By Jean Nash Wells

Dr. Fred Lucas has taken his 34 years of preaching ministry and 25 years of pastoral experience to Wall Street. There as founder, president and CEO of the Faith Center for Community Development, Inc., he is an advocate for the full utilization of churches in helping to rebuild broken communities.

What he has done is leverage his experience and knowledge of religious institutions and faith-based organizations into valuable corporate/community partnerships that are transforming the way business does business with the faith community in predominately Black areas.

Much of what he does today was inspired by his work as pastor of the historic Bridge Street A.M.E. Church in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section. During his 15 year tenure at Bridge Street, the church owned and operated preparatory and head start schools, a credit union, apartment buildings and an 86-unit, $7.2-million senior citizens housing complex. Several multimillion-dollar grants enabled Bridge Street to renovate 40 housing units and erect 22 duplexes, among several other renovation and construction projects.

And says Lucas, “I had many good intentioned technical assistance people coming out to Bedford Stuyvesant’s Black community who had no cultural awareness or understanding of those communities and the people who ran the institutions. A Black Baptist church isn’t run like a white Baptist church, or Methodist or Presbyterian, for that matter. The cultural sensitivity that the Faith Center brings makes a big difference,” he said. “You don’t have to explain what a deacon is. We don’t get excited when somebody says “amen,” or get nervous when somebody starts to pray.”

Bridge Street’s success brought out politicians – President Bill Clinton, to name one and Vice President Al Gore. Governors came, city officials and corporate leaders and pastors from around the country. Rev. Lucas was able to bring those accumulated relationships and resources to help start the Faith Center for Community Development.

Marrying the “churchy” knowledge to the skills and expertise of people who can teach and share fund development, real estate and economic development and know how to build strong, sound sustainable organizations is what the Faith Center brings to the table for both the faith institutions and their corporate partners.

“Everybody wants to be a Floyd Flake or Calvin Butts over night and every pastor is not equipped to do that,” Lucas recognizes. “If you were to look behind the scenes at these religiously-based conglomerates like Abyssinian Baptist and Allen Cathedral you would see a much deeper reality in terms of boards and staff that make that stuff happen. Finding the dollars to hire that first executive director is not an easy thing, so we wanted to be able to help invest in that.”

Where do the funds come from to make these investments? Grants and other support from organizations such as the Achelis-Bodman Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, Fannie Mae Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the United Way of New York City and many others as well as business partners who provide funds for mortgages, etc. Lucas, himself is much of the draw for potential funders. He’s Harvard educated and has an admirable track record in community building and the Center has been in business on Wall Street as a not-for-profit business since 1997. According to Vice President Jennifer Thompson, the company’s director of fund development, the training and advice they share is a valuable service they provide to financial institutions. The Faith Center becomes a faith-based consultant, setting up meetings with clergy around the country, setting up focus groups and advising the corporations on their relationship with congregations. The assessment and evaluation of individuals and congregations is often done by the Faith Center. The Center also charges fees for technical assistance, consulting and other products and services they provide to congregations.

The groundbreaking is soon to take place on a project that epitomizes the Faith Center’s work. A housing development with 54 co-op units will soon rise on a site at Morningside Avenue and 122nd Street in Harlem, owned by the Church of the Master. Church of the Master will retain ownership of the land on which the housing will be built. According to James Shipp, the Center’s director of real estate development, in addition to the church being able to renovate its sanctuary and add more community space, they will have a cash flow for 99 years to be able to subsidize their ministry and have equity for other development.

“We want to assist congregations in accessing their services and programs and protect them at the same time, Rev. Lucas added. “We’re not interested in just delivering to the religious sheep to the marketplace, but we do want them to be marketplace players. So, giving corporations that are ready to help to fund our work in liberating [congregations] from the shackles of economic bondage to allow them to access a pathway to institutional and individual economic empowerment, those [are the] corporations we take the extra step with.”

Dr. Fred Lucas says he is the national evangelist for Black Church-based community and economic development, preaching around the country on weekends. “During the week I’m the Wall-street preacher and that means that I’m preaching here the duties and responsibilities and obligations of corporations to invest and reinvest in the renaissance of those local neighborhoods. To pursue the double bottom line: doing well – they’re in business to make money – at the same time that they seek to do well, they should attempt to do good. In the long run, you will make more money. That good will come back to you in business.” He is constantly preaching, he says, that minority communities -churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and especially the African American and Hispanic communities are good places to make investments, good institutions to partner with because they are grass roots and have their hands on the pulse of the community.

“Every chance I get to mount a pulpit,” Rev. Lucas said, “which is often, through some text or another or some special day or another, I am talking about the responsibility of churches to get out there and do more. And to have faith to believe that we were not intended to be in perpetual slavery of any kind. We are not cursed by God to be servants for all eternity and that we can do more. What the church does must be grounded in faith, first of all, but also in hope and in love,” he concluded.

We can only hope that the Faith Center’s crusade to revitalize our communities will inspire a renaissance of church-centered economic development, culturally grounded education and faith to accomplish all things necessary to provide for the hear and now and future generations.