More Walls

More walls are going up at the Seymour home this week. Most of the exterior walls are now up and a large portion of the interior walls are as well. This week First Pres. from Jackson, MS are working on the house. With over 90 degree heat plus humidity we encourage our volunteers to sit down and take a break in the shade now and then.

A Look Inside A (almost) Completed Lagniappe House

The twins are two Lagniappe homes that are almost completed. Right now all that is needed to complete is to get the water and electric done and then the families should be ready to move in. But here are some pictures from the inside of a Lagniappe house. Dustin showing the kitchen and dinning area of one house Kitchen Bedroom Warp-a-round deck

Getting ready for the PCA General Assembly

At the PCA General Assembly in Dallas, Lagniappe will be bringing a mock house for other churches to see everything that goes into building a house. Many of the interns have been helping on the building of the house with instruction from master carpenter Andrew. Moving the mock home so it can be worked on Andrew, master carpenter Sam Berton (intern) of Kearney, Nebr Working on the paint job Interns Lauren Spigner of Manning, SC and Ansley Quiros of Atlanta, GA

William Davis Home

Also this week Lagniappe began work on a home repair for Mr. William Davis. This week Trinity Presbyterian from Kearney, Nebraska came down in-spite of the fact that tornados hit their home town to still work and help others. Chad Anderson of Trinity Pres. Working on adding Tyvek to the side of the home John Holl Mr. William Davis

See more of Seymour

Work continues at the Seymour and many of the exterior walls are now up. Today volunteeners from Redeemer Pres. and some of the Lagniappe interns worked there today. Working on the outside walls with intern Dustin Smith (of Alexandria, VA) reviewing the work Claire McCoy (Intern) of Columbia, SC working on framing Julia Schmidt (Intern) of Columbia, SC

Lagniappe Featured as a Sunday in America

From the inside jacket; In her tour of more than thirty states, Shea: Knocked knees with President Jimmy Carter at his Plains, Georgia, Baptist church on Independence Day. Got a wake up call from Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham's preacher daughter, at a sprawling conservative church in South Carolina. Followed the signs for a hot tub dealership that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, has become a new Presbyterian church in Mississippi... An excerpt from the chapter: I chose neighboring Bay St. Louis because I wanted to visit a church in a town largely ignored assistancewise and publicitywise, and that is still suffering. A year later, the barriers where I-90 halts at a no-longer-existent bridge over wide St. Louis Bay hammer home the fact that Katrina's winds and water were higher and stronger there in rural Hancock County than anywhere in the ninety thousand square miles declared as federal disaster areas. More than half the county's nineteen thousand homes were obliterated, commercial areas were destroyed, landscape transformed to postnuclear skeletal. One year later, the $110 billion in revitalization funding promised by the government is as hard to access as the other side of the bay.

The Christian Aristocracy and the Emerging Social Chaos

The Christian Aristocracy and the Emerging Social Chaos - a ministry update from Mo Leverett -

The Church is a fellowship of sinners. And no matter how much we accomplish, how far we pilgrim or how high we climb, we are fortunate to never forget that.

Sanctification is primarily the process of cleansing and binding our wandering hearts to God. It is about the advancement of His Kingdom in us and conforming our rebellious nature to His. Moreover, it is about His turning our reluctance into readiness for the advancement of His Kingdom through us. Above all else, it is a removal of the greatest obstacle to all the aforementioned objectives - the obstacle of our pride.

Central to God’s strategies for sanctification is His sovereign and surgical use of pain in our lives. Pain is the inevitable, unavoidably blunt instrument of Christian sanctification. I once heard Chuck Swindoll, a leading evangelical pastor, say, “When God wants to do the impossible, He takes an impossible man…and He crushes him.”

I heard another popular author quoted recently, saying that “sanctification is akin to open heart surgery without the anesthetic.” It should be added that the longer this invasive procedure is delayed, the riskier and more painful the reality of any prospective future surgical maneuver. Pain makes us desperate. Pain makes us dependent. Pain makes us desire not only relief but healing and change. In other words, pain breaks us and leads us to God.

When I was a younger Christian, my overly simplistic understanding of sanctification was that it was a movement away from pain - a progression of compounding personal righteousness toward a nearly perfected spiritual adulthood. I thought that I would gradually advance toward a plateau popularly called maturity. This maturity, I felt, was gained through the accumulation of a critical mass of knowledge and obedience. Sanctification, I believed, was a spiral spiritual staircase facilitating our upward mobility - away from pain. My perspective has changed.

