WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA9)--Whether you're talking housing, jobs, college scholarships or stopping major highway construction from coming through the neighborhood, Bible Way Church has been on the front lines with its members.
Bible Way church has been a fixture in the Nations Capital for nearly 90 years. The Pentecostal house of worship sits within a short walk to the US Capitol. That was by design after a sidewalk preacher named Smallwood Williams took his ministry from the streets, and tents and store fronts to New Jersey and New York Avenues in Northwest.
"We believe in shouting. We dance, we speak in tongues, we are a praising church," Bishop Ronald Demery tells WUSA9's Bruce Johnson.
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It's no accident that Bible Way is still located in the center of Washington within view of the US Capitol when other churches have followed their congregations to the suburbs or been forced to close for lack of new converts.
"This is where God has called us to be and we're continuing to build here," says Demery.
He means that literally--Bible Way over the years has built about four thousand housing units, much of it subsidized, in the surrounding communities that have been gentrified over the years.
It's a city church of two thousand members--a church often viewed over the years with suspicion by outsiders.
These people of faith say the goal from the beginning was to meet the spiritual and the material needs of the surrounding community. For example, when there was no grocery store in the neighborhood, Bible Way started one. The church has a prison ministry, a drug ministry, scholarships for youth, and a Facebook campaign for reaching young people where they are on social media.
William Jones is 25, married and applauds his church for its homeless ministry. "There are people here off the streets, free meals breakfast or dinner."
Bible Way's leaders have been known to take on the government. Decades ago the church stopped the federal government from building Interstate 95 through the middle of the District of Columbia. The church claimed the interstate construction would destroy neighborhoods and families. This is why Interstate 95 now runs around the city and not through it.
Bible Way has been on New jersey Avenue since 1946. If it's to survive Pastor Demery says the church will have to diversify as the neighborhoods around it are changing—their neighbors are becoming more white and much younger.
