An Associational Perspective On Disaster Relief -- By: Joe McKeever
Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 04:1 (Spring 2007)
Article: An Associational Perspective On Disaster Relief
Author: Joe McKeever
JBTM 4:1 (Spring 2007) p. 78
An Associational Perspective On Disaster Relief
Director of Missions
Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans
One morning, early in the winter of 2006, I was driving up Elysian Fields Avenue toward our associational offices and the tears were flowing. All around was deadness and devastation. Hardly a soul could be seen anywhere and there was no traffic on the street. I said out loud, “Lord, I’m not just crying about that Walgreen’s or this Burger King. It’s not just that house or the one over there. It’s the whole thing. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
At that moment, the Lord spoke to my heart: “This is not about you. It’s about Me.”
I cannot tell you how liberating that was. Over these many months since Hurricane Katrina devastated our part of the world, I’ve found myself putting arms around our overstressed pastors and reminding them of that fact. As 2 Corinthians 3:5 puts it, “We are not adequate to think anything of ourselves; but our adequacy is of God.”
In 2004, after 42 years in the ministry and the last 14 as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Kenner, I became director of missions for the 145 Southern Baptist churches of greater New Orleans, a region stretching from lower Plaquemines Parish upriver through St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Charles Parishes all the way to LaPlace in St. John the Baptist. No one was more surprised than I at this change in my divine assignment, particularly since I was 64 years old. The associational committee asked me to commit for five years in this position.
During the first 12 months, there were times when I questioned the Lord about this call. “The job is a good one,” I would say, “and the pay is fine. I love the churches and the pastors, but I don’t know why you did this. I can give you the names of a dozen younger men who could do as good or better than I in this position.” This time, no word of assurance came from the Lord.
The answer arrived on August 29, 2005. On that Monday, when Hurricane Katrina slammed into our part of the world and the levees began breaking, flooding most of this city, my family and I were holed up in a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. As we watched the tragedy unfold on television, we tried reaching pastors and friends via our cell phones, which worked spasmodically if at all. The only thing dependable was the internet. Our associational website had not been completed, so we used the one my son Marty had set up in my name.
On Thursday, September 1, I posted a message on www.joemckeever.com about the hurricane. We had no way of knowing that God would use this method of gettin...
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