'Something instantly felt like home:' Fr. Alex Barton installed at Church of the Redeemer

LORAIN — About five years ago, the Rev. Alex Barton had what he considers to be the most quasi-mystical event in his life thus far: He thought of coming to Lorain. He didn't know anything about the International City other than it was the birthplace of Toni Morrison, but as he watched his friends from seminary get jobs at parishes, he thought of looking to Lorain, Ohio. When he called the priest in charge of vocations, without him bringing up the thought of Lorain, she suggested he apply and interview for an opening at Church of the Redeemer. "I visited and it was the crappiest of Lorain weather days, it was like gray, sleeting, it's like blowing sideways, some of these lights (in the church) were flickering," he said, sitting in a pew at the Reid Avenue parish. "They used to have this hideous old red carpet that had been here since the '70s or '80s. So visually it was very much a small, poor, struggling parish — like a lot of churches that had once had more stuff going on, more money and more people. "But just something instantly felt like home," he said, looking back to before he took the reins in 2017. It may have been the people who convinced him to move from New York City to the dreary midwest city — their faithfulness to the church and the city itself, coupled with their welcoming with open arms. At an installation ceremony Dec. 12, the church and Barton celebrated a continued commitment to one another. Alongside Barton accepting a more permanent role as the spiritual leader of the space, several locals were confirmed including three formerly homeless individuals and others brought to Church of the Redeemer through its various outreach programs. "One of the things I'm really proud about, not just personally but for this community is we've done a really good job of like there's a lot of people who may not be Christian but see us as their Church," he said. "That is really important." Outreach Church of the Redeemer is more than just Sunday services. It's Wednesday lunches and Thursday dinners for homeless or low-income individuals, an urban farm, a flower farm, and soon a bookstore. Before COVID-19 the church had started its Wednesday lunch, but as the pandemic saw residents losing their jobs and needs balloon, it added Thursday meals. "When COVID happened, while other churches, at least in our Diocese, was going in the direction of just continuing or closing down stuff, we were like why don't we just do dinner every Thursday, so we added that." He added later, "We have our prayers that we say every Sunday. We pray for those wrestling with addiction and homelessness and depression and all that kind of stuff. And now there are names to that, it's not just an abstraction." After a Barton attended a conference at Plainsong Farm near Grand Rapids – seeing the idea of a farm and church put together – Jim Goforth of Gateway Pharms came into his life, he said. Soon, Goforth's urban farm became Solidarity Farms through the church. They've since received a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to help increase neighborhood access to healthy foods. He was quick to note he is not the reason the church's outreach has been successful – it's been the buy-in from the parishioners and the resources they've put into its projects. Solidarity Moving forward, there are always the practical things of running a church like paying off renovations to the kitchen, but Barton also hopes to grow its space as an advocate for the community. Housing is a big issue, he said. Barton himself lives in a rented Catholic rectory with six other men to give them a roof over their heads. While the church sold its rectory decades ago, Barton hopes to buy the one he currently calls home to allow the church to make upgrades to the space and house more people in need. Growing up in Baltimore as the son of an Episcopal priest and a spiritual director, religion was something talked about often, he said. But he still has doubts in his calling, in the way the world aligns with the teachings of God, he said. But the church's message is pretty clear, despite how it may get lost along the way: "do things for the poor, be in solidarity with the poor, visit people in prison, visit the sick," he said. At Barton's installation, Rev. George Baum of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Massillon gave a sermon from an Anglican priest at the turn of the century about sanitation – the priest telling the government he can care about the word of God, and London's drainage system. "The whole point of it though is that our concern is about the things that affect our community because it affects the people who we believe are made in the image of God," Barton said. "In the sense of like our vocation is to support the dignity of all people and that does mean that we care about things that are maybe not traditionally seen as issues of the church." Church of the Redeemer is at 647 Reid Ave. Services are 10:30 a.m. Sundays. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.