New Life Ministries to build new church
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
It is not often that a new church is built on the island, so even the early sketches of New Life Ministries International's proposed church are worth noting.

Planned for a 2.7-acre lot the church owns at 42 Monohansett Road, Minister Donovan Kerr said the building should be around 4,000 square feet in size, one-and-a-half stories high and under 30 feet tall. He said it will be built as a simple cathedral structure with an assembly area and classrooms, but that it is still too early to commit to a final plan.

"The space is going to be a multipurpose space," said Kerr. "We're going to be doing preschool and day school out of it and have space for congregational worship."

New Life Ministries International began its Nantucket congregation shortly after Rev. Kerr moved to Nantucket in 2002 from his home in Jamaica where he had studied theology at the U.S.-based Christ for the Nations bible college. In 2001, while visiting friends in Cambridge, Mass. who were involved with Cambridge Community Outreach Tabernacle, Kerr was persuaded to help them put together their worship team. In the process, he came to Nantucket with a friend to speak at the interdenominational Nantucket Worship Center.

That December, after returning to Jamaica for a brief stay, Rev. Kerr decided to move to Nantucket and came here in February 2002. The next month he opened New Life Ministries International, which meets at Bennett Hall on Sundays and holds midweek services at St. Paul's Church. New Life Ministries' congregation on Nantucket is predominantly Jamaican, but includes some Americans, British, Salvadorans and people from the Caribbean.

Rev. Kerr does not yet have a date when he wants to break ground for the new church for New Life Ministries International.

"We're not sure about all of the details yet, so it's kind of premature," he said. "We haven't had a date

set as to when we want to do that." I