On Saturday, February 20, 2010 at the Metropolitan AME Church the Ladies Guild will review Up at the College by Michelle Andrea Bowen.
Yvonne Fountain Copeland, the heroine of this novel, finds strength in the Lord when her husband leaves her. Back in hometown Durham, N.C., she lands a teaching job and meets Curtis Parker, who is everything she could want in a man—except he isn’t saved. Curtis has his own problems, many of which are linked to his job as a college basketball coach, but with Yvonne by his side, they learn nothing’s insurmountable if they have Jesus on their side.
Metropolitan AME is located at 1518 M Street, NW in Washington, DC.
Rev. Lewis M. Anthony, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan Wesley AME Zion Church
Guest Speaker, Metropolitan AME Church, Washington, DC
Sunday, January 24, 2010 www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture: Psalm 84:5-7 5 – Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. 6As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of spring; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. 7They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
Psalm 84 is a testimony of a man who is excited about his pilgrimage to the sanctuary of God. He is so excited about his journey, about being in the space where God resides. Some people come to the house of God to be seen, but I am glad just to get my foot in the door. Verse 10: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness”.
The Psalmist goes on to explain that: “A walk with God is not a walk without difficulty, anxiety, or pain. But blessed is he whose strength is in the Lord while he is passing through the valley of Baca.” Every one of us will be in the valley of Baca if we live long enough. Can you imagine being in a place where you have tears…but no Kleenex; pain…but no medicine; frustration…but no relief. But if your strength is in God, you will walk through the valley of Baca and turn that valley experience into a thing of praise!
We talk of worship, but then we don’t do it. Worship is both a noun and a verb: it is what I am; and it is what I do. There are two times when you must worship: 1. When you feel like it; and 2. When you don’t. In Haiti, after the earthquake those who could get up and go to church did.
Even when they are in the valley of Baca, some folks don’t worship; they look at worship as something to do on the 1st and 3rd Sunday. You are either in a storm, coming out of one, or on your way into one. Who is in the storm with you? God has not promised that the skies will always be blue; that there will be sunshine without rain; joy without sorrow; peace without pain. Surely, there will be toil and temptation. He has promised strength, rest, life, grace, help, and undying love. When you go through the dry place, there is hope for weeping eyes: there is a well in Baca. God will make a way in a dry place. Moses can tell you about a well in Baca. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego can tell you that God made a well in Baca. Esther was a little girl who rose from poverty to the palace because God made a well in Baca. A preacher grew up impoverished; people nailed him to some wood; but God made a way in Baca. In Baca, there is hope for weeping eyes. Hope is when you trust that God will meet you in your dry place; when you know that He will turn your dry place into a place of spring.
William Cowper’s dry place was the inspiration for the famous hymn: “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”. Cowper grew up in church, but he struggled with depression and doubt. During a time when he experienced a dry place in his life, he became so desperate that he decided he did not want to live any longer. He was in London and he grabbed a taxi (actually it was a buggy cab back in those times) and told the driver to take him to the Thames River so he could drown himself. A thick fog came down and, after driving around lost for a while, the cabbie gave up and told Cowper to get out and find it himself. Cowper got out and wandered through the fog, finding himself at a familiar doorway: he realized it was the doorway to his own house. Believing that God had sent the fog to keep him from killing himself, he was inspired to write: “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.”
Confused Christians need to know that there is a well in Baca that gives refreshment in dry places. The well is not filled with fame, not with title or position, nor with money. Rather, it’s a “fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” (William Cowper)
There is no need to go to the analyst when you are in a dry place. Instead, do what your ancestors did: they built this church on sweet potato pies, and washing white folks’ laundry while singing: “Father, I stretch my hands out to thee, whence cometh my help.”
Will you experience a dry place? Yes. Will you experience distress? Yes. But if the world cuts your budget, God will budget the cuts. He promised: “Come what may, I’ve got a well in a dry place for you.”
There is hope for weeping eyes, the kind of hope that is not found in the pharmacy. You won’t find this hope in the comforts of money, title or position, but in that place our ancestors sang about near the cross.
This is the word of God for someone in this room who is in a dry place. No matter what you have done, nothing has worked. He put you in a dry place so you could find out that He can make a way out of no way. This is God’s word for his people in a dry place.
