“Humility is our power,” proclaimed Rev. Gregory Lewis, President of Pastors United, during the regular Thursday morning meeting of the organization last week at Jerusalem Baptist Church.
“Dealing with 188 pastors, we have to be humble. We’re in a great position, and no one will be trying to overpower anyone. We just need to do the work.”
The work that Pastors United is doing is to enhance the overall quality for life for people in the city of Milwaukee. They are launching an initiative called, “Faith Builds Milwaukee.”
“There are 20,000 vacant homes that the city owns; we want a few of them. We’ve started to research on buying and rehabbing those houses to provide housing to our members. That’s economic development. By doing this, we can hire our own people and we need people trained and ready to do the work of rehabbing these properties.
“The city is exploring ways to reduce this inventory of vacant homes. We need to devise a plan that we can present to the City of Milwaukee to secure some of these homes. This is a lofty goal, but it’s a practical one,” Rev. Lewis said.
Pastors United wants the community to understand that they can provide hope in the city for the hopeless.
“You can’t measure the victory when you get someone to realize they can do something for themselves,” Lewis added.
The group is looking at organizing, planning and being held accountable for what they are asking from the City of Milwaukee.
Pastors United is dedicated to supporting many causes that deal with economic justice in Milwaukee, in addition to vacant and foreclosed on homes, but the group is working on moving campaigns for a living wage ordinance, fair construction projects and health and wellness concerns.
Pastors United meets weekly on Thursdays at Jerusalem Baptist Church, 2505 West Cornell Street.
