The Journey: Day Twenty--The Invisible Institution

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Twenty: The Invisible Institution

Welcome to day twenty of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Twenty: The Invisible Institution[1]

Historians investigating African American religious history have labeled the secretive slave worship services the “Invisible Institution” because much of it was invisible to the eyes of their masters.

“In their cabins, woods, thickets, hollows, and brush arbors (shelter of cut branches also called ‘hush harbors’) throughout the South, slaves held their own religious meetings where they interpreted Christianity according to their experience, applying the stories and symbols of the Bible to make sense out of their lives.”

Congregational Gatherings: Slipping In and Stealing Away

In order to worship freely, Christian slaves would either slip into a home or steal away to the woods. What actually occurred during these covert meetings to make them so fruitful? Pastor Peter Randolph provides the details we seek.

“Not being allowed to hold meetings on the plantation, the slaves assemble in the swamps, out of reach of the patrols. They have an understanding among themselves as to the time and place of getting together. This is often done by the first one arriving breaking boughs from the trees, and bending them in the direction of the selected spot.”

For them, worship and fellowship was worth any risk and was approached with tremendous expectancy. Does our commitment to and preparation for gathering together hold a candle to theirs?

Mutual Ministry: First Century Christianity in Nineteenth-Century America

Once there, then what?

“Arrangements are then made for conducting the exercises. They first ask each other how they feel, the state of their minds, etc. The male members then select a certain space, in separate groups, for their division of the meeting. Preaching in order by the brethren; then praying and singing all around, until they generally feel quite happy. The speaker usually commences by calling himself unworthy, and talks very slowly, until feeling the spirit, he grows excited, and in a short time, there fall to the ground twenty or thirty men and women under its influence.”

Sound familiar? Their experience sounds like Acts 2:42-47a.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. . . . All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

In Randolph’s gathering, they organized the organism (“made arrangements for conducting the exercises”). That is, though valuing spontaneity and the leading of the Spirit, they also treasured purposeful planning.

They sustained and healed (“ask each other how they feel, the state of their minds”). Given the hardships and hard times, we might imagine quite the lengthy spiritual conversations. Much different than our typical Sunday morning greetings. “Hello. How are you?” Without waiting for a response, we move on to our next target. Imagine, instead, if we really asked how others feel—exploring one another’s emotional life—on Sunday morning, in church! Imagine, also, if we truly probed one another’s state of mind—dealing with each another’s thought life and mental wellbeing—on Sunday morning, in church!

They enjoyed small group fellowship (“then select a certain space, in separate groups, for their division of the meeting”).

They were edified by the preached Word (“preaching in order by the brethren”). Later we’ll see that they would enjoy testifying by many members, exhorting by some members, and preaching by one primary, called-out leader.

They engaged in hearing from God and talking to God (“then praying and singing all around”). They prayed and praised; listened and spoke.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Concerning worship preparation and sacrifice, how would you compare your preparations for worship to the preparations made by African American believers in the Invisible Institution? How would you compare the sacrifices that you make in order to worship with the sacrifices that they made?

2. Reflect back on Randolph’s description of Acts 2:42-47 Christianity. In what ways are you already enjoying Acts 2:42-47 Christianity? How could you experience even more Acts 2:42-47 Christianity?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Author Praises History of African American Church

Author praises history of African-American church
(http://www.post-trib.com/news/neighbors/1411040,suffering.article)

February 5, 2009

By Janna Odenthal
Post-Tribune correspondent

CROWN POINT -- Members of Bethel Church in Crown Point were encouraged to expand their cultural horizons recently when thinking about the Christian faith.

Author Robert Kellemen came to the church on Broadway to speak about the history of the African-American church and about his book "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African-American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."

Kellemen was raised in Gary, where he developed a passion for multiculturalism. He spoke about his realization that the public knows little of the social contributions of the African-American church. He said his desire is to "unbury" its legacy.

Herb Devine of Crown Point attended with his wife, Rhonda.

"I think it's really important to know the historical context of different cultures," Devine said. "I think that's what it takes to break down barriers in Christ."

The presentation included vignettes on African-Americans in church history. Kellemen spoke of slavery, giving examples of several slaves who gained freedom and went on to make significant contributions to Christianity.

"My desire tonight is that everyone will be able to fight sin better because of their example," said Kellemen. "They didn't have a GPS (global positioning system) to follow the North Star, only a physical North Star. Jesus Christ became symbolic as their spiritual north star."

Kellemen told of African-American spiritual leaders throughout history.

-- Lemuel Haynes fought for theological standards.

-- Daniel Alexander Payne, an African-American educator and author during the Jim Crow era, motivated Rosa Parks by standing up for justice.

-- Zilpha Elaw modeled spiritual friendship by starting a school for black girls.

-- Author Maria Stewart reminded black women that they were formed in God's image.

Kellemen paused for a moment of silence. He asked those attending to reflect upon which character quality they would like to incorporate into their lives. He encouraged them to be thankful for the examples set before them.

Cherry Hoffner of Cedar Lake said the program was inspiring.

"I was encouraged by the examples --their faith and tenacity," Hoffner said.

Steve Fuentes of Merrillville said he would like to build bridges in the Christian community.

"Churches are multiracial, but not multicultural,"?he said. "Having a better understanding of their history and church is going to help me reach across racial lines."

At a glance

For more information about Robert Kellemen and RPM Ministries, call 662-8138 or visit the Web site www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Nineteen--Cross-Cultural Ministry

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Nineteen: Cross-Cultural Ministry

Welcome to day nineteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Nineteen: Cross-Cultural Ministry[1]

Long before multi-culturalism became fashionable, we find evidence of mutual worship and fellowship among blacks and whites. Though not the norm, we glean cultural competencies from these historical occurrences in which African American believers met their need for spiritual nurture with Caucasian believers.

Pulpit Ministry: Expounding the Scriptures Relevantly

Previously we met Solomon Northup—born free in Rhode Island, then kidnapped and enslaved in Louisiana from age thirty-three to forty-five. Though recognizing the inconsistency of his master, William Ford, a slave-owning Baptist preacher, Northup still notes:

“. . . it is but simple justice to him when I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford.”

