Spring 2025 | Quarterly Newsletter

The highlight of Spring quarter was Resurrection Sunday, also known as Easter. What a day we had at Jubilee:
the morning Service, followed by a birthday banquet, topped off with our first annual Easter Egg Hunt!

Pastors who have been serving and preaching for many years must need extra inspiration from the Holy Spirit for occasions like Easter and Christmas that come every year, bringing extra folks all hoping for a special sermon.
Well, Pastor Andy Krumsieg certainly came through, as usual, with his Easter sermon this year. The stage was beautifully set by First Lady, Leslie Moore, whose wonderfully expressive Praise Dance to “Mary Did You Know?” was surprisingly fitting for Easter, though the song is more often heard at Christmas.

The scripture readings, Isaiah 53 and John 12:44–50 were also out of the ordinary for Easter, but Pastor Andy skillfully wove them into his creatively practical sermon, entitled “Recognizing the Miraculous In the Mundane”.
As Pastor explained, many people in Jesus’ day, were looking for a triumphant, military Messiah, not a suffering servant, and chose not to follow Him. In our day, many folks are looking for happiness in all the wrong places, but because of Jesus’ resurrection we can choose to look for the miraculous in the mundane we face every day. As we do so, through our relationship with Jesus, we can tap into the Spirit’s resurrection power which brings joyful purpose to our everyday lives.

If anyone didn’t know that April 20th was a special day, they would know something big was up as soon as they entered our sanctuary. The entire room was furnished, not with the usual rows of chairs, but with nine large round tables and banquet chairs all exquisitely decorated thanks to Kierra and her helpers. Special wall hangings further enhanced the ambience.

The entire atmosphere screamed celebration and joy fitting to celebrate both the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and the milestone 60th birthday of our beloved pastor, Dr. Bryan Moore.

The congregation strolled in and sat at whichever table they wanted, except, of course, the one reserved for Dr. Moore and his family. Since visibility of the pulpit was quite good from all the tables, and the chairs were comfortable, everyone could focus on the Easter service. There was a 30 minute break after the service for unrushed fellowship, while the buffet serving tables were lined up, and the food brought in.

The fine feast, prepared by Rich Friends Catering Service was fit for a king. It was a plentiful array of a great variety of sumptuous meats, veggies, potatoes, salads, rolls, and desserts. During the meal we were entertained by some of our costumed Black Ties “singing” to the tunes Living Word by Fred Hammond and Hallelujah by George Harrison. A little later two of Dr. Moore’s Mya, Mia and Jade and one of his Brynishia, Kierra and Makayla read their tribute poems to honor their Poppaw’s milestone birthday. They were followed by his son Anthony’s moving testimony.

The festivities continued with music, dancing, singing and special words of appreciation and admiration until it was almost time for the Easter Egg Hunt.

After our Jubilee men have shown up to serve on important occasions, we often proudly say, “Jubilee was in the house!” Well, on April 22, Jubilee was in the House – the Missouri State House in Jefferson City!!

Having been invited by Mamas Against Homicides to join them and other non-profits to speak at the capital on the topic of “We are Tired of Burying our KIDS”, eight of our Jubilee Recovery Men road tripped to the Capital. General James, who was accompanied by Captain GarriOnn, Lieutenant Meechy, Sergeant Josh, Windexx, Steven, Ali, and Keith, gave an on point, eye opening speech in the brief time allotted to him.

Here is a quote from his powerful speech: “We have learned how to take a man from a world of chaos to being a prospering member of society. We apply structure, order, discipline, and most importantly, purpose into a man’s life and help him move into that purpose. Every man knows he wasn’t born to be a dope fiend out in the street. He knows he was created for more. We have learned how to bring men from addiction…and unemployable to purposeful, contributing, cooperative, employed community stakeholders.”

We praise God for the favorable feedback the Jubilee men received after all the speeches by non-profit reps had been given and the legislators mingled with the presenters. Hearts and minds were touched to express support for funding Jubilee and others that are stemming the tide of drug addiction that is flooding our communities.

The merry month of May brought some mayhem in our St. Louis weather, especially the EF3 rated tornado that struck Friday afternoon, May 16 leaving a wide path of destruction through a large portion of our city that was especially devastating in our Northside neighborhood. Some of us wondered what would become of our much anticipated May 18 Ordination Service as power was out all around our neighborhood with no hope of restoration by Sunday, partly due to huge trees being down everywhere making power repairs exceedingly slow and difficult.

As we often say at Jubilee when a crisis hits, “But God…” But God prepared us weeks ahead with the completion of our extraordinarily sturdy Paul Stolwyk pavilion that remained unfazed by the destroying winds of the tornado. But God also granted us an extraordinary Spring day with no need for either heat or air conditioning. God gave our Jubilee men wisdom, strength and energy to put together an excellent battery operated sound system and to carry out plenty of good chairs to accommodate all the friends and relatives who were looking forward to the service.
But God outdid Himself, with the extraordinary men and woman whom He pulled out of the miry clay of addictions and gave them the calling, courage, compassion and perseverance to be ministers or pastors – leaders in this ministry – uniquely qualified for God to use them to pull others out of the miry clay of dramas and traumas here on “Murder Mile” in north St. Louis.

In the presentation of the certificates of ordination, each man (or woman) received from Pastor Steve a scripture verse that was relevant to that person and also a descriptive term from Pastor Andy for how he pictured the person. For example, Pastor Steve gave one man Philippians 4:8 and the phrase that Pastor Andy thought of to describe that man is “Committed to excellence.”

In all five men and one woman were ordained as Ministers of Jubilee and two men were ordained as Sr. Pastors. Both the ministers and the pastors have the legal authority to preach, minister the sacraments and perform marriages. They are all to be commended for their decision to pursue God’s purpose for their lives. Additional congratulations to the seven men who endured an extraordinarily difficult year of ministerial training!
Following the close of the service there was an extraordinary time of rejoicing, hugging and picture taking.