Former Montgomery drug dealer, gang member trades crime for pastorate

Former Montgomery drug dealer, gang member trades crime for pastorate

He’s a former drug dealer and gang member, hardly the credentials sought by most churches looking for pastors.
   
But Huey Harris’ dramatic conversion from gangster to preacher turned out to be the key First Baptist Church, Montgomery, would use to open ministry doors  into the roughest areas of the city.
   
Harris, 29, was 12 when he began selling cocaine under the direction of his grandmother while his mother was in prison. By 14, Harris or “Shockey,” as he was called, had joined the Disciples gang and set up turf at a local junior high school.
   
Although he escaped prosecution, at age 16 he was charged with capital murder after driving the shooter away from a street killing.
   
Meanwhile, Harris ran a crack house behind a Montgomery high school for five years. In 1997, at age 22, he was arrested for selling drugs. He received five years probation. After shooting at someone who owed him $250, the guy revenged himself by shooting Harris, then age 23, three times in his side.
   
In 2001 Harris was looking forward to “getting off papers,” the transition of eliminating monthly drug tests required during probation. “My thing was to go back and sell drugs, but God had another plan.”
   
One night Harris went home, drunk and high from marijuana, and fell asleep. He dreamed of Christ’s second coming in a vivid, intense panorama of an earth destroyed by fire, a land strewn with dead bodies and then the beauty of a newly created world.
   
He said God told him in his dream to “get your life together.” Harris woke up a new man. He took drug addicts and gang members to church and preached Christ to them.
   
His alliance with First, Montgomery, began when Harris wrote more than 200 Montgomery churches in June 2001. Pastor Jay Wolf was the sole respondent. Wolf also introduced Harris to Neal Hughes, director of Project Hope, a ministry that plants cell groups in the projects of Montgomery. Harris shared his testimony at a Project Hope block party, and 63 people were saved.
   
In 2003 Harris started a church at a Montgomery motel patroned by drug dealers and prostitutes. In the 14 months he ministered there, 2,000 people accepted Christ, according to Harris, including one 19-year-old who dropped his “straight shooter,” a drug device used by addicts, on the altar.
   
The church could not afford the motel fees, so Harris held a news conference to explain its plight. Again, First, Montgomery, responded. Fresh Waters Christian Church International took life, headquartered in the Caring Center building of First, Montgomery, with Harris as pastor. Two hundred people attended the first service, and 77 received Christ.
   
Harris labors under the auspices of First, Montgomery, which provides him a salary as, in the words of Wolf, a “security-enforcing ‘bouncer’ and a Good News sharing evangelist.” Harris ministers to drug dealers and gang members roaming Montgomery’s 16 projects.
   
His background and dramatic conversion serve the gospel because they get attention. Harris has received personal letters from Alabama’s attorney general Troy King, Oprah Winfrey and Evangelist Billy Graham. He’s been invited to speak about his experiences on  American Family Network radio  from Washington, D.C. 
   
His background commands respect on the street, according to Harris. “I made it. I was a leader.” His subsequent conversion does, too. “They respect the decision I made.”
   
He has made other significant decisions in his life. Last year he married and he and his wife, Andrea, are parents of a newborn, Hannah Rose.
   
He spends his days counseling people, teaching the Bible and helping organize special outreaches. Harris established Brothers for Life, a nonprofit organization encouraging students to avoid gangs. He also established the We Care ministry, which distributes food and clothing to the needy.
   
He expects his ministry to expand beyond the borders of Montgomery and beyond even the drug dealers and gang members he’s reaching now. “It’s ‘whosoever.’ That’s my calling. To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in cities where traditional churches won’t go.”