T.D. Jakes on Post-Katrina `Emotional Equilibrium’

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Bishop T.D. Jakes, the Dallas megachurch pastor, has made several trips to the Gulf Coast in his role as co-chairman of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund Interfaith Advisory Committee. The fund has committed $20 million to help religious institutions in the affected region. Jakes recently spoke about the continuing efforts […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Bishop T.D. Jakes, the Dallas megachurch pastor, has made several trips to the Gulf Coast in his role as co-chairman of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund Interfaith Advisory Committee. The fund has committed $20 million to help religious institutions in the affected region.

Jakes recently spoke about the continuing efforts ahead for clergy and their congregations along the Gulf Coast, even as a new hurricane season has begun. This interview has been edited for length and grammar:


Q: What do you see as some of the greatest ongoing challenges for clergy affected by Hurricane Katrina?

A: I think that there are three different challenges that exist. One of them is an economic challenge that exists for clergy as they themselves have often been personally affected in the aftermath of Katrina. Their churches often have sustained incredible damage and they’re trying to rebuild their lives.

The second challenge is the emotional devastation that caretakers often experience when they are engaged in trying to be encouragers to a community that has faced the level of trauma associated with this particular hurricane.

Those persons who survived went through so much trauma in the days after Katrina that there has been even more damage done to the hearts and souls of men than was done to the property that they own. I think the pastors are really struggling to maintain their emotional equilibrium as they respond to the needs of the community, their family and themselves.

I think the third area that is really challenging (is) the congregations that they love are now scattered across the country and so they have the unique challenges of rebuilding a church with, in part, new parishioners and, in many cases, fewer parishioners than what they historically were accustomed to.

It’s very difficult to rebuild a church at a time that the communities are still devastated.

Q: Is there some kind of vacuum left as some congregants and clergy have moved away from areas most devastated by the storms while others have either stayed put or returned?


A: I don’t know whether I’d say a vacuum. It’s an unsettling because there are people who still want to come back into the Gulf but have not come back yet. There’s an unsettled, unresolved feeling that hovers over the area. There are people who are anxious to get back to normal but the question arises, “What is normal now?”

The amazing thing to me (is) in spite of all of these tempestuous issues, there is a strong resolve in the hearts and minds of most of the pastors that we have talked to.

Q: Can you speak more about how clergy are facing either smaller congregations or different congregations than they served before the hurricane hit?

A: They’re often smaller and they’re often more scattered. There are transportation issues. Some pastors tell me they’re meeting in homes. … Some of them are meeting in public facilities. The churches that are remaining are allowing other churches to have their services there at different hours and times. People seem to just be working around all of that, trying to rebuild their lives.

Q: Your meetings in the Gulf region have included a spiritual renewal service as well as workshops on grants applications and the rebuilding process. Can you describe them?

A: It is a very ecumenical gathering. You’ve got Jewish persons, Christians and Muslims. … We focused on our commonalities and ignored our distinctions. I think there’s nothing like a crisis to make you prioritize what really matters. … There were no rules. Everybody was just themselves. We worship the way we normally worship and each person translated that into the language of their own spirituality.


Q: How did counselors also play a role in these meetings?

A: They began to teach and talk about post-traumatic stress disorders, … how to resolve emotional conflicts and to rebuild the emotional well-being, not only of their parishioners but of the pastors themselves. It was not uncommon for people to open up and … weep.

So many times in our country we survive the trauma but we don’t really assess the damage that the trauma has done to the souls and to the families, the people that have been devastated. We wanted to do that.

Sometimes people of faith internalize their pain and don’t express it openly because they want to always be a hero and feel like “I prayed about it and I’m OK” but this created an atmosphere for the spiritual physicians, as it were, to be ministered to and that seemed to really resonate with the pastors.

Q: Do clergy welcome the opportunity of receiving grants?

A: Oh, yes. The thing that we’ve stressed to them is that this is not government money. It’s private-sector funds.

Q: I read of an effort by black United Methodist staffers to increase the diversity of relief teams helping the affected area. Do you sense that clergy wish there were more people of color coming in to help?

A: I certainly say “Amen” to it. It is critical in the times of devastation that there be diversity among the rescuers … because people have cultural distinctives that we have to be sensitive to and because there is often a distrust when people don’t see anybody who looks like them or speaks their language or is sympathetic to the unique nuances of their need. That cultural diversity is something that we have to really work toward in this country because while we have a tendency to segregate into our comfort zones, when devastation comes, it defies segregation.


I would encourage all of those first-responder type organizations to rethink the demographic of their organizations to incorporate, include as much diversity as possible.

Q: What are the next steps in your work on the fund, and when will people get to see the promised money?

A: We’re just a few weeks away from checks rolling out the door.

KRE/JL END BANKS

AP-NY-06-14-06 1402EDT

Editors: To obtain file photos of T.D. Jakes, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

See related stories, RNS-NOLA-REBUILD, and RNS-NOLA-CHURCHES, both transmitted June 14, 2006.

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