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New Orleans church leaders acknowledged to Christianity Today that before Katrina, few of them were willing to work together against chronic poverty. Bruce Nolan, New Orleans Times-Picayune religion writer, notes, "Absent a crisis in the ordinary day-to-day living in New Orleans, there was very little continuing formal relationship on behalf of the greater good of the city."

Lucas and other New Orleans evangelicals told CT that they believe scandalous poverty is the city's greatest shame. But they recognize that along with tragedy, Katrina brought unprecedented opportunity—for the unskilled as well as local churches.

A long-time resident of the notoriously poor Lower Ninth Ward, Lucas has seen chronic poverty for years. One of 10 siblings, the 54-year-old grew up in New Orleans's St. Bernard housing project until age 14.

Twenty-six years ago, Lucas, who is quick with a hug or a passionate, one-on-one sermon about faith and works, planted Light City Church, an independent Pentecostal congregation, in an old bakery. Over the years, church members transformed the bakery into a sanctuary and school.

Light City Christian Academy, a K-12 school, has had an enrollment of 100 students. Lucas says 95 percent of academy graduates attended college. The church's 200 members included lawyers, doctors, and pharmacists who came up through his ministry.

Then, on August 29, came Katrina. The Lower Ninth Ward, population 19,500, with half of its households earning less than $20,000 a year, was among New Orleans's worst-hit neighborhoods.

After a loose barge rammed a levee, Light City Church (which had no flood insurance) took on 10 feet of water. Lucas's congregation joined the 1 million Gulf Coast residents scattered from Baton Rouge to Alaska. Only 30 of his church's members have returned to the neighborhood.

For Lucas, Katrina added injury to insult, because a few months before the storm he had lost his reelection bid for the Louisiana state legislature. Katrina also damaged Lucas's Subway sandwich franchises across New Orleans—all five remain closed. His home, aptly located on Flood Street, took on water and lost chunks of its back wall. In the days following the storm, Lucas found the remains of his brother Lawrence at a relative's house.

At his own wrecked home, Lucas's tailored suits, damp and molding, now rustle in a breeze sweeping the closet. Custom clothing and alligator shoes costing tens of thousands of dollars used to be Lucas's mark of success in pre-Katrina New Orleans. His old trademark attire might be salvageable, but he's no longer interested.

Lucas thanks God for Katrina. "When you wake up with nothing, you're changed," he said. "To my surprise and to my amazement, I'm better off now without [financial success] than with it."

As Lucas and other New Orleans Christian leaders seek to rebuild their city, they have noticed both what Katrina trashed (some 80 percent of the city and probably an equal percentage of church buildings) and what she left untouched. The central issue, Lucas maintains, is "the lives of the displaced."

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May 2006, Vol. 50, No. 5