news-record.com

GREENSBORO - The Rev. Helen McLaughlin has fashioned her ministry around the parable of the shepherd who left the flock of 99 to reclaim the one that wandered off.

On Sunday at the storefront of FaithStep Ministries near Greensboro's largest homeless shelter, there's the worshipper once broken down by life. Another lured away by addiction. Another who strayed because he had hurt others.

Each of these worshippers found his way to this inner-city church on different paths. None had money or stature, which is not to say they didn't have leadership potential.

Though not the church leaders some might envision, the sweat equity from Bill Grant, David Faison and Richard Gelzer would come to have more of an impact on McLaughlin's ministry that any of them could ever imagine.

"The value of the people I meet," she said, "aren't measured by shirt and ties."

Here then is a story of reclamation and redemption that comes from McLaughlin's pulpit - courtesy of the resurrected talents that built it.

* * *

"I was on my way to sleep under the bridge," said Richard Gelzer, whose background is in painting and is conquering a past drug addiction. "I had no where else to go. I saw the lights on (at the church) and thought it might be a place to hang out."

David Faison had maxed out his time at the Greensboro Urban Ministry, but someone told him that FaithStep on nearby Lee Street offered temporary housing for homeless men.

"I didn't have anything else," said Faison, who had once earned a living doing upholstery work.

Bill Grant, a one-time construction engineer who sings bass, could be heard during church services at Urban Ministry, where McLaughlin also is a chaplain.

"She was after my voice," Grant said of McLaughlin's invitation to join the praise and worship singers at her church on Sunday.

But it wasn't just what he sang that drew McLaughlin to Grant; it was what he offered.

* * *

McLaughlin remembers that day in May this way: She was surveying what would be the church's newly enlarged sanctuary. The barber shop next door had moved out, and the owner of the strip of stores had removed the wall between the two, effectively doubling the church's space to 3,000 square feet - from six pews to what could be 19.

Grant "was standing at the side door saying, 'You need help?' " McLaughlin recalled.

Expanding the church would require lighting, electrical and plumbing work - and at that moment, McLaughlin had no clue that Grant had done it all before.

"When I walked in, my heart broke," said Grant, who wound up at the homeless shelter a few months ago.

Standing outside that strip mall and looking in at McLaughlin, he saw a church that needed a lot of work but that had little money.

"I said, 'Oh Lord, they need a miracle.' "

McLaughlin was expecting one. The church didn't have a building fund - at least not one with anything in it.

But there was faith - faith that the six-pew sanctuary could be so much more and reach the people McLaughlin hoped to draw in. But for that, she'd need more space.

After all, for the Sunday morning breakfast she offered, those who showed up had to crowd in the tiny fellowship hall - slightly bigger than some home offices.

So when the barber shop space came open, McLaughlin said "yes" based on her faith.

"...This was not in my budget," said McLaughlin, the senior pastor at FaithStep Ministries, "But, I teach creativity - find a way to do it."

That's when she discovered the talents of Grant, Gelzer and Faison.

* * *

Someone had already told McLaughlin about soon-to-be-discarded church pews that were in bad shape but, with some work, were usable. McLaughlin borrowed a truck and went to Browns Summit, where she and church members rounded them up, after first chasing snakes out of the storage house where they had been kept.

She took the "200 and something" dollars that the church could spare, and a nervousness about what they could get, and went to Leisure Fabrics to find materials to replace the covering. She specifically wanted purple fabric to match the other pews.

The owner said, "You don't have hardly any money and you want a specific color and you are talking about 19 pews," McLaughlin said. "He said, 'Miss, this fabric is $28 a yard, but I'm going to let you have it.' That was nothing but God!"

Not having the necessary upholstering tools, Faison and the others unfurled their creativity again. They used an electric staple gun to attach the fabric and padding to the benches.

Other members pitched in and went out to find people with other talents they needed, including someone to build a raised pulpit - the first time McLaughlin's church ever had a pulpit to stand on.

"I knew that we could do the job," Faison said. "I didn't want to do it for a certain person, just for the Lord. I've hurt so many people in my lifetime and took so much, that I felt I had to give."

Some days, Grant worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

"He said, 'You know, I've got to make these hands work for God,' " McLaughlin said. "They looked like ghosts at the end of the day, after all that sanding."

Grant says he didn't want to compromise.

"This is God's house, that's why," Grant said. "I'm a nitpicker. No blemishes."

It was Gelzer, once caught up in addictions, who convinced McLaughlin to move the pulpit area across the room from where it had been, and the direction of the pews, from facing west to facing east.

"That's how I envisioned me going, from that direction," he said, pointing behind him. "That was the old me and this is the new me."

* * *

"There were a lot of times I was tired and didn't want to come back," Faison said. "But I always ended up here. It was the Lord, pushing me.

"When I come in on Sunday, the first thing I'm doing is rubbing these pews."

Through it all, McLaughlin's job was to encourage the crew - and to keep the food stocked.

"All I could do was feed them Bojangles' chicken," McLaughlin said.

The three, with other members of the congregation, worked right up to the last minutes before the early morning service on July 27 to finish the job. The paint still

wasn't dry on the bottom of some of the other reupholstered chairs, but the new sanctuary was unveiled as scheduled last Sunday.

"It was powerful" as people walked through the door, Grant said. "A lot of us had tears in our eyes."

Everything didn't go as scheduled. Some of the wooden letters attached to the front of the "In Remembrance" table fronting the pulpit fell off because the glue they had was less commercial grade and more grade school.

But that's minor, McLaughlin said.

"God's showing us if we work together, this is what we can do," McLaughlin said. "If we use what we've got, and that's not just talking about money, that he'll bless what we do.

"I am not ashamed. I'm proud of being a pastor of people challenged by life, because they teach me."

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy. mclaughlin@news-record.com