Ministry News

Lighting a Candle in Los Angeles

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Tuesday, 16 June 2009 10:10

QUOTE: " My generation of ministers does not tire easily. Our concern is that many of the gospels being preached today are designed for the ear, not the human condition. Our goal is to share our knowledge and experience to help the next generation of African-American church leaders confront today's challenges." —Cecil "Chip" Murray, the 80-year-old former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Los Angeles who now leads a summer program at the University of Southern California's Center for Religion and Civic Culture called "Passing the Mantle." Along with several other retired South Los Angeles pastors who led congregations during the civil rights era—before "social justice" was a buzzword—Murray recruits and trains 35 ministers each year to be the hands and feet of Jesus in neighborhoods riddled with drugs, gangs, violence and unemployment.

"Rather than curse the darkness, we light a candle with the firsthand experience of men and women of wisdom and integrity," says Mark E. Whitlock II, who, along with pastoring Christ Our Redeemer AME Church in Irvine, helps direct the Passing the Mantle program. "These people are living models of success and it is with a sense of urgency that we turn to them again for help in righting the wrongs in our community, and some of those wrongs include clergy who are not confronting the social issues in their own neighborhoods." [latimes.com, 6/15/09]