In Jesus' Name

It was so sad, yet so unsurprising.

Several members of the Azusa Christian Community in Boston had gathered on the corner of School and Washington Streets to pray for Robert Smith, better known as "Man," who was shot a few nights before on that same corner. While we were gathering to pray, a fight broke out up the street. Two women were determined to break a bottle over the head of a man and maybe the woman he was with, too. Several of our group ran over to intervene. The police were called. They arrived after the fighters had already left.

No one in the group knew why those women and the man were fighting, cursing, screaming, and willing to tear off their clothes in the freezing weather and snow. That kind of rage and anger -- the kind that disappears as quickly as it erupts -- is dangerous. It requires a healing that secular institutions and good works alone cannot offer.

So our little group prayed. We prayed for "Man," for the spiritual salvation of the people fighting, and for the collective soul of our black community.

The Azusa Christian Community is an intentional community of black men, women, and children who are committed to the complete renewal -- spiritually, culturally, intellectually, and politically -- of the black poor people in inner-city Boston. The members of Azusa -- most of whom were educated at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and other elite academic institutions -- choose to live among the black poor in the Four Corners and Codman Square neighborhoods in North Dorchester. While holding down full-time jobs to support themselves and their families, or while struggling through graduate school, the members of Azusa still find time to act as surrogate parents for an ever-expanding army of angry, emotionally unstable young black people.

Given the deteriorating circumstances of the black poor and the alienation between urban black youth and older mainstream black leadership -- especially within the black church -- it is a particularly thorny proposition to inspire young black people to seek justice in Jesus and in the Bible. But such is the task and calling of Azusa.

Named after Los Angeles' Azusa Street, where the first black Pentecostal church was located in the early 1900s and where the first pentecostal explosion in the United States was sparked during a revival preached by William J. Seymour in 1905, Azusa takes its call seriously. It is a daily challenge that may find some of its members in court, in public schools, and in the streets, bearing witness to the fact that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12).

AZUSA'S CALLING IS TO bridge three worlds: the biblical, the political-economic, and the cultural. The Dorchester Uhuru Project is the formal name given to Azusa's street ministry. Based on aspects found in the Christian-led Southern Freedom Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Mississippi Freedom Summer project, the Uhuru Project is a multifaceted campaign designed to organize citizens around those issues most critical to their everyday lives -- health care, public safety and crime, education, employment, and adequate housing.

Azusa seeks to empower black youth by first attempting to instill discipline and Christian values in them. "Our vision over the next five years is to evangelize 1,000 young blacks," states Azusa pastor and founder Eugene Rivers. "We are working to develop a new movement -- new organizational models and forms of evangelism that are explicitly Afrocentric."

The point person for outreach on the streets, Eugene states bluntly, "Virtually all churches fail to impact the urban black male ages 18 to 35. That's who we are specifically targeting for evangelizing."

Azusa's concentration on outreach to poor black men is based on the fact that they are in the most trouble in the black community all over the United States. It is black men who are murdered in highest numbers, incarcerated in highest numbers, have the lowest life expectancy of any group in the country. "It was the poor black mothers, sisters, and daughters of black men that encouraged us to go organize among the black males," Rivers said.

Perhaps, but pain does not discriminate, especially in the inner city. "There's a lot of woundedness around the issue of gender on all sides in the black community," according to Jacqueline Rivers, an elder in Azusa. Jacqueline is director of the Boston office of the Algebra Project, a national organization that focuses on making algebra easier for inner-city middle school students to understand. "For a lot of black women, it's an experience that doesn't permit you to be what is your concept of a woman, because you must be man and woman at the same time."

Twenty-one-year-old Sophilia Robinson lives in Mattapan. She has a 2-year-old son, Marquis, and reflects the tension between being black and female in the inner city. "I've seen you all [Azusa] working with the boys because they need the most help. They're the ones out on the corner, selling, shooting, and doing all that.

"But the girls need just as much help," Sophilia continued. "Teenage girls need to know not to have children now; they need to know to go to school. For those single mothers who do have kids, there should be some kind of workshops. You can get stressed out by having so many responsibilities. Some sort of program to help them find jobs, to get them off welfare, to make them want to finish school and do something for themselves."

Michelle Shaw, a Harvard-trained lawyer, left a high-paying job downtown to work in a small law firm located across the street from Dorchester Municipal Court in Four Corners. She has spent considerable time, energy, and expense at "being there" for several 15-year-old girls from nearby Jamaica Plain -- Sherell Johnson, Kendra Johnson, and Latara Green. For instance, Michelle attended the girls' graduations from middle school this summer -- in some instances, standing in for a parent or other relative who could not come. With the breakdown of the traditional family, increasing violence in the schools, drugs, rising numbers of teenage AIDS cases among blacks, and a blatantly sexually permissive culture, it is imperative that Christians step in to help parent this generation of black children.

