We trace the recent history of Covenant Church through hurricanes, hard choices, and a renewed focus on Jesus. From housing hundreds after Katrina to launching a school and changing our name, we share how mission led us to God's will.
• Why real ministry thrives outside the walls
• Starting Covenant Christian Academy and growing to 500+ students
• Balancing academic excellence with spiritual formation
• Why we chose the name Covenant and what it means
• A future vision centered on Jesus, not titles
If you haven’t heard parts one and two of our church history series, go back and listen to those first to set the stage for today’s conversation.
Episode Transcript
Main Thing Podcast with Pastor Steve, equipping you
to respond and thrive in theworld we live in today.
Keep the main thing, the mainthing has been a saying that
Pastor Steve has told fordecades.
It means no matter what ishappening around us, Jesus is
what we need to have front andcenter in our lives.
There couldn't be a morepowerful reminder for us to
recall in today's divisive anddark culture.
(00:24):
From foundational truths andscripture to the hot topics of
today's culture, allow thispodcast to inspire and motivate
you on your faith journey.
SPEAKER_03 (00:33):
All right, so glad you guys are back with us for
the main thing podcast.
Um, this is gonna be part threeof the history of Covenant
Church and how we got here.
So if you haven't listened topart one or two, you might want
to go back and listen to thosefirst to give you some idea of
what we'll be talking abouttoday.
And so today we're gonna talkabout uh some big events uh that
(00:54):
have come up in the past 15 to20 years that really led uh to
ministry and to growth here atCovenant.
And so as always, we are so gladyou're with us.
Hope you enjoyed the thepodcast.
So, Steve, one of the uh I thinkone of the more interesting uh
periods in our church life wasthe aftermath of Hurricane
(01:14):
Katrina.
SPEAKER_02 (01:15):
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (01:16):
Tell us a little bit about that.
What was that like us uh youknow being a shelter for up to
500 people uh at various times?
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
Yeah, it was um it was a learning experience for
sure.
Uh I've often argued with myselfif we had that kind of situation
again tomorrow, would we do itagain?
And I often tell myself, no, butI know we probably would, you
know, because people are alwaysthe most important thing.
(01:46):
Uh Paris called, want to know ifwe'd be willing to serve as a
shelter.
And I thought, absolutely, we,you know, we'll help put people
up.
Uh so for nearly three months,seven days a week, we would
house between two and threehundred homeless individuals who
had lost their homes to Katrina,and we had between 250 and 300
(02:10):
Red Cross workers in the churchall at the same time.
And our ministerial core and ourchurch family, uh cooking meals,
washing clothes, mopping floors,cleaning toilets seven days a
week.
Uh we had church on Sundaymorning, and that was it.
(02:32):
That was the extent of what wedid uh with our normal schedule.
Otherwise, everything wasdedicated to taking care of
people uh during that time.
So it was a very interestingtime.
SPEAKER_03 (02:44):
You know, some of some of the more funny stories
uh about the ministry here comeout of Katrina.
Yeah.
Uh, I think one of my absolutefavorites is um that first or
second day we were in shelter,uh, an inspector from some
government department, I don'teven remember which one, comes
in, and we're cooking up astorm.
We've got 20 people in thekitchen trying to get that first
(03:06):
meal ready for everybody'scoming in.
And uh and she comes up andsays, Y'all have to stop this
right now.
Your kitchen is not prepared forhowever many.
And correct me if I'm wrong,because urban legend, or at
least my memory says that yousaid something to the effect of
either get an apron on or getout.
We got work to do.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Nah, not quite that.
Oh, I wish that was because thatmakes such a better story.
There were several meetings likethat because government uh bless
their heart, they takethemselves so serious.
Um, you know, as a church, weserved Wednesday night suppers,
and you had to have a certaincolor certificate to qualify.
(03:46):
And we had that, whatever itwas, we'll call it the green
certificate.
And it was a man, actually.
He came in and uh he said, I'vegot to shut your kitchen down
because you don't have the bluecertificate.
And I asked what that meant.
He said, Well, the bluecertificate allows you to sell
food, uh, and you're notqualified to do that, so we have
(04:09):
to shut you down.
To which I responded, we're notselling anything.
Uh, we didn't get anywhere withhim.
He was going to shut us down.
Uh, so we were working directlyat that time.
