COVER SECTION
Share & Share Alike
Partnership a gateway to planting in Cleveland
By Tobin Perry
Bill McTague lived an ordinary kind of life. Nothing too special. Nothing too unique. Mostly he focused on himself. McTague lived a life without purpose.
“I felt like something was missing in my life,” McTague says. “I felt this hole in my heart. Whenever the holidays would come around, and I’d hear about people going out and helping people I’d always want to help. But inever did.”
He was lost.
To top it all off, though McTague and his wife knew they needed to get plugged into a church, few vibrant places of worship remained in their neighborhood. Churches in West Cleveland were closing—not starting.
In the fall of 2009 the couple’s prospects changed when McTague’s wife attended a preview service of a new Southern Baptist congregation called Gateway Church West starting a few blocks away from their West Cleveland home. The music was upbeat. It met in a school (which McTague thought was unusual and intriguing). And most important, the church had a passion to serve the community, to demonstrate the love of Jesus in tangible ways.
Eventually, McTague became a follower of Christ and was one of the first to be baptized at Gateway West that November. That was the beginning of a completely different life. He’s now reading his Bible and actively involved in helping others in the community.
22 Winter 2012 •
onmission.com
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