Another aspect of Azusa's work is the Community Youth Technical Exchange Program (CYTE). A summer program in its third year, CYTE is run by Alan Shaw, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science and media technology at MIT and head of his own company, Imani Information Systems. CYTE teaches neighborhood youth how to fix basic electrical appliances and offer their services to the residents of Four Corners for a small fee. Also taught through CYTE are how to use computers, electronic troubleshooting, and graphic design.

The youths make a set of business cards for themselves, set goals for themselves, and work on following through on their commitments to the neighborhood. Individual initiative and achievement, neighborhood economic clout, a skill, and confidence in one's ability are just a few of the values learned through CYTE -- values necessary for the survival of any at-risk community in the country. Many of the computers are donated by various groups, and the city of Boston has given CYTE funds to help keep the project going.

THE DORCHESTER municipal court, the busiest in the city, is located in Four Corners. Every weekday morning, from the time it opens until its doors close, the courthouse bustles with young black and Puerto Rican men waiting for their turn to appear before the judge.

"Too many of our young people are in prison. As Christians we can't give up on them," says Eva Thorne, a graduate student in political science at MIT. Eva is involved with Azusa's Youth Advocacy Project, which tracks at-risk youth in close consultation with probation officers, lawyers, and judges. "For the gospel to be truly life-transforming and powerful, it should be able to reach the most despised among us," says Eva.

The growing number of young black men who have dropped out and remain unemployed provides ample evidence of the education system's failure. And many of the teenage women one sees walking along the streets have small children in tow -- their fathers in jail, in the hospital, on the run, or dead.

Can you imagine death without the assurance that being a Christian brings? Death comes at an early age for too many black young people today. And Four Corners is no different.

This thought occurred to me as I sat outside the chapel of a funeral home in Mattapan on a cold rainy evening. I was at a wake, with several other community members, for a man I had never met. Only 36, he had died of AIDS. I knew his two nephews, "Y-Dawg" and "B-Boy." Both have shared space on my living room floor. It is a poignant and scary realization that even the most hardened black youth can be tamed by death's shadow, something always expected but never quite prepared for.

Take Y-Dawg for example. Y-Dawg is the handsome, powerfully built, 22-year-old father of a 3-year-old son. He is talented, street-smart, and very angry. He dropped out of high school after the 10th grade. The mother of his son, once his passion, is now a thorn in his side, constantly trying to find reasons to send Y-Dawg to jail.

At 16, Y-Dawg was shot and nearly paralyzed. He is quite familiar with Boston's jails and is a survivor of the drug trade that lured him away from school with its promise of quick, easy money. Having completed a work-study construction program secured for him by members of Azusa, Y-Dawg was trying to do the right thing. But it is hard work, especially when you think your past is safely behind, and then the streets come calling.

One night, in front of the apartment building where he used to live with Azusa member Mark Scott, Y-Dawg was robbed at gunpoint by two men and a woman. A few days later, he ran into one of the men on the street. They fought, and the man threatened to come find Y-Dawg because he knew where he lived.

Y-Dawg went home and walked by me to the hall closet. He dug underneath a pile of dirty clothes and pulled out a shoe box. Inside the shoe box was a fully loaded .357 Magnum pistol. Y-Dawg had no intention of waiting for death. If it were to come, it would be on his terms.

Death came but in an unexpected manner. Just as Y-Dawg was putting the gun into his waistband, the phone rang. It was B-Boy. His father, Y-Dawg's other uncle, who had been suffering with drug-related AIDS, had just died.

Y-Dawg crumpled. Unable or unwilling to fathom the fact that God's grace had just intervened and possibly saved his life, Y-Dawg left to go to his uncle's home and be with his family.

I called Jackie Rivers to pray. We thanked the Lord for getting Y-Dawg out of the neighborhood for at least that night. Then we prayed for his uncle's family, for peace to overcome the grief. Y-Dawg became hooked on heroin, entered and left a detox program because "it was too hard," and is currently living with his girlfriend who is pregnant with his second child.

LIVING IN THE INNER CITY is a pain sometimes. Like when my family's car and Michelle and Alan's car were hit by half a dozen bullets during a drive-by shooting. But we at Azusa are integration's success stories. Most of us have undergraduate degrees, have or are completing master's or doctoral degrees. Our income or income potential is excellent. We are, if you will, the "house Negroes," sharing space on the same plantation with the "field Negroes."