Reggie Dupree uh was our staterepresentative from this area,
and he was the one that I wasworking with.
(04:29):
He was our liaison between usand parish government uh as a
shelter.
So I just took my phone out andcalled Reggie and I said, I'm
I'm having a situation.
Uh he had told me, you call meif you need anything.
And he said, let me have him onthe phone.
(04:50):
And all I heard was, yes, sir,yes, sir, yes, sir, I
understand.
He hung up and said, Y'all willbe fine, and he left.
And um, you know, but this isgovernment, they can't help
themselves.
Uh you're doing more as aprivate entity of faith than
they've even begun to thinkabout doing, but they're
(05:11):
spending their effort trying tokeep you from helping people.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (05:16):
Yep.
And you, you know, you mentionedthe Red Cross being there.
Yeah.
I think another uh big memory ofthat time was uh if you remember
Hurricane Rita happened maybefour weeks after Katrina.
SPEAKER_01 (05:28):
About a month after, that's right.
SPEAKER_03 (05:29):
And you know, all the most of all the Red Cross uh
volunteers were from theNortheast.
Yep.
And there's a I remember a buspulling up and somebody walking
through the halls of the oldfamily life center with a with a
megaphone from the Red Crosssaying this was the last chance
for any Red Cross volunteer toget out.
This was their last chance, andand oh, they were so scared.
(05:51):
They just knew they were aboutto be wiped off the face of the
earth, and we just kind of satthere and a bemused look on our
face.
Yeah.
Seeing what was going on.
SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
Oh yeah, they uh they were interesting because
most of them were from up north,not from the south.
And um, you know, uh, I have a Ihave an opinion of the Red
Cross.
I know they intend to do goodwork, but I think they're
probably uh much like ourfederal government, they've
become too too big for their owngood.
(06:21):
And so I think they waste moremoney than they actually apply
most of the time.
SPEAKER_03 (06:26):
You know, I remember I remember at that time you
telling us, especially because alot of us then, we were young
ministers, right?
Uh just really uh having startedout in ministry.
I remember you saying, guys,this is this is a real deal.
This is ministry.
This is ministry.
We can't we can't meet greaterneeds than this right now.
That's right.
Um, you know, if you think back,what what do you think are some
(06:47):
of our have been most some ofour most effective ministry to
our community?
You know, not just in thechurch, but again outside the
walls.
SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
Yeah, well, uh Katrina, uh absolutely.
Uh and we've had severalhurricanes uh over the years
where uh our church has servedthis community in a phenomenal
way.
Just a few years back after Ida,as you know, we probably had 50,
(07:17):
75 uh church members up hereevery day after Ida with
anywhere from one to threesemi-trucks rolling into the
parking lot every day uh and usuh meeting the needs of people,
just shoving supplies and foodout the door as fast as it came
(07:37):
in the back door, it was goingout the front door.
Um you know, uh we've done thatmultiple times over the years.
And um Chet's ministry withLiving Waters, uh working in
local communities over theyears, things like that.
Um real ministry happens bestoutside the walls.
(07:59):
Uh and I think I think ourpeople get that.
They've always stepped up.
Uh some of them just by givingmoney, use it where it's needed,
many of them by doing the actualwork.
Uh then of course we hadSamaritan's Purse here um for
six months, was it?
You know?
SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
And they operate on local volunteers a lot, and we
had tons of our people going outand um helping with those
things.
But one of the things peopleforget is we helped build the
habitat uh for humanitydevelopment on Bon Jovi
Boulevard also uh as a church.
(08:41):
We we had over a hundred peopleuh work on that project when
they were building that.
So we we have always tried to beinvolved where we can make a
difference.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:53):
You know, one of the things we haven't mentioned yet
um in in this particular episodeof the podcast, uh, which I
think is a an extremely keymoment in our our history is uh
Covenant Christian Academy.
SPEAKER_02 (09:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (09:06):
You know, fall of 2007.
Uh we opened that school with 72students.
SPEAKER_02 (09:12):
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (09:12):
And no way to pay the bills.
Didn't have a clue.
If you don't mind, talk a littlebit about Covenant.
You know, how has that uh been apart of our ministry and how has
that uh you know been a part ofthe church's ministry and part
of the church's growth over theyears?
SPEAKER_01 (09:27):
That's been a progression.
