Eat at Joe's

“I know what it’s like not to have.  My highest goal in life is to help people.”--Joe Bushfan

After Shaw University Commencement on Saturday, I finally made my way to a place I have been hearing about even before it opened:  Joe's Diner on Angier Avenue at Driver Street in Durham.  My friend Steve Bumgardner has been telling me about these great hot dogs that Joe Bushfan was selling out of a cart.  Quite a few years ago, Joe Bushfan married one of Durham's finest home-grown citizens, Elaine O'Neal Bushfan, that's Judge Bushfan to you and me.  He settled into Durham and made friends easily.  And he came up with a plan to make his life and work benefit a whole community.  I don't need to tell the whole story, because much of it has already been told here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

I do want to report on my first time to Joe's Diner.  It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday, so the pace was slow after lunch and before dinner.  I studied the menu, introduced myself to Joe, and told him Steve had sent me.  I looked over the diner options:  the feature is his all beef hot dog brand from Massachusetts, Pearl Frankfurters.  A quarter-pound dog is close to the size of a large hot dog you might be familiar with.  A half pound dog is not much longer than usual, but really big.  Then there is the one pound hot dog.  I saw one being cooked:  it looked like a great big red snake.  It is thick and about three times or more longer than your usual grocery store hot dog.  He does have some skinny dogs that look familiar.  I only saw a footlong.

The menu has many different ways to serve the hot dogs, as well as some spicy dogs and sausages.  I went fairly conservative for my first try:  half pounder with yellow mustard, ketchup, cheddar cheese, and chopped onions.  With such a big dog, I had to ask for a few more chopped onions to make it come out even, and they were glad to pile them on.  The flavor of the frankfurter did live up to the reputation.  It was good enough to enjoy it for its own flavor, not merely as an excuse for a big pile of condiments.  I'm going to try something else next time.  The Apollo Dog looks pretty good, if I don't have to buy a whole pound of frankfurter.  For folks from Chicago, New York, or other towns with specialized hot dog styles, you can get what you want.

Besides hot dogs, Joe's has hamburgers, from normal to extra large, fixed up in a variety of interesting ways.  Then there are other sandwiches, including some pastrami that caught my eye (I'd better not tell my friend W. C. Turner, Jr., about the pastrami.  He says it is the only thing that successfully tempts him to give up his dietary discipline.)  And Joe's serves breakfast all day.  I definitely want to go back for that.

One of the specials on the day I went was a pork chop sandwich.  Now if I had not gone in planning to try the hot dog, that is what I would have eaten.  I can't vouch for Joe's pork chops yet, but I will not let a pork chop special pass me by again when I eat at Joe's.  There are some of the usual diner sides like fries, but I passed on all of that to make sure I could get through the big hot dog.  It was not as daunting as I had imagined.

Joe is a hard-working, friendly guy.  The other folks working at Joe's also aim to please, and they kept checking on me to make sure I had what I needed.  Tea and sodas are refillable, so I had my diet soda refilled to wash it all down.  Joe's got a score of 100 on its last health code inspection, and he has the good grade displayed on the front window for all to see.  The place was obviously spotless.  Joe did most of the work to restore the old building and install the fixtures himself.  A few of the more technical jobs were contracted out.  The black granite countertop he installed gave sitting at the counter a touch of class.  It has the look and feel of a place that has been around for a long time.  We all can hope it will be around a whole lot longer.

The place was kind of laid back while I was there.  A few people were eating, and the staff was serving and doing some cleaning up from the lunch rush.  Joe made himself a cheese steak sandwich while I was relaxing with my soda.  We chatted about the work he had done to get this fine establishment operational.  

The whole place livened up for a few minutes when someone brought up boxing.  Joe got animated talking about a recent pre-fight weigh-in.  Everyone had an opinion about who would likely win, where the best place to watch would be, or how these fighter compared to the ones from back in the day.  Customers hung on every word when Joe told about conversations with famous fighters from the past.  I suspect that kind of animated conversation is not unusual when the diner is busy.

I'll be in Durham for about six weeks this summer, teaching summer school and working on getting my house ready to sell.  I'll be checking back in at Joe's Diner to sample the food and fellowship again.  I hope you will do the same.

