Our God is an awesome God. God reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God. Today we celebrate 23 years of love and of ministry together as pastors and congregation. If someone were to ask us to sum up our experience together, it would have to be , “our God is an awesome God, God reigns from heaven above with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.
If you go back 24 and a half of years ago, you’d find a church by the name of Glenville United Presbyterian Church which is what our church was called back then. Glenville was a church in search of a new identity in God. It was experiencing a different kind of searching for its future. For years it’s budget had been supported by the Presbytery, and for the first time in 25 years, it would have to pay for its own support. This was not going to be easy with a dwindling membership and a poor giving pattern. Although there were nearly 200 names on the membership rolls, attendance was averaging about 75 people a Sunday.
Most of the church’s pastors had come and moved on after an average stay of about 3 to 4 years. There was not a lot of unity within the congregation, but there was a thirst to know God. God had a group within the church that wanted to know God and to experience God on a deeper level. The church established a pastoral nominating committee, to go and find a pastor. Now the nominating committee was given a task to do a nationwide search for pastors, but had to do it on a county wide budget. So at first the search was pretty much limited to Cuyahoga County. There was a young pastor at First Church East Cleveland, who was looking for a move, but due to a series of events, the nominating committee was unable to present him with an offer. He went on to pastor at Heights Presbyterian Church.
This led to some discouragement on the Nominating Committee’s part, but they had the faith to believe that somewhere out there, God had to have somebody. The nominating committee knew they had to get it right the first time they brought someone in to interview, because there was only enough money in the budget to bring in one candidate. This obviously meant a super wise and intelligent and spiritually discerning person could serve as chair of the nominating committee. That’s why Gail H. Banes was chosen for the job. No doubt she asked God, “what on earth did I do wrong for you to give me this job. God have you seen the budget I have to work with. Have you seen the salary I’m suppose to offer the pastors. The person will think I’m a comedian with a joke for an offer.” At that Gail and God both laughed and Gail has been a comedian with a joke ever since. But she and the committee reorganized and restarted their search. One day a gleam of hope came, when they received a packet from a couple from Boston, Ma.
In Boston, we were pastoring Roxbury Presbyterian Church. Roxbury was in the midst of a small revival as a congregation. The church was full of life and energy. It had grown in average attendance from about 40 to 150 and was moving forward. The financial giving of the church was continuing to rise steadily. The congregation was marked by its members love for one another, and its commitment to the Bible as the word of God. Although we were thrilled and happy at Roxbury Presbyterian Church, we began to sense in September of 1988 that perhaps God was going to send us somewhere else. We did not know where God would be sending us. We filled out the paperwork required by the denomination and indicated we were open to going anywhere in the country. We specifically requested sending a copy to Baltimore, to Washington DC and to Cleveland. We were simply open to where God would send us.
Then one day, our phone in Boston rang but we were not at home but our answering machine was. On the machine there was a lady with a deep rich voice asking us if we would be interested in coming to an interview in Cleveland. Gail H. Banes asked us to please return her call. We called back and Jerome answered the phone. We spoke with Gail and agreed to come. Gail picked us up at the airport and gave us a tour of the city. We met with the Pastoral search committee and had a wonderful meal together. We were both intrigued by the other. The Nominating Committee wanted to give us as positive a light about the church, without also telling the truth about its weaknesses. But perhaps the most favorable thing the Committee did, was to have us stay in John and Jonnie Hayes’ home. They were just downright loving saints who made us feel right at home. Little did we know then, that God was using them to show us how much love we could have by coming to Cleveland. The last words John Hayes said to us was, “just want you folks to know, you already have my vote and I hope you come back to be our pastors.”
We went back home to Boston and we were pretty excited about the church, but we were not so sure that we could take a 25% pay cut to come here. It did not make sense, that we would leave a growing church to come to one that was desperately struggling and have to take a cut in our salary to do it. Yet when God is about to do something wonderful in our lives, we often must let go of something that is dear to us to open our hands and see what God will place inside of them. You see our God is an awesome God, God rules from heaven above, with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.
We came back to Cleveland to preach a sermon for the congregation. Just before we walked down the steps to lead the service, we looked at each other nervously and said, “if we do this, there will be no going back.” The service went well. It lasted about an hour. The vote was taken by the congregation and all but 2 of those present voted for us to be invited to become the pastors. We accepted the call.