Northup details Ford’s pastoral ministry to his slaves. “We usually spent our Sabbaths at the opening, on which days our master would gather all his slaves about him, and read and expound the Scriptures. He sought to inculcate in our minds feelings of kindness towards each other, of dependence upon God—setting forth the rewards promised unto those who lead an upright and prayerful life. He spoke of the loving kindness of the Creator, and of the life that is to come.”

Pastor Ford related truth to life cross-culturally. Emphasizing the two great commandments, he taught Christians how to love one another and how to love God. Ford highlighted the character of God and the hope of heaven. Northup even recounts how Ford’s preaching led to the conviction and salvation of another slave, Sam.

Personal Ministry: Encouraging the Saints Relationally

Ford coupled his pulpit ministry with his personal ministry. Speaking of his time with Pastor Ford, Northup notes, “That little paradise in the Great Pine Woods was the oasis in the desert, towards which my heart turned lovingly, during many years of bondage.” Perhaps hard to imagine, but even in enslavement, even through ministry offered by a Baptist slave-owner, Northup experienced the ark of safety that is the “old ship of Zion.”

What was it about Ford’s life and ministry that so impacted Northup? During an extended trip by horseback and on foot to the Bayou, Ford “said many kind and cheering things to me on the way . . .” Ford knew how to speak life-giving words (Proverbs 18:21).

In exemplary fashion, Ford also used probing soul questions and spiritual conversations as he ministered to Northup. “He interacted with me in regard to the various fears and emotions I had experienced during the day and night, and if I had felt, at any time, a desire to pray. I felt forsaken of the whole world, I answered him, and was praying mentally all the while.”

Northup testifies to Ford’s relational competence. “So did that benignant man speak to me of this life and of the life hereafter; of the goodness and power of God, and of the vanity of earthly things, as we journeyed along the solitary road towards Bayou Boeuf.”

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Pastor William Ford demonstrated cross-cultural competency in his pulpit. What specific aspects of his ministry could you emulate today?

2. Pastor William Ford demonstrated cross-cultural competency in his personal ministry. What specific aspects of his ministry could you emulate today?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day Six--So Why February?

*Note: For The Journey: Day Eighteen see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and the Controversy

Day Six: So Why February?

Having summarized the earliest history of what has become Black History Month, we now explore the more recent history.

People ask, “Why February?”

Some African Americans friends even say, “Yeah, first they give us just one month. And then they give us the shortest month of the year!”

Well, it wasn’t “they.” It was our African American friend Dr. Carter Woodson who selected a week in February for the initial Negro History Week. Why?

The week in February included the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln, of course, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Frederick Douglass had been one of the great African American leaders of the previous century.

And how did the one week morph into one month? And what of the modern history? And then . . . what of the modern controversy.

Stay tuned . . .

The Journey: Day Eighteen--Everybody's Heart in Tune

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Eighteen: Everybody’s Heart in Tune

Welcome to day eighteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Eighteen: Everybody’s Heart in Tune[1]

How did newly converted African American slaves grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did they connect to one another in the Body of Christ?

A preacher we know only as the “Preacher from a God-fearing Plantation” offers us a glimpse.

“Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring. It was more than just Sunday meeting and then no more godliness for a week. They would steal off to the fields and in the thickets and there, with heads together around a kettle to deaden the sound, they called on God out of heavy hearts.”

The Old Ship of Zion

Another African American Christian described it like this.

“We used to steal off to de woods and have church, like de Spirit moved us—sing and pray to our own liking and soul satisfaction—and we sure did have good meetings, honey—baptize in de river, like God said. . . . We was quiet ‘nuf so de white folks didn’t know we was dere, and what a glorious time we did have in de Lord.”

“The church was a ‘Noah’s Ark’ that shielded one’s life from the rain. It was the ‘old ship of Zion’ fully capable of sailing the seas of life.”

Life Lessons for Today

Because we all too easily abandon meeting together, we have much to learn from the high priority that African American believers placed upon communal worship and fellowship.

“Their needs for guidance and comfort were immense. The awesome importance of this spiritual and emotional support can be seen by the fact that the time to engage in worship was taken from the already too-brief free times away from field work. Work time already ran from sun-up to sundown. Time for worship was taken from the brief period left for the personal needs of sanitation, sleep, food, and child rearing. This spiritual nurture must have been highly treasured indeed to motivate the sacrifice of such limited and precious free time.”

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. “Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring.” In what ways does your worship experience already mirror theirs?

2. What could make this statement truer in your worship experience today?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day Five--So Now We Know

*Note: For The Journey: Day Seventeen see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and the Controversy

Day Five: So Now We Know

Let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far about the true history of Black History Month.

1. Original Need: There existed in the 1920s a horrible imbalance in historical study. Most history was written by “White guys” about “Dead White Guys.”

2. Original Motivation: Dr. Carter Woodson and other African American scholars recognized this imbalance. In response, they did not want to emphasize “Black History.” They simply wanted a factual, scholarly study of Blacks in history. In fact, they insisted that what we needed was not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national, racial, and religious prejudice.

3. Scholarly Disappointment: Being a Harvard-trained historian, Dr. Woodson assumed that the truth would set us free. He believed that when White historians saw the facts of history--that all people of all ethnicities have made sterling contributions to civilization--that their biases would die. He was wrong.

4. Spreading the Word: Seeing the failure of White historians to face the facts, Woodson and others now realized that it would take a community. The average, everyday citizen would need to be educated in the historical truth of the beautifully diverse nature of the history of civilization. Thus was birthed what we now know as Black History Month.

5. Historical Clarity: Thus, for those who say, “Why should Blacks have their own month!?” we need to answer historically. "Minorities needed their own month to begin to overcome the distortion not only of the other eleven months, but of the preceding 1000s of years of recorded history." And minority leaders like Woodson never insisted on the supremacy of any one race. They simply wanted to uncover the buried historical riches of any neglected cultures. (By the way, that’s the identical motivation that led to my writing Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.)

6. Remaining Issues: We still have at least two remaining issues.

a. What Happened Between the 1920s and Now?: Good question. Glad you asked. We’ll summarize that in the coming days.

b. But Do We Still Need Black History Month?: Ah… We start with the history of Black History Month. We’ll conclude with the controversy surrounding Black History Month. Is it still needed? Is it a net positive or a net negative for Blacks? For all Americans? For American history?