Fair Trade

Fair trade organizations continue to expand their influence, and a report this week said that 70% of people surveyed in the UK were familiar with the fair trade mark which appears on products like coffee, chocolate, tea, etc. Although in 2006, fair trade constituted 0.01% of overall world trade, in some commodities it has grown to over 5%. In addition, from 2006 to 2007, the total volume of fairly traded goods doubled. Based on 2006 figures, approximately 1.5 million people gain a livelihood through fair trade enterprises, and another 5 million people benefit from community development projects related to fair trade.

Some of the major organizations which promote fair trade are the Fair Trade Federation, Transfair, Fairtrade Foundation (UK), CRS Fair Trade (Catholic Relief Services), Oxfam, Lutheran World Relief, Global Exchange, and Fair Trade Resources Network. The forerunner of these large organizations was the work of Mennonites, Church of the Brethren's SERRV International, and other committed people who sought ways to make a better life for the poor in all parts of the world.

The reason I am writing about this subject today is that I read a very interesting and encouraging article from the Washington Post about a growing fair trade coffee enterprise led by women in Rwanda. This is the kind of work that can make an enormous difference, far beyond the charitable relief work that seems to be all our middle class imaginations can conceive about our relationship with the poor. In Raleigh and Durham, a number of fair trade organizations operate in wholesale and retail businesses. These include coffee suppliers like Larry's Beans and Counter Culture Coffee. One World Market in Durham and Ten Thousand Villages in Raleigh offer a wide range of fairly traded goods.

Learn about the fair trade revolution (not to be confused with "free trade" which usually means freedom for large corporations to exploit people all over the world) by checking these links above. You can contribute to community development by buying fairly traded goods, and many of these goods are things that you already are buying. To learn how to find a variety of fairly traded items and how well the stores and companies you buy from treat their workers, check out Responsible Shopper.

Rivers of Water from the Faithful Heart, Part 2
John 7
Delivered at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church, Durham, NC
Pentecost May 27, 2007

(Continued from previous post)

Jesus’ proclamation about rivers of living water was a promise of the Spirit. It was the Festival of Tabernacles this time. On another festival day, Jesus would already have ascended into heaven. On that day of Pentecost, after his death and resurrection, the Spirit would come, bringing rivers of living water. Its sign on that day would be flames of fire. But on this parched day in Jerusalem at the beginning of the hot summer, Jesus promised life-giving water that would flow in and through and from the lives of all who followed him. Praise be to God. What a blessing he was pronouncing. Anyone thirsty can come to him. Anyone ready to follow can go ahead and take a drink. And the water will be so wet, so quenching, so cooling, that it will transform the drinker into the source of a great river of refreshment and life to share with others. No wonder the crowds were ready to follow him. He was fulfilling right before their eyes the promises of God through the prophets. He was proclaiming the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh. And as Jesus was glorified, then the Spirit’s presence would be poured out.

The chapter ends by reminding us how things go in this world. We end up back in the private chambers of the powerful. In the council chambers, in the office of the chairman, in the legislative committee, in the lobbyist’s private club, in the closed session, in the national security agency, in the cabinet chambers, in the oval office, people with money and connections and official status try to make the rules, bend the rules, break the rules, and rule the rest of us. They heard what people were saying. All their efforts to neatly do away with Jesus were not working. Their own police officers were afraid to arrest Jesus.

“Were you deceived by him, too?” they asked, but it was not really a question. It was an accusation. Then they made a clear statement of the class divisions that governed their view of the world. They said that people with an education don’t get fooled by Jesus. We know our place, and we know his place. But that crowd out there is full of ignoramuses. They don’t know the law. The law is our playground. We own the law. They know nothing. They are a bunch of god-forsaken, empty-headed morons. Because they don’t know what we know, they are cursed. We are the blessed ones. And we do not intend some half-breed bumpkin from Galilee to interfere with our way of running this city. We will defeat this man one way or another. Who elected him president of Jerusalem? We are the ones in charge, and don’t you forget it.

