PASTOR USES LESSON FROM HIS PAST TO MINISTER TO OTHERS

For his sermon, the Rev. Greg Parr decided to talk about a man named Paul
who, while in prison, wrote letters home about joy.

As the Bible verses are announced, Parr looks out into the faces of the
congregation. He sees elderly men and women dressed in their Sunday best.
Young mothers dressed in T-shirts and jeans from the local thrift store.
Teens with low-slung pants and bulky shirts and dirty basketball shoes.

Parr sees beyond their outward appearances. He sees deep. Families that are
broken. Downtrodden. Struggling with drugs, alcohol, gangs and poverty. He
prays for God to use him as a vessel and touch someone this day.

Then he takes a breath.

"When I was in prison I would have never written you all about joy," he begins.

Prison? This man of God in prison? The background shuffling ceases. A lone
cough is muffled. Parr's words ring out clear. Unmiked. Unfettered. The
words reverberate against the wooden pews, drifting to the left side wall
crumbling now from age. A large fan beats the air.

Parr waits several seconds.

"Yes," he says, looking into the eyes of all 46 persons sitting there. "I
was in prison. Arrested 97 times in 14 years. And never would I ever think
about writing to you here about joy.

"Oh, if I wrote at all, I'd complain about the food, complain about the way
the warden was treating me, complain about getting my stuff stolen. But
joy? I had no idea what that was."

Parr knows what joy is now. He smiles wide. Now he's arrived at his
favorite part.

"Let me tell you about my best friend..."

At 44, Parr believes it's a miracle he's still alive, or rather, he
believes he's alive because it's part of a bigger plan. A plan unimaginable
to him a few years ago.

"If you want God to laugh, just tell him your own life plans," he likes to say.

Parr was born in Baltimore. He began drinking in his early teens, and drugs
soon followed. So began a cycle of drugs, alcohol, and the drift between
jail, an aimless life and a self-loathing that ran deep.

But along his life path there were people who kept reaching out to him,
including some church women in Westport. They kept inviting him in for a
Sunday visit.

Reeking of alcohol. Dirty. He was too ashamed to go. But he remembered them
every time the jail door slammed shut again. He never forgot that someone
cared, even if they were strangers.

For three and a half years, Parr lived around midtown Kansas City in
various empty houses. He panhandled for money. Checked out of reality
through drugs.

But each time in jail was a blessing.

"I was forced to not drink or do drugs," he says. "I began reading stories
in Reader's Digest, you know, those dramas in true life. Then I read books
like 'The Cross and the Switchblade,' and finally, the Bible."

He decided when he got out of jail, he'd go to church. Next he went to a
rehabilitation center for alcohol and drug treatment. But it took four
times in rehab before the lessons stuck. The three failures almost killed him.

Then on Oct. 5, 1994, Parr drank his last. He went to church and he has
never stopped. Parr was hired to work at Westport United Church in 1996, as
part of the church's outreach to the homeless. He worked there about seven
years.

His life work now is to help families recover from abuse, he says. A
licensed minister, he is the new associate pastor at Grace United Church,
811 Benton Blvd. And this fall, he begins study at a seminary to become a
full minister.

Grace United is a good fit for Parr, says Sharon Garfield, the church's
senior pastor who hired him. "We need him. We wanted someone who had
experience working with addiction."

Parr keeps track of how many people he's escorted to alcohol treatment
centers. So far, the number is 530. His greatest joy is helping entire
families piece their lives back together.

Garfield, who became Grace United's minister in 1990, also has had
experience with broken families. Her previous job was at New House for
Battered Women.

"When I first arrived here at Grace, we had 17 people in the congregation,"
she says. "They were all white, all over the age of 65, and they all lived
outside the neighborhood."

The church had almost no funds. The building needed repairs. But worst of
all, children in the neighborhood were killing each other.

"Some of our members come now because tragically, we were the only church
that would do the funeral for their loved ones killed by gangs," Garfield
says. "Some of our members had fallen into prostitution, and then got out.
Sometimes, they fall back into it.

"This church is different because it represents a community that has mostly
been invisible to others," she says. "We have members struggling with a lot
of dysfunction in their lives. Families with abuse problems. Families who
are marginalized because of their poverty. We struggle here with
self-esteem. People don't realize the gifts they've been given."

But Garfield sees their gifts. She's quick to ask people for help. One
retired couple now runs the church's food pantry. Several parents work in
the church's after-school program, where 230 children learn self-esteem and
peacemaking skills. They work on computer skills, do their homework, and
every day they eat a good snack.

Other members teach English to Spanish speaking members, or Spanish to
those who only speak English. Still others help adults learn to read.

And the little church has grown.

Now on Sundays there are two services: one in Spanish, with about 80
regular members; and the other in English, with anywhere from 25 to 125 people.

"Our dream here is to help families break the cycles of dysfunction and
dependence with social systems," Garfield says. "We want to build bridges
between folks and help put them into jobs."

But she acknowledges she has lofty dreams for the church, including the
building someday of a fellowship hall next door, complete with child care
facilities, a gleaming new kitchen and a gym.

But it's in the small steps where the church is making its most progress.

Garfield is looking for someone to donate a refrigerator for the church's
kitchen. Or maybe a stove. Or maybe some light fixtures that could be wired
into the almost century-old building.

On one recent Sunday, Parr handed out free bus coupons to homeless people
in the church's neighborhood. No strings attached, he told them, but he
would love to have them visit on a Sunday, too. On another Sunday, he
visited all the families whose children attended the church but whose
parents did not.

But Parr's greatest dream is to help another human being find life out of
the fog of addiction.

"It's like this," he says. "The gift of sobriety is from God. When he uses
me to help someone else turn their life around, that is pure elated
joy....And that is something to write home about."