Stay tuned . . .

The Journey: Day Seventeen--From Hellcat to Heaven Saint

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Seventeen: From Hellcat to Heaven Saint

Welcome to day seventeen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Seventeen: From Hellcat to Heaven Saint[1]

African American believers rediscovered their pristine identity in Christ. They understood, therefore, that it was their spiritual act of worship to be faithful to that renewed and purified new creation in Christ.

African Americans’ new identity in Christ redefined how they related to others who had sinned against them. Charlie had been enslaved by Mars’ Bill who kept his back constantly sore from whippings. He escaped, joined the “Yanks,” and became a Christian. As a freeman, he met Mar’s Bill again thirty years later.

Recognizing each other, Bill says, “Charlie, do you remember me lacerating your back?”

When Charlie replies, “Yes, Mars,” Bill asks, “Have you forgiven me?”

By now, a large crowd has gathered, for Charlie and Bill are some distance apart and talking loud. After Charlie shouts that he has indeed forgiven his old, cruel master, Bill is chagrined. “How can you forgive me, Charlie?”

I Serve a God of Love

Charlie’s answer is instructive. “What is in me, though, is not in you. I used to drive you to church and peep through the door to see you all worship, but you ain’t right yet, Marster. I love you as though you never hit me a lick, for the God I serve is a God of love . . .”

Old Mars’ Bill then moves toward Charlie, hand held out, tears streaming down his face. “I am sorry for what I did.”

Charlie grants forgiveness. “That’s all right, Marster. I done left the past behind me.”

The Power of Redeeming Love

Charlie then testifies to Christ’s redemptive power.

“I had felt the power of God and tasted his love, and this had killed all the spirit of hate in my heart years before this happened. Whenever a man has been killed dead and made alive in Christ Jesus, he no longer feels like he did when he was a servant of the devil. Sin kills dead, but the spirit of God makes alive. I didn’t know that such a change could be made, for in my younger days I used to be a hellcat.”

From hellcat to heaven saint. From a hateful spirit to Christlike love. That’s the power of our new identity in Christ.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. African American converts celebrated the new nurture and the new nature. How aware are you of your new relationship to Christ as a son or daughter of the King? How do you apply your spiritual aristocracy to your personal life and relationships?

2. How aware are you of your new identity in Christ as a saint cleansed by God? How do you apply your spiritual nobility in order to overcome sin and to forgive others?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day Four--It Takes a Community

*Note: For The Journey: Day Sixteen see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and Controversy

Day Four: It Takes a Community

Since the White majority scholarly community remained unmoved by the facts of the Black legacy, Dr. Carter Woodson began to urge Black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. Truly, it takes a community!

So Woodson prodded his fraternity brothers at Omega Psi Phi to take up the work. In 1924 they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week.

Within a year, Woodson knew that the Association had to expand its program. So they reorganized their goal: dedicated to discovering and popularizing the truth.

The Association had to reeducate Blacks as well as Whites, and its doors had to be opened to all, not just to historians and scholars.

Negro History Week 1926

When the Association announced Negro History Week for 1926, Woodson was overwhelmed by the response. Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive Whites, not simply White scholars, stepped forward to endorse the effort.

And now you know . . . the rest of the story.

But there is more . . . so much more . . .

Why did Woodson select a week in February? How did the week morph into a month? How successful has the week/month been in creating a post-racial history? These and many more questions and answers await future posts. Stay tuned!

The Journey: Day Sixteen--Leaping to My Feet

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Sixteen: Leaping to My Feet

Welcome to day sixteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Sixteen: Leaping to My Feet[1]

African American conversion accounts splendidly assimilate the “two sides” of reconciliation. First, God’s Spirit hooks in the heart—he loads the conscience with guilt, bringing the sinner to the point of saying, “It’s horrible to sin.”

But the Spirit never leaves us there. He causes sinners to leap to their feet—he lightens the conscience with grace, bringing the sinner to the place of saying, “It’s wonderful to be forgiven!”

Jarena Lee

Jarena Lee’s conversion narrative displays the potency of these twin Gospel themes. Born on February 11, 1783, in Cape May, New Jersey, Lee grew up with parents ignorant of the Gospel. At age 24, she was converted under the preaching ministry of a Presbyterian missionary and of Reverend Richard Allen.

The year is 1804, and Lee undergoes deep conviction as she hears the Presbyterian minister preach from the Psalms. “Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin, born unholy and unclean. Sprung from man, whose guilty fall corrupts the race, and taints us all.”

In response, she writes, “This description of my condition struck me to the heart, and made me feel in some measure, the weight of my sins, and sinful nature. But not knowing how to run immediately to the Lord for help, I was driven of Satan, in the course of a few days, and tempted to destroy myself.”

In fact, Lee senses Satan suggesting to her that she drown herself in a brook near her home, in which there was a deep hole where the waters whirled about among the rocks. Resisting this temptation, her mind reminds tortured. Continuing to search for peace, she finds only doubt.

Grace for Our Disgrace

Experienced soul physicians recognize her symptoms as the result of preaching guilt without grace. Guilt minus grace always equals Satan’s condemning narrative of despair.

The Apostle Paul prescribes his antidote. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). Competent ambassadors of reconciliation know that grace is God’s prescription for our disgrace.

An Expert Soul Physician

Reverend Richard Allen was such a man. Attending an afternoon service in which Allen was preaching, Lee perceives in the center of her heart the sin of malice, and she receives the forgiveness of God.

“That instant, it appeared to me as if a garment, which had entirely enveloped my whole person, even to my fingers’ end, split at the crown of my head, and was stripped away from me, passing like a shadow from my sight—when the glory of God seemed to cover me instead.”

Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, God covers Lee’s shameful nakedness with garments purchased in and cleansed by blood. Immediately, she celebrates the wonders of forgiving grace.

“That moment, though hundreds were present, I did leap to my feet and declare that God, for Christ’s sake, had pardoned the sins of my soul. Great was the ecstasy of my mind, for I felt that not only the sin of malice, but all other sins were swept away together.”

