Sojourner Truth Ministries, a multi-denominational church with a black Baptist bent, celebrated its 10th Anniversary Feb. 20 with a gathering of people diverse in ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. The church aspires to eradicate all forms of oppression and serve as a spiritual home for all those who need one.
"Everyone's entitled to a spiritual life, everyone's a son of God," said Deacon Paul Green.
The worshipers comprise a fluctuating population of comers and goers, and many of the regulars discovered the church after hearing about the message it projects into Seattle's diverse community pockets.
Stephanie Malone read about the STM in Seattle Gay News.
"I realized early on my life wasn't going to be conventional," Malone said. She was drawn to the church for its inclusion of diverse lifestyles.
El Centro de la Raza, a community gathering place for South End residents originally built as a school, has provided a space of worship for the church for the last two years. ReverendGwen Hall, Green and church-goers transformed an old classroom into a sacred space-light filters through a few stained glass windows, and a somber image of the church's namesake, slave and suffragist Sojourner Truth, hangs on the wall near a charcoal-drawn dark-skinned Christ wearing a crown of thorns.
The ancestors' wall of remembrance, a cloth-covered desk under framed photos of late friends and relatives of the church community, holds candles, fresh fruit, and water to remember the dead. The wall expresses the church's belief that every person is irrevocably connected to a lineage.
Before the service, a member moved their hands rhythmically on the surface of a bongo drum to signal the start of Sunday worship while providing a back beat throughout. The ceremony opened with a ritual of incest-burning and calling on the ancestors. Everyone was invited to call out names of their ancestors, and voices could be heard throughout the room:
"All my grandparents."
"My cousin Eddy D."
"Malcolm X."
"Ronald Reagan."
Soon after, Green made announcements while others discussed events in support of AIDS awareness, civil marriage, and Larry Gossett's campaign for re-election, among others.
After opening ceremonies were complete, three members of the clergy, Green, Hall, and Deacon Valarie Spencer, spoke in a manner characterized by a casual and open air.
"I'm a working Deacon, I'm a loving Deacon, I'm a single Deacon," said Green during his address, causing an eruption of laughter. He and Hall both wore African mud cloths, patterned robes of thick material, to connect with their African tradition.
Spencer, a transsexual woman who founded the Unity Fellowship Movement in Los Angeles in her 20s, flew to Seattle for the Anniversary to give a sermon. Her style was spontaneous, boisterous, and uncensored.
She emphasized the weakness of human nature and God's embrace of that weakness, stressing that God accepts drinkers, compulsive eaters, people involved in abusive relationships, and drug addicts.
"We are the rebels and the outlaws of ministry and we like it that way," said Spencer. "We're committed to changing ourselves but we just want to do a little crack on the weekends."
Before her speech, Hall was introduced by Natasha Burrows, a Christian who has attended services at Sojourner Truth Ministries for two years, ever since she heard Hall speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. rally. Burrows, who was immediately attracted to the church for its incorporation of social justice, described Hall as "walking love."
During a community meal after the service, over two heaping plates of cornbread, turkey, and other dishes, Hall described the history of the church.
She began working with people with AIDS and was affected by the fact that "people were dying and they didn't know they were loved by God." That realization spurned a bible study community, and that evolved into the creation of the church in 1995.
Hall is also involved in a campaign to increase dialogue, and come to a solution, about taboo topics like black-on-black crime, AIDS, and domestic violence. She describes each of these desperate issues as silent wars.
Jourdan Keith, who has stayed with the church for the more than eight years of moving, asserted the church has a transcendent power to reach those who are traditionally downtrodden and maligned.
"It's beyond the walls of whatever building you're in," Keith said
The church community holds worship services in Beacon Hill's El Centro de la Raza on Sundays at 1 p.m. and Mid-Week Uplifts Wednesdays at 7 p.m.
Their website is http://stmsea.homestead.com.
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