Some years ago, Carl McRae found himself on a mountaintop, engaged in what he called “a boxing match with God.”

God won.

A South Georgia native, McRae was raised in his family’s longtime United Methodist church, where two of his siblings would eventually pastor. Growing up, it sometimes felt like the universe dared McRae not to become a pastor himself. For a time, he was out to beat the odds.

“When I got to college I had that PK syndrome,” he said, meaning “preacher’s kid,” a phrase that can refer to the sometimes wayward offspring of clergy persons. “I decided I was going to eat, drink and be merry. I did my best to muddy myself up so God wouldn’t want me.”

It didn’t work. McRae eventually felt the pull toward ministry and served for years as the senior pastor of a United Methodist church. God wasn’t through with him. During a trip to Lookout Mountain, Tenn., McRae felt a new stirring. Heeding the call once again, he gathered with a dozen friends in his Conyers basement on Nov. 16, 2003.

“We cleaned out our cupboards and filled 23 boxes of food and took it to the apartment complex off Covington Highway where it looked like the residents might need food,” he said. “We just started knocking on doors.”

Over the years, McRae’s basement ministry became Exousia Lighthouse International Christian Ministries in Lithonia, which counts about 300 active members and twice that on the membership roster. Outreach starts with feeding people but doesn’t end there, McRae said.

“I can’t hear you if my stomach is growling,” he said. “I believe that if I show genuine empathy, genuine love and concern, without qualification, there will be a lot more interest in hearing what I have to say. That allows me to be used by God to minister to the other aspects of their lives. We’re not as interested in just handing folks food as we are in trying to repair their lives so that they can get their own food.”

McRae serves as bishop at Exousia while his wife, Brenda, serves as pastor. He is being featured as one of the AJC’s Holiday Heroes, having been nominated by his wife.

“Bishop Carl McRae saves lives, without the lights and cameras and fanfare,” Brenda McRae said. “He has not just fed people in Lithonia, but has sent clothing, food and first aid supplies to Haiti and an orphanage in Trinidad. Carl has been instrumental in helping many, many people become alcohol- and drug- free, not merely by virtue of his educational background, having two master’s degrees in counseling. He has positively impacted so many lives because of his story of redemption from his own battle with addiction over 25 years ago.”

Carl McRae said his long-ago struggle with cocaine addiction helps him empathize with some of the people he serves today.

“What my addiction did was give me an awakening, an authenticity,” he said. “It put me on the course to becoming the person I am today. Everybody has to have in their life a moment of truth. If we’re continually blaming the universe for our problems, we’ll never solve them. If you’re not the problem, you can’t solve it.”

McRae, who is also a cancer survivor, shares his story in the book “Returning to God With Your Whole Heart.” He plans to preach from the third chapter of Proverbs on Christmas.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” he said, quoting Proverbs 3:5. “It’s a message of hope. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. But you’re not defined by your circumstances. You have the power to change anything about your life.”