Lee and a multitude of other African Americans depicted conversion using the biblical metaphor of rebirth. The result of being born again by forgiving grace was twofold: a new nurture—having a new relationship to God as beloved sons and daughters, and a new nature—having a new identity in Christ as cleansed saints.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. African American soul physicians understood salvation to be more than a quick praying of a “canned” prayer. What do you think of their view of salvation?

2. African American soul physicians taught that grace super abounds over guilt. In our Gospel presentations today, do we tend to highlight only guilt, only grace, or a “splendid assimilation” of both?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day Three--The Truth Should Set You Free

*Note: For The Journey: Day Fifteen see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and Controversy

Day Three: The Truth Should Set You Free

A decade before he conceived of Negro History Week, African American historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) launched the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (1915).

Dr. Woodson believed that publishing scientific history about the Black race would produce facts that would prove that Africa and its people had played a crucial role in the development of civilization. As a Harvard-trained historian, Woodson believed that truth would prevail over prejudice.

Based upon his conviction, he established The Journal of Negro History in 1916. However, a decade into his work, he recognized that scholarship alone was not defeating the race problem. Unfortunately, many white historians were not promoting the truth even when they read its riches.

So what next? If the scholarly community would not be moved by truth, then how could the legacy of Black achievements ever become appreciated?

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the story...

The Journey: Day Fifteen--Hooked in the Heart

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Fifteen: Hooked in the Heart

Welcome to day fifteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Fifteen: Hooked in the Heart[1]

How did African Americans become aware of the horrors of their sin, repent, see the wonders of Christ’s forgiving grace, and believe? One unnamed ex-enslaved person interviewed between 1927-1929 by Andrew Watson, explains it brilliantly.

“Before God can use a man, that man must be hooked in the heart. By this I mean that he has to feel converted. And once God stirs up a man’s pure mind and makes him see the folly of his ways, he is wishing for God to take him and use him.”

God is the Author of conversion, or better, the Fisherman of conversion fishing for men and women. The hook God casts enlightens the eyes, enabling converts to see the foolishness of their sinfulness.

Spiritually Blind: Unaware of My Spiritual Sickness

An African American minister from Tennessee known as Reverend H. offers an unflinching vision of spiritual blindness.

“A sinner is dead, but we who are born of God are live children. No dead child can understand the works of a live one, because he hasn’t had his eyes opened. This nobody can do but God. If God doesn’t open your blinded eyes, cut loose your stammering tongue, unstop your deaf ears, and deliver your soul from death and hell, you are dead and can’t understand the things we do. You got to be dug up, rooted and grounded, and buried in him.”

Reverend H. understands that apart from God’s spiritual laser surgery, sinners fail to perceive the cancer of sin spreading in their hearts.

New Spiritual Eyes

Pastor Peter Randolph, looking back on his conversion experience, further enhances our image of spiritual sightlessness and spiritual eyes.

“The eyes of my mind were open, and I saw things as I never did before. With my mind’s eye, I could see my Redeemer hanging upon the cross for me. I wanted all the other slaves to see him thus, and feel as happy as I did. I used to talk to others, and tell them of the friend they would have in Jesus, and show them by my experience how I was brought to Christ, and felt his love within my heart—and love it was, in God’s adapting himself to my capacity.”

Soul Physicians

In an age when we face the temptation to “water down” the Gospel to make it more “palatable” to “seekers,” we could learn much from Reverend H. and Pastor Randolph. As skillful soul physicians, their diagnosis was insightful and clear. They told themselves and their patients the truth about their spiritual condition. With their diagnosis came their sight-giving prescription. They opened blind eyes to see the Redeemer.

Cataracts removed, sinners saw what a Friend they had in Jesus. They understood that until we admit that we are sinners, we force away the Friend of sinners, for he came to call sinners, not the righteous to repentance. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:31).

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. African American soul physicians taught that sinners were spiritually blind and dead. How can we help seekers to become aware of their spiritual sickness?

2. How can we help seekers to see that they are unable to cure their spiritual sickness?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day Two--The Father of Black History

*Note: For The Journey: Day Fourteen, see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and Controversy

Day Two: The Father of Black History

“We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.”

With these compelling words, Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) clarified his purpose for founding what in 1926 was known as Negro History Week.

Who was Dr. Woodson and what motivated his founding of what is now Black History Month?

Join us tomorrow for “the rest of the story.”

The Journey: Day Fourteen--Identifying with a Suffering Savior

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Fourteen: Identifying with a Suffering Savior

Welcome to day fourteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Fourteen: Identifying with a Suffering Savior[1]

It is important to ponder why African Americans turned to Christianity given the hypocritical religious culture of many of the Christian slave owners. In the midst of suffering through the ordeal of the sin of slavery, how did God save enslaved people from the slavery of sin?

Like any starving person, African Americans searched for sustenance. However, they often initially resisted Christian conversion because of the apparent contradiction between slave owners’ professed beliefs and their brutal treatment of their slaves.

Daniel Alexander Payne explains the inner battle that resulted from such hypocrisy. Born to free parents in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1811, during his ordination in 1839, he describes the testing of faith caused by Christian duplicity.

“The slaves are sensible of the oppression exercised by their masters; and they see these masters on the Lord’s day worshiping in His holy Sanctuary. They hear their masters professing Christianity; they see their masters preaching the Gospel; they hear these masters praying in their families, and they know that oppression and slavery are inconsistent with the Christian religion; therefore they scoff at religion itself—mock their masters, and distrust both the goodness and justice of God. Yes, I have known them even to question His existence.”

Religious Reconciliation

If spiritually famished African Americans were going to convert to Christianity, then they had to convert on the basis of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection as revealed in the Bible, not on the basis of Christianity revealed in the lifestyles of the Christians they knew. Ironically, to find redemption in Christ, African Americans had to redeem Christianity as they saw it practiced.

Howard Thurman put it this way. “By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst.”

Christ’s suffering for humanity’s sin was the key that unlocked their hearts and enlightened their eyes. “Jesus quickly became the ardent personification of the slaves’ own suffering.” Their suffering at the hands of Christians caused them to identify with a suffering Savior who suffered at the hands of religious leaders.

