Payne AME Church in Chatham New York Celebrated their 173rd Anniversary on Saturday October 1, 2022. We paused for a few hours to celebrate our relationship with community partners, our brothers and sisters in faith, and friends and family to enjoy the love, and respectful fellowship between us we all intentionally nurture. This fellowship relationship has been present down though history, and did not diminish, but blossomed during the most recent height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We have done prayer walks, prayed on prayer lines, and lobbied for better broad ban. We helped members learn how to get on zoom. Fed a family of seven quarantined during Covid-19, supplied our lone village laundromat with complimentary detergent, organized Black Lives Matter Drives through villages and cities, drove folks to their routine medical appointments and cancer treatments, became certified State Chaplains, Participated and assisted in organizing Juneteenth celebrations, held regular zoom Church services and bible studies, assisted with organization of Gospel fests, back to school programs, March for Jesus events, and National prayer day, as well as did whatever the Lord asked of us and enabled us to do.
It was past time to celebrate the community we live and work in as well as ourselves!
We showed a poignant video essay featuring a few of the earliest congregations, our church’s first wooden edifice prior to it burning down by the KKK, the current, and second, edifice built prophetically by a community resident with the last name spelled, Payn, (no relation to one of our four horsemen Daniel Alexander Payne, Bishop, educator, author, and administrator). The corner stone dated 1849, now in the process of being repaired from harsh winter damage, previous Pastors over the last twenty years or so, Rev. Dr. Dennis Dickerson Sr. PHD AME Historian, proudly ranking among them and as many of the community activities we could capture in photos despite the pandemic.
We celebrated in praise and with a dance of praise, choreography compliments of Sister Priscilla Troupe of Boston, performed by our own three novice dancers, but seasoned, clergy women to Kirk Carr’s, In the Sanctuary. A young Saxophonist, Zachory Biggers, serenaded the crowd of nearly one hundred with Amazing Grace, Let It Rise, and Bless the Lord with me. Our dynamic meditation for the afternoon was brought to us by Rev. Dr. Andrea M. Hargett, Pastor of St. Matthew’s Community AMEC, Hollis, NY, and Licensed Family Therapist.
We favored Community members, workers and friends, American Legion Officials, Funeral Home Director, a United Methodist Pastor recently reassigned to a downstate area, our Chatham area Interfaith council and its subset antiracism discussion forum members, a special member of the St. James Catholic Church, integral in our being included in community ecumenical services, a loving philanthropic husband and wife, dedicated to assisting all churches in the surrounding counties, and Rev. Corinne Summers a long-standing member of Payne, all accepting with humility and gleeful surprise. Finally, we celebrated our Presiding Elder, Rev. Dr. Faye Banks Taylor. Our faithful leader.
This event was not a fundraiser, but God blessed us anyway!
The event was fun, and relaxing. Our community all harvested what God planted.
To God be the Glory, for Rural vineyards.
Event Committee: Rev. Dr. Gloria Jimpson, Rev. Linda Van Alstyne, Steward Pro Tem Naomi Pitts.
Submitted by: Rev. Dr. Gloria E. Jimpson, Pastor and Steward Pro Tem Naomi Pitts
