Chapter 28

True Vine Missionary Baptist Church

The members of True Vine Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland know the awesome power of an earthquake. The October, 1989, killer quake that wreaked havoc in the San Francisco Bay area leveled the double-decker freeway that ran just east of the modest cream-colored stucco church. Before the quake, True Vine was hidden from sight by the freeway. But when the earthquake flattened the double-decker highway, the church came into prominence.

   True Vine members also know the awesome power of the Holy Spirit. They have seen it transform a neighborhood violently ruled and shaken by drug dealers. That potency, too, has brought the church into new prominence.

   True Vine faithful, led by Sallie Carey, church evangelism director and the pastor's wife, drove the pushers out of the 750-unit Acorn Housing Project after praying, fasting, and marching around it seven times. Their bold act imitated the trumpet-blowing Israelites who circled the city of Jericho before its walls tumbled.

   "The walls of Jericho didn't fall down because the Israelites marched,"

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explained Pastor Newton Carey, Jr. "They fell because the people believed."

   There are a lot of true believers at True Vine. That's the secret of the church's success. In fact, the church has been so successful that the congregation had to postpone a "Here's Hope" revival in 1990! Advance outreach had already brought in 1,250 new converts, overflowing the small sanctuary for the two Sunday morning worship services and the one on Friday night.1

   True Vine is an example of what can happen in an inner-city ministry when a congregation catches on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit.

   "The 21st-century way of winning souls is the first-century way — Jesus' way," exclaims Pastor Carey.2

   The story of this black congregation isn't a Cinderella saga of megachurch proportions — that's why it's such an attractive, hopeful, "copyable" model for the coming millennium. It's a success story for "Any Church, U.S.A." But let some black believers tell you in their own words.

Testimony Time

   A typical testimony goes like this:

My sister has been coming to True Vine for a while, and she's always telling me I ought to come to church. I told her I didn't like going to church because people are more concerned with the clothes you have on than what you're supposed to be in church for. And then the preacher is always talking about stuff that ain't got no bearing on my life right now. I don't even have no Bible, and I don't understand what it's saying anyhow.

   But my sister kept telling me that if I come to True Vine, I could wear whatever I want and nobody was going to say nothing to me about it. And she said this preacher talks about the Lord in a way that makes you feel like he's some kind of personal friend who really listens to you. And then she gave me this Here's Hope New Testament Bible that was easy to read.3

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Well I still wasn't too enthused about True Vine, but I noticed how since she's been coming here, my sister has changed. Every time I see her, she's talking about how the Lord has blessed her and how he can do the same for me. Even when she got laid off her job she was walking around talking about "praise the Lord." When I asked her why she was praising while she was out of work, didn't have no car and no money, she kept saying something about how the Lord would supply all her needs. And all the while she seemed like she was, you know, happy!

   Now I know my sister doesn't use drugs, at least I don't believe she does, but she's, like, high all the time. When I asked her what kind of substance she had got hold of, she said "the Holy Ghost." That's when I knew it was time to come check out the True Vine.

   See, my life ain't going that great either, but I sure ain't happy about it. I've had problems with drugs and family life, and none of my relationships ever seem to work out. So I figured I'd just come and see what was going on at this church and if I can get some of this joy my sister talks about all the time.

   I realize now that what is missing from my life is Jesus. And the way the preacher talked about him this morning, I know it's time for me to invite him in my life and get to know him for myself.4

   This is the best part of a Sunday service, some True Viners say. It comes after the sermon, when folks of "any given racial, economic, and social persuasion step forward to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior," explains member Denise Williams. "Each new believer is given the opportunity to testify before the congregation about how he or she made that crucial, life-changing decision."

   The commitment to witnessing is emphasized in everything they do, she continues, "from prayer meetings to Bible study classes to door-to-door witnessing to our Continuing Witness Training program."5

   That's why True Vine added more than 300 new members in 1990,

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bringing the total on the rolls to 1,200. It isn't a buppie congregation, though the Careys estimate that 95 percent of True Vine members are under fifty.

   The explosion really began with a training and sending program for members who go door-to-door throughout the neighborhoods one Saturday a month. They hand out free copies of the specially marked Here's Hope New Testaments and offer to point out some key salvation passages. In 1990, after True Vine had exhausted its supply of 12,000 marked testaments, their denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, sent them another 10,000 copies.

