HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARCHIVES 

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: THU 09/28/00
Section: BUSINESS
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR

Sowing and reaping / College honoring three pastors

By SHANNON BUGGS
Staff

Correct: CORRECTION: This story misspelled a Fourth Ward neighborhood. The historic area is called Freedmen's Town. Correction published 9/29/00.

The two-story building has stood in Houston's historic Freeman's Town (SEE CORRECTION) for at least 85 years. Its closest neighbors are the church next door and the graveyard across the street.

Such solemn company, however, hasn't prevented its use as a brothel, boarding house, apartment building and drug den.

Now, at a point in its history when a person of the same age wouldn't bother with a face lift, the building is undergoing a $500,000 renovation.

Soon it will become a home for eight senior citizens who have been pushed out of other parts of the Fourth Ward by the loft and town house developments that are gentrifying the area into Midtown.

Already the building is a symbol of why the Rev. Elmo Johnson and two other local ministers are being honored today by the College of Biblical Studies for their ability to combine urban missionary work with economic development.

"When we talk about faith-based economic development, it is not just about building houses. It's about building up people," says Marvalette Fentress, the director at the college who organized the awards ceremony. "These men expand the definition of economic development."

The college created The Neighborhood Builders Awards last year as a way to applaud local leaders in a national movement of churches incorporating real estate development and community revitalization into their ministries.

Johnson is the pastor of Rose of Sharon Baptist Church, which stands next to the old brothel. He will receive the award for community revitalization.

Since 1995, Johnson and his congregation of 130 members have been reclaiming and renovating blocks of their Fourth Ward neighborhood.

First, they bought 18 row houses and chased out the prostitutes, drug users and dealers who had destroyed two of them.

They tore down those two and cleaned up the others. Now they are $150-a-month rentals for the elderly and disabled. By 2002, the row houses will get a full renovation so they will look as nice as the 30 homes the church is building a block away.

"Large churches can do large things, but for small churches to try to transform their communities is a pretty hard task," says Johnson, who also is the director of the church's not-for-profit Uplift Fourth Ward.

"But Jesus only had 12 men, and they revolutionized the world. So I know God can take a small congregation, give it a plan and help them move an entire neighborhood."

The Rev. Rudy Rasmus , pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in downtown Houston, will receive the community empowerment award.

A former real estate broker, Rasmus now helps homeless people stabilize their lives and find homes.

That ministry has fueled the church's growth downtown despite the housing boom that has driven land prices up sharply in the past five years.

"No matter what appears to be happening economically, there are still people in pain," Rasmus says. "There are still people living in the shadows of $200,000 condos who are hungry. Jesus said the poor will always be among you, and we have experienced that in its purest form."

The church has built the $2.9 million Center for Hope, which provides free care to children with HIV and AIDS and others who are economically disadvantaged.

And this year it opened the Daybreak Community Health Facility - an $800,000 structure where the uninsured can get medical care and homeless people can get hot meals, warm showers and laundry services. Both facilities are managed by the Bread of Life, the church's not-for-profit organization.

St. John's is committed to continue its missionary work downtown, even though it is landlocked in a corner surrounded by freeways, a hospital and town house developments. Its best bet for expansion is to grow up instead of out.

In recognition of that, the church just completed a $1 million renovation of its sanctuary. Now called the Center for Worship and the Arts, the church building will be used on Sundays for services and used the rest of the week for theatrical and musical performances.

"Our goal is to make it a venue for arts and entertainment downtown for folks who normally can't afford it," Rasmus says.

The Rev. Joe Samuel Ratliff, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church in southwest Houston, also plans to use church grounds in a nontraditional way.

Through the Brentwood Community Foundation, which was founded in 1991, the church is spending $8 million to build a 75,000-square-foot building called the Family Lifelong Learning Center.

In addition to the after-school programs and senior citizen activities, the center will also house a McDonald's to employ neighborhood teens and seniors.

"It will be the first in the nation housed on a church campus," Ratliff says. "We approached McDonald's with the idea when they started partnering with gas stations."

Brentwood backed up its proposal with market research and a commitment to operate the restaurant from a local franchisee who also is a member of the church.

But Ratliff is not receiving the community reconciliation award today for this innovative development deal. He is being honored for his three-year battle to build transitional same-sex housing in the suburbs for men and teen-age mothers living with HIV and AIDS.

The church's neighbors complained about the project to city officials, who rescinded a grant award to help build the three homes, says Fentress of the two-year divinity school. Ratliff fought back by filing a lawsuit, which was eventually settled out of court.

He got his money to build the housing and set about repairing the church's relations with its neighbors.

Now, he and his church members are trying to decide how they will develop 87 acres in the church's portfolio and complete the purchase of 24 more acres. They are considering building a subdivision or shopping center.

"We're looking at different opportunities to meet the needs, but whatever we decide, theology will fuel it," Ratliff says. "Property and people and profit for us go together. This is a holistic commitment to empowerment."

 

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