gonzales, mission director, and Don Cooper, president of the mission, have responded heroically to the surge in homelessness in New Orleans. Their efforts have secured for New Orleans Mission a place at the table in future discussions about “one-stop” solutions for homelessness in our city.

We Baptists are now developing a plan called a “continuum of care” for the homeless in our streets. We hope to identify and connect partners who can put a homeless person on a path that will lead them through spiritual transformation, necessary treatment and rehabilitation, halfway houses, transitional housing, and eventually to permanent housing, employment, and sobriety.

We will discuss this plan in a New Orleans Summit with officials from the North American Mission Board, the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, and several Baptist pastors in our city.

Homelessness is a complicated problem. Our city council is currently working on legislation that will allow the mayor to force an end to the homeless village which sprang up under the interstate in downtown New Orleans. Some of the residents in the homeless village are mentally ill and cannot function in “normal” society. We need an increase of residential facilities for the mentally ill as well as drug and alcohol treatment centers in our city. These would replace dozens of institutions and hundreds of beds lost in Hurricane Katrina.

We are compelled by the love of Christ to care for the hungry, the naked, the homeless, and the helpless. We cannot ignore their needs and remain faithful to our Lord.

Pray for our churches and all of God’s people in New Orleans as we seek to build coalitions, initiate activities, and address the needs of “the least of these” in a city still crippled by America’s most powerful and costly storm.

Resurrection Day

2008-03-14T16:24:00.001-05:00

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central event of the Christian faith and the greatest event in the annals of human history.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ rightfully changes everything about being human on this planet—the way we approach daily living, the way we handle loss and grief, the way we process data, etc. Nothing in human experience escapes the light which emanates from the empty tomb.

It is the reason that we worship on Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” as Paul referred to it. Jesus rose on the first day of the week. The Sabbath, or day of rest, has been replaced in our minds by the day of celebration, the day when death was forever defeated.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ changes the way we deal with difficulty and loss including hurricane damage and recovery work. We know for sure that nothing is impossible with God. We know that God can raise new life from the ashes, that a grave is no obstacle for him. We know that we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ puts a string in our step and hope in our heart every day. We are enjoying now the eternal life that Jesus gives us, life that never quits or fades. This is the quality of life that abides within every believer in Christ. We share one life with Christ—his life, eternal, invincible, victorious.

Have a great Resurrection Day, now and forever!

David

Donkey

2008-03-10T16:21:00.001-05:00

Donkeys are a major mode of transportation for the poor in many countries of the world. Donkeys pulling carts trot down dirt roads and clop along behind diesel buses and sedans in major cities jammed with traffic.

Herds of donkeys have appeared in recent years in the rural areas of Louisiana and Texas. Ranchers keep them in the pastures with sheep and goats because donkeys offer some measure of protection from coyotes and wolves.

These floppy-eared burden-bearers are small packages of useful energy. They are dependable, steady and sometimes sweet though seldom spectacular.

For this reason Jesus chose a donkey as his mount for the royal entrance into the Holy City during that holy season leading up to Passover. The donkey, unlike a spirited Arabian stallion, communicates humility and service.

The crowd on that first Palm Sunday seemed not to care about the beast but only about the rider. Him they dubbed the Son of David. They hailed him as one who came in the name of the Lord. They spread their garments in the path, waved the leafy branches, and sang Hosanna. It was a welcome for a king.

We know now what they did not know that Sunday in Jerusalem. We know that Jesus was riding to his death upon that lowly steed. He who served consistently through all his life would accomplish his greatest service in death. He was a servant to the sick, but in his death he would bring the medicine that heals every disease. He was a servant to the poor, but in his death he would bring eternal riches to the poor of spirit. He was a servant to the widow and orphan, but in his death he would open up the family of God to every troubled heart. He was a servant to the hungry and the hurting, but in his death he would bring access to the table of the Heavenly Father for all who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This is our Savior, riding on a donkey, his dangling feet almost dragging in the dust. This is our God, sitting, swaying, on the donkey’s boney back. For all who never pictured God this way, here is the unexpected correction to your vision.

2008-02-23T13:15:00.000-06:00

The Jordan River was at flood stage. God told the people to go through the river. The priests lifted the Ark of the Covenant to their shoulders and stepped into the water.

God did not part the water until the priests were in it, bearing the Ark. Then the water flow stopped, and the people of God passed through to the other side.

How would you like to have been one of those priests with the most precious and holy object in your nation resting on your shoulders? How would it feel to step into the swollen river having no idea how you would proceed? Must you be ready to wash off downstream and chase the floating Ark on the crest of the waves?

God chooses to wait until our feet are in the water. His intervention seems last-second to us, but he is teaching us to depend upon him and him alone. God has a great opportunity, when our resources are exhausted, to glorify himself through our obedience.

2008-01-31T10:31:00.000-06:00

My Presence Will Go With You
David E. Crosby, Pastor
First Baptist New Orleans
January 31, 2008

The people craft and worship a golden calf while Moses in on Mount Sinai communing with God, we read this week (see fbno.org; more info on YOTM; daily reading plan).

Moses breaks the tablets of the 10 Commandments written by the finger of God when he sees the people worshipping the gold calf.

God threatens to kill the Hebrews and refuses to accompany them any longer.

Moses has a long discussion with God about God’s presence with the Hebrews on the journey to the Promised Land.

God promises Moses, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). In the context of the sinfulness and stubbornness of Israel, God makes a covenant with them. They will be his people, and he will be their God.

You could hardly imagine a more difficult beginning to a covenant that this one. The Hebrew people seem absolutely untrustworthy, unpredictable, and unreliable. But God is willing to display his glory in the earth through them anyway.

You and I, too, have made the golden calf and shattered the 10 Commandments. We think it’s all over between us and God. We have sensed his displeasure, and we have known the alienation with God that puts a stopper on our prayers and pulls us back when we think we might approach him.

Let the hope rise like a flame from the ashes! God is not done with his people. His Presence is not withdrawn, and his peace is still available. He is longsuffering, full of tender mercies. His lovingkindness is better than life.

Embrace his offer of love and forgiveness. Take his hand and never let go.

Don't Mess with Me

2008-01-29T08:51:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you don’t want anyone messing with you. My 80-year-old father-in-law has reached that point. He jerked out all the tubes yesterday and insisted on going home. He is in ICU.

