NEW ORLEANS (ABP) — By now the 10-year-old True Believers Baptist Church should have been in its comfortable, new facility with room to grow.
But the sanctuary, classrooms and fellowship hall the young congregation was building are dark, empty and unfinished, thanks to a catastrophe that changed their world.
CBF photo
Valarie Taylor, pastor of True Believers Baptist Church in New Orleans, used her assistance from Baptist Builders to help make the church's mortgage payment.
“Katrina came and stopped everything,” said Valarie Taylor, founding pastor of this Progressive National Baptist Convention church in New Orleans.
All the church's members were displaced. The congregation didn't worship for months.
For now, the church's 50-or-so members who have returned to the area continue to worship in a small house sitting in the shadow of their uncompleted building. Even though the church has now resumed some of its activities, Hurricane Katrina's destruction has left a shortage of construction workers in New Orleans.
With members still scattered across the country, the church has faced financial challenges. For the eight weeks the church had no worship services, there was no income. And with $2,000-plus mortgage payments due each month, financial crisis loomed.
Taylor hasn't received her salary since August. Any money that comes in goes to pay the mortgage.
“A salary for me is out of the question,” said Taylor, who was displaced for two months and currently lives outside her house in a trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Like other displaced pastors, Taylor's needs go beyond financial. Hurricane Katrina has forever changed her ministry. For her members who do return, stress mounts daily as they struggle to get back to normal, she said. Fighting for their rights isn't an easy undertaking.
“I go through some days when I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders,” the pastor said.
Many New Orleans pastors will experience a similar burden, which is why Baptist Builders is committed to supporting as many as they can locate.
Baptist Builders, a unique partnership of five national Baptist groups, is working to help both displaced families and decimated churches in the Gulf region.
“My concern for pastors goes deeper than compassion. To know a pastor doesn't have a pulpit, a congregation, a church — I can feel their pain. Who's better to go rescue a pastor than a pastor?” said Gus Spurlock, a Baton Rouge pastor who coordinates Baptist Builders' ministry to displaced pastors.
The group is a partnership between the Progressive National Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the District of Columbia Baptist Convention and the Alliance of Baptists.
Through various networking channels, Baptist Builders has located 46 displaced pastors from New Orleans, providing at least 13 of them with personal grants of $500. Taylor used her grant to help pay the church's mortgage.
Despite the unexpected challenges Katrina brought, Taylor is hopeful.
“I'm not going to look at the problem anymore. I'm going to look to Jesus,” Taylor said. “God has blessed us and brought us back together to do His will. He has put us in this neighborhood to minister.”
Baptist Builders has also helped by reimbursing 11 Baton Rouge area churches that provided services or shelter to Katrina evacuees. Spurlock's Mt. Zion on the Hill Baptist Church spent more than $10,000 assisting evacuees with locating housing, as well as providing food and clothes. It was one of six churches Baptist Builders reimbursed $1,000. For churches that served as evacuee shelters, Baptist Builders reimbursed $2,000.
One of the five churches serving as a shelter was New Light Missionary Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. Even with gift-in-kind donations to offset costs, providing housing and three meals a day for up to 150 evacuees has cost the church $28,000, according to New Light's recently retired pastor, H.B. Williams.
“Prior to Baptist Builders, we had to take care of all of that,” Williams said. “I wonder what would have happened had it not been for Baptist Builders.”
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— Carla Wynn is a news writer for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Photo available from Associated Baptist Press.