Church Hoping to Do God’s Work by Putting People to Work

Since the Rev. Broderick A. Huggins came to St. Paul Baptist Church in 1990, his south Oxnard congregation has swelled from 300 to more than 1,200.

But after nearly six years behind the pulpit, the 39-year-old pastor now wants the simple, A-framed sanctuary on South C Street to serve as something more than a spiritual hub.

Citing the nationwide movement to roll back affirmative action programs and the troubles African Americans face opening businesses, Huggins has plans to make his church a major economic force in the community.

Joining a growing number of African American congregations across the nation, the church is setting up its own economic development corporation to spur growth in local minority-owned businesses and create jobs for youth.

“The church is the most important center of influence in the black community, bar none,” said Huggins, while driving through south Oxnard. “The church has overlooked its economic power. I feel that the church has not only the obligation to be religiously responsible but also to be socially and economically responsible. The responsibility is going to be put back on the church to support its own.”

The church is completing the paperwork to set up a nonprofit corporation that can raise funds and apply for grants. So far, congregation members have raised about $20,000 through their Sunday contributions toward the corporation’s initial $100,000 start-up goal.

As a first move, the economic development corporation plans to purchase a stake in a local franchise, such as Kentucky Fried Chicken or Taco Bell, where youths could get jobs. The rest it would put into mutual funds and other investments.

“If I want to keep [youths] off the streets, I have to have some form of employment,” said Huggins, who is a single father and lives with his 15-year-old son. “Many businesses are very threatened by young black teenagers.”

The corporation also wants to use its capital to make loans to growth-minded, minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurs.

Nearly half of the county’s 16,000 African American residents live in Oxnard and Port Hueneme; about 50 African American-owned businesses are based in Oxnard, according to the Tri-Counties African American Chamber of Commerce.

Andrew Rucker, the chamber president, said the biggest problem these and other African American entrepreneurs face is locating a source of capital.

“Many African Americans don’t have a track record in business,” said Rucker, who owns an Oxnard limousine service. “Many people in the African American community are workers of some kind who save money and retire. We often don’t have the collateral to open a business.”

Although the federal government does not require lending institutions to track small business loans by race, a 1996 California Research Bureau report on credit availability said there is evidence of discrimination in lending.

Joseph Johnson, a member of St. Paul Baptist Church and owner of Two J’s Catering Co., said he has faced such discrimination firsthand. When Johnson approached a local branch of a major bank in 1993 about taking out a $10,000 loan for his L and J Fish Market restaurant, the loan officer told him he needed more experience in the food service industry.

“I have about 10 to 12 years in the field as far as restaurant management goes,” said Johnson, 31. “We have had a lot of doors closed in our face.”

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Although it would reportedly be the first of its kind in Ventura County, African American churches in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and other cities have already established similar organizations.

Gregory J. Reed, a Detroit-based attorney who has written a book on such organizations, said Catholic churches and Jewish congregations essentially pioneered the concept. It has gained popularity among African American churches in the last 10 years, championed mainly by progressive, young pastors, he said.

Rooted in the philosophy of economic self-help, these organizations draw on the economic support of their congregations to foster business opportunities created to better communities as a whole.

Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland founded an economic development corporation about 15 years ago by asking members of its congregation--now 4,000 strong--to pay $11 membership fees.

Today, the organization has built residences for senior citizens and operates a $5-million credit union that makes home loans. Dr. J. Alfred Smith Sr., a pastor at Allen Temple Baptist Church, said more African American churches across the country are launching similar programs because many other programs designed to help minorities are not working.

“It is necessary because we have to answer our own questions and solve our own problems,” Smith said. “We cannot ask government to be our savior. We have to do it ourselves.”

The St. Paul Baptist Church in Oxnard has established a 10-member steering committee made up of congregation members including an accountant, real estate agent, two bankers and a painting contractor to help make sure its development organization works.

Odell Kerns, director of operations for the Taco Bell Corp.’s Ventura County area and a steering committee member, said many felt the church had no choice but to set up the organization.

“Whenever the economy tightens up, programs that were available to minorities tighten up as well,” said Kerns, a 44-year-old Simi Valley resident who attends the church with his family. “Unless the church steps in and tries to fill that void, the assistance programs that were available will be gone, which will result in less opportunity for the black community.”

Huggins, a Stockton native, said the idea for the economic development corporation in Oxnard first came to him while meeting with other religious leaders at the Progressive National Baptist Convention last January.

Business runs in Huggins’ veins. His father owned a car detail shop and his mother owned and operated a rest home. Huggins, who grew up in the church, attended UC Davis on a scholarship, but left after a year to begin preaching.

After a one-year stint in Alaska working on an oil pipeline in 1976, Huggins returned to California where he worked as an insurance broker and later preached the gospel. He eventually earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theology at Mt. Zion Bible Institute in Sacramento before moving to Oxnard in 1990.

“If there is any church in Oxnard that can put together [an economic development corporation] it is the St. Paul Baptist Church and Pastor Huggins,” said Smith, the Oakland pastor.

Huggins shares Smith’s optimism but said that the church will not know for sure if the program will succeed until it mounts its first venture.

“I really don’t know how powerful or how effective our efforts are going to be,” Huggins said. “But I do know there is a need for someone to do something. . . . You don’t have to be a basketball player or athlete to make big money. I believe we can train people to be Christian, godly business people and be successful.”