The Rev. Oliver White is making one last effort to save his East Side church from foreclosure, and it’s a long shot.

He’s asking 200,000 members of the public to each mail $1 to Grace Community United Church of Christ $1 apiece by June.

Otherwise, White said, his decision to take a stand in favor of gay marriage rights will have cost him and his small congregation their spiritual home on Forest Street in St. Paul.

“That’s what I’m asking for,” said White. “I’m on my aching knees, with my hands stretched out. … This would be my last hurrah. I feel like David going up against Goliath, but I don’t even have a slingshot. All I can do is go back to the people who care.”

White, who spent seven years as president of the St. Paul Black Ministerial Alliance, said his 22-year-old church’s financial hurdles started in 2005 after he flew to Atlanta and cast a vote in support of same-sex marriage during the United Church of Christ’s national synod.

A resolution in favor of gay marriage passed the synod, but after he explained his decision to his skeptical flock that Sunday, he saw attendance in the pews drop off immediately the next week.

The trickle of departures became a flood, and soon nearly three-fourths of the congregation had walked out the door and refused to return.

These days, his spirited sermons may draw 18 to 50 members, but White still has not stopped advocating for gay equality.

“Things were going fine, and (then) he gave his opinion,” said Gregory Thomas, 54, of St. Paul, who has been attending Grace Community for seven months. His adult daughter has been a member for years.

They attributed the drop-off in membership squarely to White’s support of gay rights, and nothing else.

“Me, personally, I just think that sometimes people are not open-minded. I’ll just leave it at that,” Thomas said.

The drop-off caused a steep financial toll, so White discussed the issue with his remaining church members, one of whom offered an aunt in Seattle as a broker.

Through her and a second broker, the church took out a $150,000 loan in April 2007 with Direct Lending, and has regretted it ever since.

Direct Lending later sold the note, which initially carried a 13.5 percent interest rate, to Seattle-area property manager Fenn Shrader, according to court records.

White maintains the interest rate has since ballooned to 23 percent.

White said between brokers’ fees, appraisal fees and regular payments, Grace Community has put $90,000 toward the loan in the past six years, but the principal hasn’t gone down a penny. Instead, penalties for missed payments and interest fees increased the debt to $247,000, according to foreclosure documents filed in Ramsey County District Court.

About two years into the loan, the church fell behind on payments. “We just didn’t have it,” White said. “We had a garage sale, and we raised about $5. We had fish fries … and we might raise $200.”

Legal efforts to get Shrader to lower the debt or interest rate resulted in a stiff agreement a few months ago. On Wednesday, May 2, Shrader said he had another buyer lined up for the property, and the only way Grace Community could keep its church would be to buy out the loan by June.

“They need to come up with $175,000 this month to buy back the loan, or ask for an extension,” said Shrader.

Jeff O’Brien, an attorney for Shrader, said the amount was “negotiated between the parties, and they had an attorney as well. The bottom line is there’s a settlement in place, and its substantially less than the outstanding balance.”

Through fundraising letters, White appealed to 40 congregations for help. In February, a predominantly gay congregation in Dallas, the Cathedral of Hope United Church of Christ, surprised White with a gift of $15,000.

He hoped it would be enough to keep Grace Community afloat while he secured a refinancing deal.

He’s grateful for the donation and the ensuing media coverage, but the contribution also has proved to be a mixed blessing.

“We’ve had wonderful support that came from all over the country, literally. Actually, we’ve got some support from as far away as Australia and Canada. … The support was $25 here, $50 there,” White said.

Bankers have also noticed his story and pointed to Grace Community’s decline in membership as a reason to shut the door on his refinancing application.

Said White: “They’re all basically singing the same song: ‘You’ve got to have three to five years of financial stability.’ ”

There have been other repercussions. Not long after receiving the funds from the Dallas congregation — which bills itself as “the world’s largest gay church” — Grace Community lost one of its two tenants, a group of Seventh Day Adventists known as Righteousness by Faith Ministries.

“They were there every Saturday,” White said. “(Their church leader) was there on the same day that the people from Dallas came in and gave us that check. He wants to be my friend, but he’s staunchly holding onto … that I am dead wrong with my advocacy, and I am headed for hell, and he’s going to heaven.”

Elder Donald Keith of Righteousness by Faith Ministries said homosexuality “is just not a lifestyle we felt the church could embrace.”

“I like the man,” said Keith. “I like the congregation very much. I wrote to him, and I told him, we just did not feel we could support a movement that’s in opposition to the Scriptures. It isn’t that we don’t love people that have that persuasion or problem. God loves us all.”

White spent two years as an aide and liaison to the black community under then-St. Paul Mayor Jim Scheibel in the early 1990s, but White’s ties to many of his peers in black religious circles have become equally strained.

For his stance, White sometimes receives threatening phone calls and abusive emails.

“I’m afraid to go to my church at night sometimes,” he said.

About a month ago, as he was leading a wedding ceremony, a car drove by and someone inside fired four shots out the window while yelling, “Die, faggots.”

No one was hurt, though about 10 wedding participants were standing outside.

Thomas, the parishioner, whose son was getting married to a woman from northwestern Wisconsin, said he found it embarrassing that her family’s first taste of the East Side ended in gunfire.

Recently, White went to a cemetery to meditate.

There was no way he would renounce his support for gay marriage rights, he decided. Instead, he’s counting on the $1 donation campaign to save Grace Community.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.