Beyond the Suffering

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Beyond the Suffering Embracing the Legacy of
African American Soul Care and Spiritual
Direction
Hebrews 121-3 So Great a Cloud of Witnesses
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Session Four
This Far by Faith Embracing the Lost Spiritual
Legacy
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Sign Posts from the Past
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Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Signals Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
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Recovering the Lost Spiritual Legacy
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Following Founding Fathers
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Lemuel Haynes An Epitaph Worth Living For
Here lies the dust of a poor hell-deserving
sinner, who ventured into eternity trusting
wholly on the merits of Christ for salvation. . .
.
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Lemuel HaynesAn Epitaph Worth Living For
. . . In the full belief of the great doctrines
he preached while on earth, he invites his
children and all who read this, to trust their
eternal interest on the same foundation.
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Hebrews 122-3Following the Faithful Witness
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and
perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set
before him endured the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of
God. Consider Him who endured such opposition
from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary
and lose heart.
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Hebrews 122-3The Faithful Witness
The great cloud of past Christian witnesses
ultimately point to the greatest Witness and the
greatest reason for enduring suffering Jesus
Christ! The result of earthly witness is to point
to the Heavenly Witness so that together we will
not grow weary and lose heart. Jesus is the
Faithful Witness (Revelation 15).
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Hebrews 122-3Following the Faithful Witness
Only by fixing our eyes on Jesus can we move
beyond the suffering.
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Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne
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Heaven-Created Manhood
Payne believed that the separation of the AME
from the white Methodist Episcopal Church was
beneficial to the man of color in two ways.
First it has thrown us upon our own resources
and made us tax our own mental powers both for
government and support. . . .
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Heaven-Created Manhood
. . . Secondly, it gave the black man an
independence of character which he could neither
hope for nor attain unto, if he had remained as
the ecclesiastical vassal of his white brethren.
It produced independent thought, independent
action, and an independent hierarchy, and the
latter has made us feel and recognize our
individuality and our heaven-created manhood.
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Founding Fathers Daniel Payne
Standing his ground and confronting the white
authorities on the train, he said to them,
Before Ill dishonor my manhood by going into
that car, stop your train and put me off.
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Founding Fathers Daniel Payne
Payne notes that after he left the train, The
guilty conductor looked out and said, Old man,
you can get on the platform at the back of the
car. I replied only by contemptuous silence.
Payne then carried his own luggage, walking a
great distance over a heavy bed of sand to his
next speaking engagement in the deep South. Payne
literally walked the talk.
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The Rosa Parks of His Day
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A Manly Man of God
I was the child of many prayers. My father
dedicated me to the service of God before I was
born, declaring that if the Lord would give him
a son that son should be consecrated to him, and
named after the Prophet Daniel.
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Founding FathersRevs. Richard Allen and Absalom
Jones
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The Birth of the Independent Black Church

• We had not long been upon our knees before I
  heard considerable scuffling and low talking. I
  raised my head up and saw one of the trustees,
  HM, having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones,
  pulling him up off of his knees, and saying . . .

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The Birth of the Independent Black Church

• . . . You must get upyou must not kneel
  here. Mr. Jones replied, Wait until prayer is
  over. Mr. H M said no, you must get up now,
  or I will call for aid and force you away. Mr.
  Jones said, Wait until prayer is over, and I
  will get up and trouble you no more.

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The Birth of the Independent Black Church

• Here we were pursued with threats of being
  disowned, and read publicly out of meeting if we
  did continue to worship in the place we had
  hired but we believed the Lord would be our
  friend. Here was the beginning and rise of the
  first African Church in America
• (Richard Allen).

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St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, 1829
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Richard Allen An Artful Soul Physician
Feeling an engagement of mind for your welfare,
I address you with an affectionate sympathy,
having been a slave, and as desirous of freedom
as any of you yet the bands of bondage were so
strong that no way appeared for my release yet
at times a hope arose in my heart that a way
would open for it and when my mind was
mercifully visited with the feeling of the love
of God, . . .
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Richard Allen An Artful Soul Physician
. . . that he would make way for my enlargement
and then these hopes increased, and a confidence
arose as a patient waiting was necessary, I was
sometimes favored with it, at other times I was
very impatient. Then the prospect of liberty
almost vanquished away, and I was in darkness
and perplexity.
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Sisters of the Spirit
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The Invisible Woman
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Amanda Berry Smiths AuntBreaking the Snare
Dont you ever speak to me again. Anybody that
had as good a Christian mother as you had, and
was raised as you have been, to speak so to me. I
dont want to talk to you.
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Amanda Berry Smiths AuntBreaking the Snare
And God broke the snare. I felt it. I felt
deliverance from that hour. How many times I have
thanked God for my aunts help. If she had
debated with me I dont believe I should ever
have got out of that snare of the devil.
33
Zilpha Elaw
Spiritual Friendship
If, therefore, there is anything in the soul
reviving and thrilling Christian intercourse we
have enjoyed together in the Spirit of Christ,
and in the holy communion with which we have so
frequently met together in the house of God, . . .
34
Zilpha Elaw
Spiritual Friendship
. . . mingled our ascending petitions at the
throne of grace, unbosomed our spiritual
conflicts and trials to one another, and listened
with devotional interest to the messages of
gospel mercy, and the unfolding mysteries of
divine grace.
35
Julia Foote
Biblical Sufferology
God permits afflictions and persecutions to come
upon his chosen people to answer various ends. .
. .
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Julia Foote
Biblical Sufferology
. . . Sometimes for the trial of their faith, and
the exercise of their patience and resignation to
His will, and sometimes to draw them off from
all human dependence, and to teach them to trust
in Him alone.
37
Maria Stewart
Identity in Christ
Many think, because your skins are tinged with a
sable hue, that you are an inferior race of
beings but God does not consider you as such. He
hath formed and fashioned you in his own glorious
image, and hath bestowed upon you reason and
strong powers of intellect. . . .
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Maria Stewart
Identity in Christ
. . . He hath made you to have dominion over the
beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and
the fish of the sea (Genesis 126). He hath
crowned you with glory and honor hath made you
but a little lower than the angels (Psalms
85).
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Spiritual Identity
Encouraging spiritual sisters with the good news
that the Spirit intimately indwells them.
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The Promised Land?
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The Promised Land?
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The Struggle for Faith
It has been a terrible mystery, to know why the
good Lord should so long afflict my people, and
keep them in bondageto be abused, and trampled
down, without any rights of their ownwith no ray
of light in the future. Some of my folks said
there wasnt any God, for if there was He
wouldnt let white folks do as they have done for
so many years (Nellie, a former slave from
Savannah, GA).
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Faith in the God of the Exodus
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Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land
For Europeans the Exodus had already occurred.
For Africans, it was yet future. Europeans lived
in the Promised Land. Africans were bound for
the Promised Land.
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Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land
For African Americans the journey was reversed
whites might claim that America was a new Israel,
but blacks knew that it was Egypt, since they,
like the children of Israel of old, still toiled
in bondage (Albert Raboteau).
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Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land