ICU stands for intensive care unit. It’s a place where people care for you very carefully, constantly, and intimately. They care so much that you have almost no privacy—well, no privacy, period. They care for you 24 hours a day so you cannot really sleep unless they give you a pill that keeps you under when they’re fooling with your IV, taking your blood pressure and temperature, and checking the beeping machine at 2 a.m.

It really is intensive.

And it’s a lot to put up with, especially when you are old and hurting and want to go home.

Jesus said to Peter, “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18).

There you go. It’s the perfect description of old age. And you arrive there remembering the times when you were in charge, in control of the thundering machines, and nobody messed with you.

You stretch out your hands. It’s an act of surrender. Those still-powerful hands have held the babies, gripped the plow, pulled the levers, steered that 18-wheeler around the mountains, wielded the iron wrench that turned the stubborn valve, and cracked a thousand other counter-forces through sheer will power and physical strength.

I remember when Jack tried to teach me how to “peel pecans” with a pocketknife. I saw him cutting through those shells like butter, taking out the meat in whole sections, and I wanted to do the same. I took his knife and cut up my thumb, but my hands weren’t strong enough to push that sharp knife through the wooden shell. I realized again how strong his hands were.

Now they stretch out, palms up, and yield to the demands of the tiny nurse at the bedside. When days have passed and the drugs are coursing through your tired veins and you don’t know whether its sunup or sundown and nothing makes much sense anymore, that’s when you stretch out your hands and let them lead you where you do not want to go.

The faces bob around you, faces of people who really care intensely for you, frantic to help you out of your pain and into tomorrow. But you know—and they know—that all the tests and medicines in the world can’t really fix what’s wrong with you.

Peter was upset about the Lord’s comments to him. He saw John and asked, “What about him?”

And Jesus replied, “That’s not your business. You follow me.”

And so, in the end, we come back to the beginning. We yield to the One who started us on the journey of faith and promise. We follow the one who called us years ago. We continue to do exactly what we have done for all these years.

We trust and obey. We turn our palms upward and go where we are led. We follow, not the nurse or the family, but the Lord himself who walks before us and beside us all the way Home.

2008-01-24T15:51:00.000-06:00

Want to Open a Day Care?

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

January 24, 2008

You would think that facilitating the opening of day care centers in Orleans Parish would be one of the highest priorities of our city government.

Think again.

The storm shut down two-thirds of the licensed centers in the parish. The number of operating centers dropped from more than 275 to 86 in the entire parish.

Thirty months later that number has crept back to 96. Ten centers have been licensed since the storm. A young father told me last week that his unborn child was on a 500-name waiting list for infant care. Two centers in our city have more than 800 children on their waiting lists.

I know the story of two churches that still await permission from local government to take care of the preschoolers of working parents.

First Baptist New Orleans, operating in a nearly new facility and with existing licensure to care for preschoolers part-time four days a week, has worked now for more than eight months to achieve licensure for full day care. We replaced our two-hole sink with a three-hole sink. We installed additional alarms. We secured the approval of the health department and the fire marshal. As far as I know, we completed everything the state and city wanted us to do—four months ago.

We called City Hall 20 times and left messages. The office was too busy to answer with a living human being. We sent emails. We arrived in person at the appropriate office. We were told they could not find a building permit for the construction work on the church. We resolved that misunderstanding after two months by communicating that we are using an existing building for the center, not constructing a new one.

The licensing process for another church has been similar but longer—14 months and still no permission to care for kids.

I know that good people with good intentions are working to grant these permits. We don’t want unsafe conditions for the little ones. I know our city employees are trying to follow procedure and protect children.

And I know that this is no way to respond to an emergency shortage of child care in our city. It illustrates a systemic problem at both the local and state level. It is the reason that many people who want to do business here decide to go elsewhere.

This cumbersome process consumes personal energy, frustrates citizens, and finally steals their enthusiasm and interest for the projects they wanted to launch.

We can do better, and we must do better if our economic future as a city and state is to be different than our past.

Here are a few suggestions.

First, treat requests for licensing day care centers with the urgency and priority that they deserve in our city at this time. We need a hundred new centers open yesterday. Young families moving into our city simply cannot find quality, affordable child care. The permitting process is part of the problem. Let’s fix it.

Second, consolidate all necessary information into one simple and easy-to-understand packet and process. Stop sending citizens from pillar to post, floor to floor in City Hall, and person to person. Showing up downtown should not be a necessary part of this formula.

Third, develop a strategy to assist churches in their quest for licensing. In many cases they already have facilities built for children that are empty during the week. Many churches are well-equipped to provide this service in the community, and many are willing to subsidize costs by providing space without market-value reimbursement.

Fourth, provide economic incentives for new day care centers that will lower the costs and increase their profitability. While our church day care center will be nonprofit, many people are eager to provide child care as a way to make a living.

Somebody can figure this out. Let’s do it now and fix this glaring deficiency in our recovering city.

Calamity Bears Down on Opportunity

2008-01-22T15:56:00.000-06:00

That “caught in the headlights” syndrome can be dangerous, even deadly, as I was reminded last week on a trip to the south Mississippi piney woods.

A whitetail deer galloped down the pavement for 20 yards immediately in front of my vehicle. The yearling doe was so close to contact that the hood of the car partially obscured my view of her. She seemed trapped by the headlights in the evening hour, and glanced back toward me with fear more than once.

The doe entered my peripheral vision on the left. Janet saw her coming toward us and called out a warning. I hit the brakes hard and thought she had darted safely across the road.

She swerved, however, and began to race in front of our still-moving vehicle, and Janet cried out, “We’re going to hit it!”

I cannot say for sure that our grill never touched her. But I do know that she bounded safely off the road and into the pine grove and left us both breathless, hearts pounding, with vehicles lined up behind.

We grew up driving in Mills County, Texas, and have struck deer with vehicles more than once. It’s never a pleasant experience and often costly. The greatest danger to humans in vehicles is that they will hurt themselves or others while trying to avoid the animal. Experienced drivers generally stay in their lanes and avoid rear-end collisions even if it means one less whitetail browsing on mesquite beans.

What got me this time was the way the doe turned her head toward the headlights and watched them approach with her brown eyes wide open. I know she could have run faster or taken a safer course had she not been twisted sideways to catch a good view of the oncoming disaster.

