(UNDATED) As a crime reporter working in a rough stretch of South Dallas in the early 1990s, nothing shocked Julie Lyons. Prostitutes wandering the streets, addicts getting high on the corner, gunshots ringing through the air—it was all the norm.
There was something, though, about a tiny church that got her attention. In her book, “Holy Roller,” Lyons, 46, writes about how she “got a news tip from God” that lead her to a preacher and his small black Pentecostal church that was changing lives.
After writing about The Body of Christ Assembly for her alternative newspaper, Lyons, a middle-class white woman, went back and became a member.