THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610270328
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 151 lines
Mayor James W. Holley is paying visits to the city's ministers' forums and elaborating on his post-election call on churches to step up to the city's offering plate.
Although religious institutions are tax-exempt, Holley says he's not necessarily talking about money so much as the things churches do best. His message is simple: If churches aren't doing outreach in the community, start. If churches are doing something, do more.
``If you're doing some remedial program for students and you have 10 students after school, try to recruit more volunteers and do 20,'' he said.
The other point Holley hopes he can make to the city's churches is the need to work together more.
``What I was really trying to do is to pull them all together,'' he said.
Two weeks ago, Holley spoke to members of the Interdenominational Minister's Forum of Portsmouth and Vicinity. Next month, he is scheduled to speak to the Portsmouth Area Ministerial Association. The two organizations represent about 43 percent of the city's churches.
Holley said he would like to call all the churches together in one convocation and set up some committees. Portsmouth has 247 religious institutions, according to the city assessor's office.
``It would be beautiful here,'' he said. ``We're the right size to do it. You try to do it in New York or Chicago, and you can forget it.''
According to several ministers in the city, Holley isn't walking into a lion's den when he steps up to their pulpit.
``I wholeheartedly support the mayor in his statement,'' said the Rev. Vernon S. Lee of New Mount Vernon Baptist Church. ``It's not that we're not doing anything. But we're not really getting out from the walls of our churches . . . to serve the needs of the community.''
Lee sees the beginnings of change.
``But I think we need a wake-up call to do even better,'' he said. ``I think the mayor is the bandleader, saying let's get it done.''
The Rev. H. Edward Whitaker of Zion Baptist Church agrees.
``I don't think it's limited to just putting money in the coffers of the city,'' Whitaker said. ``I think it includes helping to strengthen and develop the quality of life in the city.''
His church has formed a non-profit organization and is renovating a former furniture store into a family life center that would offer everything from adult day-care to parenting workshops and drug-abuse counseling.
The Rev. Reginald Early of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial United Methodist Church calls the mayor's trumpet call ``long overdue.''
``I think for those churches that are doing just enough, for those that are not doing anything, it is a call to re-evaluate what they are doing, what they're not doing and to try and address those issues as they adversely affect the community,'' Early said.
Early's church is one of five downtown churches that shelter the homeless on a rotating basis. They are assisted by 18 support churches that offer volunteers to cook dinner or spend the night at the shelter.
The churches that do the sheltering have long pleaded with other churches to open their doors and join the rotation.
So far only one new church - St. Therese's Catholic Church in Chesapeake - has signed up for the sheltering schedule.
The Rev. Geoffrey Hahneman is rector of Trinity Episcopal, the city's oldest church and the one that started the sheltering program.
Located in the heart of downtown, Trinity has a vantage point on just how bleak life is for some of the city's residents.
During federal spending cuts on social programs in the early 1980s, Trinity was among those churches instrumental in the founding of PARC, the Portsmouth Area Resources Coalition.
PARC still serves as a network and clearinghouse for churches and other agencies trying to avoid duplication while helping the needy.
Its efforts resulted in the PARC Shelter for homeless families, followed by transitional housing and a continuum of services for those leaving the shelter.
Now, with welfare cutbacks on the horizon, church leaders are afraid there will be a staggering number of people in need.
``There's a real fear in churches that the burden is going to fall on us and whether we can handle it,'' Hahneman said. ``There's a real anxiety about that.''
Already, advocates for the homeless have been less than satisfied with the city's support of their ministry. Some feel the city doesn't want to acknowledge that there is a problem.
They also have been disappointed by the number of downtown churches that do not participate in the ministry in any way.
What does encourage Hahneman are the signs that suburban churches are beginning to come out of the boundaries of their neighborhoods.
That's one of the ideas that the Rev. Thomas Potter of Pinecrest Baptist Church is planting in his own church in Park Manor - a middle-class suburban neighborhood.
``It was a lot easier before to put the money in the offering plate and let somebody over the ocean do it,'' Potter said. ``But with all the country's cutbacks, we've got to start looking after our own people and helping.''
His church has come up with a mission statement that asks members to find a way to make a positive difference in someone else's life.
``It can't be church as usual where we're preaching sermons to the saints,'' Potter said. ``We have to help our congregation see needs all around us. And every religious person ought to be a minister in the sense that they reach out to people.''
Some members adopt elderly people who have no transportation to the doctor or grocery store. Others sponsor a free winterizing car inspection for older residents.
Even children in the church participate by doing yard work and other chores for neighbors. Each week members come back and share the ways they have served other people.
A problem Potter sees is that the church doesn't pack the pews as it once did.
``The difference between now and 50 years ago is we just don't have that many people going to church,'' he said. ``It used to be if every church took care of its own members, that took care of about three-fourths of the community.
``Now it's probably the other way around.''
Still, Potter sees hope for the church to play an active role in improving life in the community. His church has embraced the new community policing program and its focus on the whole neighborhood, including the church and schools working together.
``To me the separation of church and state never meant isolation of church and state,'' he said. ``It means cooperation between church and state in whatever areas we can cooperate.''
The Rev. Ben Beamer, a former vice mayor and pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, says the church always becomes ``real alive'' for people in times of crisis.
``I think the church, like government and education and other institutions, is undergoing a period of self-evaluation,'' he said. ``I think the interesting part of the church is that the church does not have the challenge to get like the world. The church has the challenge to transform the world.
``This may present problems for people who think that every parade that comes down the road, the church is supposed to put a float in it.''
He says he thinks Holley is right to call on churches.
``It hurts when we get singled out on the sidelines with expectations that are unrealistic,'' Beamer said. ``But on the other side, it's nice to be recognized.''
Like Beamer, the Rev. Matt Matthews of Simonsdale Presbyterian Church is eager to hear Holley speak, but has concerns about unrealistic expectations.
Matthews agrees with Holley that churches and other volunteer groups need to shoulder more of the burden. What concerns him is that Holley and others might not ``understand fully that churches are already strapped themselves,'' he said.
Holley said recently that a church representative came before the City Council on a rezoning issue. Holley asked how much community work the church did.
Holley said he wasn't holding that over the man's head. He was simply asking if the rezoning were successful, how much would be done to improve the life of people in the community.
Matthews describes the work of each church in the community as ``strands in a tapestry,'' with each church trying to weave together a safety net.
``I think the mayor is right,'' Matthews said. ``I think the churches do need to do more.
``And I'm not sure the city can do less.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
James W. Holley also wants the city's 247 religious institutions to
work together more often, and some ministers agree with him. by CNB