Salvation from Sin, Not from Suffering

At the same time, African American Christians clearly recognized and constantly emphasized the difference between Christ’s sinlessness and their personal need for forgiveness from sin. The recurring theme of the conversion narratives was salvation from sin, not from suffering. Yes, Christ shared with them the experience of unjust suffering. But more importantly, they shared in Christ’s suffering for their sins.

Pastor James W. C. Pennington, reflecting on his conversion, seamlessly expresses his understanding of suffering and of sin. Without minimizing for a moment the evils of slavery, he maximizes for all eternity the horrors of his own enslavement to sin and Satan.

“I was a lost sinner and a slave to Satan; and soon I saw that I must make another escape from another tyrant. I did not by any means forget my fellow-bondmen, of whom I had been sorrowing so deeply, and travailing in spirit so earnestly; but I now saw that while man had been injuring me, I had been offending God; and that unless I ceased to offend him, I could not expect to have his sympathy in my wrongs; and moreover, that I could not be instrumental in eliciting his powerful aid in behalf of those for whom I mourned so deeply.”

Rejecting the “slaveholding gospel” of the institutional Church of that era, the enslaved African Americans gave birth to a regenerated Christianity that reflected fundamental Christian doctrine. It created the new narrative of present resilience made possible by a Savior who suffered with them because they were sinned against. It also created the new narrative of future hope made possible by a Savior who suffered for them because they were sinners.

Their focus offers an indispensable caution for all soul physicians. While we are called to sustain and heal people in their suffering, if we neglect to address their sinning, if we fail to offer reconciling, then we may enable people to become more self-sufficient sinners. Such one-sided ministry attempts to empower people to live this life more successfully while giving them little incentive to turn to Christ’s resurrection power for eternal life later and abundant life now. We should shudder at the thought.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Hypocritical Christians were a common threat to African American acceptance of Christianity. Of what hypocritical behaviors, attitudes, and styles of relating do Christians in our day need to repent?

2. African American converts understood that they needed Jesus because they were sinners, not simply because they were sufferers. As we present the Gospel today, do we present Jesus primarily as the healer of our hurts, or as the Savior of our sins?

3. Specifically, what can we learn from our African American forebears about biblically presenting Christ’s Gospel?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

Black History Month: Day One--We Report, You Decide

*Note: For The Journey, Day 13, see my earlier post today.

Black History Month: The History and Controversy

Day One: We Report, You Decide

As I speak around the country on Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care, as I speak on Heroes of Black Church History, and as I speak on A Christ-Centered TEAM Approach to Intercultural Ministry, I hear this question a lot.

“What do you think about Black History Month?”

The question comes from my African American friends, many of whom are split both ways: some thinking Black History Month is a net positive for African Americans and some thinking it is a net negative.

That question also comes from my non-African American friends, who are equally split, and for various reasons.

So . . . I’ll be blogging some on Black History Month: The History and Controversy.

But . . . for today . . .

What do you think? And why?

The Journey: Day Thirteen--It's Wonderful to Be Forgiven

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Thirteen: It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven

Welcome to day thirteen of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Thirteen: It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven[1]

*Continued from Day Twelve . . .

Positioned in front of the firing squad, Chaplain White asks Private Mapps one last time, “Do you feel that Jesus will be with you?”

“Yes,” he replies.

“Do you put all your trust in him?”

“I do,” is his answer.

“Do you believe that you will be saved?”

“I do; for though they may destroy my body, they cannot hurt my soul.”

White then prays this benediction. “Eternal God, the Master of all the living and Judge of all the dead, we commit this our dying comrade into thy hands from whence he came. Now, O my Lord and my God, for thy Son’s sake, receive his soul unto thyself in glory. Forgive, him—forgive, O thou Blessed Jesus, for thou didst die for all mankind, and bid them to come unto thee, and partake of everlasting life. Save him, Lord—save him, for none can save but thee, and thee alone. Amen. Good-by, my brother, good-by.”

The order is now given: “Ready! Aim! Fire!” All earthly life extinguished. Eternal life commences.

White brilliantly, lovingly, and scripturally enlightened Mapps to see that it’s horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven. Skillfully he wove together ancient Scripture and pressing need.

Turning of Heart

Private Mapps’ response to Chaplain White’s death-bed ministry offers one example of how God reconciled an African American to Himself. Through interviews, slave narratives, autobiographies, and letters, we are fortunate to have a multitude of first-hand accounts of personal conversion experiences.

These vivid descriptions help us to understand the literal turning of heart (metanoia—repentance, change of mind), transformation of identity, and reorientation of personhood that occurred at the salvation of African Americans. We have much to learn from them about how to witness to any oppressed, marginalized people, how to explain the need for a Savior, how to encourage repentance, how to offer the grace of forgiveness, and how to explain the changes that occur in one’s nurture and nature at salvation.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Like Chaplain White, how can you weave together ancient Scripture and pressing modern needs?

2. What change of mind and heart took place in your life at your point of salvation?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Twelve--Sitting on the Casket

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Twelve: Sitting on the Casket

Welcome to day twelve of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Twelve: Sitting on the Casket[1]

On a quiet battlefield night at 10:00 p.m., the Orderly from Brigadier General Charles S. Russell came to Garland H. White’s tent, woke him up, and handed him an order. The bleary-eyed African American chaplain squinted as he read the handwritten missive.

“Rev. Garland H. White, Chaplain of the 28th U.S. Colored Troops: Sir:—You are requested to call upon Samuel Mapps, private in Co. D, 10th U.S.C.T, now under sentence of death, and now confined in the Bull-pen, to prepare him to meet his Savior. By official orders, Gen. C. S. Russell.”

Reverend White was an escaped slave now serving as chaplain of a black regiment from Indiana. He was one of only fourteen African American chaplains commissioned in the Union Army. Later he became a Methodist minister—his battlefield ministry providing hands-on training better than any seminary ever could.

Like white soldiers, some of the black troops ran afoul of military law. Private Mapps was convicted of trying to murder his captain. It was Chaplain White’s responsibility to tell Mapps of his fate and to prepare him for death—and life after death.

