wfn.org | GOSPEL SINGER DONATES TO NCCCUSA

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

Gospel Singer Contributes to NCCCUSA
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
USA
Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC, 212-870-2227
Internet:  news@ncccusa.org

76NCC8/7/98   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GOSPEL SINGER CONTRIBUTES $250,000 TO NATIONAL 
COUNCIL OF CHURCHES BURNED CHURCHES FUND

 NEW YORK, August 7 ---- Gospel superstar Kirk 
Franklin, Gospo Centric and Interscope Records have 
announced that they will contribute a total of 
$250,000 to the National Council of Churches (NCC's) 
Burned Churches Fund in anticipation of the profits 
from Franklin's The Nu Nation Project album, set for 
release September 22, 1998.
 "We are grateful that Kirk Franklin and his 
record company are focusing attention on the 
continuing burning of churches and synagogues," said 
the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC General 
Secretary.  "As a gospel artist, his gift is 
especially fitting since many of the churches that 
have been burned are precisely the ones whose 
tradition gave birth to gospel music."
 "By the end of 1998, the NCC will have assisted 
in the restoration of 156 burned churches," Dr. 
Campbell reported.  "However, sadly, we know of at 
least 20 churches at the present moment trying to 
figure out how to rebuild.  Yet because church 
burnings are no longer in the national spotlight, it 
has been more difficult to raise money.  We want to 
assist as many burned churches as new contributions 
will allow, so this kind offer comes at a most 
opportune moment."
 "I was raised in the church," Mr. Franklin 
said.  "It is important that we support the churches 
and synagogues that have been burned or defaced.  I 
couldn't help but help. Those churches are part of 
me."
 Highlighting the new album is a song, "Lean On 
Me," written and produced by Franklin, which 
features him performing with U2's Bono, R. Kelly, 
Mary J. Blige, Crystal Lewis and his group, The 
Family.
 "This song will get the message of the Gospel 
to those people who have been turned off by this 
type of message in the past," Mr. Franklin said.
As an artist, musical mentor and producer, 
Franklin has achieved enormous success.  His self-
titled 1997 album from God's Property is the biggest 
selling gospel album in history and all his albums 
have been critical and commercial hits.
"We're reaching people with our message and at 
the same time Kirk and his fans are helping to 
restore houses of worship when they buy the album," 
commented Vicki Mack Lataillade, President of Gospo 
Centric.  "It's all about putting our message into 
action and doing the right thing."
-more-
76NCC8/7/98
GOSPEL SINGER/Page 2

 "There is no question that the spoken word, the 
minister's word, doesn't play the role with young 
people that artists do, especially musicians," Dr. 
Campbell said.  "Young people trust a man like Kirk.  
They trust his message.  So for someone like Kirk to 
say, `I'll give my resources to rebuild churches and 
communities,' that is a message of wholeness and 
hope.  It also says that when we see a wrong, we 
have to do what we can to right it." 
 The NCC brought the epidemic of hate-motivated 
church burnings to nationwide attention in June 1996 
when it brought pastors from 38 burned churches to 
Washington, D.C. where they met with President 
Clinton and the Secretaries of the Treasury and 
Justice Departments.
  In May 1996, the NCC initiated the Burned 
Churches Fund, which included Jewish, Muslim and 
Roman Catholic partners.
 Since 1996, the NCC has raised over $9 million 
in cash and $2.4 in material gifts to restore burned 
churches and has awarded nearly $7 million in cash 
grants for reconstruction.  The NCC has coordinated 
volunteer labor for more than 70 churches and has 
facilitated the use of material gifts including 
lumber, modular units and musical organs.
$1.25 million has gone toward racial justice 
and reconciliation work, including support for 
specific initiatives throughout the country.  For 
example, the NCC has provided funding for a Kentucky 
Council of Churches program to monitor hate groups 
in that state and to work with local ministerial 
associations on community education and dialogue, 
has supported a national effort by the Center for 
Constitutional Rights to monitor cases of police 
brutality in communities of color and has produced 
two one-hour documentaries through the Interfaith 
Broadcasting Commission that look at race in 
religion and in media.  Those documentaries will air 
on NBC and ABC in the fall.

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