Soon after the Katrina floods had receded, and going into the ministry’s kitchen and into its industrial sized walk in refrigerator and freezer, I discovered a room full of rotting meat and shelves full of other spoiled food products. Both the sight and the scent turned my stomach.

There were a variety of insects crawling over and through the boxes and containers - bugs I did not recognize. Under everything there was slithering movement. There was a thick cloud of gnats. It took a full day, maybe two, if my memory serves me correctly, to finish emptying both the refrigerator and freezer. I did the work mostly myself with some help from a reluctant but dedicated staffer. After the task was done, some many wheel barrow loads and hours later, the penetrated odor was so strong that all of my clothes had to be disposed of, even after two lengthy washings. It seemed the foul aroma only intensified with each attempt at cleaning.

And never before had I cherished a shower so intensely.

I remember thinking…THIS is the sanctification process. This task begins to approximate the efforts of the Holy Spirit excavating my soul of the stench, darkness, death and spoilage within. Our fallen souls are never entirely made clean of its filth, until we are removed from this shell of a body and this train wreck of a world. And so His work in us tarries.

But the enterprise of removing the filth from the freezers is also a good picture of ministry in the midst of social chaos. It is simply a dirty and sometimes painful business. There’s no way to enter into a place of great need without becoming needy. There’s no way to enter into a place of intense dysfunction and disease without requiring healing and cleansing yourself. So even as you administer the gospel, you eventually stand in the need of it.

I read this week that 1 out of every 100 Americans is now in jail - a higher percentage than ever before in our nation’s history. This clearly, is not a positive social indicator. Of course the urban youth crisis, which has become my professional ministry focus, represents a growing bulk of the incarcerated population. Throughout the years, I’ve had occasion to visit the courthouse at Tulane and Broad to assist those who buttress with their many problems these social statistics. I’ve found myself there as recently as last week.

One of the reasons that ministry in this setting is so important and effectual is that it is within the confines of prison cells, or the serious threat of such, that men and boys finally face themselves and are thus readied to hear the gospel.

In my many years of ministry, I’ve met individuals who have committed murder, those who are self-described whore mongers, drug dealers, thieves and other various violators of the conscience. But believe it or not, they are not the most difficult category of persons I’ve dealt with in my life. None of these persons thought of themselves as holy. In other words, they thought of themselves rightly.

The most distasteful of sinners, the ones most difficult and painful to deal with, are the ones who believe they are not so - ones that believe that they are mature. They tend to pontificate about the declining culture around them, but do not see how they contribute by action and inaction to it. In other words they believe they have been “sanctified” above the social chaos. They are the Christian aristocracy.

Yet Christians are at our best when we are helping others out of a sense of mutual need, a common state of desperation and a deepening sense of universal moral vulnerability. We are at our worst when we assume moral superiority. Those who are subject to delusions of moral superiority fail to see themselves as God does and thus internalize and spread a distorted view of the cause we have been enlisted to represent. Rather than removing the stench, by our spiritual pride we contribute to it.

Christians are God’s appointed sanctifying force in society. We are called and commissioned by the Savior to be salt and light - externalizing our own personal transformation in good works towards the preservation and illumination of the culture that surrounds us. This is true, but may we never forget the source of that sanctifying force. When we think of ourselves rightly we never judge, lest we be judged. On the contrary, we are merciful, so that we might receive mercy.

I read recently that Evangelicals have overtaken Catholics as the predominant Christian sect in America. As we look at the declining social conditions in our country and the emergence of the evangelical church - we have to ask ourselves this question: Why, when we are at our peak in numbers, that we are the least impacting on our culture?

Could it be that our view of sanctification is principally responsible? Could it be that instead of an upwardly spiraling staircase away from pain and problems, that sanctification is actually a descending staircase into them? Could it be that the purpose of sanctification, instead of lifting our heads, is to bow them? Is it possible that when looking at the cultural degradation around us, that it is we, the proud, who are the first who need to repent?

If we do, we will find as always, that God draws near to those who are made low! Moreover, we will rediscover His cause among the least and the lost. Then we will begin to address the social chaos that is presently consuming us.

Lagniappe is pleased to support Mo as one of our missionaries. You may check out the ministry of Rebirth International at www.myrebirth.org

Lagniappe starts construction on a new home.

On Monday, Lagniappe began construction on a new home. The Seymour home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the home owners, Sam and Tina Seymour, set out to re-build. They were doing just fine on the rebuilding effort until the unfinished house was hit by lighting and burned to ground. Now, for a second time the rebuilding begins at the Seymour worksite. This week Covenant Pres. from Birmingham, AL have been working on the home. Lifting a wall. Holding it in place. Clyde is leading the work on the site. The Convenant team taking a break in the shade.

