Preachers' dispute rends revival

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd] A few weeks ago, the Revs. Patricia Nevins, left, and Stephen Paul Wilson, right, laying hands on during a service, still worked together.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 5, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- A few weeks ago, a group of Christians met to talk about a revival they hoped would fill the city's churches with new faithful and restore the faith of backsliders.

The meeting room in the Renaissance Vinoy Resort reverberated with fervent prayers and songs as well as the ecstatic utterances of believers who spoke in tongues.

There was enthusiastic talk over breakfast of a 1,000-seat tent with room for overflow crowds. Free food and clothes would be distributed to the masses. And a call went out for trustworthy volunteers to gather the generous nightly offerings expected to pour in under the tent at 26th Avenue S and 34th Street.

Much has changed since that June 27 meeting.

The crowds have not materialized. The money has not poured in. And the preachers leading the revival, the Rev. Stephen Paul Wilson and the Rev. Patricia Nevins, have become bitter enemies.

Nevins has now left the revival, weeks before it was slated to end.

At the heart of their dispute are issues involving money, power and doctrine. And this week, citing fear of physical harm, Nevins petitioned for a temporary restraining order against the revival's piano player.

Robert Keller, a Gulfport resident who plays the piano in the three-man revival band, said he was stunned.

"I don't know what she's referring to. I told her that she caused problems," said Keller, who also is the organist at Traveler's Rest Missionary Baptist Church. "I would never physically harm anybody for any reason."

A hearing on the restraining order is scheduled Wednesday.

Meanwhile, under the large blue and white revival tent, Wilson and his father, Ronald "R.D." Wilson, painted a picture of Nevins as a woman who failed to keep her promises to raise money, share expenses and recruit guest preachers for the two-month revival. Furthermore, they depicted her as power hungry, self-centered and elitist.

Nevins called Stephen Wilson a charlatan who claims to turn water into wine and oil and fakes healings. She and a supporter also said he is motivated by money and had no commitment to saving souls.

Each preacher blames the other for the revival's failure to draw expected crowds. Rather than hundreds, attendance has been limited to dozens.

According to Wilson, the trouble with his partner began July 1, the first night of the revival that is scheduled to end Aug. 31.

Wilson said Nevins, who sings, tried to control the band.

"I was kind of in the middle of that," he said of Nevins' feud with Keller. "I was trying to make peace for a month.

"Bless her heart, I'm not going to talk bad about her during this whole interview," he said, proceeding nonetheless to describe a shouting and cursing tantrum Nevins had at a Denny's restaurant.

Nevins, 41, said that incident did not happen.

Wilson, 37, a tent revivalist with International Missions Inc. near Jacksonville, said the female preacher hoped to use the revival to put on "the Patricia Nevins show" and to raise money to expand her congregation and build a church.

"To me," he said, "it was for souls."

Nevins who heads Eternal Life Revival Ministries International and holds services in St. Petersburg and Orlando, refutes his accusations.

"I really don't know what happened," she said. "I was very busy trying to promote the revival and see that it was a success. . . What was brought to my attention by other people is that I was being elbowed out and Stephen was embracing the band."

She hired the band for the revival, Nevins said, but soon the musicians were listening to Wilson instead.

It also was Wilson who craved power, she added.

"The ideal situation for him would have been not to have guests where he would have to pay them," she said. "Not to have another partner, where we would have to split the offerings. But it would be ideal for him to have a band."

As for not keeping her promises, that is not true, Nevins said.

"We were to split everything 50 percent, including preaching, including the bills," she said, adding that she was allowed to preach only once.

She said Wilson, who lives in a trailer with his wife and infant on the lot with the revival tent, was supposed to use the nightly offerings to pay the band and rent for the property. Wilson said he has receipts to show he paid his share of the bills.

Nevins believes she met all her obligations.

"I sponsored the breakfast. Inside the tent, I paid for the permits. I got the land surveyed and the architect to come and do a layout. I made the deal with Jesse, the owner of the property, to get the price down. ... They have done nothing and they ran me off."

In addition, she said, "I was doing their laundry, having their things dry cleaned and pressed, doing their shopping."

Because there were holes in Wilson's shoes, she and a supporter bought a new pair.

"We went out and bought him a $200 pair of Italian leather shoes from Dillard's," she said.

Joan Henniger, owner of the Log Cabin Garden Center, 101 Pasadena Ave. S, said she donated $100 toward the shoes. Henniger said she also pledged $1,000 toward the revival, but gave at least $500 more.

She does not regret her generosity.

"It's to get the Lord's work done. Period," she said.

"I am disappointed that more people weren't saved. What this is, is all man's stuff. I don't know who's right. God's right, but I know that Pat is not money-motivated at all, because she gives it away. The other preacher, I think, is trying to make a living."

- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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