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EGC<br />

INSIDE … … … … … …<br />

A bi-monthly report from the <strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />

www.egc.org<br />

617-262-4567<br />

September-October 2005 Vol 12 No 5<br />

When I Survey The Wondrous Church<br />

by Steve Daman, Communication Director<br />

Every few years, EGC makes<br />

a concerted effort to contact<br />

every church in Boston<br />

and Cambridge to<br />

update our database of church information.<br />

And every time we do,<br />

we are surprised by what we learn.<br />

Why do we do it? We are convinced<br />

that healthy churches are God’s primary<br />

strategy to bring the life of Jesus Christ<br />

to people in the city and everyw<strong>here</strong>.<br />

T<strong>here</strong>fore, when we help a church that<br />

honors Jesus to grow stronger and to<br />

meet its goals, we are helping the Kingdom<br />

of God to grow stronger and bear<br />

more fruit. All our programs are designed<br />

to do that, but we can’t serve the churches<br />

well unless we know w<strong>here</strong> they are and<br />

understand what they are doing.<br />

Perhaps, to some, taking a survey<br />

seems unspiritual (didn’t King David get<br />

into trouble for that once?) or just too<br />

analytical to be of any use. But Solomon<br />

said, “Know the condition of your<br />

flocks.” The Israelites took a survey of<br />

the promised land to plan the allotment<br />

for each tribe. Nehemiah traveled around<br />

the city wall at night to survey the damage<br />

and plan for rebuilding. Jesus said,<br />

“What builder would build a tower without<br />

counting the bricks, or what king<br />

would go to war without assessing the<br />

troops?”<br />

Since 1976, Rudy Mitchell has<br />

served as an urban missionary at EGC<br />

with a ministry akin to counting bricks,<br />

assessing troops, walking the walls, and<br />

surveying the land. The data<br />

he gathers on churches and<br />

communities in Boston<br />

shape what we do at the<br />

<strong>Center</strong>, because they inform<br />

us about the needs and<br />

trends of the church system<br />

in the city. The needs and<br />

trends show us what God<br />

is doing.<br />

“The Boston Church Directory<br />

work is central to<br />

the <strong>Center</strong>’s mission,” explains<br />

Jeff Bass, EGC’s<br />

executive director. “We<br />

need to have accurate information<br />

about the Boston<br />

church community<br />

and how it is changing.<br />

This helps us allocate our<br />

own resources effectively<br />

and give good counsel to<br />

others. Some of what we<br />

learn confirms our intuition,<br />

but often we find<br />

things that no one anticipated, and our<br />

understanding of how God is working<br />

around us grows and adjusts accordingly.”<br />

The last survey was completed in<br />

2001. One of the data points gleaned<br />

from that survey was that Boston and<br />

Cambridge welcomed 17 new churches<br />

each year, on average, for the last half of<br />

the 1990s. Has that trend continued? If<br />

so, w<strong>here</strong> are the newest churches, and<br />

who is planting them? How does the<br />

changing ebb and flow of ethnic<br />

Rudy Mitchell & Brian Corcoran<br />

groups in the city parallel the<br />

start of new churches and<br />

the closing of others? What<br />

communities have too few<br />

churches? W<strong>here</strong> are churches<br />

growing and why are they<br />

growing? If we can understand<br />

some of these things,<br />

then we can be prepared to<br />

help fan the flames that<br />

God has ignited across<br />

our city. We can work<br />

with church leaders to<br />

help them make strategic<br />

decisions that will<br />

strengthen the entire<br />

church community.<br />

Brian Corcoran<br />

works as a research associate<br />

at the <strong>Center</strong>. With<br />

a formal education in architecture<br />

and a broad<br />

background in urban<br />

ministry, Brian is doing a<br />

lot of the legwork for the<br />

2005 survey. “I visited 100 churches last<br />

week,” Brian said early in September.<br />

Some churches were open and very active<br />

during the weekdays. Others tend to<br />

come to life evenings and weekends.<br />

“You should see Washington Street in<br />

Dorchester on a warm Wednesday night.<br />

All the doors are open with the music<br />

and preaching echoing down the street.”<br />

With his training in architecture, Brian<br />

is sensitive to street level communication<br />

cont. next page


2005 Survey for The Boston Church Directory<br />

of signs and buildings. “You have to<br />

be part detective to even find some<br />

of these churches,” he says. Many pastors<br />

are bi-vocational, and church contact<br />

can be difficult. “I have learned to<br />

be creative in the way I gather information,”<br />

he says. “Sometimes I go to<br />

the barber shop next door or across<br />

the street to the deli to ask if t<strong>here</strong> is<br />

really a church meeting t<strong>here</strong>. I might<br />

be told, ‘Oh, yeah, people show up<br />

t<strong>here</strong> on Sundays.’<br />

“It’s great when I find an elder or<br />

