Church on the Lawn invites community to join in
Apostle Edward Allen, senior pastor of Ambassador Cathedral, delivered the sermon during the service.
On Sunday, June 2, Ambassador Cathedral, 1500 Harriet Tubman Dr., hosted their annual “Church on the Lawn” service. This is the fourth year of the outreach event for the church.
The purpose for having the service on the lawn was to have the surrounding members of the community visually see the church is a part of the community, the church says.
“This is a beautiful neighborhood and under the trees it is really nice out here,” said senior pastor Apostle Edward Allen. “It was one of my innovations when I came here and we have a lot of foot traffic through here, so we wanted them to stop through.
Along with the service, the church offered food and clothing for free afterwards.
“Sometimes, the people are going down to Samarian Ministries to eat, so they will stop through here to get a snack and we can minister to them,” he continued. “We try to have everyone be cognizant of who is in the neighborhood while we are having service out here, so we can invite them to come and sit with us.”
Ambassador Cathedral has a clothes closet along with a food pantry. The service on the lawn allows them to make those in the neighborhood aware that those services are available.
Allen had a unique sermon that he delivered that Sunday afternoon. His message was that everyone has their own “wilderness” they have to go through. He said it was important for people to understand why they are going through their particular struggle at that moment.
“So many of us have these wilderness experiences and out of the biblical text, I realized how much it resonates with us in life,” he said about the sermon. “It doesn’t matter where you are in life, you’re going to have a wilderness experience one way or the other.
“It’s important for us to understand every step of our life and the wildernesses that are there are for a purpose. It’s not just for us to be out here aimlessly, but rather the Lord has a reason for us to be in particular places.”
Another unique aspect of the service was the testimonies that were delivered by members of the congregation. Instead of issues that people were currently overcoming, Allen wanted the members to speak about the trials they endured prior to becoming saved, just in case someone walking by may relate to something they were saying.
“We have an inside testimony and we have an outside testimony,” he said. “The testimony that really gets us is the one after we have come through a wilderness, then we have something to say. We have an experience that can bless someone else. These testimonies go with who we are trying to reach out here. They have got to hear where we were, not where we are now.”
