JACKSONVILLE — Compelled by the vision to "see God bring New Life to the north side of Jacksonville," three-year-old New Life Community United Methodist Church here started a new mission on the site of the recently-closed North Jacksonville United Methodist Church, according to the Rev. Candace Lewis, New Life’s pastor.

The new ministry is called the House of Mercy United Methodist Mission and is being led by Tracy L. Collins, a certified candidate for ordination in the United Methodist Church and former director of young-adult ministries for New Life Community Church. Collins received a 1997 General Council on Ministries’ Shared Mission Focus on Youth and Young People grant of $75,000 to fund an initiative he developed called "Look Up and Live," an on-going evangelistic program targeting youth and young adults.

When Collins and his wife, Jackie, learned that the North Jacksonville church would close in May 2000, they started discussing the possibility of expanding their ministry by starting a mission at the closed church.

"Tracy didn’t think much about it until God gave him a vision," Lewis said. That vision for House of Mercy is "building people for life in God’s Kingdom," according to Lewis.

Initially, Collins said he was not interested in pastoring in Jacksonville. He visited the church and said he "still didn’t think it could happen…in the United Methodist Church." The next night, he was "awakened at 4 a.m.…with a heart burdened by God’s desire to continue to help people in the community."

The vision to start a new mission was presented to the Jacksonville District superintendent and Board of Church Development, which agreed to fund the facilities’ maintenance and utilities. New Life agreed to pay the ministry costs and pastor’s salary.

With the support of newly-appointed district superintendent Thomas Shafer and pastors from the district and as far away as Atlanta, Lewis commissioned the Collinses and four families from New Life as pioneers to start the new mission.

Three times each day for 30 days before the church’s first worship services July 9, the team prayed and walked the streets of the mission’s neighborhood, talking to people and handing out prayer request sheets. More than 600 of those sheets were returned, and the team is using them to visit with and evangelize unchurched people.

"We spent 30 days breaking up the fallow land," Collins said. "Now we’re looking to plant seeds in that fertile land and cultivate them."

Lewis said she joined the team one morning as they walked through a retirement community adjacent to the mission. Around 7:30 a.m. they saw an elderly woman in a wheelchair with her door ajar. Entering her home, the team learned that she had been up all night crying, praying and asking God for help. "The prayer evangelism team that morning was an answer to the woman’s prayers," Lewis said.

More than 160 people attended the mission’s first three worship services, Collins said. "Through prayer and by the grace of God, we had members before the church opened," he said, adding 40 people had joined during June and another eight on opening day.

Collins said the Jacksonville District has given them a year to make the mission work. "The next step is to carry out our vision for the next year," he said. "We see launching other churches from here. That’s what’s next."