deacon or pastor in their study, then I<br />

get into great conversations,” he says.<br />

“I find elders and deacons are very<br />

proud of their church, and very communicative<br />

about what’s going on.”<br />

When Brian connects with the pastor,<br />

he sometimes gets what he calls “a<br />

plunge” into their church. “Most of<br />

the people draw you into the fullness<br />

of what they are doing at that moment.<br />

I have been in a pastor’s office<br />

when the phone rings and he starts a<br />

counseling session on the phone. I have<br />

been asked to join in prayer right on<br />

the spot for a youth battling with legal<br />

and family situations. Other times pastors<br />

will ask me for prayer and will tell<br />

me about a lot of the details of the<br />

church, their challenges, and their ministry<br />

to their neighborhood.”<br />

Brian likes what he does. “The best<br />

part of the job is being out in the field<br />

meeting with people in the churches,<br />

surveying the landscape, getting to see<br />

the facilities, seeing the pastors or whoever<br />

is around during the day, just connecting<br />

with churches across the community.”<br />

Brian is also learning a lot<br />

about what God is doing in Boston<br />

by collecting little pieces of data. “As<br />

these pieces are dropping in, I am getting<br />

a big picture of the church,” he<br />

says. “No seminary course is going to<br />

give you an overview of 600 churches<br />

What the data<br />

confirmed in 2001<br />

Formerly homogenously white, the urban<br />

church is more likely to be Black,<br />

Latino, Haitian, and Brazilian.<br />

The early twentieth century traditional<br />

Protestant and European Catholic dominated<br />

reality is fading. New churches<br />

are likely to be Pentecostal, Charismatic<br />

or Holiness churches, and Catholic parishes<br />

are increasingly diverse.<br />

Churches with significant cultural and<br />

racial diversity are growing in number.<br />

Nearly 1/5 of church buildings host services<br />

in more than one language, and<br />

56% of new churches have at least one<br />

non-English service weekly.<br />

48 Haitian congregations in Boston evidence<br />

the continuing growth of the Haitian<br />

churches.<br />

More than 100 congregations use<br />

Spanish in their service.<br />

More than 1 in 3 congregations<br />

share building space with other<br />

congregations, and some<br />

churches are sharing space<br />

with three or more churches of<br />

multiple languages.<br />

like this! It is a rare perspective<br />

to have, the equivalent of going<br />

to the top of the Hancock<br />

Tower to look at Boston, but<br />

blended with a street level perspective<br />

as well.”<br />

Site visits are very important,<br />

but are only one part of a larger<br />

process. This summer we mailed to<br />

every church for which we had an address—that<br />

was about 500 of the 600<br />

churches we believe are out t<strong>here</strong>—a<br />

brief survey form to verify their basic<br />

information, such as pastor’s name,<br />

email, phone and address. We received<br />

back about 200 of those. We followed<br />

that with a much longer form. To date<br />

we have received 42 completed forms.<br />

Hundreds of phone calls, friendly<br />

emails, and a bright yellow postcard<br />

to each church were next, urging<br />

churches to return the form or respond<br />

online. This year, for the first time, because<br />

more churches are going online,<br />

we have a web-based survey form as<br />

an option, crafted by staff member<br />

Michele Mitsumori and available<br />

through our website. As of mid-September,<br />

we have had 29 responses to<br />

the online survey. Site visits have confirmed<br />

the presence and at least the<br />

basic data on about 300 churches.<br />

While the minimal contact information<br />

allows us to see in broad strokes<br />

the numbers and kinds of churches, if<br />

we get back a large number of the<br />

longer forms, we can better understand<br />

some of the trends. Rudy explains,<br />

“Knowing a combination of facts,<br />

such as the church’s ethnicity, neighborhood,<br />

when it was<br />

founded, whether<br />

they are willing to<br />

share their building—all<br />

of these<br />

can be helpful in<br />

knowing if some<br />

neighborhoods<br />

have a need for a<br />

certain type of<br />

church to reach a<br />

particular group.<br />

In the past, our work has stimulated<br />

some church planting. And when we<br />

know information about neighborhoods<br />

and what churches have been<br />

planted t<strong>here</strong> already, this informs<br />

church planters who may be interested<br />

in reaching a particular neighborhood<br />

or ethnic group.”<br />

The data are stored in a database at<br />

EGC, and a profile of each church is<br />

also posted online at our website:<br />

www.egc.org/churches. Both the inhouse<br />

database and the online version are<br />

in need of extreme makeovers.<br />

–2–


2005 Survey for The Boston Church Directory<br />

Two volunteers, Chip<br />

Schopp and Richard<br />

Williams, are helping<br />

EGC with the IT work<br />

for the project. If you<br />

were to eavesdrop on<br />

