ST. LOUIS — No matter the turnout every Sunday at Jubilee Community Church, two seats are always saved for Matt and Ryan.
The men, each suffering with their own dependence issues, had come to Senior Pastor Bryan Moore several years ago for help. So he prayed for both, and offered what he could: A room at his house for Matt; a hug for Ryan. But both died suddenly and unexpectedly, one of an overdose and one whose cause Moore never learned.
It was a wake-up call for Moore, 59, who has spent most of his life pastoring. Jubilee would have to change.
![A place for recovery at Jubilee Community Church](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=150%2C95 150w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=200%2C127 200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=225%2C143 225w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=300%2C190 300w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=400%2C254 400w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=540%2C343 540w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=640%2C406 640w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=750%2C476 750w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=990%2C628 990w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C657 1035w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C762 1200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C846 1333w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=1476%2C937 1476w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/58/3589d811-09a6-56ec-a3cd-433193efd47b/6658bd8b34a49.image.jpg?resize=1807%2C1147 2008w)
The Rev. Bryan Moore, right, senior pastor of Jubilee Community Church, jokes with resident Robert McGhaw as Moore’s wife Leslie looks on following a lunch meeting on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. McGhaw is a senior member of the church’s shelter for men who are in various stages of recovery.
“When you have pivotal moments such as this happen, where you are face to face with people that you love, and you realize that you failed them,” Moore said, “that will change everything about how you do things.”
The change was big for the small church. And it’s getting bigger. Now, three years since Jubilee launched a substance abuse recovery program, the church is embarking on a $24 million expansion. Leaders have bought a long-vacant public school building, aim to add dozens of new detox beds, and look to serve hundreds more men each year. The project won’t just help residents, pastors say. It will help the whole neighborhood.
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And it has the support of some of the region’s most prominent businesses: architects, construction companies, law firms and developers, including Union Station owner Bob O’Loughlin, who sits on the Jubilee board.
“I think they’re doing great work,” O’Loughlin said.
The church has an ambitious model. It does more than treat substance abuse disorders, it houses and feeds the men, provides structure and support, including regular prayer sessions, and helps connect them with jobs, often through Jubilee’s own companies in property maintenance, gardening and truck driving.
The end result: In a corner of the region devastated by poverty, population loss and substance abuse, Jubilee has become a place people here know.
Jubilee Church in north St. Louis has purchased the old Eliot School off North Grand with plans to house up to 75 men fighting addiction.
Its pastors said the new path has now helped hundreds of men.
“We have over promised and under-delivered in these communities,” Moore said. “We’ve had to refine our approach to ministry and how we preach.”
Stigma and prejudice
Jubilee has spent much of its 30-year history headquartered on a desolate stretch on North Grand Boulevard, two blocks northeast of Fairground Park. Feeding the appetites and souls of men in need, striving to rebuild the neighborhood, made little difference as drug use spiraled and disinvestment spread.
Nearly 3,000 people have died from drug overdoses between 2017-2023 in the city of St. Louis, with the peak hitting in 2020 when 490 people died, according to health records.
Moore, who grew up in East St. Louis, joined Jubilee in 2019. Collectively, Moore and the other pastors realized they’d need professional help in treating substance abuse and mental health issues.
“Drug addiction is a symptom,” said Administrative Pastor Andy Krumsieg. “No one says they want to grow up to be addicted to drugs.”
In 2021, they partnered with St. Louis-based Assisted Recovery Centers of America, or ARCA, which provides Vivitrol, an injection that blocks the brain’s ability to get high or drunk.
![A place for recovery at Jubilee Community Church](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=150%2C100 150w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=200%2C133 200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=225%2C150 225w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=300%2C199 300w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=400%2C266 400w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=540%2C359 540w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=640%2C425 640w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=750%2C499 750w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=990%2C658 990w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C688 1035w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C798 1200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C886 1333w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=1476%2C981 1476w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/98/698413c0-abc5-598a-a761-c79b20bb07cd/6658bd9099235.image.jpg?resize=1766%2C1174 2008w)
Robert Sneed, a resident of the men’s shelter at Jubilee Ministries STL, vacuums around the church building near a cross adorned with posted "prayers of forgiveness" on Monday, May 20, 2024, in the Fairground neighborhood of St. Louis.
It’s an incredibly difficult population to work with, said Bart Andrews, chief clinical officer at mental health clinic Behavioral Health Response, which is not connected to Jubilee. Medication-assisted treatment is one method experts can use, he said. But what works for one person may not work with another. A combination of treatments is common. Relapse, he said, “is a matter of when, not if.”
They’re also often dealing with mental health issues or other physical ailments, he said. It’s partly why substance use is so difficult to solve.
“There’s a tremendous stigma and prejudice against them,” Andrews said. “And it makes it really hard to get appropriate care.”
Jubilee relies on men who’ve already gone through its recovery program to vet newcomers, to determine whether they’re really interested in recovery or if they’re just looking for a bed for the night. It’s also meant to be empowering for those who’ve gone through the program in that they have a hand in helping others, said Krumsieg.
