wfn.org | Black church offers gift of strength, bishop says

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 17, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.	  10-31-71BP{417}

NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of Bishop Peter Weaver is available at
http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html online.

PHILADELPHIA (UMNS) - The greatest gift that the majority church and the
world can receive from the black church is strength, according to a United
Methodist bishop.

Bishop Peter Weaver of Philadelphia made that point at the Sept. 8-10
meeting of the coordinating committee of the denomination's Strengthening
the Black Church for the 21st Century initiative.

During a Bible study session, the bishop discussed the strength found in the
songs of the late Charles Albert Tindley, who is credited with being the
father of gospel music. The Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference was
preparing to remember Tindley in a Sept. 14 memorial service.

Referring to the hymn "Stand By Me," one of five Tindley songs found in the
United Methodist Hymnal, Weaver asked: What is strength?

Four of Tindley's hymns are found in the section titled "Strength and
Tribulation," he noted. "This was no accident. There is something of a gift
in the black church that addresses the issue of strength in a way that the
whole church and whole world needs to learn."

Alluding to Sept. 11, he said strength is not found in military might or
Wall Street's economic prowess. "Strength arose at the very moment when what
so many people considered our strength was crumbling around us. What is
strength? It comes in tribulation."

Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century is an initiative
approved by the 1996 General Conference and continued by the assembly in
2000. It seeks to strengthen black churches in the United States by linking
growing congregations with partner congregations, and to revitalize the more
than 2,500 African-American congregations in the denomination. Its governing
committee develops programs and strategies to help predominantly black
United Methodist congregations become more effective in ministry.
Twenty-five congregations serve as congregation resource centers, providing
training help for partner congregations.

What will strengthen the black church in this century? Weaver asked. The
answer will not be found in clever programs, events or money. "It is the
Lord, upon whom we wait to expand horizons and shapes dreams and (who) sets
us to working and walking together."

Weaver compared the struggles of African Americans and the church to those
experienced by the writers of the Book of Isaiah, who were in exile. He said
those biblical texts were written by a people who were displaced but who
knew grace, a people who had suffered the collapse of their religious
institution and everything they thought was the greatness of their heritage
and land.  

"Maybe the church in America is in exile too," he said. "Those of us who are
in the predominantly Euro-American congregations have capitulated to those
who are holding us in exile. We have capitulated to the standards of success
and to the idols of strength that the American culture is so full of. The
church of today is in exile."

The black church, Weaver said, brings an "extraordinary gift because of the
exile experience of being in a foreign land, not just in the times of
slavery, but right now."

Weaver said he prays that the gift of strength and spirituality found in
African-American churches could spread through the whole church in exile.  

The Rev. Dorothy Watson Tatem of Philadelphia agreed. The director of urban
ministry for the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference, she said that
throughout all of history, God has sustained black church. "We've been
theologically attacked, intellectually dismissed, liturgically raped,
economically robbed, politically mugged and called everything but a child of
God." And the black church, she said, "is still standing."

Much of the committee's meeting revolved around planning for "The Great
Event," a Sept. 18-21, 2003, gathering of congregational resource centers
and partner congregations in Atlanta for relationship building, ministry
resources, workshops and preaching. The event will include a symposium with
the denomination's bishops to share concerns and see the needs and strengths
of the black church.

The committee also:
7	Welcomed Linda Crowell, Oakwood Village, Ohio, as a part-time
consultant to the initiative.
7	Visited Eastwick, Tindley Temple, Mother African Zoar and St.
George's United Methodist churches in Philadelphia and Asbury United
Methodist Church, Merchantville, N.J.
7	Began planning for the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh.
7	Set Feb. 6-9 as its next meeting at the Gulfside retreat center in
Waveland, Miss.

# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org