c. 2005 Religion News Service

ELIZABETH, N.J. _ From his unusual pulpit _ a wire-mesh piece of art with empty bottles, designed to reflect urban poverty _ the Rev. Juan Galloway looks out on dozens of people who are HIV-positive, homeless or recovering drug addicts.

The audience is seated around 10 cafe tables in a room with garage-type doors open to an industrial part of Elizabeth near railroad tracks.

They listen intently to Galloway, a 34-year-old white man with dreadlocks, as he tells them they have important roles to play as evangelists.

God, Galloway preaches, “has planted you in the apartment where you’re at, the house you live in, the bridge you live under, the abandoned building, the car. He’s put you there, a strategic representative of the kingdom of God.

“And so you are actually supposed to help the other people. You’re like, `How can I help anybody, I’m a mess?’ Guess what? He wants to use you right now. Don’t think you have to wait until you know every verse of the Bible.”

It is Sunday evening, and the 70 people present nod and shout out their approval to the man who started what has become a neighborhood Christian church _ called CityTribe _ for people unaccustomed to churchgoing.

“They’re not like other churches trying to judge people. It’s `come as you are,”’ says Carlin Diaz, 18, who says he was once shot in the leg over a drug deal.

Every Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m., CityTribe _ affiliated with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a charismatic Protestant denomination _ holds a service in the Hope Center building on East Broad Street in Elizabeth.

The Hope Center, a nonprofit organization that runs a food pantry and a relief van, helps people with drug problems and other issues.

Parishioners here are people who have had troubled lives but for whom the church has become something positive.

“They helped me out a lot _ emotionally, physically,” says Linda Kuczynski, who is in her 40s. “I’d lost my job, I lost my home, I was living in the streets. I lost my faith. I lost almost everything. When I slit my wrist, they made me go to the hospital. They’re there for me. They’ll help you along if there’s a need.”

Galloway, who grew up in Oklahoma, started CityTribe two years ago. A graduate of Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, he is licensed to minister in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. After working with gang members in Texas and then for five years as a youth pastor in Hackettstown, N.J., he decided he wanted to help poor people in Elizabeth.

The people who attend services say they love the church and they view other attendees as family. But those feelings can take time to set in.

A 28-year-old man named Gene, who declines to give his last name but says he was a drug dealer involved in violence two years ago, says the first time he walked into the church, in March 2004 with his girlfriend, he saw old customers and wondered if he could still sell to them. He actually prayed to God to end the service quickly so he could make a previously planned drug deal on a nearby street, he recalls.

It was weeks later, after his girlfriend regained custody of their two children and he learned he would have been killed at the drug deal that night, that he became a believer and regular church attendee, he says.

“I said, you know what? Lemme try that church thing out for a month to see how it goes … ; from that point on, it’s been glorious,” Gene says.

Now he has a full-time job at a furniture store, he says.

“Some of my friends that I used to run around with _ do bad with _ I started trying to take them to church with me, telling them how God is good, and how God changed my life … . They’d always said I was the guy who would never change, because I was the ringleader of everything that went on around here. I try to take them to my path where I am right now.”

Galloway says he doesn’t equate mere attendance at his church, or performance of ritual, with a spiritual transformation. Indeed, on a recent Saturday, before he leads a group of 30 people into the Atlantic Ocean at a beach on Sandy Hook, he tells them their upcoming baptisms, which Christians view as spiritual purification and wiping away of sin, are but single steps in their lives as Christians.

“This isn’t going to solve your sin problem,” he says. “You’re just wiping out the past. It’s a clean slate … . Your crew, your posse, your family on the street, they’re no more. This is your family now.

“I’m going to see you a year from now, and I’ll (either) be, `Hey, you’re doing a good job!’ Or it’ll be, `Hey, I thought you gave your life to Jesus!”’

The baptisms enthrall those who are dipped under the cold waves and come up to applause from others on a sandbar, while evening sunbeams shining through gray clouds add a mystical touch.

“That’s the best thing I ever did in my life that I did right there,” says Diaz, who, after emerging from the water, raises his arms like a boxer just told he won a split decision. “That’s a new life. You start all over again.”

CityTribe runs on a tiny budget. Galloway, who works during the day at the Hope Center, and Paul and Karen Yuschak, who are also licensed with the Foursquare Gospel church, receive no salary and donate money for many of the church’s expenses from their own pockets.

“Last year, we took in $12,000, and we spent $12,000,” Galloway says.

Services begin with music. Galloway leads the group in song _ “You Know I’m all about Jesus” and “Oh Lord, I Hear Your Call, and I Will Obey” _ on an acoustic guitar hooked up to a sound system. Then comes preaching. Galloway tells a story of “the pimp and the preacher,” about a pompous preacher and a repentant pimp, the message being that God favored the pimp’s humility.

“It doesn’t matter wherever you’re at, God loves you,” Galloway says. “And all he’s looking for is a heart that’s humble.”

There is more to it than humility, Galloway acknowledges in an interview. The 12-step programs that many parishioners are involved in with the Hope Center require them to try to make amends with people they have wronged. Yet Galloway tries not to judge his parishioners.

“I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life,” he says. “I’ve never gotten drunk. I’ve never drank any alcohol, I’ve never gone to jail, I’ve never been arrested for a crime. In many ways I can’t relate at all. I’ve never been abused.

“But when I look out there, I just see people who’re just like me. By the grace of God, I’m where I’m at. For some reason, God had mercy on my life, gave me a good family, a good situation, but if they’d grown up in my family, they would’ve been blessed.

“But for God’s grace, I would’ve grown up in Elizabeth with no dad and a mom on crack.”

MO/RB END RNS

(Jeff Diamant covers religion for the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for five photos,including an ocean baptism shot, depicting CityTribe Church and its members.