BLACK CHURCH LIFE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA : Ministering on the Front Line : In Watts, the New Beginning Storefront Church Offers Hope, Comfort to Those Facing Hard Times

This is a trauma center. . . . When the Lord sends somebody here to be treated, everything’s got to stop. --the Rev. Donald Clay The wide sweep of Central Avenue around 113th Street is quiet on this clear, sunny, Sunday morning. No signs of life are evident along the row of Watts storefronts, where New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church sits between B&B; Cafe (“Coldest beer in town”) and Alonso’s Wrought Iron.

Behind its iron grates and whitewashed facade, the 9:30 Sunday school class has yet to start; by 10, only one woman has arrived.

A young man wearing a red corduroy jacket, a small gold cross in one ear and several thin gold chains wanders in. Looking uncertain, he sits down in one of half a dozen pews, across the aisle from the rows of old movie seats.

He alternately watches people drift in, bows his head low over his knees, gets up and makes for the door--as if to bolt--only to wander back.

Up front another young man, clad in blue coveralls, kneels on the floor and covers electrical wires with duct tape. He asks the newcomer to help move a row of seats.

That done, they shake hands, the man in coveralls saying, “How you doing, chief? (I’m) Donald Clay. What’s happening?”

Donnell Pope, 28, returns the greeting and resettles in the pew.

It’s Pope’s first time at New Beginning, he tells a stranger: “I just thought I’d come to church this morning. I need a little help.”

Storefront churches “are a staple of urban life in the black community,” says William Pannell, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and director of its program for African-American ministries.

“They’re a visible presence of hope and unity to people at the margins of urban life. These are people who would probably not go to a more established church--not feel comfortable. You can walk right into a storefront.”

Like many ministers and sociologists interested in the role of black storefront churches, Pannell won’t even guess at their numbers.

The Rev. Ben Reid, pastor of the more traditional First Church of God in Inglewood, calls storefronts “the front line. They get it in the raw. They meet people where they really are.”

New Beginning started in June, 1988, when about 10 people met in the living room of Minnie Dooley’s small, wood-frame house in Watts.

Dooley, 61, is Clay’s grandmother and a lifelong churchwoman. His mother, Daisy Pearson, an ex-heroin and cocaine addict, was also there, as were other family members.

“The founding members were not going to church. Some of them had drug problems. They would have been lost in the cracks,” Clay says during a late lunch break from his office job at a Vernon trucking company. “I saw this as an opportunity to do something different with the church--take it out of its traditional setting (to) where you could reach some people.”

Clay, 27, has been in the ministry since he was 15, working in several congregations. He is a minister by apprenticeship, receiving no formal seminary training.

“I felt I was led by the Lord to organize a church,” he says. “I felt I’d come of age. I wanted to get my feet wet.”

A slightly built yet muscular man, Clay has a dimpled smile that frequently breaks through his neatly trimmed mustache.

He is hip not pious, friendly but not effusive; in private conversation, he avoids hyperbole.

How was he “led by the Lord?”

Clay throws his hands up in disclaimer: “I tell my members, ‘I had no visions. I heard no voices.’ ” Rather it was a growing conviction, “a yearning,” to pastor that he believes was ultimately “motivated by the Lord.”

J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says breakaway groups from larger congregations or ministers “getting a call” most often start the storefront ministries.

“A lot of these ministers would probably never get an opportunity to be pastor in a big church. It’s a chance to exercise leadership,” he says, adding that many young ministers forgo lengthy seminary training.

“The younger ones just want to get out there and start doing the Lord’s work.”

As New Beginning slowly fills--eventually 40 people, including babies, arrive--Clay disappears to change out of his coveralls. The Rev. Donald Duckett begins the service, singing “I am on the battlefield of the Lord,” the choir behind him almost equaling the congregation in size.

“We’re going to have a good time,” Duckett exudes. “That’s what I come here for.”

Calling for testimony, Duckett listens with affection and approval as one young woman tells about an unexpected raise she received at her job.

When another woman gives thanks for help in finding her earring this morning--”I would have missed church. The devil was making me think that earring was important”--people chuckle fondly and “praise the Lord.” Donnell Pope raises his head, grins and joins the light applause for her.

Nobody makes a fool of themselves here. Tolerance and encouragement abound.

By the time Clay emerges, the amplified music and singing is earsplitting. Falling in with it, Clay prays.

His prayer builds to a poignant, harrowing litany: “There ain’t no dope in my veins. Ain’t it good?” he chants, throwing his right arm into the air.

Donnell Pope’s arm goes up too.

“I was not a victim of a shooting last night. Ain’t it good?” Clay continues. “How good He was to me. Lord we adore you. Lord we praise you. Alleluia.”

Clay was born in Indianapolis and moved to Los Angeles at age 10 with his grandmother, mother and sisters after his uncle died of a drug overdose, he says. They were seeking a “new beginning,” a phrase the family uses frequently

When Clay was 18, his father, whom he barely knew, killed himself by drinking antifreeze. His mother had quit heroin and cocaine in Indianapolis but was still on angel dust when they moved into the Jordan Downs Housing Project in 1975.