one of their conversations<br />

in September, you<br />

would have heard<br />

Chip say (and these<br />

are real quotes), “Recently<br />

I discovered that<br />

I can actually update a<br />

MySQL database remotely<br />

on a unix/linux<br />

web server from a local Windows<br />

machine using some .NET code and<br />

the .NET WebClient class. I find the<br />

possibilities exciting, allowing for the<br />

use of Access (or SQLServer or whatever)<br />

as the local data repository with<br />

a direct update capability for that data<br />

required to support the website.”<br />

And you would have heard Richard<br />

respond, “So you mean that the<br />

client application could interact with the<br />

web interface of the BCD to accomplish<br />

updates? This would be an interesting<br />

way to go about it, though it<br />

might require more maintenance than<br />

if the client interacted with the database<br />

‘directly’ through an ODBC or<br />

ADO.NET driver.”<br />

EGC is grateful for our volunteers,<br />

no matter what language they speak.<br />

In addition to the online directory,<br />

we periodically<br />

publish a directory<br />

of all the churches.<br />

Steve Daman,<br />

communication<br />

director, takes the data from the database<br />

and pours it into a book format.<br />

It may sound simple, but prepress production<br />

of the printed version, which<br />

includes photos of all the churches,<br />

takes about 150 hours. In the past, we<br />

Steve Daman & Brian Corcoran<br />

“I have never seen a<br />

directory like this<br />

anyw<strong>here</strong> in the world.”<br />

—Rev. Dr. Elijah Kim<br />

have shipped a free<br />

copy to each church,<br />

while other copies remain<br />

at the <strong>Center</strong> for<br />

sale to those who might<br />

use them for research or<br />

networking. The book<br />

version is packed with<br />

appendices and indices<br />

so users can look up<br />

churches by a variety of<br />

factors—such as denomination,<br />

language,<br />

ethnicity—and do their<br />

own research.<br />

Rev. Dr. Elijah Jong Fil Kim is<br />

on staff at EGC as a research associate.<br />

He has had opportunity to study<br />

churches in Europe, and is familiar with<br />

the church systems in his native Korea.<br />

“The Boston Church Directory gives every<br />

detail of the churches: the times of the<br />

worship services, ethnicity, names of<br />

the senior pastor and staff, the founding<br />

year; this is very useful and creative<br />

information. As I compare directories<br />

I have seen in London, Paris, etc., these<br />

are merely address books.<br />

“Another distinction is that most directories<br />

only list mainline churches, but<br />

The Boston Church Directory is always updating<br />

the ethnic and storefront<br />

churches as well, showing the diversity<br />

of ethnicity of the city. These data help<br />

leaders anticipate the changes of religious<br />

geography of the city—in other<br />

words, what is<br />

happening in the<br />

neighborhoods,<br />

how immigration<br />

is shaping the city,<br />

what new arrivals are coming into the<br />

city—so that we can prepare. No other<br />

city I know prepares for ethnic ministry<br />

like Boston.<br />

“I have never seen a directory like this<br />

anyw<strong>here</strong> in the world,” Dr. Kim says. <br />

How you can help<br />

Sunday drivers. We need people<br />

who could take a list of churches and<br />

verify the info that we have. People could<br />

visit 2 to 4 churches in one neighborhood<br />

on a Sunday, and capture data either<br />

by interviewing a pastor or leader, or<br />

through print materials.<br />

Spanish speakers. One hundred<br />

churches are Spanish-speaking. We<br />

need volunteers who speak Spanish to<br />

help us with phone calls and site visits.<br />

Those who can pray. Because this<br />

is God’s work, we need those who would<br />

commit to pray for the success of the<br />

project, for the workers, and for God to<br />

use every part of this effort for his glory.<br />

Those who can give. We plan to<br />

send copies to every church listed. We<br />

will need to raise $5,000 for printing and<br />

postage. If you would like to give, you may<br />

do so online at our website, or contact<br />

EGC during regular business hours and<br />

ask for Dana Wade.<br />

Photographers. If you enjoy architectural<br />

photography and would like to<br />

take some fresh photos of urban<br />

churches on our list, contact Rudy or<br />

Brian at the <strong>Center</strong>.<br />

Ministry groups. Church groups<br />

can explore a neighborhood, and help<br />

identify all the churches. Perhaps your<br />

church is already considering an outreach<br />

to one part of Boston and would<br />

benefit from this kind of assessment.<br />

Urban pastors in Boston and<br />

Cambridge. If you are an urban pastor,<br />

and if you have already returned your<br />

form, thanks! Perhaps now you could call<br />

your neighboring pastors and encourage<br />

them to get their information in as well!<br />

Or if you attend a local pastors’ gathering,<br />

make sure all the members from<br />

Boston and Cambridge have responded.<br />

