“The people were so grateful to have the opportunity to leave their homes for an evening, come and celebrate Christmas, and receive toys for their children” were the words spoken to me by Debbie Pell of Celebration Church. Debbie was commenting on the attitude of our guests who came to the Gift Of Hope services December 6-8. The Gift Of Hope services were a joint venture of Northwest Medical Associates of Portland, Oregon and Celebration Church that was designed to bring hope and healing to 500 families from New Orleans who had experienced significant losses as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Each night 165 plus families attended the event at the Celebration Relief Center on the Airline Campus of Celebration Church, and each night over 200 people (over 650 total) prayed to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It’s amazing how the Lord is still using the Airline Campus (which was wiped out by floodwaters from Katrina that remained for almost three weeks) for the purposes of evangelism and ministry.

 

At the Airline Campus, utilizing the tents that have been provided by Mariners Church of Newport Beach, CA and Christ in Action Ministry of Manasses, VA, we are still feeding hot meals to thousands of people on a daily basis, and we are still providing food, clothing, water, ice, cleaning products, baby supplies, personal hygiene products, etc. to hundreds of people on a daily basis through our Distribution Center. 60% of New Orleans is still without electricity, and the vast majority of the supermarkets, hardware stores and restaurants are still unopened, which means that the people who live in the city still have great needs. It is estimated that currently 150,000 people are in New Orleans proper during the day (the population was 480,000 pre-Katrina) cleaning up their homes and businesses, but only 60,000 stay through the night (because that’s all that have electricity). 

 

The people who are coming to our Celebration Relief Center (representing the middle income as well as the poor, and including many senior adults) are still very broken and open. They wait in long lines to not only “shop” for the products that we have to give them in our Distribution Center, but they wait to tell our volunteers their painful stories of the losses and devastation they’ve experienced. Many of those individuals are led to the Lord by the time they leave the Distribution Center. 

 

This past week we had a Chinese family that spoke very limited English come through the center. Coincidentally, we had a Chinese businessman from Southern California working at the center. He was able to minister to this family, and also develop plans to help them fill out their FEMA paperwork, which they had not even started because they didn’t understand enough English to know what to do. We are in the process of connecting this family to a Chinese Christian Church, and expect to see them come to the Lord in the near future.

 

We are also continuing to “gut out” homes for needy families and individuals. One lady, whose husband is very ill, wrote to us the following words: “I thank the people who came and gutted my house. I cried with joy as I experienced the love and caring of others in this time of need. It showed me that I’m not alone in this catastrophe, and that God hasn’t forgotten me.”

 

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity . . . for there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore” (Psalm 133:1, 3). 

 

One of the more remarkable works that the Lord is doing in New Orleans is that He is bringing Pastors and Churches together in an unprecedented way. On October 22, I placed an ad in the New Orleans paper, inviting Pastors from our city to come and learn of funding and other resources that are available to them, and to pray about ways we could partner together to minister to and reach our city during this crucial time. Although many Pastors were still “displaced” at that time, 120 Pastors responded and met together at Celebration Church on October 25, and those Pastors almost unanimously consented to become a part of the new “Greater New Orleans Pastors Coalition” and begin praying and partnering together in unprecedented ways in order to impact and reach our city as never before. Since that time, more than 100 other Churches have indicated their desire to be a part of what the Lord is doing in bringing His Church together in the city of New Orleans.

 

In a meeting preceding the larger Pastors meeting, I met with the 15 most influential Pastors in the New Orleans area. I began the meeting with these words: “In this room there is an incredible amount of giftedness, charisma, anointing and ego – and if we are willing to put aside our ego’s and our personal agendas and work together as never before, if we are willing to support one another and speak as one voice, we can significantly influence the decisions and destiny of our city – and we can see the Lord bring to New Orleans the spiritual awakening we’ve all been praying for for so long.” Those Pastors agreed to begin to pray, plan and partner together in ministry. Since that meeting, these key Pastors and about ten other Pastors from smaller congregations, representing African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic constituencies, have met twice to begin the work of planning and partnering together. Strategic teams have been developed to oversee the work of cleaning out of homes and Churches, the rebuilding of homes and Churches, economic development in our city, strengthening relationships with our business, civic and government sectors, and winning the lost. A Franklin Graham crusade has been scheduled for March that we’re all working on together, and we are also planning city-wide prayer meetings, family conferences and other strategic events. The Church of Jesus in New Orleans is coming together – which we believe will be a catalyst for bringing revival and spiritual awakening to our city.

 

One illustration of what is happening in this combined effort of Pastors and Churches occurred on Saturday, December 3. On that day, almost 50 Pastors and Churches, and almost 700 volunteers came together to “gut out” and “clean up” the worship and ministry facilities of the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. That Church pastored by Fred Luter, a godly man, had been averaging almost 7000 in weekend worship prior to Hurricane Katrina, but had not been able to meet since the hurricane because their facilities were demolished by the floodwaters of Katrina (like Celebration Church experienced at our Airline campus) and their people were displaced. The volunteers worked extremely hard on December 3, and were able to almost totally “clean out” and prepare the Franklin Avenue buildings for rebuilding. This was the first of many such projects. 

 

Plans are in the works for other Churches to be helped as well. It is the belief of our Greater New Orleans Pastors Coalition Planning Team that if we help get strategic Churches in devastated areas back on line, that will encourage people to come back to the surrounding communities, and those Churches can then serve as bases for ministry and outreach to their communities as the people are returning.

