by | Jun 19, 2024 5:57 pm | Comments (5)
Jabez Choi photo
At Dixwell UCC's Juneteenth service on Wednesday.
At a Juneteenth worship service on Dixwell Avenue Wednesday morning, Yale Divinity School Associate Professor Clifton Granby asked: “Has freedom really settled in?”
by | Jan 15, 2024 3:24 pm | Comments (26)
Jamil Ragland Photo
At the MLK Love March Monday in the Goatville neighborhood.
As a practicing agnostic, I’ve often wondered why the Civil Rights Movement began in the church. Christianity has always seemed antithetical to Black liberation to me. After all, this is the white man’s religion, with a white Jesus foisted upon our people during the degradation of slavery. I’ve resented my people’s devotion to a God we wouldn’t even know if not for our conquest.
This question was cycling through my mind when I stepped off with the members and supporters of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church for their 54th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love March through the streets of East Rock, the state’s longest-running celebration of Dr. King’s life and achievements.
Continue reading ‘Love March Sparks Civil Rights Revelation’
by | Nov 13, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (1)
Christopher Wigren, Stacy and Frankie Vairo, Jane Montanaro, Lady Shalene McClam, Pastor Darrell McClam, and Mother Helen Jean Carr on Sunday.
The congregants of Pitts Chapel United Free Will Baptist Church are not only raising their historic sanctuary’s roof in dancing, singing, and exuberant prayer as they do every Sunday — now they are also able to fix it.
Continue reading ‘Newhallville Church's Roof Repairs Celebrated’
by | Jan 16, 2023 6:30 pm | Comments (12)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Rev. Eldren Morrison: “The church has lost its activist spirit."
A former New Haven-based faith leader returned to Dixwell Avenue Monday to lift up Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legacy of church-led progressive political action.
Continue reading ‘Rev. Morrison Returns To Preach "Good Trouble"’
by | Oct 31, 2022 11:08 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel photo
Congregant Josue Ortiz shows how it's done.
Josue Ortiz sounded the shofar, but it wasn’t the Jewish Day of Atonement. He wasn’t even in a synagogue.
The site was the Estrella Resplandeciente de Jacob, the Radiant Star of Jacob Church in Fair Haven, where the spirit and service of long-time pastors Javier and Shari Diaz were trumpeted, along with the help of an official certificate presented by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
by | Aug 3, 2022 5:10 pm | Comments (35)
Maya McFadden photo / Thomas Breen file photo
Rev Kimber: New leadership needed. Mayor Elicker: More funding needed.
New Haven needs a new plan — and new leadership — in order to improve abysmal student reading levels.
The Greater New Haven Clergy Association issued that plea Wednesday during a press conference at which Newhallville pastors laid into the Board of Education, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) administrators, and the mayor after a recent report showed that 84 percent of third-graders are reading below grade level.
by | Aug 1, 2022 9:36 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Dixwell UCC bicentennial planning committee members Joy W. Donaldson, Antonie Thorp, Estelle Whitfield Simpson, Clifton Graves Jr., Althea Musgrove Norcott, Helena Rogers, and Cheryl Gray.
The nation’s oldest African American United Congregational Church is celebrating 200 years of being rooted in community service, social justice, and humanitarian efforts.
by | Jul 11, 2022 8:55 am | Comments (1)
Olivia Gross Photo
Milton Collins at Sunday's St. Luke's picnic.
Forty parishioners from Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church threw a party Sunday morning — for their church, and for the 98th birthday of a parishioner named Milton Collins, who has ping-ponged and tap-danced his way around the world and back.
by | Jun 7, 2022 1:36 pm | Comments (2)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Sunday at Upon This Rock.
Pastor Christine Perry offered the assembled some advice that also described a journey she was launching at the pulpit.
“There may be a little turbulence,” she told them. “But if there is, just hold onto your seat, because we’re definitely going to get there.”
by | May 9, 2022 8:41 am | Comments (3)
Allan Appel Photo
Pastor Jack Perkins Davidson in the tree in front of Spring Glen Church.
