Elizabeth Luter



      Most of the 7,000 members of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church of New Orleans scattered across the country after Hurricane Katrina devastated their city. 
      The congregation of now 1,500 will return to their sanctuary within a few months, after having met in other locations since the hurricane. 
      They currently meet at First Baptist Church of New Orleans at 7:30 a.m. every Sunday and at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church in Baton Rouge at 1:00 p.m. the first and third Sundays of each month. 
      Initially, they met at First Baptist Church of Houston, Texas. A group still meets there, led by Franklin Avenue’s Associate Pastor, Sam Young. 
      Elizabeth Luter, wife of Franklin Avenue’s Pastor, Dr. Fred Luter, explained what great difference knowing the Lord makes when one faces a tragedy. “The song we used to sing growing up, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, says, Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Without the Lord in your life, it can be a total detriment to your very being.
      “With a very solid prayer relationship with the Lord, you get more strength than you could ever imagine,” she continued. “I know that has been my salvation through this whole process. I get comfort and also receive instruction. 
      “I have a relationship with the Lord that I never thought possible. I have a freedom of communication with Him. 
      “The year before the storm, 2004, the Lord called me into intercession. I started getting up at 5:00 a.m. and praying every morning. And so the blessing of that was, when the storm hit, I continued my 5:00 prayer time, and it was there I could pour out my heart to the Lord. 
      “To this day, I continue at that time, and it has afforded me the opportunity to pray for people here as well as those who are scattered across the country.” 
      When Katrina hit, the Luters moved to Birmingham, Alabama, to live with their daughter, Kimberly, who had just graduated from college and was teaching at an elementary school. “We stayed there for seven months,” Luter said. 
      “From there, we traveled all across the country, as my husband preaches in a lot of different states.” 
      Their home they left in their native New Orleans was never burglarized, as many in their neighborhood were, and, although everything on the first floor of their two-story home was lost, the upstairs was kept intact. 
      But when cleaning out her house, she found in a closet a container with family photos and mementoes that had been destroyed. 
      She wanted to grieve, but knew that many others in their congregation had lost more. 
      “Our blessing was we didn’t lose any family members to death,” she said of the hurricane’s aftermath. She had, however, lost her father earlier that year, and had gained strength from the Lord after that loss. 
      “The Lord said, ‘If you choose to be just human, you’ll get human results, but, if you choose to walk in the spirit, the results will be divine.’ 
      “From that point on, the Lord gave me so much strength. In the midst of it, I had grace and more grace. 
      “The Lord protected my emotions. He encouraged me not to yield to my emotions, so that I might continue to be an asset to the ministry, and to help those who were dealing with things a lot harder. 
      “Having a stable head and a stable heart helped me to support my husband as he continued to travel and see the membership break apart so much. That was an emotional thing for him, and I was a stabilizing force for him. 
      “In any experience I’ve had since then, like my car wreck, in which the Lord spared me again, I’ve been able to keep my head, because the Lord continues to say, ‘There will be sufficient grace for each experience.’” 
      She underwent surgery recently and explained that she felt a little frightened. “I remember talking to the Lord about it. I felt threatened by the enemy, felt that I might not wake up from the surgery. 
      “About two or three weeks before the surgery, I asked the Lord for a song, and ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus came to my spirit. The morning of the surgery, we got to the parking lot of the hospital about 5:30 a.m., and that song came on the radio. It has really ministered to me. 
      “The Lord has been faithful to carry me, and today is a very good day for me.” 
      Franklin Avenue Baptist was the first pastorate for Dr. Fred Luter, who took the reins as Pastor in October, 1986 with 65 members on roll. 
      The Luters had a street ministry for several years before in the part of New Orleans where they grew up. 
      “We met in eighth grade,” she said. “We started dating in the 10th grade. We were married in 1980.” 
      Daughter Kimberly is a math teacher, and son Chip (Fred Luter III) is pastor of high school students at his church. 
      Luter is a retired pharmacist, having earned her degree from Xavier University in New Orleans. 
      As a pastor’s wife, and as director of the women’s ministry at her church, her passion to help women grow spiritually has also led her to take courses at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. She developed a curriculum for women’s Bible classes based on spiritual gifts, and wrote for Transformed Lives: Taking Women’s Ministry to the Next Level, compiled by Chris Adams and published by Lifeway. 
      For several years before Hurricane Katrina, Luter was an intercessor and counselor for Lifeway Women’s Conferences and Living Proof Live events with Beth Moore. “That was a blessing to me,” Luter said. “It gave me an opportunity to meet ladies from across the country and to get a feel for the needs of women in general.” Moore, she said, has become an influence for her. 
      Luter also served as vice president for the ministers’ wives conference for the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting held in New Orleans in 2001. 
      “Through that experience, I had a chance to meet other ladies from across the country, pastors’ wives and ladies who did ministry in a lot of different ways. 
      “I also had a chance to meet Vonette Bright, and Kay Arthur, who was our speaker that year.” 
      Luter teaches women’s courses at Lifeway Conference Centers in Glorieta, New Mexico and Ridgecrest, North Carolina each year. 
      She began her ministry of speaking in churches at the age of 17, the same year she began to feel a call for a closer walk with the Lord. 
      She had accepted Christ at the age of 10 and was baptized. 
      “I began to teach Sunday School as early as 12 years old,” she said. “My grandfather would always have me teaching with him.
      “And I was one of the youngest people in the prayer service with all of the older people.” 
      She is speaking and sharing more frequently since the hurricane. “The experience has given me new opportunities to minister in different areas, and to give God’s side of the story, from where I sit,” she said. “From so much of the news reports, we can see the negative, but, if you’re here and you’re a Christian, you get to see the hand of God in so many ways.” 
      One of Luter’s favorite passages from scripture is Proverbs 30:7-9: Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. 
      Another favorite is Philippians 4:11: Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. “I am being taught to be content with such things as I have,” she said. 
      “The scriptures come alive, and there is so much more clarity, because I see things more from a spiritual perspective.” 
      The Luters will soon move into their restored home, and the congregation of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church will move into their nearly restored sanctuary. 
      But another restoration has taken place – a spiritual restoration gained from prayer and relying on the Lord in the midst of tragedy, a complete restoration when seeking God as the refuge in a storm.





      Link: www.franklinabc.com