Returning with a vision

Ben Porter didn't uproot his life and family and move nearly 900 miles to dream small.

When God called him and his wife, Rose, to leave Washington, D.C., with their 7-year-old daughter, Kiersten, and return to Cape Girardeau after an absence of about 30 years, the 1987 Cape Girardeau Central High School graduate packed a few belongings and a load of passion and vision.

The vision arrived at a Victory Christian Ministries International church service in January of 2015, and Porter arrived in Cape this past June as a minister to start Gateway Church. He's equipped with a unique perspective from a background that includes an abusive household as a child, foster care, adoption, aspirations in athletics and the music business, early fatherhood, college and a profession.

His target is the south side of Cape Girardeau, and his dreams include unity of churches and races and even an expansive community center in his old neighborhood, which has deteriorated.

He knows it will take time, but he also knows how God works.

The Step Up Academy performs during the Hip Hop & Jock Showcase put on by Gateway Church on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the Shawnee Park Center.Andrew J. Whitaker

His own faith has been a slow brew, a journey he started as Benjamin Glover.

That was his surname when he first arrived in Cape Girardeau before the start of sixth grade. In his words he was "shipped" with his older brother to Cape to live with an aunt, one of his mom's 17 siblings.

It was not the first time the brothers had been "shipped."

His mother, who he said had four children from four different men, was caught in an abusive relationship -- he said his younger sister was raped by his mother's boyfriend -- in Dallas and "shipped" him and his brother off to his grandmother in Batesville, Arkansas, for their own safety, only to find more violence waiting. They were then getting "shipped" to Cape. He said the abusive background left his older brother angry and him fearful and quiet.

"You couldn't get two words out of me," Porter said.

His life found stability when he was adopted by Evelyn Porter while in seventh grade, but he managed to make his life more complicated by becoming a father at the age of 17.

Porter said he was a shooting guard on the JV basketball team but never played varsity, instead working after school. He attended Southeast Missouri State University for a year before eventually leaving the area, answering a friend's call to move to Tampa, Florida, where he dabbled with recording music and fathered another child out of wedlock.

It was in Tampa that the direction of his life changed. He married Rose, whom he had met in Sikeston, Missouri, years earlier, and the couple made a full commitment to God at an Easter service in 1991.

"We said we're going to commit our lives and commit to living this kind of life, a better life," Porter said. "That's what we did, and I've been involved with the church ever since. I've worked in every department in the church -- youth pastor, going out when it floods, bags of sand, no matter what it was."

They eventually moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where he earned a diploma in computer science and later attended Victory Bible College to study theology.

Porter said he had everything he wanted, far removed from the rough road of Benjamin Glover, when the couple received a two-part message at a church service during a time of meditation and prayer. They shared the messages to each other afterward.

"He gave her the where and the who, and he gave me the what and what to do," Porter said.

The wheels were put in motion. He was ordained a minister through his church, and when it came time to buy a house in Cape Girardeau, he said God closed doors -- two houses dormant on the market for months sold on the same day they decided to make offers -- that ultimately led them to Jackson, where a neighbor introduced himself and his church, Crossroads Fellowship.

Porter met with the pastor, Brian Anderson, who just happened to have a startup kit stored away, providing Gateway with lighting and sound equipment and use of a bus and trailer.

"Not only did they give us supplies and equipment, but they're helping us with hands," Porter said.

He held his first service Oct. 1 at the Shawnee Park Center and is reaching out to the community with a message of unity and redemption through non-traditional events, such as the Hip Hop & Jock Showcase, held Dec. 10. The day included 3-on-3 basketball, a 3-point competition, a dunk contest and a talent showcase that included hip-hop, rhythm and blues and dance crews.

"I'm using everything because I know what's drawing," Porter said. "There are some religious minds that may not enter into certain areas that I will enter into because I'm trying to reach the people."

He handed out laminated cards, no mention of church affiliation visible, to advertise the free event.

"If you can plant a seed, and there's good ground, it's going to produce the fruit," Porter said. "So I just want to have events that are not in a church name. You see the Hip Hop & Jock, you don't know it's a church associated with it. Like I tell people, 'I'm not trying to get anything from you, I'm trying to get something to you.'"

He said he hopes to make the activities monthly, much like the services he currently conducts, but plans to start on a weekly basis as of March 26 at Shawnee.

"Once we launch, it's definitely going to be something monthly because being in music and loving music and loving art and athletics, we're going to do something monthly," Porter said.

He calls his church and music style "urban contemporary," wanting to reach out to a demographic in the age range of 15 to 35, hence such events as the Hip Hop & Jock competition, which he plans to hold twice a year.

"I did that because it's the target audience," Porter said. "And it's not just the black target audience, it's a cultural, because the cultures have merged."

He cites the popularity of Grammy Award-winning Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae, who has had albums top the Billboard Gospel chart and has attracted mainstream acceptance. Lecrae appeared at the most recent SEMO District Fair.

"There is a culture that is missing from church, not just in the black community," Porter said. "There's a white community that is bored and checking a box, and God don't want you to check a box. He wants you to have a relationship and enjoy the kingdom. He put the things in you on purpose so you could enjoy things."

He calls the Christian hip-hop "better music" than the music played on the radio, with "way better lyrics, of course."

"It's not traditional. It's not 'Rough Side of the Mountain,' all these old Negro spirituals, these slave-created songs, because it ain't rough," Porter said. "In the kingdom, it's peace, it's smooth, it's success. It's understanding who you are from God's perspective, how he sees you. And it's Christmas; he sent his son to die for you. He's not mad at you, he's not condemning you. He's trying to win you and love you."

Porter wants to bring hope to a struggling neghborhood. He has visions for a community center on the south side -- "something in the community that says this is ours," he said -- that is accessible to people of all interests. He dreams of a facility that houses a music studio, dance studio, classrooms for job training, athletics of all sorts -- basketball, swimming, skating (ice or roller).

"I'm talking utopia here, aren't I?" Porter said, pausing to laugh at his vision. "But the resources are here, absolutely -- you've just got to care."

And with the help of churches like Crossroads, he believes he can make inroads.

He seeks a unity among area churches, one where there's not reaching across aisles to help -- only because there would be no aisles.

"We're also looking not to be just a black church because that's not how it looks in heaven," Porter said. "There are no sections, so that's what's broke in this area. If something is broke, that would be broke. There's a segmentation that isn't healthy. We're sensing that God is saying that we're going to be that bridge, that social-gap bridge, that race-gap bridge."

And this man with vision makes but one promise. "We're going to do it right and properly, and our only hope is that people grow and come to know who they are," Porter said. "That's what gives me fulfillment."