I I think God does his best worksometimes uh through a preacher
who doesn't have a clue, buthe's willing to dive in anyway,
you know, because I thought Ihad a clue, uh, but I didn't.
Uh you know, I go back togovernment entities.
(09:49):
Uh any historian will tell youthat education in America has
been done best by the privatesector and for less money.
They've gotten better resultsthroughout the history of this
country.
Uh and I came from Alabama whereuh the restrictions and
guidelines for starting aprivate school, those kind of
(10:10):
things, were very loose.
You could start a private schoolin your living room, nobody
cared.
Uh but when you come toLouisiana, uh it's a different
animal.
So we were governed by thehealth department and the fire
marshal, and uh, so we thinkwe're gonna start a school in
our church, and then we find outwe got to spend$30,000 putting
(10:35):
in a fire alarm system becausethe one in the church is not
adequate for a school.
They have all these enhancedrules if you put the name school
on something.
For example, uh the airconditioning in a room has to
produce 30% more fresh air in aclassroom than any other room in
(10:57):
America.
Uh, you know, I'm sure thesethings mean well, but uh if a
kid can't live in a room, how inthe world, uh I don't understand
why they can't do education in aroom if they can live in the
room.
But, you know, um, and so make along story short, it started
with I want to say 77 kids thefirst year.
(11:18):
We went through sixth grade,seventh grade, something like
that, and then added a gradeeach year.
Um in 2009, we built thephysical school building out
back, did that ourselves.
That that was a uh a learningexperience too.
Um my faith was not big enough.
(11:40):
The classrooms are too small tothis day because I I really
didn't expect it would ever takeoff in a huge way.
But fast forward 18 years now,we're in our 18th year.
We've got over 600 students, anduh our composite ACT scores are
(12:00):
among some of the best in thestate, year in and year out.
Um, you know, they there arethose in our community who still
love to say that we don't havethe best academics, but the fact
is our academic test scoresprove otherwise.
Um if that makes them good tofeel good to say that, God bless
them.
Um but our our people do a greatjob over there.
(12:23):
Uh we see teenagers come to theLord every year that we've been
a school.
Uh we had um school revival lasttwo years.
Uh uh year before last we had 58kids accept Christ in a school
revival.
Last year it was about 20, Ithink, accepted Christ.
(12:44):
Uh we have every flavor ofChristian over there you can
imagine.
Um, you know, a school's not aperfect entity, it never will
be.
Uh but uh one of the things isvery clear is we're doing our
best to make sure these kids areintroduced to the Lord Jesus
Christ and a biblical worldviewuh before they leave high
(13:07):
school.
Um otherwise they'll be sheep tothe slaughter uh at the college
level with what they have todeal with.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (13:17):
Yeah.
I think we're at another one ofthose points in our history
where we're Covenant Church isat a pivotal point.
Okay.
And I I want to talk about thisa second, because I know a lot
of people always have thisquestion when we have Covenant
class, you know.
2021, we make the decision as achurch overwhelmingly uh to
(13:38):
change our name to CovenantChurch.
You know?
Um if you could sum it up, uhwhy was that important for us to
to make that change?
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
Well, there was several reasons why it was
important.
One is um we're in a culture uhthat is filled with organized
religion.
And when a person's looking fora new church home, place to go
worship, the last thing theywant to do is get in more
organized religion.
(14:08):
That's why they're looking.
Uh they're disenfranchised withorganized religion.
And when they saw that nameBaptist on the sign, their
immediate thought is moreorganized religion.
And as we know, we're notorganized religion here.
We're all about a relationshipwith the Lord Jesus Christ.
Um, I don't care what flag youfly, you either have a
(14:32):
relationship with Jesus or youdon't.
So no, I don't care what nameyou put on it.
Um and so that was one of themain reasons that we did it.
The other is Southern BaptistConvention for several years has
been going down um what Ibelieve to be a bad path.
And uh the last several yearshas proven that to be true.
(14:55):
We've moved into wokeism, we'vegot a convention being run with
very little accountability,taking people's tithe money,
spending it exorbitantly on allkinds of things.
Uh we had the the fake sexscandal.
Um, and most people don't knowthis, they need to know that.
(15:17):
Uh, we had this entity hired bythe executive committee of the
convention to investigate allthe sexual abuse in the Southern
Baptist Convention that had beencovered up.
