More Church Folk

by Michele Andrea Bowen

Genres: African American Christian; African American Historical; Christian Fiction

Synopsis

It is now 1986, and the preachers of the Gospel United Church are preparing for their much-anticipated Triennial General Conference. The last time readers encountered the good Rev. Theophilus Simmons, he was a newlywed and the pastor of a modest-sized congregation in Memphis. Now he's the father of three and running a congregation in St. Louis. His best friend, Rev. Eddie Tate, is now with a fast growing church in Chicago, but he is getting real frustrated with the way things are run in the Gospel United Church. Marcel Brown and his father, Ernest, along with Sonny Washington and Bishop Larsen Giles have had two decades to perfect their slimy methods of "tapping" church funds and other misdeeds. Now they've found a secret weapon that will allow them to make fast money and accomplish what they failed to do 20 years ago--buy off enough power to dominate the entire denomination, put their cronies in key spots, and ransack the church like it is the spoils of war. It won't be long before the two opposing sides face off..."church-folk" style.

Release date: July 8, 2010

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 308

Sample

The Gospel United Church was established in 1817 at the Meeting Plantation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, by Z. T. Meeting,
a slave and ordained minister, with the help of a former slave, Hezekiah Meeting. Z. T. was a master carpenter who designed
and built most of the buildings on the Meeting Plantation, as well as several houses for the friends of his owner, the Reverend
Cornelius Meeting, an economist who specialized in agricultural commerce at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Cornelius Meeting, who owned hundreds of acres of land in Orange County, North Carolina, along with several hundred slaves,
was an ordained minister in the United Gospel Congregations of America. He was also one of the area’s top scholars on slavery,
and had won accolades for a pamphlet he wrote and published, “Protecting the South’s Commodities: Teaching Slaves the Bible
to Protect Your Properties and Investments.”


Rev. Meeting discovered that when he told his slaves what he wanted them to know in the Bible, carefully editing out the most
liberating qualities of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they found it more difficult to oppose chattel slavery, for fear of going
against the Word of God and risking going to Hell when they died.


Despite Rev. Meeting’s popularity, caused by fellow slaveholders’ excitement over this economic plan, his successes within
the actual slave community were quite modest. Cornelius was discovering that his theory worked only if the slaves were converted,
and then fed enough propaganda to steer them far enough away from the truth of the Word to accept this false doctrine being
perpetrated by Master Cornelius. Plus, they had to be watched and carefully supervised during church meetings, to avoid one
of those super-reverent, in-the-fields-praying slaves receiving a revelation from the Holy Ghost that ran contrary to the
propaganda Cornelius was working overtime to get them to accept.


So Rev. Meeting enlisted the help of Z. T., his most devoutly Christian and industrious servant on the plantation. Cornelius
provided Z. T. with high-quality lumber supplies to build a new cabin, some extra yard space for a garden, a few fat hens,
and a new set of clothes, before he told Z. T. that he would be responsible for increasing the number of born-again slaves
on the plantation, as well as supervising their conversion process. This strategy proved effective and clever until a year
later when Z. T., who didn’t believe anything Cornelius told him, finished teaching himself to read in secret, and then read
the Bible for himself.


Z. T. Meeting was a quiet, private, and extremely observant man. He accepted the call to serve as the slaves’ pastor with
the dedication and enthusiasm his master had hoped for. He then set out to give the men, women, and children whose uncompensated
labor made the Meeting Plantation a premier agricultural enterprise, the true Word of God, and not some false-prophet-spewed
craziness that would put him second in line for a first-class train ticket to Hell. Z. T. surmised that Cornelius would be
first in line, since he was white, wealthy, and a slaveholder, and the tickets would be distributed below the Mason-Dixon
Line.


While in the process of completing a second thorough reading of the Bible, Z. T. Meeting learned about the African Methodist
Episcopal Church from a newly purchased slave who had lived outside of Baltimore, not too far from the Pennsylvania border.
He was told that the AME Church was run by a colored man, Bishop Richard Allen. The slave also told Z. T. that he was in a
position quite similar to the one Bishop Allen had been in when he started the AME Church. Z. T. had been bestowed full ordination
by a bishop in the United Gospel Congregations of America, and if he followed in Bishop Allen’s footsteps, he could start
his own denomination and serve as the first bishop.


