Pastor Gloria Alexander in the Church of Broken Pieces in Minersville. PHOTO BY DAVE McKEOWN
I have fond memories of Route 61. During my childhood summers, it was a yellow brick road to the paradise that was Knoebels Amusement Park. The lush mountain scenery and small towns my family and I passed through, along with the increasingly elaborate billboards advertising the park (a 3-D ferris wheel!), made the journey as exciting as the destination. Last winter, I had the idea to do a column about interesting places people can visit on the way to Knoebels. During my research, I found that Knoebels is surrounded by an unusually large number of religious sites. Route 61 is a sort of pilgrimage route, probably the only one on Earth that ends with roller coasters and baked potatoes. You can call it El Camino de Kozmo. In this column, I seek to reveal the histories of these holy places and what they mean to the people who worship there. From great churches to one man’s passion, these sites tell diverse stories of faith, love and humanity’s relationship with the divine in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on October 10, 2021.
MINERSVILLE - On August 15, 2007, the Virgin Mary was seen in Minersville. Hundreds of Catholics - and a paranormal investigator - came to see the image that appeared in an alley adjacent to Front Street, on the garage door of the Church of Broken Pieces. Children stood and stared. A sick old man prayed for healing. People reached out to touch the woman-shaped sunlight that reflected from a window across the alley. Some called it a message from Heaven. Others called it an optical illusion. Although the Church of Broken Pieces is nondenominational, Pastor Gloria Alexander believes that the image was divinely inspired.
“When God knocked the apostle Paul down,” she said, “a light shone on him, even though he didn’t see an image of anything. I believe that God shines a light on various parts of the Earth just to get people’s attention that there is a creator.”
The Church of Broken Pieces, founded by Gloria and her late husband Harold Eugene in 1982, is built on inclusivity.
“We don’t consider ourselves a black church or a white church,” she said. “In that new nature, it’s not about male or female, black or white, Jew or Greek. So as I’m trying to grow in that, and when we moved up here, there were some things that I had to confront and face. When I bow my knee and worship my creator, he’s not white. He’s not black.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, Gloria, a woman who calls strangers “baby” and waves to the people she sees on the streets of Minersville, discussed her relationship with her church and how religion can bridge society’s divides.
“I’m not about religion as much as about a relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said.
Since 2000, the Church of Broken Pieces has occupied a humble building that was once an Episcopal church. Gloria wants to replace the aging stained glass windows, but the Church doesn’t have the money. One window has the image of Jesus on it, but this came with the building. It is not, she says, representative of her church.
“The Bible says not to make an image,” Gloria said. “I understand if you’re black, you’re gonna make an image of Jesus that looks black. If you’re Native American, Chinese, and so on. I don’t bow the knee to an image of God. I don’t want to get into any arguments with my brothers and sisters, but I don’t bow the knee to no statues of God.”
The Episcopal Diocese was originally going to sell the church to a man who would tear it down and build a parking lot in its place. Gloria and Harold stepped in, but the $65,000 price tag was intimidating.
“When we first walked in here,” Gloria said, “and we came into this place, it was like ‘Oh my God.’ When we walked in, it was like we fell in love with the place.”
The Episcopal Bishop drastically reduced the price and donated $10,000. Gloria tears up remembering the Bishop’s generosity. She’s sitting in her office with boxes of Kingdom®-brand prefilled communion cups with wafers, cell phones donated to the church “for a safer environment” and a Burger King crown.
“Of course our crown is when we talk about Crown Jesus,” Gloria said. “With our children, we teach them that they are kings and queens and royalty adopted into the family of God.”
Gloria grew up in a nonreligious household in North Philadelphia. In the 1970s, she was a successful businesswoman running an office, but she was an alcoholic.
“I asked ‘If there was a god somewhere, come into my life and save me,’” she said. “This world that I built and was so proud of, it was out of control. When I wanted to take a drink in the morning, it was so scary. It was like the rug was pulled out from me.”
Harold was raised Catholic.
“I was a total heathen,” she said. “My husband was the good one. When we were courting - what do you call it now, dating? - he would tell me that after we went out, he went to confession every morning. I said ‘You told a priest what we did?’”
One day, she heard “Jesus saves” on the radio. After lying in bed all week, too depressed to get out of bed, one day Harold came home from work to see Gloria and her children dressed for church. After her baptism and conversion, she went out to dinner with Harold and ordered a beer.
“I just felt this wind or something come at me and put the glass down,” she said. “Keep in mind, I was a drunk, and I drank two six packs of beer a day. God delivered me, took the taste of alcohol out of me. That was my experience and encounter with the Almighty Creator. It was scary, it was awesome.”
Harold used to minister at a halfway house, and one of his flock was transferred to Schuylkill County. Meanwhile, her church in Philadelphia was being torn apart by drug addiction. Gloria remembers one of the men she was praying for, clearly experiencing symptoms of withdrawal, stealing her pocketbook. It was the second time in a week that someone stole from her. The first time her wallet was stolen, the thief brought the wallet back with the money missing.
“When that man brought back my wallet with all the information, I knew that they respected us,” she said. “We still have a church that is there. We have people that are committed, every summer and spring, to go out into the neighborhood and witness.”
When her pocketbook was stolen, she thought of the song from “The Color Purple:” “Maybe God is Tryin’ to Tell You Somethin’.”
“I looked at the sky and said ‘Maybe God is trying to tell me something,’” Gloria said.
Later, she was in church and heard a preacher read from Deuteronomy: “Rise and take your journey.” This was the last straw. She was going to Schuylkill County.
“There’s so many that are family,” she said about her life here. “There are so many that are family, I don’t want to start listing them because I might leave someone out. Not religion, but family. I have learned how to love unconditionally, to not be narrow-minded. That it’s alright if we disagree with each other but we still love each other.”
She and her husband also experienced racism and discrimination.
“When I ran against some really hard, hateful stuff,” she said, “as I prayed about it, the Lord said ‘Pray for your enemies.’ Through prayer, my husband and I would pray, the Lord said ‘Love them.’”
At first, the church occupied a storefront in Pottsville. The Church of Broken Pieces would attend monthly conferences of Pottsville’s different religious denominations.
“A couple of the ones we went to, their worship was really just silence,” she said. “We believe in praising and worshipping the Lord, raising our hands and singing songs to the Lord.”
She and a group of church members raised funds to play an hour of gospel music each week on WPAM radio, in a program called “The Gospel Music Connection.” Gospel music has been a constant presence in Gloria’s life, a symbol of the strength that the Church of Broken Pieces has given her.
“When the Bible talks about the Word of God,” she said, “it also talks about speaking to yourself and singing to yourself. It just gives you a power, a strength, a joy. It just gives you a reminder of whatever you’re going through, regardless of how hard your day is, God is with you and God is in you.”
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