A lone dissenter in the room spoke up. Nicodemus, a secret admirer of Jesus among the Pharisees, asked whether a person who is charged under the law should get a hearing. But this group was way past dealing with procedural justice. Jesus had challenged them too many times. The law would now become a tool of their wills. They would twist it in whatever ways seemed useful to get this man out of the way. It might take some time and planning, but they were confident they could prevail. They did what we would expect. They questioned Nicodemus’s loyalty. “Are you with us or against us? Maybe you are a Galilean too. Are you part of that mongrel race? Maybe you are aiding the terrorists. Where is the yellow magnet that should be on your car? Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? You don’t let your daughter date Galileans, do you? Do you believe in miscegenation?” I guess Nicodemus decided to shut up at that point. He had been around long enough to know who ran things in the city of Jerusalem.

The next chapter shows how the authorities raised the stakes in their efforts to bring Jesus down. It is the story of the challenge to Jesus about a woman caught in adultery. But it turns out to be one of his greatest triumphs. He pressed them so hard and made them so angry they called him a Samaritan and said he was crazy again. But he did not let up, so they picked up stones to stone him to death, but he was able to disappear into the crowd.

What can we learn from Jesus’ days in Jerusalem during the feast of Tabernacles? First, we can see how the crowd was not fully aware of how the powerful forces at work were affecting them. They knew to be wary of the authorities, but they could not always see the way that these authorities were working to keep their privilege and advantage over others. In public, it seems that there is a debate going on between different points of view, which are worthy of consideration. But often at least one side of the debate is based on lies and deception. Someone says that this country tried to buy weapons grade plutonium. Someone says they have labs capable of producing nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. But if it is not true, then the whole debate was thrown out of balance by falsehoods.

Did the Hurricane cause the damage, or did the inadequate levees lead to flooding? Was there an adequate evacuation plane, or were the poor and the prisoners simply left to die? Was it impossible to bring in water and food and busses and trailer houses, or were the decisions and resources caught up in red tape and negotiations about how much profit the no-bid contractors would make? It’s easy to say in public, “Heck of a job, Brownie,” but what is really happening in the rooms where decisions that affect life and death are being made? The Road Home promise of up to $160,000 for homeowners took months to get organized, only to find out that not nearly enough money has been appropriated, that the money is being held up at both federal and state levels, and that as much as one-third of the funds are being taken off the top of the grants to homeowners to pay the government’s expenses rather than rebuild the homes.

Somewhere, people are making decisions, and someone is benefiting from these decisions. But the people whose homes were destroyed seem to be on the outside of all those benefits. Parts of New Orleans where the wealthy and powerful live are bustling and booming. But not far away one can see devastation in block after block of the residential neighborhoods where the average working families lived, where blacks owned homes that were flooded and destroyed, and where the poor found low-cost housing. The city’s population is half what it was before the floods from the broken levees. People wait for information. They share what they have heard. They debate the merits of this or that proposal. But mostly their fates are determined in secret places where the powerful divide up the pie.

We can also learn that the powerful make use of this confusion and lack of information to manipulate, to divide, and to conquer. The ones in power are benefiting from the status quo. They have no interest in seeing things change. They are set in their ways. They don’t want the empowerment of new groups. They don’t want any new ideas to shake up the world they have just where they want it. So they leak out enough information to keep people divided, to keep them afraid of somebody else. All the while, they are looking for ways to prey on the poor and weak. In the Lower Ninth Ward, the investment in recovery seems like it will never arrive. The city leaders say they can’t spend money there since it is almost completely deserted by its residents. The backroom discussions with developers are full of proposals to get this land and redevelop it with expensive, high-rise condos. Some rumors say Donald Trump has bought up many of the lots in the Lower Ninth Ward and that he has plans for luxury housing. One organizer explains how the homeowners, whose homes are completely demolished, are stuck in a waiting game. If they can’t get assistance, they can’t rebuild. If they can’t rebuild, they can’t move back. If they can’t move back, they can’t do much on their own to get the rebuilding started. How long will their patience last? Their pockets are not as deep as the speculators who can find venture capital and leverage big financing from banks. Who will be able to wait the longest? Are the decisions already being made that will force out the long-time residents who fell victim to this enormous flood?

