Faith in Liddonfield

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

Larry Bryant freely admits that as a teenager he worshiped drugs, not God.
Bryant, who hails from the Liddonfield Housing Projects in Holmesburg, where his mom, Rose, serves as president of the tenant council, raked in the cash by selling drugs on the corner, but he led a spiritually bankrupt existence.
“I didn’t know God, I didn’t care about it,” said Bryant, 21. “I wanted to be the biggest drug dealer in Philadelphia. I was on my way.”
The arrival five years ago of the Kingdom Life Christian Center at Liddonfield changed the course of Bryant’s life. He now works for the city of Philadelphia and attends classes at Temple University. An eloquent speaker, he also serves as a deacon for the church.
“This church took the drugs out of my hand and put a Bible in it,” Bryant said.
Jones is not alone. Every day, the non-denominational church, formerly known as the New Hope Outreach Center, helps other residents see the heavenly light in a darkly described area of the Northeast.
It was a criminal incident that brought home the realization that some faith was desperately needed on the grounds of the struggling Liddonfield.
In September 2002, pastor Danette M. Ray presided over the funeral of Bryant Jones, 20, who had been shot and killed near Liddonfield by a resident of the project.
Ray, a petite woman with a passionate tongue for praise, so moved Liddonfield resident Sonia Cooper that she asked the pastor to reach out to the other at-risk men like Jones who frequented the area.
“She brought forth the Word and set the place on fire,” Cooper said.
The church started with a meager seven members and now numbers more than 200, many of whom do not live in Liddonfield and come from as far as Harleysville in Montgomery County.
They hold services in Liddonfield’s senior center at 8800 Jackson Drive, using folding chairs as makeshift pews. About 50 residents stood, many with eyes closed and arms outstretched, as they conducted Bible study on June 26. The church also holds Sunday morning services.
Northeast native minister Sommer Sigler found Kingdom Life at a time when she was going through problems with her husband and attending a bigger church in the city.
“I was so amazed that it was in the middle of a housing development,” Sigler said. “(People) had dismissed Liddonfield as a place of drugs and prostitution. (But) God has blessed this land and has raised up a church that is going to raise up this community.”
Minister Joslynn Isaacs spent most of her young life in Liddonfield and saw other churches try, and fail, to turn around the community climate.
“This church has been here longer than any program,” she said. “It’s not just what’s going on on the inside, it’s what we can do on the outside.”
The church helped non-resident Denea Whitest when two of her children died.
“It was such a support group at the time I felt most alone,” she said.
Among Cleola and Wendell Bullocks’ tribulations were several house fires, one of which killed Wendell’s mother, drug-dealing sons — one of whom eventually died — and a life spent running the streets. Cleola admits that she was skeptical of the very non-church-looking Kingdom Life when she first saw it.
“I was like, ‘A church over here?’” she said. “I’m used to a building.”
But Ray’s preaching kept Cleola’s attention throughout the first service.
“She was the only pastor that didn’t make me fall asleep or sneak out to go to the bathroom because I was bored,” Cleola said. She and Wendell later became the first congregants to be married before Ray.
Baron Holmes, 15, experienced some rough times after his mother passed away. With little remaining family support, Ray offered to take him in for a time.
“I started going to church. I started playing the drums,” said Holmes, who wants to go to college to become a chef. “I considered pastor my second mom.”
Members attribute the church’s success to the vim and vigor of their pastor. Ray has a knack, they say, for calling them in moments of desperation when they need her guidance most. She’s also been known to confront members if they’ve skipped one too many church services.
“I missed two Sundays in a row and she came to my job at midnight and banged on the window until I came out,” recalled deacon Alex Smith of North Philadelphia. “She jumped at my chest and said, ‘Why haven’t you been to church?’”
Not everyone has said “amen” to the church’s formation at Liddonfield. But Rose Bryant says that it’s been a blessing.
“We don’t discriminate against nobody,” she stressed. “Whether you’re Muslim, Buddhist or whatever, you’re still in the community.”
Ray, who grew up in North and West Philadelphia, found church after experiencing her own troubled youth. A mother of four by age 20, Ray was working in a hair salon when she met Marva Strother. Strother and her husband Melvin had begun New Hope Outreach Center in their Germantown home in September 1984.
Marva invited Ray to a service. At the time, faith wasn’t a strong presence in Ray’s life, but song was.
“I said, ‘I’ll come (to church) if you let me sing a solo,’” Ray said, smiling.
After that, Ray spent time at the Germantown church, which is still in operation, and the Strothers went on to start another church in Lancaster.
In her five-year tenure at Liddonfield, Ray, who changed the name from New Hope to Kingdom Life in March, has helped the church orchestrate Bible study meetings, adult and children’s Sunday school, and various outreach ministries for people of all ages.
“They’ve all been determined by looking at the needs in the community,” Ray said of the ministries.
The list of outreach efforts is impressive: book bags brimming with supplies given to youth at the start of each school year; holiday food baskets distributed to needy residents and congregants; an always-stocked food bank on Glenloch Street.
There have also been field trips to the Franklin Institute and the Pocono Mountains, camps for youth and even movie nights. In 2003, the church started its annual Soul Fest, a free event focused on feeding the mind and body that takes place this Saturday.
But some of Kingdom Life’s true generosity comes in the form of money and support to congregants during hard times. The church even funnels its charity to non-members in need.
“We pay peoples’ bills. We buy beds. We pay for funerals. Whatever the need is,” Ray said.
Ray eventually wants the church to establish its own resource center to serve various needs in the community. She would also love to implement church tutoring, specifically for at-risk kids who get suspended from school. Funding continually presents problems, however, and Ray is open to outside donations of dollars or supplies.
“I want to be able to create businesses, jobs, to help people become self-sufficient,” Ray said. “It’s teaching people that they don’t have to depend on the government or the state.” ••
Soul Fest will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. on the grounds of Liddonfield, at 8800 Jackson Drive. For more information, contact minister Sommer Sigler at 267-455-7892.
For more information on Kingdom Life Christian Center, visit the Web site at www.klchristiancenter.org
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com