Fred Luter Jr. no longer has a home or the church building where he has preached since 1986. The New Orleans pastor also has no idea where most of his flock is, nor many of his friends and family.
Fred Luter Jr. no longer has a home or the church
building where he has preached since 1986. The New Orleans pastor also
has no idea where most of his flock is, nor many of his friends and
family.
But one still finds the pastor at Franklin Avenue
Baptist Church in New Orleans preaching a message of encouragement.
Last week, he kept an appointment to preach at a chapel service at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. While there, he met with
family, friends and even members of his church that he had not seen
since the storm.
Luter and his wife left Louisiana on a
previously-planned trip to Arkansas just as Hurricane Katrina drew a
bead on New Orleans. They expected to be gone only a matter of days and
took along only a few articles of clothing.
As for his 7,000 church members, Luter said he has
had contact with only about 100 of them since Katrina. “I miss them; I
just don’t know where they are,” he said.
For a time, Luter said he felt fear as his city
flooded. But then, he said he sensed a rebuke and a challenge.
“(Jesus) looked at me and asked, ‘Fred, why are you
fearful? How is it that you have no faith? You’ve been preaching faith
all these years and teaching faith all these years and telling other
people to have faith. Now, it’s time to use some of your faith,” Luter
recounted.
He was able to find some members of his congregation
in Dallas. Some members also showed up at the seminary service. During
the service, Luter also saw his sister and her family for the first
time since the hurricane – and he learned his brother had been
accounted for amid evacuees.
“To think you could pastor a large church, have a
wonderful family, wonderful home, wonderful congregation and, in a
matter of one day, it could all be gone is just unbelievable,” Luter
said. “We have no place to worship, no place to come and see our folk,
no home to go to.”
However, Luter was not in a self-pitying frame of
mind when he spoke during the chapel service of Jesus calming the storm
in Mark 4:35-41. Noting that the storms of life will come for everyone,
Luter declared the presence and trustworthiness of God regardless of
circumstances.
“I’ve discovered that when trouble comes your way,
that when the storms of life are raging, faith is the first area that
the enemy works on,” Luter said.
“I must admit that watching … my city and my town
and my home and my church … under water, that my faith said, ‘Now
whatcha gonna do?’”
He said he began to lose sight of all that God has
done in his life as “the enemy” clouded his mind with fear.
In Mark 4:35-41, the disciples displayed fear when a
storm came their way, he noted. However, Christians can learn from the
actions of the disciples and from the response of Christ what to do
when the storms of life come.
First, believers must remember the promises of
Jesus, Luter said. “Romans 8:38-39 says, For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor
Hurricane Katrina shall be able to separate us from the love of God,”
he noted.
Second, Luter said Christians should remember the
presence of Jesus when the storms come. He emphasized that Jesus was in
the ship with the disciples even as the storm was around them. “Jesus
didn’t say, ‘Guys, listen. We had a good crusade. You all pack up
things. I’m going to walk on water, and I’ll meet you all on the other
side,’” Luter noted. “He didn’t do that. … The Bible says he was in
the ship.”
Third, Luter said Christians must remember the power
of Jesus. When the disciples awoke Jesus during the storm, Jesus
commanded the wind, “Quiet. Be still.”
Jesus then asked the disciples why they were so fearful.
“Always remember that when the storms show up, so does the savior,” Luter emphasized. (BP)