Norman and Debbie Cannada

(Note:  Front Street Baptist Church is the sending church for the Cannadas.  Norman served here as Minister to Students before being called to inner city missions.)

In Charleston, West Virginia, church planters Norman and Debbie Cannada have found that the challenges of starting a church extend far beyond simply choosing a place to meet. So far, the couple has planted one church—West Charleston Baptist—and helped start two others—Lighthouse Baptist and Living Hope Baptist—in the 70-percent unchurched community of Charleston, but most of their ministry takes place outside the four walls of a sanctuary. 

“I don’t consider Sunday morning the most important time for our work,” Norman says. “We have a philosophy that we ought to go where the people are.”

The Cannadas spend much of their time ministering with volunteers in trailer parks where local drug dealers live, in adult entertainment bars and along the streets of Charleston where they share the gospel and pray. They’ve also started an after-school ministry for kids, and on Sundays a bus drives around to pick up kids for church.

Because the Cannadas were willing to move outside the four walls, a prostitute named Martha came to know Christ one afternoon after she showed up at the Cannadas’ front door with the news that she had a brain tumor. Debbie and Norman also were able to lead an entire family to Christ.

Because Charleston is so impoverished, the only way to minister to the people there is through meeting their physical needs, so the Cannadas started planting churches by attracting people through simple servant evangelism.

“We would do real simple things in the beginning,” says Norman. “We’d get a cooler with wheels and walk around the neighborhood giving away cold soft drinks. We’d give them a card and say call us if we can do anything for you.”

The Cannadas have made themselves members of the community they want to reach. They live in a house where they can watch drug dealers and prostitutes working. They walk the streets at night, praying along the way that God would provide opportunities to share the gospel.  They’ve moved their prayer ministry into local schools where they walk the halls and pray for students, teachers and administrators. And they still provide for the simple needs of residents whether it’s giving a family an oil change for their car or feeding the hungry at one of the soup kitchen ministries that Debbie heads up in addition to organizing summer missions teams. One important message they are trying to communicate to residents is that they are in Charleston for the long haul.

“What we discovered was that these people kept waiting for us to leave,” Debbie says. “We are in our fifth year, and people are just beginning to believe that we’re not going anywhere.”

On Christmas Eve 2000, the Cannadas’ first church, West Charleston Baptist, planted Lighthouse Baptist near a trailer park known for housing drug dealers and their customers. Living Hope Baptist, a church planted in June last year, meets in a building that used to serve as a strip club. The church still shares a sign with the adult novelty shop next door. All together, about 100 people attend the three church locations, and hundreds are ministered to weekly.

“There’s enough church planting to be done in this city to keep Norman and me busy until Jesus comes,” says Debbie. “Or until He takes us home.”  

MISSIONARY SPOTLIGHT - Norman Cannada

Norman Cannada
1415 Fourth Avenue
Charleston, WV 25312
304-345-7733 church
normcannada@suddenlink.net

A Christmas [Store] Story (2001)
Norman and Debbie Cannada love Christmas. They love the decorations, the songs, and the celebration parties. But, one of the things they love the most is the opportunity to be part of their church's Christmas store, which provides much needed toys for low-income families. Read the story below, then click on the link to read Norman's email follow-up and learn the rest of the story.

Our Christmas toy store is in its fifth year.  I remember being involved in adopting children and families and doing that is good.  But I wondered, "How would it feel to have other people pick out gifts for my children?" So we got involved in the Christmas store.  We have people apply and we check their income guidelines and make sure they are not getting help from others. (We rarely have to turn down someone.) 

People come and shop and spend $7 per child, but they get about $70-$80 worth of gifts, and we offer free gift-wrapping.  But, the most important thing to is that every parent who comes through the store doesn't leave without first talking with a counselor about Jesus.  It's thus a ministry that provides an opportunity to love them and let them do something for their kids, but on top of that, we tell them what Christmas is really all about. 

Folks have criticized us and said, "Why do you make them talk with a counselor?  After all, if they are not in the mood to hear the gospel, they won't, will they?"  My answer is simple.  These parents can't leave here just thinking we are nice people. They have to know why we are doing this. 

