Community Cooperation

Thousands of people from Tacoma, Washington, and the surrounding area filed through the gates of Cheney Stadium, home of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A baseball affiliate on Sunday. Although the evening was ideal for baseball, those who arrived early to find their seats in the stadium anticipated something other than an opening pitch. On this night, volunteers from three dozen area churches welcomed communities in the 253 area code to a free event called Hope 253.

The gathering filled the 8,500-seat stadium to capacity, with still more people landing in the overflow seating area behind the stage in center field.

The evening featured an extended performance from the two-time Grammy Award winning Christian pop band, For King & Country. Eric Boles, former NFL wide receiver for the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers, shared his Christian testimony. The night concluded with a salvation message from Assemblies of God Pastor Dean Curry of Life Center Church. Singing occurred both in Spanish and in English, and Centro de Vida's Roberto Tejada welcomed the sizable Spanish-speaking contingent.

Curry, a lifetime Tacoma resident who had dreamed of having an evangelistic outreach in the city for years, seized the opportunity to put on the event when funding became available through donors in the community. He is pastor of the metro megachurch in the least-churched region in the nation.

Rather than using the evening as an opportunity to promote the ministry of any one congregation, Curry devoted much of the yearlong planning period to developing and strengthening partnerships with other local church leaders and congregations, each of which contributed finances and volunteers to the event.

Curry and other leaders who took the stage emphasized that although the evening was sponsored by 36 churches and relied on upwards of 1,000 volunteers, the purpose of the gathering was to glorify Jesus.

"If it's really unity, nobody's the headliner," Curry says. "We wanted to take all the labels off except for being 36 Jesus-centered organizations who love the community."

Curry cites Tacoma's reputation as unchurched as a primary reason for seeking unity among the city's churches in preparation for Hope 253.

"It's easy to talk about how Tacoma is unchurched, yet when people come from out of town to do evangelistic events, they struggle because they don't understand the vibe of the area," Curry says. "We need people who are here every day to do an evangelistic event."

The evening also included an offering to provide back-to-school necessities for local children.

In keeping with the local emphasis, Curry invited Tacoma native Eric Boles to share his experience of taking a job as a janitor after getting cut from an NFL roster. Boles recounted his journey from finding identity in his NFL career and its disappointing end to finding his identity in Jesus. Boles now makes a living as an inspirational speaker for Fortune 500 companies and welcomed the opportunity to return to his hometown and share a message of hope.

As with Curry, who had envisioned the evangelistic event for years, Boles considered Hope 253 to be the fulfillment of a long-term dream. Also like Curry, Boles attributed the night's success not only to its evangelistic outcome, but also to its role in bringing unity to Tacoma's churches.

"As someone who has seen the other side of things, I know what hopelessness looks like," Boles says. I've seen what broken homes look like -- all kinds of problems exist. But what I haven't seen a lot of is a church community coming together and making it about Jesus, not about a church or an agenda or name recognition or bringing people into a fold."

Hundreds responded to Curry's closing message, which included a direct call for the audience to receive Jesus as their hope. Volunteers from churches across the city presented a unified front as they received those who descended upon the infield, praying for them and distributing more than 2,000 copies of the New Testament.

"From one resident of the 253 to another, everything can change right now," Curry looked on from the stage and said,

By all appearances, the change had already begun.

Austin Jacobs

Austin Jacobs is the Assemblies of God World Missions Unreached People Groups specialist. A research enthusiast, avid reader, and marathon runner, Austin holds a master of arts in Religious Studies from Missouri State University and completed his thesis on memorial responses to the Boston Marathon bombing. He and his wife, Hillary, serve in various ministry roles at Solid Rock Church in Springfield, Missouri.