From WJLA: Inside the Metropolitan AME Church in NW Washington, heartache sat right beside hope. Prayers of restoration echoed through the historic place of worship for the people of Haiti.
On Friday, January 15, 2010, Mrs. Wilma George Shepherd celebrated her 100th birthday. Her family hosted a birthday party on Saturday, January 16, 2010 at the Xi Omega Alpha Kappa Alpha House. Mrs. Shepherd was born in Macon, Georgia and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was one of the first African American graduates of University of Pittburgh.
She worked as an educator for the public school system for over 30 years. She was also a teacher of the Senior Class in the Church School for over 30 years. She also served as a Deaconess and a Class Leader.
Rev. Ronald E. Braxton, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan AME Church
Sunday, January 17, 2010 www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture: Psalm 18: 1-6
1I love you, O Lord, my strength.2The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. 4The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. 5The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. 6In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
We are surrounded by so many events right now – the earthquake in Haiti, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Social Justice Month – and our church is an active participant in these efforts. I would like to acknowledge the important work of the ministries of our church – ministries such as the Mighty Men of Metropolitan, who are actively involved in recovering the lives of men and women who are in prison or coming out of prison through the Daniel Alexander Payne Reclamation Program (“DAPRP”, pronounced “DARP”). The Mighty Men are also ministering to young men who are incarcerated at the Oak Hill Youth Center, and they are ministering to ex-offender fathers to help them to become good viable parents and role models to their children through their Fatherhood Initiative Program. The Mighty Men are God’s way of showing up in the rubble places of other men’s lives.
The scripture in Psalm 18 shows us how, no matter how devastating a situation might be, God shows in the “rubble places” of our lives – the places that are broken, from physical and emotional devastation, quakes, confusion. The scripture shows us how God always shows up in these rubble places of our lives, and how He always shows up on time.
1. God Will Show Up in the Rubble Places.
God Showed Up in David’s Rubble Places. Psalm 18 is a Psalm of David’s cry out to the Lord to deliver him from his enemies; to deliver him from the hands of King Saul who was determined to destroy David. King Saul was determined to end David’s life after making several attempts. Psalm 18 shows how the Lord delivered David from Saul’s attacks on his life. God showed up in David’s “rubble places”. The message from the scripture is that you can always depend on God to show up in your rubble places.
God Showed Up in the Rubble Places of the Segregated South. Rev. Martin Luther King wrote of the dilemma he faced after he had completed his residency requirements for a PhD, and needed to find a job while he wrote his doctoral thesis. He was torn in several directions: should he accept a teaching position, a deanship, or a position in administration? Should he pursue the pastorate, or should he pursue a career in education? If he pursued the pastorate, should he accept an assignment at a church in the north, or in the segregated south? He confessed that “I resented segregation”. However, he also felt that some of those who had been educated in the north should “return to the south to assist in changing the landscape. So I went back to Montgomery.” Dr. King soon discovered that God was in the rubble of the segregated south.
God is Showing Up in the Rubble Places of the Men, Women and Youth Who have been Incarcerated. I mentioned the work of the Mighty Men of Metropolitan’s DAPRP program, and their laudable efforts to help men and women coming out of prison to reclaim their lives. This morning, some of the Mighty Men are not here because they are helping to organize the worship services at the Oak Hill Youth Center. They have partnered with the District of Columbia and the Federal Government through the CSOSA program to help men and their families to reclaim their lives upon release from prison. Through their efforts, we have brought 34 affiliate churches into this program for the combined purpose of: 1) strengthening the family unit, and 2) recovering the lives of men coming out of prison. In order to prevent recidivism, the Mighty Men’s DAPRP program provides job training, mentoring, counseling, and other services. This is an example of how God has shown up in these rubble places.
God is Showing Up in the Rubble Places in the Earthquake in Haiti. Across the globe, money, health supplies, water, and food are being shipped to Haiti. Billions will be spent to help to rebuild the poorest nation. We see men and women feverishly digging through the rubble to rescue lives during a critical 72 hour window; uncovering both the dead and the living. We see rescuers coming out of the rubble PRAISING GOD for the miracle of lives that were spared in the rubble. Through the rubble in Haiti, the world will uncover and discover God because God shows up in the rubble places.
