Friday Focus: New Orleans
Each Friday we will spotlight a different ministry around the country where the challenges and joys of gospel ministry are playing out in fresh ways. Today’s focus is from Ray Cannata pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New Orleans, LA (NOLA). Enjoy!
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I once heard someone say that everyone needs to live in a place where you get a good picture of Heaven and a good picture of Hell. If that’s true, I’m blessed to live and minister in a city like New Orleans.
I know of nowhere in America that gives a better preview of Hell. That was true even pre-Katrina: the highest poverty rate in the country, the worst public school system (126 of 128 rated among America’s worst), lowest rate of evangelical church attendance in the South by far, highest murder rate, substance abuse, political corruption, worst streets, and so on. The Storm, of course, compounded these – not only killing 1 out of 300 people, flooding 80% of the city’s homes (172,000 of them), schools and businesses, and doing $80 billion of damage, but gutting the city’s tax base, devastating social networks, and magnifying nearly every preexisting problem. Every place on Earth is broken by the Fall, but the gift of living in New Orleans is that no one here can pretend that’s not true. No one feels safe here.
And yet, as Hellish as New Orleans is, I don’t think there is anywhere in America more Heaven-like. For example, our Father is a creator and has made us in his image to be creative, and nowhere expresses this better than NOLA - its food, music, art, architecture, style, gardens. New Orleans is also a place of heaven-like diversity. Not in the politically correct sense, but where people of very different backgrounds truly love and celebrate each other. New Orleans, like Heaven, is also a place of grace and forgiveness. And like our Lord, who loved a party, New Orleans is a place of celebration. In all these areas, I am finding, New Orleans has as much to teach the Church as the Church can teach New Orleans.
The Hellishness of our city gives me a deep sense of mission and the Heavenliness a deep sense of gratitude.
I had been senior pastor of a church in a suburb of New York. We moved to New Orleans four months after Katrina to reopen Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a small mission church. The re-plant had just seventeen returning members and average attendance was about twenty-five that first spring.
The other attempted PCA church plant, as well an OPC attempt, had closed down before the storm, and Redeemer was barely hanging on, and nowhere near self-supporting, even before Katrina. I realized quickly that I was in way over my head.
Every day is a struggle, but the Lord has surprised us over and over. And in the process he is changing my heart, expanding my view of the Kingdom and teaching me what it means to love his Church more like he does.
A few of the lessons I am learning:
* People need a mission more than therapy. While it was tempting to ship a bunch of counselors to New Orleans and help our members understand their pain, we realized that would never be enough. We did some of that, but we came to believe that what our members needed most was a mission. They would heal best by becoming healers. So our prayer meetings began to focus on our city and neighbors more than our own problems. We would not be a self-help group but a mission, moving toward the pain of others. We stumbled forward with a growing effort to help rebuild homes. We committed to helping the public schools. We became obsessed with mission and found this is the best way to disciple our members.
* People need relationship more than programs. Sadly, at my last church my response to most problems was to add more programs. What I came to see is that every new program means more busyness, less time to love on each other and neighbors, and more occasions for conflict. Instead of fostering outreach, most programs catered to our own members and created more consumeristic Christians. Redeemer New Orleans has zero committees, and as we have grown we’ve found its possible to maintain that. The goal is not just to give people less structure and less busyness, but to push them to fill the void with relationship. That happens more naturally and organically, we are learning, when we remember that:
* People need ministry that is local more than regional. I used to be proud that my last church had members from 30 different zip codes. At Redeemer, tiny as we were, we actively encouraged new attenders not already committed to our congregation who lived more than two neighborhoods away to consider finding a church closer to where they lived. Of course, we have people from different parts of our city, and they are welcomed as much as anyone else. But 70% live in our neighborhood and 10% more live in a neighboring area. And we give priority to our efforts most local.
We are finding this greatly increases the quality of fellowship and accountability. Our interactions are more frequent and natural. By focusing our ministry mostly in one neighborhood we have great visibility with the unchurched there. And we are not in competition with other good churches more than a couple of miles away. So while we were still 100 members we were eager to commission and send off 10% of our membership who lived across town to start a sister church in that neighborhood. As painful as it was to say good-bye, we knew it not only multiplied the Gospel witness, but even strengthened our own by sharpening our local focus. By limiting our main efforts to the immediate area, we are not limiting our outreach but deepening it. And in any case, our goal is not to build a large, regional church, but a network of small, local ones. Again, this takes repentance, as I learn to give up the desire to be pastor of something big and
‘successful.’
* People need Deed as much as Word. I spent my early years in ministry teaching and preaching only. But the more I studied the Bible the harder it became for me to escape the idea that Word and Deed are equally essential. Deeds don’t simply illustrate the Word or serve the Word, but also have value in themselves. God’s Kingdom comes as people are redeemed and progressively sanctified through faith alone in Christ. But the Kingdom also involves restoring wholeness, feeding the poor, bringing shalom. Both Word and deed are absolutely critical.
* People need the sacraments more than just preaching alone. Even though I long held a fairly ‘high’ view of the sacraments, they were largely an abstraction for me. In a tactile culture like New Orleans I finally began to discover more of their practical import, and repent of my casual disregard. In a place where there was tremendous need and a hunger for the Word, how could I functionally ‘excommunicate’ my people 75% of the time by practicing the Supper only monthly? And why would we come to the climax of our service as if it were a funeral instead of a feast? How must that dampen the fire of mission stoked by the Word? Sharing the Meal weekly, with good wine, and a focus on celebration, teaches us how to feast outside of worship.
Each of these tidy bullet points has come by some real messy struggles and mistake. I am grateful to know that God works through even my failures.
Ray Cannata
Ray Cannata attended Wake Forest (B.A.), Princeton (MDiv and ThM), and Westminister (DMin cand.). He is senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a mission in New Orleans. So far they have helped rebuild over 300 homes. www.redeemerneworleans.com
Rev. Raymond D. Cannata
Redeemer Presbyterian Church
PO Box 750538
New Orleans, LA 70175
504-894-1204
Posted: October 31st, 2008 under Friday Focus.