In just a few months it will be the three year anniversary of Katrina’s unwelcome visit to New Orleans. The impact of this incredible storm was the definition of cataclysmic. Entire neighborhoods ceased to exist and nearly three years later, uninhabited buildings are everywhere. The best laid plans, decades of toil and sweat, healthy and not-so-healthy churches were all irrevocably altered in just a few hours. In many ways, the people and pastors of New Orleans are still struggling to define the “new normal.”

The previous paragraph are some of the thoughts that formed in my mind as American Airlines flight 524 lifts off from New Orleans International Airport. I’ve just spent the last 43 hours of my life on a lightning tour of tragedy and hope in South Louisiana. Louisiana is Superintendent Doug Fulenwider “country.” Besides serving as the District Superintendent, Brother Fulenwider also serves on the Executive Presbytery Board in Springfield. He’s been a great friend to me during my tenure in the Director of the Church Multiplication Network and he is a strong advocate for church planting both in his own district and on the national Board.

My tour guide and host was Al Eden, Pastor of First Assembly of God, Bossier, Louisiana. (He’s the guy on the left in the picture to the left) To call Al an amazing man of God does not adequately represent him. It is an honor for me to be on the same team with Al. He is truly a gift to Louisiana. He has planted numerous churches. He has led numerous existing churches through successful turnarounds. He’s served on the special assignment in the Philippines with AG World Missions. Right now, he’s pastoring a strong “turnaround” church while simultaneously leading the charge in Louisiana as the District Director of Church Planting and Revitalization. He is a paradox of solid “old-fashioned” values mixed with the heart of a healthy “maverick” open to the new things that God is doing. He’s a real friend of the innovators and pioneers who are following God’s leading to invent “church next” to reach the unreached and disconnected folks of Louisiana. In fact, those innovators and pioneers were what my visit was all about. Al wanted me to meet them and see the exciting ways that God is using them.

And so, my tour began on Wednesday night when I met Doug McAllister (He on the far right in the picture above and that’s Doug’s silhouette in the picture to the right) , pastor of Journey Fellowship in Lacombe, Louisiana, and Robert Burnside, about to become the campus pastor of a brand new church in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Doug was pastoring a great church of about 1400 pre-Katrina. The week after Katrina hit, 75 people met for worship. Everyone else was gone and most never came back. Now, less than three years later, a new church has miraculously emerged from the tragedy. Doug took me on an impressive tour of their new facilities which they have just started using in the last few months. But the people of “Journey Fellowship” aren’t satisfied to just have a nice place to worship for themselves. They recognized the opportunity created by Katrina in the Lower 9^th Ward section of New Orleans and decided to take a step of faith and start a satellite campus there. (The picture to the left was taken inside the sanctuary of the old Lutheran church building). Doug tapped Robert Burnside (He’s the middle guy in the picture above) to be the campus pastor and the church purchased a beautiful old Lutheran church building as the location from which to base their ministry to the community. Journey Fellowship and the new satellite campus have partnered with the Church Multiplication Network to energize the launch of the new campus with an infusion of resources. CMN is thrilled to be partnering with these anointed folks!

Thursday morning, Al and I headed north out of New Orleans to Baton Rouge to visit with Pastor Bud Plake and get a close up view of another matching fund project. Bud is the pastor of Freedom Church in Livingston, Louisiana. (Bud is the guy on the right in the picture on the right, I’m in the middle and Carl Kelly, the Freedom Church Executive Pastor on the left.) Freedom is a 20 year old church that has recently undergone some significant remodeling both physically and in its approach to ministry. Bud’s entrepreneurial background made him restless with church as usual and once he got the existing church headed in the right direction, he couldn’t help but notice an opportunity created by Katrina. Even though Baton Rouge was too far inland to be cataclysmically impacted by the flood waters of Katrina, the city was inundated by a different kind of flood… a flood of new residents relocating from New Orleans to safeguard themselves from the possibility of every going through a Katrina-like event again. So Bud and his team are starting a satellite campus closer to the geographic center of Baton Rouge. And they are starting it in a skating rink! (And you thought Mark Batterson was innovative!)