Participants go to ARCA’s clinic at Jubilee, and they attend short worship services called devotionals. James Boshears, who completed the program at Jubilee, led one recent devotional with eight other men. They discussed what to do when they feel disrespected, how they used to react, how they should react.
“Don’t give them residence in your heart,” Boshears told the men.
Boshears said later that he gets as much out of the devotionals as the men in the recovery program do.
“This is a home, not a program,” he said, a maxim that many of the men and pastors repeat at Jubilee.
Others just a few months in the program describe the hope they feel at Jubilee’s doorsteps.
One of them, Darrion Kemp, said he looked for help to get clean in many places. Kemp can’t articulate what drew him to Jubilee, but, he said he’s found his home.
“I followed God,” he said. “I knew this was the place.”
![A place for recovery at Jubilee Community Church](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=150%2C100 150w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=200%2C133 200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=225%2C150 225w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=300%2C200 300w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=400%2C267 400w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=540%2C360 540w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=640%2C427 640w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=750%2C500 750w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=990%2C660 990w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C690 1035w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C800 1200w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C888 1333w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=1476%2C984 1476w, https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1b/f1be267b-eb6a-5e78-b36b-3ef15facc866/6658bd9255b82.image.jpg?resize=1763%2C1175 2008w)
Garrionn Adolph installs an air conditioner inside an apartment that is managed by Jubilee Ministries STL in the Hyde Park neighborhood of St. Louis on Monday, May 20, 2024. Adolph is a member of the church’s shelter for men who are in various stages of recovery.
In the first 30 days of recovery, the men spend about one to three hours volunteering at Jubilee’s various businesses, and initially live at Jubilee’s five sober homes.
The men are then encouraged to obtain employment, whether through Jubilee’s businesses — if there are any openings — or elsewhere.
The program, the pastors say, provides discipline: The men, for example, are required to stand when Moore, the senior pastor, enters a room.
“We are obsessed with structure and order,” Moore said. “Because when you step out these doors, it’s havoc and chaos.”
‘I want to be part of it’
It took Jubilee months to buy the former Eliot School, roughly a quarter-mile away at North Florissant and Glasgow avenues, from St. Louis Public Schools. Pastors said there were long waits during negotiations before the district finally agreed to sell the 51,000-square-foot building for $150,000.
Built in 1893, the three-story property is in the National Register of Historic Places and has been vacant for about 20 years. But it’s in good shape. It has tall ceilings. Natural light pours into every floor.
“Eliot School is a metaphor for reality,” Krumsieg said. “It used to be full of life, but it has declined.”
Once fully renovated, the school will become Jubilee Wellness Center and offer over 40 detox beds, devoted to men going through withdrawal, which Krumsieg said are rare across the region. It will offer community, training and fellowship spaces, a dedicated area for the ARCA clinic and an onsite pharmacy and lab.
Intake will be based in the basement, and the men will move up the floors as they make their way through recovery, Krumsieg said.
Those now in the program have given their input as to how to arrange the rooms, where best to put the beds and where they could store their stuff.
“I want to be a part of it,” said Robert McGhaw, who has been in Jubilee’s recovery program for a little over six months.
Jubilee assembled some of the biggest names in construction and development to make it happen: Trivers architecture, Paric Corp. construction, developer McCormack Baron Salazar, and law firm Husch Blackwell, among others.
“They have a vision,” said Joel Fuoss, principal at Trivers.
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John Wenzelburger, a resident of a men’s shelter run by Jubilee Community Church, cuts grass at the former Eliot School on Thursday, May 2, 2024.
Jubilee put O’Loughlin, of Union Station, in its video pitch for prospective donors. The video opens with a cellphone video of a man by the side of the road, swaying and hunched over; then it transitions to a cinematic rollout of Moore, the senior pastor, and other Jubilee leaders visiting various dilapidated sites in the neighborhood. It ends with Moore calling O’Loughlin for help.
O’Loughlin told the Post-Dispatch a friend introduced him to Jubilee. And after meeting Moore and the others, O’Loughlin said he wanted to help out in any way he could.
Krumsieg said they’ll need to fundraise about $6 million and that Jubilee will soon apply for $12 million worth of tax credits. The organization also expects to receive $2.7 million in government funding.
Of that, Jubilee is waiting for the city’s Community Development Administration, which doles out federal funding, to release $500,000 it previously awarded the organization.
But there’s been a frustrating back-and-forth with CDA, Krumsieg and Moore said. Sometimes, they said, it feels like the city is moving the goalposts.
Tom Nagel, the public information officer for CDA, said the agency wants to ensure there are no mistakes with the contract.
The city, Nagel said, is “100% committed” to Jubilee’s project.
It can’t come soon enough, the pastors say.
“Those waters have been difficult,” Moore said. “Anytime there’s not a ‘t’ crossed, or an ‘i’ dotted, somebody here dies.”
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Sidney Craig, who has lived across Grove Street from the old Eliot School for two decades, works on his car Thursday, May 2, 2024, as volunteers to clean around the former school building. “Every five years they tell us they’re going to do something with it and never do,” said Craig. “I say here we go again.”
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.