Celebrating Black HIStory '24 . . . Why choose to serve?

Who wants to be great?

The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:11-12)

Why do we make the choices we make daily? 

As the Dr. King once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” Dr. King was first a Baptist preacher. His desire to serve God and others led to leading the Civil Rights Movement in the 50's and 60's. 

He could have easily stayed behind his pulpit and simply led his church. However, he answered the call to greatness . . . greatness through service. He unselfishly chose to allow God to work in and through his life.

What is God calling you to do this day . . . tomorrow? Start by serving others and allow God to work!

Celebrating Black HIStory '24 . . .Revive us again!

(2 Chronicles 7:14) "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

William Seymour, the free son of two slaves, led the three-year Azusa Street Revival, which became the driving force of the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements starting in 1906. His integrated services, replete with fiery preaching and passionate emotional responses, drew thousands of all ethnicities and religious traditions. His integrated services were full of fiery sermons, singing, and speaking in tongues. Today, the revival is considered by historians to be the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century.

Boy, could we use a revival today among all believers, not just in a concentrated area! Yet it must start somewhere, with someone . . . what about me and you? 

Make a choice and stick with it . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)

Elizabeth Freeman, nicknamed "Mum Bett," was born into slavery in 1742, and was given to the Ashley family of Sheffield, Massachusetts, in her early teens. While enslaved, she married and eventually had a daughter named Betsy.

One day in 1780, Mrs. Ashley accused Betsy of being a thief and chased her with a hot shovel. Freeman jumped in between the two just as Ashley was swinging and blocked the shovel with her arm. Freeman received a deep wound on her arm and displayed the scar her entire life as proof of her poor treatment.

After the Revolutionary War, Freeman was walking through town and heard the Massachusetts State Constitution being read aloud. After hearing "all men are born free and equal," she thought about the legal and spiritual meaning of these words. She met with Theodore Sedgwick, an attorney and abolitionist she knew and asked to sue for her freedom.

He took her case, but because women at the time had very few legal rights, Sedgwick added a male slave known simply as "Brom" to the lawsuit and sued Col. John Ashley.

In the case Brom and Bett v. Ashley, Sedgwick argued that based on the Constitution, she and Brom shouldn't be considered property and therefore should be free. The jury in the Court of Common Pleas decided in their favor.

Col. Ashley appealed to the Supreme Court but later dropped the appeal, making Mum Bett the first female slave to sue and win her freedom.

If they would have only followed the bible . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24

Think about this and how our HIStory would have been different! With one simple bible verse, slavery should have been halted . . . not even thought about actually!

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession. (Exodus 21:16)

Here are some questions to ponder . . . .

• What if we today would simply follow scripture? 
• What if we who call ourselves CHRISTians would live like it and vote like it!?
• What if we were Kingdom citizens as opposed to Republicans, Democrats and other labels?
• What if the Church was really the Church . . . an active Body within society?

Take a listen to Dr. Tony Evans . . . a voice crying out in the dessert (actually Dallas, TX)

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1139127710445324

Albert Murray . . . One Day . . . Celebrating Black HIStory '24

One day . . . .

He was never a household name, but Albert Murray was one of the most important Black thinkers of the 20th century.

The essayist and social critic changed the way people talked about race by challenging Black separatism and insisting that the Black experience was central to American culture. He once remarked that American society is “incontestably mulatto” because Black and White people are inextricably bound to one another.

“The United States is not a nation of black and white people,” Mr. Murray wrote. “Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black.” Murray was what one friend called a “militant integrationist.” He didn’t use the terms “Black” or “African-American.” He called himself an American.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb . . . (Revelation 7:9)

Born in Alabama, Murray attended Tuskegee Institute, where he befriended Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel “Invisible Man.” Murray also eventually became close friends with Romare Bearden, the influential painter, and a mentor to jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.

One of his best books, 1970’s “The Omni-Americans,” was a collection of essays and a punishing critique of Black separatism. Filled with Murray’s trademark blunt wit, it insisted that America was a nation of multicolored people who share a common destiny.

One day . . .

Choose love over hate . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24

Have you been mistreated lately? Has someone misrepresented you? Are you angry? Do you want to get even . . . get some payback? Hold on a minute . . .  Let's take a look at HIStory and God's Word! Choose love over hate!

