Breaking 20-minute barrier a milestone Fields is a leader in resurgent congregation By John H. Adams The Presbyterian Layman Volume 33, Number 6 Posted November 22, 2000 Fields, center, with co-pastors Toby and Rick Gillespie-Mobley CLEVELAND – Not long ago, Sylvia Fields was in the pulpit at Glenville New Life Community Church in Cleveland and she noticed she had been preaching 20 minutes and still had a ways to go. That brought a smile inside the Presbyterian elder, and she moved ahead with a sermon extracted from the life of Paul, Israel and her experiences – without worrying about the clock. New Life is a dramatically resurgent Presbyterian congregation in one of the poorest areas of Cleveland, and Fields is one of the congregation’s lay pastors who fill the pulpit when the co-pastors, Rick and Toby Gillespie-Mobley, are away. The lay pastors are men and women who were not accustomed to standing up and speaking, she says, so they began filling the pulpit in brief segments of time. Several might speak for five minutes each during the early service, and they inch up until they can handle at least 20 minutes during the 11 a.m. service, which lasts well beyond noon. So when Fields passed 20 minutes on her last assignment it gave her a sense that what she once found difficult was becoming a more natural expression of her heart’s work. And it is increasing now that she has retired from a management position with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She speaks with great enthusiasm about what she is doing and plans to do at New Life, one of the liveliest congregations in the Presbyterian Church (USA). A director of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Fields is a remarkable lady who knows what it means to struggle to get ahead – and what it means to trust God through that struggle. She left her home in Spartanburg, S.C., after high school to find work and educational opportunities in Cleveland. She says segregation and limited college choices for black students were the reasons she left. For a while, she lived with her brother in public housing. She took low-paying clerical jobs in government while she went to community college, got married, had a son and, finally, graduated from college the same week her son graduated from high school. Four years later, she got her master’s degree the day after her son graduated from college. Meanwhile, her husband, Frank, had serious health problems. After a number of heart attacks, he lost his motor skills and had to go into full-time rehabilitation. Fields was busy at work, completing her master’s degree and worrying about Frank. That didn’t leave time for church. Although she was raised in the church and had been active in a number of congregations, including serving as an elder and clerk of session at a Cleveland church that has since closed, Fields said she felt she had to be at the library studying every spare moment. And when she wasn’t studying or working, “I was worrying about this by myself,” she says. The New Life co-pastors came to help. They encouraged her, prayed for her, and brought her back to New Life. Fields says that changed her life. She discovered what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. She wove her struggles and God’s redemption into her sermon. “I realize God is my strength,” she says. Getting back to church, studying the Bible, getting back to God have made a huge difference, she adds. “In this world, we’re going to have troubles,” she said. “Troubles have always made me stronger.” At New Life Church, Fields is also an elder and clerk of session. She teaches youth three Sundays a month, conducts a Bible study one night a week at New Life and another night at her home, and has taken a leadership role in what’s called the “Nehemiah Campaign” to raise money to build a large multipurpose building on adjacent property. A few years ago, before the Gillespie-Mobleys, before their team of Fields and other lay pastors and leaders, the idea of a Nehemiah campaign would have been absurd. Glenville Church (before “New Life” was added to the name and the ministry) was all but dead. The presbytery intended to close it. The future looked bleak. The congregation meets in one of the most impoverished areas of Cleveland. But that has all changed. It is a congregation whose per capita giving of $1,389.53 was the highest among Presbyterians in Cleveland in 1998 and almost double the average in the PCUSA. Fields believes – as do other members of New Life – that all things are possible with God. So she takes a pie and hustles off to a meeting with a campaign team. The pie? That’s part of the script. What kind? “I have several different kinds of pie,” she laughed, a hearty optimistic laugh. Besides New Life, there are other good things happening in the life of Sylvia Fields. She and Frank have become grandparents. Frank’s health has improved markedly, and he is now able to drive himself around.

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