When the Rev. Lisa Banks-Williams was asked to be lead pastor of National Baptist Memorial Church in D.C. last year, she knew she was inheriting more than a thinning congregation.

The historic church building whose steeple soars over a portion of the Columbia Heights neighborhood had been in decline for years, and the pandemic only made things worse: plaster was crumbling from the walls and ceiling and generations of pigeons had made their home in the rafters.

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