Why True Vine Abides

   True Vine got its start when Isaiah Liggins began holding home meetings in West Oakland in 1962. Soon, a small, storefront-type congregation was established. Newton and Sallie Carey came in 1974. With their easy-going style and affable sincerity, they were well-liked from the beginning. But the small, ordinary church remained small and ordinary. For years, it was just one of hundreds of Oakland-area congregations and one of sixteen black Southern Baptist churches in Oakland.

   In 1975, Sallie Carey began faithfully leading a team that witnessed in the county prison twice a month. And an early spark was touched off in 1979 by Cheryl Burwell, a woman from Los Angeles who joined True Vine and taught 20 weeks of evangelism and discipleship training.

   But it was the heartbreak of seeing the drug dealers, crime and poverty in the church's "backyard" that got to Newton and Sallie. As the urban jungle spread, single mothers with two or more children and living on public assistance were increasingly victimized at the Acorn Housing Project. A security guard was killed and several people were injured in a long string of drug-related incidents.

   "You could see Al Capone all over again just by looking out the window," Newton told Cameron Crabtree of the California Southern Baptist newspaper. Still Carey felt frustrated because he didn't know how to help hurting people.6

   The change came when Carey went off to the Santa Cruz mountains alone and agonized with God over the problem. There,

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he "discovered how to really pray." When he returned a few days later, Carey started spending an hour a day in prayer and fasting one day a week.

   "It wasn't nothing I did, really," the father of four grown children told me. (The Careys' son, Zachary is True Vine's youth pastor.) "The Holy Spirit was able to come in and use us. It was praying and receiving the power of the Spirit-filled life." The Careys feel the Christian church has failed to teach that vital step: "The Holy Spirit is the power the church needs to get the job done for Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit — that was the ultimate change."7

   Now, other pastors are knocking on the Careys' door, asking what they are doing differently. Area churches are using True Vine-produced teaching materials. Folks from as far away as Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Salinas, and San Jose come to True Vine's "God, Help Me Stop!" addiction-busting classes on Monday nights.

   Soon after Newton's mountain experience, the Careys organized a core of concerned members who steadfastly fasted and prayed about the drug-infested neighborhood. And then Sallie led the small band around Acorn seven times. They prayed on their knees at every corner. They asked God to give them the territory and drive out drug dealers from where the police wouldn't go.

   The pushers split. The drug trade broke up. And amazingly, the church hasn't been hit with vandalism or reprisals.

   "God shows us how to get power to pull down strongholds," says Denise Williams.8

   Next, True Vine held a huge block party for Acorn residents, laying on the church's famous spread: barbecued chicken, potato salad, and baked beans.

   "We're strong on food, fellowship, and hugging," laughs Sallie, who's apt to tell a perfect stranger on the phone, "I don't know you, but I love you," and convince the caller that, as a sister in Christ, she sincerely means it.

   Adds Newton: "We don't go to people with junk; we treat 'em like kings and queens."

   People at Acorn apparently liked more than the chicken and potato salad because they started coming to True Vine. Now, the church holds children's classes in the Acorn project three times a week.

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   Newton drove my wife and me past an abundance of small churches in the general area. All appeared to be barricaded behind high fences and locked gates on that weekday.

   "Those ones aren't concerned about the hurting people," Carey said. "They minister to their own kind only. But Jesus' church shouldn't do that."

   By contrast, True Vine was open and a stream of people came and went for counseling, appointments, meetings — or just to pop in and say "howdy" to Newton, Sallie, and other True Vine leaders.

   "We go out and get the down-and-out, the hungry, the poor, and the sick, those on drugs, in jails, those that have demons," Carey declared. People are excited about it."

   True Vine is also "reclaiming for Christ" housing projects at Campbell Village and Kirkland Court. Each witnessing and teaching venture is undertaken with the permission of the local housing authorities. And True Vine has good connections with area detox and treatment programs for persons who need professional help.

