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PASTOR FREDERICK MATTOX preaches at Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Beaumont.
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Church turns combat zone into gospel gateway
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___BEAUMONT--When Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Beaumont called Frederick Mattox as pastor in 1990, they might have considered offering him combat pay. After all, they called him to a battleground.
___East Gladys Street, on the edge of downtown Beaumont, was home to three crack houses and a gambling shack. Twenty to 25 drug deals took place every day on a street corner within sight of the church.
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| PASTOR MATTOX envisions opening a new mission center in an abandoned café to share and care for people. |
___"It was a community and a church under siege," Mattox said. "We were surrounded and landlocked on all sides."
___Recognizing it as spiritual warfare, the new pastor went to the streets. He began praying with the dealers and their customers on the street corners, and the church offered a Thursday evening meal for all the people in the area--including the addicts and their suppliers.
___Mattox also started attending local Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, earning the trust of the people who struggled with chemical dependencies.
___In the process, God transformed the lives of individuals and of a whole neighborhood.
___"The guys out on the street started getting saved," Mattox said.
___Then Mount Rose launched a Recovering Christian Addicts program specifically for new believers who were fighting old habits. In time, participants in the program became a vital part of the congregation, swelling the membership from about 125 to 600.
___A former drug dealer now serves as assistant Sunday School superintendent, and a recovering addict is an assistant pastor. And a Recovering Christian Addicts Choir often leads in worship.
___Mount Rose also started ministries to children and youth in the neighborhood, providing school supplies, hot meals and special gifts at Christmas.
___"Why holiday ministries? When I came to the church, I found out that dope dealers bought bicycles for the kids at Christmas," Mattox explained. "Then two months later, they
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MOUNT ROSE tore down three crack houses to build a playground for neighborhood children.
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would come back and have the kids use those bicycles to run dope for them. What was used for evil, we have turned around and are using for good."
___The church also began physically to reclaim the neighborhood. Mount Rose purchased property, beginning with a lot immediately east of the church where the three crack houses stood. Church members tore down the crack houses and built in their place a tennis court for youth and a playground for children in the community.
___When Mattox first came to Mount Rose, East Gladys Street was a hot spot for violent crime. But that's all in the past. The previously dark, dangerous area is clean, well-lighted and peaceful. "There hasn't been a murder on that street in 10 years," he said.
___The ministries of Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church have attracted widespread attention. Earlier this year, Mattox received a "Community Champion" award from the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse and was named a local "Jefferson Award" winner by the American Institute for Public Service.
___Mount Rose has financed most of its ministries itself, with minimal assistance from outside its membership. But Texas Baptists have contributed to the programs at Mount Rose through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions and its support of the Urban Allies program, according to Dion Ainsworth, associate director of missions in Golden Triangle Baptist Association.
___And Ainsworth anticipates additional Texas Baptist involvement when Mount Rose launches the next phase of its master plan--starting a Baptist mission center in an abandoned corner café.
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MOUNT ROSE Baptist Church choir praises God during a service.
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___"We want to have an identifiable, visible Baptist work in the community," Mattox explained.
___Just because the center is designed to serve poor people, that is no reason it should appear shabby or second-rate, Mattox noted. "The poor have dignity, too. We want the center to be nice."
___In addition to providing a place to distribute clothing and non-perishable food to needy families, the center also will serve as a site for after-school tutoring and distributing school supplies to students, as well as a learning environment for computer training and literacy classes.
___Mattox also hopes the center will become a place of both physical and spiritual healing for community residents, who live in what he calls a "medically underserved area."
___The new missions center will provide the church a place to offer one-day free clinics, making available immunizations for children, mammograms for women and prescription assistance for the elderly.
___But spiritual transformation remains the ultimate goal, Mattox emphasized.
___"We want to provide spiritual counsel. We're not here just to hand out goodies. We're here to share the message of Christ."
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