c. 1998 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The Rev. Ivan Kennedy left his father’s church at age 16.

Kennedy couldn’t figure out why his old man would devote his life to pastoring small churches where he would invite homeless strangers to live with them and reach into his own pocket when the collection plate wouldn’t keep the burner running in winter.

“I wanted to figure out if God is really real, or if this guy was out of his mind,” said Kennedy, absent-mindedly picking up an empty whiskey bottle and tossing it away from the grounds of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church.

Two decades later, in a church that 18 months ago was down to a half-dozen regular worshippers and on July 2 nearly burned to the ground in a blaze that began in a neighboring house, Kennedy is finding his answers.

In a church so poor heating bills took priority over insurance coverage, Grant and Ivan Kennedy have become a father-and-son preaching team committed to rebuilding the church in a scarred neighborhood filled with empty lots and long ago abandoned by others.

“For me, it was just understanding these are people. These are God’s people,” Kennedy said. “You just can’t turn your back on people.”

The wave of fires that engulfed black churches in the South over the last couple of years gained national attention first because some of the blazes were set by white arsonists.

Later, the growing understanding of how integral even the smallest rural congregations are to the communities they serve helped spur national fund-raising efforts to rebuild the churches.

What is true in the rural South is no less true in the urban North, say local church leaders. There may be other black Baptist churches a couple of blocks east or a few blocks west, but that does not make Mount Lebanon any less meaningful to the people in its neighborhood looking for sources of hope.

“You don’t have to be a member, but you know that someplace around here you have a place to go,” said the Rev. Henry E. Hall Jr., whose own Second Bethlehem Baptist Church can be seen across a vacant lot from the steps of Mount Lebanon.

“I would not like to see this church moved,” said Hall, as he surveyed the damage to Mount Lebanon recently.

Hall has offered to let Mount Lebanon hold services in his church, and he and other area clergy are exploring ways to help the burned church raise the estimated $25,000 it needs to reopen.

Hall compares the city’s black churches to the 12 tribes of Israel.

“You’ve got all of them, but all of them have their own particular history,” he said.

Mount Lebanon opened its sanctuary doors in 1946. Back then, Kennedy said, it was one of the city’s premier neighborhoods. The flight of middle- and upper-class blacks, along with the dying-off of older members and the loss of a younger generation with more tenuous ties to church, took its toll.

Through three strokes, the Rev. Grant Kennedy kept Mount Lebanon going. But by March 1997, the number of regular worshippers had dropped to six.

Ivan Kennedy said he broke his father’s heart when he left his church 20 years ago for a bigger one. “I was his hope,” the younger Kennedy said, but what the teen wanted was a church “with all the bells and whistles,” a large choir, a youth program and sports teams.

The younger Kennedy said then he would never come back, and for the next two decades he kept that vow. Then one day last March, he came back for a visit and heard what he described as God’s call.

“There was a tug in my heart,” Ivan Kennedy said. “The Holy Spirit said, `Stay here.”’

“Next thing, I’m here and I’m loving it,” he said.

He kept his full-time job, but devoted his life to the church. He took over most of the preaching, and began calling people he knew to tell them, “I’m going back to Dad’s. Would you like to join me?”

He recruited a rhythm-and-blues musician to liven up services and made other changes such as dressing more casually and even holding worship services outside to make newcomers feel welcome.

The number of regular worshippers grew to 25. And while the only time many neighbors might attend church was for holiday meals, Kennedy said they considered it their church.

When the fire struck, he was well into the process of building relationships with individuals from drug and alcohol addicts to single parents. Fire officials said the blaze was caused by children with fireworks.

Rebuilding is going to be a problem, he said. The church has only $3,000 in its bank account and in the best of times barely has enough money for operating expenses, much less capital projects.

However, other Baptist churches stand ready to help, said the Rev. Edward Small of Starlight Baptist Church.

“I think it’s real important. If you look around, it’s one of the landmark churches,” he said.

And the young man who once wondered why it did not seem to matter to his father whether he preached from a pulpit or from a park bench now is committed to keeping and rebuilding the church.

“Definitely, we’re not leaving,” Ivan Kennedy said. “It’s rebuildable, and I think we really need to be here. We can’t leave.”

Said his 77-year-old father, standing on the sidewalk outside the church on a recent weekday afternoon, “Anybody that comes along here, they can feel in the presence of God. I don’t like to go anywhere without God.”

And what about his son? What answers did Ivan Kennedy find in his long journey back to the small church home where he reunited with his father?

Is God real or did his father lose his mind?

“He’s real. He’s real,” the younger Kennedy said. “The same thing’s taken hold of me. I’ve lost my mind when it comes to the things of God. There are no boundaries.”

DEA END BRIGGS