The culture of Harvard and MIT fosters an exclusivity that is not easily broken. Being black is not necessarily an advantage in trying to evangelize among the poor and disadvantaged -- when you are neither, and when you may sound different, look different, and have no concrete or intuitive feel for the rhythms of hardcore black life, or street life in general. As Azusa begins to expand and perhaps take on a working-class flavor, a clash of two cultures is imminent.

How Azusa prepares for this future is critical as new leadership is groomed to handle its urban ministry. Ultimately, the true test of discipleship, as lived in the context of community, is the challenge to young, gifted, and educated black men and women -- like the people in Azusa -- to communicate with their less educated, less stable black peers.

"Approach means everything to people who live different from the people in Azusa," says Anna Young, a community member since 1990 and an invoice clerk at Boston's Children's Hospital. The people we are trying to reach will turn everyone else off on us if we don't approach them correctly." Young sees her role in the community as being a credible bridge between the worlds of Harvard and MIT and the people whose world is defined by the streets. "[Azusa] can not be seen as poverty pimps," says Young.

"I think one of the most significant components of the education I received here, in the fellowship, has been around the issue of class," Jacqueline Rivers said. "I think we can become one with the poor. But I think we have a long way to go. We have to rely heavily on the Spirit of God and God's ability to love through us, guide us, and to correct us in everything we do. God's ability to transform is the key. We've had a lot of time to work that out, just among ourselves. We've had personality issues just among ourselves that obviously have a bearing on how we'll relate to people outside."

There is a consensus in the community that the estrangement between black elites and the black poor can best be resolved through relationships. Eva Clarke, a former elder in the church, says, "As a woman, I have a different focus in dealing with class issues than the men. I think with women there's some common ground that we can capitalize on -- especially regarding children.

"Women want something better for their children. So that's a bond. After three years of living in this neighborhood, it seems that I'm able to begin to know people better and to establish some relationships. I anticipate some success in dealing with people just in respecting them, communicating concern and love for the women in the neighborhood."

Azusa's commitment to the biblical mandate to serve the poor is coupled with the other biblical command to conversion -- an acknowledgment that any change in a person's circumstances must begin with God. The act of conversion is empowering in ways that simply feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and housing the homeless are not. Freedom must start at the individual level, with a personal experience of transformation, and then move upward to the family, through the church, and finally spill over into the wider community. Azusa understands this much: The purpose of community is Christ-centeredness.

Anthony A. Parker, a former Sojourners assistant editor, lived in Dorchester with his wife and stepson and was a novitiate member of the Azusa Christian Community and a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education when this article appeared.

Fueled by the Spirit

The hallmark of Azusa's ministry in Four Corners is the belief that salvation is the greatest equalizer. "Azusa's organizing and evangelism is the object of an intensified corporate prayer life. Understanding the role of the Holy Spirit is one of the most vital dimensions of our ability to successfully minister at the corporate and individual levels," notes Rev. Eugene Rivers.

"The level of violence in these inner cities requires a level of spiritual power so intense that we encourage folk who don't understand the importance of the Holy Spirit for ministry not even to bother. All that could possibly happen is that you will get worn out or run out," says Eugene.

He should know. Two years ago, more than a dozen bullets crashed through the windows of Eugene and Jacqueline Rivers' home, one of them missing their son's head by an inch as Malcolm slept in his bed.

To effect meaningful change, Azusa recognizes the need to take spiritual authority over the demonic forces ruling Four Corners. Emphasis on conversion and spiritual growth reflects Azusa's quest to move beyond political analyses and community service.

In 1984, when most of the members of the then-African People's Pentecostal Church were still undergraduates, the three main pillars of their worldview were food distribution, political campaigns, and intellectual discourse. Although Christians, their spiritual maturation had not yet caught up with their political and intellectual acumen.

The Azusa Christian Community has evolved from a Harvard Christian student organization known as the William J. Seymour Society to a maturing church of about 20 adults and a score of children and teenagers. Azusa is an eclectic bunch: single mothers, a police officer, a lawyer, the owner of a computer software company, and educators. Most live within a six-block area in Four Corners and Codman Square, with some living in Roxbury and Cambridge.

Sunday morning services are held at 11 a.m. at Freedom House, a neighborhood community center in Roxbury. Prayer meetings are every Tuesday evening at the Rivers' home. Bible study is on Wednesday evenings at the Shaws' home. All Azusa meetings are definitely charismatic. Singing, praying, and general sharing are loud and enthusiastic.

Azusa's worship, like its street ministry, is not for the faint of heart. Regular attendance at services and community meetings are vital to Azusa's ability to function as "a voice of one calling ... prepare the way of the Lord" in Boston.