Louisville—In 2005, like many Kentucky Baptists, James Welch watched from the safety of his home as Hurricane Katrina unleashed its wrath on the Gulf Coast.

He felt compassion for survivors and prayed for them, but Welch said as volunteers mobilized for disaster relief trips, he did not feel God leading him to participate.

“It wasn’t on my radar,” he acknowledged.

A Southern Baptist Mission Service Corps missionary and a member of the pastoral team for Crossing Church in Louisville, Welch already was busy sharing the gospel, teaching and counseling. He also was making plans to start a church in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 2007.

When Crossing Church began in 2005, “our thinking always was to plant more churches,” Welch said, referring to Lead Pastor Dustin Neeley and other congregational leaders.

“Vancouver is very cool, hip, trendy and very unchurched,” he said. As a “huge outdoors person,” Welch said he was confident he would take to the hiking, biking, skiing culture like a duck to water, building relationships that eventually would form a congregation.

He and his wife, Amy, and their three children were making plans for the move. Then one day, as he was walking down Frankfort Avenue in Louisville, Welch said, “God really spoke to me. He said, ‘Not Vancouver, New Orleans.’”

Taking his family to live in a city still reeling from the worst natural disaster to hit the country was something Welch said he never would have expected God to ask of him. When he shared the new call with his wife, she responded, “On a scale of one to 10, I’m a one,” indicating an almost complete lack of enthusiasm for the idea.

“I talked to people I thought would say, ‘That’s a dumb decision,’’’ Welch noted. He said he was surprised by their responses.

His father-in-law, a Texas Baptist who served on three post-Katrina mission trips, said, “A couple of weeks ago, I started praying that God would send families to New Orleans. I never thought it would be you.”

After a week of prayer, Welch’s wife told him, “I think God might be doing this.”

Neeley said at first he was “pretty surprised and shocked” when Welch shared the news. Crossing Church, a congregation that emerged from Sojourn Community Church, also in Louisville, was a mere nine months old and Welch was a vital part of the ministry.

Like Amy Welch, Neeley devoted a week of prayer to the matter and found he was ready “to get on board with what God was doing.”

Two other Crossing members, Travis Fleming and Jenny Henderson announced they felt led to join the Welches.

“Even though we have a plan, God has a perfect plan,” Neeley said. “I need to cooperate. … At the end of the day, it’s God’s Kingdom, not Crossing’s kingdom.”

Crossing commissioned the Welches, Fleming and Henderson to their new place of service. The ministry was named Sojourn New Orleans.

Since launching Sojourn New Orleans, Crossing, which draws about 115 people to worship each week, already has commissioned another church starter to Cleveland. Neeley said while the church-planting efforts take away resources and people from Crossing’s Louisville ministry, “I don’t think God would shut a church down because they gave too much to missions.”

Finding a location for the New Orleans mission was a task Welch did not rush. The city covers nearly 4,200 square miles and he wanted to find the place God had selected for them.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Where are the people who are sleeping in New Orleans tonight? Where are the people who are living here, eating here? Who can we relate to?’”

The answer was Uptown, located in the historic district near the Mississippi River. It is home to restaurants, art galleries and other shops. “It’s the largest population corridor of New Orleans, pre- or post-Katrina,” Welch said. “A large number of homes received no flood damage but had wind and rain damage.”

Uptown is a unique district in a unique city, Welch said. “You’ve got the urban poor and some of the most affluent people in the southern U.S.”

As word spread through Baptist circles in Kentucky and beyond, more men and women joined the team. Some had been displaced by Katrina and now were ready to return home, Welch noted.

As members of the ministry team moved, or returned, to the Crescent City, Welch said they took time to get to know their mission field, and to “figure out who we are and how we can share the gospel—share redemption—with this culture.”

Missionaries listened to residents’ stories about surviving Katrina. “We were just an ear and a shoulder” for people still grieving their city’s devastation, he said.

The 25-member team has “lots of artists and musicians and some engineers and contractors,” Welch added. With the unique blend of expertise, “we decided we wanted to do a couple of things really well: gut houses and start an arts center.”

“Gutting” water-damaged houses usually involves removing everything except the framing, outer walls, roof and floor. Framing is cleaned with a bleach solution to kill mold, then it must dry before new walls can be installed.

The gutting ministry serves home­owners and provides a way for other residents to help their neighbors. “Some locals didn’t have an avenue through which to help” after Katrina, Welch explained.

The intersection of Napoleon and Magazine streets is the “arts epicenter” in Uptown, Welch said. It also is the location of Convergence, the ministry’s community arts center which will be launched officially in March.

The storefront will display works by local artists as well as the artists from the ministry team. It also will be a place where musicians can perform.

Regular times of Bible study and worship may begin at Convergence as early as this fall, Welch said. Until then, he said he hopes Uptown residents come to know the missionaries as “people of peace.”

“Peace is something that gives you a sense of calm in the midst of conflict,” he said. “We believe that ‘something’ is Jesus Christ.”

For details on how to participate in Sojourn New Orleans, contact James Welch by e-mail at jameswelch01@yahoo.com or by phone at (504) 259-4226.