Six people were found shot and stabbed to death in a mass murder in Memphis’ dangerous Binghamton neighborhood. Three children who survived the attack were hospitalized in critical condition.
And before the dead bodies were cold, yet another shooting and robbery took place in the same gang- and drug-plagued Binghamton area, located just six miles from downtown Memphis.
But Southern Baptist missionaries Willie and Ozzie Jacobs — believing it will take no less than Jesus Christ to change the crime -culture of Memphis and stop such neighborhood violence and bloodshed — have taken on the challenge.
In their early 60s and married for 41 years, this couple are on a mission from God in one of the perennial top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States.
“Memphis is in the middle of spiritual warfare,” Willie Jacobs said. “We’re dealing with murder, crime and drugs throughout the city. There’s a racial divide that has plagued Memphis since the days of Dr. Martin Luther King. It’s never healed. There’s also an economic and a political divide. In the middle of all this, we try to do ministry.”
And as if ministry in Memphis was not challenging enough, Willie Jacobs serves the North American Mission Board — in partnership with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and Mid-South Baptist Association — as regional coordinator of church planting for the four-state Memphis Delta Region, including parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri.
The Jacobses transferred to Memphis from their Columbus, Ohio, ministries last July. Before that, Willie Jacobs spent 30 years as a full-time pastor in the Dallas area.
Both Alabama natives, they now live in nearby Collierville, Tenn., and have three grown daughters and two grandchildren.
But Willie Jacobs said sometimes it’s almost overwhelming. “There’s a real need for churches to realize that ministry takes place on the outside and that a lot of the needs of people are going unmet because church members and fellowships are not going out.”
The greater Memphis area has a population of 1.2 million. But with its 674,000 people, Memphis proper is Tennessee’s largest city and the 18th largest in the U.S.
Including blacks, Anglos and Hispanics, Willie Jacobs said he knows of 55 different people groups in the Memphis area.
Beginning with a search for “a person of peace,” the Jacobses look to initiate Bible studies, engage the community and work with a zone of churches near Interstate 240.
“As our Bible study groups grow, we’ll try to knit them together to form churches,” Willie Jacobs said.
Realizing they can’t cover all of Memphis, the Jacobses concentrate on the inner-city neighborhoods of Binghamton and Klondike; the Frazier, Tenn., area north of Memphis; and Whitehaven in south Memphis.
“You’ve got different types of people in all areas that may not go inside a traditional church, yet they will come to Bible studies with people in their own cultures,” he said.
Ministry to Memphis apartment complexes is one of the Jacobses’ top priorities, recognizing it is one of the “untapped, unreached people groups.”
“When people’s lives are changed through Jesus Christ, it changes the culture of people who live within the city,” Willie Jacobs said. “I think Memphis can be changed in a great way.”
The Jacobses are two of 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. (NAMB)
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