Black History Month
inspires pioneer series

AUSTIN, Texas—As Black History Month approached, Family Christian Fellowship (the Austin WCG congregation) began to discuss how to best honor the various races and ethnicities represented in our diverse congregation. We desired to become more aware of the struggles taken and the valuable contributions made by people within minority groups.

We studied how we could best honor our minority members, provide education and inspiration to our entire congregation, and keep any presentations within the scope of a religious service. We decided to inaugurate an ongoing series titled "Pioneers of Our Christian Faith."

Every four to six weeks, a member will present a five to 10 minute biographical sketch of some character from church history—from the first century to our present day. In these presentations, we use lectures, skits, musical outlines, puppetry, game show formats and other methods to make this rich history come alive.

We launched our series with presentations on two black Christian pioneers: Richard Allen, 1760-1831, clergyman and founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), and Mary McLeod Bethune, 1875-1955, founder of Bethune-Cookman College and political reformer and officeholder under U.S. Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

We see and hear God in the words, deeds and sacrifices of those who have allowed themselves to be spent for him over the centuries. These men and women from all around the world, from different races and nations, are pioneers of our Christian faith—our spiritual grandparents in the church. The lives they lived should be legacies of faith for all Christians.

As we bring to light the stories of a variety of people, our aim is to create greater unity in the Body of Christ, acknowledging that "from one man God made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth" and "so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

By appreciating the contributions across the mosaic of Christian history, we can attest to the miracle of the unity of God’s Body. Lee Berger.

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2003