05480
Sept. 14, 2005

Gulf pastors fret for scattered flocks

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE —  Church leaders aren’t just worried about draining the Gulf coast churches that were inundated by toxic floodwaters two weeks ago. They want to fill them again.

     With people. And that may be the hardest part of hurricane recovery.

     “We hope that in a year’s time we’ll be approaching normalcy … but probably with greatly reduced numbers,” says the Rev. Neale Miller, pastor of Lakeview Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, which earned its name when the nearest levee broke, leaving only its rooftop above the waterline.

     “What can we do about that? It remains to be seen,” says Miller, 58, who guesses that most of the congregation’s 70-something elderly won’t bother rebuilding in the neighborhood where they’ve lived most of their adult lives.

     Their conundrum raises big questions for their neighborhood church. “We’re probably looking at quite diminished numbers,” Miller says, “and with that, resources.”

     It’s not that Miller is a pessimist. He likes New Orleans, which has been his home for nine years. He likes its ambience, its flavor. There’s nothing quite like it.

     Miller is only saying out loud what church leaders are wondering: Will the displaced people return, or put down roots in new locations? Will laborers who find steady work in other cities elect to stay put? Will the more affluent folks with no strong family ties to New Orleans get comfortable elsewhere? How will longstanding neighborhood churches be restored, especially if the soil they are built upon is oozing with toxins left over from the flooding? What will cleanup involve, and what will it cost? And are there places where rebuilding isn’t even possible?

     No one has the answers.

     It will take at least six months to sanitize what’s salvageable, and at least six months more for folks to return and re-establish the lives they left hurriedly last month. Many areas are still inaccessible. Sanctuaries that sat in putrid water for weeks may have to be bulldozed as irreparable health hazards.

     The executive of South Louisiana Presbytery, the Rev. Dr. Michael Mann, thinks eight or nine churches fall into the latter category. Thirty more were damaged to varying degrees by the high winds and water. That’s roughly half of the presbytery’s churches.

     What’s more, Mann is finagling ways to pay salaries for pastors and other staff ¾ whose congregations won’t be passing collection plates for a year or more. He’s also creating an account for donations to pay for synod operations; he figures about half of his churches won’t be collecting mission or per capita dollars for some time.

     “I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom,” he says, “but there’s a distinct possibility that this is a much longer recovery than anyone (imagines).”

     An administrative commission is working to find money to pay salaries for pastors and staff. Mann hopes the Board of Pensions will put traumatized, depressed clergy on disability, so that 60 percent of their salaries will be covered as the crisis drags on — and will release emergency grants to bolster flagging incomes.

     Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) is adding pastoral and church staff salaries to one of its accounts, DROOO161. (Mail checks to Presbyterian Church (USA), P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700; or make credit-card contributions by telephone at (800) 872-3282.)

     The Rev. Mike Hogg, who pastors 125-member Canal Street Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, hasn’t been paid since the storm hit on Aug. 29 — his 44th birthday.

     He says he isn’t worried about it yet: His in-laws have made room in Tucson, AZ, for Hogg, his wife, and their five kids, aged 8 to 16. A private Christian school has even offered to give three of his kids a tuition-free education this year.

     There hasn’t been time to worry, so Hogg is counting his blessings.

     He ditched his unworkable 504-area-code (New Orleans) cell phone for a new one that has enabled him to track down every sheep in his flock.

     So far Hogg has Canal Street’s evacuees organized into coffee-talk groups in the cities that have taken them in: They’re partial to Starbuck’s as weekly gathering spots in Birmingham, AL, Jackson, MS, and Houston and Dallas in Texas.

     Hogg is helping at a Tucson shelter that has taken in 90 displaced folks from the Gulf Coast.

     It’s impossible to tell how much damage was sustained by the mid-town Canal Street church that was known for having a jazz band in worship and drawing Presbyterians and others from all over town. No one has been able to reach it, and its members have mixed feelings about starting over.

     “It runs the whole gamut,” Hogg says. “Some have dreams and visions for what the Lord will have us do there in the months and years to come. Others are barely able to hang in there and have the conversation: They don’t want to go back. They’ve lost everything; it’s a total wash.”

     He reckons, too, that some young professionals are gone for good.

     “It is an anxiety,” says the Rev. Jim McClain, who hasn’t been able to find all the displaced families of his Peace Presbyterian Church, a congregation with a membership that is 20 percent Laotian, 20 percent African-American and 60 percent Anglo and families with a broad range of incomes.

     He worries that the church may lose laborers who find work elsewhere and professionals who won’t want to uproot their families again.

     “They’re finding jobs, getting the kids back in school. They’re doing what they have to do to move,” he says. “So one of the big questions is: When the time comes to rebuild and restore, whether they will or not.”

     He doesn’t know when he’ll be able to visit the church, which has two to five feet of water inside, but hopes he won’t have to wait more than a month.

     “It is all really an open question,” he says. “I wish I knew for sure. My real hope is to try to go back and rebuild the church. The real question is whether that is possible with months to go before we begin reconstruction and repairs, and months to go before our members move back. … It’s a serious question if it can be done.”

     Miller says the same. His townhouse is still full of water. The authorities still won’t let him visit to inspect the damage. His wife’s company has moved her to Wisconsin, where she’s near family. He’s working with the presbytery in Baton Rouge.