New Wine

New Wine, New Start, New Song

by: Linda Duguay

The lights are low, mainly because there aren’t enough of them. A cherry-wood bar covers the back wall inviting you to take a seat and the room buzzes as people file in. There’s no problem hearing the music, the old hotel has great acoustics and the music’s loud. This is a typical looking bar crowd. Except for the kids horsing around.

You can tell some of these people are hung over because day old beer breath is hard to cover. That’s okay; they’re in the right place this morning. Kevin Rogers is in the band and he says so. He’s also the pastor of this ragged looking group.

This is New Song: an urban Pentecostal church in one of Windsor Ontario’s poorest neighborhoods.

The eighty-year-old bar has been under renovation since it’s doors opened in 1994.

It’s difficult to walk into this old bar and convince yourself you’re in a Pentecostal church. Everywhere are people who seem, well, like they belong in a joint like this. Prostitutes, alcohol and drug addicts, homosexuals and the generally poor are taking their seats to listen and worship.

There’s a fascinating irony evident in the congregation because in some ways, New Song is very typical. The teaching is straightforward and fundamental portraying Jesus Christ as our only hope for salvation and personal change. But the resemblance to a mainstream church ends there.

Rogers says, “Nobody tampers with the core gospel here, the difference is in style.”

New Song’s leadership doesn’t want to develop a new church culture. In fact, this is what Rogers’ thinks alienates some people - especially the poor and marginalized.

He believes being an outcast is a condition that Pentecostals can to relate to.

Rogers’ remembers the denomination’s reputation of being from the ‘wrong side of the tracks.’ He says, “With the social lift of the gospel, we prospered and moved over those tracks.” He believes God is calling willing us to go back where we started and preach the gospel to the poor again.

“Pentecost removes the communication barriers that exist between different cultures, economic and language groups,” Rogers says.

Jesus was able to hear the cries of his city. He was available to listen and to speak. Roger’s says that’s the mission of the urban church.

Philip and Sheila are two area residents who have become part of the family at New Song.

“We wanted a new life and it feels like we belong here,” Sheila says, smiling as she relates her acceptance of Jesus Christ. “No one looks down on us and the church has helped us a lot with fixing our house. We’re gonna get baptized so we can really start our new life.”

Rogers doesn’t judge people’s spirituality by whether or not they conform to current church customs.

He says that New Song is willing to let church culture lose some of its status.

Rather than calling people into church culture, Christians (as missionaries) go into inner city society and embody the church. That’s where we see God revealed in the lowest and least. That’s what Jesus did.

That’s what New Song tries to do.

Wayne Scarlett is 42 years old and accepted Jesus at 16. He says he lived a drifter’s life doing things, “you just don’t bring into church.”

Scarlett says, “I raged at God; at a lot of things for years. When I came to Windsor, I wanted a new start. This church is part of the reason I’m still making progress.”

About half the congregation of 150 are compassionate people who feel called to the church. The other half is made up of those who are attracted to the compassion. The list of ministries reads like it belongs to a church twice New Song’s size.

It includes Sunday morning worship, Bible studies, Friday supper outreach (feeding about 130), an employment training program, mentoring and advocacy with high risk families, counseling, Parish nursing, youth and jail ministries, a clothing bank, 2fish band, and a chaplainry with sexual perpetrators.

This is done with one full-time pastor. Of the 7 volunteer staff, 3 are ordained ministers.

The congregation takes an active role in the work and other churches pitch in with things like Friday Night Supper. Occasionally, youth groups and work teams help repair the very needy building.

New Song church resolved to become part of the Drouillard road community rather than conforming the neighborhood to church culture.

It’s making a difference. Loving one person, one family at a time is changing the area.

Author Jean Vanier puts New Song’s feelings well: "The Church is only truly the Church when she welcomes the weak along with the strong, the little ones with the powerful ones."