Rebuilding Hope from the Ashes

Lewis Street Church of Christ faced one obstacle after another; then, after the building was firebombed, people from across the country came together to help restore the building . . . and much more.

Just weeks after he was named minister of the Lewis Street Church of Christ, Jameel Robinson delivered a message that shocked the congregation: Get out of the building.

It wasn’t a “go into the community and serve” sermon, said Robinson, who had just moved from Mississippi to preach for the Little Rock, Arkansas, church.

It wasn’t a sermon at all. The congregation literally could not be in the building. 

Robinson worked for 15 years as an environmental engineer before taking the pulpit job for the predominantly Black congregation. He inspected the church’s nearly 100-year-old meeting place and saw a hole in an unused room that opened to the sky. There was mold from repeated flooding—and asbestos in the walls.

“I put everybody out,” he said. “I thought I was going to be fired. Some of them were so upset.” 

In the weeks that followed, the new minister had the building remediated, removing the harmful materials. A cardiac episode then landed him in the hospital. About a month later, the church’s roof caved in and the building flooded. Electrical problems followed. Then it flooded again. 

“I said, ‘Lord, I think you sent me to the wrong congregation,’” Robinson said. 

He met representatives of The Solomon Foundation, a nonprofit church extension fund, and secured a loan to upgrade the facility, though he soon learned that most of the money would have to go toward bringing the building up to code. 

Robinson coordinated the project “with the heart of Nehemiah, with the determination of Joshua,” he said. He underwent surgery to correct the problem that had put him in the hospital. As he recovered, he conducted conference calls on the project from his bedroom. His wife fussed at him for not resting. 

“I just really felt like the church deserved this great facility,” he said, “a beacon of hope to the community.” 

On May 31, with about 75 percent of the renovation done, the church building was firebombed in the midst of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. Once again there were holes, this time from flames that snaked up the walls and punched through the ceiling. The renovation was ruined. 

“I poured my heart into this project,” said the 39-year-old minister. “I felt like I had failed God. I felt like I had failed the church.” 

‘EVERY BANK SHOULD FUND THAT PROJECT’ 

From 500 miles away, Leslie Topps’s heart broke for the Lewis Street church.

“Of all the churches, why would that happen to them?” said the Atlanta-based publicist who grew up in the pews of the Little Rock congregation. She still has the certificates she and her family members were given after they were baptized there.

Topps now worships with the Renaissance Church of Christ, a predominantly Black congregation that completed construction of a new worship facility a few years ago.

Both the 1,400-member Renaissance church and the 100-member Lewis Street church had attempted to secure traditional building loans from the large banks where they have accounts. Both were declined.

The Renaissance church—formerly known as the West End Church of Christ—was financially sound, said minister Orpheus Heyward. The congregation owned its $2.2 million property with no mortgage and had ample funds in its bank account.

“An African-American church can have all of its financials in line,” Heyward said, “and still run into issues when applying for a loan.”

That doesn’t make sense to Doug Crozier, The Solomon Foundation’s chief executive officer. His nonprofit funded construction of Renaissance church’s new facility.

“I’ve funded probably over 1,400 churches in the Restoration Movement,” Crozier said. After reviewing Renaissance’s financials, he concluded that “every bank should fund that project. It opened my eyes.”

THE LEGACY OF REDLINING

Since the 1930s, Black families in the U.S. have suffered from discriminatory practices in mortgage lending. The practice of redlining, denying of financial services and insurance in a particular neighborhood based on its ethnic composition, was outlawed by legislation that included the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act.

However, housing advocates say the practice continues in more subtle ways, including the subprime loans that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. A November 2019 analysis of mortgages by professors of law and business at the University of California at Berkeley found that Black and Latino applicants were charged higher interest and heavier refinance fees than with White borrowers.

The trend affects predominantly Black churches, according to a 2017 study by Indiana University. Black congregations are disproportionally represented in bankruptcy filings, have fewer options to refinance, and are more likely to fall victim to predatory lenders. Earlier this year, pastors at predominantly Black churches said they had trouble accessing COVID-19 relief funds issued through the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration, according to a report by National Public Radio.

Steve Mack, a banker with 38 years of experience making loans, said he hasn’t seen direct evidence of discrimination against predominantly Black churches, but he suspects it happens.

“And I’m sorry to say that,” said Mack, chief executive officer of San Antonio-based Texas Heritage Bank. In the financial industry, “I know we’ve got some history that’s not particularly positive.”