The new slave understood that Z. T. had been ordained by a bishop who was in the apostolic line of succession that began with
the Apostle Peter, and was therefore able to establish a new denomination. As soon as Z. T. processed this groundbreaking
information, he immediately went to his owner and told Cornelius that the best way to convert the slaves was to allow them
to have their own “slave church.” Once Cornelius Meeting’s eyes finished lighting up at the thought of the accolades he hoped
to receive from proving his theory correct, he agreed to contact the bishop presiding over his district, and arranged for
Z. T. to be consecrated as the first official bishop of the newly established Gospel United Church.


With the onset of their new denomination, the slaves on the Meeting Plantation increased their productivity by twenty-five
percent, they seemed happier, and the need for floggings dropped by eighteen percent. Cornelius Meeting was in Heaven. And
frankly, so were his servants, especially after Z. T. located Cornelius’s slave brother, Hezekiah, who was the mirror image
of his white sibling.


The slave, Hezekiah, had been banished, along with his mother, to the West Indies when he was twelve years old by Cornelius’s
mother, who feared for her own son’s life with a slave boy running around looking just like him. She knew of the slave revolts
that were kept secret. And she also understood just how easy it would be for the slave child to change places with her precious
Cornelius, if the bondmen on her plantation ever took a notion to engage in an uprising. So she sent the boy and his mother
away to the West Indies, making allowances for Hezekiah to run her family’s holdings there, as long as they promised never
to return to North Carolina. Hezekiah’s mother, fearing for her own son’s life, agreed to this arrangement, while her son
merely nodded, knowing that he was going back to North Carolina to settle some wrongs the first chance he got.


Hezekiah’s chance came when he connected with freedmen in the fast-growing AME Church. Determined to learn more about this
religion of freedmen, Hezekiah began to make secret runs to the United States to meet with the leaders of this great church.
But meeting and praying and talking with folks in Philadelphia just wasn’t enough. Soon Hezekiah was going farther and farther
south with each trip, until he found himself at one of the secret meetings for aspiring AMEs in a remote location in Orange
County, North Carolina.


Z. T. and Hezekiah Meeting met at that secret meeting on African Methodism. The very first time Z. T. laid eyes on Hezekiah,
he was awed (and inspired) by the man’s carbon-copy resemblance to Cornelius. The two men became fast friends, prayer partners,
and co-conspirators in a plot to adopt the tenets of African Methodism into Z. T.’s new denomination for the sons and daughters
of Africa—freedmen and bondmen alike—in the Old North State. They also decided that it was high time to set some wrongs right
on the Meeting Plantation.


So they planned what would be the smoothest, cleverest, and most clandestine slave revolt in North Carolina. They sneaked
Hezekiah onto the plantation, stole Cornelius’s clothes, and waited for the most opportune moment to introduce Cornelius to
his own brother, right before they drugged him and put him on the first ship “back home to the West Indies.”


Cornelius slept the entire trip in a very comfortable cabin. The crew was told that he was a well-respected businessman, who
was also quite ill and determined to get back home. The crew was also informed that it was imperative that Brother Hezekiah
be given his vials of medicine in his wine, to make sure he was able to sleep peacefully most of the way “home.”


Cornelius was kept in a drugged state until they arrived, and several members of the crew delivered him to his “home” and
“family.” Hezekiah’s mother recognized her son’s nemesis on sight, and immediately set out to make him as comfortable as possible.
She knew that a comfortable bed, a pretty room with a view of the ocean, wine from the cold cellar in a crystal goblet, and
fresh tropical fruit would be important when he woke up a colored man.