Knowing this, White immediately puts pen to paper. “Gen. C. S. Russell, Commanding this Post: Sir:—I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your order respecting my visiting Private Samuel Mapps, Co. D., 10th U.S.C.T. In reply, I would say I will comply promptly, and do all in my power to point him to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. Yours, G. H. White, Chaplain.”

Loading the Conscience with Guilt: It’s Horrible to Sin

Meeting Mapps at the prison, White inquires, “Well, my friend, how stands your case?” Mapps begins to plead his innocence and enters into a lengthy discussion of his trial. White promptly shifts the focus. “I came to see you, not to discuss a point of law as to the nature of your trial and decision, for that is all useless, my friend, and I must tell you that today, at 12 o’clock you will be executed—yes, you will be shot. Now, let you and myself kneel down and address a throne of grace where you may obtain mercy and help in time of need.”

No beating around the bush. No chit-chat. All business. All salvation business.

Mapps complies and prays fervently, after which White reads several passages of Scripture, and sings a hymn Jesus, Lover of My Soul. Some historians falsely conclude that African Americans generally converted to a generic God. Nothing could be further from the truth in Mapps’ case and in the vast majority of conversion narratives. Mapps and millions of others specifically converted to Christ based upon a biblical understanding of who he is—Savior, and who they were—sinners.

White was not naïve. Realizing that Scripture reading, prayer, and singing were only preparatory to personal response, he then “spent some time in reasoning upon what he thought about religion.” To which Mapps candidly replies, “It is very good, and I wish I had it.” White next cites in plain terms the case of the dying thief who surrendered his life to Christ while hanging next to him on a cross. This gives Mapps hope. They then pray again and Mapps seems relieved.

Sitting on the Casket

At this moment the wagon with a squad of guards appears before the door. Mapps does not see them; White does. While Mapps continues to pray fervently, an officer enters announcing that the time has come “to repair to the place of execution.”

White writes that “I told him to stand up and walk with me. I took his arm, and went out to the gate where thousands of persons had assembled to see him. He entered the wagon, and sat on his coffin. I then got in with him, took a seat by his side, and commenced talking and praying all the way . . .”

What a picture! We talk about climbing in the casket to enter another’s agony. Chaplain White sits on the casket to share Mapps’ dying experience.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. What can you apply to your ministry from Chaplain White’s reconciling ministry to Private Mapps?

2. Like Chaplain White, how can we be “all salvation business”?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Eleven--Biblical Sufferology

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Eleven: Biblical Sufferology

*Note: If you are enjoying the journey, then invite others, and purchase copies of Beyond the Suffering. Take your church small group or your youth or adult Sunday School class on the full version of The Journey with the built-in discussion guide in Beyond the Suffering. Order now at: www.rpmministries.org for 40% off at just $10.00.

Welcome to day eleven of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Eleven: Biblical Sufferology (Practical Theology of Suffering)[1]

On a daily basis, enslaved African American suffered vicious victimization. Yet they fought their way to personal and interpersonal victory. How? They found victory in Jesus over daily abuse through their daily, even moment-by-moment practice of Christianity.

Charlotte Brooks explains it this way to Octavia Albert.

“I tell you, child, religion is good anywhere—at the plow-handle, at the hoe-handle, anywhere. If you are filled with the love of my Jesus you are happy.”

For Brooks, her religion was no “pie-in-the-sky, sweet-by-and-by” pabulum. Listen to the next sentence out of her mouth.

“Why, the best times I ever had was when I first got religion, and when old master would put me in that old jail-house on his plantation all day Sunday.” Jailed physically on the Sabbath, spiritually every day was a free Sabbath, a day of jubilee for Brooks.

Trials Make Us God-Dependent

What mindset enabled such inner freedom? Brooks and others understood that trials make us God-dependent. Speaking to her interviewer Albert, and to us, she says,

“You see, my child, God will take care of his people. He will hear us when we cry. True, we can’t get any thing to eat sometimes, but trials make us pray more.”
In fact, the lack of trials can lead to a slackening of faith. “I sometimes think my people don’t pray like they used to in slavery. You know when any child of God gets trouble that’s the time to try their faith. Since freedom it seems my people don’t trust the Lord as they used to. ‘Sin is growing bold, and religion is growing cold.’”

Trials Make Us Other-Sensitive

While Brooks provides an African American slave sufferology explaining the source of personal victory, James Smith offers an African American slave sufferology explaining the source of interpersonal victory. He understands that lack of toil leaves us insensitive, while trials make us other-sensitive.

“The life that is buoyant with hope, living perpetually in God’s sunshine, realizing every thing that is sweet in existence, has little in it that touches the chord of sympathy . . . Yet there are those in toils and trials that reap an experience that, when made known, unfold a lesson of admonition and comfort to others. . . . Yet, flowing out of this, we see the Guiding Hand preparing us for better things, moulding us for a better life.”

God’s guiding hand leads us down the trail of trials where we not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we become a light unto the world. As Smith summarizes:

“No mystery was ever deeper than that which shrouds the path by which men were led into bondage, and no system was ever more cruel and intolerant than that which inflicted stripes and burdens upon men, without cause, and deprived them of liberty and the right to life. Yet when we look back upon God’s dealings with his early people, and see how they wrought in bondage and suffered in their wanderings form it, it reveals His power of bringing good out of evil, light out of darkness, and becomes a school of wisdom to the world.”

We follow the North Star guidance of the enslaved African Americans’ response to their daily affliction by adhering to their slave sufferology. We walk their trail of trials trusting Jesus day by day, clinging to the truth that trials make us God-dependent and other-sensitive.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Nothing happens to us that must define us. What loss or trauma could you redefine to reclaim your God-given victory and authority over evil?

2. As you walk the trail of trials in your life and as you journey with others, how can you apply two core themes in African American sufferology: Trials make us God-dependent? Trials make us other-sensitive?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Ten--Longing for Someone to Confide In

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Ten: Longing for Someone to Confide In

Welcome to day ten of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Ten: Longing for Someone to Confide In[1]

The most horrific aspect of slave family life was the rape of black women by their masters and others. Harriet Jacobs, the victim of constant lewd advances from her master, expresses her despondency because of the birth of a daughter.

“When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women” who inevitably must endure licentious assaults on their virtue.

Jacobs describes the onset of such onslaught in her own life.

