Church of the Messiah: Local Action and Social Connectedness Advances Health Equity
This collection shares community work conducted as part of the Communities in Context (CiC) project and was written by Eunice Mustapha in partnership with Michelle Bolduc. We offer gratitude to Stacy Wegley for interviewing Pastor Barry and a group of congregants/community partners, and for their time and energy in sharing this inspiring story.
It was a crisp, cloudy day when a group of us visited Pastor Barry and members of his Church of the Messiah congregation in Detroit, Michigan. We were invited downstairs and into the basement, where we found a full kitchen, a classroom turned meditation and aquaponics room, and a disassembled computer classroom that had given way to a community donation center full of neatly stacked clothes and hygiene items. We settled into a large, open room full of folding tables, waiting to be configured for the next gathering. We turned a series of those rectangle tables into a broad circle, gathering around to learn more about their local efforts to address housing, violence prevention, and more.
Our small group was serving as part of the Communities in Context (CiC) initiative focused on community engagement to identify and address health inequities at the local level. Community engagement in public health can help identify key issues impacting a community and opportunities for intervention, investment, and systems change, setting communities up to better respond to public health challenges and thrive. The Church of the Messiah is playing a central role in strengthening health and well-being in their growing neighborhood.
Pastor Barry, share with us a little bit about yourself as a young person.
 | I come from a big family. I am the 11th of 12 children and [I am] a twin. We were born two months premature. My mother didn't know she was having twins, because I sat on top of my brother throughout the whole pregnancy.So, they only picked up my heartbeat. At the birth, she fainted when the doctor said, “Here comes another one,and they had to take my brother out. [My] twin brother has cerebral palsy. [My mother] was going to have her 10th child, only to return home with her 10th and 11th children. As a child, I couldn't say a sentence without stuttering. It is kind of amazing how I now talk for a living. I was a very little child, a brainiac, and I graduated at the top of my class. I originally went to school for business. Job-wise, food was my thing, and I used to own a restaurant. I have always been involved in food. Never planned on being a preacher and didn't particularly like church. I really hated preachers, but I didn't particularly care for church either. |
I was called by God on Tuesday, October 20th, 1998. It was the day after my 36th birthday. I was in my apartment at the co-op next door that the church owned at the time. I was in my apartment reading my daily scripture and praying. I had committed to 15 minutes of scripture and prayer every day before I got my day started. The holy spirit came into the room and instructed me to go get the young people. We added a second service at noon and over the next couple of years grew from about 40 members to close to 300 - a majority of which are young black men. It wasn’t because I was such a great preacher, but we were making God tangible. We started building the houses, making businesses, educating the kids, having a medical clinic, and installing the internet. That’s the work of the Church of the Messiah and that’s how we’ve gotten as far as we have today.
The Church of the Messiah has been holistic in its work and has meaningfully engaged the community to address housing, employment, food security, violence prevention and more. How has housing been central in this work?
 | Well, what was interesting is our housing corporation was incorporated in 1978. We never intended on having a housing corporation. That was never the intention. The intention was to buy the building next door [to the church]. It had caught fire, and it went up for sale. So, the church put in a bid - in true [Church of the] Messiah fashion- with no money, and the owner accepted the bid. We had to raise the money to make good on our bid to buy the building, and we did. The church didn't have the money to fix the building, but there were people in the church who were licensed plumbers and contractors, and everybody was painting at that time. So, they literally fixed it up themselves, put a lot of the church members in it and decided to make it a co-op so that people could learn what cooperative living was all about, and it worked. It was very successful and made quite a bit of money.
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So, from that point, those three buildings were in place and then they decided the next block over (which is Field Street) looked just like that - a field - because it only had two houses on it. The rest of the houses were gone and torn down. In 1991, they decided to buy the land and begin building the homes from the ground up. Between 1991 and 1993, that neighborhood was literally put back, and all of the houses are affordable. During the time, when the church was doing this - this was the beginning of the 1980s, going into the 90s and in the 2000s - nobody was interested in this neighborhood. So, even though it was right by the water close to downtown, you had downtown, Rivertown (which was a blank spot), West Village, Indian Village, and then you begin to go up to the suburbs. The people in this neighborhood, especially out of the church said, “We will not be a blank spot.” And then we named ourselves Island View because of the view of Belle Isle Park, and it became a destination in Detroit.