God's Transforming Patience and Grace

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Lacking full wisdom and driven by sinful passion for personal justice it is easy to retreat into a critical spirit and launch into behavior that would seek revenge. Having recently experienced betrayal by a friend I made an offhand comment to a friend today that went something like this, “If I were in the mafia I’d call for a hit on this person.” What I was really stating was that if I were God I’d punish this person in this way. I am so grateful that God is not like me and that I’m not in the place of God. What comfort the parable Jesus told in Luke 13 is to me.

“And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

What mercy, patience, and enduring grace the father grants to me as well as to my enemy. Lord grant me mercy to love and pray for my enemies that you might bring them to repentance and restoration. Thank you that through Jesus your love inclines toward this sinner with patience, love, and grace that transforms. Because I don't see fruit doesn't mean it will not come. Your patience brings grace that produces fruit in season, producing a harvest of righteousness.

I believe; help my unbelief

I have seen the Gospel at work in my life over the years, punctuated and perhaps accelerated by my time here. I know that the truth of the Gospel is transformative; that indeed prostitutes and perfectionists are both brought to the foot of the cross-loved. I have seen, for two summers, God do this incredible work in the lives of college interns. I have witness walls torn down, sins confessed, brokenness acknowledged, forgiveness and love extended and accepted. It always happens-not because of Lagniappe's magic formula or particular genius, really it's quite the opposite. It happens most often when our "magic formulas" and genius are revealed for what they are-good ways to avoid Jesus. Why then do I doubt? Why do I fear that God will not bring about that same transformation in the lives of the new interns He brought this year? Why do I climb onto the hamster wheel of performance-trying desperately to come up with a brilliant formula to transform them. It's as though I think, "God's done it well for the past two years, but now He wants to see if we can do it." Well surprise... we can't!! Fortunately, for these interns and the rest of the world, my inability to change them doesn't matter. They are more wicked than they could ever imagine and more loved and accepted than they could ever dare hope (Tim Keller sort of ). I watched last night as 15 college students, who met 1 week ago, began to accept the transformation of the gospel again-acknowledging sin, extending love and forgiveness, and encouraging one another in the ways God has uniquely made and gifted them. It was like sitting on the front row of God's symphony-watching as the instruments began tuning, warming up, and preparing for the incredible concert...all under His direction. So as not be one of the nine lepers, walking away thankless, let me offer up my thanksgiving to God for His provision of each of these interns. Let me also gratefully acknowledge His already powerful work in their lives and look forward, with belief, to the great work that I know He will accomplish in and through their lives this summer. Father I believe; help my unbelief.

Memorial Weekend, Gulf Coast Symphony in the Park

Seafood

For any future teams coming down to work at Lagniappe over the summer that might be asking the question, “Where can I get some good seafood?” Well the answer is Lagniappe. Every week we will have a seafood boil for all of our volunteers. So please come hungry. Our master cook Elizabeth and crawdad king John Sabin

A pot full of crawdads Davis holding up a crawdad which was given the name "Dinner" Davis and Ashley who also help the Elizabeth and John, put the pot into boil. Time to eat Everyone is happy

Can You See the Real Me?

The previous picture taken outside of the Mockingbird which was posted yesterday contained no filter. Having shot this picture with my special filter, which by the way can be purchased at any Stucky's along I-55, we are able to see the way the interns REALLY are. I supposed that's the way the Father sees us in Jesus-and loves us too. Oh, the filter is the gospel! Known and loved. Exposed and free. Simul justus et pecator.

Intern Orientation

When the swallows return to Capistrano. When the Salmon make their run home. When the interns arrive at Lagniappe. LPC interns arrived this past weekend and began their orientation today. Orientation is incomplete until pilgrimage is made to the Mockingbird Cafe.

Interns Tim and Thomas with Mike Polombo. No Mike is not an intern. Mike is one of LPC's old friends from day 1. Mike is our buddy from Home Depot who gets us what we want and what we need. He is a good friend!

Sun Herald, Friday, May 16

Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, take the time to chat with Jean Larroux while touring one of the ten houses being built in Diamondhead as part of Habitat for Humanity's Carter Project on the Coast on Thursday, May 15, 2008. Carter toured all the homes to the delight of the volunteers who cheered his arrival.

AMANDA McCOY/SUN HERALD