{"id":77,"date":"2007-07-31T18:14:55","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T18:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s.php"},"modified":"2007-07-31T18:14:55","modified_gmt":"2007-07-31T18:14:55","slug":"new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly"},"content":{"rendered":"

RNS
\nBy Bruce Nolan
\nNew Orleans – Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, members of
\n132-year-old Rayne United Methodist Church have finally moved back into
\ntheir storm-damaged sanctuary, even as masons continue substantial
\nrepairs to the church’s toppled brick steeple.
\nMeanwhile, in Algiers, contractors are just starting what promises
\nto be at least nine months of work and more than $2 million in repairs
\nand expansion to Life Center Cathedral, where 1,000 people still gather
\nin a tent.
\nSo it goes across the New Orleans area, where the recovery of about
\n1,500 damaged churches and other houses of worship has slowed to the
\nsame hard slog that mirrors the recovery in general, according to a
\nchurch demographer.
\nStill, the members of Rayne Memorial and Life Center Cathedral are
\nin better shape than many. Even if their buildings were damaged, those
\ncongregations have remained intact — if diminished — as nourishing
\nfaith communities.
\nBy contrast, the most recent numbers compiled by Bill Day of the New
\nOrleans Baptist Theological Seminary indicate that by the end of April,
\nabout 30 percent of congregations in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany,
\nSt. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes still appeared to be missing from
\nthe post-storm landscape.
\nIn the hardest-hit parishes of Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard,
\n43 percent of pre-Katrina congregations have not returned, according to
\nDay’s research.
\nThat represents slow improvement in the eight months since Day’s
\nprevious benchmark, the one-year anniversary of Katrina. At that time
\nDay estimated that only 47 percent of congregations in those hard-hit
\nparishes were meeting; now it’s 57 percent.
\nMoreover, it appears across the board that surviving congregations
\nhave lost significant fractions of their members. Day said it was not
\nuncommon to see surviving congregations functioning at two-thirds of
\ntheir former strength.
\nAlthough local churches have received considerable rebuilding aid
\nfrom other churches across the country, Day said their continuing
\nstruggle no doubt reflects a hardship that construction dollars can’t
\nerase: the relative depopulation of many areas, especially St. Bernard
\nand lower Plaquemines parishes.
\nUrban planners and civic leaders generally think the recovery of
\nchurches, synagogues and mosques both reflects and ignites a
\nneighborhood’s recovery. A neighborhood or region must support some
\ncritical mass of residents who can come together to revitalize a
\ndormant congregation or renovate a damaged building. Places of worship,
\nin turn, can become centers for dispensing tangible services such as day
\ncare, and vital intangibles such as rebuilding information and aid.
\nDay’s research teams of seminary students counted only 28 of 56
\nprestorm churches open in St. Bernard Parish, and 29 of 49 pre-Katrina
\nchurches open in Plaquemines Parish.
\nIn many cases, Katrina proved to be a brutal winnowing, decisively
\nkilling off small institutions that were prosperous a generation ago,
\nbefore they lost their vitality because of population shifts or an
\ninability to attract younger members.
\nThe wreckage of the post-Katrina landscape has forced major
\ndenominations to cluster many surviving congregations together for
\nmutual sustenance until their prospects for recovery become clearer.
\nTo varying degrees, both Catholic and United Methodist officials
\nhave pursued that strategy with almost 80 damaged congregations in their
\ntwo denominations.
\nStarting this fall, the Archdiocese of New Orleans will
\nsystematically revisit a 2006 plan that closed eight parishes or
\nmissions and clustered another 20 badly damaged parishes around 17
\nviable churches. Although empty, those damaged parishes are still
\ntechnically open, and Day’s method counts them open, even though no
\nCatholic worship or ministry occurs in those neighborhoods.
\nIn time, the archdiocese will have to decide which parishes have
\nsufficiently repopulated to warrant resuming operations, and which will
\nhave to merge or close permanently.
\nSimilarly, about three dozen damaged Methodist churches in 2006 were
\ngrouped into seven clusters — recently reduced to three — in a plan in
\nwhich church members and pastors try to chart their futures in a
\nbottoms-up planning process, said the Rev. Martha Orphe, who is helping
\nsupervise the process.
\nIn the case of the Methodist churches, five congregations have voted
\nto close under the plan; two separate pairs of congregations are
\nactively exploring merger, Orphe said.
\nIn the coming months, church officials and church members might
\ndecide to close still more congregations, officials said. But in many
\ncases, that means churches are free to reinvent and perhaps revitalize
\nthemselves in light of new circumstances, Orphe said.
\n“I have hope,” she said. “I do, I do.”
\nCopyright 2007 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of
\nthis transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written
\npermission.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RNS By Bruce Nolan New Orleans – Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, members of 132-year-old Rayne United Methodist Church have finally moved back into their storm-damaged sanctuary, even as masons continue substantial repairs to the church’s toppled brick steeple. Meanwhile, in Algiers, contractors are just starting what promises to be at least nine months…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"RNS By Bruce Nolan New Orleans – Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, members of 132-year-old Rayne United Methodist Church have finally moved back into their storm-damaged sanctuary, even as masons continue substantial repairs to the church’s toppled brick steeple. Meanwhile, in Algiers, contractors are just starting what promises to be at least nine months…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-31T18:14:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Kuo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly","og_description":"RNS By Bruce Nolan New Orleans – Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, members of 132-year-old Rayne United Methodist Church have finally moved back into their storm-damaged sanctuary, even as masons continue substantial repairs to the church’s toppled brick steeple. Meanwhile, in Algiers, contractors are just starting what promises to be at least nine months…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-07-31T18:14:55+00:00","author":"David Kuo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s","name":"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-07-31T18:14:55+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-31T18:14:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/new-orleans-churches-rebuild-s#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"New Orleans Churches Rebuild, Slowly"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da","name":"David Kuo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","caption":"David Kuo"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/dkuo"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}