All God’s creatures, including deer and humans, may be momentarily captivated by pending tumult, terror, and tragedy. Which of us could turn aside when the twin towers began to crumble?

Part of New Orleans’ endearing and conversational culture is its capacity for thoughtful, front-porch contemplation in the moment of potential disintegration.

At this point in our history we must not be caught ruminating when we should be acting. Almost any action is better than none when the train is bearing down on you. When the warning whistle blows, delay is your worst enemy.

We have arrived at our all-stops-pulled moment. Repopulation is slowing dramatically. By the thousands and tens of thousands, people near and far are reaching the moment of decision about New Orleans.

The time has come to establish a new trajectory. We cannot watch these headlights anymore. We must discover the path that will likely lead to new opportunity, economic advance, and community renewal and dart through that open door.

We have gathered around the plans and examined the blueprints long enough. Let the floodgates open. Release the new ideas. Turn your dreams into brick and mortar now.

What seems like a daring initiative is actually the only way forward for our families and our community. To get out on a limb is no risk at all when the tree itself is quivering. A comprehensive mobilization of our population across the fields of education, criminal justice, health care, housing, and economic development will secure our city’s finest future.

Staring at those headlights does not make you safer. Get up and at it or resign yourself to the dismal fate that overtakes those who cannot move when calamity bears down on opportunity.

Homelessness Comes to Church

2008-01-16T12:20:00.000-06:00

My shoes were covered with his tears. My suit was stained with his tears. He just could not stop crying.

His name was Charles. That’s all I learned from him when he came for prayer. He was so overcome with emotion he could not speak.

I prayed with him and promised to talk afterward, and he returned to his place in the pew.

Charles is one of the homeless people who live in tents under the interstate bridge on Claiborne Street. Mark, a man in our church who ministers to the homeless, picked him up that morning, along with two others, and brought them to church.

The message I brought that day was about Abraham, the father of the faithful, and how he lived in tents like a stranger in the Promised Land. I did not realize when I preached the message that at least three people in the congregation actually lived in tents themselves.

Charles said he is drug-free and sober but unemployed. God is using him, he said, to minister to the people in the tent community who are “fighting their demons,” so he is not anxious to relocate. The population in the tents changes continually yet is stabilized by longer term residents who know one another and watch out for each other.

The New Orleans Mission has expanded its capacity in a variety of ways. The large shelter we recently constructed for this emergency will open when the inspection by the state fire marshal is done. Then the mission will have capacity to accommodate everyone in the tent community who wishes to sleep indoors.

The highly visible homelessness in New Orleans these days came as something of a surprise. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina the homeless were gone. Providers of homeless services in the city guessed that homelessness was at a very low level and that it would be five years before the city would see any resurgence of that population.

Overnight, it seemed, a homeless population appeared, a homeless community formed, and it became a highly visible part of our post-Katrina puzzle. Homeless services, including health care and housing, continue to be quite limited in our city, though the capacities of the various shelters are steadily growing.

We hear reports of thousands of people living in abandoned houses in the areas devastated by flooding. These people are at high risk in many ways but especially from criminals who now prey on the migrant workers, the transient, and the elderly. One older man finally moved into his rehabilitated home this week only to be assaulted and murdered.

A hundred square miles of neighborhoods in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes went under water during the great storm. These vast stretches of houses, numbering near 150,000 structures, vary greatly in their current condition and population. Some areas where few people have returned are simply dangerous places to reside.

Long term solutions to our homeless crisis will come very slowly. Homelessness itself is a complicated phenomenon with a wide variety of social and personal causes. Even in “normal” conditions urban communities are hard-pressed to manage, let alone solve, this social puzzle.

The restoration of medical services and residential treatment centers for the mentally ill may do more than any single development to meet the need on the street in New Orleans. Persons suffering from mental illness may constitute a quarter of our current homeless population.

Housing for our workforce in New Orleans remains in short supply and terribly expensive. A high percentage of the current homeless population passing through the New Orleans Mission actually have jobs, according to director Ron Gonzales, but they cannot afford the post-Katrina rents.

Homeownership is the best solution for many in the workforce. Single family home construction projects like the one by Habitat for Humanity and the Baptist Crossroads Project in the Upper Ninth Ward help secure a stable financial future for many families. Homeowners are more likely than renters to keep their properties well-maintained. They pay property taxes directly, another level of investment in the community. And their monthly outlay of cash builds their personal wealth and develops a financial legacy for their families.

A hundred homes have been completed in New Orleans through Habitat partnerships since the storm, and hundreds more are planned. Thousands of volunteers are already committed for blitz building by the Baptist Crossroad Project during Spring Break and the coming summer months. This reproducible and sustainable model for the economic transformation of families deserves full support and cooperation from all community entities, public and private. It addresses many aspects of our recovery by providing safe, new, and affordable houses for families in our workforce.

A New Birth of Public Service

2008-01-15T12:13:00.000-06:00

Pastors teach that leadership is a spiritual gift. Governor Bobby Jindal has that gift. It was evident during the campaign and, especially, on his inauguration day.
The Governor sets before us a compelling vision. He dreams of a Louisiana where government is just and efficient. He describes a state that not only keeps its young talent and energy but draws entrepreneurs from around the nation and the world. He envisions both changes to the mindset and changes to the structures and systems in our state.

Our Governor is looking to create a state government that deliberately and consistently serves the people rather than serving itself. This vision of creating true public service among our public servants strikes a chord with all Louisianians.

We share the new Governor’s dislike and disdain for unnecessary bureaucracy and endless red tape. We want our public employees, elected and appointed, to respond with delight and energy when we tell them we are trying to launch a new business or expand a current one. We don’t like the domination of the idea of government "permits." It conveys to us that government is paternalistic, distrustful and afraid of its entrepreneurs. It says to us that someone somewhere is sitting in an office waiting to delay and obstruct our progress with a dozen obscure documents and interwoven treks to untold other government employees sitting in their offices.

The idea of government "permission" for the implementation of new business ventures conveys no sense of urgency or immediacy. Bureaucracy cannot really process the idea of an "emergency." A bureaucrat will sit in his chair while the city is burning and wait for someone to bring him the correct form before he turns on the water.

Police and fire departments are organized to respond with immediacy and energy to any call for assistance. That is what citizens of our city and state long to see in the government offices overseeing building and business permits. We want our public servants to lunge out of their chairs when they hear a new business venture is in the works. We want them to give us a call.