As soon as Cornelius opened his eyes, felt the warm and fragrant tropical breeze bathing his face, and stared into the intent
gaze of a woman he had not seen since he was twelve years old, he gasped for air, groped his chest, and died. Hezekiah’s mother
said a quick prayer, shed huge crocodile tears, and then told everyone it was imperative that she journey back to the States
to check on her nephew, Cornelius, now that her “beloved son” was dead.


Bethany Meeting left the West Indies with much fanfare and amid many tears from those who worked for her. Never had any of
her people ever met a “white landowner” with such compassion for, and understanding and acceptance of, slaves and colored
people. She would be sorely missed by the two “whites” she left in charge of her lands.


Many years ago Bethany Meeting had left Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a frightened slave woman, desperate to protect the life
of her only child. She returned a wealthy white plantation mistress in whose presence her only nephew, “Rev. Cornelius Meeting,”
delighted. At that point, the Meeting Plantation became the official birthplace of the Gospel United Church and one of the
most clandestine and active stops on the Underground Railroad, as well as a secret military training post for slaves preparing
to run away and work for the Union Army during the Civil War.


“Cornelius Meeting” retired from his position at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill so that he could devote all
his energy to building his plantation into a top-rate agricultural enterprise. He then withdrew from public life to do the
work of the Lord on his own property. This strategy proved wise and prudent in the years to come because the Meeting Plantation
was one of the few to survive the economic collapse that ensued at the close of the Civil War. Eventually the “owners” of
the Meeting Plantation sold their vast holdings to the state of North Carolina for millions of dollars, made sound investments,
got richer, and then relocated to Durham County to establish what would eventually become Evangeline T. Marshall University.


Bishop Z. T. Meeting, Jr., became the first president of the church-based university, and then set out to build up his father’s
church. He established a ministerial training school that was originally set up at the historic Fayetteville Street Gospel
United Church, located several miles north of Evangeline T. Marshall University in Durham County. After several classes of
ministers received full ordination, the aging Bishop Meeting moved the training school to the university and founded the Evangeline
T. Marshall School of Divinity.


Bishop Meeting commissioned this new crop of Gospel United Church ministers to set up churches outside of North Carolina.
Soon the Gospel United Church became what Durham County’s The Colored Gazette Newspaper coined the fastest-growing colored denomination in America. With the growth came a need to consolidate the clusters of churches
in the states, and then regions, each with a minister appointed to preside over the new districts by Bishop Meeting.


As the denomination continued to grow, so did the need for more districts. This denomination grew so fast that it wasn’t long
before the Gospel United Church had representation in every state, parts of the Caribbean, and four countries on the continent
of Africa. This is the church that Rev. Theophilus Simmons and his best friend, Rev. Eddie Tate, would find themselves governing
as the church entered the twilight years of the twentieth century, looking forward to what the new millennium would bring
decades later.


The Gospel United Church is a historically black denomination established in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1817. It has
Episcopal districts covering all fifty states, the Caribbean, and four countries on the continent of Africa. The denomination
is broken down into eighteen districts and two Episcopal offices. There are twenty-one bishops. Eighteen bishops administer
the Episcopal districts, two are assigned to the Episcopal office positions, and one is elected by the body of delegates from
across the denomination to serve as the Chief Administrative Officer, or Senior Bishop, over all bishops and the entire Gospel
United Church.


Chief Administrative Officer/Senior Bishop, Percy Jennings*

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia

Presiding Bishop, Will Dawson*

District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey

Presiding Bishop, Zeebedee L. Carson, III**

Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts

Presiding Bishop, Silas Jones***

Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine

Presiding Bishop, Josiah Samuels***

Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee

Presiding Bishop, Matthew James Robertson*

Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana

Presiding Bishop, Richard D. Lewis*

Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas

Presiding Bishop, Jimmy Thekston***

Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska

Presiding Bishop, Murcheson James*

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa

Presiding Bishop, Jerome H. Falls**

California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington

Presiding Bishop, Willie Williams***

Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico

Presiding Bishop, Alexander G. Anderson**

Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho

Presiding Bishop, Conrad Brown***

Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic

Presiding Bishop, Buddy Marshall**

West Indies, Virgin Islands, Bahamas

Presiding Bishop, Thomas Lyle Jefferson**

Nigeria

Presiding Bishop, Ottah Babatunde***

Ghana

Presiding Bishop, Bobo Abeeku**

Mozambique

Presiding Bishop, Rucker Lee Hemphill***

Swaziland

Presiding Bishop, Otis Ray Caruthers, Jr.***

 

