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David Longobardo, the pastor and chief executive of the Christ Covenant Church and its Day School, called principal Vicky Beale into his office and asked her personal opinion of Adrian Starks.

Beale, also an elder at the church, was well aware of the pending agreement for the church Starks leads, Anderson Grove Baptist Church, to buy Christ Covenant’s sanctuary on Cliffwood Drive in the Spring Valley community. Starks has three daughters at the school.

“She said, 'As a wife and mother, I watch the way he treats his wife, and I watch him as a daddy showing up for every event his girls are in.”

She couldn’t resist one professional observation.

“As a principal, I know he pays his bills on time,” she said. “We are talking about a man who takes care of all of his commitments. Pastor, I can trust him.”

What Beale didn’t know was that Longobardo was about to recommend putting everything he had been responsible for these past 18 years — souls at the church, students in the school, and church assets worth millions of dollars — into Starks’ hands. And those who knew Longobardo knew that wasn’t something he could ever take lightly.

“I was blown away,” Starks himself would later say of the proposition.

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With the thoughtful yet engaging Starks as pastor, the predominantly black Anderson Grove had outgrown buildings. In early 2008, the church was looking for room to grow — believing Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God ... and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The Brooklyn, N.Y., native who came to N.C. A&T in 1990 felt the call into ministry in 1997, harboring a desire to foster racial reconciliation.

“It is unacceptable and hypocritical because we have the same Lord and God and we have the same desired outcome and that’s to evangelize the unsaved,” Starks, 40, said about largely segregated Sunday worship services. “Why are we able to sleep night after night ... knowing this has kept us divided?”

Tucked away in his office were proofs of a name change that he would some day propose to his church, which gives away school supplies and provides food for the hungry.

The charismatic and contemplative Longobardo, 60, had come to the predominantly white but diverse Christ Covenant in 1991 from a church in Maryland that was becoming more diverse.

It was in a letter for parents at Covenant Christian Day School early last year that Starks learned the church building would be sold.

Longobardo’s congregation had planned to get a construction loan and expand the school to include grades 9 through 12 on 42 acres of land the church owned off Holden Road. The plan was for Christ Covenant to sell the Cliffwood Drive campus for $3.5 million and pay rent to temporarily keep the school in the Cliffwood Drive building.

Then came the banking crisis of 2008 — before Anderson Grove could get financing. Anderson Grove wasn’t the only church interested in the property, but during the six months of negotiating with Starks, the meetings for Longobardo became more than buildings, acreage and banks.

“I found his spiritual concern for people uplifting,” Longobardo said.

Longobardo found himself deep in prayer over what he thought God was telling him to do.

“I believe God is with us and this is going to happen,” Starks, at the same time, was telling his elders at Anderson Grove. “It is a delay, but not a denial.”

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When he stopped by Anderson Grove for a meeting with Starks, Longobardo explained that in his contract with the church, the pastor recommends a successor, who is then voted on by the elders.

Starks had no idea where Longobardo was going. Although the two congregations were evangelistic, committed to “saving souls,” with other similar beliefs, the conversation was never about merging congregations.

“We have substantial assets — they have larger numbers and stronger cash flow,” Longobardo had thought. “ I kept thinking, 'Should the work of the Gospel of the kingdom... be controlled by the banks?’”

Back in the office, Longobardo continued to fill Starks in.

“I said, I’m going to recommend you as the new senior pastor of my church and president of the corporation,” he told Starks. Anderson Grove would take the lead, with the greater number of elders and deacons.

“I said, 'You can’t feel threatened that someone on this end is going to pull the rug from under you,’” Longobardo said.

He had one special request, as he looked Starks in the eyes.

“I said, if there is any way, any possible way — and I don’t know how open your church would be to this — if it was called something other than Christ Covenant, something other than Anderson Grove, where everybody felt like this was 'our church.’”

At that point, tears were coming down Starks’ face — and he pulled out the proof only he and the senior elder in his church knew about. It read: World Vision International Christian Center. The promise from God was being fulfilled.

“My husband is a man of great vision,” said Shandi Starks, a stay-at-home mother to their four children,“ but ... not in a million years would Adrian have put this together this way. He wouldn’t have conceived it happening this way.”

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Starks recounted the story in the pulpit on Easter Sunday — and the congregation erupted in praise and dance.

“The narrative does seem unusual and, at least on the surface, is testimony to both pastors’ commitment to a mission beyond their own agendas,” said Ken Carder, a professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke University’s Divinity School. “When congregations see themselves as participants in God’s holistic mission and not ends in themselves, they are more apt to rise above institutional self-interest and preservation. After all, Jesus’ warning that only those willing to lose their life in service to the kingdom of God actually save their life, applies to congregations as well as to individuals.”

This would not be Anderson Grove coming in to rescue a church in crisis or a failing school.

“I’m very analytical and I have to know the whys and the hows and the whens — all the pieces need to fit together,” said Shandi Starks, who has an accounting degree and is a former auditor. “For me to have peace without asking all those questions, I just know it was God.”

Shandi Starks did eventually go over the books for potential pitfalls — and continues to support her husband. As does 76-year-old senior elder Waymon Surgeon, whose mother was a charter member of Anderson Grove.

“Sure, it went through my mind because it started out as Anderson Grove,” Surgeon said of the name change. “But Jesus said he’s coming back after the church, he didn’t say what the name would be.”

Back at Covenant, Longobardo, too, had strong support.

“We weren’t worried because I know he always has the best interest of the church in his heart and I knew he had reached this decision out of laborious prayer — and out of his love for our church,” said Beale, the elder and principal.

Two-thirds of the elders and 83 percent of the Christ Covenant members approved the merger.

“There were some people who felt like, 'Pastor, you’ve given the store away,’” Longobardo said.

While the process was deeply spiritual for him, Longobardo could say he had also done his homework on Anderson Grove as good stewards. He also knew that as the surrounding community became more diverse, it would take a diverse congregation to draw people in — to also realize some of Christ Covenant’s desires for outreach.

Parents at the school also wanted assurances the high school remained in the ministry’s future.

“You are not having somebody come in who is a stranger,” said Felecia Sebastian, president of the school’s parent teacher faculty association and parent of a fifth-grader.

“You have someone coming in who’s already buying into the vision of the school and is supportive of the school.”

Still, Longobardo had been the only pastor many in his congregation had ever known. He will focus on ministry outreach, including church planting and projects.

“I don’t want any conflict over who is in charge,” Longobardo said.

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Starks is committed to honing the merged identity.

“We maintain the same basic DNA already — that it’s about Jesus Christ,” Starks said of the two congregations, which have held a communion and a picnic to get to know each other. “My intention is to love them no different than the people of Anderson Grove. Many may look at it as a merger. I look at it as a marriage.”

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