Drumming, lofty singing, dancing, reading, and preaching, among other things, the 134-year-old Fenimore Street United Methodist Church (FSUMC) in Brooklyn on Sunday celebrated Black History Month in grand style during its annual Heritage Sunday Worship Service.
African American drummers Eric Frazer and Baba Wesley Gray drummed to pulsating African beats, while Grenadian Natalie Wilson narrated the “African American and Labor” struggles; the Combined Choir heightened the tempo with “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Gonna Ride the Chariot”; and the Young Adult Praise Team moved the congregation passionately with “You’re My Strength,” “You’re All That Matters,” “I Am a Child of God” and “All the Way to Calvary.”
Trinidadian Patricia Senhouse rendered “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” and led the prayer response with “Fix Me Jesus”; the Sunday School children offered a fitting Black History Month Moment; and the liturgical dancers brought the two-hour-long celebration to a crescendo with their synchronous moves.
In his sermon, “Kept by Faith,” based on 2 Timothy 1:1-5, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Roger Jackson, noted that “a person’s heritage is the sum of their family history, traditions, and cultural identity.
“It includes the values, beliefs, and experiences that are passed down through generations,” he said. “Heritage can also refer to the physical objects that are passed down through generations.”
But Pastor Jackson said the most important experiences are “those religious values that have been passed to us.”
He also said that “the belief in the one and true God, who has kept those before us and, by faith, is keeping us now, should be passed to succeeding generations.”
Pastor Jackson said a portion of the scripture in Timothy illustrates the significant role that religion played in both Timothy and Paul’s faith journey.
“Theirs were a faith journey similar to that of each and every one of us who have taken up the mantel of living as a disciple of Jesus Christ,” he preached. “This is why it is our duty to tell those who are coming behind us just how we made it over – how, time and time again, God made a way out of no way.
“Like Paul, we’ve made a few mistakes in life; we’ve been through many trials and tribulations; and, like Timothy, we understand the importance of correct teaching; thus, being able to display to others that, by holding fast to the promises of God, it will help them, like it helped us, in their faith journey,” Rev. Jackson added.
“That, while we have come from various countries, our shared heritage is that we are yet alive and are in our right minds, with a reasonable portion of health and strength, because God’s presence proves that greater is He who is in us than he who is in this world,” he continued. “Every aspect of our heritage, irrespective from whence we’ve come, emanates by way of either the permissive or active will of God because we, as a people, were created to praise and glorify the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
“For, when we look back over our lives and the lives of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and we think things over, we can truly say that our collective heritage in faith testifies that we as a people have been kept by God,” he said. “For we, as a people, are able to declare, along with the Apostle Paul, that we’ve been hard-pressed on every side but not crushed. We get perplexed from time to time, but our faith keeps us from living in despair.”
Then, in clearly alluding to the extant political status quo in America, Pastor Jackson declared: “We are yet again being persecuted for being born with more melanin than others, but we know that our God has not and will not abandon us.
“They’ve tried before to strike us down and were unable to destroy us as a people of faith,” he said. “It was God who kept us through slavery; it was God who kept us through reconstruction; it was God who kept us through the civil rights struggles;
And, because the word of God declares and decrees that a people who know their God will do great and wonderful things, God will keep us during these trying and evil times that began on Jan. 20.
“We are kept by faith while we are adding to our heritage of faith so that the next generation of believers will have additional faith-filled pillars to hold them up in their journey in faith,” Pastor Jackson added. “For a faith that is on display serves as a testimony of God’s love, His purpose, and His grace for all of humanity to see.
“For, if you, like me, were taught about God; if you, like me, accepted that teaching for yourself, then the only thing left to do is to share with others the ways in which we’ve been kept by faith,” he continued, preaching that: “We’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy word, He’s never failed me yet.
“So, we’ve got no reason to turn back or turn away from our God, who has been faithful from generation to generation,” Rev. Jackson said. “That’s why you can’t make me doubt Him, because I know too much about Him.”
