First Baptist Church, Long Beach, MS

In the "Twenty-something" Sunday School class, Daniel told us about the oak tree that used to be in the center of the courtyard of the old church. You can still see the oak tree; it stands. The church that surrounded it was utterly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. From the reports I heard while talking to people at First Baptist in Long Beach, Mississippi, a new church was built after the old one came down -- and by a new church they didn't just mean the building.

In 1909, twenty-one charter members of the first First Baptist Church of Long Beach met together in a school, and a year later they were meeting in a church building. In 2005, after their church building was destroyed by the storm, the congregation of First Baptist Long Beach was again meeting in a school. That first Sunday service after the storm was a joyous reunion; discovering who had survived the storm and who was still in town.

The congregation moved from school to school after the hurricane. Food and clothing were also distributed from several of the same locations. Most everyone in the congregation was involved in the process of distributing goods to those in need, cleaning debris and rebuilding structures.

At one point the congregation was meeting in a building with a roof but no walls. The senior pastor, Dr. LaRue Stephens, told the congregation that it must continue on like that, as though there were no walls between the church and the community, reaching out to those in need. I talked to an usher named John who said about Dr. Stephens, "I love that man. He took on so much after Katrina in the rebuilding process. I'd lay down my life for that man."

After the storm, many people came to help. Natives were amazed to see truck after truck arrive bearing goods, with no payment expected for the goods or the drivers. Rick and Lynn, a couple who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, read about the devastation on the Gulf Coast and felt called to move to Long Beach. Rick brought his construction skills to Alabama to lead work teams, and Lynn soon followed. The couple had to live month after month in a trailer until they finally moved into a house. Once they had a house, they used it to shelter teams of workers on short term mission trips.*

Pastor John Jones came to the church after Katrina, but he believes the overflowing generosity shown to the church led to a spirit of generosity in the church. In the years following the storm, many in the congregation served the needs of the community. Among other things, the church has run Beach Club, an after school club for children.

One of the most impressive ministries of the church is their overseas missions trips. A couple of years after Pastor John arrived at Long Beach, he helped plan a missions trip to Peru. Since then, the church, which has about five hundred members, has sponsored trips to Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, China, and, soon, a trip to India. Every six months the church sends a group to Haiti, rotating ministry and medical teams. John said about a hundred church members have been on mission trips, but Sandy Stephens, the senior pastor's wife, put the number closer to one hundred and fifty. Either of those numbers makes for an impressive percentage of the congregation involved in missions.

The youth group has taken mission trips to Vieux Carre Baptist, the church we visited in the French Quarter of New Orleans. This coming summer, there will be a youth trip to Chicago. Mindy and I had the opportunity to visit the Wednesday night youth group and talk about our church visiting adventure this year. John wants to expose kids to great variety of churches in different settings and cultures.

On Wednesday night, we met Rachel, who volunteers in the youth group (she's the one who invited us to the Twenty-somethings Sunday School class). She's only been attending the church for a year and a half, but she was attracted by the missions focus of the church. She believes that a church that doesn't have such an outward focus will be a struggling church. Rachel said there were other factors that attracted her to the church: she wanted to sing in a choir, which the church has. She was drawn to Bill and Beth, the leaders of her Sunday School class, who demonstrated great care for her. She also said that the church has helped her grow in her devotional and prayer life.

We heard story after story of God's care for the people of the church after Katrina and how that led to a spirit of giving to others. I couldn't help but think of these words of Paul from the first chapter of Second Corinthians: "He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

God has taken the people of Long Beach Baptist through the storm and they have taken up the responsibility of doing the same for others.

*A sidebar about Rick and Lynn and how we came to stay with them, illustrating the kind of thing that keeps happening on this journey: In Santa Fe, New Mexico, we stayed with an old friend and visited her church. At that church, a member of the worship team gave us the name of a pastor in New Orleans, leading us to stay there. While helping with a project at the church in New Orleans, new friends put us in touch with John Jones, the Student Ministries pastor at First Baptist, Long Beach. John called Rick and Lynn, confident they would house us sight unseen. His confidence in their hospitality proved well founded.

Statistics

Service Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Sermon Length: 34 minutes

Visitor Treatment: a number of people said hello as we entered the building (one man was stationed outside to greet people as they came in, and a few others were inside or at the door to the worship center). The welcome center is highly visible when entering, as are the check-in locations for nursery and preschool children. The greeting time in worship was warm, and visitors were encouraged to fill out registration forms (we saw one version at the welcome center and another during the worship service. Either way, visitors were encouraged to place them in the offering plates as they left).

Followup by Tuesday Morning: none (but we had lunch with several members of the church on Sunday, and were in touch via FaceBook with a couple others).We also got an email from the church's Minister of Education on Tuesday.

Our Rough Count: 350

Probable Ushers' Count: 415

Snacks: vending machines in cafe area; homemade biscuits with butter and jam, coffee and water in the Twenty-somethings Sunday School class

Musicians: Young Musicians Choir: 8 girls and 9 boys, singing two songs with music track

Adult Choir: 11 men, 15 women

additional: organ (woman), piano (woman), electric guitar (man), electric bass (man), director (man)

Songs: "Family of God"

"He keeps me singing"

"This is amazing grace" (Young Musicians)

"Amazing grace/my chains are gone" (Young Musicians)

"Down at the cross"

"Grace alone"

"His grace will lead us through" (Adult Choir)

"Just as I am"

Miles to church: 2

Miles from start: 7,865

Total 2016 Miles: 7,820

Church website: www.fbclb.com

6 Mississippi facts that have me thinking

 Since we'd never been in Mississippi before, this visit opened our eyes to a lot of history, geography, and culture. These things stood out in our research:

1. Most U.S. farm-raised catfish are produced in Mississippi catfish aquaculture farms, though we didn't see any.

2. Over half the state's area is covered by wild trees (mostly pine, cottonwood, elm, hickory, oak, pecan, sweetgum, and tupelo), which may be the reason I didn't see the catfish farms.