Unlike the preacher who attributed the devastation in Haiti to God, I will never believe that God was just waiting to “dump” on His creation. We are all subject to hurricanes, and wickednesses of our own doing – lack of healthcare, social and economic injustice – are as devastating as any natural disaster. If all we have to depend on is us, if all we have to depend on are our own natural resources, we are in trouble.
If you have ever been there in the rubble places, no matter how bad it gets in your life, you must never forget the lesson from our ancestors: GOD IS A ROCK. This is a message for the people of Haiti: death and destruction might to be all around you, but God is there in those rubble places.
2. God Always Shows up, and He is Always on Time.
Some time ago, I visited Martin Luther King’s house in Montgomery, Alabama. Though it was probably a fine house in its day, it is actually a modest, one story house. There is a little kitchen; there is plastic on the furniture like our grandmothers used to have. Dr. King said he spent all night in that little kitchen, calling to the Lord for direction and help. In the scripture, David says: “In my distress I called out to the Lord”. The familiar hymn goes: “I prayed…I cried all night long…until I head the Lord”.
In Haiti, the 72 hour window is closing now; the workers have moved from rescue to recovery. The people are living among the dead bodies, with no places to relieve themselves. Some might ask: why is God so slow to answer?
Many of the men and women coming out of prison are coming back home with no jobs. Some might ask: Why is God so slow to answer?
In our own personal rubble situations – diabetes, cancer, HIV AIDS – we might ask: Why is God so slow to answer?
Brothers and Sisters, when we cry out from our rubble places, God moves in mysterious ways, and He is always right on time. How else could China, Cuba and America come together to answer Haiti’s cry of distress? How else could an African American president call upon his Democratic AND Republican predecessors to come together to rescue a broken nation wracked by earthquakes?
When we cry out to God, God hears our cry; He moves through the rubble, in His own way, in His own time. God rebuilds from rubble places. It may seem that God isn’t moving fast enough, but God is using the time in the rubble places to rebuild humanity. God is in all of these things.
Contact: Rev. Ronald E. Braxton or Anthony Hawkins
Phone : 202-331-1426
Metropolitan A.M.E. Church will host “Haiti in Our Hearts: A Community Fundraiser for Haiti,” on Wednesday, January 20 at its historic sanctuary located at 1518 M St. NW. The event, free and open to the public, will begin with a reception at 6 p.m. followed by a program at 7 p.m. featuring music, prayer and testimony from local Haitian-Americans affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
The event will also include a display and silent auction of Haitian art, courtesy of Fritz Racine and International Visions Gallery. Metropolitan, known as “The Cathedral of African Methodism,” is shrouded in the unique history of the A.M.E. denomination, founded by Richard Allen in 1787. It has not only been a major center of worship, but also an institution at the forefront of the civic, cultural and intellectual life of African Americans and black persons around the world.
Proceeds will directly benefit the people of Haiti through the A.M.E. Department of Global Witness and Ministries (in Partnership with Church World Service) and African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency (AME-SADA). In partnership with Church World Service, the A.M.E. Department of Global Witness and Ministries works to eradicate hunger and poverty and to promote peace and justice around the world. AME-SADA established a network of rural and urban clinics in Port au Prince and the regions of Arcahaie and Cabaret in Haiti. The organization is currently assessing the dire situation in Haiti following the earthquake and will work with a coalition of agencies to bring relief to the people of Haiti through humanitarian assistance and its clinics and micro credit operations.
Monetary donations will be accepted at the church beginning at 6 p.m. Free parking is available. Members of the public can contact the church office at 202-331-1426 or haitiinourhearts@gmail.com.
Media who want to cover this even may register with the church office at 202-331-1426.
Download the flyers to share with friends and family: Flyer 1 or Flyer 2.
Sarah Allen Missionary is sponsoring a Go Red Dress Fashion Show on Saturday, February 6, 2010 from 11 AM-2 PM at the Metropolitan AME Church Douglass Hall, 1518 M Street, NW in Washington, DC.
Lunch $10.00.
Heart Disease is the #1 killer of women and men. Come and learn risk factors and prevention methods. Come and share your story of how heart disease has affected someone you know or love. Come wearing your red dress, or pants suits, or anything red. Contact: Joan Oxendine@ 301-577-6849
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On Saturday, February 20, 2010 at the Metropolitan AME Church the Ladies Guild will review Up at the College by Michelle Andrea Bowen.
