At the May 12th meeting, members and guests heard a presentation from Pastor Nisan Steward, of Greater Emanuel Temple, City of Lynwood.   Pastor Nisan is the son of the church's founding pastor, Bishop Carl W. Stewart. 

Pastor Nisan thanked the Rotary Club for inviting him to be a speaker. Lynwood is a great place in which to live and grow up, he explained!   “The spirit in this city is great!.”  “Our goal is for Lynwood to be a top city in California.” As described later in the presentation, the church has plans for expanding its outreach to the Lynwood community by developing an expanded youth training program.

 Greater Emanuel Pastor Nisan started with a brief history of his church.  His father, Bishop Carl W. Stewart, founded his first church on Main Street in South Los Angeles in 1965.  In 1977, Pastor Nisan noted, his uncle found a property in Lynwood, and Bishop Nisan then moved his church to the City of Lynwood, at the site of the present church, when Pastor Nisan was, he noted, three years old.  The existing church was constructed in 1987.  His father installed him as the church's pastor on February 19, 2012.  Then he noted that shortly thereafter his father passed on. 

Pastor Nisan attended Inglewood HS, Warren HS in Downey and Cerritos College.  While growing up as a youth Pastor Nisan learned to be a drummer.  Pastor explained that in addition to serving as pastor, that he is professionally involved in music performance.  This is his sixth season performing with “Dancing with the Stars”.  This involves two performance seasons each year.  In answer to a question from Daniel, Pastor noted that his professional work takes place at the CBS Lot at Fairfax & Beverly, and that visitors can attend the shows.

Pastor Nissan explained that in addition to acquiring a craft as a drummer, he actively participated in music and adult bible reading at the church. This emphasis in these activities for youth at the church has continued.  The church has plans for a structural expansion of the church property for a youth center to better enable development of an after school program for youth with emphasis on teaching music skills.  It is envisioned to have two two youth groups:  a younger age group and a group for teens.  The instruction will include aspects of producing music to include production and engineering.

 After all, Pastor Nisan declares, look at the Bible, Jesus Christ was very interested in working with the youth.  Pastor Nisan also noted that in his own family, his own children, ages 8, 6, and 3 years, helps him to focus on the importance  of encouraging youth in the community to develop skills of interest to them and that will serve them well as they progress on their journey to become adults.

Another area of outreach for the church is development of a ministry to the hispanic community.  Already on the staff of the church, Olivia Solzano and her husband, Isidro, are in the process of developing a hispanic ministry, including a Sunday service in Spanish. (Daniel noted that the couple attended the meeting at which Pastor Nisan had originally been scheduled to speak.)

After the presentation, Bridget, representing the planned Relay for Life from the American Cancer Society, described the event at Lynwood Park, from Sat, June 25, 9am to Sun, June 26, 9am.  She thanked the Lynwood Rotary for its commitment to contribute $1,000, and thus will be included as a official sponsor, to include being shown on the event T-Shirt.  (This contribution is from the club budget, plus individual contributions from members.)  Other coming events noted were the annual Rotary District 5280 Assembly Meeting at the Carson Community Center on Sat, May 14.  (Martina Rodriguez, Ramon Rodriguez, Larry Esparza and Maria Quinonez (Lulu) attended.) Also Daniel noted that the Lynwood Rotary Club will have a booth at the Lynwood hub for the CICLAVIA event on Sun, from 9am to 4pm.  (Besides Daniel, Ramon Rodriguez, Lulu, Tila and Fernando Millan, and Youthact members from Roosevelt ES and Helen Keller ES and some of their parents helped staff the Rotary booth.  (The featured item was the photo poster boards, as well as copies of a flyer and handouts about what Rotary does.) 

Daniel Miller /  Omar Franco 

Public Relations and Community Outreach for the Lynwood Rotary Club