Diane 1611
November 18th, 2003, 09:45 AM
The following is a summary of today's article. If you click on the link, you can get to the full story, as well as related stories.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Jefferson+County/6910ED9668CB322286256DE2001E63D9?OpenDocument&Headline=Summary%3A+Meyer's+charity+work+begins+a+home
Summary: Meyer's charity work begins a home
By Bill Smith and Carolyn Tuft
Post-Dispatch
11/17/2003
The former Holy Rosary Catholic Church rises from the corner of Margaretta and Clarence avenues like a hulking giant, its rough stone facade the color of bone in the late-afternoon sun.
It's a Tuesday, just after 5:30 p.m., and yellow buses already have begun to arrive for the 7 o'clock worship service, their riders spilling onto the street.
Women in flowered housedresses, girls in ribbon-tied pigtails and men in baseball caps pulled snug on their heads gather on the sidewalk -- laughing and talking.
Just four years ago, the church in the O'Fallon Park area of St. Louis was little more than a tired neighborhood relic, desperate for life and purpose.
Not any more.
In the fall of 2000, the church and adjacent school were reborn as the St. Louis Dream Center, an ambitious, privately funded effort of Joyce Meyer Ministries, a $95 million-a-year TV ministry based in Fenton.
The center is modeled in part after a similar program in Los Angeles and is the largest and most visible local example of Meyer's charitable work, which also includes support for a proposed home for troubled young women in Jefferson County and children's orphanages in India and Latvia. Recent figures compiled by the ministry report that it donates more than $650,000 a month -- nearly $8 million a year -- to charitable groups. They include a radio ministry in Warren, Mich., and outreach programs in Africa, England, Brazil and Ecuador.
This year, Joyce Meyer Ministries will contribute nearly $2.8 million to the operation of the Dream Center and get back about $600,000 in donations collected there, a ministry spokeswoman said. This year's contribution will more than double the center's income for past years. Records for the Dream Center show the ministry got just over $1.1 million in total contributions last year. Joyce Meyer Ministries declined to say how much it gave to the center last year.
Covering nearly an entire block, the St. Louis Dream Center is a grand experiment in faith-based social service outreach in the midst of a neighborhood in urgent need of help.
A brochure given to first-time visitors calls the Dream Center ``a healing place for a hurting world ... a place of unconditional love ... a church of second chances.''
Extensively renovated, funded and staffed by Meyer's ministry, the Dream Center offers a wide range of Christian-based social service programs, from a teen drop-in center to nursing home visitations to efforts to reach out to area prostitutes and the homeless.
It operates Christian education centers for neighborhood children from prekindergarten through high school, including a traveling ``KidzJam'' Bible school program and a ``Super Saturday'' program of music, videos and games in the church sanctuary.
At first, the Dream Center seems far removed from Meyer's $20 million, red brick- and-glass corporate headquarters in Jefferson County and her carefully landscaped $2 million home in south St. Louis County. Just three blocks west of Fairground Park, the church sits in the middle of some of the poorest areas of the city.
But Meyer, who preaches at the center several times a year, says it is a natural extension of who she is and what she believes.
``The Bible said that Jesus came for the sick and not the well,'' Meyer says. ``We're just trying to relieve suffering any way we can.''
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Jefferson+County/6910ED9668CB322286256DE2001E63D9?OpenDocument&Headline=Summary%3A+Meyer's+charity+work+begins+a+home
Summary: Meyer's charity work begins a home
By Bill Smith and Carolyn Tuft
Post-Dispatch
11/17/2003
The former Holy Rosary Catholic Church rises from the corner of Margaretta and Clarence avenues like a hulking giant, its rough stone facade the color of bone in the late-afternoon sun.
It's a Tuesday, just after 5:30 p.m., and yellow buses already have begun to arrive for the 7 o'clock worship service, their riders spilling onto the street.
Women in flowered housedresses, girls in ribbon-tied pigtails and men in baseball caps pulled snug on their heads gather on the sidewalk -- laughing and talking.
Just four years ago, the church in the O'Fallon Park area of St. Louis was little more than a tired neighborhood relic, desperate for life and purpose.
Not any more.
In the fall of 2000, the church and adjacent school were reborn as the St. Louis Dream Center, an ambitious, privately funded effort of Joyce Meyer Ministries, a $95 million-a-year TV ministry based in Fenton.
The center is modeled in part after a similar program in Los Angeles and is the largest and most visible local example of Meyer's charitable work, which also includes support for a proposed home for troubled young women in Jefferson County and children's orphanages in India and Latvia. Recent figures compiled by the ministry report that it donates more than $650,000 a month -- nearly $8 million a year -- to charitable groups. They include a radio ministry in Warren, Mich., and outreach programs in Africa, England, Brazil and Ecuador.
This year, Joyce Meyer Ministries will contribute nearly $2.8 million to the operation of the Dream Center and get back about $600,000 in donations collected there, a ministry spokeswoman said. This year's contribution will more than double the center's income for past years. Records for the Dream Center show the ministry got just over $1.1 million in total contributions last year. Joyce Meyer Ministries declined to say how much it gave to the center last year.
Covering nearly an entire block, the St. Louis Dream Center is a grand experiment in faith-based social service outreach in the midst of a neighborhood in urgent need of help.
A brochure given to first-time visitors calls the Dream Center ``a healing place for a hurting world ... a place of unconditional love ... a church of second chances.''
Extensively renovated, funded and staffed by Meyer's ministry, the Dream Center offers a wide range of Christian-based social service programs, from a teen drop-in center to nursing home visitations to efforts to reach out to area prostitutes and the homeless.
It operates Christian education centers for neighborhood children from prekindergarten through high school, including a traveling ``KidzJam'' Bible school program and a ``Super Saturday'' program of music, videos and games in the church sanctuary.
At first, the Dream Center seems far removed from Meyer's $20 million, red brick- and-glass corporate headquarters in Jefferson County and her carefully landscaped $2 million home in south St. Louis County. Just three blocks west of Fairground Park, the church sits in the middle of some of the poorest areas of the city.
But Meyer, who preaches at the center several times a year, says it is a natural extension of who she is and what she believes.
``The Bible said that Jesus came for the sick and not the well,'' Meyer says. ``We're just trying to relieve suffering any way we can.''