By Briana Baker
It’s a beautiful autumn day on the inner city street of Ridge Ave. Rap music is playing from car stereos while local men are hanging out on the front porch talking, laughing, swearing and gambling. But above all these sounds church music is blasting and the voice of an unknown white man is preaching over a loud speaker on a corner nearby.
For Cecil Rogers and Brian Padgett who minister nightly at 7, they aren’t doing anything more than what God has called them to do. But for some local street guys, they have become an annoyance to their neighborhood.
For nearly six weeks Padgett and Rogers have been ministering on corners in gang related neighborhoods west and north of St. Louis city. Many street guys living in the neighborhood, who refused to give any full names, don’t approve of it all.
“The Lord spoke to us a year ago in September or October giving us the vision,” said Padgett when asked why he decided to do street ministry in this particular neighborhood. Padgett believes the one thing St. Louis doesn’t have is hope and his passion for people will touch the lives of the gang members and drug addicts and the area.
“I know they find it strange when they see this white guy with a backpack full of Bibles and anointed oil walking from door-to-door but I seriously believe I have a passion for people,” Padgett said. “We know we’re doing something right when all hell breaks loose every night service is held.”
However, some disagree and don’t think Padgett’s attempts has any spiritual affect whatsoever.
“It’s not preaching because you don’t understand him. So it’s just noise, loud noise,” said Christepher, one of the local guys in the neighborhood. He refused to give his last name. He added, “When you’re just getting off at 9 o’clock you don’t want to hear that.”
Although some may not have an issue with Padgett and Rodgers holding street ministry services, they do find it redundant in that it won’t change anything in the environment.
“I think it’s good because he’s preaching to the right people but I don’t think it can change anything. People don’t believe in God,” 15-year-old boy known to the neighborhood as Lil’ Keith says.
Tyga, another man who was raised on Ridge Ave., thinks the concept of what Padgett and Rodgers is doing is good, but that technical issues with the speakers hinder him from really getting his point across.
“It’s good because the prostitutes and drug addicts need to know the Lord but you never understand him,” Tyga says after complaining about how you don’t have a choice but to hear them ministering a few blocks away.
Rodgers stated that he decided to start street ministry 30 years ago after his drug abuse caused him to have a brain stroke.
“God took me off the streets then put me right back in,” Rodgers said explaining his transformation from living in the streets to preaching in the streets.
Rodgers has been locked up, shot at, spat on, cursed out and even threatened for his street ministry. When asked why he continues to do it he quoted a couple verses from the Holy Bible.
“God has not given me the spirit of fear but the spirit of a sound mind.” He added, “Greater is HE that is in me than HE that is in the world.”
Padgett and Rodgers began at Kingshighway and Delmar with a cross cut and made from barks of a tree and have recently moved to the corner of Kingshighway and Page Avenue next to the Aldi Supermarket.
Rodgers does ministry full time visiting prisons, nursing homes and even some schools quite often when invited by officials. Some of his ministry is accompanied by others and has filled up three or four churches.
No comments:
Post a Comment