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As
pastor of The Lighthouse, a Pentecostal congregation in South Monroe,
Louisiana, Bishop Alvin Walker says his calling places him in a leadership
role. Bishop Walker was brought from his native home Newport News, Virginia
to northern Louisiana by the Air Force. When he left the military, the
Bishop says he felt that he had a divine calling and knew he needed to
fulfill his "God-given role in life." He opened his first church in West
Monroe and later moved the congregation to South Monroe.
He soon became aware, however, that his ministry would have to move beyond the pulpit. Bishop Walker was shocked at the level of poverty in the area and was disturbed by its devastating effects on his congregation. It soon became evident that he would need to serve emotional and physical needs as well as looking out for the spiritual needs of his flock.
In 1998, he started RENEWAL, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the area's devastating poverty through job training and economic development. RENEWAL is one of the community partners in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Mid-South Delta Initiative (MSDI). Launched in 1997, MSDI is a ten year initiative designed to strengthen communities in the Delta by focusing on the most vulnerable populations in western Mississippi, eastern Arkansas, and northeastern Louisiana.
Eric Loewe, a visitor to Leadership Online and executive director of the Ouachita Enterprise Community (OEC) recently nominated Bishop Walker as a leader. The OEC is an organization that partners with faith-based groups and others to help people achieve success in the business world. OEC is dedicated to creating new businesses and expanding existing businesses through a holistic, faith-based approach. The organization helps to prepare youth for a living wage and family supporting careers. Loewe says he nominated Bishop Walker because "[he] is instilling self-confidence in potential entrepreneurs - people who previously thought they never had a chance to succeed in the material world. He provides a holistic faith-based approach to achieving success."
Agriculture has been the primary industry in this part of the country for more than a century. As the Mississippi River floods, it leaves behind a thick sediment that produces a rich soil. As a result, the Mississippi Delta and Mid-South region are home to some of the country's most fertile farmland. The local agrarian culture produced a large economic disparity between wealthy land-owners and poor sharecroppers and field hands, however. Bishop Walker has begun to notice a change in this reality. He wants to build on this momentum and would like to enable more people to participate.
RENEWAL, Inc. hosts youth and adult entrepreneurship training camps. The 32-hour program includes academic course work as well as field trips and motivational speeches from area business leaders. Every student is required to submit a business plan in order to graduate. Graduates are then encouraged to become part of RENEWAL's Small Business Support Group which helps to support new business owners through mentoring, encouragement, information sharing, networking and guidance counseling.
According to Loewe, approximately 77 people have participated in RENEWAL's training camps; 20 of those participants now have full or part-time businesses. "This program alone will create and expand some 20 businesses per year," he states. "It is also being replicated in Monroe and Jonesboro, Louisiana and Jonesboro, Arkansas and has been the catalyst for many others to start entrepreneurship programs in Louisiana and the Delta."
Loewe explains that Bishop Walker does this by creating space for others to lead and by combining the spiritual and the material in his leadership style. "[Bishop Walker] has found a way of marrying the spiritual and the worldly to inspire actual and potential business owners to reach for what they previously thought beyond their wildest dreams," praises Loewe. "He then provides the means for them to match their hard work and talent with opportunities in order to realize their dreams."
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