Pretty soon, the city got hip and was like, “Wow, that's a prime area, down by the water, close to an international border.” Then, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan came here with the city and said, “There's a bunch of little villages over there - can you all incorporate yourself to be one region of Detroit and keep your individual identities?” And we said, yeah, so it took us two years, but down in that room where all those supplies are, we hammered it out - we were called the Villages of Detroit. The city officials now call us Island View and the Greater Villages, and we're a community development corporation.
You began with the co-op model of housing and have since moved away from that. What informed the shifts and how are you thinking about affordable housing now?
The co-op model works in one building, but not for everyone. It takes energy. You have to know your neighbor, decide the rent, clean up, do the management - and some people just want to pay their rent and go to work, and they live in the other buildings.
Wally, Assistant Pastor at the church [of the Messiah] joined us in the housing conversation and added, “A part of what causes the changes is that you have to remain diligent to what the needs are, and you have to remain sustainable.”
All housing is affordable at this time, and we realize it’s not [financially] sustainable after all these years, [so we are] moving to mixed-use housing, including affordable housing and market-rate housing.
We believe in “real” affordable housing - we’re [calculating eligibility at] 60 percent [of Area Median Income]. Detroit is still the poorest big city. The city [calculates eligibility at] 20 percent of AMI. We have to balance that out. The market rate isn’t a bad thing. We need to bring people out of poverty. We have to change the mindset that says to be born into poverty means staying in poverty. [The] number of units we currently have is about 120. We rehabbed or built 213 and sold the largest 72-unit building. The rents go into the non-profit housing corporation - not a dime comes into the church. The affordable housing is built for families, we have very few one-bedrooms, trying to build up families and provide opportunities to be able to move from affordable housing to market rate.
“The one thing about our affordable housing is that it doesn’t look like affordable housing. They [affordable houses] look just like the market rate housing. If you don’t tell people it’s affordable housing they would never even know. We treat people living in affordable housing the same way we treat people living at market rate. We treat people how we want to be treated.” - Assistant Pastor Wally
You are also an internet provider. Can you share more about how that is working?
In the traditional church, it is hard to change the things you do, but the Bible tells us we should be the head and not the tail. We are not afraid to change - and move to what is needed. We’re solutionaries!
All who qualify for affordable housing automatically qualify for free internet. Our internet is so reliable that people across the Villages who want to be on our internet don’t qualify. So, we’re moving to a three-tier system. For tier one, if you qualify based on income, you automatically receive free internet. Tier two is those who can pay what the internet costs plus 30-40%, and tier three we call “champions.” Champions are those who are willing to pay what it costs plus 100% to subsidize those people who are needing it for free.
Your violence prevention work was sparked by a series of murders in the community. How has the work evolved, and who is helping to lead it?
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Pictured: DeLisa Glaspie (left) and Alisa Sanders (right) Pastor Barry invites two community members who have joined the conversation to introduce themselves and share their story at the intersection of violence, community engagement, and hope. My name is Alisa Sanders and we have an organization and it's called Mothers Keeping Boots on the Ground. A friend told me, “You have to meet Pastor Barry.” My father's a minister, and I know the church. I didn't turn away from church when my son was murdered, but I say my church wasn't there for me. After a church service, I was invited into Pastor Barry’s office. He asked, “What do you want to do? What legacy do you want to leave for your son?” All I wanted was justice for my son. “My [Alisa] son gave back to the community. He did a Fourth of July for his neighborhood and fireworks for the kids. He did backpack drives and made sure that the elderly got their grass mowed and snow shoveled. He would pay little kids in the neighborhood to go knock on the door to see if they [the elderly] needed something from the grocery store.” |
I [DeLisa] too am a mother and my son was also murdered, practically 18 years old, two weeks from leaving for Clapney University in South Carolina. Alisa brought me here [Church of the Messiah] to meet Pastor Barry. He asked me, “what is your plan?” and "what are you going to do to keep your son’s life and legacy moving forward and help other mothers?” My son was a student athlete and a rapper and unfortunately that was to his demise. The rapping is a war of words versus an art and storytelling the way it was intended to be. I am a social worker. I can very simply put it—“this is an opportunity for each one to reach one and teach one.”