"Say, this is the permitting office at Baton Rouge. I hear you’ve got a new idea for alternative fuels. How can I help you make that idea happen?"
We want to change the mindset from government "permission" to true government service. We want our state and city departments organized around the notion of quick response to new initiatives rather than continual delay. This change is warranted because the clock is ticking. We should all be operating in emergency mode in regard to economic development, housing, heath care, education, and criminal justice.

This change of mindset and approach does not require a loosening of necessary safeguards for our citizens. We want buildings to be safe for occupancy and vehicles to be safe for driving. But we are ready to end the protectionism and territorialism that plagues our public institutions.

Governor Jindal is ready to create a new culture for government and industry in our state. Everyone can help. Nonprofits can examine their operating systems for waste and delay in service to the people. Businesses can begin now to plan expanded services.

Employees in the government sector should make certain that "serve" and "protect" are on an equal footing in their areas of concern. A sense of urgency concerning the development of business, health care, education, housing, and criminal justice must permeate all of our public institutions. Quick response to requests for inspections should become a high priority in all permitting offices.
Departments of state, as well as other organizations, may evolve over time into self-serving institutions—entities without a clear sense of mission that exist primarily to care for employees of that institution. When that happens in our public institutions we no longer have "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

A new day will dawn in Louisiana as a new attitude of urgency and service permeates our public sector. While individual efforts to recover from the devastation have been Herculean and the churches and nonprofits have been lauded for their response, everyone recognizes the key role of government agencies in facilitating and accelerating our move from last in line to first in opportunity.

Faith Walking

2008-01-11T06:54:00.000-06:00

What does it feel like to respond in faith to the call of God in our day?

Walking in faith is exciting. You don’t know what’s around the bend.

Walking in faith is sobering. You don’t know what’s around the bend.

Walking in faith is productive. You initiate new directions and travel places your friends and relatives are too afraid or too comfortable to go.

The productivity of the faith walk has been on my mind lately. I’ve been contemplating Abraham’s decision to leave his home behind for a new home in an unknown place. I’ve been considering how God blessed that mode of living—that lifestyle—and what that lifestyle would look like for me.

I don’t think faith walking necessarily involves geography. You could be a faith-walker and stay physically right where you are now. The clincher for me on that is the lifestyle of Jesus. As an adult, he never went any further from home than Lafayette.

Changes in geography are often necessary, however, as the stories of Abraham and Moses indicate. God owns the entire planet, and he wants his name to be known everywhere. When he finds obedient people he sends them out to the far reaches of the world to make sure everyone has heard the good news of his love and forgiveness.

You cannot walk in faith, however, without leaving your mental and emotional comfort zone. Faith demands that you experience strangeness—being a stranger in a new and different place. Until you say to yourself, “I don’t know what I am doing here,” you probably have not walked in faith.

We want life to make sense. That means that we are most comfortable when we understand the formulas and can work them ourselves. This is sight.

Faith is going beyond the formulaic. Faith transcends the known order of things. It leaps into the space where you have never been and do not know how to navigate. In this place only God knows what’s up. And your comprehension is only on an “as needed” basis.

Great human endeavors, mighty transformations, earth-shaking innovations, and exhilarating journeys happen in the unknown spaces of faith.

Be an Abraham or Moses. Push out from the shore into the current of God’s power and potential. Trust him beyond your vision or calculations. You will discover in the turbulence of the unknown the new configurations through which God brings about your finest future.

Listen closely to God’s Spirit. Every single day you have an opportunity to step beyond the boundaries into the arena of dynamic faith. In this zone you are a partner with God in the continuing work of healing and transformation.

Emeril's Sans Menu

2007-12-19T06:11:00.000-06:00

David E. Crosby, Pastor
First Baptist New Orleans
December 18, 2007

We ate at Emeril's last night--and ate and ate. The couple who hosted us would not let us use the menu. Instead, they insisted, "let's have the chef decide what we will eat."

Actually, I did not know you could poach yucca. Nor did I know that caviar was crunchy or how delicious it would taste on lobster. And I certainly had never tried veal medallions laid over filet mignon.

The scallops were delicious with the shrimp bisque, that’s for certain, and they went nicely with the follow-up appetizer of yellowfin tuna on flatbread. The crusted sea bass was better than any fish could be, swimming in the crab sauce.

Desserts were light with six specialty ice creams, the house-specialty banana pie, a frozen lemon tower, and other delights I cannot properly identify.

All in all, we talked and tasted and munched for two and a half hours. Others might have stayed longer, but no one ate better.

I have concluded that we are served best if we let the chef decide what we will eat. I never had a meal like that one!

It made me think about God, laying out his spread for us every day. We treat his goodies like a crass buffet, picking our way through the offerings. We think we know what we want.

We ought to sit down and let the chef decide what we will eat.

The experience at Emeril’s turned out so wonderful because the couple we were with knew the executive chef. They were friends. The meal just got better and better as the night progressed and Chris worked to bless us.

God wants to bless us, too, with the best he has to offer. His blessings are perfectly designed for our particular needs.

Next time you pray, “Not my will, but thine be done,” don’t be afraid or dismayed. Instead, tell yourself, “He loves me. I’ll let the chef decide what I eat.”

Lord, Give Us a Sign!

2007-12-18T06:01:00.000-06:00

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

December 18, 2007

I will meet with our councilwoman today to talk about building our church sign on the interstate. We need a favorable vote of the entire city council to proceed with this important project.

Our church facility was built with large events in mind. Our city specializes in large gatherings: conventions, parades, and festivals. Our church will host the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in a presentation of the Messiah Thursday night. We just hosted an overflow crowd for the New Orleans Music Hall of Fame featuring Trombone Shorty and his jazz band.

The city council will vote on our proposal Thursday. This council meeting is likely to be raucous because it will also include a decision about proceeding with the demolition of several public housing complexes.

Put us on your prayer list. Our church has been working on this project for five years. We need a sign!

The dome of the temporary emergency shelter for the homeless is now part of the landscape for commuters on the Pontchartrain Expressway. Many people from far and near have joined hands to help provide these expanded services to our bourgeoning homeless population.