We can also learn that when people are bold enough to speak the truth, there can be a turning of the tide. Jesus kept speaking the truth to power. He was careful and strategic. He did not let himself get isolated and alone to face the powers. He planned the right time. He brought the right message. He called it what it was—people with power who loved to be treated as VIPs and who did not want the people to know the truth. They did not like their masks to be taken off. They worked ever more intensely to find a way to get rid of him. He knew that the day would come when they would give him their very worst, and he knew he would be ready for it. But he also knew that he must plan for himself when that time would come. He had some building to do among his disciples and the crowds that were following him. He had to lay the groundwork. He had to get them ready to face the task that would come.

And when that time would come, they would have the power of the Spirit giving them life. God’s Spirit would be poured out on the sons and the daughters to prophesy. The old would dream, and the young would put their legs and arms and voices to the task. And out of a desert there would flow rivers of living water. One of the old who is dreaming a dream is the Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian of Atlanta, GA. He has gathered his allies across the nation and across the denominations. Out of his dream has come the organization Churches Supporting Churches. The vision is to have three churches in each of twelve districts of New Orleans, a total of 36 churches, receive the support they need to become the leaders of redevelopment which serves the common good, the working class, the poor, and all ethnic groups. Those 36 churches will be matched with ten churches each from around the U. S. and Canada, who will pledge their support at the level they are capable of giving. These 360 churches and more will become the allies who help to build a new city in which the gospel is not a way of placating the masses. It will be a city in which the gospel helps to shape the very neighborhoods that emerge from the destruction.

The young men and women who are leading the way are pastors whose church buildings are destroyed or damaged and whose congregations are scattered across the continent. Aldon Cotton told me that when the storm was over, he rushed back thinking that the disaster would have everyone turning to the church and seeking God. He was disappointed by what he found. People were too stunned and angry to want to care about God. Moreover, most were gone. There was not even a handful of people in the neighborhood from which to rebuild a church, much less enough to fill the dozen churches that had gathered in the neighborhood before the storm. He had no home to live in. He had no building to meet in. There was no income for the church that had previously paid him as a full-time pastor. His library was a drenched, muddy mess. He quickly realized that he would have to have a whole new way of thinking about his work as a minister.

Through Churches Supporting Churches, devoted pastors like Rev. Cotton have banded together to retrain themselves. They are learning to think and plan strategically in a holistic way they never had before. They are learning to analyze their obstacles, to understand political and economic systems, and to negotiate for the good of their neighborhoods. They speak to all who need to hear, and they work together so that they cannot be merely ignored or set aside. They depend on their allies in other places for advice and support. Churches from Brooklyn and Queens, New York, who have experience in housing development, are sharing their expertise and encouragement. Churches with teams of carpenters or youth groups send workers to deal with specific needs and tasks.

The Spirit is at work in the cities where people grow, live, struggle, and overcome. In the wilderness of the Lower Ninth Ward where the Mt. Nebo Bible Baptist Church building used to be, where only a bare slab remains, there will be rivers of living water. In the Central City where the Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church has no place to meet, Jesus is calling to anyone who is thirsty, “Come to me and drink.” In the Mill Grove community of Durham, all who believe may receive the Spirit of God to work God’s good will in them. In East Durham, in Trinity Park, in Old Farm, in Walltown, in Old North Durham, in Summer Meadow, along Alston Avenue, shall flow rivers of living water. The atoning life of Jesus has shown us the way to walk and live in the truth so that we may confront the powers with the very power of God’s Spirit.

It’s a strange thing to say, and the pastors and laypersons I met in New Orleans were careful how they said it. They said that they would never blame God for the terrible losses that people in the Gulf Coast region have endured because of the hurricanes. They said that they did not mean that they thought the terrible conditions of their neighborhoods were a good thing. But they also said that they were finding themselves to be in a unique position for envisioning what the power of God can do. Without buildings and church power structures and committees and ongoing patterns of doing things the same way year after year—with all those things swept away in the flood, their eyes have been opened to what God might do to make their neighborhoods better places to live than they were before. Their ears have been opened to listen to their neighbors and learn what they hope a church can offer to their lives and their community. They feel like they are getting a fresh start. The wind of the Spirit is blowing in that city.

