It was the first service since the church's beloved pastor, Rev. Ron Christian, died suddenly Friday morning. He was 51.
IRVINGTON -- The line to get into Christian Love Baptist Church on Sunday morning was out the door and snaked along Nesbit Terrace.
It was the first service since the church's beloved pastor, Rev. Ron Christian, died suddenly Friday morning. He was 51.
"My heart really departed (my body) when I heard that," said Nefretiri Smith as she waited in line with about a couple hundred others.
The Newark resident said she was at work when she got the call that Christian, or Rev. Ron as he was known, had died.
"I was in total disbelief," Smith said. "I had (to come) see it for myself."
RELATED: Irvington church community mourns Rev. Ron Christian
Anthony Ambrose, chief of detectives for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, said a family member found Christian unresponsive at the Lyons Avenue parish around 6 a.m. Authorities have not yet announced the cause of his death, but they do not suspect foul play was involved.
As people filed into the church on Sunday, pausing to embrace one another, they walked past a sign posted on the fence that read: "Thank you for touching so many lifes (sic). ... The community will forever miss you."
Inside the brick building, where every pew was full and people lined the walls, an empty chair sat to the right of the stage, draped in a white robe with red-imprinted crosses. Above it, a picture of Christian was perched above a bouquet of flowers.
The words "giving," "understanding," "real," and "passionate" were used by members of the congregation to describe Christian.
He knew the meaning of understanding well, having pulled himself out of the dark depths of drug addiction, said Rev. C. Eugene Overstreet, who delivered the sermon at the 11 a.m. service.
"The man who used to occupy this chair," Overstreet said, pointing to the empty chair with Christian's robe on it, "knew the very hell that drugs can send a person through, and he didn't mind showing people a better way."
After 14 trips to rehab and time spent in prison, Christian emerged from a jail cell in the late 1990s and turned his life around, dedicating it to God.
He took the reigns at Christian Love Baptist Church in 2000, transforming it into a well-known institution not only in Irvington, but in the surrounding communities as well.
PLUS: Pastor with a past guides flock to the future
Overstreet said one of the things that made Christian so special, was that he welcomed anyone into the church, regardless of race, sexual identity, rich, poor - none of it mattered, he said.
"Ron didn't discard anybody," Overstreet said, adding that he had a way of bringing people together. Christian took a congregation of about a dozen to more than 6,000 over the years.
Overstreet said that when he heard the news that Christian died, he wept, not only because he had lost a friend, but also because the world had lost "another real preacher."
Assistant Pastor Alfreddy Fletcher said Christian wasn't a tall man, about 5 feet 6 inches tall. "But when he started talking about God," Fletcher said, "he seemed 10 feet tall."
Fletcher said Christian would preach in jeans and cowboy boots. People would shake his hand, walk right past him, and then ask Fletcher where the pastor of Christian Love was. They would feel a slight feeling of embarrassment when Fletcher would walk that person right back to Christian.
"He's brilliant," Fletcher said. "We're going to miss him. He was a great leader and led by example. He would be willing to get in your mess with you, just to pull you out."
Curtis Morris, a member of the church, said, "no one could capture the people in the room the way (Christian) could."
Morris, talking to a group of church members behind the stage, said there would be a lot of people who maybe haven't been to church in a while.
As Christian would do, "Hug them and love them," he said.
And despite all the tears and solemn faces at Sunday's service, there were also many joyous moments, as people sang, clapped and pointed to the sky.
Overstreet, looking over at the empty chair in the corner with Christian's picture above it, said Christian is gone but his presence can still be felt.
"Ron is gone --- the words I never thought I would hear in this century now utter through lips of faith," Overstreet said. "Let me make an addendum to that motion, substantive motion. The part of Ron that we cannot see is gone. ... The part of Ron, in the select and innumerable company of angelic beings who travel with inconceivable rapidity at the will of him who sits upon the majestic throne, he's in heaven."
Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.