A Brief History of Harvest Community Church
Harvest Community Church has been around for a long time! As of the time of this writing (February 6. 2026), we’ve served the Lord in Woonsocket, Rhode Island for 26 years and 10 days. And that amounts to 9,507 days of the Lord’s faithfulness.
If Harvest is anything, it is a testimony to Jesus who said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
And so, we’ve held fast to the hope He’s given to us without wavering because we know He is trustworthy and will fulfill all of His promises (Hebrews 10:23).
Pastor Gene served as an associate pastor at his previous church before launching Harvest with a handful of faithful brothers and sisters back in 1999. Gene and his family had come off the mission field and decided to begin working in Woonsocket to see how the Lord would lead. On December 27, 1999, he laid out the initial vision for what would become Harvest Community Church to a small group of believers at the home of a dear brother and sister. A few days later, on New Years Day 2000, he wrote a letter to the core team laying out a plan for the next few months. You can read the original letter HERE.
A small group met at the Woonsocket Senior Center on the evening of Saturday, January 8, 2000 for an informal Bible study. Then, we met for the first time in the basement of Precious Blood Church of Woonsocket for a Church service on January 22. This was the first official worship service of the new Harvest Community Church. We met again on the first Saturdays of February and of March, and then, on April 8th we began worshipping the Lord in our own space – a building we rented on Arnold Street.
Our time on Arnold Street was a rich and poignant time of ministry – a time of fresh new things. Our first Men’s Ministry meeting was held there; our first Women’s Ministry met there too. That July, our dear brother Steve Martel was ordained as a Pastor there. That August, we held our first Church Picnic and Baptism. It was a very special time for us – a time of great refreshing in the Lord’s presence (Acts 3:20)!
And then, on November 6th, we signed the papers and purchased our own building at 60 North Main St. Understandably, the city’s administration was not delighted with the idea that we would buy the building. When a Church purchases a building, it takes it off the city’s tax roll, as churches are not taxed. It was a pretty big story at the time. You can read more about it HERE.
The city couldn’t stop us from buying it, but it could (through zoning restrictions) prevent us from ever occupying it. But, in our minds, the Lord had led us to 60 North Main Street. So, we just bought it and began renovating it, trusting that He would open the way for us to worship there. And that’s precisely what He did!
But it would take a good bit of time to renovate – it was in need of a lot of work. We wouldn’t worship there until October of 2002.
The building was the old Parenteau Furniture building. It had sat vacant for some time.
An amazing amount of work went into restoring the building into a beautiful place of worship. Finally, through the hard work and sacrifice of many volunteers, our new home was ready in 2002. That’s when we had to deal with zoning.
The city maintained that the building was not zoned for a place of worship. But there was no place in the city where a Church could open without permission as a matter of right. EVERY potential Church had to appear, hat-in-hand, before the zoning board to seek approval. Our attorney, Nick Barrett – who served for a long time as our treasure and as a faithful deacon – sent a letter to the city threatening legal action for violations against our First Amendment right to worship and assemble. The next day, we had our occupancy permit. God had come through for us again (Isaiah 41:10)!
Harvest has always been a community-oriented Church. Pastor Gene brought the same mentality he, Mary and their family had lived out on the mission field to the Church’s new mission field: the greater Woonsocket area.
And it didn’t take long for the city’s needs to become manifest. When three homeless people visited Harvest for worship one Sunday, Sanctuary was born. After learning about the homeless problem in Woonsocket and visiting the camps where they lived (there were twelve of them in 2002!), Pastor Gene began visiting the city’s soup kitchen regularly with small handouts inviting any men who were homeless to come and stay with. This is what the original quarter-sheet flier looked like:
The accommodations were very basic – just mats and blankets on the floor – but it was clean and warm and we treated each guest with the dignity they deserve as men created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
At first, Pastor Gene and a few volunteers would spend the night sleeping at the Church with the men. They’d pray with the guys and then everyone would go to bed. Eventually, the ministry grew as word got out that Harvest was serious about providing the homeless with shelter from the cold New England weather.
