Personal Stories Part 7

Above is a picture of Ken Walker and I at the three trees coffeehouse singing!

Remember when the economic recession hit? For our coffeehouse donations slumped down, revenue crawled down and expenses hiked up. We had a cushion of finances, but it was slowly being eaten away as we were losing $3000 per month. The Lord called Dann our manager to other things and so we had a new manager named Megan. Then she had a baby and I became the manger. But what do you do when you are managing a coffeehouse, running a mission organization and starting a church plant when you’re married with two kids and another is on the way? You see if another coffeehouse can take the coffee side and I continue the church/ministry side, but even that doesn’t work, so we finally decided to let the coffeehouse go and focus on the church and outreach stuff.

It was a sad day when we had to close, but the LORD provided for us at the Majestic Ballroom and Dance/Events Center so we could continue the Jesus Gathering church plant there on Sunday nights and our open mic on Thursday nights. We had a number of baptisms as folks’ lives were transformed by Christ through His love at the coffeehouse and now some people understood the Source of that love. It was all Jesus- we had prayed daily over the atmosphere and were motivated totally by His love. Now we were praying for God to raise up servant leaders to help us in the work of discipleship (helping people grow in Christ-like faith and love).

Above: Andrew professes his faith in Jesus before his baptism at a baptism service just after the coffeehouse closed in 2011.

The open mic was wonderful as we made many friends who we pray will be friends eternally. And the Jesus Gathering really became a church, moving from just a place where homeless folks got food and maybe listened to the message to a place where folks sensed the call upward to know the Lord and walk with Him. Eventually we no longer did free meals every week, but a potluck where our friends were contributing rather than always receiving. Still most of us were coming out of mental illness, homelessness and/or addiction, so the needs could be overwhelming.

I remember one young man coming half-drunk but smiling at everything he saw at the Jesus Gathering. Soon he joined us in the work and he and his friend even lived on the streets with the homeless for a long period of time in order to share Christ’s love and receive from them also. Now than young man runs one of the Bible Studies and is on staff with us as a servant leader.

Our prayer for servant leaders has been answered and we now have four added to the team who help us along with many other volunteers to lead, serve and help people grow in their faith and love in Christ. The Jesus Gathering had become difficult for our small staff with Bernie and Mary Brower, Linda Hammingh and I doing a lot of the rides, meal coordination, ministry, prayer and Word work as well as helping folks in practical ways throughout the week. For the Senti’s the pressure of ministry had just become too much and they needed a Sabbatical. Rochelle developed fibromyalgia and Mitchell did prayer healing work and joined a wonderful small group of pastors learning to recover from ministry burnout. It was obvious that the burden of ministry needed to spread to others and the idea of house churches, where more than a few people to the work of ministry, but it is shared by the Body even more, is much easier to foster.

And now that has begun with two house churches, two more in the works and a celebration Sunday once a month that we still call the Jesus Gathering. The Senti’s have found a more restful rhythm and leaders have been raised up to help share the load. The Lord is faithul and there’s even time to share music and ministry with local churches and sometimes at local open mics. There are so many stories I could tell about lives transformed, street nights with amazing encounters, and new names and faces, but some of those are stories for those folks to tell and others are shared generally in our newsletters. I’ll just say that Jesus is very much alive and well, very gracious and anyone who is willing to bow the knee to Him and follow His ways will experience not only the priviledge to suffer with Him, but the joy and peace that are what we are created to experience. It only makes me wonder: what does the future hold? And only He knows.

Next blog will be samples from my book, “A Bride for Jeshona”…