Ministry Highlights
By Jennifer DeWitt | Saturday, June 23, 2007
TODAY: (Updated: 6:14 p.m.)
Under threatening skies today, Herington Park — at 9th and Gaines streets in Davenport — rang out with music, prayer and the glow of spirit as the Mount Sinai Christian Fellowship Church of God in Christ congregation brought its ministry to the central Davenport neighborhood.
Promoted as a neighborhood
outreach, the tent revival-style event was designed to inspire and challenge
“people to make changes for the better,” said the Rev. Frank Livingston. “This
will help people in dealing with the evils … We’re doing it because people need
help.”
With lively music, an engaged crowd and prayer, the congregation showed the
neighborhood that no matter their troubles, they are welcome in God’s house.
“This is about helping people restore their lives back to where they should be,”
said Livingston, who was appointed the church’s pastor last August. Mount Sinai
is located on North Pine Street
He knows first-hand the troubles of today’s society having overcome alcohol and
drug addictions and other destructive habits when he turned to God in November
1985. Now a minister for nearly 22 years, he hopes the outreach helps begin the
healing for those being hurt — hurt by drug and alcohol abuse, attracted to a
life of crime and others who have lost their way for whatever reason.
“Hey, if this happened for me, as long as there is life in you, we can help
you,” Livingston said.
Opening the event in prayer, Corey Parker, the church’s youth pastor, led the
crowd in asking “that God be in our midst, in this place and throughout this
park and street. Somebody needs to know you have a plan for their life,” he
said, echoing a common sentiment of the day. “Give them rest from whatever
situation they find themselves in.”
Pastor Marvin Causey of the Outreach Fellowship Christian Center Church of God
and Christ in East Dundee, Ill., offered his own story of redemption.
A former leader of the Vice Lords street gang himself, Causey’s life has turned
around from being shot 10 times at once by a .357 Magnum — while playing around
with a fellow gang member, to preaching the Gospel to his own congregation.
“I was saved by the grace of God,” said Causey, who was on parole after a
nine-year prison sentence when his life was changed after attending one of
Livingston’s revival events. “He told me to stop sitting down on the Lord and
told me God had work for me.”
Causey eventually heeded those words and became an elder in his church, then a
pastor three years ago.
His hope is that young men and women will hear his message to take control of
their lives. “Our sisters are having five and six babies with five and six
different last names. They’re living in low-income homes. God gives us the power
to walk over the enemy. We are not walking in that power that God said we can
have,” he added.
With dozens of Mount Sinai’s members on hand to welcome the neighbors and make
them feel part of the group, Livingston’s wife, Teketa, said the church chose
Herington Park thinking if any neighbors did decide to join the church,
transportation would not be a huge barrier because other members live nearby.
“Everyone is so excited about this,” she said.
Geneva Clanahan, who left her church in Rockford, Ill. after 39 years to attend
Mount Sinai, said the congregation wants the neighborhood to know their doors
are open. “There are so many people looking for a place to go, someone to talk
to, someone to trust.”
“This is the beginning of a new beginning. Good news will travel. If they’re not
at this one, they’ll be at the next one,” the Rockford woman said. “At least the
seeds are being planted.”