From Slave to Pastor–A Powerful Testimony
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From Slave to Pastor–A Powerful Testimony
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From Charisma Magazine: From his young years, Richard Allen knew the humiliating and dehumanizing pain of being a slave. Born in 1760, his entire family was sold from his first master to another. And when that second master fell on financial hard times, he divided the family by selling Richard’s mother and three of his siblings to another plantation.
Then the teenager known as “Negro Richard” went on in toil and drudgery with just one of his brothers and sisters still with him. That’s when he met the Lord Jesus Christ while listening to the preaching of an abolitionist pastor. He and his brother decided their best Christian witness would be to serve their master all the more and with excellence.
Richard then got his slave master to listen to that preacher too, and his master also came to know the Lord. As a new Christian, he decided to offer Richard his freedom within five years if Richard could pay for that freedom. Even though that logic was still flawed, it offered a door to freedom for Richard. Throwing himself into odd jobs for cash, Richard managed to buy his way out of slavery in just one-and-a-half years.
He educated himself and became an itinerant preacher in the mid-Atlantic states, changing his name from Negro Richard to Richard Allen…
A Methodist Episcopal church in Philadelphia asked Allen to preach on a more regular basis. His sermons became so popular that Black people began to flood the church to overflowing. The church built a new balcony area and then tried to force the African- Americans to worship there, separated from their White Christian brothers and sisters. The church literally picked some Blacks up off their knees and dragged them away from praying with Whites.
Allen eventually bought a blacksmith’s shop and, in 1794, had it dragged by horses to this property, which has become the piece of land continually in the possession of African-Americans longer than any other real estate in the U.S. He turned that blacksmith shop into a church, meant to be for Blacks only so they wouldn’t have to deal with the degrading prejudice of Whites and being pushed around by them in the holy space of a church.
But White Methodist leadership in Philadelphia fought back and demanded control over aspects of Allen’s church. He finally took them to court and what’s come to be known as Old Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church won its independence.
This became the nation’s first major African-American church.
How touching was this story! Share your praise in the comments!
(Excerpt from Charisma Magazine. Photo Credit: Unsplash)
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Comments
Brings tears to my eyes, to hear about the power of God working in a person’s life who went through so much that I cannot imagine.
I pray this message brings hope to a lot of people that are going through unbelievable challenges. Praise God the maker of all!
Powerful story of what God can do through His people—even one person!
What a story of overcoming, being a victor not a victim. And it started/starts with faith in Christ! When he became a believer, he worked as unto the Lord, as the Bible tells us to do and look how God honored his obedience – his master became a believer and this led to Richard receiving his freedom and then he accomplished so much. Faith and freedom are bound together, Christ died to set us free from our sins and by faith we believe and receive that freedom. The saddest thing in this story was the segregation in the church, the very place that should reflect “every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people” as it says in Revelation 5:9 – the church should be the example for the rest of the world – “God is no respecter of persons” – we are all issued the same invitation to be His children – we are all created in His image – http://www.mtothe5th.wordpress.com
My heart is filled with admiration for my great, great, great, great great Uncle Dr. Benjamin Rush.
As a descendent, I pray in agreement with all he and our founding fathers’ prayers and deeds to help secure, live, and model, freedom for all peoples. Praise God we are all created equal with the right to work, provide for ourselves and others no longer slaves to the system, cleansed by the Blood of Jesus Christ of Nazareth of all programming and mind control. For this is the way our Father in Heaven purposed. Imagine all the people loving and honoring one another as themself. Imagine all the people honoring God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth and His Word. Imagine all the people living according to Kingdom principals, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. God dwelling with us, in us, living sanctuaries for Holy Spirit. Perfect Love governing the affairs of men. Each one of us bearing personal responsibility to forgive, bless, walk justly and humbly, and bless those who curse us and wait on the Lord for His divine retribution. We all equally sin and fall short., we each bear the image of Almighty God, we all are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and overcome by the word of our testimony. Love people hate sin. Love never fails.
Praise God this man followed God through difficult circumstances to raise God’s name above the difficulty
What a wonderful story. All things are possible with and through God. One person can change and affect the lives of so many. What a soul safer. A very encouraging story. Thank you for sharing. God bless us all, and keep fighting for liberty.
Father, we pray for black, African American, Afro-American Christians. Thank You for Your love for us. As this is Black History month, lift black Christians. Help us, Father, to be Your witnesses with signs and wonders following Your word. If You did it before, You can do it again. We pray for the Church, the body of Christ, and I repent – we repent for the lust of the eye, worldly ways and pride that has plagued the Church, the body of Christ. Forgive Your Bride. Open our eyes to see how we should love one another in Jesus name. (John 13:34) We pray for Christian black marriages. Father, strengthen black Christian husbands and wives to walk in Your ways. Protect us, surround us with songs of deliverance in Jesus name. We pray for married black pastors, all pastors, to have happy, peaceful marriages in Jesus name. We pray for a lifting of the Church, the Bride of Christ. We bind fear and we lose boldness. We silence the spirit of fear. We thank You, Lord, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Your Bride in the mighty, matchless name of Jesus. Amen.
When reading Scripture I. It’s original text, the word “slave” as it pertains to Israel is where a land owner bought a person to work his land. The servant was then adopted into the family and his or her family were cared for.
Dehumanizing people was done by other nations that had a poor view of humanity because they rejected, even though they knew of, and feared the God of Israel. So was the human trafficking and slavery we had in the USA.
But, little know to most, the newly freed men, women and children had options to go to the newly created country of Liberia, many became productive citizens, often smarter than their captors, preachers and social role models.
Hating the “whites” a demonic attempt to split. Saying one is lesser than another is telling God He doesn’t know what He’s doing.
And, as far as the curse in Ham’s lineage, tread lightly, or we make God a liar. For He says that He is no respecter of persons and, again, He says He does not want anyone to perish.
Let the political party responsible for so much hatred and bloodshed give an account to God. In the meantime, pray for their salvation.
“…in it’s original text…”
AMEN exactly correct. Great comment.