The Black American Churchgoing Experience

[laysayfair]

Originally Posted by natalayjones

I'm going to correct you because you don't know what you're talking about. My pastor said what he said because that's what he meant. He was talking to the congregation and the people who live in that are which I have stated before is predominantly black. When he preaches about women and how we need to do better no one accuses him of being sexist.

I'm going to repeat what he says because obvioulsy you don't get it, if you're heart and mind are in the right place (and since you're in church it needs to be on God) than you would understand exactly what he meant and you wouldn't be offended by it. Anyone who feels unwelcome or alienated by him should have stayed home because they weren't in church for the right reason in the first place

My pastor is very active in our community and so for him to get up there and ignore what had been going would have been offensive. Our church is right of MLK Blvd which is where the majority of the crime had been taking place and all of the crimes involved black teenagers. So who was offended by his comment? The mother of one of the boys accused of shooting someone? The sister of one of the girls who got pulled out of a moving car? The storeowner that's been robbedfour times?

No, my sister-in-law who is mixed and doesn't even live in that community and everytime she comes to visit looks for new ways to point out how racist we are.

However, since you don't go to church there it really doesn't matter in the long run.

I am going by what you said. Your sister-in-law was there and she was offended. I can see why. I went by nothing but the facts of your story as stated originally by you.

[nat_at772]

Originally Posted by laysayfair

I am going by what you said. Your sister-in-law was there and she was offended. I can see why. I went by nothing but the facts of your story as stated originally by you.

You know I'm not going to keep going back and forth with you but you missed my whole point.

We had a lot of crime pop up in the area, police involvement was minimal. He'd been talking about it for weeks. He said many things and then backed them up with scriptures. She chose to take that one sentence and make it a racial thing. You can't make a judgment about a 20-30 minute sermon based on one sentence. But we'll just have to agree to disagree because like I said you don't go to church there, so what you think of my pastor doesn't matter.

Back to the OP, until I moved away for college I lived in Vero Beach, Fl. It is still very much segregated because the majority of black people still live in one area (Indian River County - Gifford Front Porch Community). There’s probably 2-3 churches on every street corner and most of the pastors are also the forerunners of community concerns like opening a health care center, public transportation, neighborhood watches.

It's not an us vs. them things, it's more like this is where I'm from, this is where I grew up, this is where I live and this is where my children are so I have to do something and not wait for others to do it.

I think it's like that in most black churches that are in predominantly black areas. Yes, the church is a place to worship and praise God, but they can't simply ignore what's going on outside the church. My college roommate is Episcopalian and when I went to church with her the pastor discussed the columbine shootings in great detail - which surprised me because all my church did was say a prayer. I went with her several times and there were other occasions where he spoke about things that were going on in the world, hurricane Katrina, the tsunami.etc and tied them into the book of revelations.

To me, he was doing the same thing many pastors at black churches do and that's address subjects that may be concerning or affecting your congregation. Different people have different concerns.

[FlourChild]

Originally Posted by natalayjones

What area do you live in? I would think in GA you couldn't walk a mile without running into a black church

Here in Albany, the whole TOWN is somewhat segregated (obviously not legally, but by apparent choice). Our neighborhood is mostly white but there are several black families on our street and the streets around us. Except for the lawnmowers and weedwhackers, it's pretty quiet here. Whites are mostly in NW Albany and in Lee County, which is north of Albany. We can just about see Lee County from where we live. East and south Albany are predominantly black. Albany itself, BTW, is in SW Georgia, just about 2 hours SE of Columbus.