WES HUMBLE

If You Say Go

If You Say Go

Wes:

Eastside Church of the Nazarene

For a little over 60 years this church has had a presence on the east side of Newark. As I understand it from the limited amount of people who seem to know this church was started by our church in 1944. The church you are now sitting in was started from a tent revival conducted in 1918 that produced 20 people to form a core group of members for a new Nazarene church. Some twenty six years later Newark First church decided to do an outreach on the east side of the city. As we so often do, they did what had worked for them twenty six years earlier. They conducted a tent meeting and out of that meeting a new church was started. That makes them our spiritual daughter.

I knew none of this a couple of years ago when I remarked to Dr. Richard Jordon our District Superintendent, “When you close that church down, our church would like the building to do compassion ministry out of.” Our district is becoming more proactive about shutting down churches that have ceased to be functional in reaching their communities and over ten churches have been deemed to be in critical condition. They will probably be closed. I had no idea that the Pastor would pass away and leave a vacancy just a few months after I made that comment. At the time I had no idea of the connection between our church and this one.

Several months before all of this came up about Eastside church, Chris Easton, my intern from Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, said to me. “Look at this neighborhood. How could this church just be running 20 people with all of these needs?” Chris made these statements to me the first time I drove him by the Eastside building. When Dr. Jordon asked if I was serious about wanting to do something on the eastside it didn’t take long for me to think about Chris and Melanie and their passion for compassion ministry. Chris served with me as an intern for almost two years prior and I had come to realize that he was not your average Christian Ministries student. He seemed to not be bothered by the size of the existing church or their lack of funds, or their unattractive church building and parsonage. He seemed genuinely interested in testing the message of Jesus Christ in real world challenging setting of the Eastside church.

Here is the timeline:

People from our church and Eastside worked together to rehab the inside of the parsonage.

New Start Church Planters Assessment

District Support

Grow Magazine

Collaboration: Small group, VBS, and even operation gear up.

I want you to hear from Chris and sense his heart for this neighborhood and the future of this church.

Chris Easton:

My Calling:

I felt God’s desire to use me for ministry at a very young age. I grew up in the Church of the Nazarene and it became a part of who I was growing up. I would be at the church every time the doors opened. Sometimes I would go even when my parents wouldn’t, even to the adult meetings just because I enjoyed it so much. I enjoyed hymns. I enjoyed the preaching. I desired to do anything that would get me closer to God.

I went to a church conference for youth when I was 16 and responded to a call to come forward if one felt God calling them into full-time ministry. Later, I ran from this call and decided I would be better than a preacher I would be a police officer. Thinking “God I can do policing and gain so many people into your kingdom. I can give them safer places to live, bust the gangsters pushing the drugs, but at the same time get them help. I was making every excuse to introduce people to Christ the way I thought they should with my life in the way I wanted to do it.

Well, by God’s grace my selfishness faded. And I stand before you today, not because I had the will power to make it, but because God graciously showed me the way to true happiness.

I began to realize I really had a burden for hurting people. I didn’t think, “If I can just preach some Jesus into them they will be better off.” God has shown me that there are some people in this world who we will never reach no matter how strong the Bible thump we give them is. Some people have to be approached a different way.

I believe some people will only see Christ in us by our actions. Our love, and kindness alone will soften the hearts of a majority of people today. Titus 3:3-5 has become a verse in my mind that couldn’t ring truer in our ministry on the east side of Newark and across the entire globe. What the verse boils down to in saying is,

“I was once just as bad as they were, But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, HE SAVED US!”

Our Passion for the East Side of Newark:

Sunday Evenings:

As part of our “Learn IT Live IT” Bible study we have reached out to the physical needs of our community in so many ways these past few months. Ice cream giveaways: Our first attempt at this was on Sunday July 3rd. We gave out the ice cream with cards stating who we are to over 50 people of all ages! It was a really exciting time. We did it again the night before our Vacation Bible School and ran out of ice cream! Giving out info on Bible School and ice cream to over 80 people.

Vacation Bible School

Over 90 people came to the cookout and 85 total were counted for the last night of VBS. 55 of those children. (Note: our Bible School program encouraged entire family participation). Of those 55 children 45 of them had no previous relationship with our church or first church.

Caravans

Grades 1-6 are now being reached through our church. Caravans operates in the same way that Boy’s and Girl’s Scouts operate, only with a strong Christian emphasis.

Our children’s ministry program was non-existent and we know we must be patient as we begin to reach out to our community these next few months with this program.

But programs and special events come and go.

Our ultimate desire in our ministry is to show people Jesus! In how we live in their community and in how we reach out despite their circumstances and our own.

Mark 9:15

“As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.”

Wes:

We are yearning for the people of Newark to not see us but to see through us the love Christ has for them in practical and impractical ways. We are in a field that has been left barren for years and we are sowing the fields even now! I ask you today to respond if God calls you and please remember the east side of Newark in your daily prayers as I do you in mine.

