Newlife

From The Peopling of New York City

New Life Church

New Life Church, located at 1120 Castelton Ave, was established in 1997 by the senior pastor Laurenzo Stevens. He along with 18 other people decided to go on a journey of faith and start this church. Their mission is to "preach the gospel to as many people as the Lord will lead us, and to as many places as possible; baptizing those who believe and making disciples for Jesus...to unite people of like-precious faith in the bonds of brotherly love and fellowship (Heb.13:1), to truly meet together and worship God in spirit and in truth and to receive Christian teaching, to point the lost to the way of life by proclaiming at home and abroad the plan of salvation."

Visiting this church was an experience I will never forget. When I walked in there was a woman who had also just arrived. She was fixing her head wrap and dress before going into the actual church. As I made my way into the actual church, I took a seat in the back figuring that it was the best possible place to observe. One of the pastors was finishing up a teaching from Sunday school which is held every Sunday before the service. The church is a place for guidance on how to live their lives and how to understand the Bible.

The women wore African dresses and head wraps of all different colors and textures. The women who didn’t dress like this wore long skirts, dresses, or skirt suits and looked very professional. The children were dressed up, most of the girls in dresses. There were not that many little children in the church. All the men wore dress pants, shirts and ties. There was a choir that remained on the stage and sang leading the congregation. They wore gowns of burgundy and gold. Once Vin arrived they asked us if we were from CSI and moved us right into the front. They were very welcoming and made Vin and I stand up a couple of times, the first time just to introduce who we were and the second time to say how we were enjoying this new experience.

The best part of the entire service was called Giving and Worship time. This is the time where they took collections for the new building they are going to make there home in 2010 / 2011 and where they sang songs to God. They sang awesome God which I know very well and also songs from there native land in their native language. Vin and I were up off our feet singing and dancing with them even if we did not know the words. The music was very upbeat and everyone was so passionate about worshiping God in this way. I was lucky enough to be able to take a few pictures and videos of this moment. Many women began to cry. -Valerie

Interview with Reverend Stevens

Vin and I were able to make time for an interview with the pastor of the church Reverend Stevens. He was very welcoming and was happy to answer every question we threw at him. There is so much diversity present in a small community of people from the same country. Along with this diversity is similarities that brings each family close together and makes the church a home away from home.

• Valerie: When was the church established and Who founded it?
• Rev. Stevens: This church was established in 1997. I had actually been serving as a pastor in Brooklyn for about nine years before I started this church. I founded it along with other members. The first meting we had to organize was about 18 or so and we established this church.

• Valerie: Why did you choose this location?
• Stevens: We were in a parking section and we started in an apartment in our spare time while we started looking for facilities that would be used. This place gave us the overview of our goal because we wanted a place that would meet the needs of our community. This location with a lot attached to it, which we were intending to build an actual sanctuary, so this location just proved to be good.

• Valerie: Who makes up the congregation (nationality)?
• Stevens: We have predominately Liberians and we have some Nigerians and some Ghanaians that come.

• Valerie: Are they mostly men, women, or children?
• Stevens: Most of them are women and children that make up the population of our congregation. We have men too yes.(laughs)

• Valerie: What is this Church’s mission?
• Stevens: The mission of what we are called to do is called evangelism, we are called to evangelize the world. One of our clearest messages of the Church’s mission is to preach and teach the gospel of the Jesus Christ. And in so doing, also to incorporate the needs of the people because even Jesus himself said “Let the people sit down and what bread do you have to give them” so we are cognoscente of the fact that as much as we are preaching the gospel and our mission is to reach the entire world, we are also reaching, on the horizontal level, of people that we call into the ministry of the word of God.

• Valerie: What type of needs do the people have?
• Stevens: Well, we have social issues, we have educational issues, and the whole need apart from the physical needs instead of looking at housing for people, trying to get people places, or whether they need references. Apart from that, to stay on the course of our mission, will be to actually help teach people what we are called to do. So the cultivation of the minds of people is one of the great needs of our generation. A generation that is not called is a generation that is lost.

