GREENSBORO, N.C. (BP)–Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, praised God’s provision and sacrificial giving by Southern Baptists during his report to messengers at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention June 13.
Kelley told messengers the seminary is not going to give in and leave the area despite the difficulties it has encountered in the past 10 months since its campus was inundated with floodwaters after levee failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The storm put a new semester on hold and dispersed the student body to 29 states and the faculty to nine states.
“I’m very happy to tell that New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is going to remain New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary,” Kelley said. “Our churches are not pulling out of New Orleans and neither are we.”
Kelley said the seminary will continue to reach out to its community.
“We will not abandon the churches of New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast. We will not leave our region of the country given to us by Southern Baptists,” he said.
The seminary is open for business in New Orleans, Kelley said, and he is “excited about a future in the hands of God.”
“We are not here to be comfortable,” Kelley said. “We are not here to be safe. We are secure in Jesus Christ and His grace and His provision.
“In the midst of this unspeakable tragedy, the hand of God’s providence was clearly evident,” he added. “Thank you, Southern Baptists, for the way you ministered to our seminary family.”
Kelley said that immediately following the storm the other Southern Baptist entities began making sacrifices to help the seminary family. The Executive Committee provided $6.2 million in Cooperative Program giving that exceeded 2004-05 SBC budget needs. The seminaries and other entities gave as well.
“In this time of crisis, every SBC entity made sacrifices of their resources to help our entity to survive,” Kelley said. “We truly are one family in Jesus Christ.”
The quick action of Southern Baptists — individuals, churches, entities and state conventions — helped NOBTS provide financial assistance to students, professors and staff members who were displaced from the main campus, Kelley said. The hard part was locating all of the families.
“We were able to track down every single student who registered on the campus in August and ask them ‘Are you safe? Do you need assistance? How can we help you?’” Kelley said.
Kelley thanked Morris H. Chapman, president of the Executive Committee, for another special gift. In December, the Executive Committee provided a $200 gift card to each of the affected families to help with Christmas expenses.
“You may not always be comfortable when you are following Jesus, but you will always be secure,” Kelley said. “God has demonstrated that again and again with our seminary family.”
To illustrate his point, Kelley told of the losses faced by two universities located near New Orleans Seminary. Both universities reported hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. By contrast, the seminary’s repair bill will be approximately $38 million.
“That’s a lot of money, but it’s a lot less than hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “God completely protected our library, all of our classrooms, our office facilities. Everything we needed to do our work, God protected.”
Kelley also told of how the campus was spared from widespread looting. During the storm, large trees fell across the two main campus entrances. The trees held looters at bay long after the seminary security and maintenance staff evacuated the campus.
As members of the Oregon National Guard patrolled the area, they discovered a group of looters looking for a way around the trees, Kelley said. The soldiers prevented the looters from entering and chose the seminary as their base of operations in the city. The group of 400 soldiers secured the campus for weeks.
Kelley also applauded members of the New Orleans Seminary faculty for developing new ways to teach. As a result, the seminary was able to continue every course that had started before the storm. Eighty-five percent of students who enrolled before the storm continued their ministerial training throughout the school year.
At the end of Kelley’s report, past and present members of The Seminarians, a men’s chorus at New Orleans Seminary, sang “We Follow the Lord.” As the voices of the men rang through the Greensboro Coliseum, photographs of the damage and recovery were displayed. Many of the photos showed volunteers from SBC churches and entities working to restore the campus.
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