In between 2012 and 2015 I lived in and ministered to the area of South-East Baltimore, MD.  Most of the individual work I did was in the streets.  However and more specifically to these stories, the property of the church I pastored bordered Norwood Elementary School and The Baltimore Sikh Society temple.  The previous churches and congregations that occupied the property of my church had broken any chance of a relationship between either of the aforementioned.  Shortly after I began this pastorate Jesus began to show me that He wanted me to build relationships with both these neighbors.  I didn’t know how, so He told me that a spiritual wall had been built around the church property and it had to be brought down.  He instructed me to begin praying around the property, circling it in prayer seven times per night.  This continued for months and the prayers progressed from asking for forgiveness from the previous congregation’s leadership, to breaking demonic strongholds over the property, to praying against the partnering demonic strongholds of my neighbors, to destroying the wall between the properties, and to asking the Lord for a breakthrough to unite each of the neighboring organizations.  I will separate the following stories as they are different, but both directly relate to the original prayer work Jesus instructed me to do. Continue reading this page for Jericho I, tearing down the walls at Norwood Elementary School.  Click the following link to read Jericho II, tearing down the walls of The Baltimore Sikh Society.   

Norwood Elementary School

Jesus showed me how he wanted my ministry to serve Norwood Elementary School and become a partner to its faculty.  I quickly realized that there was a wealth of opportunity to share the gospel and serve my neighbors.  The school presented an ongoing turn-over of parents and children every year.  If we were a business, we couldn’t have paid for this type of lead procurement. 

I arranged a meeting with the principal an explained to her my vision – to serve the school and open our large parking lot to their students’ parents to drop off their children safely, decreasing the traffic and therefore allowing buses to flow more easily.  The principal was ecstatic and welcomed me with open arms. 

We started at the beginning of the school year by welcoming the new students and parents with signs, cookies and coffee.  We made it as if the new students had just arrived back in town from winning the Super Bowl.

The church parking lot had been closed, chained, and posted with “No Parking” signs to NES parents.  There is no busing within a 1000 yards of the school.  Most parents didn’t want their children walking to school in this area anyway; so, they dropped their children off every morning.  This elementary school had over 650 in its student body. 

During this relationship my ministry attended the school’s fall festival and painted little faces.  We gifted each child in the student body each year for Christmas targeting the schools mission for the gifting (read this article).  We partnered with the PTA and used our church property to host yard sales where all the proceeds went to the PTA.  We purchased journals to encourage writing and my family personally became pen-pals with many children.  We collected globes, painted them with black chalkboard paint to encourage the students to write new words they were learning on the globe.  We partnered and provided 600 paper bags to support a Paper Bag Shirt Parade to encourage children to display the vocabulary they learned throughout the year on their paper bag shirt.  We were present, became true servants of the principal and her mission, partnering in any way we were asked. 

At the end of each school year we would cook a dinner and honor all of the teachers, give them a gift bag of goodies, and allow them a forum to laugh and share their victory stories for the year.  It was their time to shine!  The teachers serve these children all year, for so little pay, and never get any recognition.  We focused all the attention on them the last day of the school year and they left for the summer on a high note.  

Having the parents park on my property allowed me to meet and interact with them.  At least once a week, I would go out, meet them, give them coffee, have conversations and sometimes “poll” them.  This is sneaky, but “polling” allowed me to get into their heads and learn about the families in my neighborhood, finding out what they thought about issues that relate to the world, the church and Jesus.  I learned what road blocks had been established in their minds without them even knowing it.  I used this information to re-approach them. 

Before I left that church, the principal and staff awarded me with the (CLICK HERE) Norwood Community Education Partner Award and called our relationship a “Diamond in the Rough” relationship.  The principal wrote about me that “He initiated the partnership and has been committed to supporting, assisting, and growing our student’s academic skills and character and more values that he lives, breathes and practices at all times.”  My picture was hung on the wall at the entrance of the school with the faculty and other employees of the school.  I was one of them!  She called me an “official member of our school family.”  Our work at this school attracted recognition by the tri-state denomiational group and an article was written about us in

The work Jesus instructed me to do broke down the spiritual Walls of Jericho established by former Christians on that property allowing my ministry to show the love of Jesus Christ and be a blessing to this school as opposed to an enemy.