Detectives. We need help following<br />

up leads on new churches, clearing up<br />

questions, and doing internet research<br />

to gather more data.<br />

Informants. If you know of new<br />

churches in Boston or churches that had<br />

major changes in the past five years, such<br />

as a move or merger, let us know. <br />

– 3–


1969-2005: Four Decades of Church Surveys<br />

1969: The first survey:<br />

establishing a baseline<br />

In 1969, after five years in Boston<br />

directing EGC, Doug and Judy<br />

Hall were meeting many urban,<br />

ethnic Christians who had a refreshingly<br />

vibrant faith. The vitality of these<br />

believers and their churches was a stark<br />

contrast to what the Halls had experienced<br />

in many mainline, white churches,<br />

not a few of which were dying out,<br />

closing, or moving out of the city. “The<br />

more we met city Christians, the more<br />

we wanted to meet more of them,”<br />

Judy remembers.<br />

After many conversations with their<br />

coworker, Rev. Chet Young, the three<br />

came up with a wild plan. Why not survey<br />

every church in Boston in order to<br />

better understand what God was doing<br />

in their city? Judy was named scribe,<br />

while Chet was appointed driver.<br />

“I’ll never forget that crazy ride,”<br />

Judy wrote years later. “Chet was determined<br />

to drive down every street<br />

in the city so we could find every storefront,<br />

every house with a sign heralding<br />

the presence of a church. I was<br />

sprawled out in the back of our blue<br />

Chevy station wagon on top of a piece<br />

of plywood to which we had glued a<br />

huge Boston street map. One by one<br />

we found churches of all shapes and<br />

sizes—and I marked them on the<br />

map—300 churches in the whole city!<br />

We were especially intrigued, however,<br />

with the storefronts. We found nearly<br />

100—a third of all the churches!<br />

“Later that spring, at Park Street<br />

Church’s annual missions conference,”<br />

Judy continues, “I made a chance remark<br />

to then missionary seminary professor<br />

C. Peter Wagner that we had<br />

found 100 storefronts right <strong>here</strong> in<br />

Boston. ‘Oh,’ he responded enthusiastically,<br />

‘those are your national churches!<br />

That’s what you want to develop!’ And<br />

he was right. Nothing seemed more<br />

important to us than to fan the flames<br />

of vitality we were discovering in urban,<br />

ethnic churches.”<br />

1975: Map and card file<br />

In 1975, Steve Daman, now communication<br />

director, worked as an intern<br />

at the <strong>Center</strong>, and, with staff member<br />

Jordan Greeley, created the second<br />

map and corresponding card file<br />

on all the churches in Boston. They<br />

logged 300 miles in Jordan’s yellow<br />

VW bug, locating 320 churches, and<br />

placing pins with numbered tags on a<br />

map. Nine feet high by five feet wide,<br />

the map, and its<br />

corresponding card<br />

file, was completed<br />

by April that year,<br />

placed in the <strong>Center</strong>’s urban ministry<br />

library, and used for over a decade by<br />

church planters and seminarians to<br />

study the city and its churches.<br />

The following year, EGC hired<br />

Rudy Mitchell as director of research.<br />

1989: Going digital and<br />

publishing a book<br />

By 1988, t<strong>here</strong> was a computer in<br />

the office complete with page layout<br />

software, and a team of dedicated interns<br />

anxious to help out. Steve Daman<br />

had returned to EGC in January as<br />

publications director. By then, Rudy<br />

had a dozen years of research on Boston,<br />

its churches, and its communities<br />

under his belt. Research for this survey<br />

extended into 1989. This time, in addition<br />

to creating a wall map (smaller,<br />

and with color-coded pins to designate<br />

types of churches), EGC produced<br />

a database and, to celebrate its<br />

50th anniversary, published our first directory<br />

of churches in Boston.<br />

1993, 1995, 2001:<br />

Discovering the revival<br />

Subsequent surveys generated a second<br />

printed edition in 1993, an abbreviated<br />

update in 1995, and the third<br />

full edition in 2001. Today the 2005<br />

survey is well underway. This latest effort<br />

marks 37 years since Judy Hall and<br />

Chet Young conducted the first survey,<br />

and 30 years since Jordan Greeley<br />

and Steve Daman did the second.<br />

Back in 1969, the Halls thought that<br />

being able to discover and then find<br />

ways to encourage the 100 storefront,<br />

ethnic churches was a very significant<br />

outcome of that first effort. And it<br />

was, as it definitively shaped the future<br />

ministry of EGC. In retrospect, something<br />

else was also accomplished by<br />

that project. The number of churches<br />

which Judy and Chet found in 1969<br />

established a baseline for comparison<br />

over the next four decades.<br />

Doug Hall recalls how each subsequent<br />

survey added to the <strong>Center</strong>’s<br />

knowledge. “As we completed the<br />

1989 directory and began to compile<br />

the figures on what we had learned,<br />

