From the pulpit to prison
Kimberly Urcho | 12-9-2009 | Comments |
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When he's through working up a sweat preaching from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, Dr. E. Wayne Gaddis Sr. retires to a square room furnished with wingback chairs and a desk fit for the oval office. This Sunday he was still breathing a little heavy when I met with him, having put every last strong gust of air into the booming words of his sermon just minutes before. He and adjusted a black Kangol hat on his round head and smiled. He was pleased with his sermon; possibly even more pleased to share it with a visitor.
Greater True Light Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles has been his home for thirty years, but he took a rather long road to get there.
Gaddis first came to Los Angeles fresh out of high school to "visit" his uncle as a graduation gift.
"I knew I wasn't going back to Mississippi," he said. "I wanted to get away from home- away from school and church and rules. So, I moved out here with my uncle and got a job as a box boy in a grocery store."
It wasn't long before Gaddis was back at church, though.
"You know, never in a million years did I think I would be a preacher. I think I had people praying for me," said Gaddis.
He explained that the kindness he was touched by when he needed it most came from a woman from whom he rented a small bachelor apartment in the early 70s.
"She treated me like I was her own child," he said. "I helped her around the house with the garbage and what not and she rented that place to me for only $100."
He said she taught him how to manage his money and encouraged him to go back to school. "Now I am proud to say that I have been in school for the last twenty years of my life. I've taken a year or two off every now and again, but I'm always learning."
Gaddis describes himself as a dedicated student of sociology. "People are my business," he said, "that's why I do what I do."
Gaddis counsels his congregation and visitors to the church on a regular basis and just last year he started what he calls the Prison Ministry, which reaches out to incarcerated men and women. "Everyone needs to know that they're loved, even those people who do wrong," said Gaddis.
"It makes me angry that there are more black men in prison than there are in college and it makes me angry that people in this community can't safely walk home at night, but ignoring it won't make it better," said the pastor. "These men and women are a product of their environment. And it's up to us to help them see what they have the potential to be."
The pastor said he has never encountered a time when a member of his congregation thought it was wrong of him to counsel a man or woman who has sinned or broken a law. He treats victims as well as criminals with equality. "None of us are perfect; we're all the same" said Gaddis.
Gaddis sites Matthew 25:41-46 when he talks about the incarcerated men and women he supports through letters and telephone calls.
"The Lord is in everybody," he said. "I've never been incarcerated, but I know those people are hurting. They're hurting bad, and the congregation and I help them by writing them letters to let them know they're in our prayers."
The pastor also said the church sponsored a man last year so he could go to school while he was incarcerated. "He sent me his certificate just the other day- I'm going to put him on the honor roll board down stairs," said Gaddis with a smile.
Gaddis said that he wouldn't be where he is today without the help of the communities he has lived in, and that this is his way of giving back.
"I grew up in Mississippi, out in the middle of nowhere. And I'll tell you what- we were poor. I'm talking, we were so poor that I used to put cardboard down in the soles of my shoes," said Gaddis. "My father was a weekend alcoholic. One of my brothers is actually in prison right now. If I'm not blessed for making it here today, I don't know who is," he said.
Tags: dr. e. wayne gaddis sr. greater true light missionary baptist church prison ministry south los angeles