The Story
As written by Senior Pastor Ed Schefter I have always had a love for Portland, OR, I was born and raised there, but as a kid, I grew up dreaming of Hollywood or Broadway. I loved entertainment and was always very interested in big city life. As I got older, I became involved in grade school, high school, and college productions. This has seemed to be a burden and passion for my life and my destiny.
The real interest and burden started my sophomore year of high school on a Broadway tour to New York. I fell in love with the city, The Big Apple, and New York stayed in my heart. It was the goal for reaching my mark and achieving fame in life.
While attending the Mt Hood Community College theatre program, I had auditioned for two of the largest acting schools in the nation, the New York Academy of Acting, and the Cal Arts Institute. I was accepted, but a month later, due to the death of my niece I came to meet my Savior and laid all of these dreams and gifts at the altar and pursued the call of God on my life. I wanted to learn how to preach and teach the Word. I felt the Lord’s direct guidance and call on my life and pursued the dream and calling.
This new desire led me to Bible Temple in August of 1980, and at that time, I knew that I had found my church family. I soon enrolled in Portland Bible College and attended two and a half years. I then had to drop out of school, because of the dealings of God, but came back later, to graduate in 1989 and finish what the Lord had started. I knew that I’d be in full-time ministry one day, but ended up working full-time as a sales manager and served the church in whatever capacity I could for the next ten years. I served in youth group, young adults, along with all of the productions and outreaches.
During this time, the Lord was also preparing my future wife, Heather, as God moved her from Canada to Portland where she would later attend Portland Bible College as well. After graduating, Heather worked for Pastors Wendell and Gini Smith, then in Ministries Fellowship International with Howdy Sligar, and finally for the Senior Pastor Frank Damazio as his executive assistant. This is where my relationship with Pastor Frank began. As Heather worked, we would talk and he began to encourage and speak into my life. I really got to know this man of God and his wealth of wisdom, love for people, and heart for the local church.
In 1994, Heather and I got married, and at the time both felt a desire to have four children, and a call to Senior Pastor some day. Shortly after, Pastor Frank encouraged me to write an evangelistic drama for our church, and at first, I really had a hard time with it. After going away to pray about it, I came up with the concept for ‘Eternity,’ and a year later, we did our first Eternity Production at Bible Temple, later to become City Bible Church. Eternity was so successful that soon after, other churches wanted to do the same.
After a pilot run at Capitol Christian Center, Pastor Frank, our Senior Pastor asked me to come on staff full-time in 1996, to run Eternity and pastor the singles, ages 23 – 38. For a period of a few years, Heather and I dug in, and had weekly meetings with a worship band, preaching, and outside social activities. We started with a group of twelve people that in three years grew to over 100.
The next step, was to be handed District 3, and asked to pastor and shepherd a geographic area of about 700 people, and for the next two and a half years we built relationships and pastored the district, along with other responsibilities. During all of this, I was still traveling with Eternity. It had grown from just me, to a team of people, and productions were happening simultaneously all over the country, but the dream of New York was still alive and seemingly impossible. Every time I got the opportunity to travel to NY, or do an East Coast Eternity, I would stop in New York City if possible. I would get so burdened and excited. We’ve all heard, “it’s the city that never sleeps”, it just goes, and goes, but it’s a city that needs a Savior, a city with millions of people, and a city where Eternity would really work.
As the burden grew more and more, I would journal, and write down thoughts, concepts, and messages. I would get scriptures, and dream of a culturally relevant, thriving, God-centered, 21st century church that could build a bridge to the city, and to the nations. A ‘Gate Church’ as Pastor Frank calls it. I felt crazy just thinking about it, “Could Eternity be the tool to touch the heart of the nation through the entertainment culture?”
As my responsibilities grew here, and my children began to come into the world, I began to stabilize and settle. I continued to work hard, and continued to dream, but every thought and idea would just go into the journal for a rainy day, as I built my family and future, knowing it was much too big for just one person to do. I would think, ‘Is this just me, or is it really God?’ Could this really be the purpose and destiny of God? I would continue to pray for New York and the burden I had, and continued to believe.
Then 9/11 happened to our nation, and I felt such a burden for the city like never before, “How could this be?” I thought. Even then, God was orchestrating the whole thing. Eternity ended up on a strategic booking with Pastor Danny Bonilla in Harlem just 7 days after the towers fell. I got on a plane with 11 other people and headed off to New York. We felt the call to go and touch the city, and the burden went even deeper. The divine opportunity before me was overwhelming. Eternity was such a great success, and thousands of people were touched and changed during a time of such tragedy. The city was lonely, desperate, and under siege; in a state of fear and shock, and looking for answers.
I’ll never forget the sovereign night we went to Ground Zero; there was a barricade six rows deep with Federal Agents, National Guardsmen, and military personnel blocking the way and allowing access for rescue workers to do their jobs. I still can’t believe I got through with no ID, and there I stood, twenty feet away from the metal cross, surrounded by rubble and weeping before God. “Why me God, why am I here? I don’t understand?” I felt the Lord tell me that this was a connection point to the hearts of the people and that one day it would all become clear.
I began to feel a peace like I had never known and I knew my destiny and purpose would be fulfilled, but I didn’t know what or how. Heather and I continued to serve the church through all areas of ministry and I was eventually asked to become the Director of Evangelism in 2003. I was instrumental in establishing City Bible Church’s multi campus simulcast strategy, started a Celebrate Recovery ministry, and our department took on major conferences and events. We became Elders of City Bible Church and it was such an honor to continue to serve my church family. At that time, I thought becoming an elder would settle down the restlessness and the vision for New York, but instead it activated it even more.
Heather and I decided in November of 2005, to do a 40 day fast, to seek and hear the voice of God again. During this fast, Heather, myself, my relatives, and close friends prayed and fasted with us. We were looking for confirmation, and answers to all of the questions that seemed so real, but we needed clarification. God was so faithful through circumstances and situations, and confirmed our call to Senior Pastor, and that the place was to be New York City. Through the process of lots of prayer and supernatural doors that have opened, this dream has become a reality. We both are honored and overwhelmed to be part of this new opportunity that God has divinely orchestrated and ready to begin the next chapter of our lives reaching out to people in the heart of lower Manhattan.