Eventually, we began partnering with Family Resources Community Action – which was Woonsocket’s social service arm at the time – in what would prove to be a very fruitful partnership. They were able to provide us with security cameras so the men could stay safe, and funding to hire a security person to stay up all night and monitor the residents.
Unfortunately, the city did not rejoice that we were sheltering men from the cold. The mayor at the time opposed Sanctuary vigorously. Officials were sent over to the Church to inspect the sprinkler systems and found them all to be in fine form.
Then zoning got involved, arguing that the Church’s building was not zoned for a shelter. Again, we stood on the principle of religious freedom. As a Church, it is a part of our mission to love our neighbors. And we understand ‘loving our neighbors’ to mean meeting their needs whenever we can – both spiritually and physically. We held that the city does not have the right to tell us how we can and cannot live out our faith.
The issue became heated – REALLY heated. On February 10, 2003, Pastor Gene woke up to a rather hyperbolic headline in The Woonsocket Call. On the front page, above the fold, the headline read: CHURCH TELLS CITY TO BACK OFF. Read the article HERE.
We weren’t out for a fight with the city; we just wanted to serve the Lord in peace and to be left alone. But then the local television stations came down for interviews. Channel 10 (WJAR), 12 (WPRI) and 6 (WLNE) all ran pieces on the Church’s so-called ‘war’ with the city. The Woonsocket Call and The Providence Journal also featured continuing stories on the conflict. Read some of those articles HERE and HERE.
Then something began to happen. Public opinion started tilting toward us. People asked, ‘If the Church is paying for this, and the building is safe, why wouldn’t the city want the homeless off the street?’ To many following the story, the mayor’s position started to sound mean-spirited.
Once popular opinion shifted, so did the mayor’s. At first the city had threatened legal action against the Church, but now it sought reconciliation, which we welcomed. The very day the ‘CHURCH TELLS CITY TO BACK OFF’ article appeared in The Call, Mayor Menard wrote a letter to Pastor Gene seeking a meeting and promising not to pursue legal action against Harvest.
Shortly after this, the mayor told The Woonsocket Call that “Harvest is a model Church and I wish all Churches were just like it.”
From that rocky start, Sanctuary has been a major blessing to our community and to our Church. The basement of the Church has now been fully restored and is a dedicated men’s winter shelter. Because of the Lord’s blessing, Sanctuary has faithfully served the unhoused community of Woonsocket since 2002 and has provided, as of February of 2026, more than 75,000 ‘bed-nights’ of refuge and care to our city. By the way, one ‘bed night’ is defined as one bed for one person for one night.
The Sanctuary Ministry is led by Jeff Jaquith, who manages it with the upmost accountability and Christian compassion, assisted by a steering committee of diversly-gifted overseers.
Thankfully, subsequent city administrations have been much more sympathetic toward our desire to meet the needs of the very poor, which we see as a core Christian value (Psalm 34:6; Psalm 35:10; Psalm 82:3; Psalm 109:30-31; Psalm 113:7; Psalm 140:12; Psalm 146:8; Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 14:21; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 22:9; Proverbs 28:27; Proverbs 31:8-9; Proverbs 31:20; Isaiah 58:6-8; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:8-10; Luke 3:11; 1 John 3:16-18; James 1:27).
Harvest now enjoys a very warm relationship with the city’s Mayor and those who serve with him, as well as with the Woonsocket Police and Fire departments – relationships built on mutual respect and understanding. We see this as a witness that the Lord’s favor is upon us. For, “when a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7).
The SonSplash Christian Music and Arts Festival
Desiring to reach into our community with the Gospel, in 2005, Harvest launched its first SonSplash Christian Music and Arts Festival.
SonSplash was basically a giant ‘block party for Jesus’ held in one of the city’s parks. It featured live Christian music all day long, a special fun area for kids, prize drawings, free food and drinks, and the constant communication of the Gospel, both from the stage and through person-to-person interactions.
To view more of our original poster art, look HERE or HERE or HERE.
To see some of the articles that appeared in the local press, look HERE or HERE.
To hear one of the radio ads created to advertise SonSplash, listen HERE.
Powerful mime presentations depicting the death and resurrection of Jesus were performed throughout the day and, at the end of the day a full Gospel presentation and invitation to salvation was delivered to the crowd.