• It required no stretch of the imagination to see
• the trials of the Israelites as paralleling the
• trials of the slaves, Pharaoh and his army as
• oppressors, and Egyptland as the South
• (Langston Hughes).

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Trusting the God of the Exodus
When her mistress questions her about her faith,
a slave named Polly explains her hope. We poor
creatures have need to believe in God, for if God
Almighty will not be good to us some day, why
were we born? When I heard of his delivering his
people from bondage I know it means the poor
Africans.
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Trusting the God of the Exodus
The folks would sing and pray and testify and
clap their hands, just as if God was right there
in the midst of them. He wasnt way off in the
sky. He was a-seeing everybody and a-listening to
every word and a-promising to let His love come
down. Yes, sir, there was no pretending in those
prayer meetings. There was a living faith in a
just God who would one day answer the cries of
His poor black children and deliver them from
their enemies (Simon Brown)
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Trusting the God of Deliverance
Charlotte Brooks noted that Aunt Jane used to
tell us, too, that the children of Israel were in
Egypt in bondage, and that God delivered them out
of Egypt and she said he would deliver us. We
all used to sing a hymn
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Trusting the God of Deliverance
My God delivered Daniel, Daniel, Daniel My God
delivered Daniel, And why not deliver me too? He
delivered Daniel from the lions den, Jonah from
the belly of the whale, the three Hebrew children
from the fiery furnace, And why not deliver me
too?
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The God of Deliverance
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The God of Deliverance
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Trusting the God of Deliverance
Sound the loud timbrel oer Egypts dark
sea Jehovah has triumphed, his people are
free! Sing, for the pride of this tyrant is
broken, His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid
and brave
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Trusting the God of Deliverance
How void was their boast, for the Lord hath but
spoken And chariot and horsemen are sunk in the
wave. Sound the loud timbrel oer Egypts dark
sea Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free!
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Trusting the God of Deliverance
It looked like the more I prayed the worse off
I got. But the God I serve is a time-God. He
dont come before time He dont come after
time. He comes just on time!
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Faith in the God of the Oppressed
For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the
afflicted who have no one to help. He will take
pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy
from death. He will rescue them from oppression
and violence, for precious is their blood in his
sight (Psalm 7212-14)
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This Far by Faith

• Weve come this far by faith leaning on the
  Lord
• Trusting in His Holy Word, Hes never failed me
  yet.
• Oh, cant turn around, weve come this far by
  faith.

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This Far by Faith

• Dont be discouraged with trouble in your life,
• Hell bear your burdens and move all misery
  and strife.
• Thats why weve come this far by faith.

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Embrace Life
Through the Resurrection and the Life
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(No Transcript)
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Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven
ring,Ring with the harmonies of libertyLet our
rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,Let
it resound loud as the rolling sea.Sing a song
full of the faith that the dark past has taught
us,Sing a song full of the hope that the present
has brought usFacing the rising sun of our new
day begun,Let us march on till victory is won.
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Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening
rod,Felt in the days when hope unborn had
diedYet with a steady beat, have not our weary
feet,Come to the place for which our fathers
sighed?We have come over a way that with tears
has been watered,We have come, treading our path
through the blood of the slaughteredOut from
the gloomy past, till now we stand at lastWhere
the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
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God of our weary years, God of our silent
tears,Thou who hast brought us thus far on the
wayThou who hast by thy might, led us into the
light,Keep us forever in the path, we pray.Lest
our feet stray from the places, our God, where we
met Thee.Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of
the world, we forget Thee.Shadowed beneath Thy
hand, may we forever stand,True to our God, true
to our native land.
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Our Great Cloud of Witnesses
1. Embracing the Legacy of African American
Founding Fathers 2. Embracing the Legacy of
African American Sisters of the Spirit 3.
Embracing the Legacy of the African American
Narrative of America
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Beyond the Suffering Embracing the Legacy of
African American Soul Care and Spiritual
Direction
Hebrews 121-3 So Great a Cloud of Witnesses