The congregation at Providence Baptist Church calls itself the B.A.D. church.
“It sums up how far we’ve come. We’ve come a long way,” said Henry Johnson, chairman of the board of trustees at the West Akron church. “We’ve been through a lot, but we’re still standing. We are truly blessed and delivered (B.A.D).”
Seven years ago, the congregation was embroiled in a court battle that led a judge to order a police officer be present during worship services to keep the peace.
Today, the church community is being led by a pastor, the Rev. Vincent Peterson, who wears a badge and carries a gun as a Trumbull County probation officer and a member of the U.S. Marshals Service Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force, Youngstown Division.
Under Peterson’s leadership, the church is redefining itself to become an anchor in the community by reaching out. Peterson, who has led the church for more than four years, said the congregation is committed to sharing the love of Christ.
“So many times, the church expects the people to come to it. I think God commands us to go to the people, and we’re starting in our neighborhood,” Peterson said. “Sometimes you have to step out of the box. We actually witness. We go door to door and let people know that we are here to do what we can to make the neighborhood better. You can’t reach the world if you don’t start in your own neighborhood.”
Providence has established several outreach ministries to help the church stay connected to people in the Madison Avenue community. Among those are monthly community dinners, a food pantry, an annual health fair and a community garden.
The congregation is also strengthening its youth ministry, called JAM (Jesus and Me), which offers praise and mime teams. Last year, the ministry took to the street on Copley Road, displaying a casket to remind young people of their mortality and to encourage them to make lifestyle choices that can help them avoid risky behaviors.
“We did the casket ministry at a time when there had been an outbreak of violence in our community that resulted in some young people losing their lives. We placed a mirror inside the casket, so when someone walked up and looked inside, they saw a reflection of their own face,” Peterson said. “We did it as an attention-getter. People stopped because they were curious about why the casket was there and while they were there, we shared the word of God with them.”
Peterson, who is also a trained FBI hostage negotiator, became pastor at Providence in 2007. At that time, the church was healing from two legal disputes.
In 2004, some in the congregation sought a restraining order to keep the church’s then-pastor out of the pulpit. That lawsuit resulted in the church being padlocked for a week. When a Summit County Common Pleas judge ruled worship services could resume, he stipulated that a police officer had to be on the premises at those times. The legal dispute ended with the pastor being fired and an interim being hired.
Nearly three years later, a member claimed in a lawsuit that the interim pastor, a deacon and eight other members were mismanaging church funds. That lawsuit subsequently was dropped. Peterson was hired that same year.
Jesse Williams, one of the defendants in the latter lawsuit, credits Peterson with guiding the congregation through the healing process and helping the church transition into evangelism mode in its neighborhood.
“Things turned around so fast when he became pastor. He is truly a man of compassion. He helped us heal inside the building so that we can go outside the four walls of the church to be a blessing to someone else,” said Williams, chairman of the deacon board. “At one time, I thought we would never get to this point. But the Lord kept Providence for a reason. I believe we are meant to be a blessing in that Madison Avenue area. We’re moving ahead.”
Like Williams, Peterson said the congregation is looking forward, not back.
“Sometimes you have to go through some things in order to grow,” Peterson said. “God has blessed us and delivered us from those things that have gone on in the past. Now, we are just trying to be obedient to God and stay in his will. We will continue to do everything that we can to impact our neighborhood in a positive way.”
Providence, which offers Sunday worship services at 11 a.m., is located at 458 Madison Ave. For more information, visit www.thepbc.org.
Colette Jenkins can be reached at 330-996-3731 or cjenkins@thebeaconjournal.com.