The president of Catholic Charities in New Orleans, Jim Kelly, told me recently that he thought the homeless situation in our city would continue to worsen for the next several years. Among his reasons for this prediction are 1) the lack of affordable housing in the area, 2) the ending of FEMA rental support nationwide for storm evacuees, and 3) the storm-related loss of almost all residential programs for the mentally ill and drug-addicted.

Kelly also predicted a growing number of women and children living on the streets.

The emergency shelter is only days away from being available for occupancy. Furniture is already secured and ready to be moved in.

Pulling the Ropes Together

2007-12-15T09:58:00.000-06:00

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

December 15, 2007

Stretching the canvas across the aluminum skeleton of the tent required teamwork and coordination of effort. Half a dozen recruits pulled the ropes as half a dozen others fed the canvas upward and over the crossbars.

The skin is now on the building, and the end walls are nearly completed. Insulation, carpet, and air conditioning must be installed before furniture can be installed. Then we will be ready for guests!

Teamwork is an essential part of Kingdom work in post-Katrina New Orleans. We knew this before the flood, but we have become convinced of it since. Few things are more important than coordinating our efforts and working together.

This truth crosses denominational lines—and all other artificial lines drawn between believers in our city. On the front lines of the mission field believers experience a little bit of heaven that those camped way back behind the stuff cannot really comprehend. We discover and receive the blessing that we are not alone in our efforts to bring the lost to Christ and the world to the Savior. We discover our brothers and sisters—fully spiritual family in every way—who are part of other camps and units in the army of God.

Any time we experience a reality on earth that we know will not exist in heaven we have discovered a time-bound, earth-only reality. Racial, economic, and denominational divisions are just such realities. They exist here for various reasons. But these categories and subgroups will not exist in heaven. So you learn a little bit about heaven when these lines are gone and all believers are lifting the same canvas together.

The watching world also learns something about us at these heavenly moments. They learn that the church of Jesus Christ is larger than its earthly divisions. They learn that we can work together. They already know from our bad press that we can criticize each other and complain about one another.

Surely Jesus must have smiled as he saw our patchwork crew erecting the tent for the homeless. I think he was blessed to know a little answer to the prayer for unity he so passionately voiced to the Father the day before his death.

Many hands have come to work on this project. Many people are interested in a variety of ways. We encourage and solicit your prayers, labor, and gifts as we move forward to provide a warm bed and hot meal for every willing resident of Duncan Plaza now without a roof, sanitation, or security.

Emergency Shelter Takes Shape

2007-12-13T06:07:00.000-06:00

The homeless population in Duncan Plaza will soon have ample accommodations, prepared meals, showers, sanitation, and security.

A pilot at First Baptist New Orleans, Bill Nix, has led a team of college students and First Baptist members in the construction of an emergency shelter that will house 126 people. The shelter will operate through the winter and a portion of the spring.

Flyers have been distributed to all residents of Duncan Plaza alerting them to the provisions for them at the New Orleans Mission. About 150 persons have been spending the night in and around Duncan Plaza many of them sleeping in tents and many others sleeping under building overhangs, porches, or under the stars.

The mission has also rearranged its facilities to accommodate about 30 homeless women and children. The population in Duncan Plaza is roughly 85 percent men.

The bathroom and dining facilities at New Orleans Mission are able to accommodate a large number of residents—around 300 nightly. The occupancy of the mission has been much lower since Hurricane Katrina damaged the buildings.

The homeless are now invited to come to the mission for shelter and food. Case workers are also available as are drug rehab programs. Everyone who dines at the mission is required to attend worship during the hour prior to the meal. Every worship service includes a presentation of the gospel.

Mission president, Don Cooper, a member of First Baptist New Orleans, insists that residents hear the good news about salvation in Christ. Don was saved and his life transformed when he received Christ as Savior. He knows that many of the homeless deal with debilitating habits and behaviors that can only be changed through the power of Christ.

Pray that God will use this crisis of homelessness in New Orleans to bring men and women to himself. And pray that our attempt to address this very public and difficult situation in our city will call attention to the Christ of Christmas, the Savior of the world, and bring him glory.

Creeping Pain and Progress

2007-12-11T06:13:00.000-06:00

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

December 11, 2007

I have been creeping around the church and the house lately nursing a strained back muscle. I wish I could say that I pulled a muscle giving a hand up to someone in need. But I was on the second tee box.

I don’t know all the ways in which my legs and arms are connected to my back. I can tell you that the discomfort has traveled around my body from one spot to another without any pattern apparent to me. This morning my knee felt a pinch.

The Apostle Paul observed that when one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers (see 1 Corinthians 12). I have been thinking about that truth since the fateful swing. When the back is hurt everything hurts.

A counselor told me this week that estimates of post-traumatic stress disorder in the City of New Orleans run as high as 11 percent. That percentage has risen to unprecedented heights since the great flood rather than decreasing, as one would expect. Post-traumatic stress was evident in less than one percent of the population of New York City months after 9-11.

Everyone here feels it. A senior adult in our church told me Sunday that his life was still out of kilter though he could not explain why this was so. “Something is wrong,” he said. “It’s hard to put into words.”

The body is hurting. I know that for sure. This widow still lives with friends. That couple still works every weekend restoring their flooded home. The teenager on my right is attending his third high school since Katrina. The single on my left just bought a home after months of displacement but fears the challenge of increasing insurance and utility costs.

Every Sunday I discover a new victim of the stress. Addictive behaviors, particularly gambling, are threatening the fortunes, families, and lives of many people living in the devastated Gulf Coast. I wish all gambling establishments would voluntarily close their doors until our people can recover a sense of hope in the future. Right now they are just easy targets.

Janet and I enjoyed a preview of a Broadway musical hopeful last Saturday and had dinner with the troupe that performed. It was a great evening. The singers performed two numbers for the congregation Sunday morning. The musical “Angels,” aimed at Broadway, will launch from New Orleans with the “Broadway South” signature.

Mayor Nagin has cleared the way for the erection of a temporary shelter for the homeless, I learned by email this morning. So we will mobilize volunteers over the next three days to help provide warm and healthy environs for more than 100 homeless persons living in our parks and streets.

We are making progress here, but not without pain. The greatest encouragement is the tremendous sense of family that pervades the church and even our neighborhoods. People we love share our pain and our triumphs. The body hurts with this twisted back, but we know we are on the mend.

