Delayed But Not Denied

The sanctuary of the Macedonia Church of God In Christ on King St. in Springfield, Mass. shows a diligent wear: one reason for the congregation’s decision to build a new church on a different site. The King St. church’s light green walls, not quite dull but still not bright, are broken by a number of dusty windows where stained glass may once have cast multi-colored rays. The lights hang down in clear glass globes. Many pews are missing their bibles. Having lost its physical luster long ago, Macedonia’s faith shines through its congregation, its spirit evident in their songs.

Though services don’t start until quarter to noon, the choir and band arrive well before. Children, having just finished their bible study, slowly begin to rejoin their parents in the brown wooden pews, and a single voice rises above the morning greetings. (“How you doing today, miss? We’ve missed you here these past couple Sundays.” “Oh I’m fine thank you, just fine.”) Soon afterwards, a bass guitarist and drummer have joined in. By the second verse, the organ reflects the melody and, before the chorus has a chance to repeat itself (“Thank you Lord for being so good”), most are on their feet, dancing. From this point forward, it becomes apparent that this is a congregation that is hard to keep down.

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Less than five miles away stands the construction site of the new Macedonian church, many years in the making. Leaning forward on his dusty metal folding chair within the newly primed sanctuary walls, Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr. can barely be heard over the misplaced rock music that blares around him. For the hundredth time, he recounts the church’s story.

On the night of Nov. 5 2010, Bishop Robinson called his brother to ask for a 6 a.m. wake-up call. He wanted to be sure he would arrive at his 7 a.m. car mechanic appointment on time—no, no there was no need to call again if he didn’t answer, the noise would wake him up.

When the phone rang, it was still dark out.

True to his word, Bishop Robinson awoke and rose out of bed without picking up. When the phone rang again, it was his brother’s voice on the other end of the line.

“They are burning our church to the ground.”

It was the night that Barack Obama became president-elect. The Macedonia Church of God in Christ is a mostly-black church.

Bishop Robinson drove to the construction site. On ground that had seen the almost completed structure now lay ashes, rubble, and twisted steel—ruins of what was once to be. All Bishop Robinson could do was secure a blanket and a chair and watch as his church became engulfed in flames.

It wasn’t until later that he realized it was only 3 a.m.

“A multitude came against us in the form of three young men in the early hours of the morning. They slipped through the woods behind our property and into our church. They struck a match and then they walked away,” he says.

At 8 a.m. the parishioners began arriving, providing comfort for the bishop and for each other. Some began to fear, began to question whether or not their work truly was in the will of God. How could they have come so far with such vision for this? Despite these fears, however, the congregation was determined to face the multitude.

“We began to turn inward into our faith, into the Word that we had studied, the messages that we had heard down through our ears and had allowed to consume our hearts,” Robinson says, “words we didn’t need then but had stored up and now could turn to in our time of need. The Scripture became our bedrock.”

The community held onto the Word of the Bible. Its members had to believe that God had intervened with a purpose. They responded with perseverance and determination, faithful to the notion that, whatever God’s reasons, they were for the best.

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Timothy P. McCarthy ’93 has been leading the Alternate Spring Break Church Rebuilding Trip at Harvard since he instituted it on campus ten years ago. Each year, the National Coalition for Burned Churches (NCBC) provides a name of a church in need and McCarthy’s student volunteers drive to the site and provide whatever aid necessary, from priming walls to putting in windows.

This year, the group was expecting to drive to either South Carolina or Alabama to work. Two weeks before their scheduled departure, however, NCBC called and said that the churches were not yet ready for volunteers and McCarthy’s group would instead be staying much closer to campus: Springfield, Mass.

“Racism is racism and that’s important to recognize. There are those of us who come to think of ourselves, perhaps wrongly, as liberal and enlightened people and somehow racism is some other person’s problem that exists somewhere else in the world,” says McCarthy. “That’s a dangerous way to think. Things like this, opportunities like this, give us the chance to see that these things are interconnected and that we can’t escape it no matter where we live or what we believe, or how we live in the world.”

Despite the fact that McCarthy leads a church rebuilding trip, however, students in the group stress that the undertaking is not a religious one. “This isn’t a mission trip, which isn’t always clear to people on the outside,” says Alex A. Morelli ’13. “We’re here helping a community in need, and community is one of the most important aspects of the church.”

Laura S. Hinton ’13 was on her second ASB trip with the group. “Most churches, when they’re burned down, lose their congregation. Last year, our volunteers doubled the church’s size. With this church it’s different, they still have their old church to worship in. They lost a lot in the fire but they didn’t lose their community,” she says. The faded old church remained serviceable for the time it had taken the new construction to start over.

Though Hinton noted that the previous year, some members of her trip had felt uncomfortable building a space for a group of people with different beliefs, she said that a similar discussion had not come up this year.

In a bright green room down the hall, Sarah B. Rosenberg-Wohl ’12 pauses to step back and appraise her painting before gently re-rolling a final coat. Rosenberg-Wohl echoes the sentiments of Hinton and Morelli.

“I’m Jewish but I enjoy going to other religious services—at Harvard I go to the morning prayer service frequently. I like gaining a better sense of how religion builds community for people of different faiths,” she says. “That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come on this trip; I understand to what extent synagogues are a center of community and I know that churches are the same.”

Such visions of the new church have carried through into its design. With prayer rooms, offices, a fellowship hall, and even a women’s lounge, the larger space will have the capability to serve as not only a center of religion for its parishioners, but as a center of community for them as well. The hopes of the Macedonian congregation are reflected in every newly-painted pink, purple, blue, and green room, hopes that have been only strengthened throughout the past three years.

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Within the aging brown church on King Street, Bishop Robinson is finishing his sermon. “Two and a half months, Macedonians,” he repeats, “two and a half months.” Nearly 100 volunteers have passed through the church’s newly-constructed walls, hundreds more have made donations; the hot rubble and twisted steel that had once been all that remained of a nearly-realized dream has been built again. Completion is within their grasp once more. The church is now 90 percent constructed (“Two and a half months, Macedonians”), the sanctuary will have its final coat of paint by the end of the week, the carpets will soon be laid down, and the trial of the final suspect began on Monday. Two and a half months.

Bishop Robinson is at the pulpit repeating the scripture which has become their foundation: And we know that in all things God works for the good—the congregation rises to its feet once more—of those who love God—the choir stands at the front—who have been called according to His purpose—and they sing. Not a single Macedonian is left sitting in her seat.