Deseret News: Harlem Is Embracing LDS Presence

Harlem is embracing LDS presence
(by Carrie A. Moore, Deseret Morning News; 12 June 2004)

HARLEM -- It's a sultry summer night on 129th Street, where residents have congregated around a charcoal barbecue grill set up outside the local branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Not that they're here for religion, per se, but they enjoy the fact that there's a piece of greenery -- even though it's fenced off - - amid the never-ending columns of multistory apartment buildings, most of which have seen better days. Sans landscaping, architectural niceties or a steeple, the building looks like a former auto repair shop. The strip of grass and garden sits next to the LDS building, a continual draw in a neighborhood where heat radiates off the perpetual concrete and asphalt landscape.

Other than this patch of green, only a mural opposite the garden provides an escape for the eye along the block.

Yet it is spiritual escape that church leaders say has drawn increasing numbers to this building -- so many that Sunday worship services inside are now standing-room-only. It's a far cry from the tiny gatherings that were held in this area only six years ago.

Joseph Appiah remembers well. It was 1998, and his first Sunday as an LDS missionary in Harlem after coming to the United States from his native Ghana. Gloria Lynch, who now serves as the Relief Society president in Harlem, was the only person at the service other than leadership.

"This woman was the only one who grew up in Harlem and went to church that day. Other than her, we had four missionaries, the branch president and his family, and that was it. That's when the church just started in Harlem. We had just moved from Sylvia's Restaurant where we met initially" around the corner on Lenox Avenue and 126th Street.

Sylvia's is known locally as the "Queen of Soul Food," the most famous restaurant in Harlem, and these days more of a tourist attraction than most anything else north of Central Park. Celebrities frequent the place, whose history features a rags-to-riches story of Sylvia Woods, a former waitress whose relatives mortgaged the family farm in South Carolina to help her purchase what was formerly a luncheonette back in 1962.

Grown legendary among locals by the mid-1990s, restaurant co- owner Van Woods helped arrange housing for the LDS Church's early meetings there.

Appiah, who now serves as second counselor in the Harlem branch presidency, says he believes many early converts in Harlem relied heavily on the missionaries who converted them and stopped coming when the missionaries were moved to other areas. Keeping commitment among new converts is a challenge top LDS leaders have focused on in recent years, with President Gordon B. Hinckley frequently admonishing local leaders to make sure new members are retained. Now efforts are made by the entire congregation to make sure new members have a responsibility and a lot of opportunities to work with their fellow Latter-day Saints.

"It gives them a sense of belonging when we ask them to put out hymn books, teach other new converts or take a Sunday School class."

The effort to retain members has paid off, with 90 to 110 members showing up each week to pack the small building, Appiah said. Still, that's less than half the 250 members the church has on record in Harlem, according to Dan Hiatt, who serves as branch president.

Yet the building and its adjoining garden have become something of a neighborhood gathering place for kids, at least two dozen of whom were inside on Wednesday night looking for some excitement and attention -- an extension of the neighborhood barbecue going on outside.

As word of the church and its programs spreads, younger kids follow their siblings or friends to the building, according to Scoutmaster Ned Gardner. "Some nights it's a challenge trying to find ways to control them."

As interest and activity build, there's a definite need for a larger building. A bulldozer arrived just this week on the site of the new building to be constructed around the corner between 128th and 129th streets on Lenox Avenue. Brent Belnap, president of the Manhattan stake, said workers are poised to begin construction on the five-story facility "as soon as the dedication (of the Manhattan temple) is finished."

One of the joys and challenges Appiah sees for Harlem in the future is retaining local church leadership. Once people "learn they are children of God," their incentive to improve their lives often grows along with loyalty to their new faith.

"They say to themselves, 'Why should I settle?' They turn their energy the right way because they know it's for a higher purpose. I think they are consciously making those right decisions because they know who they are and who they can become."

Developing habits associated with a religious life, such as getting up for early morning seminary, become a way of life that often sets them apart from peers.

"It's not just getting up for seminary, but taking responsibility, where they're not going to be sleeping in or sitting home watching Jerry Springer. Instead, they're getting up and they want to become somebody."