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Pastor Amador rapped on the door. He was looking forward to some one-on-one time with Aniceto, who had been attending his New Life Community Church for a year. Every Sunday, Aniceto slipped into the back pew, quietly taking it all in. He always offered pleasantries, but their interaction was limited.
“I wanted to share the gospel with him,” the pastor said. “I wanted to get to know him, have a conversation with him, know who he really is, because conversations that you have before and after church, they can be good, but most of the time you don't know much about the person.”
Through evangelism and discipleship training offered by Cru® Inner City, Pastor Amador learned that talking to people on their home turf was an effective approach in leading people to Christ.
That’s why Pastor Amador approached Aniceto about visiting him at his Back of the Yards home, about a 20-minute drive from the Little Village church.
“That was one of the big things that I got from the discipleship training, to enter into people's world.”
“That was one of the big things that I got from the discipleship training, to enter into people's world,” Pastor Amador said.
The Back of the Yards neighborhood, settled more than 150 years ago by workers of the Union Stock Yard — once the largest meatpacking center in the United States — is known for its immigrants, industry, and social activism. It was also a setting for novelist Upton Sinclair’s work, “The Jungle,” which examined working conditions at the Chicago meat plants.
Aniceto was receptive to the pastor, inviting him to visit later in the week.
“Because of this discipleship training thing, I came ready and armed to share the gospel with him,” the spiritual leader said.
As Pastor Amador stood on the porch, he heard a rumbling of voices coming from inside.
“Then I hear somebody saying, ‘Shh, the pastor's here.’ I don't know what's happening on the other side of the door. By the time he opens the door, (it) was like Peter at Cornelius’ house. It wasn't just Cornelius. It was Cornelius and all of his family, his workers. This guy had assembled every one of his workers and their families to come (and) be in his house.”
Taken aback by the crowd, Pastor Amador decided to stick with his original plan.
“I just figured, ‘Hey, I came to share the gospel. I'm going to share the gospel,” he said.
Through that meeting, Pastor Amador discovered Aniceto was a recovering alcoholic who owned an appliance repair and sales store.
“He learned how to fix and resell appliances, and he started running this whole business in which he would hire people who were alcoholics, and he was giving them an opportunity out … by having a job.”
After presenting the gospel, Pastor Amador looked directly at Aniceto.
“What would keep you from trusting Jesus right now, with everything in your life, letting Him become King, just surrender everything?” he asked Aniceto.
“He said, ‘Nothing would keep me from doing that. It's just all this time going to church, I just didn't know what to do.’ It was an amazing moment, a realization for me, ’Oh, we just need to go to people's houses, need to sit down with people. It won't (always) be as easy or as specific, but it's super important to go into people's houses.”
Although the small business owner was the only one who responded to the gospel that day, it wasn’t the last time they were exposed to the story.
“From that moment on, he started sharing what I shared. He just turned around and shared it with each one of his co-workers.”
“From that moment on, he started sharing what I shared,” Pastor Amador said. “He just turned around and shared it with each one of his co-workers.”
Aniceto did so by launching an optional pre-work Bible study, paying employees who were willing to attend, while also providing coffee and donuts.
“They would just read the Bible, see what it says, then pray and tell each other, ‘What are you going to do to obey whatever we just read?’ That's it. Every single day. Then they would go to work fixing appliances and selling them.”
In the meantime, Pastor Amador mentored Aniceto.
“Several weeks after accepting Christ, Aniceto was baptized, and within three months, he started baptizing each one of his co-workers, and his co-workers started baptizing.”
“Several weeks after accepting Christ, Aniceto was baptized, and within three months, he started baptizing each one of his co-workers, and his co-workers started baptizing.”
Even with the workplace conversions, Pastor Amador noticed the spiritual transformations didn’t translate to new members at his church. Although the distance between Aniceto’s company and New Life Community wasn’t too far away, the two neighborhoods were separated by a major highway and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a 28-mile system connecting the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers.
Because of the disconnect, Pastor Amador sought guidance from Inner City leaders, who recommended he monitor the natural progression of the group instead of trying to plug the new believers into New Life.
“Let him continue to do what he's doing,” they said. “Just meet with him, pray with him. At some point, we just realized most of them never connected to our church because it was a different community, different neighborhood. The way Chicago was set up, it's like a different flow of life.”
Soon, a church began forming in Back of the Yards, prompting Aniceto to seek more direction from his mentor.
“How can we love our community well?” he asked Pastor Amador.
“You need to connect with Cru Inner City,” he responded.
The well-established pastor shared how Inner City provided resources and training for urban congregations and that it was about to launch evangelism training in conjunction with its annual PowerPacks® distribution. PowerPacks are colorful backpacks filled with essential school supplies such as lined paper, folders, pens, pencils, glue, rulers and erasers. The PowerPacks also contain age-appropriate gospel literature, which church volunteers use to share the Resurrection story with the recipients.
Each year, Inner City provides the backpacks to local churches and ministries that already have an established presence in their urban neighborhoods. Before receiving the PowerPacks, church representatives attend evangelism training, which equips the volunteers on the best witnessing techniques.
“They were very clear, you don't give this away just like that,” the pastor said. “You go to every house, or as many people as you can, make clear contact, look them in the eye, pray for them, (then offer it to them).”
“There's a church right there that was birthed clearly out of the PowerPacks.”
Aniceto and a team from the new church plant attended, providing momentum to the fledgling group.
“There's a church right there that was birthed clearly out of the PowerPacks,” Pastor Amador said, adding “that opens the heart of many people.”
Within 18 months, 30 to 50 people were baptized through Aniceto’s ministry.
“I wouldn't even say he's an evangelist,” Pastor Amador said. “He is a servant, has a gift of service. Some of those people, within five years, they became pastors in other congregations, leading other things.”
The PowerPacks not only impacted the work being done in Back of the Yards, but Pastor Amador said it served as a strong witness to his own congregation about the miracle of spiritual multiplication.
“I felt like it became a seeder of something that was really powerful, and I felt like it changed our way of thinking in Little Village. It was clearly a movement, and the tools, they were so incredibly well placed for the time that they needed to be there, and so that was really, really good.”
Lori Arnold serves as the senior writer for Cru's inner-city ministry.
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