Pastors promote unity in individuals and the community

Pastors Jimmy and Phyllis Pierce foster unity to bring healing in the multicultural church they serve and with the Spokane Ministers’ Fellowship.

Jimmy and Phyllis Pierce

Jimmy is senior pastor of Unspeakable Joy Christian Fellowship and the 2010-2011 president of the Spokane Ministers’ Fellowship.

 Phyllis ministers to women, from one-to-one counseling to an annual women’s conference.

Through worship, classes and one-to-one counseling, their goal is the restoration of harmony in families and individual’s lives so they can find their purpose and carry out their ministries.

“We’re about helping people,” Jimmy said of the church, “helping people deal with life crises and trauma they have experienced.

“I’ve seen many lives change—college students from Eastern Washington University, military people at Fairchild Air Force Base, married couples made whole and people ready to go into ministry,” he said

“I see our church as offering a training ground,” he said.

“God gives us time to concentrate on working with people, sharing God’s love for them so they can go on,” said Jimmy, adding that he and his wife are still in contact with most of those they have helped.

He started the Unspeakable Joy Christian Fellowship in 1998.  After he retired from the Air Force in 2004, he decided to stay and he continues to work at Fairchild as a civilian in personnel security.

Feeling called to offer a “ministry of love” in Airway Heights, he first held services in hotels and the community center.  Now the church at 13315 W. 13th Ave. serves about 60 people in Airway Heights, Cheney, Fairchild, EWU and Spokane.

Although the church is nondenominational—as a way to express its desire to foster unity—it affiliates with Impact Fellowship International and describes its approach as Pentecostal.

Jimmy and Phyllis wanted to avoid a name that would be associated with a set of teachings so they could welcome people from all walks of life and from many denominational backgrounds.

“Often people use their beliefs to tear down what someone else teaches or believes.  I tell what I believe, and others tell what they believe,” he said.  “I talk about Scripture and then encourage people to go to the Bible to see what it says to them.”

Born in Alabama, Jimmy said his father was a Baptist preacher and his mother was an ardent member of the Church of Christ.  Their denominations had different teachings and traditions.

In 1976, they moved to Covington, Tenn., and he began attending Covington Church of God in Christ.  He met Phyllis, who grew up in Tennessee, at that church.

After he joined the Air Force, they moved often from Blytheville, Ark., to Alexandria, La., to King Salmon, Alaska, to Rapid City, S.D., to Korea, to Rome, N.Y., to North Dakota, where he served five years as pastor of a Church of God in Christ before coming to Spokane 12 years ago.

Jimmy had some training in counseling in the military and studied several years for ministry beginning in 1989 under Bishop  Lorenzo Kelly in the Church of God in Christ in South Dakota.  Through his training in ministry, Jimmy said his personal healing began.  He was ordained in 1992.    Phyllis trained with Bishop Kelly and with her husband.

As a victim of sexual abuse and having watched her mother be battered, Phyllis said that learning Bishop Kelly overcame a similar trauma strengthened her.

“I realized that through God’s love, we can live and have dominion over where we go with our lives,” she said.

“Now God sends me people who have faced similar struggles and feel they are worthless,” she said.  “I let them know there is life after that kind of death. I tell them don’t give up.  Don’t let the past cancel the future.”

Jimmy believes he needs to help people increase in faith, especially in the midst of adversity and tragedy.

“My wife and I offer a prophetic, healing and deliverance ministry, helping people deal with issues they face, from rape or molestation to military members re-entering civilian society after serving in a war zone.

“We focus on the spiritual issues and helping families, and refer those with post-traumatic stress to help on the base or at the Veterans Administration Medical Center,” he said.

While healing and deliverance may include laying on of hands, it’s more about one-to-one conversations, helping people “regain the lives Jesus wants for them, so they can lead more productive lives,” he said.

Jimmy preaches and leads worship Sunday mornings.  He also leads a Wednesday evening Bible study, a men’s group, a singles group and life-skills and financial management classes.

Along with individual counseling, Phyllis leads women’s fellowship and a book club.

For the sixth year, she has also organized an annual Women’s Conference, “God’s Divine Divas,” with speakers telling how they overcame past experiences in battered homes, bad marriages or abusive relationships.

“We see God challenging women to go beyond the veil,” she said.  “Some want jobs or want to go to school, but after being battered, their esteem is gone.  The speakers and I challenge women so they can go to the next level and go to school and strive to make it on their own, to do what they thought they couldn’t do.”

Phyllis is writing two books, one on “Life After Death” and the other is a daily devotional.

Jimmy and Phyllis believe that if their members are whole and united, they will find their ministries and ways to serve people—be it giving food to a food bank, giving backpacks to school children or providing blankets for homeless people.

At the Spokane Ministers’ Fellowship, Jimmy uplifts the organization’s 2010 theme, “Welded Together in Unity.”

“Our goal is to reach out across racial and gender boundaries, believing we can do more together to be a blessing to each other and the community,” Jimmy said.  “I like to bring people together to listen to ideas.”

He said the Spokane Ministers’ Fellowship is a gathering for Spokane’s 18 African-American pastors and ministers, a time to come together and share advice. 

They meet at 10:30 a.m. on first Saturdays, because many of the clergy, like Jimmy, are bi-vocational.

It sponsors three events a year for African-American and multi-cultural congregations—an Easter Sunrise Service, a Thanksgiving Service and a New Year’s Eve Watch Night Service.

This year, they held services each night of Holy Week at different churches, leading up to Easter weekend, and they also organized a Juneteenth celebration, which acknowledges that many slaves did not hear about the Emancipation Proclamation declaring their freedom until the June after it was enacted.

“Spokane’s African-American community is scattered,” Jimmy said.  “We need to come together to deal with the high drop-out rate, both on prevention and on helping those who have dropped out earn a GED or learn a trade.”

He calls for not only unity among churches but also unity among agencies—the NAACP, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, VOICES and other efforts.

“We need to unite the minority community so we are aware of what’s going on and keep connected,” Jimmy said.

“Everyone’s church is different and everyone does things in different ways, but we can come together as the Christian community to overcome gender issues and racial barriers,” he said.

For information, call 868-1184 or email jdpierce6@msn.com.

Copyright © October 2010 - The Fig Tree