As an organization, we wanted to make sure the mothers, fathers, and families of those who were murdered would not be forgotten. We wanted to work with police and return neighborhoods to the way they used to be when we were young - “when you saw something, you said something”.
Pastor Barry adds, we started Silence the Violence 17 years ago because we had three murders. We haven’t had a murder since and the police attribute it to how we have galvanized the community to be aware and active. There were 58 people at our first march. The Silence the Violence was the first to honor those who died of gun violence. By the time we got to Silence the Violence Three, we looked up, and it was hundreds of people there. We were like, who's telling all these people? And then we looked up and like, we had 1,000 people last year.
Our event won! We went from a neighborhood organization, a city-wide organization, [to] now [a] statewide organization, now recognized by the state, and now this year is Silence to Violence Month. Instead of Silence to Violence Day, June is Gun Violence Awareness Month, so now the whole month is going to be dedicated to organizations working towards eradicating gun violence. We got to the point where, as we brought together 52 community groups, many of them do the CVI [community violence intervention] work. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to change the systems. Coming out of these marches everyone has something they can do. The march has spread to eight other cities in Michigan.
Detroit has been in the news lately for being a site where undocumented immigrants are being bussed from Southern states. Could you tell us more about this situation and how you have been involved?
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Similar to gun violence, it’s tragic when a situation has to happen to us before we can have empathy and care for one another, like with migrants. If people come into a country that doesn't speak their own language, primarily in the middle of winter with nothing as human beings … then you take them and put them on a bus and ship them up north like they're cattle or some other product, and not as human beings? Yet, some of these folks are the same ones that will talk about the right to life, human life, as long as you're not born… “Once you're born, we don't give a damn.” It's the most amazing thing in the world when I stop and say, what life? “Only if it's in the womb - once it comes out, you’re on your own.” If you believe in the right to life - and not just the right to birth, but the right to life - then that means all aspects of life, whether that's gun violence, whether that's migration/immigration, any of that. |
We're talking about human beings. And these are the same people who say, “I believe in God.” I don't know who you are talking about - but Jesus said, “When I was hungry, you fed me, and thirsty, you gave me something to drink.” I would love to see how you make [your actions, like bussing immigrants] make sense if you say you know [Jesus]. Say that! How do you say that and put somebody on a bus with shorts and flip-flops on and send them to Detroit with these extremely cold temperatures? That just doesn't make any sense to me.
It's righteous indignation. It doesn't mean you can't get mad. It's almost like … these are human beings. And anytime you can take away somebody's humanity, this is how you can do slavery. This is how you can do human trafficking. This is how you can do a lot of things. If I can devalue you as a human being, I can treat you any way I want to, if I take your value away.
How do you walk away, when you can do something? When we’re in the richest country in the world. How do you say you’re an American? How do you say no? I can look at you as another human being and tell you no. Where is humanity? How can you go to bed and sleep at night and think you're right?
Community Stories in Action
Stories allow us to share knowledge and experience. They are central to human understanding and can inform and catalyze action. Hearing the stories of people like those at Church of the Messiah helps provide a window into the key issues impacting communities like East Detroit, as well as how local communities are moving into action together to address these issues. The stories shared can serve as both a powerful example of how people are working together to get things done to support their communities, as well as, serve as evidence to inform local decision-making and investments.
“Communities are like soil - the hood, some communities have too many seeds and not enough nutrients. You never look at a plant that is struggling and ask what's wrong with it - you know it’s missing something (food, water,…)—the conditions are not in place for it to grow.”- Dwight R, member of Church of the Messiah
The Church of the Messiah and its community members are shaping the vital conditions we all need every day to thrive. These vital conditions include meaningful work and wealth, humane housing, lifelong education, reliable transportation, belonging and civic muscle, a thriving natural world, and basic needs for health and safety. Vital conditions create the opportunities that are essential for all people and places to thrive, no exceptions. Learn more about the Vital Conditions in Detroit by visiting the Community in Context data dashboards.