Bishop assigned to the Office of Urban Affairs, Mann Phillips*

 

Bishop assigned to the Office of Community Concerns for Districts with Small Black Populations, Yadkin Peters**

The Reverend Theophilus Henry Simmons, Sr., was sent to serve as the Senior Pastor of Freedom Temple Gospel United Church in
St. Louis, Missouri, at the conclusion of one of the denomination’s most corrupt and volatile Triennial General Conferences.
Only one other conference had made it to the “Crazy Triennial Conference Hall of Fame,” and most of the folk responsible for
that meeting had gone on to their just rewards. But back in 1963, good, stalwart, saved, and sanctified church folk feared
that the Devil had managed to get such a firm foothold in the church, God was going to strike each and every one of them dead
just for being listed on the church roll.


At that conference folks were shocked and dismayed to discover that some of their top leaders had the unmitigated gall to
run a brothel right in the midst of the conference, as if it were the first in a chain of franchised ho’ houses—and in a funeral
home of all places. Whoever heard of a bunch of black people—no, back then, Negroes—wanting to party at a place where dead
people were in “escrow” en route to their final destination? Black people didn’t make a habit of hanging out in funeral homes.
And anybody foolish enough to differ from this norm was clearly either crazy or corrupt and without a lick of sense.


There were a lot of mad church folk who were ready to throw down on those preachers with “memberships” at the ho’ house. When
that “blue book” hit the conference floor, with the names of the members, folks bombarded the conference floor platform in
Virginia Union’s gymnasium and found out who was wrong and who was right. That information led to some much-needed changes
in the Gospel United Church—changes that led to Rev. Murcheson James’s being elected to an Episcopal seat and to Theophilus’s
appointment to Freedom Temple.


Twenty-two years later Freedom Temple had grown from a respectable congregation of five hundred members to one of the major
players in St. Louis’s black church community, boasting three thousand dedicated and tithing members under the leadership
of their senior pastor, Rev. Theophilus Simmons, Sr. Shortly after Theophilus took over the helm, the church bought up all
the property within a ten-block radius. It rebuilt the church building into an impressive structure with a beautiful state-of-the-art
sanctuary and a suite for the pastor that included a full bath, library, kitchenette, and conference room. There was a small
bookstore and two more libraries—one for the youth and another one for the adults.


The First Lady’s mother, Lee Allie Lane Hawkins, had worked alongside her husband, Pompey, to design the new church kitchen
and cafeteria, which was large enough to host the Annual Conference and most wedding receptions. There were also a nursery,
teen room with video games, gymnasium, first-aid room, and several good-sized education rooms. In addition, there was a large
conference room where big meetings and workshops could be held.


The actual grounds of the church had been landscaped by Dannilynn Meeting, a well-respected architect out of Evangeline T.
Marshall University in Durham, North Carolina. Dannilynn was the granddaughter of the premier black architect in the country,
Daniel Meeting, who had been responsible for designing many buildings on Eva T. Marshall University’s campus.


There were flower gardens to walk through, sitting areas, a playground that was so enjoyable that many of the teens and adults
loved to share in the fun with the younger children, and the best basketball court in the area. And that was a good thing,
because Freedom Temple Gospel United Church had the best teen basketball teams for boys and girls in the St. Louis metropolitan
area.


Freedom Temple was a happening place. And if you listened to any of the members talk, you found out that it was a great church
to attend, with a wonderful pastor and First Lady. The women admired Essie Simmons’s style, they shopped at her boutique,
and they all came to her whenever they needed a one-of-a-kind designer outfit—be it a handcrafted wedding gown, debutante
gown, or honeymoon wardrobe for a bride’s trousseau. Essie received so many requests for her designs that she had to hire
a second designer, two seamstresses, and a tailor to keep up with the volume of requests.


