In a back room of New Life Fellowship, about 40 guns lay sprawled across a table Saturday while Pastor John P. Kee sat in the vestibule, adding another gun to the pile as people trickled in and out of the church and handed over the weapons.

Kee pointed across Statesville Avenue, an area once riddled by crime.

"Thirty years ago, I sold drugs out of a store across the street," he said. "It's about making a wrong right."

Now, the pastor and noted gospel singer heads up his church's Gifts for Guns Exchange, an annual Christmas program that gives gift cards to people in exchange for their firearms.

The weapons are turned over to police, who destroy them.

The 24-hour exchange - intended to get guns off the streets and prevent crime - ran from Thursday night to Saturday afternoon at the church in the Double Oaks community north of uptown.

No questions are asked, Kee said, and each person who turned over a gun received a $25 gift card to Walmart or for gas.

Over the three-day exchange, Kee said he saw people as young as 15 and 16 years old bringing in dangerous weapons, including sawed-off shotguns.

He recalled a mother who'd stopped by to turn in two guns she'd found under her son's bed.

By Saturday afternoon, the church had collected about 22 handguns and 24 long guns - a medley of snub-nosed revolvers, rifles, shotguns and more.

The exchange began as an extension of the church's "Night Court" ministry, which brings young men off the streets to play basketball and hear the Gospel.

Kee said the young men are regularly encouraged to bring in their guns, and the church decided several years ago to host an event that would invite the public to do the same.

"We look at it as a pre-emptive strike," Kee said.