“Everyone might be nice as a result of all people can serve. You don’t must have a university diploma to serve. You don’t must make your topic and your verb comply with serve… You solely want a coronary heart stuffed with grace, a soul generated by love.” So wrote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and nobody has taken that message to coronary heart and lived a life extra aligned with these sentiments than David Taylor, pastor and non secular chief of Joshua Media Ministries Worldwide, whose international outreach is dedicated to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the globe.
In 2017, Pastor David E. Taylor was acknowledged for shut to 3 a long time of neighborhood service with a Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award by President Barack Obama. The celebrated award is granted to conscientious volunteers who’ve devoted a minimal of 4,000 hours of neighborhood service.
David Taylor, pastor and non secular chief, has not solely exceeded that minimal, however doubtless set a file for hours of neighborhood service tendered. Nonetheless, he’s not conserving rely, and because it says in Luke 14:11, “For all those that exalt themselves shall be humbled, and those that humble themselves shall be exalted.”
“You might have been an inspiration to many and we wish to rejoice the constructive impression you make in bettering our communities and the world,” reads the nomination advice that led to Pastor David E. Taylor turning into a Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
Because of Pastor David E. Taylor, JMMI’s Outreach Touches Numerous Lives
Over the course of his non secular profession, David E. Taylor has been stalwart in his dedication to serving communities in danger. Along with bestowing spiritual steerage, Pastor Taylor has led quite a few volunteer initiatives to battle the scourge of meals insecurity and likewise offered clothes and different fundamental requirements to households in want who reside in a few of America’s most marginalized neighborhoods.
In occasions of disaster, Pastor David Taylor has tirelessly organized and coordinated in depth reduction efforts to offer assist and luxury to these stricken by the harmful forces of unexpected tragedy, dispatching JMMI’s catastrophe reduction group — often known as the Convoy of Miracles. The JMMI fleet consists of a number of large 18-wheeler vehicles and a cargo aircraft that ship necessities resembling recent water, clothes, private hygiene merchandise, diapers, blankets, and different very important items, in addition to medical therapy vans and building tools and crews to assist rebuild neighborhoods ravaged by pure catastrophe.
Simply earlier than the week of Christmas 2021, David E. Taylor directed the convoy to Kentucky, the place the catastrophic power of lethal tornadoes took greater than 75 lives and destroyed lots of of properties. The scene was one in all complete devastation. Whole cities lay flattened and coated in twisted wreckage.
In line with Pastor Tony B., a JMMI minister, dispatched to the twister zone with a bunch of volunteers by Pastor David E. Taylor, what they encountered was practically incomprehensible. “Simply the one church we have been speaking to… they misplaced 9 folks within the congregation. Are you able to think about that? There’s not one particular person round right here who hasn’t misplaced someone,” the pastor mentioned.
Pushed by compassion and unwavering religion, Tony B. credited David E. Taylor with getting assist to the victims shortly. “[His] coronary heart breaks for these folks,” Tony B. mentioned. “You may’t see this and never have tears be delivered to your eyes. You may’t see this and never suppose, ‘Wow, what if this was me on this second and I used to be going by means of?’ As you’re watching… you would possibly suppose, ‘OK, the federal government’s coming by means of’… [but] the primary folks on the scene right here was the church.”
In September 2022, beneath Pastor Taylor’s management, JMMI’s volunteers hit the highway once more, this time to Florida, the place the victims of Hurricane Ian have been nonetheless reeling from the crushing blow the mammoth storm dealt the battered shoreline.
For individuals who know that David E. Taylor has spent a lifetime giving back to these in want comes as no shock, as a result of the Pastor David E. Taylor was as soon as David E. Taylor the gang member. Taylor says at 17, a shocking conversion introduced him “face-to-face” with Jesus. Since then, strolling a righteous path that glorifies God has been the driving power behind his each motion, and for him, that’s reward sufficient.