we were amazed to discover that<br />

something very significant was occurring!<br />

We could scarcely believe what<br />

our figures showed—that the number<br />

of churches had grown by 30% since<br />

that first count twenty years before.<br />

That figure seemed unbelievable, because<br />

it was evident to many that about<br />

one quarter (23%) of the mainline<br />

churches had died in the meantime, and<br />

so most everyone assumed that Christianity<br />

itself was dying in the city, and<br />

not growing. It wasn’t until our second<br />

directory in 1993 that we knew<br />

conclusively that the number of<br />

churches had grown—and not by just<br />

30 percent, but by 50 percent! We had<br />

been part of a revival and did not<br />

know it. We now call it Boston’s Quiet<br />

Revival, and we now see how it has<br />

changed the history of our city.” <br />

—Steve Daman<br />

–4–<br />

Judy, Becky, and Doug Hall with Rev. Chet Young in mid ’60s


Starlight Celebrates Fifteen<br />

Years of Ministry in Boston<br />

Please come celebrate<br />

and bring a friend!<br />

Sat. October 15, 2005<br />

You and your friends are invited to<br />

celebrate with us at 6:30 p.m. on<br />

Saturday, October 15, 2005, at<br />

Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston.<br />

Join us for hors d’oeuvres and<br />

homemade desserts, for sharing<br />

memories with our staff and guests,<br />

for honoring our volunteers and worshipping<br />

in music, and for an opportunity<br />

to support Starlight. Former Starlight<br />

directors Claire Sullivan and<br />

Paul Daigle will be t<strong>here</strong>, along with<br />

our current director, Robert Taylor<br />

and his staff. Everyone is invited, but<br />

reservations are required. Please<br />

come, and, if you will, bring a guest<br />

who may not be familiar with Starlight.<br />

For reservations, contact Rachel<br />

Parker at rparker@egc.org or<br />

617-262-4567 x 182.<br />

photos: top, Claire Sullivan on staff<br />

with EGC in 2000; right, volunteers<br />

sorting donated clothes; above, Jim<br />

Magee, formerly homeless, recently<br />

settled in his own apartment<br />

One day in 1990, Claire<br />

Sullivan set out with $4<br />

and a borrowed backpack<br />

filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches<br />

to make friends with those living<br />

on Boston Common. As she got<br />

to know these men and women as individuals,<br />

she learned how to serve<br />

them and walk alongside them. Soon,<br />

others from Claire’s church joined her,<br />

going out with her each week with a<br />

van loaded with clothes, food, and<br />

blankets. Worship services were held<br />

under the streetlights on the Common,<br />

and Starlight Ministries was born.<br />

In 1994, Claire joined the<br />

<strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong>,<br />

and Starlight continued to<br />

grow. Claire has since<br />

moved on to pioneer new<br />

ministries, while this year<br />

Starlight will serve over 700<br />

people who are homeless.<br />

With a full-time staff of five and the<br />

assistance of many volunteers, we continue<br />

the van and street outreach to<br />

adults while we also offer youth outreach,<br />

a drop-in center, counseling, case<br />

management, and more.<br />

Starlight Ministries was built on<br />

the foundation of the love of Jesus<br />

Christ expressed in “the two-handed<br />

<strong>Gospel</strong>,” serving both the physical and<br />

spiritual needs of those who find themselves<br />

homeless. Love transformed<br />

Claire’s life, and that same love compelled<br />

her to go to the streets. Believing<br />

that salvation is found in no one<br />

else, we actively share the love of Jesus<br />

Christ with all we meet. And God faithfully<br />

sends to us those who are seeking<br />

him as we show up on the streets<br />

w<strong>here</strong> they live.<br />

Claire wrote in 1997, “God is wooing<br />

the lost, the broken-hearted, and<br />

the sexually broken<br />

who are out on the<br />

streets, and he has<br />

anointed his church to<br />

reconcile them to himself.<br />

God has equipped<br />

the church with the fruit<br />

of love, the message of the cross, gifts<br />

of healing, prophecy, faith, and the<br />

power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish<br />

his work in Boston.” That is what<br />

we mean when we say our mission is<br />

to take the church to the streets. <br />

If you cannot attend but would like<br />

to make a contribution to Starlight in<br />

honor of the program’s 15th anniversary,<br />

please make your check payable to <strong>Emmanuel</strong><br />

<strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong>, write “Starlight anniversary”<br />

in the memo line, and mail it to: <strong>Emmanuel</strong><br />

<strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong>, PO Box 180245, Boston<br />

MA 02118-0994. Thank you!<br />

Starlight<br />

<br />

You are invited to join us!<br />

Saturday, October 15, 2005<br />

Tremont Temple Baptist Church<br />

Dessert reception at 6:30 p.m.<br />

Program from 7:30 ~ 9:00 p.m.<br />

15<br />

For reservations, contact Rachel Parker at rparker@egc.org or 617-262-4567 x 182.<br />

