Navigating Past Closed Doors

As Cherokee Parker, 45, and her husband, Aaron, stepped further into their ministry journey, the obstacles they faced forged their resilience, eventually leading them to the fulfillment of a ministry calling in the Lord's perfect timing.

Parker moved to Owensboro, Kentucky, from Southern California at 11 years old, and struggled to make friends within the tight-knit community. Her family sought connection and relationship through the church. In high school, her church's youth group became a place where she felt welcome. Here, she formed relationships that would last a lifetime.

One of these was a relationship with Aaron Parker, the young man who ran the sound board. He would become her husband just two years after they graduated high school, and they began their life together in the community where they had met.

After their first child was born, the couple joined an AG church, Calvary Christian Center, and they became deeply involved. They served in many positions over the years and, eventually, Parker yielded to the call of ministry and became ordained with the Assemblies of God through the Kentucky Ministry Network in 2018. She then took the position of children’s pastor at the church.

When Calvary’s pastor resigned right before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parker felt the Lord prompting her into the role of lead pastor. “It was a natural progression,” she explains, “I love the church, teaching, and challenging them to follow Christ.”

She served in this capacity for two years, and helped the church navigate the pandemic while remaining financially and spiritually healthy. However, the church struggled to grow. With a heavy heart and a head full of questions for the Lord, Parker obediently made the recommendation to the Kentucky Ministry Network to close the church.

Network leadership agreed with her assessment and worked together to do this in a healthy way. “It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. This was the church we raised our kids in, with a rich deep history, and for 17 years we had called it our church home. There was a deep sense of loss, especially since we weren’t moving,” she says.

The Parkers began attending another AG church in the community about 40 minutes from their home, and “served as Fine Arts Director and Wednesday night Children’s coordinator and waited to hear from the Lord,” says Parker.

During this season of transition, Parker was elected as assistant presbyter within the Kentucky Ministry Network. This position rejuvenated her spirit and reawakened her God-given desire to pastor.

“Part of my job as assistant presbyter is to keep connections and relationships flowing among our network pastors,” she says. “It was in this capacity that I met a couple who was planting a church in Owensboro.”

Parker and her husband eagerly joined the church plant team, ready to serve as next-gen pastors. “I had many years of experience serving kids and students. The next generation is the church of today, and we were excited to launch into this role.” she states.

Unfortunately, in August 2023, Parker found out that the church plant was not going to have the funds to launch and the couple who had been spearheading the church plant would be moving.

“It hadn’t crossed my mind that it would fail,” Parker says, “and we were devastated. I had no desire to church-plant again.”

Later that month, Darren Lewis, lead pastor of C3AG in Louisville alongside his wife Jenna, asked Parker what ministry endeavor she had on her horizon. Having served at C3AG for 25 years in various roles, Lewis had a longstanding camaraderie with Parker and her husband. He called regularly to encourage and pray with them as they recalibrated their ministry path.

During one such conversation, Parker told Lewis that she was not sure what God was calling her to next, but that church planting was not on the table.

“I sought God. I know he placed a pastor's heart in me, because I often find myself pastoring not in the traditional sense,” she says.

She recalls walking alongside the riverfront in Owensboro one October day in 2023 where she felt the Lord leading her to do ministry in that particular community. “After much prayer and deliberation, my husband and I decided to prayerfully consider planting a church,” Parker says.

When Lewis called a second time just a month later, Parker agreed to meet and discuss church-planting as a parent affiliated church (PAC) with C3AG in Owensboro—the community in which she had obediently but sorrowfully closed the first church she pastored.

For over a year, Parker has been meeting with a core group of people in a Bible study setting as the new plant establishes a presence in the community. They watched as the Lord knitted together a unified, small group of people with which to launch; and, in the spring of this year, PAC papers were officially signed. C3AG Owensboro plans to add Sunday morning services in the fall.

“Cherokee is a great fit for our staff, our team, and our vision,” Lewis says, “and Owensboro is a community we wanted to plant in, it’s a community we both love.”

The Owensboro campus of C3AG is the second English speaking PAC, the first being a micro-church plant in Eldon, Missouri. C3AG also launched a French speaking African church in Kentucky and launched a Spanish speaking PAC church for the community. Additionally, C3AG collaborates with a Kinyarwanda speaking church that utilizes the church’s meeting space.

“The vision of the church is to be multicultural,” says Lewis, “and we want the Owensboro campus to be a reflection of that.”

Parker’s flexibility to pivot when initial plans and attempts fell flat testifies to her obedient and resilient heart. She and Aaron state that they are enjoying watching the Lord’s hand now open doors in this new season of their life.