Is the wind of the Spirit blowing here in this city? There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is among us, prodding us, burning within us, calling us, awakening us, convicting us, comforting us, drawing us ever nearer to God. Are we seeing what God’s Spirit is doing around us? Are we hearing what God’s Spirit is saying through the people God is sending our way? Have we drunk of the water Jesus offers to all who thirst? Has it overflowed in our congregation to be a stream of living water flowing into the lives of others?

Perhaps today you need to come to Jesus in faith to receive the drink that will quench your thirst. He is the one who can forgive your sins. He is the one who can ease your loneliness. He can answer the questions that are nagging at your conscience. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.” He is the way, the truth, and the life. Through him you can come to know God. If you are ready to follow Jesus, then come today to offer yourself a living sacrifice.

Perhaps you have let yourself drift with the crowd. You’ve debated the possibilities without true insight into what God is at work to do. You are ready to set aside the foolishness and confusion and set your eyes firmly on Jesus. You are tired of claiming to know Jesus, but living as if all that water of life is dammed up inside of you to be protected and hoarded. Let it flow out from you starting today. Let your life be a channel of blessing to others. Come today to let yourself be guided by God’s Spirit, the same Spirit poured out on Pentecost so long ago in Jerusalem.

Perhaps you are in this city but not united with any church. You have been meaning to take care of this, but you have been too preoccupied with the day-to-day matters of work and bills and family, as if you could work all those things out without a constant acknowledgement of God’s call on your life. Maybe you have been straying from your service to God, and you need to make yourself accountable to this congregation on this day, saying from henceforth I will covenant with you to serve our Lord. Come today to unite yourself with this church. The doors of the church are open. All who thirst, come to the Lord Jesus today.

Reading the Bible in community is what some, if not all, Baptists claim is a good thing to do. Still some among Baptists prefer the jargon of individual interpretation over any authoritative role for the community. But reading in community is not primarily an issue of giving up authority to a functionary leader; rather, it is an issue of reading in the context of a specific place and time. The context of a specific place and time emerges through the voices of the community.

On Monday night, we attended the Spring Institute held by a group of Baptist churches in New Orleans. The Institute, hosted by Evening Star Missionary Baptist Church in Harvey, LA, had been advertised in the churches, and people had signed up in advance to take one of three classes, each to continue through three consecutive evenings. Local pastors had been invited to lead Bible study and training courses. We attended the course on the Prophet Habakkuk, and the topic of the study was dealing with anxiety, based on a book by Warren Wiersbe, From Worry to Worship.

Rev. Aldon Cotton from Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church led the study. Over forty of us crammed into a classroom, getting additional chairs so that everyone could participate. The lesson began with an overview of the book of Habakkuk, explaining the setting, the historical period, and what can be known about the author. Rev. Cotton encouraged the people to read the book of Habakkuk. In fact, he wondered why they had not already read it in preparation for the first meeting, until he found out that the fliers for the Institute had not informed the participants that the class would study Habakkuk.

The prophet Habakkuk's writing starts with a cry to God, what some would call a complaint. He asks how long things will keep going wrong. He asks how long violence will dominate the land, and how long he will have to keep looking at trouble and destruction. How long will the law be impotent and justice absent? Habakkuk has much to be anxious about. The Babylonian army is harsh and powerful. Their ways are cruel and destructive. Yet this unrighteous army will bring judgment on the unrighteous ways of Judah. Habakkuk cannot see much hope that conditions will improve.

The relevance of the passage was not lost on anyone in the room. They find themselves living in a destroyed city. The weak and poor find little mercy or justice. The legal system seems twisted and broken when it comes to them. The death rate from sickness, sorrow, and violence is soaring. And the billions of dollars put into Katrina recovery seem to be disappearing into thin air. Everyone has friends or family who have suffered immensely. Stories of mistreatment, violence, fear, and loss are just below the surface. All it takes is a moment and an opening for conversation.

One woman responds to the scripture by saying, "This crying of violence, that's what we're going through right here in New Orleans." A few others chime in with remarks about the difficult conditions of life, now twenty-one months away from the Hurricane.

A man says, "The laws being slack is a lot like Louisiana and the Federal Government. They keep saying they will make things right for people who suffered, but the help never comes. The money gets used up and disappears before it ever reaches where it should go."