City Hall at Sea Level

2007-12-07T08:02:00.000-06:00

City Hall at Sea Level

By David E. Crosby, Pastor

First Baptist New Orleans

Pearl Harbor Day

The metal detectors were beeping as I paused to survey the tent city of Duncan Plaza clearly visible through the glass doors of the central foyer in City Hall. I was there to pray, which seems an especially good idea when the downspouts of City Hall dampen the living space of the poor.

I was sitting in the city council chambers waiting to invoke the Deity on behalf of us all when a hundred chanting advocates of public housing marched in with signs protesting the coming demolitions. I shook hands with my friend, Marshall Truehill, who escaped arrest but cannot escape his burden for people on the fringes.

This influx of the city’s poorer residents caused me to change my prayer. I had intended to remind God and the City Council that the poor have little opportunity to speak to decision-makers. My contemplations waiting on a quorum were more about the thick blanket of poverty and homelessness draped over the city’s center of power.

Amid but not affiliated with the chanting protesters, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard walked into the room accompanied by two Jefferson Parish councilmen. Their presence lent support to a plan for pumping rain water to the river from the 17^th Street Canal. Politicians from the adjacent parish were not leading this pump-to-the-river charge, however. Lawyers, engineers, and officers from neighborhood groups, all off the clock, presented and defended the strategy.

Where but here do ordinary citizens volunteer their time to spearhead alternative routes for runoff as elected officials trail along and try to get up to speed? Maybe this is normal behavior in human communities.

Regional concerns like flood control still overlap enough that no single local political entity can get arms around it all. Thus emerge groups like Pump to the River and Women of the Storm. Concerned citizens pull together coalitions of public bodies to prompt discussion and effect change, supplementing and sometimes overriding weak public institutions still floundering in the flood.

Citizenship in New Orleans should require at least one trip to the City Council. Order in the chamber is impressive and secured by strict rules enforced by City Council President Arnie Fielkow. This stands in happy contrast to years gone by when city council meetings seemed more like a circus than a deliberation of elected officials.

But the larger context is still circus-like. Groups march in and out. Entourages arrive and depart. The powerful rub elbows with the poor. And everyone chases a vision of something better in the city that care has not forgotten.

This most recent council meeting featured a strange mixture of passions and problems that could only have collided in our post-Katrina world. The tenured and storm-weary citizenry, daily inundated by talk of levees, runoff, inadequate housing, and coastal restoration, easily lose sight of the unique and historic nature of our discussions and struggles.

We were always the most interesting city in America. Where else are traffic reports all about bridges and boats? Now we are interesting in spades. This view from the once-toppled levees is only available here, and it fades a little every day as the fog rolls in.

We continue our vigil below sea level, reinforcing the levied perimeter, re-establishing the grid of human support, and praying for victory over tidal waves.

Doing Today What You May Need More Tomorrow

2007-12-07T05:22:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time a man in our church ordered 30 chicks in the mail. When they arrived they were cute and small, but they grew bigger every day.

He taught his girls how to feed the chicks, and they played with them, held them, and loved them. When he slaughtered some of them to eat, his girls were very upset, so he didn't do that again. The chicks grew into chickens, and I inherited a couple when he dispersed them to his friends.

These chickens, Thelma and Louise, were peculiar. Normally, a grown chicken will run away from a human. Not these two. When you approach them, they squat down and get ready to be picked up. The girls picked them up and held them daily when they were tiny chicks, making an indelible impression on their vulnerable chicken psyches.

That is why Eden, my granddaughter pictured here with the patient Road Island Red, was able to capture and hold a grown chicken.

Jesus said to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Matthew 23:37).

The Bible stresses the importance of following God while we are young. The patterns we establish in our youth will likely hold throughout our lives.

Everyone should practice the obedient response to God's call. Finding refuge today in the Father's love and strength will make it easier to do the same tomorrow. And resisting today the call, comfort, and support of the Heavenly Father may create mental and spiritual distance during tomorrow's downpour from the only true refuge.

Homeless Tent Project

2007-12-05T06:17:00.000-06:00

The homeless situation in Duncan Plaza next to City Hall is at crisis stage. The space pictured here will accommodate an emergency shelter in a climate-controlled tent for 126 men. Don Cooper, president of New Orleans Mission which will administer the project, is talking on the cell phone to the tent company to expedite the process.

We are expecting even more homelessness in the short term in our city. Jim Kelley, president of Catholic Charities, told me yesterday that the next five years are likely to see even more homeless persons in New Orleans with an increasing percentage of them being women and children.

The homeless population is composed of a variety of groups.

1. The chronically homeless compose about 25 percent of our homeless population, according to Unity for the Homeless.

2. A large number of the homeless are those dealing with addiction problems and/or mental illness.

3. The situational homeless are those people, often families, who are the "working poor." They live from one paycheck to another. If that paycheck is disrupted because of transportation failure, children being sick, or problems with the employer, they have no safety net.

4. The new homeless in New Orleans are often those who had housing previous to the storm but who lost their homes and their support network of family and friends. They cannot afford the new rents.

We are working today and all this week to address not only the immediate need before the cold weather settles in but also the longterm need in our city.

People who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord cannot sit this one out. If our heart reflects the heart of our Lord, then we will not be idle when people are hurting. Even though they are strangers to us, we will try to "take them in," as Jesus taught us (Matthew 25).

Dad and Fam

2007-12-04T06:43:00.000-06:00

My father, Russell Crosby, has been preaching God's word since he was 20 years old. After two heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery, he quit preaching.

That was seven years ago.

Sunday he preached again to his congregation in Turnersville, Texas. He took up that pastorate about two years ago.

I called him Monday morning. "Dad, did you preach Sunday?"

"Yes, I did, David."

"Did you sit while you were preaching?"

"You know, I haven't even thought about it," Dad replied. "I sat last week when I preached, but yesterday I stood up through the whole sermon and serving the Lord's Supper. It's the first time I even thought about it."

Dad's heart works at about 15 percent efficiency. It's been doing that since it was damaged during his last heart attack. He gets tired easily, of course, and he uses oxygen when he can at the doctor's suggestion.

But Dad's greatest medicine is preaching. He sounds better and feels better when he can enter the pulpit and do what he has done all of his adult life--share the truths with others that changed things for him forever.

