When the COVID-19 shutdowns and gathering limitations were announced in spring 2020, the leadership team at Evangel Church in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, brainstormed what to do next.
“We asked ourselves, ‘If we’re a church that serves the community, how do we keep doing that when we can’t meet?’” notes Senior Pastor Chris Morante.
They reached out to one of their mission partners, Convoy of Hope, and asked them to send supplies. Before the supplies were sent, the daughter of a member in their congregation who has an autoimmune disease contracted COVID-19 and the family was instructed to quarantine for 14 days. “They felt like they were locked in their home to perish,” says Morante. He had his assistant drop groceries in a box on their doorstep, along with a personal letter and a devotional that Morante had written.
“It made such a difference for them to know that someone had seen them,” Morante recalls. “To watch someone’s countenance change from something as simple as that was incredible.”
That Sunday Morante was set to deliver a sermon on the feeding of the 5,000—a message he’d been planning for months—and thousands of pounds of supplies arrived from Convoy of Hope. It got Morante thinking, What if we could multiply them and deliver a box to every home that needs it in the area?
And that’s precisely what they did.
Every Saturday hundreds of families pulled into the church parking lot where boxes were loaded into trunks. Then someone would slide a paper through the crack of each car window that had addresses of people who were sick and quarantining and needed food and supplies.
“Our church lit up from serving those in need,” Morante adds, noting that they shared this vision with 12 other churches around the state before taking it national. Ultimately, Boxes of Hope served 120,000 families in two months across 26 states, utilizing a network of 100 churches.
Today they are getting ready to transform Boxes of Hope into Hope Flows. Melinda Cora, a member of Evangel since 2010, currently serves on the church board.
“The Holy Spirit is leading us in launching initiatives like Hope Flows where we’re creating opportunities for people to experience hope in tangible ways,” she shares. “We believe this is so much more than a moment. It’s a movement where help becomes hope.”
The church is partnering with nonprofits like Convoy of Hope to receive goods at a warehouse and distribute them to churches and other organizations so they have items to give to their communities.
“We believe that when a church shows up in a community, the community is meant to become different because of it,” Morante asserts.
The church’s pandemic response is just a glimpse into what they do at Evangel. For example, when Hurricane Ida hit in 2021 causing communities to be flooded, volunteers from Evangel went to people’s houses to pull things out even as the rain was still falling.
“We’ve come to be known as the church that serves the community,” says Morante.
In fall 2024 they participated in their annual Service for Service in which the church cancelled Sunday morning services so that they could mobilize their congregation to get out of their seats and into the streets to tackle service projects across various communities. They cleaned up parks, did yard work for senior citizens, and participated in outreaches with kids. One year they painted a giant mural on a government building to honor firefighters and EMS workers.
“It’s beautiful the way we’ve cultivated such rich relationships with the towns we’re in,” Morante reflects. “The [town leaders] know when there’s a crisis we are a trusted voice because we have fostered good will and connection.”
Evangel Church’s mission to change lives and communities across the street and around the world has moved them to launch churches in different contexts. For instance, they launched a deaf church when they learned that 95% of deaf people who come to Christ do so in a deaf service, not a hearing service. Within weeks of launching the deaf location with a service that’s all in ASL, a handful of people came to Christ. Now their deaf service regularly welcomes 55 people.
Last year, Evangel started a church two hours away inside the largest women’s prison in New York. A pastor and a team go every Thursday to share a message, preach and lead worship for the prisoners.
“We’re seeing people serving life sentences give their life to the Lord,” observes Morante, noting that already 12 people have come to Christ through that location. Over the summer, they moved the prison service to the main gymnasium that seats 300 because it was growing so much.
Cora notes that from the moment she walked through the doors of Evangel she could sense how the congregation was living out their mission. “Evangel has grown and continues to thrive because of its unwavering commitment to serving our local communities with love, grace and practical support in every season. At its core, Evangel thrives because we understand the importance of prioritizing relationships over religion, and keeping the focus on people and their journeys.”
EVANGEL CHURCH
Scotch Plains, New Jersey
Pastor: Christopher Morante
Website: EvangelChurch.com
Denomination: Assemblies of God
Founded: 1914
Fastest-Growing: 96