He credits his grandmother as “the reason we made it this far.” She joined Tree of Life Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, where Clay got involved with the choir.

His godfather, the Rev. Robert Henry, a choir director, kept the youth busy, Clay says: “I’d come home and be too pooped to hang out on the corner.” He says the constant activity kept him from street life.

As a bright student and budding saxophonist, Clay won a music scholarship to Wiley College in Marshall, Tex., but he studied religion, philosophy and psychology once he got there. He stayed three years, returned to Los Angeles, held a variety of jobs and married.

Now divorced and raising two sons--Dominic, 5, and Donald, 6--jointly with his ex-wife, Clay says he still wants to finish his college degree.

The ministry, though, has always prevailed.

“When I was growing up, there was a church across the street from the projects and I always felt disconnected from those people. . . . I did not want this church to be a disconnected island in the neighborhood,” he says. “The only means we have to combat (problems) is if the church and neighborhood pool our resources. The black church is about the only institution black people own.”

Loosely affiliated with National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc., New Beginning breaks with strict tradition. Clay has started a gospel rap choir for young people and occasional Sunday evening discussion groups. Consensus is not the goal; they air their feelings, he says, on drugs, AIDS, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings.

Of the latter, he says: “I think it was good. There is a certain arrogance among men in the church about women.”

“The potential for political action (in the storefronts) is very profound,” says Pannell, of Fuller Theological. “They have no clout, no glamour. They’re just getting by, but they are right where the community is. I’d be very suspicious of any political leaders who did not take these churches into serious account.”

It is a potential that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called a duty, says James Hicks, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: “Dr. King challenged the black clergy to become involved in the politics and social issues of the community.”

But a common criticism of storefront churches is that they are too apolitical and emotional. Thus, New Beginning’s rap sessions and social consciousness are unusual.

Pannell says the daily struggles of storefront congregations make it understandable if the members don’t come looking for more challenge. “But I’d have to say, finally, that whatever it means to be spiritual has to somehow or other make connections.”

The congregation is called to the altar. Joining hands and requesting prayers, describing struggles and needs, many are moved to tears. It is one of the few times when joy gives way to sadness, when loving gestures to each other speak to consolation and shared grief.

His eyes closed, Donnell Pope appears solemn and moved.

Tears streaming down her face, Daisy Pearson walks around slowly, hugging a few members. One woman, a baby in her arms, weeps. Without a word, Minnie Dooley goes to her, takes the baby, and moves away for a few minutes.

On the preceding Saturday, the kitchen at Minnie Dooley’s house was taken over by the “By the Grace of God” barbecue team: Pearson at the stove over the baked beans and sauce, Deacon Anthony Spears at the back-yard grills--chickens on one, ribs on the other.

The team sold meals to go--$5 for chicken, $5.50 for ribs--to raise funds for Pastor Clay’s third anniversary gift. By close of business, they had boxed about 100 meals.

“We don’t give him a salary,” Spears explains. “This is the only way we have of paying him back. Only he winds up giving it all back.”

“I work for my sons and my church,” says Clay. Besides money from him, the church pays rent and other expenses through tithes and donations.

Although storefront churches and their environs speak of late 20th-Century urban decay and poverty, something about them brings to mind the very early years of Christianity.

“It too was a movement among marginal people,” Pannell says of the early Christian church, elaborating on the similarities.

“There’s often a much more intense sense of community . . . than with a larger congregation. Preaching the Scriptures tends to be less formal. . . . People simply come to the Scriptures and teach. It’s a people’s church. There’s direct access.

“This is also one of their great weaknesses as well. Often (with storefronts) the leadership does not have much formal education and has to work outside. Their strength is that they’re in touch with the community, but they may not be able to fulfill the broader range of pastoral duties.”

The “call to discipleship” goes out near the end of the service: “The door to the church is open,” says Clay.

Without hesitation, Donnell Pope moves forward to a folding chair held out for him. While Daisy Pearson leans over him, Pope signs up for membership.

Clay, still in the pulpit above, tells the congregation: “Our neighborhoods are dying all around us. It’s time to get serious you all.” His voice breaks momentarily. Brushing at his eyes, he continues: “Sometimes you feel you ain’t worth nuthin’. You got nuthin’ to offer. (But) you’ve got your life to give God.”

Coming down from the pulpit, Clay leads Pope in a prayer of salvation, then says: “This is it. This is all there’s going to be. No angels came from heaven. No lightening flashed. You don’t have to feel nuthin’. He’s there, right there with you now.”

It’s often hard to follow up with new members, Clay says later, because they often are in transition--without a permanent address or telephone. But church members try to encourage them to come to classes for new members.

Pope, who lives with his mother and is jobless, says he had no prior knowledge of New Beginning but had been building toward his actions that morning: “I felt it was time. I changed my life, got it together. I did not like the way I was living--drinking, smoking weed, using. . . . I quit on my own. I’ve been doing good for about four months. I feel good.”