Soaring Souls, Soaring Sights -- Baptist Church Thinks Big, And Far Beyond Walls Of Worship

NEW ORLEANS - Halfway through "No Time to Lose," the dust is beginning to bounce off the carpets of Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church.

Two keyboardists, a bass guitarist and a drummer lead a slam-bang, 50-voice choir whose output is all but buried in the full-throat singing of nearly 4,000 congregants. Everybody is up, clapping to the beat. It thuds against chests, and whooshes outside as late arrivals, Bibles in hand, pull open doors and step into a space as big as an auditorium but more plush.

Bishop Paul Morton Sr., a slight man dressed in a floor-length crimson cassock - yes, a cassocked Baptist bishop - moves toward the pulpit as ushers guide latecomers to remaining seats. Overhead, banners proclaim: "Something good is going to happen to you this very day!!!"

"Glory!" Morton begins. "Don't we have so much to be thankful for? Praise him!"

This is the Sunday-morning soul of Greater St. Stephen, a big, exuberant, optimistic church that is more than a church in the usual sense. It is huge, to be sure. With at least 18,000 members, six choirs, seven Sunday services in three different and widely separated locations, Greater St. Stephen is by far the biggest church anywhere around New Orleans, every bit as big as the enormous megachurches of Dallas, Houston and Atlanta.

But more, Greater St. Stephen is a $7 million yearly economic force seeking investments with its growing wealth, and an explicit pride-builder in a predominantly African-American congregation.

Members do familiar work, studying Scripture, evangelizing and running teenage pregnancy programs. But Morton also dreams of linking church members and other African Americans into an economic family as well as a spiritual one.

In the vision's grandest form, heaven would be but the last stop on a journey from life in a church-subsidized subdivision, through shopping at church-owned businesses and retirement in church-owned housing.

If that weren't enough, Greater St. Stephen is also the launching pad and mother church for the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, a spreading national religious movement of uncertain future but clear ambitions.

Launched four years ago by Morton, the fellowship seeks nothing less than to enlarge mainstream Baptist tradition to accommodate, even welcome, his subset of "Pentecostal Baptists," whose enthusiasm for speaking in tongues and for miraculous healings is not embraced by traditional Baptists.

Beyond lies a more remote but tantalizing possibility: a cross-denominational linkup of Pentecostal movements nationwide. They might include young Pentecostal-flavored churches inside traditional denominations such as the Baptists, as well as older, free-standing Pentecostal churches that dot the landscape of American Protestantism.

All of this energy has made Morton, 46, the most prominent Protestant clergyman in New Orleans.

Four years ago, he opened the first session of the House of Representatives under the Clinton administration, an appearance arranged by a church member, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson. Last year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Morton one of "96 Southerners to Watch."

From the pulpit - from his three pulpits, actually - Morton preaches a Christianity shining with an explicit theology of prosperity, pride and empowerment that has made him a wealthy exemplar of his message.

Its core is to know God not only braces the soul, but also opens heaven's windows for an outpouring of physical and financial blessings - that by growing in Christianity, historically oppressed black people draw close to a God who has not only pledged them eternal life but also the freedom from financial bondage in the here and now.

Morton's speech is full of exhortations to "raise the standard," to "change a generation." He savages "the enemy called `average.' "

That passion infuses the church's drive for economic development.

With his wife, Debra, as co-pastor, Morton's name appears on church stationery as "senior pastor and CEO." In the language of Greater St. Stephen, the church's administration comes not from the church office but from "corporate headquarters."

Backed by congregants' donations, almost $6 million last year, Morton and his board of trustees have plowed church money into highly visible investments: an office building on Canal Street, another in eastern New Orleans, a Louisiana Avenue apartment building the church hopes to convert to housing for the elderly, and most prominently, a $1.7 million, 15-acre former Coast Guard residential compound with fully occupied rental units in eastern New Orleans.

Morton's economic ambitions reflect an appetite for business at least as great as for preaching. It does not hurt that he is a political player as well. No public official can afford to ignore a clergyman with access to 18,000 people.

While Morton alone is not a kingmaker, his endorsement is seriously courted in every important race.

On the day Morton succeeded Greater St. Stephen's previous pastor, the Rev. Percy Simpson, the church had an enrollment of 647.

That was two years after the 22-year-old Morton arrived in New Orleans from Windsor, Ontario, in 1972.

Within six months, he became assistant pastor. He became pastor after Simpson died in a car accident in November 1974.

Morton combined a gift for preaching with solid organizing skills, an ability to attract top names on the gospel concert circuit, and a keen appreciation of the importance of broadcasting his services. Buying television and radio time remains the church's biggest expense outside its payroll, consuming $750,000 a year.

But the pulpit is the seat of Morton's power.

When he preaches, he prowls the aisles, cordless mike in hand. He pushes into the congregation and retreats.

He does voices, rolls his eyes, lapses into comedy. He shouts and whispers, crouches and explodes, casts fire and spreads jubilation with a regularity that always has a good portion of 4,000 congregants rising to their feet.

Shortly after arriving at Greater St. Stephen, Morton began to preach the Pentecostal message that personal manifestations of the Holy Spirit can be made apparent in the world today. Morton welcomed members' speaking in tongues; he proclaimed physical healings in the congregation.

Around New Orleans today, few traditional Baptist pastors are publicly critical of Morton's "Baptist Pentecostalism."

Morton, however, said he feels a certain chill. Relations with many other Baptist pastors are superficially civil, but without depth or warmth, he said.