As a theologian, Martin Luther King reflected often on his understanding of nonviolence. He described his own “pilgrimage to nonviolence” in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, and in subsequent books and articles. “True pacifism,” or “nonviolent resistance,” King wrote, is “a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love” (King, Stride, 80). Both “morally and practically” committed to nonviolence, King believed that “the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom” (King, Stride, 79; Papers 5:422). King was first introduced to the concept of nonviolence when he read Henry David Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience as a freshman at Morehouse College. Having grown up in Atlanta and witnessed segregation and racism every day, King was “fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system”

Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21) 

Choose love over hate!
 

Choices we make...Choose God! (Celebrating Black HIStory '24)

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Harriet Tubman . . . Araminta “Minty” Ross was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in Dorchester County in 1822. We all know the many facts about her life; the greatest conductor of the Underground Railroad, during the Civil War, she became the first woman to lead an armed military raid in June 1863, a Union scout, spy, and nurse, a suffragist who fought for women's rights, and she established a nursing home for African Americans on her property in Auburn, NY. 

She chose to follow God and not the plans that others had for her! Like Ms. Tubman, God has a specific plan for each of us. Many times, it is just for you or me. People will not believe you. They will not understand. The will misdirect you. Some will ridicule you, lie on you and talk about you behind your back. There will be jealousies and plots. Some may even seek to mentally and physically hurt you . . . But God! Choose God! 

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. (Genesis 50:20)

Where would we be without the examples of people like Joseph, David, and Daniel in the Bible?  here would we be without people like Harriet Tubman in our HIStory?  Echoing Jesus' words from John from John 14:3, Harriet's final words were, "I go to prepare a place for you." She indeed prepared a place . . . a future . . . and a hope for all of a better place, as does Jesus!

Choose God!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4648786/

The CHOICES one makes . . . John Brown . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24

The choices one makes may just change HIStory!

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live . . . (Deuteronomy 30:19)

When John Brown was hanged in 1859 for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, many saw him as the harbinger of the future. For Southerners, he was the embodiment of all their fears—a white man willing to die to end slavery—and the most potent symbol yet of aggressive Northern antislavery sentiment. For many Northerners, he was a prophet of righteousness, bringing down a terrible swift sword against the immorality of slavery and the haughtiness of the Southern master class.

On the night of May 24, 1856, Brown led a raiding party of four of his sons, his son-in-law, and two other men to Pottawatomie Creek. For the most part, this raid was unplanned and almost spontaneous. Brown acted in retaliation for a raid on the free state settlement at Lawrence, the killings of free state settlers in Kansas, and persistent threats by the proslavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek. Three and a half years later, on the evening of October 16, 1859, John Brown and 18 "soldiers" seized the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's plans were fantastic—some would say insane. He would use the arms in the arsenal—as well as old-fashioned pikes he had had specially manufactured—to begin a guerrilla war against slavery. The core of his army would be the mostly white band of raiders who seized the arsenal. But soon, he hoped—he believed—he just knew—that hundreds or even thousands of slaves would join him in the fight against the "peculiar institution." He predicted that once word of his raid got out, slaves from throughout the region would appear at his side, as bees "swarm to the hive."

At one point Brown stopped a passenger train, held it for a while, and then released it. The train continued on to Washington, DC, where the crew dutifully reported to officials that Brown had seized Harpers Ferry. The next day, October 18, U.S. marines, under the command of Army Brevet Col. Robert E. Lee, captured Brown in the engine house on the armory grounds. By this time, most of the raiders were either dead or wounded.

Indeed, Frederick Douglass would later say that he lived for the slave, but John Brown was willing to "die for the slave." Brown welcomed his end, declaring: "I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose."

For abolitionists and antislavery activists, black and white, John Brown emerged as a hero, a martyr, and ultimately, a harbinger of the end of slavery.

(https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html)

Serving through trials...... Celebrating Black HIStory '24

“Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”(Isaiah 41:10)

Betsey Stockton’s journey to the mission field was an unlikely one. Born as a domestic slave in the household of the President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), Stockton gained her freedom as a teenager and attended night classes at the college. It was there on that college campus that she heard the Gospel and gave her life to Christ.

Stockton soon felt called to share her newfound faith as a missionary to the islands of Hawaii. She scrimped and saved to raise the finances needed, and in 1822 joined a team of 11 missionaries, herself the only African American, on the perilous journey by sea.

