Newtown Community Ministries United: For the Community
The Newtown Community Ministries United – NCMU – has been existence for four years, organizing in 2018 as a way of bringing churches together that serve the Newtown community. It started after a revival at Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church when Rev. Wesley Tunstall was the revival preacher. After that revival, Rev. Tunstall came up with the idea to get churches to come together and fellowship with each other on a regular basis. “It was a vision from God to start this ministry,” Rev. Tunstall said. Rev. Tunstall contacted Rev. Herbert Hollingsworth, pastor at Payne Chapel, and Rev. Danny Preston, pastor at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, to share his vision. “We came up with a plan to bring all community churches together on a monthly basis for a time of fellowship,” Rev. Tunstall said. “The idea is to be a blessing to churches in our community, both spiritually and financially. It’s all about the fellowship and being able to support each other. We know that God will expand what we are doing. We are in this together trying to bring our community closer to each other and we can do that when we come together for a common cause. ”
“Our goal is not to take members from other churches but to create new members by evangelizing and bringing folks to Christ”,
said Rev. Preston. “Our vision is to have the community come together – from different denominations – and fellowship together. We want to break the cycle of not fellowshipping and serving with one another. This is not about the pastors but about the people as a whole. The basic premise is based on Christ – if the heads work together, then the tail will follow. ”Current participating churches in NCMU are: New Zion Primitive Baptist Church, Elder Herbert Prince; Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church, Elder Alvin Tyson; Restoration Fellowship, Pastor Bill Nease; Community Bible, Rev. Josephine Thomas; Koinonia Missionary Baptist
Church and True Worship and Deliverance, Rev. Wesley Tunstall; House of Prayer, Rev. Roger Lee; Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Rev. Danny Preston; True Worship Amazing Grace, Rev. Cheryl Brown; Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church, Rev. Herbert Hollingsworth; and Trinity Multi-Cultural Center, Rev. Stanford Perkins, along with partners, Sarasota Medical Pregnancy Center, Rev. Rod Myers, and Sarasota Ministerial Association, Rev. Thomas Pfaff. An important component of NCMU is to support various organizations in the community which currently includes Brotherhood of Men, Streets of Paradise and other groups who show a need for help.
“A lot of good things are taking place and we want to be able to support each other,”
Rev. Preston said. NCMU officers are Rev. Danny Preston, President, Rev. Josephine Thomas, Vice President, Lue Boykins, Secretary and Deacon Richard Humphrey, Jr., Treasurer. The group meets each month on Monday before the third Friday and a fellowship is held on the third Friday, rotating among the different churches in the union. The next fellowship is October 21st at Mt. Calvary.
