News Articles by Sherri Brown

Back in church Becky Boykin and Renee Page greet each other at First Baptist Church in New Orleans during the first worship service since Hurricane Katrina. Photo by Sherri Brown

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--They sang from a screen fueled by a borrowed generator. They hugged friends and waved to others across the sanctuary. And they asked the all-important post-hurricane question: “How did you do?”
      It was the first time that First Baptist Church -- significantly smaller in number but no less enthusiastic –- met for worship since Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans.

Flooded flag Lakeview Baptist Church's Christian flag never turned over during the New Orleans floods, but it bears the marks of the waters. The New Orleans congregation lost everything to water and mold damage. Photo by Sherri Brown

      The church is built up enough so that the floodwaters stopped at its doorstep. But the church didn’t escape damage. Winds ripped away about a third of one building. Rain poured into Sunday School classrooms. Offices and church records were destroyed. Parts of the buildings that escaped damage soon showed signs of growing black mold. Weeks after the storm, there is still no electricity.
      “Everything around us stood in four to six feet of floodwater for weeks. The grass is dead, the trees are dying,” said David Crosby, pastor of First Baptist.
      But when the first worship service since Katrina was held Oct. 9, Crosby offered a prayer of thanks to “the God of storm and wind and rain.” First Baptist New Orleans will recover, but many other churches in the area may not.

Lassoing the lost Evangelist Ronnie Hill ventured to the Calgary Stampede with a vision to reach Canadians in need of the Gospel. Hill and a team of eight fellow Texas volunteers, with help from Calgary’s Cambrian Heights Baptist Church, recorded 459 professions of faith.

CALGARY, Alberta, Canada (BP)--The 90 members of Cambrian Heights Baptist Church have been tackling the challenge of following up with people who made professions of faith at the Calgary Stampede, one of the world’s largest rodeo events that draws more than a million people during the 10-day run every summer.
      Texas evangelist Ronnie Hill decided to take a team to witness at the Stampede. He has ridden horses all his life and competed in roping events for the last 15 years. But as an evangelist his passion is to preach to lost people.
      In the last Canadian census, the fastest-growing religion was “no religion.” According to North American Mission Board statistics, China has more Christians than Canada.

Friendly welcome Jim Caldwell, pastor of the New Orleans-area Riverside Baptist Church in River Ridge, visits with a woman who came to the church for a meal. Church members and other volunteers feed about 1,500 people a day. Photo by Sherri Brown

RIVER RIDGE, La. (BP)--Churches at the forefront of disaster relief are easy to spot. They’re the ones with eight-foot-high stacks of bottled water dotting the parking lot and half-gallon jugs of waterless hand sanitizer on every table.
      That’s exactly what Riverside Baptist Church looks like. The River Ridge church, just outside of New Orleans, has been feeding 1,500 to 2000 people every day for the past three weeks. Volunteers plan to continue feeding until November.
      “We’ve got a crazy, eclectic group of people working here,” said Jim Caldwell, pastor of the church.
      When Caldwell returned to the city and found the church’s facilities in fairly good shape, he envisioned the location as a food and water distribution center. He called the Louisiana Baptist Convention but help wasn’t immediately available in the post-hurricane days.

Seeing the damage New Orleans Seminary students Melinda and Justin Langford look over the remains of their first-floor apartment. The couple moved into the apartment -- and painted all the rooms -- two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit, destroying all of their possessions. Photo by Sherri Brown

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, said Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Seminary.
      “This is something no one could imagine. There’s no book for this, no path for this,” Kelley said after returning to the campus to help students and faculty dig through flooded houses and mud-covered possessions.
      “Driving through this city is like driving through a Hollywood science fiction set,” he said.
      Kelley, whose house on campus was not flooded, returned Oct. 5 when the campus first opened to faculty and students wanting to return to salvage what they could from their campus houses. He spent the next several days, dressed in a T-shirt and work pants, walking from house to house.

Pastor’s recipe Pastor and former restaurant owner Johnny Rayford pours clam chowder he made for volunteers at the hurricane-ravaged First Baptist Church in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Photo by Sherri Brown

BAY ST LOUIS, Miss. (BP)--When Johnny Rayford received the e-mail to Mississippi pastors requesting volunteers across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he decided he had to respond.
      Rayford immediately gathered all the equipment he would need and headed south. But his truck wasn’t loaded with chain saws, cleaning supplies or water.
      Rayford, pastor of Crestwood New Life Church in Jackson, Miss., brought cooking pots, four portable gas burners, propane tanks, a pile of spices and boxes of food and ended up at First Baptist Church in Bay St. Louis, Miss., doing one of the things he does best.