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Bread Of Heaven Ministries
~ News Article ~

The Roanoke Times, (Roanoke, VA)

January 14, 2000

Author: JOHN D. CRAMER THE ROANOKE TIMES / Edition: METRO / Section: VIRGINIA / Page: B1

2 Walk Down Different Paths To Create 1 Inner-City Church

Article Text:

Lewis Rotenberry was dealing LSD when God called.

"I was 20 years old and making good money, but there was a void in my life," he said. "I was going nowhere."

That changed a few years ago when Rotenberry, a big man with a ponytail and a young man's ardor, became a minister. He spent his life's savings to open a street-front church in Southeast Roanoke.

There he teams with another minister, Walter Wilson - preaching, teaching, counseling and feeding the poor from the neighborhood.

Rotenberry, 48, who is white, and Wilson, 61, who is black and also hefty, form an imposing tag team devoted to their motto: Christians aren't perfect.

"I'm salt," Rotenberry said.

"I'm pepper," Wilson said.

They form an odd combination: One is a youngish-looking, working-class, Southern white man, always dressed in black, speaking reservedly, expressing his faith in the studiously eager way of someone who came late to the game and feels the need to catch up.

The other is a gray-haired, blue-collar, black New Yorker with the ecclesiastical exuberance and ease of manner that come from a lifetime of faith and hard knocks.

They are backed by their wives, Betty Rotenberry, who leads the church's music team, and Marjorie Wilson, who is a minister.

Together, they hope to take their ministry beyond predominantly white Southeast Roanoke and reach needy families of all races across the city.

They said their congregation - whose members include the young and the old, white and black - is growing slowly.

"We're trying to break down racial walls," Rotenberry said.

"And denominational barriers," Wilson said.

Their interdenominational Bread of Heaven church, a tiny, shoestring operation in an old thrift store at Tazewell Avenue and Eighth Street, has about 35 regular members. It survives on small contributions from parishioners, day-old bread donated by Kroger and money from the founders' day jobs.

Rotenberry, a high school dropout and former maintenance man, is a professional photographer. His wife is a warranty service writer for a local car dealership. Wilson is a security guard. His wife takes care of her ill mother.

Rotenberry followed a roundabout trip to the ministry. A West Virginia native, he grew up in Roanoke, dropped out of high school and married a prostitute who bore him a son.

At age 20, he was also selling LSD.

"I was very good at it," he said. "I was one of the biggest drug dealers in the Roanoke Valley."

Rotenberry was serving a year's sentence in a youth prison camp on a felony conviction when God called, he said.

"But I ran from it," he said. "I wasn't ready."

Twenty years later, he was chain-smoking cigarettes, suffering from depression and contemplating suicide when God called again. He had not been attending church - although he sent his young son - because he felt awkward in his tattered workman's clothes.

The call didn't come as a voice or a clap of thunder, Rotenberry said. Rather, it was a realization.

"This time I was ready," he said.

Rotenberry tried two churches but rejected them because they did not believe in miracles or speaking in tongues.

"I said, 'I'm a miracle standing before you,'" he said. "And I think God understands all tongues, not just English."

He settled on an evangelical church after attending services that had parishioners stomping, clapping and shouting with joy.

"They looked like they were on coke," he said. "That's the spirit I wanted."

He enrolled in a ministerial correspondence school operated by a national televangelist and was ordained in 1994. With his savings and a loan from his father, he bought a dilapidated old thrift store in Southeast and converted it into his church about two years ago.

Rotenberry came to know the Wilsons during a religious conference at the Roanoke Civic Center and as volunteers at the Southwest Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank in Roanoke.

The Wilsons' Christian Crusade Exercise Center, which doubled as their church, had gone bankrupt and they were looking for another way to preach.

Today, the Bread of Heaven Church is open every day but Saturday. It has no dress code. The pews are old chairs. Jesus is painted on the wall. Services are kept brief. The preachers emphasize Jesus' love for all people, especially the poor and troubled.

"The devil's taken a lot of things from the people in this part of town," Wilson said, "and it's time to get it back."

Rotenberry sees his church as filling a growing void in the inner city.

"A lot of churches are pulling out and going to the suburbs," he said. "We're here to take their place."

He eventually wants to move into a larger inner-city church building whose congregation has moved to the suburbs and open a half

way house for men and women newly released from prison.

"A lot of people probably feel we're rejects of society," Rotenberry said. "A lot of people don't even come through Southeast except on their way to the lake. But you can have a lot of money and still be miserable.

"You can only have peace and joy if you know God's there. If Jesus were here today, he'd be down here in the inner city, with the poor and rejected, not in the suburbs."

Wilson is Rotenberry's biggest believer.

"Oh, this is the man," Wilson said, cheerfully. "I don't feel he's trying to dupe people like a lot of others are."

Wilson is proud of his cooking skills, especially the deviled eggs he brings for church meals.

"But Lewis, he says, 'We won't have the devil in this church. Let's call them Holy Ghost eggs,'" Wilson said, chuckling.

"So that's what they are. Holy Ghost eggs."

Copyright (c) 2000 The Roanoke Times Record Number: 0001140071

Author: John D. Cramer can be reached at 540-981-3384 or johnc@roanoke.com

Photo Caption: photo (c) STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS THE ROANOKE TIMES.

1. Ron Gentry (left), a member of Bread of Heaven Church, stands behind Ernestine Dalton as Minister Walter Wilson does a healing prayer during Tuesday night's service at Bread of Heaven church on Tazewell Avenue.
2. Lewis Rotenberry, 48, was a high school dropout and a drug dealer before he became a minister. He says he's the only minster in the valley he knows of who wears a long ponytail.
3. Dennis Greenway, 7, raises his hand and praises the Lord Tuesday night during a service led by ministers Walter Wilson and Lewis Rotenberry at Bread of Heaven church at the corner of Tazewell Avenue and Eighth Street in Southeast Roanoke. "The devil's taken a lot of things from the people in this part of town," Wilson said, "and it's time to get it back." color.

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2 Walk Down Different Paths To Create 1 Inner-City Church

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