The Rev. Mark Griffin isn’t sure why he followed Adrian Hughes back to his car that hot summer day in 2007.
But it’s a decision that changed, and probably saved, Hughes’ life.
He had stopped at Wayman Ministries’ campus on Labelle Street to see the pastor he heard helped people like him. Those who want a better life and are willing to work for it.
Hughes needed a job. Griffin told him to write down his number and he’d get back with him.
As Hughes walked back to his car, Griffin decided to follow him.
His wife and their three little girls were waiting for Hughes in the car, which didn’t have air-conditioning.
That’s why Hughes needed a job. So his daughters could have a better life than he did.
He left his mother’s house when he was 16, a year after his father died.
“I was in the streets all day, hustling,” said Hughes, now 36.
He started selling drugs. He was shot five times one night in Springfield. Most of his friends were either dead or in jail.
“I thought this man is serious,” Griffin said. “He’s driving around Jacksonville with his wife and kids in an unair-conditioned car trying to find a job.”
He put Hughes on the church's payroll for two weeks to see how he would do with the maintenance crew.
Hughes said he missed just three days in his eight years there before joining the Merchant Marines. He left Wayman Temple as a better father, better husband and better person.
“For him to accept me into the church, and my wife and kids, was just a blessing,” Hughes said.
Griffin’s career in the ministry is filled with success stories, whether it’s helping one family or working to transform the lives of hundreds of families living in deplorable conditions in Eureka Garden.
Seeing his passion for being a pastor makes it hard to believe he fought the calling for so long.
Living the sermon
Griffin received a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1982 from Florida A&M University. He was an internal auditor at CSX Corp., then started his own accounting firm.
The ability to have an impact on small businesses was “very attractive” to Griffin. It also was the first indication he was trying to make a difference in people’s lives.
When he first accepted the call to preach in 1988, he had no desire to leave his accounting practice.
“I bargained with the Lord. I said, ‘I’ll preach but I won’t pastor,’” said Griffin, whose father retired as a pastor.
When he started pastoring part-time in a small church, he said, “I will pastor but not full-time.”
He lost again when he tried to bargain with God. “He has an unfair advantage,” Griffin said.
Ultimately, Griffin surrendered. He shut down his CPA practice and became a full-time pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal church. He worked at two churches before being assigned to Wayman Temple in 1995.
The church has grown from 75 members to 1,400 and added a second campus, an elementary charter school with 375 students and a development corporation that operates several community service efforts.
Griffin’s accounting background helps keep those businesses running. His father’s example as a pastor helps him minister to not only his church but others in the community.
The best sermon is not the one preached, Griffin said. It’s the one lived.
“I had the benefit of not only hearing his sermon, but seeing his sermon,” Griffin said of his father, Henry. “Seeing how he lived outside the pulpit.”
Griffin is cognizant of the power of his words, even ones he considers to be idle.
“Somebody may make a decision on that,” he said.
His sermons aren’t just about religion or going to heaven. He talks to his members about their daily lives. How to spend their money and how to approach their marriages, families and jobs.
“Almost every Sunday somebody says, ‘The Lord was speaking directly to me through you,’” he said.
At Wayman Temple, Griffin is often ministering to families rocked by crime. Families who’ve lost members to murder; others who have lost them to jail.
He also has taken on the challenge of helping the residents of a community right outside his front door.
Helping a neighbor
Wayman bought the Labelle Street campus in 2004. It was mainly a way to expand its charter school that, in less than a year, outgrew the modular building at the Baymeadows area campus.
A couple of years later, when Jacksonville’s murder rate skyrocketed, much of the crime was coming from Wayman Temple’s Labelle Street neighbor — Eureka Garden.
Griffin started walking through the complex trying to get to know residents. At first, they were suspicious, which he understood.
But he kept coming back. Then the church started helping out there. Residents began to warm up.
He didn’t approach people from the standpoint of what they had done. He tried to understand their background.
If Griffin saw kids with their pants sagging, but didn’t know them, he didn’t tell them to pull up their pants.
After they got to know him, many began to pull up their pants on their own, he said.
In Eureka, word began to spread, “Hey, that preacher’s all right.”
As a young boy in Tallahassee, Griffin visited his aunt who lived in a subsidized community. He loved playing on the huge playground with the children who lived there.
“It was always a festive atmosphere,” he said.
He was surprised the 400-unit Eureka Garden complex didn’t have a playground. Griffin was committed to changing that.
The church put in the first $5,000 in an online fundraising campaign, with an original target of $75,000 to build a big playground.
Thanks to $50,000 from Steve Pajcic, his wife and his law firm and $20,000 from the Jacksonville Auto Dealers Association, the campaign raised more than $100,000.
As more money was donated, the plans for the playground were expanded. Griffin said every dollar went toward the playground, which opened in December.
However, there were still long-term problems inside the apartments.
Still work to be done
When newly elected Sheriff Mike Williams had a July walk through Eureka Garden, he was joined by Mayor Lenny Curry and several council members.
They were horrified by the condition of the complex, particularly the overwhelming mold problem. But there was also water damage, roof leaks, roaches and sewer issues.
Since that event, Curry has led the push to get the owners, Global Ministries Foundation, to clean up the complex. Much work has been done, but much remains.
The company has since put Eureka Garden and several other area complexes up for sale.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio called Global Ministries “slumlords” and wants a criminal investigation.
Griffin said he talked several times with Global Ministries and the previous owners about the problems.
They listened, he said, but didn’t follow-through. “I think they were more profit-driven people,” Griffin said.
He said he would “absolutely” be interested in buying the complex, which would require a considerable investment. One he's willing to make.
Griffin said he knows there are many needs throughout the city. But his church can’t be all things to all people.
So Wayman Temple is committed to focusing on making life better in Eureka Garden, once a place where murders regularly occurred. He said there hasn’t been one in 18 months.
Griffin is hoping other pastors follow suit and take on something in their own neighborhoods, even if it’s one family at a time.
He’s seen the payoffs that come from that work.
Whether it’s residents of Eureka Garden finally seeing the city cares about them or a father like Adrian Hughes who can now afford college funds for his three daughters.
Blessings come in all sizes.
@editormarilyn
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