PS: PLEASE STUMBLE THIS POST. Thanks.
From today's New York Times, an article about a pastor's fervent ambition to build a new church to house his growing congregation in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bishop Bryant Robinson, pastor of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, took over the congregation after his father and co-pastor's death in 2001, and decided it was time to replace the church's 100-year-old facility.
"[T]he church on King Street, now more than a century old, could no longer meet the congregation’s needs. Parking was minimal, the maroon carpet old, the windows small and high; Oh Lord, could it get hot in those pews on a late summer Sunday.
We deserve a church meant for us, built by us, he told his congregants, and they agreed. The weekly tithing and special offerings took on added urgency, as the bishop reminded people that when you invest in Kingdom’s church, you cannot lose."
The 18,000 square foot facility would include a large foyer, plush ladies' and mens' rooms, a meeting hall, a set of prayer rooms, a food prep room, a 500-seat sanctuary, and a spacious parking lot. When fund raising flagged, Bishop Robinson announced to the congregation that he hadn't taken a salary in a long time.
"Finally, in April 2007, dignitaries and elders joined Bishop Robinson in breaking ground with shovels painted gold. “I was so elated that day,” he says. “At one point I said we may be standing in the sanctuary. And you know where we were? In the parking lot.”
By November 4, construction was nearly complete:
"As Election Night made way for a new day, pastor... Robinson... clicked off his television to accept a sleep of sweet promise. His mostly black congregation now had two blessings awaiting it in 2009: the inauguration of the first African-American president and the finished construction of a new church...
He could not have been asleep two hours before his telephone rang. It was his brother Andrew, whose home abuts the blessed construction site. 'They’re burning our church,' shouted Andrew Robinson, who still doesn’t know why he said 'they.'
Soon Bishop Bryant Robinson, pastor of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, was standing at the grassy edge, as firefighters sprayed arcs of water meant not to save the building but to contain a fire clearly set. Black embers the size of fists shot skyward, only to float down like broken pieces of the cold New England night.
Someone eased him into a chair — he is 71, with bad knees and high blood pressure — and placed a blanket around his weary shoulders. He stayed there past dawn, when this new day’s light revealed a smoldering test of faith: a skeleton of scorched steel and a cracked foundation upon which a church could no longer be built."
Photo: New York Times
Investigators believe an arsonist started the fire but so far have no suspects and no evidence that racism was at the root of the incident.
"Still, the bishop cannot shake the timing of it — timing that will now forever link two events, one of joy and pride, another of loss and horror."
Are you as horrified as I am by this story? I don't know that I could ever become inured to this type of viciousness.
UPDATE:
The New York Times supplied me with the following address for donations to the church:
Macedonia Church Fund
c/o Morrison Mahoney, LLP
1500 Main Street
P.O. Box 15387
Springfield, MA
01115-5387
I sent them a donation.
PS: PLEASE STUMBLE THIS POST. Thanks.