TAKING THE CHURCH TO THE STREETS<br />

Celebrating<br />

<br />

15 Years<br />

OF GOD’S FAITHFULNESS<br />

– 5–


The Haitian<br />

La Romana Crusade,<br />

Dominican Republic,<br />

August 14-21, 2005<br />

by Rev. Dr. Soliny Védrine, Director, Haitian Ministries International<br />

Haitian church on the outskirts of La Romana<br />

worship time with city kids in an urban church<br />

It was the 24th crusade I had organized<br />

in various Haitian communities,<br />

yet the first in the Dominican<br />

Republic. The pastor who had<br />

asked me some five years ago to come<br />

and help, Rev. Jean Luc Phanord, perished<br />

in a plane crash, the infamous<br />

Flight 587 in New York in November,<br />

2001. His death was a tragic loss<br />

to the church in La Romana and to the<br />

global Haitian Christian community. In<br />

time, his successor at Iglesia Bautista<br />

Misionera Haitiana, the largest church<br />

in the area, became the national coordinator<br />

for the crusade, and was very<br />

helpful as we planned for the big event.<br />

But suddenly, just one month before<br />

the event, everything seemed to<br />

fall apart. The pastor had some difficulties<br />

with the church and had to leave.<br />

The news of his leaving sent a wave<br />

of panic among all the other national<br />

crusade leaders. I traveled to the Dominican<br />

Republic in July and spent five<br />

days with the leaders, praying with<br />

them, signing contracts and making<br />

deposits, and trusting the Lord for an<br />

unprecedented victory. And God did<br />

give us the victory!<br />

The crusade, held nightly from August<br />

14 to 21, 2005, was well attended<br />

from start to finish, averaging 1500<br />

–6–<br />

every night, with 2000 at the<br />

closing service. T<strong>here</strong> was<br />

good exposition of the Word<br />

of God by experienced Haitian<br />

preachers from five countries<br />

(including some from<br />

Boston), as well as a special<br />

program fully in Spanish entitled<br />

Noche Domicana (Dominican<br />

Night) w<strong>here</strong> the speaker was Rev.<br />

Ezekiel Molina Rosario, the “Billy Graham”<br />

of the country. The coliseum was<br />

packed that night and great Christian<br />

Dominican artists of Haitian ancestry<br />

lifted our souls through their music.<br />

Many came to the Lord that night, including<br />

our Dominican bus driver!<br />

During the day, the team kept busy<br />

with various outreach ministries. We<br />

ministered to Haitians in the bateys,<br />

primitive villages located among the<br />

sugarcane fields w<strong>here</strong> Haitian field<br />

workers live. We visited the Good Samaritan<br />

Hospital, the first Haitian hospital<br />

in the country, hand-constructed<br />

by Americans, Haitians and Dominicans.<br />

The hospital provides quality<br />

health care in a Christian context. We<br />

also ministered at Haitian urban<br />

churches on the outskirts of La<br />

Romana w<strong>here</strong> many very poor<br />

people live.<br />

After the week-long crusade, our<br />

team left La Romana with the following<br />

convictions. T<strong>here</strong> is<br />

a thirst for fellowship across denominational<br />

lines;<br />

a thirst for strength in order to better<br />

spread the <strong>Gospel</strong>;<br />

a thirst for the Word of God<br />

through Bible distribution;<br />

a need for cement block church<br />

buildings, strong enough to withstand<br />

hurricanes, to replace the<br />

huts w<strong>here</strong> the Lord of Heaven,<br />

our Mighty God, is being worshipped;<br />

a need for Christian social workers<br />

who can dig into the various<br />

social needs of the Haitian community,<br />

a community in a longterm<br />

transition.<br />

Though the 2005 Haitian La<br />

Romana Crusade is over, for us, the<br />

work has just begun. <br />

left: church leaders gather;<br />

center: Rev. Laborde singing<br />

at crusade; right: rural<br />

home. For information on<br />

one ministry’s outreach to<br />

the “bateys” around La<br />

Romana, with details on<br />

upcoming service trips, see<br />

www.laromana.org.


