The Pentecostals of St. Joseph will host first service at new location Sunday.
By Erin Wisdom
St. Joseph News Press

A building above a busy interstate might seem a prime location for a church. After all, nothing else other than a billboard could provide such prominent advertising. But The Pentecostals of St. Joseph have left their hilltop perch in north St. Joseph in favor of a smaller building tucked away Downtown, where they’ll begin holding services this Sunday.

“Moving Downtown is part of the vision of our church to evangelize St. Joe,” says the Rev. David Billingsley, the church’s pastor: “Our vision is to be where people are receptive, and we do believe being in the heart of the city will be an advantage to them and to us.”

It’s a vision that took root a year ago almost to the day, when a traveling evangelist The Pentecostals were hosting late last September told them he felt they were supposed to be closer to Downtown. At first, they responded by bringing Downtown to them, in a sense-doing street evangelism that led to the baptisms of about 140 Downtown residents. The church then began busing many of these individuals to its services on Sundays.

“We didn’t even have a church bus a year ago,” notes the Rev. Billingsley’s wife, Dorothye Billingsley. “Now we could use two.”

Teams from the church have done street evangelism at all times of the day and night, quite literally – even seeking people out Downtown at midnight. What they discovered is a level both of need and of receptiveness they hadn’t found in the more affluent area where they were previously, which helped provide the push they needed to move Downtown. After a nearly unanimous vote in April to make the move, The Pentecostals purchased the building at 1202 Felix St. that formerly belonged to the Unity Church of Practical Christianity.

Although the change is major in terms of neighborhood demographics, even The Pentecostals’ longest standing member, Barbara Landis supports it.

“We really feel like the Lord let us down here, says Ms. Landis, who has belonged to the church for 50 years.

After months of work on the building, the church will hold its first service there at 2 p.m. Sunday. (It also offers Sunday school at 1 p.m. and a Hispanic service at 6:30 p.m. Sundays, as well as a 7 p.m service Wednesdays and services at a couple of local nursing homes on Sunday mornings.) Having already received some unsolicited interest from people who have passed by the church’s new location, members hope to see some new faces in their services soon.

Beyond this, their plans for the future include more of what they’ve focused on in the past year, which has included not only street evangelism but also an outreach to Tent City residents over the winter and the start of home Bible studies. The Rev. Billingsley says, too, that his hope is for a spiritual transformation of people’s lives that leads to change in other problem areas-such as employment, economics and relationships-they might be facing.

“We realize not far from here are some tough neighborhoods.”

And from the year of change the church has experienced within itself, members have an extra dose of hope that change is possible for the places and people around them, too.

“I think the whole year prepared us for this without us really realizing it,” notes Stefanie Lyle, the church’s director of music. “…We’re thankful God prepared us for this moment.”

Erin Wisdom can be reached at erin.wisdom@newspressnow.com

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