Saturday, January 31, 1998

Black churches seeking to bring financial health to their communities

By Carole Cannon / Knight Ridder Newspapers

If black churches have been sleeping for years, as some say, then many appear to be awakening to the reality that they have to do more than lead lost souls to Christ.

Churches across the country are saying that they will rise up and assume the responsibility of financial leadership in their communities while they nurture them spiritually.

There are as many ways to accomplish that as there are churches.

Some are depending on their members to raise capital for projects that range from housing and job training to building senior citizen complexes.

Others, like a group of Akron, Ohio churches, are trying to enter into covenants with selected banks to leverage their funds into a mighty mountain of financial clout.

Many wonder why it has taken so long.

"It's long overdue," said A.G. Miller, a professor at Oberlin College. He sees the banking agreements as a welcome, valuable complement to the trends in some black communities of wooing retailers, malls and housing projects back to their neighborhoods.

But the covenants should be a starting point, says William Myers, a professor at Ashland Theological Seminary who says he has some times felt like a lone voice crying in the wilderness as he taught the economic concept that some churches are now employing to form covenants.

"Just one account can make things happen," Myers said. "Many accounts can make a significant difference."

Myers, a former bank vice president and a New Testament scholar, understands the power in a marriage of social activism and the mission of saving souls. But he says many black churches have been divided by the Bible and the influences of those, primarily white religious leaders, who have led them astray from the "history of their own churches."

For generations, Myers said, an indoctrination equating wealth with sin has helped prevent the aggressive financial activity that could have greatly benefited black churches and communities.

Myers said a minority of churches, led by a new breed of progressive, visionary ministers, is daring to rebuild on the Scriptures in the New Testament.

Myers and other colleagues be lieve one of their purposes is to educate others about the church's broader mission.

To help accomplish that, Myers founded the McCreary Center for African-American Religious Studies. He said some of his former students have become leaders at more progressive churches in Akron, including two who have built their own schools.

But black churches must do more, he said.

Many looked through stained-glass windows while the plague of poverty and despair descended on their communities.

They watched inner cities fall ing apart beneath the weight of money-starved, crumbling infrastructure, leaving a barren land. They were witnesses when white developers swooped down and bought property low and sold high, Myers said.

Now the challenges are greater because the needs are greater, he said.

More educated, sophisticated congregations, many of whom wield power in the business world every day themselves, are de manding that churches meet these challenges, ministers say:

ÑIn Columbus, Ohio, churches that have been involved with covenants are branching out to put together development deals such as the $4 million building that will house the county's welfare department, training programs and other businesses that may provide jobs for their members.

ÑOne church in a Baltimore collective plans to renovate an old dairy into an outreach center.

ÑIn a collective in Prince George's County, Md., members plan to network with other black businesses on a grander scale.

Black churches may be able to do what others have not, some say, but in the past they have had difficulty working together.

Some of that unwillingness to work together stems from the fact that black ministers have historically acted as liaisons and power brokers between the black and white worlds, Myers said. Some times their negotiations benefited all in the black communities, but often deals were struck that benefited only an individual church. That kind of back-room wheeling and dealing, though not as prevalent now, undermines collaborative efforts and should be eliminated, ministers involved in collectives say.

The unwillingness to cooperate is also fostered by black church leaders at the national level who benefit from the status quo, Myers said.

It is imperative that churches unite at a local level, he said, and they need only look backward for guidance. Black churches were the first autonomous institutions in the black community. They were instrumental in building the financial institutions that were the anchors of the richest communities in the country: "Black Wall Street" in Oklahoma, "Sweet" Au burn Street in Atlanta and a thriving upper-crust community in a zoot-suited Harlem.

Myers is optimistic about empowering financial trends, but he would be even more heartened if a majority of churches started marching back toward the righteous tradition of self-reliance.

Progress will not come as quickly nor be as widespread as it should, he prophesies, because old-time religion is as deeply rooted as fundamentalism. They will co-exist uneasily with the newer holistic approach to community ministering by churches "until Jesus returns."

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(c) 1998, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).

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