The Awakening NYC

About the Staff

Pastor Dennis Minner

In 1989 I was at a high school basketball tournament in Springfield, MO. Our second night there we decided as a team we were going to run around the college campus we were on and have some fun. Unknowing to us, our coach, Tom Zisch, decided that we would go watch a documentary on Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China in the 1800's. At the time, the team and myself were very upset about his decision to make us watch this horrible film. But watching it something stood out to me. Hudson Taylor was something different. He wasn't a Christian that fit into a box. In fact, Taylor went against his church in England and decided to form more to his surrounding culture. He decided to take up dress as the Chinese and began wearing black robes, shaved his head on the top and front, grew a ponytail and beard and dyed them black. He became part of the culture he was reaching for Christ. After watching the film, Coach Zisch decided he would start praying that I would someday become a missionary. I chose a different path for my life.

For years I spent my life running as fast as I can from any calling and as far from God as I could get. During my college years I chose a life of sexual and alcohol addictions and then later turning to drugs after college. I soon realized that every path I took was ending at a dead end. Most of the time it simply ended in self-pity and despair. I finally turned to God and committed my life to Him not knowing or caring what He had planned for me. I was still on my own path, so I thought.

In 1999 I married Gennifer and God led us to Poplar Bluff, MO. While we were there I started Wise Men Promotions, Sian Clothing , The Deep End College Ministry and helped with our youth group at church. I have also spent the years traveling around the country preaching at churches and youth events. I kept telling God that this was enough. He had blessed me with an amazing job in pharmaceutical sales and it allowed me to give my wife all the comforts we could enjoy. I knew God was calling me to become a full time minister but I felt I was doing enough and was still able to have amazing worldly comforts.

A few years ago my wife and I were vacationing in New York City and started noticing the limited amount of churches in key areas of the city such as Greenwich Village. On a subway, we met someone that would make us see things different. We met Shirley, a homeless woman. She had a button on that said 'REPENT OR DIE.' Shirley was tough. I told her I enjoyed her button and her face lit up like she had been given $100. Shirley explained she didn't know the comforts of this life but with Jesus in her heart He would show her someday in heaven. She was so happy but yet had nothing.

Our compassion for NYC seemed to vanish once we were back in the comforts of our own world again. But suddenly on February 21, 2006, our son, Hunter David, was taken from us suddenly. My wife was 37 weeks pregnant and at a normal weekly check up we found out our son had passed away. He was still born but he was so perfect and sweet. At that moment I would have given up all the comforts in this world for just a moment to hold my son alive. To see him smile at me, to see him look into his daddy's eyes. God took care of us and held us through the toughest time I hope we ever have to face.

During all this I realized that like Shirley, the worldly comforts don't matter. It was then I realized that I had been doing ministry all these years but not committing 100%. I held on and in a sense became the 'rich man' in the Bible that Jesus told to sell everything and follow Him.

There are about 22 million people that live in the New York Metro area and more than 19 million of them do not attend church. Billy Graham once said that if you could reach New York for Jesus then you would reach the world. Most people believe the reason the terrorist picked NYC was because they too would impact the world. There are less than 19 million people in my home state of Missouri plus Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Imagine if no one in those 4 states attended church!

Gennifer and I are starting a church in New York City in June of 2008. The Awakening will be a church for those tired of playing church. It will be a church for those that want to be the church. It will be a place where people can come as they are and also who they are. We feel this is important because so many think they need to act or be a certain way before attending many churches. Jesus actually was quite the opposite on that theory and says in Matthew, "Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." *

Thank you so much for your prayers and help in making The Awakening become reality in New York City in March of 2008.

-Dennis Minner, Lead Pastor
Owner and Founder of
Wise Men Promotions and Sian Clothing

Dennis has a B.S.B.A. in Marketing from South East Missouri State University, Ordained through the General Baptist Association and 2 years of theological training through the L.A.M.P.S. Program.

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