History will look back on America as having been a great Empire. There have been other great empires. Every great empire of the past has fallen by the weight of its own selfishness. They have emploded from within. Moral failure, greed, pride, and a general focus on making it all about the individual have left these great societies of the past in ruin and shambles. Eventually the selfishness catches up and the empire falls. It is into this world and culture that we have been called.

There are a couple of generation of the American church that have made church all about themselves. They have turned churches into country clubs and built ministries around the needs, wants and demands of church people instead of the needs of the community and culture we have been called to reach with the message of Jesus Christ. It is into this environment that we are trying desperately to hear the voice of the Great Shepherd as He calls us to engage the culture outside the walls of our buildings. Here are some things that I believe very strongly:

America is a mission field. It has been declared to be the fourth largest pagan culture in the world.
We cannot plant enough new healthy churches. Our city like our country is full of churches but do they have effective ministries that are changing the lives of people outside the church?
Our church is poised to respond to the call of God. We have the opportunity to “take it to the streets.”
As we accept the fact that we are missionaries and that the ground beneath our feet has been turned into a mission field it will radically change us and our attitudes about life and ministry.
North America is a mission field--the third largest in the world by lost population. 219.5 million people in the United States and Canada are without Christ. A large portion of those people live well outside the evangelical comfort zone. The gulf between churched and unchurched has grown by over 28 million in the last decade alone.

We now have a chance to be a part of something incredible. This church has been given a chance at new life. They are going to have every advantage that we have from technology to new seating. The building is being redone and will be appealing in appearance. More importantly, they now have proven that they can actually engage their neighbors and the neighborhood. We have a chance to actually plant a church on the eastside of Newark that will be effective in changing the culture. Many of the churches on this side of town are in serious decline and are in jeopardy of closing altogether. Just yesterday in the paper it was reported that a church on the eastside was moving and merging with another church on the west side of town. It was a good move and makes sense but again there is another vacancy in an area that desperately needs a healthy vibrant church to be and function as the body of Christ.

I would like you to take out the card in the worship folder. Our church is once again responding to the call and the need on the eastside of Newark. We have been praying for people who will respond to this call this morning. Everywhere you go in the church today there are pictures that were taken on the eastside of Newark. They have been posted as a visual reminder of what and who we are talking about. We are committed to becoming a team building church. Everything we do should be done by teams of people. We believe that the Eastside ministry is an incredible opportunity for some new teams to form, new ministry to be done in a fresh way and we are looking for team members who sense a call to be a part of this movement.

CORE Group Member:

Be part of the leadership development team, helping to design our worship style, deciding new name of the church, collaborating on ministry focus, defining mission statement, and ultimately making this new church your church and place of ministry.

CORPS Group Member:

Joining with this new life on Newark’s east side in prayer, as it goes through this new phase of ministry. This is for those who don’t feel God calling them to relocate their church home but still feel a desire to help. You can do this by committing to pray for this new ministry opportunity everyday for one year and also by being available to help with special outreach events when extra help is needed.

Joseph Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute, heard a powerful story about compassion from a Jewish/Christian friend who had recently returned from a trip to Denmark. Having never been there himself, Stowell was deeply interested in hearing about the trip. There was obviously much to tell, but the highlight of the trip took place on their tour of the palace where each of Denmark’s kings have lived. The guide told of the time when Hitler took over their country and required King Christian X to read the edict concerning an armband that all Jews must wear. The Danes listened to their king read these words from the palace balcony as tears brimmed from his eyes. When he finished delivering Hitler’s edict, King Christian X reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow armband. He then slid it up his arm. Those present to witness this moving declaration of compassion were inspired to do the same. Throughout Denmark, many non-Jews acquired yellow armbands of compassion to help hide the Jews from Hitler’s henchmen. Compassion occurs when another’s problem is embraced as our own.

“The Jesus I Love to Know,” Joseph Stowell, Willow Creek Association, Aug. 23, 2000

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. Brutus to Cassius ‘Julius Caesar’

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison

2005/09/11

Sermon Reources available here...

If You Say Go

If You Say Go

Wes:

Wes:

America is a mission field. It has been declared to be the fourth largest pagan culture in the world.
We cannot plant enough new healthy churches. Our city like our country is full of churches but do they have effective ministries that are changing the lives of people outside the church?
Our church is poised to respond to the call of God. We have the opportunity to “take it to the streets.”
As we accept the fact that we are missionaries and that the ground beneath our feet has been turned into a mission field it will radically change us and our attitudes about life and ministry.
North America is a mission field--the third largest in the world by lost population. 219.5 million people in the United States and Canada are without Christ. A large portion of those people live well outside the evangelical comfort zone. The gulf between churched and unchurched has grown by over 28 million in the last decade alone.