The Thanksgiving gathering of the Russell and Donna Crosby Family happened this year in Killeen, Texas, at the First Church of the Nazarene where my brother, Joe, is worship leader. Ninety-two family members attended and a dozen others. Dad shared again the story of his own spiritual transformation through faith in Christ. He urged everyone present to follow Jesus Christ as Lord. He talked to us about how faith in Christ was the linchpin of our family.

I am glad that God gave me the gift of parents who were passionate believers in Christ. This rich spiritual heritage has made all the difference in dealing with life's questions and troubles as well as its joys and triumphs. In fact, I find that I love life itself in large measure simply because I have learned a little bit about loving God.

Dad has lived with lots of spiritual passion all these years. His conversion as a young adult was instant, total, and permanent. His perspective on faith in God, his frequent explanation of it, and his implementation of that faith in his own daily life, was the single greatest influence in my own spiritual formation and that of the larger family unit.

I preached on Psalm 34 this past Sunday. I paused as I read these words: Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life, and desires to see many good days...

And I thought to myself--and then said it out loud to the congregation--loving life is not only possible, it is obligatory for those of us who fear the Lord.

My Brother Danny

2007-11-30T07:18:00.000-06:00

I said goodbye early this morning to the crew of six men and one lady who built the floor system for our homeless shelter.

Their leader and pastor, Daniel Crosby, is my younger brother. He works like a Trojan.

We have been building things together all our lives including our tree house construction phase when we successfully (without falling) established a perch on a branch 30 feet above the ground followed by our excavation phase when we successfully (without dying) tunneled 20 feet into a sandy hill in the desert. These and other boyhood follies still stand as our major preparation for pastoral leadership.

We have often been confused. By that I mean that he is Pastor D.E. Crosby, Ph.D., and so am I. We received each other’s denominational mail through the years, and often corrected colleagues who thought they knew who we were.

Danny has led five volunteer teams to work in New Orleans since the great devastation. His chainsaw crews were phenomenal in removing the tallest trees from the smallest yards without damaging (significantly) surrounding structures. Pictures of his exploits in tree removal and demolition feature his red truck connected with sagging ropes to the tops of towering trees. No crew members have been lost, officially, despite the risks.

I hugged them all before they piled into the church van this morning for the long trip back to Fort Worth, Texas. They were a great encouragement to me, and they arrived, providentially, at the very moment we needed a skilled carpentry crew to help us build a floor for the emergency sheltering program.

I told them that many homeless people will enjoy in a warm bed this winter because their capable crew took six days out of their lives to bless the people of our city.

Floor for Tent Is Completed

2007-11-29T14:20:00.000-06:00

An emergency shelter for the homeless population in New Orleans is moving forward thanks to a volunteer crew from Cleburne, Texas. In just two days they completed the wooden floor for the climate-controlled tent which will accommodate 126 individuals.

The tent dramatically expands the capacity of the New Orleans Mission which will administer the facility and provide bathrooms, showers, and meals for the residents.

The project was spearheaded by First Baptist New Orleans in partnership with the North American Mission Board and Lousiana Baptist Convention. Mayor Ray Nagin has made a verbal commitment to provide funds as well.

The homeless problem in New Orleans is near crisis stage as the colder months approach. This effort to care for the "least of these" will be accompanied by spiritual teaching, evangelism, and other efforts to bring transformation to those who are now living on the streets.

Sleeping warm and dry

2007-11-27T09:45:00.000-06:00

Janet and I have been hosting a volunteer team from First Baptist Church of Cleburne, Texas, this week. They removed five trees yesterday from two properties, and today they will begin the construction of the floor system for the climate-controlled tent at the New Orleans Mission. The tent, an emergency solution for these colder months, will help us bring 126 homeless people out of the cold and into a warm bed for the night. A partnership is being forged now between the City of New Orleans and Baptist entities to underwrite the cost of this operation. Keep me in your prayers today as I talk with people and try to expedite this operation.

I made a visit to Duncan Plaza yesterday and saw a hundred or more people at noon being fed from a truck parked in the street. This homeless community of 300 people has developed in the shadow of City Hall and has taken over all overhangs, porches, and pavilions in the area. The grounds of the plaza and surrounding buildings are littered with blankets, mattresses, and clothing. Heaps of used clothes are here and there. Truthfully, the place looks like a Goodwill Store after an explosion.

Neither the homeless nor those seeking to help can continue indefinitely to use Duncan Plaza as a distribution point. The site lacks everything that the homeless need: security, bathrooms, showers, drainage, shelter, and climate control. Its only advantage is visibility to the community. We realize that some of the inhabitants of Duncan Plaza will not want to move where they have a warm bed and bathrooms. But many of the homeless in our city are seeking warm and dry shelter every night.

When Mary and Joseph could find no room in the inn they were glad to accept the shelter and warmth of a stable. The accommodations we will provide for the homeless will be gratefully received by many of them and will exalt the Savior as we connect our good deeds with a clear presentation of the Christmas story.

Waiting on you

2007-11-19T12:48:00.000-06:00

Unity for the Homeless estimates that 12,000 people are living on the streets of New Orleans, twice the number pre-Katrina. No one knows how many more are living in flooded homes without heat and other utilities. We are facing a winter unlike anything we have seen in a generation.

The homeless crisis in New Orleans continues to mount as colder weather settles upon us. More than 300 people are now living in and around Duncan Park, according to latest estimates I have seen. Restrooms facilities are unavailable or horrific. It is a growing community of employed and unemployed persons with or without a political agenda but certainly without proper shelter and other essentials.

All functioning homeless facilities in the city are full now for both men and women. The shelters are turning away many people every day. Long lines trail for hours from the doors of these helping agencies.

I have heard many people asking why something has not been done. I stumbled on the answer this week in a meeting with Ruby Bridges. She desegregated public schools in New Orleans by walking into the William Frantz Elementary School as a six-year-old in 1960 escorted by four U.S. Marshals. Wednesday I met with her to talk about her old neighborhood and school. It just happened to be the 47th anniversary of that amazing moment in her childhood.

Ruby told us about an incident with her youngest son, Malcolm, several years ago when he was nine years old. He saw pictures of the Presidents of the U.S. and asked his mother, "Can a black person be president?" She thought about it for a moment and said, "Yes, Malcolm. A black person can be president." "Then why are there no black presidents?" Malcolm asked. "Well, Malcolm, I guess they're waiting on you," his mother replied.