And uh the Department of Justicejust this past year released its
final report and they foundzero, zero instances of covered
(15:40):
up sexual abuse.
And so it was a smoke screen fora particular group in the
convention to seize power andtake over the convention.
I and look, I'm at a stage of mylife, I I'm just not about all
that garbage.
That's what it is.
It's garbage.
Um, not being accountable, powerplays, that's political stuff.
(16:03):
Uh I I just want to love Jesusand preach the word and and help
others love Jesus and come toJesus.
And I don't have time for all ofthat stuff.
I've served on several of theboards and became very
disenfranchised myself uh andand the way things were operated
and done.
(16:24):
And and I might say even ungodlyin a lot of ways.
So we we made the decision thatwe're gonna step aside.
We've not officially pulled out,uh, but we give no money to the
National Convention anymore.
We do still support local andstate entities, and we support
(16:44):
the missionaries because youknow they're out there just
trying to share Jesus.
Uh but as long as theconvention's where it is
currently, um I want to I wantto distance myself from those
people.
Uh I want to be a church thathonors Jesus.
(17:06):
And and then one of the biggestthings for me is there's a push
within the convention for themto have authority over the
churches now.
And in the history of theSouthern Baptist Convention, the
entities, the state office, thenational office, have never had
authority over the local church.
But they're even testifying incourt now.
(17:29):
Uh it's on record that KevinEzale, the leader of the North
American Mission Board,testified in court that the
local church is under hisauthority as president of the
North American Mission Board.
So um, in in my humble view,they've gone off the rails.
And I just don't want anythingto do with it.
(17:49):
So uh I felt in my spirit it wastime for us to make a clear
break from much of what they do,who they are.
SPEAKER_03 (17:58):
So another question that comes up why the name
covenant?
What does that signify?
Why is that important?
SPEAKER_01 (18:02):
Yeah.
Well, first of all, it's not areform statement.
Covenant seems to be umconnected to the reform movement
a lot.
I'm a John 3.16 guy.
Jesus said, Whosoever will, andI think when you go to
scripture, he's the authority.
And um, so uh I'm a John 316 guyall day long.
(18:24):
And um, you know, God tells usin scripture, I'll be your God
and you'll be my people.
It's a covenant, it's anunbreakable agreement.
And so he is our God, we are hispeople, and it's unbreakable.
That's who we are, that's who heis.
All right.
SPEAKER_03 (18:44):
Look, if you remember back at the old campus,
and I'm sure you do, uh, we usedto have what we called the Hall
of Dead Pastors, where there wasthat line of pictures on the
wall of every pastor we'd everhad.
And you know, um, and we allknow this to be true, but there
will come a day when,figuratively speaking, you'll be
on the the hall of dead pastors,you know?
(19:05):
But for the future of Covenant,long after any of us are here,
what's your what's your dreamfor for Covenant in in the
future?
What do you what do you hopethis church is now and is one
day long long after we're gone?
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
Yeah, I look I hope the Lord's not through with me
or the any of us here yet.
I hope we still have great daysahead of us.
I believe we do.
We're seeing God move now inthese current days in great
ways.
Um, but I I believe it'simportant uh that I not be
(19:43):
remembered or or any otherpastor in this church, but that
people remember the Lord Jesus.
And uh so my prayer is that longafter I'm gone, if the Lord has
still not come back yet, uh,that it'll be doing far greater
than it's ever done.
Uh, you know, that that they'llbe running literally multiple
(20:05):
thousands uh and people comingto Jesus and living out their
faith in their community.
Um we we have to remember it'snot about us.
We're vessels.
unknown (20:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:17):
Vessels to be used.
Uh it's all about him.
SPEAKER_03 (20:22):
Well, see, this has been fun.
I appreciate it very much.
Uh yes.
Guys, if you're listening orwatching and you're a part of
Covenant, uh, we are so gratefulfor for you guys.
Um, I know as a ministry team alot we talk about uh what a
great church this is to serve.
Because um, you know, we don'thave uh stories of mistreatment,
(20:42):
we don't have stor a lot ofstories of hurt.
I just because this is um youyou guys are a uh a precious
church to be a part of.
So uh so thankful you guys werewith us today.
Um hope you guys have a greatday.
God bless you.
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