In Hawaii, Stockton helped establish schools and taught history, English, Latin, and algebra, all while learning the local language. She knew that education was the key to not only a better life for the people she encountered but also the key to understanding and receiving the truths of the Bible. Stockton would later go on to establish schools for underprivileged children in Philadelphia and Canada.

Betsey Stockton, the first unmarried female American missionary, is now considered among the most noted educators in U.S. history. In their book, Profiles of African American Missionaries , Robert Stevens and Brian Johnson said of Stockton, “Betsey may have been born into slavery but she emerged as a religious and academic pioneer.

Lent? Never heard of it!

And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread 'til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

Each year, Ash Wednesday (today)starts the beginning of Lent and is always 46 days before Easter Sunday. Lent is a 40-day season (not counting Sundays) marked by repentance, fasting, reflection, and ultimately celebration. The 40-day period represents Christ’s time of temptation in the wilderness, where he fasted and where Satan tempted him. Lent asks believers to set aside a time each year for similar fasting, marking an intentional season of refocus on Christ’s life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection.

While we as believers should always be focused on these things, Lent is a time to refocus on them! At times we drift away. We get caught up in the world, our troubles, relationships, school, jobs, finances, etc. We can definitely drift at times. So now is a time to get back where we need to be . . . intimate with Jesus! 

Like Adam, we are reminded of our sinful state and our need for Jesus . . . 24/7. Let's refocus!

Time out to explain/celebrate . . . still Celebrating Black HIStory '24

Mardi Gras for CHRISTians?

There are many cultures represented in the Body of Christ, which makes us rich and colorful. We have much to celebrate! We simply must be reminded to glorify God in our celebrations and not to include the temptations celebrations may offer which can lead to sin . . . be under the Spirit's control as always!

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Mardi Gras translates from the French as “Fat Tuesday”. It’s also referred to as “Carnival” which is derived from the Latin as “farewell to meat” (carne). It is the end of the celebration of the Epiphany. Basically you celebrate - party hard - until the solemn season of Lent. Mardi Gras is the last day to celebrate, the “farewell to flesh”. During Lent there is a lot of fasting, so the concept is to eat all you want before the fasting and a time of penance and fasting for 40 days before Easter. New Orleans is famous for its celebration of Mardi Gras—it starts with parades about two weeks in advance of the actual Mardi Gras. Matrdi Gras balls (the equivalent of debutante balls in other city) begin on January 6, Kings’ Day, the date memorializing the visit of the Three Kings to the Baby Jesus.

Here are just a few historical facts about Mardi Gras and its HIStory . . .

https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/king-cakes

https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/mardi-gras-indians/

https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/parades/krewe-of-zulu

Who are the Black Indians of Mardis Gras? . . . Celebrating Black HIStory '24

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands . . . (Revelation 7:9)

Scholars generally agree that the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is linked to early encounters between the region’s Native and Black communities. Founded by the French in 1718, the city of New Orleans stands on land originally inhabited by the Chitimacha Tribe. As early as 1719, European colonizers brought enslaved people from the western coast of Africa to the nascent port city, which eventually became a hub of the United States slave trade.

While Africans made up the majority of enslaved people in Louisiana, research conducted by Leila K. Blackbird, a historian at the University of Chicago, found that Native and mixed-race people of Black and Native heritage constituted 20 percent of the state’s enslaved population during the antebellum period.

the two marginalized groups found ways of supporting each other, with local tribes such as the Choctaw, the Seminole and the Chickasaw helping enslaved Africans escape from plantations and live off the land. Some of these fugitives from slavery took refuge in maroon camps (makeshift settlements in Louisiana’s swamps and bayous), while others sought shelter with Native communities, which then assimilated the Africans into their tribes.

 https://youtu.be/VsOxxz4h1rU?si=1Ac4Lhe6FzJcABzu

Louise Cecelia Fleming . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24,

THE GOOD DOCTOR - LOUISE CECILIA FLEMING

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)

Born into slavery in the early years of the Civil War, Louise’s first pursuits included education. After a stint as a public educator, she became the first female black missionary appointed by the American Baptist Convention. In 1887, she sailed to the Congo, where she used education to improve the lives of the children she met there. 

