Category: Features

GracePoint Senior Living Community is planned to include 42 units of affordable housing for seniors ages 62 and older. The units will serve seniors with incomes at or below 50% of the Area Median Income. For Turner, this project is about more than building apartments. It is about using church property to help meet a real need in the community. For years, the land represented possibility. Now, it is moving closer to becoming something that can serve seniors and the community in a meaningful way.

In the life of our Church, we often talk about what qualifies someone for episcopal leadership. But underneath those stated qualifications runs another list, one we rarely say out loud. We ask whether we admit it or not: Does this candidate look like a Bishop? Do they carry themselves the way the generations before them did? Consider what happens when a candidate shows a flash of modern personality. A pair of earrings, say. To some, it’s a small thing. To others, it’s a break with tradition. Yet that small thing stands in for a much larger question the AME Church needs to answer: are we actually ready to embrace leadership that doesn’t fit the familiar shape?

African Methodist Episcopal (AME) University has taken a bold step toward strengthening higher education in Liberia with the groundbreaking of a modern three-storey, 25-classroom annex to Hatcher Hall. The landmark project, scheduled for completion within eight months, is expected to significantly increase classroom capacity and improve the learning experience for the University’s rapidly growing student population of more than 7,000.

“This designation represents far more than the preservation of historic buildings,” said Dr. Vann R. Newkirk, Sr., President, Wilberforce University. “It honors the remarkable legacy of generations who believed that education could transform lives and advance freedom. Wilberforce has long stood as a beacon of faith, scholarship, resilience, and leadership. We are grateful that this national recognition affirms our place in American history while inspiring us to continue preparing future generations of servant leaders.”

The history of African Methodism demonstrates that Christian faith has consistently been understood as inseparable from social responsibility. The distinctive contribution of the Black Church has therefore not been a retreat from social realities, but the capacity to articulate theological hope while engaging the concrete structures of injustice. Its prophetic witness has operated at the intersection of worship, public ethics, and collective resistance. The contemporary context presents challenges that differ in form but not in moral seriousness.

The school was built around 1935 among other schools owned by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, but has now been taken over by the government and other individuals. Historical records show that the Anne Heath Academy now survives with a total population of about sixty-five (65) students, not to even talk of the lack of its facilities.

During the recently concluded Côte d’Ivoire Annual Conference, it was reported that the church had remained closed from May through October 2025 after heavy rains severely compromised the building’s structure. This prolonged closure led a considerable number of members to temporarily join neighboring congregations, raising urgent concerns about both the physical condition of the building and the continuity of fellowship within the community.