The next month for us was a difficult one. Although we had joy in our hearts to be coming to Glenville, there was a deep sadness in leaving Roxbury Presbyterian Church. We had been greatly loved and appreciated by the congregation there and it was not easy saying goodbye. We also were trying to figure out how we were going to live on a much small salary. Glenville did raise our salary offer by $5000 at our request after we informed the committee that we knew that would be the minimum offering that we would be giving to the church. It seem strange that you might have to pay for your own raise, but when you trust God, you never know what God is going to do.
On March 1, 1989, God placed us together just as he placed Moses with the children of Israel. Little did we know what an incredible journey we were going to take together. From the beginning we made the commitment at session that one day instead of the two of us sharing 1 full time position, we would both be full time pastors. The congregation shared in that vision. It took us seven years to reach our goal, but we reached it.
God slowly began a transformation process in our church. There was a commitment to wanting to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the word of God. It began with us becoming a more unified body, with each of the kingdoms in the church surrendering their authority to Jesus Christ, and placing themselves under the authority of the session. A spirit of love and generosity began to take hold in the life of the church. We were taking the time to getting to know each other. As we began to see Jesus come alive more and more in our own lives, we started to understand why we needed to give to support the ministry of the church. Some people began tithing for the first time. Whereas the presbytery thought we might collapse financially after all aid was cut off, we discovered the we had the power to be what God called us to be. We ended that first year with a dramatic increase in our giving.
We saw renewal take place in our worship services. Our youth became a living part of our services through the Angelic Voices. The Gospel Gems had already begun inserting a new kind of gospel music. The Pastoral Search Committee may not have told you that we had been Pentecostals before we became Presbyterians. Our services went from an hour to an hour and a half and sometimes even longer. It was harder to tell when you came into worship what exactly we were, but we certainly no longer had a traditional Presbyterian worship service. We had simply discovered service that lifted up Jesus, that charged our spirits, and sent us away with a determination to live for Christ during the week. We thank God for all that has come out of the worship services.
The Angelic Voices served their generation and gave birth to God’s Choice Choir at New Life, before ending their ministry and rising again as the Warriors of Praise. The Gospel Gems and the Chancel Choir said Lord use us and they surrendered their lives in order to become the Praise Choir. Out of it came the Women’s Choir & Men’s Choir. We saw God’s Chosen Generation come forth to fill in the gap between the Angelic Voices & Praise Choir. Then one day someone did a liturgical dance. That began the stirring for the Adult Liturgical Dancers and the Youth Liturgical Dancers. The story telling taking place in some of our liturgical dancing helped to give birth to our drama ministry. Out of our worship desire to praise God with all our being, out has arisen our Praise Dancers.
God has placed his vision in some of your hearts and out of it has come Just Forgiven, New Life Singers, Truly Blessed, And Rappers with such hits as “Gold & Purple, Gold & Purple” and “I Get My Praise On”. We moved from traditional hymns, to praise and worship, to kingdom music and our style changed from going from a single worship leader to a Praise Team. Our music went from organ, to piano, to tambourines to keyboard to the addition of drums, guitar and saxophone. We even get in the harmonica every once and while. And for a brief period we had bells in worship.
Our musicians have come from outside the church, inside the computer, to our own home grown band today. Our worship services went from one service to two services. Our early service has become our Café Service, with food during the service itself. Only God knew all the transformation that was going to take place over the next 23 years, and changes are still taking place. How many of you know our God is an awesome God, God reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.
In our partnership together, our God has led us through some moments that have been dark and yet very sacred. It has been our privilege to be with many of you just moments after a loved one has died, or you have received some bad news, or you have been crushed by something that has happened in your life. We have found a strength in God through Christ that enables us to make it through. It wasn’t easy when Joseph Lanton, a young lawyer, president of our Men’s association, was on his way to Life-Sharing when within a ½ hour he was dead from a blood clot. It shocked us a congregation to have one so young and so on fire for the Lord be taken away so suddenly. Yet even a darker day awaited us on April 24, 2006. That was the day we lost Aleyshia, Markel, Marvin, and Racheal, four of our children in a fire deliberately set that aroused the anger of the community. On our day of trial when we had to host a community when we as a church was still in the midst of our grief. We rallied together as a congregation to serve hundreds of people who poured through this building with news media all over the state here for the home going service. We demonstrated how Christians handle their grief and look forward to the resurrection with Christ as we celebrated those four little lives.