As far as Theophilus and Essie were concerned, it was an even better church to pastor than it was to attend. They loved Freedom
Temple and felt blessed that the good Lord had seen fit to let them serve in the capacity of Senior Pastor and First Lady.
Their members were warm and loving people. They were also people who loved the Lord, were hungry for His Word, and were determined
that they would not stay baby Christians once they turned their lives over to Christ. The folks at Freedom Temple kept their
pastor on his toes. Since taking over the pastorship at Freedom Temple, Theophilus had found himself needing to study Greek,
Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic just so he would be able to continue to inspire and educate his members about the Word and the goodness
of the Lord.


Today was the third Sunday, and Theophilus had been at church since six a.m. Every third Sunday he met with his ministerial
staff so they could pray together, cover each other in prayer, and encourage one another in their walks with the Lord. Preaching
was hard work. Pastoring was harder. Folks just didn’t know—they didn’t even have a clue of what it took to be a good pastor
and a great preacher.


Rev. Simmons was both—and that was saying something. Some ministers could preach Lazarus out of the grave. And some could
pastor a whole city to the pearly gates of Heaven. But to be able to do both? Man, oh man! Now that took some doing.


Theophilus knew that he was both, just as the young brother sitting next to him—Rev. Obadiah Quincey, from Durham, North Carolina—was
well on his way to becoming. Obadiah was a graduate of the School of Divinity at Evangeline T. Marshall University, and he
had been selected by Theophilus to do his requisite two-year apprenticeship under him at Freedom Temple. Obadiah was sharp
and well-read, and had a great sense of humor. He had done well here. About the only problem Theophilus could discern was
that the young man, his wife Lena, and their family were all homesick for Durham.


Theophilus was so sleepy this morning he could barely keep his eyes open while the announcements were being read by Mrs. Tommie
Ann Jenkins, who at eighty-three was one of the meanest members of the church. He couldn’t stand the way that old woman abused
the status of her age. Mrs. Tommie Ann was definitely blessed to have lived this long, and to be as healthy and robust as
she was. But she was (and according to some of the other older members had always been) the worst announcement person in the
history of announcement people at Freedom Temple.


Once, when he felt guilty about wanting to throw Mrs. Tommie Ann up a tree and leave her there, one of his ninetysomethings
told him, “Pastor, don’t feel bad about that old heifer. She has always been like that—ain’t nothing changed about Tommie
Ann in all of the years that I have known her. She was mean and stupid at twenty-five, she was a dumb cow at forty, she made
folks want to slap her at sixty-six, and now she’s lived to be old enough to make somebody in this church give her a personal
invite to go and visit the Lord and never come back.


“I am just amazed that Tommie Ann has lived this long and not been cut or shot by some woman who was mad at her for sleeping
with her husband. So don’t you feel bad about that, Pastor. ’Cause that thang is a piece of work. And now she’s just old enough
to get away with being crazy.”


A bunch of folk, mainly his senior members, had begged the pastor to retire Mrs. Tommie Ann from this position. But God had
not given him the go-ahead. When Theophilus first took the matter to the Lord in prayer, God touched his heart with these
words: “Wait. Just wait and let her fire herself.”

Theophilus couldn’t even begin to imagine how someone who was so prideful and thought so highly of this particular church
job would find a way to fire herself. He would have thought that a person like Mrs. Tommie Ann would be very good at finding
a way to keep such a position. But the Word said that God’s ways were not our ways, and His thoughts not our thoughts. So,
given that biblical truth, Theophilus was obedient and trusted that if God said wait, and he waited, one day Mrs. Tommie Ann
would up and fire herself. He just hoped that day would be sooner rather than later.


The only other thing that stopped the church from rebelling against Mrs. Tommie Ann’s reading the announcements every third
Sunday was that she’d been at Freedom Temple so long, she knew way too much about just about everybody at the church. As one
of the members of the Senior Usher Board said, “Don’t nam-nobody wanna mess with that evil-tailed heifer and make her mad
enough to start giving the morning announcements on who been creepin’, who been stealin’, who been drinkin’, and who sittin’
at home from church ’cause they been fired and don’t have no money to put gas in they car.”