Thursday night Al and I had dinner with Shawn Johnson. (That’s me and Shawn in the picture to right). Shawn is planting Community Church on the west side of New Orleans in a community call Metairie. He’s combined his “trade” gifts with his church planting call to create a unique way of putting food on the table while raising up a community of believers. He and Tonya decided to start a church and a SGT Printing at the same time. Shawn’s church started about one year before Katrina hit and got off to a strong start. They were averaging about 100 regular attendees each week when Katrina rocked their world. After Katrina, they chose to stay when most chose to leave so rebuilding has been slow going but they are optimistic for the future. The printing business is doing well. He has contracts with big organizations like Focus on the Family, but he loves to serve fellow church planters with quality printing at an affordable price. So, his creative church planting methodology provides a unique opportunity for you…you can get your printing done well by a fellow church planter at a very competitive price and help Shawn and Tonya fulfill their calling to raise up a community of disciples at the same time!!

Friday morning I had breakfast with another group of church planting pastors from the New Orleans area. Frank Newfield, church planter, founding and head counselor at Solutions Counseling Center and presbyter of the New Orleans Section of the Louisiana District Council, Frank Bailey, Pastor of Victory Fellowship in New Orleans, Jeff Jeffries, Pastor of Chalmette Assembly of God in Chalmette, Frank Bailey’s sister Leslie and her husband Larry Roques (Leslie and Larry are both wearing black shirts in the picture to the left) who pastor Joy Fellowship Church, a non-AG church, in Slidell, Louisiana. They all had amazing stories to tell of living and growing through the impact of Katrina. Jeff Jeffries (the picture to the right is Jeff Jeffries with Frank Newfield) blew me away with his story. Prior to Katrina, Jeff had served as a nursing home chaplain to the residents of the St. Rita’s Nursing Home in a suburb of New Orleans. Jeff knew each one of the 35 residents who died in the storm and had personally prayed with each of them to receive Christ as Lord and Savior in their lives. So, for Jeff, the tragedy was bitter-sweet. It broke his heart that they died in the storm (and apparently due to the negligence of the nursing home owners), but he takes comfort in the knowledge that they were spiritually prepared to be with the Lord forever. The rest of the story is that Jeff is now planting a church and after a protracted search with lots of dead ends, he just signed a purchase agreement for a post office building right across the street from the old St. Rita’s Nursing Home property. He knew it was the right place when he took his first tour of the building 2 ½ years after Katrina. In one of the rooms he found a bible (remember this is a post office) opened to Jeremiah 7 where he read the words…”If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place,…” He felt God speak to him with assurance that he would “live” in this place. Now God is raising up a new church out of the ruins of destruction.

The other great breakfast story was that of Frank Newfield. Frank planted a church in New Orleans over 20 years ago. He pastored the church for a number of years but, being a licensed counselor he saw the opportunity to provide a high quality counseling center for the people of New Orleans. With great vision he started a counseling center that is continuing to grow to this day. He even provides assistance to pastors and church leaders who are in need of counseling at an extremely affordable cost.

After breakfast, Frank Bailey, a 29 year veteran of pastoral ministry and a prolific parent church pastor in New Orleans, took me on a lightning tour of his church “Victory Fellowship” that became a distribution center for food and clothing in the months following Katrina. Victory’s building is located on the side of the city that was not seriously flooded (only 18 inches as compared to 8 FEET) so their building had electricity almost immediately following Katrina. Frank’s personal home was on the side of the city that was inundated with serious flood waters. He was “homeless” for 7 weeks before he could get back into his house. Even then, he was the first resident who returned and he and his wife lived by themselves in their neighborhood for months following the storm. Victory decided to purchase an old church building on the “flood” side of the city not far from the famous French Quarter and now have a satellite campus there called the Broad Street Mission (see the picture to the right). Over the years, Victory has been a church planting church and they continue to have a vision to never stop reaching people with the good news of God’s love, grace and truth.

Wow…an incredible 43 hours in New Orleans. I come away excited for what God is doing in a place that many gave up for lost in every sense of the word. But I met a bunch of heroes that God has called to stand in the gap and they are doing it with faith and grace and tenacity!