• Valerie: What are the future goals for this church?
• Stevens: We are trying to build a church that complies to mirror the aspects of our mission. We want our community whole, where people in the community can always feel free to come and sit. To enjoy a soup kitchen, to have a food pantry, to have day care, and of course we are doing and after-school which will be carried on to that. We are working to have a comprehensive look at what the church should be. It should be able to meet every need of every community.

• Valerie: What was the major reason why the community came to this part of Staten Island? Why they left Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria?
• Stevens: I would tell first of myself of course. My immigration into this country has been for educational purpose, to come here and advance yourself. But in the last fourteen, fifteen years, there had been a civil war in Liberia and a resurgent of many of the families, like we were here and the war was going on there and there were some family members that were resettled here in the US. This is part of the main migration of our current time. Previously people came here to excel, for better education and to come and learn and then would return. But as a result of the war, a lot of Liberians have resettled to join their families.

• Valerie: What do the congregation do? What are their professions?
• Stevens: Well, many of our congregants here work in social areas. As you saw that Sunday, we have College of Staten Island Alumni here, some have a masters degree and they work in social services. They work as assistants and also they work in the health care area. Some are actually going to college. Two of our students are at Howard University, one is directly going for a masters in education, and one of them is going for registered nurse.

• Valerie: Why do you think people are drawn to this particular church?
• Stevens: Humanly speaking when you have goals and objectives that correspond with the needs of the people, people are quickly drawn to that. Spiritually, they are drawn by the Holy Spirit. God is the one that does the drawing. He said “When I’m lifted up I will draw all men unto me”. When you worship, when you worship truly and people connect to the true worship, they are drawn to it. One of the things that have helped the organization excel has been the magnitude of true leadership and that has been our focus to know that people should trust us at what we say and what we do. When people see that you as a leader, you represent what you say. They are partial drawn to you because of the honesty in which you are called to the work. So I believe that people are drawn here first by the Holy Spirit and second by some ways of leadership style, that we do things the way we do things, so they kind of connect to it. The young man that we had breach that day, he had been living in London for ex number of years as a lawyer. When he came here, somehow he found us and said this is going to be his home church because he connects with the things that we do.

• Valerie: Do you think the church is a home away from home, away from West Africa for your congregation?
• Stevens: Yes. The church serves as a central place where people meet to actually reiterate about situations in their homes, because if you are isolated, you are not able to feel or to share what people go through away from home. By coming together we are able to serve like a home away from home, cause you are able to share what is happening. You are not alone in the things that are happening. You know your parents are home, they are sick and you have to send them money and you have to talk to them, and then when you congregate you find out that you are not alone, you also have friends and family members that also share those same ties. You feel at home when you come together because you have something in common that you can share and talk about.

• Valerie: And they are able to wear their dress, which is nice, and sing their songs.
• Stevens: Exactly, exactly. And you know those songs which we share home, you are able to come here and experience it again. One of the song the other choir sang was from Nigeria and there was so much religion with the Nigerian speaker that we had so he was kinda like Oh! This feels like home. So those are some of the areas which keep connecting us and keep moving forward for the things we do.

• Valerie: How many different languages does the congregation speak?
• Stevens: Well, an overview of that can be deep. We have what we call dialects in Liberia and we have 16 of those there, and if you go to Nigeria or Ghana, all of those places have ex number. For Nigeria I would say about 400 dialects that they speak there. So for our congregation here we have almost every segment of our country. Even my wife doesn’t speak the dialect I speak, she speaks a different one. So we can summarize here that we have a whole array of dialects spoken here. We have some who have as a result of the war has spent time in the Ivory Coast so they are able to speak French. You know they can relate to that. So because they spent two, three years in the Ivory Coast, settling there so they can understand French. We have a whole lot of dialects spoken here. I wouldn’t limit it to even 10 or 15 or so because we have the whole aspect of Libera. We have people from Limba, from Lofa, we have people from different segments of the country.