THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210204
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 130 lines
It's a bitter cold Saturday morning, the kind of day that makes most people burrow under the quilts a little longer.
But the two parking lots are starting to fill up at Grove Baptist Church in Churchland.
The choir is rehearsing a jazzy, foot-tapping hymn, and tutors are helping children get ahead in their schoolwork.
Eight men have taken their places in a room where they will mentor a group of boys who have shown up for a Rites of Passage meeting.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Melvin O. Marriner, is the man overseeing this hub of activity.
He stands in the hallway near a painting of a small white building with smoke pouring out of its chimney.
It was the first home of Grove Baptist - the place in 1840 where a large group of African-American slaves and farm workers met after leaving the predominantly white church across the road.
Today's 1,000-plus members still think about that past. But they think a whole lot more about the future.
Tonight, Marriner, 34, will receive Old Dominion University's Martin Luther King Award for helping the church and surrounding community see his vision for that future.
Seven years after Marriner's arrival at Grove Baptist, the 157-year-old church is bursting at the seams.
Membership has grown from about 120 to 1,200. The church is about to break ground on a $2.5 million building project, which includes a new sanctuary and education building.
There's no question extra space is needed.
More than 400 worshipers attend the 8 a.m. service. About 500 attend the 11 a.m. service. The choir loft won't hold the whole 72-member choir at one time.
Folding chairs are positioned in the aisles on Sundays.
``If you are not here early enough, you won't get a seat,'' Marriner said.
The church raised $150,000 in one quarter for the building project, with money coming from non-members as well as members.
``Money is coming from everywhere,'' Marriner said. ``If you present a vision, people will usually follow it.''
It doesn't hurt when that vision already is taking shape.
Marriner's vision is a church that reaches out to the community and helps each family and individual socially and economically, as well as spiritually.
The church has started an investment club to pool money into less-risky stocks.
Two homes have been purchased in a nearby neighborhood, and the church is looking for more.
Men in the church are using their skills to improve the homes so that they can be rented to families who want to own a home.
``The concept is that they will live there for 11 months and pay us rent,'' Marriner said. ``At the end of 11 months, we give them 30 days to look for a house, and the money is returned to them as a downpayment. It's not about making a profit. The only profit we want to make . . . is seeing people whole, see people doing well and more people owning rather than always renting.''
The church has a Second Chance program for recovering drug users and a support group for battered women.
There's talk of a Christian jazz club to give people an alternative to smoke-filled gathering places that sell alcohol.
Marriner is especially proud of his youth programs.
``I can't tell you how many young people we have,'' Marriner said. ``It's countless.''
There's a youth acting guild and a youth choir, which incorporates rap into its ministry.
There is also a strong focus on pushing academic success.
In the summer, the church hires a teacher and older students to teach in a full-day enrichment program that offers everything from math and Spanish to cultural field trips.
There are weekly Save the Seed meetings for young girls and Rites of Passage meetings for boys.
The girls might hear from a young teen-aged mother who tells how a baby changed her life and boys hear from former inmates who tell what prison was like and how drug use led them down that road.
Marriner, who is married and has three young sons, is also concerned about family and marital relationships.
He explains how he is trying to teach the men to be more demonstrative, less afraid to show their affection.
It's one of the things that impressed Maggi Curry-Williams after she joined the church.
``What he does when he's talking to men is to tell them it is OK to cry, it is OK to hug each other, to try to break down some of the barriers in communication,'' she said. ``I think a lot of our problems in relationships have to do with that.''
The men are learning well. They are holding a Valentine's Day dinner for their wives next month to ``celebrate their love.''
Curry-Williams, associate dean of students at ODU, is one of two people who nominated Marriner for the university's award.
She heard about Marriner and his church's work before joining a year ago. She has not been disappointed, calling the church's ministry one that enhances ``the everyday lives of people of all ages and all walks of life.''
Curry-Williams said she felt like Marriner was a good candidate for the Martin Luther King award for those programs and for his willingness to take stands on issues that affect the city.
A year ago, Marriner called church leaders and congregations to come together at the city's Christmas tree to pray for peace and an end to violence in Portsmouth.
There was no finger-pointing or resulting citywide program or organization - just prayer.
``I think that event in itself did not have to be a continuing thing to have its value,'' said the Rev. Clint Hopkins, pastor of Churchland Baptist. ``It got a lot of attention and increased sensitivity.''
A 1979 graduate of Western Branch High School, Marriner was a senior at Norfolk State University when his own struggles with his place in the world started to look bleak to him.
``It was very difficult at that time for me, being an African-American male,'' he said. ``I had seen some things, trying to get out in the job market.''
Marriner said he had strong role models in his father and grandfather.
He was struggling with his self-esteem about the same time his grandfather was dying.
``He was a strong African-American male, and I figured if I truly loved him, I needed to change my own life and make a difference,'' he said.
Marriner found himself again when he turned to the church he had grown up in, a small congregation called Little Zion Baptist Church in the Bowers Hill area of Chesapeake.
The church, he said, really talked to young people ``on our level. It did not use negatives to embrace us.''
Marriner wants his own church to speak to young people in the same way.
Little Zion also taught him that the church ``has to deal with every issue that affects our lives,'' he said.
That's another lesson he's passing on.
``I'm proud that the church has a vision to really help make people whole.'' ILLUSTRATION: Coor photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Dr. Melvin Marriner, 34, received Old Dominion University's Martin
Luther King Award for his work at Grove Baptist Church.
KEYWORDS: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. AWARD