Hammers in their hand - the Lord in their hearts

All it takes to be a Mobile Kingdom Builder is an RV, some free time and a love of Jesus.

For the past 15 years, these traveling carpenters -- retired teachers, pastors, electricians, housewives, even an occasional physicist -- have gone from place to place, lending a construction hand to small Open Bible churches. The churches provide the building materials, tools and meals; their labor is free.

For their 41st project, the Builders came to the Salt Lake City area this summer for the first time.

They came at the request of the Rev. Tony Black, pastor of River of Life Church in Murray. Black heard about the Mobile Kingdom Builders last spring, but he didn't think they would come soon enough to help him finish his sanctuary. He presumed there was a long waiting list for their services. He was wrong.

Within a month of Black's first phone call to them, 16 Builders and their nine giant RVs were parked in his church. Every morning for three weeks thereafter, they offered a prayer, ate breakfast, then went to work erecting walls, installing doors, caulking, painting and putting in electrical wires for the River of Life Church in a Murray strip mall at 213 W. 4800 South.

Every Builder had another life before this one.

The director, Doug White, 73, was a retired Air Force chaplain. Bill Shelley was a cabinetmaker. Jody Holmes of Graham, Wash., was a real-estate agent who took construction courses at a community college

so she could give hands-on assistance. Many other women had nicknames -- the "painter sisters," "caulking queen," "broom queen."

But they all have the same urge: Spread the good news of the Christian gospel with their hands and hammers.

"I received the Lord as my Savior at 16 and have been committed to him ever since," says Jerry Wheeler, of Eugene, Ore., who turns 90 in October. "I started pastoring churches, but the Lord changed my plans to construction."

After retiring from the construction business, Wheeler began offering his skills to the Kingdom Builders.

"They are the best crew in the world," he says. "I would do anything to expedite the gospel."

It all seems a bit miraculous to Black, whose spiritual journey has followed a somewhat circuitous route.

The charismatic preacher was raised as a Mormon on Salt Lake City's east side, but says it didn't satisfy what he craved: a strong connection to Jesus Christ.

So after he left the state, Black went looking and found the Open Bible Church, a combination Pentecostal and Evangelical denomination, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. It was formed in the 1920s by the merger of two revival movements: Bible Standard Conference and Open Bible Evangelistic Association. The merger now represents more than 1,600 churches worldwide, ministering in nearly 40 nations. Its beliefs parallel those of the Assemblies of God and the Foursquare Gospel.

"Jesus is blowing a fresh breeze of repentance, prayer, fasting and evangelistic fervor into our movement," says the Open Bible Web site. "Our mandate includes the development of healthy, loving relationships that produce support and accountability among our ministers and churches."

Though they associate with the denominational headquarters, the churches are owned and operated locally, which Black appreciates. He had offers to pastor churches in other states, he says, "but God was calling me back to Utah."

In 1999, he launched River of Life with his wife, Jean, their three children and their spouses. Soon Black, with his folksy, funny sermons -- he once considered a career as a cartoonist -- and his wife, the organizational wizard, had attracted some three dozen regular attendees.

That was true even when the congregation met at the Seven Oaks Reception Center in Midvale and, beginning three years ago, in an empty warehouse in a Murray strip mall.

This Sunday, the sanctuary finally will feel like a real church -- thanks to that semi-geriatric but remarkably skilled roving construction crew.

"Typically, a pastor will see us arrive and think: 'A cadre of old people, what can they do?' " White says with a sly grin. "We specialize in amazing people."

pstack@sltrib.com