Local artists set the musical atmosphere for a day of celebration, fun, and meeting new friends.
A special area was provided to inform people about social services which were available to meet their physical needs. We partnered with Child Evangelism Fellowship (https://www.cefonline.com/) which set up a tent to counsel children to salvation. We also partnered with The Woonsocket Prevention Coalition (Pastor Gene served as a member on its Board).
The festival ran for eleven consecutive years, from 2005 to 2015, and at its height, more than 2000 of our neighbors were coming out each year. They came to celebrate with us and to hear about the salvation which is only found in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). Thank You Lord for opening yet another door for us for the utterance of the Gospel (Colossians 4:3)!
Club J-Rock
Beginning in 2012, Harvest reached into the community again with a new Gospel initiative to connect with inner-city kids: Club J-Rock (Jesus – Reaching Out Calling Kids).
J-Rock was a ministry to pre-teen children who wanted to learn about the love of Jesus and how to apply His teachings to the challenges they face in the everyday, real-world circumstances of life. Club J-Rock is not some boring Bible study where kids sit motionless with their hands folded! Not at all!
J-Rock students played fun, high-energy games, sang, danced, ate and built positive friendships with other children and with Harvest’s wonderful staff of caring, dedicated volunteers. We met each Saturday in the Morin Heights community room and many preteen children joined us for the fun and Christian encouragement.
Our outreach to these kids also included special movie nights, an outing to see the Paw Sox, and a special Christmas event where we transported them to Harvest for the presentation. In all we did, the Gospel was paramount.
This was a wonderful season of ministry for our deeply dedicated team and for the kids we served!
Get the Word Out!
The most recent initiative to reach into our city with the Gospel began in 2022 and is currently in its third phase, lovingly called, Get the Word Out 3.0. This ministry is described in detail in the Get the Word Out tab found under ‘Ministries’ of this website.
These are mere highlights of the Lord’s faithfulness to the brothers and sisters at Harvest. He has been faithful from the beginning and continues to be faithful now! For “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). And, as He promised, He is coming again soon (Revelation 22:20)! And when He does, He comes with the appropriate name, “Faithful and True” (Revelation 19:11-16).
And so, we say with the Apostle John, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)
Harvest Milestones: A Timeline of God’s Faithfulness
1999
12.27: Pastor Gene lays out the initial vision for what would become Harvest Community Church to a small group of believers at the home of a dear brother and sister
2000
01.01: Pastor Gene writes a letter to the core team laying out a schedule for future gatherings
01.08: Team meets for a Bible Study at the Senior Center, Woonsocket
01.22: First meeting of the Church in the basement of Precious Blood Church, Woonsocket
04.02: First service held at the Church’s (rented) new home on Arnold Street, Woonsocket
05.17: First Men’s Ministry Meeting
06.07: First Women’s Ministry Meeting
07.16: Pastor Steve Martel is ordained as a minister of the Gospel
08.27: First church picnic & baptism
11.06: Purchased the building at 60 N. Main Street, Woonsocket
2001
08.21-08.30: First mission trip to Prague
2002
08.19-08.30: Second mission trip to Prague
10.06: First service held in our own building at 60 North Main Street, Woonsocket
12.04: Sanctuary Ministry begins
2005
09.10: First Annual SonSplash Christian Music and Arts Festival is held at WWII Memorial Park in Woonsocket.
2006
10.17-10.28: Greece trip – “Following the Steps of Paul”
2012
09.15: First meeting of Club J-Rock at the Morin Heights apartment complex
2022
04.10: Get the Word Out 1.0 begins; the goal is to distribute all 5,000 copies of the New Testament on the streets of Woonsocket (completed September 2022)
2023
04.16: Get the Word Out 2.0 begins; the goal is to distribute Gospel tracts, a copy of The Jesus Film, and a letter from our Church to our neighbors to all 17,500+ households of Woonsocket (completed December 2024)
2024
09.22: Get the Word Out 3.0 begins with a ‘Preliminary Idea Meeting’; the goal is to identify gatherings in the city’s social calendar and be a presence for Christ at those events, sharing the Gospel in unique and creative ways (ongoing)