Rev. Cotton discussed the way that we can get our focus on the world and what is going on that is wrong until we get overwhelmed with worry. But when our focus is on God and what God has promised us, we can remember God's righteousness and trust in it. We create our own worries by getting our focus off God. Then we get afraid to talk to God because of the sin that is in our lives.

The people were listening intently. The conversation went deep. The scriptures were alive in the community of readers, and the shared insights moved through the room with the moving of the Spirit. After closing, the participants went home eager to read the Book of Habakkuk and continue the discussions the next day.

Across the Mississippi River in the Uptown neighborhood, Tuesday night meant Bible Study at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. Rev. Donald Boutté was beginning a study of the Gospel of Mark. His method was first to spend a few weeks doing a fast walk through the entire gospel to help the congregation gain an overall understanding of the plot, characters, and themes. When the overview is completed, they will return to the beginning and undertake a more detailed exegetical study. On this Tuesday night in May, they were looking at parts of chapters 2 and 3.

Much of the discussion on this evening was about the way Jesus challenged the legalism of the Scribes and Pharisees. They kept getting in conflict with him about his seeming carelessness about the law. He associated with people of whom the law might not approve. He healed on the Sabbath. He picked grain to eat on the Sabbath. He did not fast in the same way that some other religious people fasted. Jesus always had an answer for them, and he always made them madder with each answer, with each challenge to their authority.

The discussion opened up in the congregation to answer the pastor's question about why these events and discussions were causing conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees. What was the problem with their view of the law? A few people spoke up. One said that the Pharisees did not understand who Jesus was when they criticized him concerning the law. Another said the teachers of the law seemed to be using the law as a tool for their personal benefit and not in a way that benefits the average person.

Rev. Boutté turned the discussion toward the people that the Pharisees rejected, the ones with whom they did not want to associate. He pointed out how Jesus associated with the ones that the Pharisees did not. People who did not fit in with the religious crowd were the ones that got Jesus criticized by the Pharisees. It even led them to go running to the Herodians, whom they also did not like, to make plans about how to get rid of Jesus.

He then introduced the work being done to draw young people back into their congregation. The young people in the community had been a large part of St. John before Katrina. But families with youth and children had not yet returned to New Orleans, and no one knows if they will. Here and there, some young people have returned, and St. Johns has seen the need to find them and draw them in. One way of doing that has been to sponsor a football team for 14-18 year old boys. A church member will coach the team, and the church has purchased the uniforms and equipment. Youth services have been slow to recover in New Orleans. It is no surprise that housing and jobs have received the most attention, but young people still need ways to constructively spend their time that can include fun, learning, and growth.

As these teen-aged boys have begun to attend St. John, they do not have the same background as some people who have been going to church all of their lives. They don't necessarily dress the way that the church people are used to. Rev. Boutté asks the congregation how this situation they are in relates to the situation from the scriptures. One woman tells a story about greeting a boy at the door of the church and asking him to remove his cap. When he resisted, she explained that it was the tradition of their church for men not to wear caps. She said, "That tradition is kind of like the law as we have been reading about it." She said that when he still did not want to take off his cap, "I told him, 'Okay, go ahead and wear it. You are still welcome here.'" The pastor remarked about another woman in the church who is very good at inserting some humor to keep the tension down in that kind of situation.

Then a man asked, "How long is long enough for someone to start learning and following the traditions of our congregation?" Rev. Boutté laughed and explained that he has the same kinds of questions, but he is trying not to rush to conformity in a way that the message of love and acceptance gets overshadowed. Others entered the conversation seeking to articulate the ways that a church can practice its traditions without making them barriers for loving acceptance of the outsider. The conversation went on well after the benediction. A communal process of reading together and listening for the Spirit's guidance was again at work.

The specific context of reading in New Orleans helped to amplify the way that churches read the scriptures in the mutual submission and accountability of community. Much is "up for grabs" in the churches of New Orleans. I don't mean that the saving power of Jesus Christ is in doubt. What is open with possibilities is the way that churches have done and will do their work of ministry. The physical structures are broken down, and the organizational structures are broken down as well. People who have always been present to lead may not be coming back. Classes and committees that used to be standard have not yet been reconstituted. New needs and new people may make it possible to put the wine into new wineskins. The best path to letting a new wind of the Spirit blow is to allow the God-breathed Word, the scriptural witness, to dwell in us richly, that we may together discern its good news in this time and place.