For the past 23 years we have celebrating home goings together of our family members and our friends. Some of our most uplifting services have been at homegoings of the saints. It has been an honor and a privilege to have preached some of the homegoings at this church.
We know what its like to want to be faithful to God in a denomination that at times has certainly lost its way. In the midst of some of the battles with our denomination we choose to identity ourselves as part of the community of faith, by changing our name from Glenville United Presbyterian Church, to Glenville New Life Community Church. Even in the struggle we learned to partner with the denomination, in giving birth to New Life Fellowship. It was a church we started near Miles and Broadway. Some of our members today came out of New Life. In yet another round of a battle in 2009 we were on the verge of leaving the denomination altogether, but felt God having said, “There is a yet a ministry in the denomination you can perform on my behalf.” By heeding that call from God, we have been able to work with Calvary Presbyterian Church today. For 23 years we as a congregation have been seeking to listen for the voice of God in working together to see which direction the Lord would have us go. It’s not our wisdom that’important. It’s tapping into that wisdom that comes from above.
We’re not sure when we adopted the phrase, “We love and when we care” but we do know as a body we have tried to make it real. You could see it in the community in all the programs we did to help those in the community. There was the after School Supper Program, The Summer Lunch Program, The Summer Camps, The Vacation Bible School & Its Trips, The Scouts, The Black Knights, Great Food For All, and Angel Food ministries. We tried to show it internationally with the Haiti ministry, the Rotolu Children’s Home In Nigerian, the India ministry, the purchase of Wheelchair ministry, and the purchase of bicycle ministries. We have tried to do it in house with our Deacons, our Single Parent Fund, our Prescription Medicine Fund and our revolving loan outreach. Many of you have purchased gifts for Christmas for kids not your own, you’ve purchased tickets to events for those who could not afford them, you’ve sponsored youth to go on events when they lacked the funds, and you’ve given of your time and energy to make sure events were supervised. You did it because you allowed our theme to become a part of your nature. You love and you care. For 23 year we have been seeking to learn what that’s all about.
We have seen the Lord take our one bible study class and divide it into two classes. Bible Study then gave birth to Life-Sharing with more classes and Pioneers. LifeSharing expanded off campus, and Pioneers gave birth to Young Ladies of Faith and Young Men of Arms. Other teaching ministries came forth such as Sisters In The Lord, Women Of Faith, Men Who Excel, Marriage Sensation, and Put God First. We’ve had aroebic ministries with Health & Nutrition as well as exercise classes at various times. We took our ministries from inside to outside first through our newspaper “New Life Times.” Then through our radio broadcast, “Another Perspective.” From there we added our TV broadcasts and websites. Our final addition has been our international broadcasting with Roku. Through these ministries, we have allowed over a million people to enter our sanctuary and ministry outreaches. All of this came from a church the presbytery thought should close, but God had another plan in mind, because, “Our God is an awesome God who reigns from heaven above with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.
We are thankful for the various leaders God has raised up in our midst over the past 23 years. Strong elders and deacons with visions to change the world. We are grateful for the directors and head of all the auxiliary groups in the church. We added lay pastors to our leadership team to serve one another more effectively. We produced seminary students who themselves are now ordained. Pastor Tony led New Life. Pastor Kellie came back from seminary and for the past eight years has been transforming our Christian education and youth ministry. Some of you have been incredible mentors and leaders for the youth of our church. You came through the church as a youth, and now as adults you are pouring back into the youth that came behind you. We know what it is at Glenville to keep on passing the baton.
Our journey of 23 years together has been one of seeing one life after another being transformed by the power of Christ. There has been the sorrow of seeing some fall by the wayside, but even there we have seen God re-rescue some of you and bring you back into the life of the church. Just as Jesus’s arms have been opened to you, for the past 23 years our arms too as a church have been ready to receive you and will continue to do so. Nobody has committed any sin to great for us to forgive you and to be here for you. We point people to Jesus, for in Him, we can all find freedom from the power of sin. For 23 years the power of the Holy Spirit has been empowering our partnership together us to make a difference in the lives of other.
