JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Dreams came true and prayers were answered, Jan. 3, for the men and women who launched Freeway Ministries at Concord Baptist Church here in an effort to bring Christ’s love and hope to the broken and hard-to-reach in the state’s capital city.
“God is here tonight,” Mike Quinn, Concord’s staff evangelist and a member of the Missouri Baptist Convention’s (MBC) executive board, said as he spoke to the roughly 200 people gathered for the launch of the ministry. “He’s here to save. And not only does He save, He transforms.”
Mike Quinn
Choked by tears, Quinn added, “This is a dream come true.”
Saved out of alcoholism at the age of 26 and later called to ministry, Quinn and his wife Becky have a heart to reach men and women who have been broken by sin and who may be hard to reach – that is, the homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics and ex-convicts. With this desire, he began five years ago to speak to John Stroup, the executive director of Freeway Ministries, a Springfield-based ministry designed to help churches reach the hard-to-reach in their cities.
He invited Stroup to preach at the opening night of Freeway Ministries Jefferson City. The evening was a dream come true for Stroup as well, since it was a return to his hometown.
“There are men here (tonight) who put me in the back of a cop car,” Stroup said as he began his message.
“I walked up and down these streets,” he later added. “I was homeless in this city from 1999 till 2008.” Only in his early 20s, he was a crack dealer and drug addict. “I would have sold my soul for a shot of methamphetamines. …
“I went to prison in 2008 a bad guy,” he added. But, in prison, he found a Bible – a Bible he held before his audience as he recounted his testimony. In this Bible, he discovered that God loves even the “bad guys” in society. In fact, he realized that, throughout the pages of Scripture, God often uses “bad guys” like himself.
So, he prayed that God would use him more than the drugs used him. Through faith in Christ, he found forgiveness and, what’s more, a transformed heart and mind. “God changed me,” he said.
Later, he and two other members of Crossway Baptist Church, Springfield, went on to start Freeway to help men and women with similar backgrounds.
John Stroup
After the service, Stroup told The Pathway that he had long dreamed of seeing a Freeway Ministries in Jefferson City. “I can’t really explain – the anticipation, seeing it, just being here. It’s pretty cool.”
Quinn also expressed his excitement about the ministry’s launch. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. God is good. God is good. We’re going to see great things.”
But Stroup and Quinn weren’t the only people to see dreams come true during the ministry launch.
Like Stroup, Jennifer Shoemaker was “saved in a jail cell” and, by God’s grace, has now been two-and-a-half-years sober. After coming to faith in Christ, she joined Crossway Baptist Church, Springfield, and went through the discipleship and training program at Freeway Ministries. Then, last year, she quit her job in Southwest Missouri to move to Jefferson City and help with the launch of the ministry at Concord.
“I left my only church I’d ever had,” Shoemaker said. “I left my group of Freeway people (in Springfield) who had become my family, to come here and to help people get out of the pit that I was in and to point them to Jesus and show them that God will change your life if you’ll let Him.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” she added after the Jan. 3 service was over. “ … I am overwhelmed with joy. I’m overwhelmed with God’s faithfulness.”
Mike and Becky Quinn began to dream about bringing Freeway to Concord Baptist Church five years ago, when Monte Shinkle was pastor at the church. After Shinkle retired, John King became pastor of the church, and he affirmed the Quinns’ vision for Freeway Ministries Jefferson City.
“This is just the beginning,” King said at the end of the evening, expressing hope that the ministry would ignite an eagerness within the whole church body to serve God and to reach men and women for Christ.
Alluding to Stroup’s message from earlier in the evening, Shinkle added, “Jesus loves broken people …, and I think that’s the message that came through tonight. And that’s what we want. … I’m thrilled and think it’s an awesome start, and I pray it takes off.”
To learn more about Freeway Ministries, visit https://freeway-ministries.com/. People can follow Freeway Ministries Jefferson City on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565892676032.
JEFFERSON CITY – Jennifer Shoemaker (right), who moved to Jefferson City to help open Freeway Ministries in the state’s capital city, celebrates after the Jan. 3 launch of the ministry with her friend Chris Elder (left), a Concord member who is also helping with the ministry. (Pathway photo)