NEW ORLEANS -- An ongoing study by Bill Day at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary revealed that only 60 percent of all the greater New Orleans-area churches are open and functioning one year after Hurricane Katrina.

Day, associate professor of evangelism and church health and associate director of the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Church Health, presented the preliminary findings of his study, “The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Viability of Churches in the Greater New Orleans Area,” during the 29th annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Research Fellowship Sept. 21 at New Orleans Seminary.

The goal of the research, Day said, is to determine which churches will close their doors because of the storm, which churches will survive and which churches will actually see growth. The research study focuses on the five parishes that represent the New Orleans metro area -- Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes. Not limited to Baptist churches, Day is studying all area churches.

Day found that only 905 of the 1,508 churches that existed before Katrina are functioning one year after the storm. The research revealed that 60 percent of Southern Baptist churches in the five-parish area are functioning.

His research will not end there. Day wants to know why some churches survived and others did not. These findings could help churches in other areas overcome future natural disasters.

“Unfortunately, some churches will not survive. [They will] never come back after Katrina,” he said. “Some churches, however, will survive. Actually, some churches will grow even after something like Katrina.

“I really wanted to know why churches grow, not just so we can learn something here that would help us later on .... New Orleans is not the only place that will ever suffer terrible devastation,” Day added. “What can be learned from the greatest natural disaster that’s ever struck the United States that we can apply not just here, but elsewhere?

“This is not a question I can answer right now, it probably isn’t a question I can answer even a year from now,” he said. “I’ll be looking at it over the next five years.”

Day began researching “functioning” and “non-functioning” churches in April. For Day, a “functioning” or “operating” church simply means a church that is regularly meeting together in the five-parish area. Many churches that have been deemed “functioning” are not meeting in their own building. Some are renting, others are meeting in loaned space. Churches that are not meeting, or have moved outside of the five-parish area are considered “non-functioning” or “non-operating.”

“Franklin Avenue Baptist Church has been the largest Southern Baptist church in the state of Louisiana,” Day said. “They experienced major flood damage, but they are considered operating even through they are not meeting at their former location. They are meeting at First Baptist Church of New Orleans.”