URBAN REVITALIZATION Church leaders exhort faithful to take action

Churches are neighborhood anchors, a priest said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Religious people must transform their faith into community activism, clergy said at a faith-based gathering at Stambaugh Auditorium.
"Faith is more than just going to church," or a synagogue or mosque, said the Rev. Michael H. Harrison, pastor of Union Baptist Church on Lincoln Avenue. "It is actually living out your faith -- what you believe you have been called to do -- and living it out in the public arena, where everyone can see that your faith is not something that's isolated to a worship service," he added.
Harrison is co-chair of the clergy caucus and past president of ACTION, a faith-based community activist organization devoted to urban revitalization. He was a keynote speaker at ACTION's fifth annual banquet Monday.
ACTION stands for Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods.
Coming together
"When we bring together people of different faiths and different faith traditions, we can really cause a newness in the community,'' said the Rev. Edward Noga, pastor of St. Patrick Church on Oak Hill Avenue, the other keynote speaker.
"I believe faith-based congregations are really the mainstay of neighborhoods. We have a tremendous stake in what happens in the future," Father Noga said.
"The power that we believe in in our God is a power that can really transform communities," he added.
Many local churches have been celebrating 50th, 75th, 100th or 150th anniversaries, he noted. Businesses have come and gone, but churches have remained as community anchors, he observed. "I don't think we take that power enough in our hearts, and in our hands and in our voices," he said of the churches.
Holy Ground
ACTION has been promoting its "Holy Ground" campaign in city neighborhoods this spring. Participants march, sing and bless the ground in some of the city's troubled neighborhoods during these events, demanding demolition of certain drug houses and abandoned buildings.
"It's very demoralizing to people in the city to see houses boarded up and then unboarded by drug users and prostitutes. The Holy Ground campaign is for reclaiming our neighborhoods, one block at a time," said Anne York, ACTION president.
The next "Holy Ground" march will begin at 9 a.m. June 19 at Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, 505 Parkcliff Ave. The previous marches were April 10 and this past Saturday, also on the city's South Side. These neighborhood marches will continue "until every part of Youngstown is declared Holy Ground," Harrison said.
"Every person everywhere, whether in the city or in the suburbs, needs to be a part of this because the element of evil is everywhere. It's not just an inner-city problem. It's a community problem, and everyone should participate," Harrison said.
"If you live here, you should care, because whatever is happening in the city is happening in the suburbs," including drug activity and other crime, he said.
"If we put our resources together, rather than allowing it to go from one area to another, we could just eliminate it," he added.
The "Holy Ground" marches are effective in holding city officials accountable for the condition of city neighborhoods, Noga said.