And now a word<br />

from the Director<br />

As I write this, I have been back<br />

from my sabbatical for nearly<br />

three months. While the sabbatical<br />

was wonderful and restful, I<br />

am really glad to be back in the<br />

thick of things with the EGC team.<br />

I continue to thank God for the<br />

group of folks he has brought<br />

together <strong>here</strong>, and I am excited<br />

about the <strong>Center</strong>’s work and<br />

direction.<br />

Your prayers make a huge difference<br />

in whether we succeed or fail<br />

(not to put any pressure on you,<br />

but just trying to remember that<br />

much of our real work is done<br />

through prayer). While the<br />

<strong>Center</strong>’s ministries are strong with<br />

people and vision, we are in a<br />

season w<strong>here</strong> finances are tight all<br />

around. Please pray that the Lord<br />

will provide all that is needed for<br />

each of our ministries and for the<br />

<strong>Center</strong>. And please pray for<br />

wisdom for me, the Board, and the<br />

support staff as we navigate<br />

through shallow waters.<br />

Thank you again for your prayers.<br />

May the Lord bless you as you<br />

serve him!<br />

Sincerely,<br />

Jeff Bass<br />

Executive Director<br />

Prayer &<br />

Praise<br />

Tia Holcomb, coordinator for the<br />

Youth Ministry Development Project<br />

(YMDP), asks that we pray for a new<br />

series of training sessions YMDP is<br />

offering for urban youth workers this<br />

year. The first seminar, scheduled for<br />

September 24, is on strategic<br />

planning for youth programs. YMDP<br />

works with 100 volunteer and paid<br />

church-based youth workers in<br />

Boston and Cambridge.<br />

Michele Mitsumori, director of<br />

CityServe, says that the CityServe<br />

website is nearing completion. At<br />

this stage, the website will be an<br />

“opportunity bank,” with the goal of<br />

promoting Christian volunteering by<br />

helping to match Christian volunteers<br />

with opportunities at Christian<br />

churches and ministries in and<br />

around Boston. The online bank will<br />

help urban churches and ministries<br />

identify, develop, and write volunteer<br />

job descriptions as well as build<br />

their capacities to host volunteers<br />

effectively. Pray for God’s timing and<br />

wisdom as this new resource soon<br />

becomes available.<br />

Nika Elugardo, recently named EGC’s<br />

director of<br />

consulting,<br />

reports that the<br />

Applied Evaluation<br />

Systems<br />

(AES) website is<br />

launching this<br />

fall. At the same time, she is sending<br />

out printed information packets to<br />

potential AES clients, churches and<br />

agencies, to advise them of this<br />

program that can help them build<br />

technical expertise and develop<br />

effective ministries. She writes,<br />

“Please pray for wisdom… and that<br />

we can continue to get our consulting<br />

work done for our existing<br />

clients. I think the harvest is<br />

plentiful. Please pray for good<br />

workers from the Lord of the Harvest<br />

and for wisdom to discern who they<br />

are.” Nika hopes to hire both<br />

contract workers and more staff.<br />

Doug and Judy Hall are working on<br />

a writing project this fall while some<br />

capable co-workers oversee the<br />

teaching of their urban ministry<br />

class offered through CUME, Gordon-<br />

Conwell’s <strong>Center</strong> for Urban Ministerial<br />

Education in Boston. Rev. Dr. Gregg<br />

Detwiler, Rev. Dr. Elijah Kim and<br />

Michele Mitsumori will be teaching<br />

seminarians on behalf of the Halls.<br />

Pray for all involved, that students<br />

will be equipped to launch effective<br />

urban churches and ministries, and<br />

that the Halls would be successful in<br />

communicating the principles God<br />

has shown them over the years.<br />

Sandy Haughn, on leave from our<br />

Economic Development ministry as<br />

she battles a stubborn cancer, asks<br />

that we continue to keep her in<br />

prayer. She writes, “I’m starting to<br />

get into experimental treatments,<br />

and it’s all pretty exhausting and<br />

scary. At the moment I feel amazingly<br />

calm, but that’s got to be<br />