"Adopt-A-Block" Busters

   Similar reclamation tactics have worked elsewhere, too. In Ravendale, home to 4,000 mostly black and poor people in Detroit's inner city, the Joy of Jesus ministry joined forces with a small, stubborn group of people trying to reclaim their neighborhood from crack dealers. Links to the business and church communities helped Eddie Edwards's nondenominational Joy of Jesus organize twenty-three of Ravendale's thirty-eight blocks. The pride of residents is vastly improved and crime has been drastically cut.

   Together, residents and Joy of Jesus

   Edwards's latest project is "Adopt-A-Block," a plan for suburban

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congregations to match up with each of Ravendale's blocks, providing material, human, and spiritual help.9

   Newton Carey would like to add more of that dimension to True Vine's outreach. At the end of 1990 he was eyeing a large building a few blocks from the church. It would provide meeting space for 1,200 and become a "trade center" where job training, such as computer skills, could be taught to young people to help them break out of the poverty cycle.

   But True Vine needed to come up with $300,000 to close the $1.4 million deal, and cash was one thing Carey didn't have.

Visitation Teams

   Probably the most vital portion of True Vine's evangelism is its street witnessing. On the fourth Saturday of the month, trained True Viners meet at 9:30 A.M. for prayer and Scripture reading. Then they form teams of three or four and spend several hours walking the neighborhoods and calling in homes.

   "There's no better job than being out there on the streets," Carey said with a chuckle. "Most of what Jesus did was outside."

   Receptive people are given a Here's Hope testament and prayed for on the spot. Southern Baptist Home Mission Board materials are also used, such as the tract, "Do You Know for Certain That You Have Eternal Life and That You Will Go to Heaven When You Die?"

   The neighborhood thrust has built the church and won more than a thousand converts to Christ. True Vine street teams are so turned on that now they occasionally travel hundreds of miles on a weekend to do witnessing with churches in other cities.

   "We went door-to-door witnessing in Bakersfield last weekend," reported deacon Elijah Onick. "The Holy Spirit just kept opening up the door" when people seemed resistant, he told us. "We shared verses from Here's Hope with them and 205 accepted the Lord. Most had never made a commitment before."

   How many church members are able or willing to do this kind of evangelism, even occasionally — let alone on a regular basis? The mission efforts of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons pay big dividends. True Vine's experience shows that Bible-toting and quoting

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Christians from a modest inner-city church can do the same without fancy degrees or years of preparation.

Fruit of the Vine

   To train disciples to witness to hopeless, hurting, and dying people they first have to abide in the True Vine, which is Jesus, Carey says. So that is his main emphasis. An avid reader (about a book a day, he says) and a bold preacher, Carey covers such topics in his sermons as marriage, family, child-rearing, jealousy, and control of the mind through the power of God. "We stop performing and get down to the real world," he explains. Worship services include twenty to thirty minutes of "exalting the Savior." His teaching "puts the Gospel into people's life-styles." And so do the programs his church offers.

   In the hall just outside the main doors to the sanctuary is a large chart where True Vine classes are listed in longhand:

God, Help Me Stop!

Bible Study

Prison Ministry

New Members

Prayer

Knowing Jesus

Assurance of Salvation

The Christian and Stewardship

Survival Kit I

Survival Kit II

Youth Survival Kit

Every Single Won

Bible Characters

Master Characters

MasterLife

Great Truths of the Bible

Through the Bible in One Year — Genesis to Revelation

Acorn Ministry Study

Continuing Witnessing Training

Lay Evangelism School

Training Faithful Men

Training Faithful Women

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   The fourteen-week "God, Help Me Stop!" class on addictions and compulsions is probably True Vine's most innovative program. Led by Don Sutton, who heads the Oakland Crack Task Force, it is based on a twelve-step program. At the time we talked to Sutton, the course was being taught in eight area churches and at a cocaine recovery house for women as well as at True Vine.

   "Having family problems? Can't stop gambling? Sexual compulsion? Can't communicate with your children? Compulsive overspender? Can't stop lying? Are you an addict? An alcoholic? Do you love someone who has any of these problems?

   "If you can't stop, then we have a class for you!" advertises a handout.

   The curriculum has been compiled into a book, God, Help Me Stop: Break Free From Addiction and Compulsion.10

   Once people stop their addictive behavior, Carey's church gets them started in a whole new direction.

   True Vine is a millennial model to watch closely.

Chapter Twenty-nine  ||  Table of Contents