3. The state beverage is milk; the state toy is the teddy bear

4. Mississippi was the second state to secede (on January 9, 1861). 90% of the Mississippi Delta area was still frontier after the Civil War.

5. In the late 1800's, 2/3 of farmers owning land in the Delta were African Americans; agricultural depressions led to farmers losing the land they had developed. Many became sharecroppers by 1910, and by 1920, many had left Mississippi for cities in the North. Still, in 2010, 37% of Mississippians were African Americans, which is the highest percentage for any US state.

6. The state has the highest rate of infant and neonatal death in the US. It often ranks last for health and educational attainment. Median household incomes (and living costs) are the lowest in the nation. However, Mississippi has ranked as the most religious state in the country since 2011.

Lynn Sandberg, Chaplain Program Volunteer (Harrison County Adult Detention Center)

Not really surprisingly, some jail inmates are cold to the chaplain. That, at times, is the case for Lynn Sandberg as she ministers to the women at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center. She told me about one woman in particular who was rather closed off from her time of arrival. Her case had some notoriety because of the serious nature of her alleged crime.. But there was something the woman needed, so she asked Lynn for help. Ever since the woman was arrested, she'd had no idea what had happened to her dog. Lynn was able to contact the police and find out that the dog was safe and in a good home. The woman was grateful and open to further conversation with Lynn.

Back in 2005, the jail's staff chaplain met Lynn's husband at the market and asked whether Lynn might like to help at the jail. And Lynn promptly answered no (she might have laughed first). She didn't think she had the skills or gifts for such a ministry, but she became convinced God was calling her. If that was the case, she knew she would have what she needs to serve.

As a volunteer chaplain, Lynn cares for all of the needs of inmates, excluding medical and legal needs. She helps set up rehabilitation and halfway houses, provides counseling, and refers people to consulting. Yes, she helps with concerns about pets, but also with family concerns. One of the more difficult but important services she provides is death notifications, letting inmates know about deaths among their families or friends.

And Lynn provides a unique service for the inmates of the jail -- parenting classes. Years ago, Lynn began to study the Scriptures that portray God as a Father to learn how she could be a better parent. She focused on the growth of Jesus in Luke 2 in "wisdom and stature and in the favor of God and man." She formed what she learned into a course on parenting, Heaven Brought Home. She presented the program at churches and was then asked by the warden to present the program to inmates.

I asked Lynn if there were any differences in presenting the parenting course in the jail and in the church. Maybe because I asked her this question in a church, she was hesitant to answer. She lowered her voice to say, "I like doing the course better in jail than in churches." She said the women in jail were much more open, whereas people in churches could be more closed off. The women in the jail laughed one moment and were crying the next.

Perhaps this openness is because the women in the jail can be honest about the fact they need help to be good parents. It was obvious they had failed and needed help. People in church might be afraid to admit it, but we all do need help; particularly when it comes to the issue of anger. The women in jail know they have a problem with anger. Lynn says she herself was an angry person but God has changed her.

Lynn hopes to expand the parent course to other jails and prisons. She is planning to video the program so it can be used in other jails and prisons. In fact, she dreams of God taking her program to jails and prisons in every state. Such a thing will take great financial resources and the cutting of a good deal of bureaucratic red tape, but Lynn has learned that if God is in it, He can make it happen.

I asked Lynn if there were any limitations placed on sharing her faith in the detention center, and she assured me there was not. Though obviously she isn't looking to force her faith on anyone, she lives out 1 Peter 3:15, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."

According to Lynn, "Any day I'm going to jail; it's a good day."

Lynn's website: www.heavenbroughthome.com

6 things about Louisiana I found fascinating

1. The state is prone to frequent thunderstorms, is vulnerable to hurricanes, and is often affected by tropical cyclones. The day we drove from Shreveport to New Orleans, major thunderstorms crossed the state, leading to tornadoes, swaths of destruction, and at least two deaths (and less importantly, bad photos through the car window).

2. Louisiana is ranked 25th for population, with approximately 4,670,724 people in 2015. It is the only state divided into political subdivisions called parishes (which are the equivalent of counties). There are 64 parishes in the state, many of which are split by the Mississipi River.

3. Before 1803, what is now Louisiana was a colony of Spain purchased by France. Africans were imported as slaves, many from the same region of West Africa.

4. The state is a relatively small portion of the Louisiana Purchase (named for Louis XIV, king of France). The area stretched from Mobile Bay to Canada.

5. The highest point in the state is Driskill Mountain (535 feet above sea level). The lowest point is New Orleans, which is 8 feet below sea level away from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. The state is 237 miles north to south and 236 miles east to west.

6. Louisiana was the first site of oil drilling over water. The world's longest bridge over water crosses Lake Pontchartrain as part of the two-bridge Causeway. The longer of the two is 23.83 miles long.