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Pursuit of Justice: Desire for urban ministry brings woman back to church home
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Ja'Quan Bryant, 10, practices drumming with friends during an MLK U tutoring session at Friendship Baptist Church, a partner with Calvary Baptist.
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Published: November 7, 2009
After spending a year working in an urban ministry in Chicago, Alexandra Milner wanted to devote her career to bringing Christian solutions to big-city problems.
She was planning on teaching and living in west Charlotte, an area known for its poverty and urban ills, when Jon Corts, a member of Calvary Baptist Church, called Milner. Corts, a son of the late Rev. Mark Corts, a longtime pastor at Calvary, said that he had a vision of starting a ministry that would work with Winston-Salem's poor -- and he saw her leading the effort.
Milner grew up in Winston-Salem and went to Calvary, but she didn't see herself returning to the city.
She thought about the proposal and prayed about it, she said. Then she thought and prayed some more.
"I didn't necessarily see Calvary as a hub for urban ministry," she said, "and I didn't see Winston-Salem as a city with a large inner city."
But four years ago, she left a job as a substitute teacher at West Charlotte High School and took a job at Calvary researching the city, with an emphasis on its poorer neighborhoods.
She started work in the Cherry Street neighborhood with a tutoring program at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center. She started with 10 children and held one-hour, weekly sessions.
Today, Milner, 27, is the director of community ministry for Calvary -- and the tutoring program has grown. Calvary Baptist has partnered with Friendship Baptist Church, which is in the Cherry Street neighborhood, to run the program now known as MLK U. The program has about 50 children who come to Friendship Baptist two nights a week for tutoring, Bible study, dinner and an arts-enrichment program. The churches split the cost of the program, she said.
About 75 people from Calvary tutor, cook, and look after the children. Friendship Baptist provides about 30 volunteers.
MLK U is the result of an unusual partnership between a large, conservative, mostly white church in a suburban setting and a small, black, socially liberal church in a downtown neighborhood.
The program is largely seen as a success by the two churches and by people in the neighborhood.
Leslie McLaurin, who has four children in MLK U and volunteers with the program, said that MLK U has helped the neighborhood.
"My children love the tutors," she said. "Children don't see color. Adults see color."
The Cherry Street area has been the focus of much interest in the last few years. The area is part of a historically black neighborhood that thrived in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Today, much of the property is rental and the original families have gone.
The neighborhood has struggled to reinvent itself. Boundaries for the Old Cherry Street Historic District were approved in 2004, but redevelopment in the area is causing those boundaries to be re-examined. Habitat for Humanity announced a revitalization program last spring that will result in about 15 houses being built.
For Milner, who wanted to minister to the poor, the area provides challenges and opportunities.
"There's an inherent injustice associated with poverty," she said. "You see substandard education, health care and crime."
She doesn't pretend to have the answers, she said, but she believes that Christians are called to pursue justice for their neighbors.
"I'd like to think we came in humbly," she said.
She and other Calvary members joined a Habitat build, they worked with the Salvation Army and partnered with Kimberley Park Elementary to do landscaping, prepare curriculum packets, clean the school and organize a teacher-appreciation brunch.
In the process of learning about the neighborhood, Milner met the Rev. Stacey Frazier, the pastor of Friendship Baptist. Frazier came to the church in 2007. He wanted to connect the church more to the community. Friendship is in the middle of a major transition, he said. It has offered health forums and clothed and fed the homeless.
"To grow the church, it has to be more than worship on Sunday," Frazier said. "Calvary has figured it out."
They had the right attitude about ministry, he said, and both churches share the belief that places of worship can better people's lives.
Too often, such programs as MLK U fail, he said.
"What usually happens is people feel as if there's a community coming into our community and trying to take over," he said. "I don't get that feeling here."
mgiunca@wsjournal.com | 727-4089
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