Love Thy Neighbor

Walter Hallam, author of numerous Christian books and recordings, steward of a perfect head of untouchable evangelist hair, stands before the Solomon's Porch congregation on a Thursday evening in early November and commands: "Pray with me."

Rising from metal chairs that last year displaced antique oak pews, a few hundred worshippers raise their hands and speak in tongues, loudly. Gibber collides with neighborly jabber as the ideal acoustics of the sanctuary serve up a divine linguistic sundae -- scoops of Latin and Italian topped with Porky Pig: Ah-la-dooh-bah-da-deeh-ba-la-dooh.

As the prayer soars, a woman kneels in the aisle. Another shakes in the arms of a friend. Another stomps and echoes Hallam, who paces the front of the sanctuary, screaming "Thank you, Lord!" into a microphone wired to deliver decibels of pain.

Behind him, guitars, drums, microphones and amps sit where the church's architect penciled in a pulpit 97 years ago. Above, straps dangling through holes punched in the ceiling suspend two concert-grade speakers over the congregation. From similar holes at the back of the church, a lighting rig casts its shadow across an elaborate soundboard. A large white projection screen centered over the stage partially covers the massive brass tubes of an unused pipe organ.

Eventually the praying peters out, and Hallam, a guest preacher from Houston, resumes his sermon. Before him, in the front row, sits Troy Covey, the thirty-year-old pastor of three-year-old Solomon's Porch. Covey wears a slick black dress shirt, khakis and wire-rimmed glasses. His hair is frosted blond. He raises his hands to Hallam's words, which are now directed at him.

"It is time to take this church to the next level!" Hallam bellows. He places his hands on the now-standing Covey, who sways back and forth on his feet, and gives this message to the pastor: "Do not be weary in your well-doing."

And then: "The time to reap is near!"

And then a financial forecast of those graces to be reaped: "Millions will come! Millions will come! Millions will come!" The congregation, mostly young to middle-aged people, black and white, cheers the prophecy.

Outside, a few young men wearing orange vests stand at 36th and Walnut, a block from Main Street. Tonight, they provide security, a separate ministry at Solomon's Porch with its own fourteen-week discipleship training program. Mainly, it's an attempt to placate neighbors of the noisy congregation by ensuring that worshippers don't park in front of driveways.

Square-jawed and handsome, Danny Phillips stands on duty tonight, just before dark, as cars pass intermittently. "It's a foundation builder," Phillips says of the discipleship program. "So we're not just out here thinking we're cool."

Months ago, Phillips would have felt cheated by being outside the church during a service, especially one as animated as tonight's. But the orange vest is growing on him. "I didn't think standing out here would be that great," he says. "But the more I think about it, I'm serving the kingdom of God, doing something of a higher purpose. That gets me going."

Regarding the neighbors, Phillips is sincerely diplomatic. "Yeah, we're doing something wrong if this community is being put out or being inconvenienced by our presence," he says.

It's more than an inconvenience. Residents call Solomon's Porch the worst neighbor on the block.

In the beginning, there was Humboldt Avenue, a dusty road on the outskirts of Kansas City. Humboldt -- now 36th Street -- offered an escape from the hustle and soot of late nineteenth-century urban life.

In 1889, a Kansas City Star ad beckoned the affluent to the rarefied quietude of suburban living: "If you want a complete home of latest design with all modern conveniences, surrounded by the best society, in the choicest location, adjoining the city, removed from the dust and smoke, and within twenty minutes' ride by cable to the center of the city, examine the MODEL DWELLINGS ... for sale in HYDE PARK!"

One of the first homes here was owned by William Knight, designer of Kansas City's trolley system. Across the street, W. M. Reid and his wife, Alice Moore, built their 1899 English mansion. The Reid and Moore families were associated with the Emery Bird Thayer department store, which President Grover Cleveland's wife reportedly loved.

Frederick Hill, architect of the city's first convention center, lived nearby. Seth Ward (namesake of the parkway) owned land here in the late nineteenth century. Jacob and Ella Loose (Loose Park's benefactors) would later live on the block.

By 1902, a new flock called Westminster Congregational was looking to build. Under the leadership of the Reverend William Potts George, work began in 1904 on a structure at the corner at 36th and Walnut.

Finished three years later, Westminster's gothic-woodwork interior, elegant stained-glass windows and elaborate glass domes at the centers of both the main sanctuary and south-side chapel made it one of the finest churches in Missouri. Its early Gothic Revival style was influenced by a church in Akron, Ohio, that had changed the way American churches accommodated both worship and Sunday school. The amphitheater-shaped main sanctuary, complete with balcony, backed into a 1912 addition of 25 classrooms that could be opened and closed to one another.