We turned the corner at Dorgenois Street and Fourth Street in the Central City of New Orleans, and we saw a man and woman sitting on the stoop of a house. The woman's eyes showed recognition as we realized we had spoken on another corner a block away, just a few minutes before. The man was all smiles, with a wiry build, clutching in his hands the crook of a walking cane. Their stoop was on the shady side of the street.

All along the block, and in all the adjoining blocks, we had been cataloguing the conditions of a battered and deserted neighborhood. There were empty lots where homes, churches and businesses once stood. Scattered among them were collapsed buildings leaning into a seemingly endless waiting. A few of the structures stood gutted, some with piles of debris outside, their emptiness echoing the empty promises of financial help just down the road. Most of the blocks had only a handful of residents where not so long ago the hustle and bustle of people had filled the area.

We exchanged greetings, "How y'all doing?" I explained that we were working in the neighborhood to help out Rev. Aldon Cotton from Jerusalem Baptist Church.

"Which Rev. Cotton? There's two Cottons . . . " the man went on to explain. He was wearing the monogrammed uniform of a retail worker, talking with his neighbor. He went on to tell us that the two Rev. Cottons in this neighborhood are brothers. After getting some more information from us about which one we knew, he affirmed, "Yes," he knew the Rev. Cotton whose church had fallen down in the storm. We discussed Jerusalem Baptist Church's plans to rebuild across the street from their previous location. He told us, "That Rev. Cotton is the best man for us. He's always doing good."

Throughout the day we had been recording information about a twenty-three block area in Central City, sometimes called Uptown. It is bounded by Broad Street on the north, Martin Luther King Boulevard on the on the east, Galvez Street on the south, and Toledano Street on the west. As many as fifteen churches gathered in this neighborhood before Hurricane Katrina. Now the people are gone, the pastors have relocated for a while, and the buildings left standing are unusable. Slowly some people are finding their way back to fix their houses. Even more slowly the promised funds from The Road Home are trickling through the system to a few. Others, not believing the money will ever make it to them, are finding ways to get the houses rebuilt and rehabilitated. And everyone else is wondering when or if they might sell their property and leave it all behind.

Some of the pastors in New Orleans have come together to build a vision for the future of their churches and for the city of New Orleans. They are letting their lives and ministries be intermingled so that they can be strengthened in their skills, their resolve and their hope. They have targeted certain zones in New Orleans, from the Central City to the Ninth Ward and beyond. The zones are selected because of the severity of their need in the post-Katrina devastation.

These zones used to have low-cost housing, both rental and owner-occupied. They were working-class neighborhoods, made up of families that include a growing segment of the new U. S. economy, the working poor whose toil builds corporate profits while they can't make enough money to afford what they need to get by. These are the neighborhoods that some local and outside developers would love to buy up for almost nothing so that they can make a landfall profit by creating the next trendy location for the up-and-coming professionals. There are leaders and lenders who are hoping the scattered residents of these neighborhoods never come back.

Four Shaw University Divinity School students walked in pairs around these twenty-three blocks. They looked at the door frames of battered houses to find a street address. At some locations, an address had been spray-painted on the asphalt in front of the house by one of the utility companies doing its work. The many vacant lots don't have an address posted anywhere, so the students have to count the spaces and fill in the blanks of addresses between one house and another. Here and there a house is being renovated, and occasionally they find one whose residents have moved back in. Along the way they meet construction crews putting up sheathing, homeowners packing remnants of sheet rock into trash bags, mechanics working on cars in a reopened auto repair shop, and contractors checking out properties.

One contractor in his car greeted Rev. Cotton and asked how his church was doing. As their conversation continued, the man explained that he was driving through the neighborhood to see if anyone was in need of some help that he could offer. Eventually, he took the pastor, the students, their professor, and another fellow doing some contract work to lunch. While "th'owing down" some New Orleans soul food, we discussed the needs of the churches and the community. We discussed the limits of hope in programs offered by the official political structures.