As her own health deteriorated, she was forced back to the states in 1891. Realizing the importance of proper medical care for the people she loved in Congo, she enrolled that same year in the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. Four years later, she returned to Congo, the only known female medical doctor in the entire country. She worked for the health (physical and spiritual) of the Congolese people over the next four years before dying at the age of 37 from African sleeping sickness. 

Over a hundred years later, she continues to shine as an example of bending your life around scripture’s instruction to “consider others more important than yourself” (Phillippians 2:3).

I bet you didn't know II....Celebrating Black HIStory '24,

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.(Acts 2:42)

Clement (150-215) was a Christian philosopher with a keen desire to win pagan intellectuals to Christ. He directed a catechetical school at Alexandria and wrote important exhortations to the heathen as well as to Christians, calling them to a more perfect life in Christ. 

Another African, Origen

(185-254), became the director of a catechetical school at age 18. His was the finest mind the church would produce in 300 years. Origen was highly successful in debating Jews, pagans, and Gnostics, and is in fact credited with destroying Gnosticism. This important biblical scholar, theologian, exegete, and pioneer in biblical criticism produced the Hexapla, comparing six versions of the Bible. He profoundly influenced the theological thought of the succeeding centuries.

I bet you didn't know . . . Celebrating Black HIStory '24

Count this among the I bet you didn't know facts . . .

Christianity in Africa first arrived in Egypt in approximately 50 AD. By the end of the 2nd century it had reached the region around Carthage. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity and shaped the doctrines of Christianity include Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo. A 2018 study by the Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary discovered that more Christians live in Africa than any other continent, with 631 million Christians throughout the landmass.

How do we believe the Gospel traveled to Ethiopia?????

So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”) . . . .Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”  Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. . . . When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:27-39)

Athanasius . . .Celebrating Black HIStory '24

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius was a theologian, ecclesiastical statesman, deacon, and chief defender of Christian orthodoxy. Born in 293, Athanasius was labeled “Black Dwarf” and exiled five times by four Roman emperors due to his staunch commitment to biblical orthodoxy. He was the bishop of Alexandria for 45 years and spent 17 of those in exile. Known for confronting Arianism, a doctrine denying Christ’s deity, he was instrumental in creating the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed was adopted to resolve the Arian controversy, whose leader, Arius, a clergyman of Alexandria, "objected to Alexander's (the bishop of the time) apparent carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son. Athanasius is considered a father of the apologetic ministry.

Howard Thurman: Celebrating Black HIStory '24

“The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish thinker and teacher appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. 'In him was life; and the life was the light of men.' Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.”― Howard Thurman

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

In 1944, Thurman cofounded San Francisco's Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the first integrated interfaith religious congregation in the United States. In 1953, he became the dean of Marsh Chapel, the first black dean at a mostly white American university, mentoring, among many others, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Groundhog Day 2024

Can a groundhog really tell the future? C'mon . . . who really believes that anyway. Even the best meteorologists can predict past a week or two! However, I know who does know the future . . . yes, that's right . . . God! He has been there and back again and wants to guide us to it and through it!

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.  If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4:13-17)

Today people will be watching what a groundhog does as he comes out and wanders around the ground. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/02/groundhog-day-2024-live-stream/72406821007/ 

• Will he see his shadow or not? 
• Will we have six more weeks of winter or and early spring? 

Really . . . a groundhog? It's pretty simple: If there is sunlight or TV cameras in his area, he will probably see a shadow! 

• But does he really care about his shadow? 
• Is he really looking? 
• Who did he tell anyway?

I think it is still best to seek God and follow His plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, etc) I think He would know more than a groundhog!

An offer to be changed . . .C.O.F.F.E.E.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. . . . Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-20)

It is an offer to be changed . . . remade . . . remolded . . . the new you and me! In this world, we are seeing all kinds of new products, new programs and new ideas . . . the new you . . . the new me! Products are constantly being rebranded. Stars acquire agents to change the way the public sees them with a new look and new image. Many times we even seek to change the way people perceive us.

Those of us who trust Christ as Lord and Savior were once made new by His grace and mercy. We are no longer seen as a sinner by the Savior. Therefore, we should no longer perceive ourselves or the world the same either. We now have a purpose . . . an eternal purpose. We are no longer here just for the world and its endeavors. We now represent Christ and are to offer Him to everyone we encounter . . . as simple as offering a cup of C.O.F.F.E.E. . . . so they too can be changed.

Be reconciled to Christ . . . . please!