c. 2004 Religion News Service

MAPLE HEIGHTS, Ohio _ Pastor Rainnell Vernon is not just trying to grow a church. He’s also trying to grow a city.

Less than four years after the ambitious young pastor was bounced from a Cleveland church for butting heads with more traditional leaders, the lively church he started in a suburban city-hall basement has fast become a spiritual magnet in Maple Heights.

And a commercial one.

Vernon leased and converted an old movie theater in Mapletown Plaza into The Word Church, which packs in thousands during four back-to-back services every Sunday.

And he took over neighboring storefronts in the Broadway Avenue strip shopping center, converting them into The Word Christian Bookstore, The Word Childcare Center, The Word Barber & Beauty Salon and even The Word Steak and Seafood takeout.

The businesses are a step toward Vernon’s vision of “Word City,” a 5,000-seat church on 50 acres, surrounded by a community center, senior housing, church schools and businesses. Vernon is asking his followers for extra donations, to kick off his drive to raise $8 million to $10 million for the project.

Like “megachurches” elsewhere, Word City would mix economic empowerment with religion by providing jobs, shopping and activities for members.

“Pastors are beginning to meet all the needs of the community, more than just the spiritual needs,” Vernon said. “All you need can be in one place.”

The goal is a lofty one for Vernon, 32, who grew up in the former Longwood Estates public housing complex in Cleveland. Some observers say he has a real chance to pull it off.

They point to his church’s exploding growth. His congregation has grown from the few hundred people who followed him when he left Cleveland’s Second Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in the fall of 2000 to as many as 6,000 today, by some estimates. Although that number cannot be verified, the 1,000-seat church is nearly full or overflowing for all four Sunday services. The shopping-center parking lot becomes so packed with the cars of worshippers that other merchants in the plaza fume.

The Rev. C. Jay Matthews, who has taught classes at Cleveland State University on the history of black churches, said the growth of The Word Church is stunning.

“It’s phenomenally out of the norm,” said Matthews, head of one of Cleveland’s largest churches, Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. “It is definitely one of the major, most impactful churches on people’s lives in Greater Cleveland.”

The demographic shifts in Maple Heights and its neighboring communities explain part of The Word’s growth. Many of the middle-class families who once packed Cleveland’s closest suburbs and filled the Catholic churches every weekend have been replaced by working-class families seeking a different style of church.

Vernon’s sermons about unemployment, drug and alcohol addictions, marital difficulties and troublemaking children appear to resonate with his membership. Matthews said Vernon generates an “excitement about God” that inspires his members to make changes in their lives.

In a recent service that bordered on a self-help session, Vernon urged his congregation to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of their decisions and pick friends carefully to avoid the “dumb, needy people” who are “stuck in neutral and resent you having plans.”

Tyrone Evans, 21, who joined the church a few months ago, said the sermons are about real issues. “It’s not just Bible verses,” Evans said. “It’s Bible verses and real life.”

Vernon said The Word is not affiliated with any national church, so it does not have to follow any group’s dictates.

The former movie house has a sound system, television cameras and two huge, wall-mounted television screens for a new kind of show. A band, with a keyboard, guitars, saxophone, drums and several singers, leads boisterous sing-alongs, belting out “The power of the Lord is here!” over ringing guitar chords and a thundering beat.

Vernon stalks the stage with his microphone, waving his arms and urging worshippers to take notes on the key points of his sermons. He is larger than life, literally, as his image flashes on the big screens.

Vernon says he knows all too well the difficulties faced by his followers. Although he avoided violence, he committed the same minor crimes many city youths do. He says he was turned to Christianity at age 15, when his uncle dragged him to church the morning after he was arrested for shoplifting.

After graduating from Cleveland State University and Moody Bible Institute, he became pastor of the Second Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland, where his energy hooked many old members and attracted new ones.

His energetic approach, however, bothered church leaders, leading to a bitter falling-out in September 2000. Vernon tried to fire the trustees, and the trustees locked him and his followers out of the church.

Vernon ultimately walked away with a few hundred followers and started services in the basement of Bedford Heights City Hall. Shortly thereafter, he started the $500,000 transformation of the Mapletown Theater, converting part of a screening room into a basketball court for youths and day-care patrons. He paid for the work with donations.

As the church has grown, Vernon and his business ventures have prospered. He lives with his wife and three children in a $350,000 home in Twinsburg. He estimates he has 70 employees at the nonprofit church, the for-profit Word in Action company that runs the storefront businesses and his own company, R.A. Vernon Ministries, through which he sells tapes of his preaching.

Vernon said that building a megachurch will be a challenge, but he and his members always should challenge themselves to improve.

“Yes, we’re taking some chances,” he said. “Maybe that’s what makes us different. We’re not just sitting back. We’re trying to help people and help the community.”

DEA/PH END ODONNELL