Over and over, neighborhood people, contractors, church members, and pastors have reiterated the same message: if our communities have any hope for renewal, it will have to be led by the churches. There are not any other institutions who have the vital interest of our communities at heart. And if the churches do not realize their calling to minister in this moment of crisis and opportunity, entire neighborhoods, their heritage and family ties, their accomplishments and traditions will be lost. Moreover, the churches will have failed to do what their Lord and Savior said he came to do, to preach good news to the poor. It is no time for empty preaching and promises. The good news must be tangible.

Rev. Cotton and his colleagues are working to see the strength of their relationships begin to bear fruit in solidarity and joint action. They need the descriptions of the properties, block by block, to show that they know the challenges they are up against. They need to demonstrate that they have a plan for using the funds they are requesting.

They also need this data to persuade other pastors that together they can make a difference. When the other pastors can see just how many lots, how many houses need rehabilitation, and ultimately who wants to come back and who wants to sell, they will realize that this is not an impossible and unmanageable task. And they will see that it is not Rev. Cotton or some other pastor trying to take over the whole neighborhood and shut them out. The Rev. Cotton whose church got destroyed longs for the day when all the churches in his neighborhood can share their gifts and pool their efforts to make Central City a beacon of the churches' capacity to renew, to change, to redeem a community.

So we walked on in the late spring heat and humidity. It was a good day to be outside and see the beauty of God's creation. We also were seeing the ways that human power used for domination and sin can let a thriving community become a wasteland. The God who created it all is the same one who promised to bring forth springs in the desert and to make a new shoot grow out of the stump that had been cut off. Churches Supporting Churches is working on getting the debris out of that spring so that the waters of life can flow freely and abundantly in New Orleans. They are watering that stump and nurturing the new growth. And all creation awaits the flowering of the shoot of Jesse, the seed growing secretly, the sudden appearance of the Reign of God on Fourth Street.

Organizing for community transformation takes time. Unfortunately for the churches and people of New Orleans, time for action is not in great supply. A few years ago, many pastors and church leaders in New Orleans had little training in community development. They were not experienced in dealing with governmental institutions and legislation. They had ideas about what would make the neighborhood better, but few of the skills to help them take the steps needed to bring about the changes. Moreover, busy with the important day-to-day tasks of church work, most pastors had not built the kinds of cooperative relationships that would allow them to work together rather than in competition with one another.

Into this setting came Hurricane Katrina. Churches suffered great losses in buildings, evacuated members and pastors, and neighborhoods. As the devastation began to breed ideas about gentrification of neighborhoods, a vision began to take shape through such leaders (I am sorry for those whose names I did not list) Dr. C. T. Vivian, Rev. Dwight Webster, Rev. David Jensen, and many others to create an organization called Churches Supporting Churches. Everyong who heard of the idea thought it was right. But it was slow to develop.

Pastors and congregations were scattered. People had to get jobs, find homes, commute, gut houses, try to rebuild, try to find money. But committed leaders kept building relationships, learning to rely on one another, learning to trust their hopes together, gaining skills to organize, and making the necessary contacts to find funding and training.

Twenty months later, the pieces are falling into place. Relationships have grown. Needed structures are being established. The kind of help that can move things forward is joining in. Lot by lot, block by block, church by church, neighborhood by neighborhood, the evidence of change should soon begin to unfold. And as momentum grows, there will be a flowering of church-based community development in New Orleans that will be good news for the poor, and a new day for churches there.

Among the pastors engaged in organizing and development are Rev. Aldon Cotton of Jerusalem Baptist Church, Rev. Donald Boutté of St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Marvin Turner of Mount Ararat Missionary Baptist Church, Revs. Becky and Jeff Conner and Rev. James Haynes of Cornerstone United Methodist Church/Covenant United Methodist Church, and Hartzell United Methodist Church, and Rev. Charles Duplessis of Mount Nebo Bible Baptist Church. From Central City to Ninth Ward, churches are pulling together, identifying assets, developing models for action, and doing their parts. Pray for the churches in New Orleans that they may lead with the hope that comes from following the Risen Lord.

If your church wants to join the many congregations across the U. S. and Canada and become a part of this effort by joining in partnership with a church in New Orleans, you can contact the CSC National Project Director Rev. Dwight Webster at cubc89@bellsouth.net. You can learn more about the project at their website www.cscneworleans.org.