because God is with me.”<br />

Taking on a new role, Crystal Dixon<br />

is making an<br />

in-house<br />

transition<br />

from assistant<br />

director of<br />

EGC to fulltime<br />

director<br />

of EGC’s Boston Education Collaborative<br />

(BEC). The BEC works to help<br />

urban residents pursue and acquire<br />

the education they desire. One of<br />

the BEC’s flagship efforts is the New<br />

City Scholars Program through which<br />

urban teens have been able to get<br />

to college, and are now pursuing<br />

their education as a mentored team.<br />

Nine scholars in the program’s third<br />

“cohort” are starting their freshman<br />

year at Gordon College, while two<br />

previous cohorts are returning for<br />

their sophomore and junior years.<br />

Martha Védrine, who has directed<br />

this program, announced that she is<br />

leaving EGC to continue her education<br />

and pursue other ministry.<br />

Please pray for Martha’s transition,<br />

for Crystal as she directs the BEC,<br />

and for the 28 New City Scholars as<br />

they hit the books!<br />

– 7–


<strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />

2 San Juan Street<br />

PO Box 180245<br />

Boston MA 02118-0994<br />

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED<br />

INSIDE EGC<br />

a newsletter of <strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />

Mission & Programs<br />

The mission of the <strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />

is to understand and help nurture the vitality<br />

of urban churches in the context of their<br />

broader urban communities, particularly in<br />

Boston’s low-income and immigrant<br />

communities. We believe that churches are<br />

God’s chosen instruments to bring his life and<br />

presence into our communities, so all of our<br />

work is designed to support what God is doing<br />

in and through urban churches. <strong>Emmanuel</strong><br />

<strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong> provides resources to help<br />

churches operate effectively at the grassroots<br />

level through programs that evolve in response<br />

to the needs of churches, their communities,<br />

and their networks.<br />

Applied Research & Consulting<br />

Applied Evaluation Systems<br />

<strong>Emmanuel</strong> Research Institute<br />

Boston Education Collaborative<br />

College Success Initiative &<br />

New City Scholars Program<br />

Higher Education<br />

Resource <strong>Center</strong>s<br />

CityServe<br />

Economic Development<br />

Greater Boston Church Planting<br />

Collaborative<br />

Haitian Ministries International<br />

Ministry Development<br />

Multicultural Ministries<br />

Cambodian Ministries<br />

Starlight Ministries (homeless)<br />

Urban Ministry Training<br />

Youth Ministry Development Project<br />

visit us online<br />

www.egc.org<br />

donate online<br />

You can donate to<br />

EGC through PayPal,<br />

either a one-time or<br />

recurring donation,<br />

from your credit<br />

card or your bank<br />

account. Go to our<br />

website and follow<br />

the link on the<br />

homepage. Thanks!<br />

INSIDE THIS ISSUE<br />

15<br />

Come celebrate with us! Starlight Ministries turns 15.<br />

Dessert and celebration October 15, 2005, at Tremont<br />

Temple Baptist Church. See page 5.<br />

New church survey underway. Solomon said, “Know the<br />

condition of your flocks.” In order to serve urban churches,<br />

we periodically gather data to help us understand the<br />

best way to nurture what God is already doing in the<br />

city. You can help! See page 1.<br />

Are you a pastor in Boston or Cambridge? Or do you go to a church t<strong>here</strong>?<br />

Make sure your church’s survey form has been returned to EGC!<br />

INSIDE EGC<br />

is published by the<br />

<strong>Emmanuel</strong> <strong>Gospel</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />

2 San Juan Street<br />

PO Box 180245<br />

Boston MA 02118<br />

All rights reserved<br />

Steve Daman, editor<br />

Dana Wade, development<br />

617-262-4567<br />

dwade@egc.org<br />

a member of the<br />

Evangelical<br />

Council for<br />

Financial<br />

Accountability

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