Angel Sanchez was drunk, homeless and almost beyond hope that he would ever get sober again. Then, he looked across the gravestones in a north Sarasota cemetery and saw an open church door.

Sanchez said he and an intoxicated friend stumbled past Rosemary Cemetery that November day in 1995 and into the white-framed Throne of Grace Charismatic Episcopal Church on Florida Avenue.

"We were hungry; we had no money, nothing," Sanchez said.

The two men's decision to enter the church led Sanchez to a sobriety that continues today, though his friend continues to drink.

And the choice led the couple who run the church – the Rev. Jim Nilon, the church priest, and his wife, Nikki – to make a commitment:

They would help homeless people others turn away because they're visibly drunk or on drugs, or they have used up all their chances at other places that tried to help.

Sanchez and his friend could not have gotten assistance at the Salvation Army shelter in Sarasota, where many homeless people go. Drinking is strictly prohibited, a policy aimed at protecting other people in the shelter who are trying to get over their own substance-abuse problems.

During the past five years, the Nilons' church has become known as the place of last resort.

"If the person is really, really drunk, and we know we can't let him in our building because those are our rules, we'll send them to Throne of Grace," said Dan Dunn, the Salvation Army's human services manager.

The director of Resurrection House, Bob Kyllonen, also sends people to the Nilons. "He does a very good job working with people who have severe abuse problems," Kyllonen said.

Sanchez fit that bill.

But before the Nilons could help him, or the hundreds of others who have turned to them since, they had to learn something about drug and alcohol abuse.

They never expected to devote their lives to battling it.

The calling
Until he entered seminary in Wisconsin in 1988, Nilon was a successful businessman in Sarasota, where he worked as an independent broker, helping people buy and sell businesses.

Nilon first thought about becoming a priest when he was a young teen-ager in the Roman Catholic Church. Then he discovered girls.

"The Roman Catholic tradition of celibacy and me just did not fit, so I let it go," Nilon said.

He finally left that denomination altogether.

"I went through a period of unchurchedness for 10 years," Nilon said.

Then, in 1982, he joined the Episcopal Church, in part because many of its traditions mirror those of the Catholic Church. The theologies, though, differ, and Nilon said he found his new religion less restrictive.

Soon the call to the priesthood came again.

"At age 44, I woke up one morning and said, 'I should be a priest. I'm wasting my time.' Five years later, I closed my business down and went to seminary."

Nilon graduated from seminary in 1991. He did a clerical internship at St. Boniface Episcopal Church on Siesta Key, where he was a member.

But, even in seminary, Nilon said, he felt he was not a good fit in the mainstream church, and those feelings grew.

He changed denominations again. On his 55th birthday, in 1993, Nilon was ordained a priest in the newly-formed Charismatic Episcopal Church.

The new denomination uses the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer in its services, but that's where most visible similarities between it and the much-older denomination end.

In lieu of quieter, more traditional services, Charismatic Episcopalians are welcome, even encouraged, to express their religion in a variety of more outward forms.

"I and others pray in tongues, prophesy, lay hands on people," Nilon said.

Nikki Nilon, who is Jewish, married her husband in 1994, before he had decided on where his priesthood would take him. From then on, the decisions, including the purchase of the building on Florida Avenue and setting up the homeless ministry, were made together, the couple said.

The couple met at an American Cancer Society benefit, Nilon said, and they remain visible on the local society scene. Nikki Nilon, 65, especially, is often a sponsor of benefits and serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Jewish Federation.

Neither made an issue of the other's religion, the couple said. Nikki Nilon said she is an active participant not only in the homeless ministry, but also in the church.

Nilon said he pays for most expenses of the church and the ministry with savings and investments from his career as a businessman. He has not pursued grants or large charitable gifts, although a few people do donate several thousand dollars a year, Nilon said.

The church has grown, though, to about 80 people attending Sunday services.

Most of them are homeless.

A historical place
Nilon and his wife provide hot breakfast and a bag lunch for the homeless who come to 8 a.m. Sunday services. Most members of the 10 a.m. congregation have homes, but they're also welcome to lunch if they need it, Nilon said. No one who comes to them for help is required to attend services, though.

The church and the homeless shelter are housed in two buildings that are among the oldest in the county.

The church, known as the Crocker Church for the family that built it, was erected in the early part of the century at what is now the northeast corner of Bee Ridge Road and U.S. 41. A cemetery associated with the church is nearby.

The structure was moved several times as Sarasota grew, and was brought to the current site in the 1980s.

Outside the even-older parish hall, which was built in 1881, a large bronze plaque identifies the two-story, tan structure as the Luke Wood/Bidwell House, also named for some of its earliest occupants.

Inside the church, bright white walls and simple white wooden pews shine against a highly-polished pine floor.

Blue accents, including blue-covered kneeling benches add even more brightness, and the wooden altar is simply covered.

The parish hall is plain but serviceable, and, like the church, its original lines and details evoke the past.

But both buildings are in dire shape, Nilon said, pointing to rotting wood on a church window frame.

The roofs of both building also leak, he said.

"It would take $53,000 to repair them," he said.

But money goes first to people at Throne of Grace. It's part of the Nilons' promise.

Learning about addictions
Keeping that promise started with helping Sanchez.

Upon meeting Sanchez and his friend, the Nilons didn't even know that addicts may have to suffer through withdrawal symptoms in a secure setting before they can enter long-term treatment.

"I didn't know that detox existed before they came to my door," he said. "I had to go ask what you do for someone who wants treatment."

Over the next few days, as Sanchez and his friend continued to drink, the Nilons researched various treatment options. They also found out what other churches and social service agencies were willing to do for homeless people in the throes of substance abuse.

Sanchez was drunk, but he kept coming back and bringing his friend, and the Nilons continued to offer help and hope to the men.

Finally, the Nilons got the two men into the detoxification unit run by First Step of Sarasota. When they were released a few days later, the Nilons drove them to a long-term treatment center in Tampa. There, Sanchez regained the sobriety he longed for.

His friend dropped out of the program, tried and failed again, and eventually had a stroke that left him in a nursing home with brain damage. Sanchez, who now works as a customer greeter for a supermarket, visits him twice a day.

Word of what the Nilons did for their first two clients got around. Within two weeks, about 80 more homeless people – all drunk, on drugs or both – presented themselves at the church or the parish hall next door.

The stream of people never stopped, and the need now is greater than ever, the Nilons said.

They try to give everyone a chance. Ending years of alcohol and drug abuse is difficult, and many people who get help from the Nilons walk away from treatment once, twice or several times before succeeding.

If those people are willing to keep trying, and if they show reasonable improvement, the Nilons will help them for as long as it takes.

Agencies with stricter rules would turn some of the same people away.

People who repeatedly fail to finish the 10-week treatment program offered by the Salvation Army of Sarasota often end up at Throne of Grace, Dunn said.

"We've taken them back once and then twice, but I don't think we've ever done it three times. In that case, we send them to Father Jim."

Bebe Bahnsen can be reached at 957-5350 or at bebe.bahnsen@herald-trib.com.