Banks make and price loans based on risk, said Mack, an elder with the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. Among the considerations for churches are the size of the congregation, the number of “giving units” (families or individuals), their history of giving, and their debt service ratio—the proportion of the church’s annual giving that is used to pay existing debts.

Public relations is another consideration, said Ed White, a commercial lender who works for Texas Heritage Bank.

“The last thing a bank wants to do is foreclose on a church,” White said. “I truly believe that large banks look at church lending as unsecured lending.”

Christian Standard reached out to representatives of Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the U.S. in terms of assets, for this report and did not receive a response.

HOW TO BE ‘MORE BANKABLE’

White has approved loans to churches, but said he’s also had to decline loans because “I couldn’t get comfortable with the financials.”

He advises churches on how they can make themselves “more bankable,” including conducting capital campaigns for building or renovation projects that have widespread support and financial commitments from church members. A financing project may be more attractive to lenders if the church designs its facilities in such a way that they could be used for some other purpose—retail or office space, for example—should the congregation later sell the property.

White, who is African American, serves on the trustee board of a Church of God congregation. When his church underwent renovations, it secured a loan through a lending entity associated with that denomination. Other faith groups have similar entities that provide loans for churches within their fellowships, such as the Baptist Church Loan Corporation.

Such entities are regulated differently from banks, Mack said, so churches considering such loans should be aware of the lender’s funding sources, management practices, and whether or not they undergo internal or external audits.

White also advised churches to compare the lender’s interest rates to current market rates. A discrepancy far above or below that rate could be a warning sign of mismanagement, he said.

LOANS FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCHES

The Solomon Foundation undergoes annual audits and follows specific guidelines similar to those followed by banks, Crozier said, including minimum capital ratio (a borrower’s assets divided by its liabilities) and minimum liquidity ratio (a measure of the debt-repaying ability of the borrower).

The nonprofit also is regulated by entities in each state where it does business—mostly by securities commissions but sometimes by the banking or insurance sector, Crozier said.

Solomon has committed 20 percent of its assets to help predominantly Black, a cappella churches of Christ, Crozier said. So far, the nonprofit has funded 55 such loans, worth more than $84 million.

“They’ve got tremendous ministries and they’re doing a great job,” Crozier said of the preachers for these congregations. “A lot of them are bi-vocational, which tells me of a higher commitment.”

Heyward, the minister for the Renaissance church, said representatives of Solomon took time to learn about the congregation’s vision.

“They take a really great assessment of infrastructure and give you techniques and methodologies,” Heyward said. “They don’t dictate how to do ministry, but they help you manifest the vision.”

PROJECT HOPE

In Little Rock, after the Lewis Street Church of Christ building was firebombed, minister Robinson said, “I wanted to throw in the towel. I thought about just moving to another location. God said no.”

Crozier was worshipping with his congregation, Southeast Christian Church in Parker, Colorado, when he learned of the firebombing. He immediately reached out to Robinson.

“We’re 100 percent behind you,” Crozier told the minister. “We’ll be there to help you rebuild. We will.”

A few weeks after the incident, Solomon launched an initiative to raise $2 million or more for the church. The campaign has netted about $400,000 so far, Crozier said. The foundation has committed some matching funds toward the project, which Robinson dubbed Project Hope (www.projecthope2020.com).

Instead of refurbishing the building, “we’re tearing it down and building a new building in its place,” Crozier said. “The original dream was to rebuild the church from the ground up. We’re going to challenge people from across the country to help us.”

In addition to the new facility, Robinson hopes to bring in a Spanish-speaking minister and reach out to Little Rock’s Latino community. He’s invited White ministers to speak to the congregation, which currently meets in its gym, staggered, spread out, and masked due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Diversity, the minister said, should be “rooted and embedded in the very walls where we worship.”

Kim Tate, a longtime member of Lewis Street, serves as the church’s communication director.

“We keep trying to jump over hurdle after hurdle after hurdle,” she said of the building project, “but every trial and tribulation we go through helps us come up with a bigger and better plan.”

Church members have caught the vision, said Marcus Harlston, a 35-year-old who oversees the church’s social media accounts.

“In the Bible, there’s no bond, no free, no Jew vs. Gentile,” he said. “We’re all one so we need to show the city, the state, the United States how to come together.”

As for Project Hope, he added, “I can’t wait to see the finished product.”