Abilene's Unsung Heroes, Part II

Here is part 2 of my "almost debut" in the Abilene Reporter News
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In the summer of 1990 Melody Moore took part in Opportunity Camp, an inner-city outreach that paired students from her church with at-risk kids from the Abilene community for one week. At the end of the week, Melody couldn’t say good-bye to her new friend...and her passion for reaching out to the community was born.

Damon Parker spent the summer of 1990 doing mission work in Haiti. At the time his goal was to attend Texas A&M and study to be an attorney. But after spending a summer with four ACU students interning in Port Au Prince, he felt called to minister to those less fortunate.

Fifteen years later, Damon and Melody remain faithful to their passion for ministry. Married in 1997, this husband-wife ministry team has been serving the Abilene community as ministers at the New Life Church of Christ. Their attendance has grown from 8 at their first worship service (five of which was their own family) to an average of 70 worshipers. They have also given up meeting at the Cobb Park pavilion in favor of their own building on Cypress Street.

New Life is not your average congregation. “We have issues most congregations have never experienced,” Damon says. “Most churches don’t have members selling crack – we’ve had that before. Most churches don’t have the ethnic and socio-economical variety that we have, either. Many of our members can’t afford a ‘Sunday best.’ So folks are invited to ‘come as you are.’”

Those expecting to simply fill a church pew at New Life are brought to a new way of thinking. Members of the New Life Church are expected to take an active role in the ministry to the community. “We’ll give you a couple of months to check us out. After that, we’re going to ask you to get busy,” says Melody.

The Parkers’ ministry involves their whole family. Damon and Melody, along with their four children, are committed to the people of their church’s community. “I love watching my children interact with the other kids of the congregation. They don’t see them as different. They see them as their friends. They’re a big reason this ministry has been successful.”

Their connection to ACU has had a great influence on the Parkers’. Damon is currently working on his second degree from ACU, a Masters of Divinity. “The reason I went into the ministry is because of the summer I spent with four ACU students in Haiti,” says Parker. “And Melody and I have received a tremendous amount of mentoring from Charlie Middlebrook and the other ministers at the Impact Church in Houston.”

Damon sums up the joy he gets from being apart of New Life. “I enjoy seeing families that we’ve helped bring other families that need the Lord. And I love looking out over the congregation, seeing rich and poor, black and white, young and old worshiping together. And I can’t help thinking, ‘This is what God wanted.’”