A Chicago church is leaning on the power of faith and prayer after it was devasted by a Thanksgiving Day fire.
The Renewal Life Church, located in the city’s Englewood neighborhood, is facing a long road ahead after a fire ravaged the building on Thursday.
On Sunday, parishioners gathered for the first time after the fire, vowing to rebuild and to stick together.
“We thank you that no one was in our church,” Pastor Rozjoli Jackson said during a Sunday sermon.
The pastor said that even amidst the devastation, it’s imperative that the congregation trusts in God to see them through adversity.
“It’s been extremely difficult but we still stand on our faith we believe God, when we say we lost everything we’ve lost everything,” Jackson said.
Jackson saw the flames in-person as the church burned on Thursday, watching 15 years of work go up in literal smoke.
“When I got there the roof was in the process of collapsing and I said, ‘oh that’s everything,’ like I knew at that moment there was no putting the fire out or going in and trying to recover anything I knew we had lost everything,” Jackson said.
The church’s congregants made the trek down the street to Fairfield Baptist Church, which opened its doors so that Renewal Life could hold a Sunday service.
“It feels good it’s amazing it’s an amazing feeling to know that we can still gather,” Pastor Je’Rico Brown said.
Deaconess Donna Brown said that the congregation remains firm in its resolve to trust that the road ahead will bring greater blessings.
“Trust His process. Hopefully they understand that God have plans bigger than what we think and He set it in motion and we just got to follow the path,” she said.
The plan is currently to rebuild the church, though the exact location of that project is not yet known.
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