wfn.org | Peoria Church Undaunted by Vandals

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3177 notes).

Note 3175 by UMNS on Sept. 18, 1996 at 15:47 Eastern (3594 characters).

SEARCH: vandalism, Shalom Zone, Peoria, United Methodist, Madison
Avenue
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Ralph E. Baker                461(10-21-31-34-71B){3175}
          Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470           Sept. 18, 1996

Vandals fail to discourage Peoria
congregation's Shalom Zone ministries

                 by United Methodist News Service

     For the ninth time a Peoria (Ill.) United Methodist Church
was the target of vandals who ripped a banner from the church wall
and painted graffiti on another wall during the night of Aug. 21.
     The banner, ripped from the side of the Madison Avenue United
Methodist Church, proclaimed the building as the site of a "Shalom
Zone." "Seek the peace. Help rebuild our neighborhood," it urged.
     In large letters on another wall, the vandals wrote, "This
church sucks."  In the same incident, windows were broken out of
the pastor's van, and the next day the church and the minister's
family received threatening telephone calls.
     According to the Peoria Journal Star, church trustee Howard
Gossmeyer thinks it is the gangs. "They don't want their drug
dealing taken away [by the Shalom Zone]."
     Ron Smith, coordinator of the Shalom Zone program, told the
paper that the vandals "obviously feel threatened. All we're
trying to do is make the streets safe again."
     Shalom Zones were authorized by the 1992 United Methodist
General Conference in response to the Los Angeles riots after the
beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. The Madison Avenue
church became involved in the program about a year ago.
     Soon the church will open a youth center where young people
will have a safe place to meet weekly.  It provides the only
Native American Fellowship in the annual conference.
     "The acts of vandalism and harassment the church and its
pastoral family have had to endure seem to rise from the same kind
of burning hatred and rage that sparked church fires elsewhere in
the nation," said the Rev. Robert Morwell, pastor of Peoria's
Bethel United Methodist Church, a nearby predominately African-
American congregation.
     A couple of days after the church was vandalized, a member of
the "Disciple" gang contacted Gossmeyer to assure him the
Disciples were not involved in the vandalism, and that they would
patrol the area. Rather than regarding the offer as "the fox
guarding the hen house," the Rev. William Lakota Eastin, the
church's pastor, said, "I prefer to think of it as a positive
response to some things we are doing."
     In an interview Lakota Eastin admitted, "It has been a
stressful week. It is frightening when someone is attacking you
personally; but this will not deter our ministry," he declared.
"In fact it gives us more energy to pursue it."
     Madison Avenue Church was the scene Sept. 13 of a peace
march, a potluck meal, and the rehanging and rededication of the
shalom banner in the same spot where it was torn down.
     Illinois Area Bishop Sharon A. Brown Christopher said, "The
temptation is to fall either into anger or fear. Yet God calls us
to be faithful. I give thanks to God for Madison Avenue Church and
its decision to stand for God's love and justice in the community
where they live and work."
                              #  #  #

NOTE: Information for this story came from an article by Bettie W.
Story in The Current, publication of the Illinois Great Rivers
Annual Conference. 

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