“But I now entered on my fifteenth year—a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import.” She felt that “every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows.”

Her master, Dr. Flint, tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles that her grandmother had instilled in her. He peopled her young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could imagine. She turned from him with disgust and hatred, but he was her master. She was compelled to live under the same roof with him—where she saw a man forty years her senior daily violating the most sacred commandment. He told her that she was his property and that she must be subject to his will in all things.

“My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection.”

Jacobs longed for someone to confide in and “would have given the world to have laid my head on my grandmother’s faithful bosom, and told her all my troubles.” However, Dr. Flint swore that he would kill her if she was not as silent as the grave. Being very young, Jacobs felt “shamefaced about telling her (grandmother) such impure things, especially as I knew her to be very strict on such subjects.”

A Skillful Spiritual Friend

What was she to do? And what are we to do when life kills the dreams we dream; what recourse do we have? We, like Jacobs, can turn to those who love us unconditionally.

“Still I was not stripped of all. I still had my good grandmother, and my affectionate brother.” Of him, she writes, “When he put his arms round my neck, and looked into my eyes, as if to read there the troubles I dared not tell, I felt that I still had something to love.”

Her affectionate brother was a skillful spiritual friend. Consider his relational competencies: the appropriate use of physical touch, the meaningful application of eye contact, accurately reading body language, sensing unspoken pain, and communicating unconditional love. And consider the result of his ministry: the rebirth of love.

A Skillful Spiritual Director

Her saintly grandmother was a skillful spiritual director. Upon finally learning of Dr. Flint’s advances, Jacobs’ grandmother confronts him, telling him plainly what she thought of his character. She then forcefully rebukes him:

“I tell you what, Dr. Flint, you ain’t got many more years to live, and you’d better be saying your prayers. It will take ’em all, and more too, to wash the dirt off your soul.”

When he responds by asking if she knows to whom she is speaking, she boldly replies, “Yes, I know very well who I am talking to.” Flint then backs down, leaving the house in a great rage.

The moment Flint leaves, Jacobs’ eyes meet those of her grandmother. The anger is gone, replaced with tenderness. Jacobs expresses amazement that her infidelity did not lessen her grandmother’s love for her. “She was always kind, always ready to sympathize with my troubles.”

Whereas Jacobs’ brother illustrates expert sustaining, her grandmother exhibits adroit reconciling. She literally takes her life in her hands to stand toe to toe with a white master. Even when she rebukes him, she retains concern for him—for his eternal destiny. She also demonstrates the vital ability to quickly shift from righteous anger to tender compassion, not to mention her expressions of unconditional love.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. What spiritual friendship principles can you learn from Harriet Jacobs’ brother?

2. What spiritual direction principles can you learn from Harriet Jacobs’ grandmother?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at http://www.rpmministries.org/.

The Journey: Day Nine--Leaving a Lasting Legacy

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Nine: Leaving a Lasting Legacy

*Note: If you are enjoying the journey, then invite others, and purchase copies of Beyond the Suffering. Take your church small group or your youth or adult Sunday School class on the full version of the journey with the built-in discussion guide in Beyond the Suffering. Order at: www.rpmministries.org for 40% off.

Welcome to day nine of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Nine: Leaving a Lasting Legacy[1]

History has depicted the African American male and the African American father as beaten down by enslavement and racism, and therefore incapable of functioning as a positive role-model in society and the home. The slave narratives and interviews tell a very different story.

One ex-enslaved person recalls his enslaved father’s character.

“I loved my father. He was such a good man. He was a good carpenter and could do anything. My mother just rejoiced in him. . . . I sometimes think I learned more in my early childhood about how to live than I have learned since.”

All he ever needed to learn, he learned in his enslaved home.

Will Adam’s father, a foreman on a Texas plantation, always came home exhausted after a long day’s work. However, he never failed to take his son out of bed and play with him for hours.

Martin Jackson, enslaved in Texas, and interviewed there at age ninety in the 1930s, remembers his father always counseling him. Over half-a-century later, Jackson notes that his father’s reconciling advice and guiding prescriptions still ring in his ear. Among samples he includes:

“No use running from bad to worse, hunting better.” “Every man has to serve God under his own vine and fig tree.” “A clear conscience opens bowels, and when you have a guilty soul it ties you up and death will not for long desert you.”

Clearly, these sons honored and respected their godly, wise enslaved fathers.

Mother Wit

Mothers, too, left a lasting, positive impression on their children. Josiah Henson writes of the mother from whom he was separated by sale only to be reunited by repurchase after he had fallen ill.

“She was a good mother to us, a woman of deep piety, anxious above all things to touch our hearts with a sense of religion. . . . Now I was once more with my best friend on earth, and under her care.”

Premarital Counsel

Lucy Dunn was ninety years old when Mary Hicks interviewed her in Raleigh, North Carolina. She shares the standards and premarital counsel that her mother provided when Lucy fell in love with Jim Dunn.

Because purity was so central to her family, Lucy’s mother would not allow Jim to walk Lucy to the gate unless she was sitting there on the porch watching. After a year, without ever having kissed, Jim finally proposed—asking her mother for Lucy’s hand in marriage. Mother told him that she would have to talk to Lucy and let him know.

“Well all that week she talks to me, telling me how serious getting married is and that it last a powerful long time. I told her that I know it but that I am ready to try it and that I intend to make a go of it, anyhow.”

The next Sunday night, her mother informed Jim that he had her permission to marry her daughter. He was so excited that he picked Lucy right up out of her chair there in the moonlight on the porch and kissed her right before her mother who was crying with joy. The next Sunday they were married in the Baptist church at Neuse. Lucy had a new white dress, though times were hard.

Lucy offers a beautiful testimony concerning their marital relationship.

“We lived together fifty-five years and we always loved each other. . . . And though we had our fusses and our troubles we trusted in the Lord and we got through. I loved him during life and I love him now, though he’s been dead for twelve years.”

Her mother’s protection of Lucy’s purity, her pre-marital counsel, and her interaction with Lucy’s future son-in-law all strikingly display how enslaved African American families were victors, not victims. Lucy and Jim’s marriage, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in good times and bad, provides a shining example of marital fidelity.