The young people in the congregation—including the three Simmons offspring—secretly hoped Mrs. Tommie Ann would continue to
do the third Sunday announcements because she was some of the best entertainment they could expect to have during the morning
service. It was wonderful to attend a church that was so on point, and did so much right. But it could be kind of boring if
nothing crazy, outlandish, or just blatantly ridiculous happened at your church. You needed these incidents to happen so you
could go to school on Monday morning and compare notes with teens attending other churches in the city.


Freedom Temple teens frequently bemoaned that they didn’t have enough crazy church folk in their congregation to talk about
with their friends at school. But this morning things were getting ready to take a turn for the worse. And as far as the young
people in the church were concerned, it wouldn’t get any better than this.


Mrs. Tommie Ann had steered her walker up to the smaller podium in the pulpit to the left of where the pastor sat. She started
off the announcements with the week’s list of birthdays and anniversaries. Then she went into a lengthy discussion about the
members using up too much toilet tissue in the restrooms.


That woman held out her hand and waited for the rumored newest old man in her life to place a roll of toilet paper in it.
She held it up and said, “Freedom Temple, this is how we can stop using so much tissue in those bathrooms downstairs. As head
of the Tissue, Paper Towel, Napkin, and Toilet Paper Ministry in this church, it is my duty to instruct you properly about
the use of such in the church.”


“By whose authority?” Rev. Quincey leaned over and whispered to his boss very carefully. He did not want to have to deal with
Mrs. Tommie Ann if she happened to overhear what he said and threw a hissy fit on him.


Theophilus whispered, “I don’t know because this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the Tissue, Paper Towel, Napkin, and
Toilet Paper Ministry.”


“Rev.,” Obadiah whispered, “she’s about to do the demonstration.”

Mrs. Tommie Ann rolled off three sheets of toilet paper, folded them, and patted the side of her hip as if it were her bottom,
to show how this was supposed to be done by the members of the church.


Essie was sitting in the designated First Lady spot, right down from the pulpit. She willed herself away from making eye contact
with her husband. She was having a hard enough time keeping it together sitting next to her mother and stepdad. They were
passing notes, poking at each other, and trying not to laugh under their breaths.


By now the teens were riveted to their seats. They could not believe that old woman had a roll of toilet paper and was showing
them how to save on it by using her hip as her pretend butt.


Mrs. Tommie Ann patted her hip again before giving the usher the toilet paper roll, along with the sheets of tissue she’d
used for the demonstration.


“That mean old lady knows good and well that she needs more than a few sheets of toilet paper for her big butt,” Linda Simmons,
the middle Simmons child, whispered, praying that her mama and grandmother weren’t looking up at the balcony, watching her
every move with those old Charleston, Mississippi, hawk eyes. They could get on your nerves—saw everything. And then, if that
wasn’t bad enough, they always had a comment—always.

“Mama’s staring at us,” Linda’s older sister Sharon whispered.

By now folks were assuming that Mrs. Tommie Ann Jenkins had gotten enough attention with that toilet paper lecture to go somewhere
and sit down. But as Essie always told her husband, “When did the Devil ever become satisfied enough to just go somewhere
and sit down?”


Mrs. Tommie Ann was not happy with the way her own church members were sitting there looking bored and passing notes, obviously
too spoiled and selfish to take note of what she’d tried to tell them. That is what she hated about spoiled and selfish people—they
were always so caught up in themselves and what they wanted to say and do. Never mind the other person. It was always all
about them.


Her eyes scanned the balcony, where most of the teens and young adults liked to sit. She knew why they were up there instead
of on the main floor. They loved that perch—it gave them a perfect view of everything going on in church on a Sunday morning.
And on top of that, it afforded them the opportunity to whisper, snicker, and pass notes about what was going on during service.


She stared at them for a second, eyes narrowing into slits when