Churches Serve One Another in Fort Wayne

The pastors of Community Christian Reformed Church and a nondenominational congregation called Latter Rain Ministries in Fort Wayne, Ind., showed the unity that they have grown to experience in a very personal way during a pre-Easter service.

On Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, pastor Jim Halstead and Bishop Reginald Brackmon got down on their knees in front of the church and washed the feet of their sons.

Maundy Thursday commemorates the evening when Christ got down on his knees and washed the feet of his apostles. This was the second year on which the two churches held a joint service on this night.

"We have grown more in friendship and the Maundy Thursday service was another example,” says Halstead of Community CRC.

"As servants, we wanted to wash the feet of our sons because they are the ones who brought us together."

It was through Hammond’s son, Stephen, and Brackmon’s son, Reggie, that the pastors met nearly three years. At that time, both were growing their churches in the Fort Wayne area and their sons had been playing on the same high school basketball team.

Reggie now attends a small college in Michigan, while Stephen is still in high school.

"It was nothing short of a miracle-- the heart of God in the hand of God-- that brought us together through our sons," says Brackmon.

"It is powerful. We care for each other. We have been united, which is following the Great Commission."

During the recent service, they celebrated the Last Supper with a message from Halstead and breaking of the bread and the sharing the cup together.

They then heard a message from Brackmon on Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, setting an example for Christians to love and serve one another in humility.

Then came the washing of feet. Halstead washed his son Stephen’s feet and Blackmon washed his son Reggie’s feet, doing so in a spirit of humility to thank their sons for bringing their two churches together, says Halstead.

"We are breaking down cultures here in our churches," says Brackmon.

"God's agenda is expressed between us. We're doing God's program. It is awesome to see how through paired prayer in our work together. God is helping to bring deliverance to us all."

While Latter Rain Ministries has larger proportion of African-American members, both are multicultural churches and have consciously and consistently focused on praying together, doing neighborhood evangelistic outreach during the summer together, and holding joint services.

Community CRC is in an outlying, mostly suburban area, and Latter Rain Ministries is in the inner-city, in an area that has lately been particularly plagued by violence.

The pastors say they are seeking, with great confidence in the Lord and in a relatively unusual way, to build up the unity of the church that Christ called forth upon his death.

In all humility, they say, they would like to see other churches in the CRC and elsewhere to do on some level and in some way what they have been doing.

Both churches are going to join together for a prayer meeting at Latter Rain Ministries on Thursday, May 2 to celebrate the National Day of Prayer.