Nathan E. Lewis

Rachel Werner, the Children Ministeries Coordinator at Evergreen Church in Beaverton, who works under my direction, discovered that our county manages several safe houses for women. She also discovered that many of the interiors of these houses looked and felt more like prisons than homes and so she has organized our teens to paint and to furnish bedrooms with new linens and other warming features. During Sunday morning announcements, as Rachel described the opportunity, I was emotionally stirred, a rarity for me during the delivery of announcements! My daughter joined the painting crew, and I can not begin to express the gratitude that I feel for her opportunity to serve in the name of Jesus, who spent much of his time with the hurting and marginalized members of his community. Continue reading »

During Passion Week 2008 I met Jeremy, National Director of Good Samaritan Ministries in Burundi. I dropped by the international headquarters of Good Samaritan Ministries in Beaverton, within walking distance of my office at Evergreen Presbyterian Church, to visit with founder/director, Bettie Mitchell. She introduced me to Jeremy. He told me his story, the loss of his four sisters murdered during the genocide of 1993. The night before I watched “Beyond the Gates,” a BBC movie about the genocide in Rwanda. Last year I had watched “Hotel Rwanda,” and then read as much news archives as I could to remind me of what I and so many others in the safe and peaceful west had forgotten - over one million people brutally hacked to death by machete. Most of Jeremy’s counseling ministry is a ministry of reconciliation and the caring/healing of people in long-term shock as survivors of genocide. Continue reading »

Go to the Evergreen PCA site to read about the cutting of small loans to individuals in developing nations starting new businesses to support their families. Fresh Start Microloans.

I opened my snail mail to read a four-page hand-written letter from Terry, a prisoner in a state prison, requesting that I correspond with him for the final three years of his 33 year sentence. He’s thinking now about getting out and he needs real contacts, undoubtedly. He may even need to show the parole board some proof of connections, or perhaps, he has attended a class on what to do to prepare to get out of prison after rotting for 22 years. The reason he offers for contacting me, a stranger, after all these years in prison is that he recently has professed faith in Christ Jesus. Continue reading »

This March 26-30, 2007, a mission team from Evergreen and Chehalem Valley is visiting our sister congregations Cristo Cambia la Vida (Santa Ana Tepetitlan) and Cristo Redentor (Bugambilias), both in Guadalajara. Our aim is to strengthen relationships between our congregations and to help with the children’s ministries and church planting efforts of our Mexican sisters and brothers. Continue reading »

“Global Christianity in the 21st Century”
Presented by Nathan E. Lewis
Resurrection Sunday, March 27, 2005

What is your view of Christianity and the Church today? Is the Church in decline? Why hasn’t a revival come to North America in a very long time? Is the evangelical movement dead? American sociologists have assessed most Church growth in the past 20 years in America to be transfer growth, members of one church joining the membership of another. The Canadian Mennonite University at the turn of the century published the decline of Church members in Canada. In 1900, 90% of Canadians were members of a church. From 1981 to 1991, the United Church of Canada, the largest Canadian denomination, lost 650,000 members. England was the missionary force of the 19th century. In 2003 England was home to 1 million church members and 750,000 members of the mosque. As our missionaries to Berlin, Jay and Holly Eastman, have reported, Western Europe is overwhelmingly agnostic to atheist. What is the present state of Christianity and the Church?

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Evergreen Presbyterian Church, in the Portland, Oregon area has gone mult-site! You are invited to worship at the Beaverton site and you may also worship in Newberg on Sundays at 9:00 a.m. at the SDA site on College St. Visit www.evergreenpca.com for directions to all four of our sites. Mult-site strategy allows us to expand Mission to Oregon.

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