Overview
The Church is more beautiful, bold, and diverse because of the living legacy of the Black Church. We all move into the future to honor and celebrate Jesus as our cornerstone, and we are stronger together.
TRANSCRIPT
The Black Church in America.
Begins on an east coast ocean dock.
Dark skin—derided. A daddy and his children—divided.
Right there on an auction block.
The Black Church in America begins in a field beneath the sun, shackled sons and daughters, hearing about the father’s…love.
The Black Church in America.
Forced to toil and till the sod while the same ones holding the whip told them to put your faith in God.
And by grace alone—they did.
They believed.
They breathed it in a song.
And in the melody of the Negro spirituals, they found the faith to carry on.
To flourish, to fight, to exist, to exhort.
The faith to follow Harriet running rivers to the north.
A faith that echoed Augustine and those great African theologians from a thousand years before on the other side of the ocean.
The faith to be free in Christ, even when your country denies you liberty.
The faith to never give up—never give up your human dignity.
Was the faith for Frederick Douglass to hop a train and escape to freedom, and then proclaim the will of God in the presence of President Lincoln.
It was a faith to war and wait for Emancipation Proclamation, a faith that made Juneteenth the most holy celebration.
It’s the faith to begin again with Jesus at the center.
It’s the faith to start the Black Church because no other church would even let you enter.
It’s the preaching of Lemuel Haynes, a first of its kind in this nation.
It’s Francis Grimké and Gardner Taylor resisting segregation.
It’s a praise song from brown-bodied lips, both laymen and ecclesiastic.
It’s the anthem of all the mamas when Emmett Till was in the casket.
It’s Mahalia Jackson singing, “Precious Lord, take my hand.”
It’s blood on Edmund Pettus Bridge and all across this land.
It’s a faith that God can surely redeem what’s happened in the past.
It’s the faith of Martin Luther King. I’m free.
I’m free at last.
The faith of C.T. Vivian, Joseph Lowery, Rosa Parks, those beautiful black likes of Jesus shining in the dark.
To God be the glory; the soul future of our faith.
The foundation of Tony Evans and the fire of T.D. Jakes.
The song of The Clark Sisters, Andrae Crouch, Donnie McClurkin.
BeBe, CeCe, Yolanda, and GP, are you with me, Kirk Franklin?
It’s the legacies of John M. Perkins, Crawford Loritts, and the soul’s desire of Dr. Dharius Daniels, Lisa Fields, Priscilla Shirer.
It’s a history of resilience, revival, reconciliation.
It’s the Holy Spirit raising up a future generation who will carry this thing.
The Church of Jesus is stronger.
More beautiful, bold, and diverse because of the lasting, living, legacy.
The faith of the Black Church.
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Passion City Church Content created by the team at Passion City Church. Passion City Church is a Jesus Church. A small tribe of His followers connected by our common faith and a deep desire to see our city [and the world] come to know His power and beauty. We are not perfect. But Jesus is. Thankfully, we are a Jesus Church.
