wfn.org | Ministers urged to be grounded in Christ

["Curt Miller"<wshuffit@oc.disciples.org>]

Date: March 10, 1999
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: Clifford L. Willis
Email: CWillis@oc.disciples.org
on the Web: http://www.disciples.org

99b-15

NASHVILLE (DNS) -- Images of being rooted and grounded in 
Christ
and sustained by living water permeated addresses to 
persons attending
the 25th Black Minister's Retreat here March 1-4.

The more than 200 African American Christian Church 
(Disciples of
Christ) ministers convened around the theme "A Revelation 
for the
Revolution: Rooted and Grounded in God." The delegation met 
at the
(National) Baptist World Center here. 

Clergy today are constantly moving, yet getting little 
done, said the Rev.
Stephanie Crowder, Nashville, in an opening address. 
Ministers need to
be grounded and nourished -- both literally and 
spiritually. "We need to
dig deep roots into God's soil. We need to be rooted and 
grounded."  

The Tennessee associate regional minister urged them to let 
Christ
"establish permanent settlement in your life. The result of 
Christ setting
up shop in you is more security in him," Crowder said. 
Without that
security or grounding, "we're always ready to quit." 
Likewise, without
good roots pastors cannot get the nourishment needed to 
carry out their
ministries.
 
"All life needs water to live. . . . Water is synonymous 
with life," echoed
the Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson, executive director, United 
Church of
Christ Commission for Racial Justice, Cleveland. "We're in 
need of deep
watering that not even a lawn care service can provide." 

"If we will open ourselves up to Jesus . . .  and pour out 
those feelings of
ineptitude and envy, then Jesus can fill our pitchers," 
Jackson said. The
water Christ gives lasts beyond the trouble church officers 
can cause or
the pain a teetering marriage can bring. 

Drinking that water, however, means "we have an obligation 
to see that
others may drink," she added. "There are many, many sisters 
and brothers
we have lost to the streets. We have an obligation to use 
that water for the
revolution."

If every black church in America would use that living 
water for
revolution, for economic development and for political 
empowerment,
then there will be a revelation, Jackson said.  

In other activities, ministers participated in workshops on 
clergy
misconduct and internalized racism. In addition, Homeland 
Ministries
recognized persons who had been ordained 50 years or more. 

Recognized for 50 years of ordained ministry were the Revs. 
A.M.
Cogdell, Hempstead, N.C.; K. David Cole and William K. Fox, 
Sr.,
Kansas City; Benjamin F. Fleming, Phoenix, Ariz.; E.L. 
Griffin, Flint,
Mich.; R.E. Hancock, Louisville, Ky.; J.L. Melvin, 
Goldsboro, N.C.,
Zellie M. Peoples, Indianapolis; Earl W. Rand, Marshall, 
Texas, and E.B.
Washington, Summerville, Texas.

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