Learning Together From Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. What family life lessons can we learn from the African American mothers and fathers we have described?

2. What relationship commitment lessons can we learn Lucy’s mother, Lucy, and Jim?

[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Eight--Pulling the Rope in Unison

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Eight: Pulling the Rope in Unison

Welcome to day eight of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Eight: Pulling the Rope in Unison[1]

It has become something of a cliché to imagine that black families today find it difficult to experience stability because of a long history of instability caused by slavery and racism. While not at all minimizing the obstacles that enslaved African American families have faced, history paints a truer and more optimistic picture of their response. Though everything fought against them, enslaved African Americans battled gallantly to maintain family cohesion—a cohesion that provided a sturdy platform from which to handle life courageously.

Jennie Hill was born and enslaved in 1837 in Missouri. Florence Patton interviewed the ninety-six-year-old Hill in 1933. During her interview, Hill adamantly resisted the notion that enslaved families lacked closeness.

“Some people think that the slaves had no feeling—that they bore their children as animals bear their young and that there was no heartbreak when the children were torn from their parents or the mother taken from her brood to toil for a master in another state. But that isn’t so. The slaves loved their families even as the Negroes love their own today. . .”

Hardships Do Not Make It Too Hard to Love

Communicating the message of African American family love was so important to Reverend Jones that he bore witness to it on the very first page of his narrative. “I can testify, from my own painful experience, to the deep and fond affection which the slave cherishes in his heart for his home and its dear ones. We have no other tie to link us to the human family, but our fervent love for those who are with us and of us in relations of sympathy and devotedness, in wrongs and wretchedness.”

Satan longs to blind African Americans to their legacy of family love. He wants all of us to believe that hardships make it too hard to love. Hill’s family, Jones’ family, and millions like them, belie that lie.

Truth for Life

Enslaved African American couples sustained strong marital relationships. Venture Smith was born in Dukandarra, in Guinea, about 1729. Kidnapped at age eight, Robertson Mumford purchased him a year later. After living with Mumford for thirteen years, Venture married Meg at age twenty-two. They remained together for over forty-seven years, through many trials and tribulations, until parted by death.

Venture’s narrative contains an explanation for their marital faithfulness. On the occasion of their marriage, Venture threw a rope over his cabin and asked his wife to go to the opposite side and pull on the rope hanging there while he remained and pulled on his end. After they both had tugged at it awhile in vain, he called her to his side of the cabin and by their united effort they drew the rope to themselves with ease. He then explained the object lesson to his young bride.

“If we pull in life against each other we shall fail, but if we pull together we shall succeed.”

Premarital couples, newlyweds, and seasoned married spouses would all do well to heed Venture’s guiding wisdom.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. Whether married or single, how can you apply African American family cohesion to your family and personal relationships?

2. What hardships are you facing that seem to make it too hard to love? How can the witness of the African American slaves empower you to defeat that lie?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.

The Journey: Day Seven--Groaning to the Father of the Fatherless

The Journey: Forty Days of Promise
Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity

Day Seven: Groaning to the Father of the Fatherless

Welcome to day seven of our forty-day intercultural journey. From Martin Luther King Day to the end of Black History Month we are focusing on The Journey: Forty Days of Promise—Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity.

Day Seven: Groaning to the Father of the Fatherless: Perpetual Lament[1]

In the gripping slave narratives, we find believers sharing their hurting hearts with their caring Savior. In their practice of the biblical art of lament, African American Christians clung to biblical imagery.

For example, Pastor Peter Randolph describes a mother named Jenny who grieves the loss of her children.

“So she (Jenny) commends them to the care of the God of the widow and the fatherless, by bathing her bosom in tears, and giving them the last affectionate embrace, with the advice to meet in heaven. Oh, the tears of the poor slave that are in bottles, to be poured out upon his blood-stained nation, as soon as the cup of wrath of the almighty Avenger is full, when he shall say, ‘I have heard the groanings of my people, and I will deliver them from the oppressor!’”

Painting Pictures of God onto the Palettes of Life Portraits

Enslaved African Americans survived by painting pictures of God onto the palettes of their life portraits. They viewed Him as the Father of the fatherless, as the God who collects their tears in his bottle of remembrance, and as God the just Judge avenging their suffering, hearing their cries, and delivering their souls.

While Solomon Northup lies in a slave pen with fifty fellow slaves, he prays a prayer of personal lament.

“My cup of sorrow was full to overflowing. Then I lifted my hands to God, and in the still watches of the night, surrounded by the sleeping forms of my companions, begged for mercy on the poor, forsaken captive. To the Almighty Father of us all—the freeman and the slave—I poured forth the supplications of a broken spirit, imploring strength from on high to bear up against the burden of my troubles, until the morning light aroused the slumberers, ushering in another day of bondage.”

His mouth vocalizing his pain and his eyes watching God, Northup draws a line in the sand of retreat. When everything inside screams, “Surrender hope!” he cries out to God lamenting the evils he is suffering while pleading for strength to endure. He teaches us that the will to survive is soaked in continual lament.

Fixing Your Eyes on the Hope of the Future: Heavenly Reunion

Randolph explains that given such earthly sorrow, enslaved African Americans ministered to one another by emphasizing heavenly reunion. “In parting with their friends at the auction-block, the poor blacks have the anticipation of meeting them again in the heavenly Canaan, and sing:

‘O, fare you well, O, fare you well! God bless you until we meet again; Hope to meet you in heaven, to part no more. Sisters, fare you well; sisters, fare you well; God Almighty bless you, until we meet again.’”

Enslaved Virginian, William Grimes, summarizes it best. “If it were not for our hopes, our hearts would break.” Knowing that they would never see one another again in this world, they set their sights on another world.

Learning Together from Our Great Cloud of Witnesses

1. The will to survive is soaked in continual lament. What does that mean to you? How could you practice its meaning in your life?

2. How could you apply the truth of biblical lament in your ministry to others who are grieving?

3. In what situations do you say, ‘If it were not for my hopes, my heart would break? How does God sustain you through future hope?

4. What image of God do you cling to when life attempts to batter and break you?


[1]Excerpted, modified from, and quoted from Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Purchase your copy at 40% off for only $10.00 at www.rpmministries.org.