Many important matters are still unattended in our city including the perplexing problem of homelessness. Somebody might ask why these problems remain unsolved. My first reply now is this: "I guess they're waiting on you."

The size of the homeless population is certainly daunting. But good people are addressing it one by one, providing food and warm clothes and shelter for a day. Truthfully, we can all help with this one. You may not be able to fix potholes or water lines or levees, but you can drive down to Duncan Plaza with last year's winter clothes and give them away. Your church or fraternity can collect items for the homeless and take them to the shelters.

I always feel better about a problem when I am actively doing what I can rather than standing back and cursing the darkness. In fact, you will feel hope rise up within you as you transfer your unused coat to someone who is shivering in the cold.

An initiative is now in the offing at New Orleans Mission to provide shelter and food for many more people through the colder months upcoming. We hope it will be up and running in a few days. It is likely to be full as soon as it opens.
Many of the homeless in our city are people who had a job before they came and thought they could work out their living situation when they arrived. They have discovered that rents are beyond their reach and that flooded homes are not decent shelter. Almost all persons staying nightly at the New Orleans Mission now are fully employed, the director told me.

No children should be lying cold and hungry in the streets of New Orleans tonight. We have the means to make sure that every child in our city is warm and fed. It's all a matter of deploying ourselves and our institutions, public and private, to address the need.

When you think of the homeless in our great city, think this: they're waiting on you.

Stop and drop!

2007-10-30T08:36:00.000-05:00

Emotional exhaustion is settling upon many of us. We have fought long and hard to reclaim our families, our homes, our companies, and our lives. And now we are just about to drop.

I have read that a great race horse has so much heart that he will run for the jockey until he kills himself. The jockey riding a great horse has to be acquainted with the physical limits and protect the horse from his own determined will.

So maybe it is time to stop and drop. You don’t have to drop hard, and you don’t have to stay down long. But for the sake of everyone you love, you have to take a breather.

I think that is why the account of creation in the Bible records God resting on the seventh day. We are made in the image of God in that we can initiate, innovate, communicate, relate, and correlate. But he knows we do not have unlimited stamina. So he stopped to rest and hoped we would pay attention.

Sometimes we refuse to stop and drop because we are in crisis mode. Our lives are incinerating, and we are running without thinking. The “stop and drop” instruction works when your clothes are on fire. You should not run then. You should stop, drop and roll.

It also works when your mind and heart and emotions are on fire. You cannot outrun your racing mind. You will run yourself into the ground. And that will not be good for anyone.

I can hear your thoughts churning. People are depending on you—important people like children and spouses and aging parents. You are a caregiver every day. You are the chauffeur, the nanny, the nurse, and the maid.

You are the sole provider. You generate the only income stream. Everything goes south if you stop producing. Everyone depends on you.

All the more reason to stop and drop. Warn the people around you. If they truly care for you, they know that you are approaching your limit. They may already be urging you to take a break.

Listen to what they are saying. The rat race will be okay without you for a day or two. You will not fix everything that still needs repaired and recovered in one fell swoop. We are in a 20-year marathon down here on the bayou, and we have to move out of crisis mode and into a sustainable pace with appropriate breaks.

The stress of this mess is straining the most important relationships of life. The mountain of things yet to do seems overwhelming. Sometimes we fear that we are just digging futilely at the edge of the pile. Frustration combined with futility will wear out any hearty soul.

Stop and drop. It will give you a new perspective on life in general and the pace of your own personal recovery. It will increase your energy, lower your anxiety, and bring your world into better focus.

After all, everyone on the planet is recovering in some way. We are all “getting over” troubles of some kind. We cannot postpone love and life and recreation until we are fully recovered. You can see where that would leave us.

This week I examined a butterfly with two of my granddaughters. It danced through the yard and landed on the tiniest lavender blossom. We sneaked up close, faces pressed together, and watched it feed on the pollen. We noticed the amazing pattern of bright colors on the perimeters of its wings. We studied it upside down and right-side up until it noticed us and flitted away.

Now that was a moment when the cares of the world were suspended. It didn’t last long enough, but it reminded me how good it feels to stop the spinning wheels of my mind, drop to my knees, and enjoy a moment of beauty and grace.

Sheep and Goats

2007-10-11T11:36:00.001-05:00

The Sheep and the Goats

Jesus’ story of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) has far-reaching implications. It continues a central theme of Jesus. If you ask Jesus about eternal life he is likely to suggest that you sell everything you own and give it to the poor or that you take care of the victims of crime.

The sheep and the goats have treated “these brothers of mine” differently. The blessed, who have an inheritance prepared for them by the Father, unconsciously ministered to Christ by caring for the needs of others. The cursed, who departed to eternal punishment, unconsciously neglected Christ by neglecting the needy.

“These brothers of mine” must be present in every time and place in human history. This alone makes their treatment the sole criteria in the final judgment of the nations, the church, and the world.

We are tempted to whittle on “these brothers of mine” like the expert in the law was tempted to whittle on the definition of “neighbor.” Jesus is here reinforcing the truth that we have encountered the neighbor we are to love whenever we see the opportunity and have resources to apply to that need.

Jesus does not render judgment here in the same terms that we use daily to evaluate the believing status of those about us. We usually base our judgment of the religious status of others on 1) the house of worship they might attend and 2) the religious creed to which they might subscribe. These criteria—worship practice and belief system—are the most common religious evaluators used by humans.

Jesus goes instead to the treatment of the needy. This is the great indicator of an individual’s true relationship with God. Not which house of worship you attend, but how you treat the needy you pass by on your journey there is likely to be the focus of the final judgment.

Jesus also collapses the First Commandment—love the Lord—into the Second Commandment—love your neighbor. When you care for the needy (love your neighbor) you have actually loved the Lord (you did for me). The blessed are surprised that Jesus was “wearing the mask” of hunger and thirst although the doctrine of the Incarnation itself points to this. The cursed are surprised that they missed the King, too, for they intended to bless the King even though they were consciously neglecting the poor.

The only way to prepare for this final exam is to pour out your life completely for the King who has done the same for you.

Hope

2007-10-09T16:05:00.001-05:00

Here is a picture of my granddaughter, Hope (written on her stocking cap), with the levee behind her.

The most precious things in my life are protected by the government levees in and around New Orleans.