 

At Celebration Church we are continuing to rebuild physically, numerically, emotionally and spiritually. We have almost completed the sheetrock and painting work in the worship and school facilities at our Transcontinental location. We are installing flooring throughout the campus, and have ordered chairs for the worship center (and praying for the Lord to provide the funding for the chairs). Our worship attendance continues to grow surely but steadily, with new people coming every week who have heard about our Church’s ministry to the communities around us. Almost weekly there is some article in the New Orleans newspaper that affirms Celebration’s relief and recovery work on behalf of the residents and Churches of our city.

 

We are facing the awesome challenges of raising the funds and recruiting the volunteer labor teams needed to rebuild our larger Airline Drive campus. It is important that we do so, because that campus is centrally located in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and gives us great access to the Central City and to the Westbank (where 20,000 new homes are already being planned). Almost all of our flood insurance monies have been spent on the “demolition” of the inside of that campus (which was under water for almost three weeks), and thus we are depending on the Lord providing financial support and laborer teams from other Churches to help us rebuild that crucial and centrally located campus. Worship center seating has already been provided by Mariner’s Church who sent us the chairs from their old worship center.  A professional architectural firm in Dallas has been recruited by Lake Pointe Church of Rockwall, Texas to do our architectural work pro bono, and that Church has also enlisted a retired contractor to move to New Orleans and help us with our rebuilding project. One of our first projects on Airline Drive will be to rebuild our multipurpose facility which has commercial restrooms and showers, and will then enable us to house 450-500 volunteers weekly (versus the 150 volunteers we can currently house and take care of.   The cost for restoring that multipurpose facility is about $150,000, and we are praying that ten Churches will come alongside us and give $15,000 each (or whatever they can give) to help us renovate that facility so that we can have sufficient housing for the volunteer workers and ministers that want to come to New Orleans to help people and Churches.   

 

In the midst of our rebuilding efforts, we are planning major outreaches to our city in the month of December. Besides the Gift of Hope services, we are giving away over 80,000 toys to people from our city, December 13-15. My grandson Brandon who is 7 years old recently remarked to me that he was sad because all of his friends at school had lost all of their toys, and many had lost their homes. We can’t replace everyone’s homes, but the Lord is providing through several donors the opportunity to bring joy to many children’s hearts this Christmas through our “Toys of Joy” give-away.

 

1.      Pray for our Church members and the people of New Orleans. Most have been forced to find new homes, new jobs, new schools for their children and start building new lives. As you can imagine, they are oftentimes discouraged and devastated, struggling with grief related to the losses they’ve experienced, and feeling quite helpless and hopeless.

2.      Send Humanitarian Aid to New Orleans. There is still a great need for food, water, medical supplies, baby supplies, personal hygiene products, cleaning supplies, air mattresses, bedding supplies and many other such items. Shipments of humanitarian aid can be coordinated through our Relief Center Coordinator, Chris Meilleur (Chrism@celebrationchurch.org, 504-831-9673 or 504-782-3919).

3.      Send volunteer and labor ministry teams to partner with us. There is a great need for labor teams to help with renovating Church buildings and the homes of individuals, and a great need for ministry teams to work with our Celebration Relief Center. For the labor teams we especially need construction, electrical and plumbing teams. We have good housing and food for our volunteer teams, and we are finding that the lives of team-members who come to minister with us are impacted significantly for good and for God. Manley Miller is our representative who oversees the scheduling of volunteer teams. He can be reached at Manleym@celebrationchurch.org, 504-831-9673, or at 504-818-6899.

4.      Send Church and Building Supplies to help us renovate our Church facilities and rebuild our Church ministry. Both of our campuses were damaged by wind and water, and we’ve lost almost every piece of furniture, almost all of our records and books (for staff as well as the Church), and almost all of our other resources and assets. Although we had flood insurance, the flood coverage was federally regulated and included a maximum limit of coverage (which was significantly lower than the damage and losses we’ve experienced). Most of our flood insurance receipts have been utilized to pay for the inside demolition that’s taken place on both of our campuses, and we’re repairing, rebuilding and restoring our facilities and ministries with donated supplies. In recent weeks, Churches have sent us sheetrock (as well as sheetrock mud, tape and screws), office furniture and other needed items. If you and your Church are interested in doing so as well, please contact Ricky Rigsby at Rickyr@celebrationchurch.org, 504-831-9673, or at 504-782-9528. 

5.      Supporting financially 1 or more of our Staff members. Almost immediately after the Hurricane, we had to lay off our support staff, and begin placing some of our Ministry Staff on the staffs of other Churches. The Staff members who have chosen to remain with Celebration Church have been striving to raise their own salaries, until the Church is fully rebuilt numerically and financially. If you have interest in helping us by supporting one of our Staff, please contact me at dennisw@celebrationchurch.org, or at 504-782-3968.

6.      Supporting Celebration Church as a mission of your Church or organization. Celebration Church is one of the key Churches that God has used in the past, and will use in the future to reach New Orleans. Some Churches are considering putting Celebration in the 2006 Missions Budget, while other Churches are including us in their December World Missions Offerings. 

 

New Orleans is and has been on the Lord’s heart for a long time. He wants to bring spiritual awakening and transformation to this City that has been known as The Big Easy or The Big Sleazy, and that is known by Satanists as The City Where Hell Reigns. You and your Church, ministry or organization can be a part of the investing in the mighty work that God is doing in New Orleans by supporting Celebration Church or other ministries in New Orleans. Please let me know if you are interested in partnering with us.      

 

Respectfully yours,

 

Dennis Watson