We'll minister to over 400 families through the Christmas store this year, and it'll be a miracle when it's over.  Why?  Well, we really literally schedule people not knowing where the toys are coming from. A few years ago, I thought we would need about $10,000 worth of toys that year. 

Then, I discovered I added wrong and we really needed $30,000.  We had 300 or so kids that year.  I remember praying and God saying to me, "If I need to I can do a thing like the feeding of the 5,000." Well, on the first day of the toy store (it went three days), we had a great turnout and plenty of toys. The second day, we were a little bare, but rejoiced because we had a person accept Christ that day.  Then, on Saturday, we took all the toys to a housing project.  We put the toys in the middle of this floor, all in bags and boxes, and we just knew we didn't have enough.

So, we prayed.  And, we discovered there were more toys after the prayer than before.  We just kept giving out toys all day and not running out.  We figured the toys were multiplied by $8,000.  

Last year, we were $14,000 short.  And, we got checks totaling $14,000 during the week.  God is providing!"

Norman Cannada - Missionary Profile (published in 2001)

When Norman Cannada submitted his resume and inquiry letter to the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists, he hesitated to specify that his calling was to inner-city missions. He wondered if West Virginia had such a place.

"I got a letter from the West Virginia church and communities ministries director, and she said that the state was looking at starting an African-American church in the west side of Charleston. While I'm not African-American, I told them I'd be interested in starting a bi-racial congregation.  I came up and visited Charleston and fell in love with it."

Norman describes the area as "rural Appalachia meets the inner-city." "People are very clannish and family is a big thing," said Norman. "They have the usual crack cocaine drug dealers and such, but the prostitutes wear jeans and sweats. I've learned that it doesn't have to be a large city for it to be an inner city.  Our community is racially 50/50 Anglo/African-American. 

We  believe this is where God wanted us, so we came, and we started the church by loving people."

That was more than four years ago, and today, that church start, West Charleston Baptist Church, is effectively reaching out to its inner-city community. "I would describe it as bi-racial but not as much as it could be.  I hope we look like our community, but we are still very much segregated. Yet, we're trying to reach our whole community," said Norman.

As a church planter missionary, Norman pastors West Charleston ("kind of as a hobby," he notes), but his role as a strategist is to help start new churches.  Currently, there are two: Lighthouse Baptist and Living Hope in the Jefferson community. Lighthouse Baptist has a lay pastor, and the church is reaching out to a large trailer park area. It's rather "rural inner-city."

The Jefferson community, work is led by a Nehemiah Project church planter.  The Jefferson community, although only four square miles, includes 14 adult bars, adult video stores, and lots of children. 

"One of the ways we discover areas to start a church is through prayer walking," said Norman. "I remember prayer walking in the Jefferson community in 1998.  It was during that walk that we noticed all the bicycles and toys.  So, we decided, "Let's reach children!" So, that is exactly what they are doing.      

Norman's journey to ministry started reluctantly. "I struggled through college and seminary as to whether I wanted to be in a secular job or ministry full time. I was 'vocationally schizophrenic.' I did ministry on the side for a while, and helped start a church in South Carolina. Most of that time, though, I was a reporter and then a managing editor for two papers in South Carolina.  In 1994, God told me to quit my job and He would show me where I was to go.  We argued for several weeks about that. I wound up in Statesville, N.C., as a youth, single, and children's minister at Front Street Baptist Church. It was there that I was asked to head our single adult ministry and asked to go to New York City to look at a partnership opportunity. So, in 1995 I went to Graffiti Baptist Center and met Taylor and Susan Field.

"I had never seen ministry like that.   I got a heart for the inner city there.  I decided then that it was time to pursue ministry full time." After completing seminary, he went to West Virginia, and the rest, is history, or, perhaps, "a work in progress."

"What we see here more in Charleston than anything else is hopelessness," said Norman.

"There's an attitude that life doesn't change much from one generation to another.  If great- grandma was on welfare, then her children believe they are destined to live that way.  There's a lot of talk about suicide and such.  My response is that there is hope.  As long as there's Jesus, there's hope."

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Pray for Norman and Deborah Cannada. 

• Pray for their ministry to flourish in its effectiveness. 

• Pray that they will keep their eyes focused on Jesus and not on themselves. 

• Pray that they will keep family a priority.