Giving faith a home

A local Baptist pastor has started a new church in an old tattoo parlor to spread God's word to the homeless.

By MAUREEN BYRNE

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 14, 2000

The pastor walks to the man and holds him. The tears keep coming.

"I'm a big, tough guy, but I come in here and I cry," said Wilkie Brown after the hourlong service at Church of Hope, once the site of a tattoo parlor where drug paraphernalia was sold. "I know for some reason I need to be here. I've been handling things in my life and it ain't been going too well."

Brown, 43, said he has been working two jobs and sleeping in his van and in cheap hotels since he arrived in Clearwater three weeks ago. One of the first people he met was Randy Morrow, pastor of Church of Hope and a former drifter, drug addict and alcoholic.

Morrow, 40, has a mission to reach those who call the streets their home, some finding refuge in a bottle or a fix. Last month, he opened a church in a Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard strip center in an area in downtown Clearwater where women sell their bodies and homeless people look for their next meal.

The former youth pastor says he wants to spread a message of hope to these people of the streets, a message that God loves them and wants a relationship with them.

With the blessing of the Suncoast Baptist Association, an organization of 62 Southern Baptist churches in Pinellas County and southwest Pasco County, Morrow hopes to change lives through his Sunday services and Wednesday Bible studies.

"This is a church for them," Morrow said.

A preacher's past

Born and raised in Michigan, Morrow moved with his family to Clearwater in 1979. He soon discovered drugs and alcohol and hit the road.

He traveled west, spending time in the Los Angeles area. Most of the time, he was homeless, finding shelter in abandoned buildings or parks and comfort in cocaine and heroin.

He would work a couple of days a week doing manual labor, such as unloading trucks, making enough money to support his drug habit.

Morrow returned to Clearwater in 1983. Still abusing drugs and alcohol, he soon was arrested for writing bad checks and in 1987 was charged with grand theft for a television he had rented. He was sentenced to 24 months probation.

He says he eventually cut down on the drugs. But it wasn't until a decade later that his life took a drastic turn. In 1997, his father urged him to attend a Promise Keepers event in St. Petersburg. He said the Christian men's evangelical rally changed his life.

"I was totally converted," he said. "God just got a hold of me and changed my life that day. It was a complete healing, a complete conversion."

Morrow began to share his newfound faith with others, especially homeless men and women wandering in and around Crest Lake Park on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard. Driving a motor home, he roamed the area, offering them clothes, food and the "good news of Jesus Christ," he said.

In 1998, Morrow quit his job as a manager for a cab company and took a position as a youth pastor at Countryside Baptist Church. He ministered to young people there for two years before deciding to return to the streets to save souls.

"My heart is on the streets," he said. "I've been there."

Morrow found a vacant storefront at 1444 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd. With the help of family and friends, he carpeted the floor, plastered and painted walls, repaired the ceiling and hung a large wooden cross.

He gave it the name Church of Hope and applied for membership to the Southern Baptist Convention.

"Hearing his vision and seeing his strategy, we backed it up," said Lewis McMullen, who oversees the planting of new churches for Suncoast Baptist Association, which is giving temporary financial assistance to the church.

Morrow gave his first sermon at Church of Hope on July 23. Fifteen people came, some from the streets, others from his former church.

The following week, 23 people attended the 2 p.m. service. On Aug. 6, the 900-square-foot room was packed with 25 people.

"Word is spreading on the streets and I'm scared because I don't think I'll have enough room," Morrow said.

Sharing the message

William Hinton Jr., 44, squints his eyes as he stares at a song sheet. The homeless man is praising Jesus at Church of Hope.

Hinton says he discovered the church last month when Morrow was cleaning the former tattoo parlor. He says the pastor invited him to a service. He accepted and has visited the church the past three Sundays.

"I need God in my life," said Hinton, who lives in Crest Lake Park and survives on a monthly disability check. "He created me and the whole world."

Hinton was one of two dozen people who attended a recent afternoon service. Wearing jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers, Morrow preached to his flock sitting on white, plastic lawn chairs.

"God is moving in this building today," he said. "We're here to show you there is another way to live."

A few minutes later two young boys arrived on bikes. They dropped them on the ground and peered inside the glass front door before they went inside.

"Yeah, this is it," 12-year-old Trenton Wilson told his pal, Teddy Palinkas, 14. "He's preaching."

Just as his father asked him three years ago to follow Christ, Morrow now urged those listening to him to do the same. He told them their hearts must change before their lives can change.

Tom Bailey, 36, says that's what happened to him when he discovered the church three weeks ago. "When we walked in the door, the church opened up my heart again," said Bailey, who moved here last month from Ohio. "I realized I need to have Jesus in my life."

Bailey and his wife, Carol, 44, were without jobs, a car and a place to live when they happened upon Church of Hope. Morrow gave the couple money so they could stay in a hotel until they got back on their feet. They both found full-time jobs last week.

"This is our church," Bailey said. "I've never been to a church where I felt like I belonged."

Beyond church services

In addition to offering a weekly service and Bible study, Morrow said the church also will have a food pantry, a clothes closet and shower facilities -- all to attract those on society's fringe.

"Word is spreading that they have a place to go," Morrow said.

That's what worries Sgt. Joe TenBieg, who heads Clearwater Police Department's downtown bike team. TenBieg says he has no problem with Morrow offering religious services to the homeless, but he wished he didn't give them food, like the turkey dinner after last Sunday's service.

"We try to discourage that," he said. "When they feed these people, that's all they're there for. We've already got structured programs in the area that are going to help these people."

TenBieg was referring to the Clearwater Homeless Intervention Project, or CHIP, which is run by city police and community social service agencies. The 2-year-old program requires people to register, carry special cards and submit to certain rules to get a free meal at the area soup kitchen.

It works for some people, Morrow said, but not for everyone. Those are the people he wants to reach, he said.

People like Marvin Washington, 49, who attended his second service last Sunday at Church of Hope. Washington said he is working construction jobs, but doesn't have a place to live.

"He understands us," he said of Morrow. "This is going to change the area."

"I believe love heals and not structure," Morrow said. "I believe you can't change a person's mind until you change a person's heart."

In 1992, the Knox Area Rescue Ministry, a Christian homeless ministry in Knoxville, Tenn., and a member of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, commissioned a study of recovery from homelessness. The Gallup Poll identified six critical "life themes" that separated homeless people who recovered from those who did not.

According to the poll, having a spiritual dimension ranked as the most important theme in recovery. The poll said those with weak spiritual lives didn't seem to have the power to recover.

Morrow says he doesn't know whether his ministry will succeed in providing people with the spiritual nourishment that can help them defeat homelessness. But he prays that it will.

"They are so hungry to hear that there is a better life than they have now," he said.

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