Charles Lyons

          I interviewed Charles Lyons. He is a reverend at church that has a congregation of about 40 different nationalities among 3,000 people. He loves what he does because he provides spiritual care for them and they are spiritually healthy in mind, body, and soul.

He is a pastor at Armitage Baptist church that is in the Logan Square neighborhood and one of the reasons for pursuing that career is his father used to be a reverend at a church on the South Side, and he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. Charles is a community veteran. He has been in the church game for some 20 years. He does not consider himself a community hero.

          If he can change the world he would change it by stopping the slave-like treatment that we call politics. He would not let us continue to “do good so that the master would give us the proper necessities that we need in life to survive.” Meaning police, fire department, and ambulance for examples.

          One of the obstacles he had to overcome to become a successful pastor was school. He was never into studying, so he never was really getting good grades. That was an obstacle because he could not be a successful in life without the proper education.

We asked Rev. Lyons that if he could give one piece of advice to the young world what would it be and he said this: “Well we are spiritual beings first. So our spiritual health comes before our physical health. And if you (he points to his chest) are not healthy in here then your not healthy at all. So keep that in mind.”  

Rev. Lyons has made great impacts on people’s lives. I’ll give you an example: one day Juan walks into church. Juan is addicted to crack. Juan gets the money for the drugs through burglary. One day he sees a woman whose house he had just burglarized, and by the power of God’s word he got up and told the lady that he would pay her back for everything he stole.

“I don’t consider myself a hero because a hero wouldn’t think of his self like that, his ego would get in the way.”  He is a wonderful man and he does great things. He is truly a community hero whether he thinks so or not, because he does not have to take time out of his life to preach God’s word--he wants to.

                                               by: Christopher Coleman