With kids in colorful masks and skirts, praise of God as the “womb of life and source of being,” and a pastor high up in a sugar maple helping to secure a long gauzy rainbow banner, Spring Glen Church marked both Mother’s Day and the 25th anniversary of becoming an “open and affirming” congregation within the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination.
Continue reading ‘Spring Glen Marks 25 "Open & Affirming" Years’
by | Mar 27, 2022 5:02 pm | Comments (1)
ALLEN SAMUEL PHOTOGRAPHY
Rabbi Ravid Tilles, at right, presents prayer shawl to BEKI Rabbi Eric Woodward at Sunday's ceremony.
As we emerge –- we dearly hope -– from a mask-filled pandemic, one of the most important values to which we aspire is seeing and being seen, in the fullest spiritual sense.
by | Jan 24, 2022 2:11 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photos
Elijah Davis Jr.: "I'd like to thank God, because He made it all possible."
The legacy and face of Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Church’s retired leader Elijah Davis Jr. will now remain in the church even on days when his physical presence is absent.
Continue reading ‘Pitts Chapel Unveils Longtime Bishop's Portrait’
by | Oct 11, 2021 1:10 pm | Comments (2)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Pastor Jeremiah Jermaine Paul at his new pulpit.
After winning the second season of NBC’s The Voice and touring for a decade with Alicia Keys, Jeremiah Jermaine Paul realized his true life — singing about “building your church from the ground up” from his own pulpit at Sunday worship services.
by | Sep 20, 2021 8:20 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Elijah Davis Jr. leads final service as pastor: God needs fishers of men.
New sign revealed.
En route to leading his last service as pastor of Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Church, Elijah Davis Jr. accidentally left his bible in the limo. So he ditched his planned sermon and preached a word about fishermen and loyalty.
by | Jan 18, 2021 10:34 am | Comments (5)
Inside the church during Sunday’s service.
Maya McFadden Photos
Pastor Otero and Mayor Elicker select raffle winner.
Mayor joins Fair Haven service to pick winner of 2021 Corolla, as church resumes worship with Covid precautions in place.
by | Apr 13, 2020 10:40 am | Comments (0)
Facebook Live
Bishop Charles H. Brewer III invites congregations to address Covid-19 during livestreamed sermon.
The growing toll of Covid-19 was at the forefront of the minds, and prayers, of Dixwell Avenue congregants this Easter Sunday.
by | Apr 10, 2020 5:27 pm | Comments (1)
Friedrich Nietsche, the man who famously declared that God is dead, also said he might have become a good Christian, as was the case with that other former pagan, renegade, and convert St. Augustine, had Jesus’ disciples only been better examples of human beings.
Was this too much to ask?
by | Apr 6, 2020 1:10 pm | Comments (0)
Imam Saladin Hasan.
The Covid-19 pandemic and its repercussions are like the Red Sea: Allah will hold the waves back. In return, all Allah wants is gratitude.
This was the message at this week’s Ju’muah service at the Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center on Dixwell Avenue.
Continue reading ‘Gratitude Broadcast From Dixwell Ave. Mosque’
by | Mar 30, 2020 10:47 am | Comments (0)
YouTube
Calvary Baptist Church Minister Emily Cui introduces the five central points of her sermon.
The streets are quiet. Are you also internally quiet enough to hear God?
Minister Emily Cui asked her congregants that question on Sunday morning, with the help of YouTube Live.
Continue reading ‘Mandarin Sermon Message: How To Love Others During A Pandemic’
by | Mar 23, 2020 10:42 am | Comments (1)
The Rev. Harlan Dalton.
In the weeks and months ahead, what will we learn about our deep behavior amid the covid-19 pandemic?
Will social distancing be mainly about keeping out of sneezing range? Or will many of us begin to display something more insidious?
Continue reading ‘Try To Love Your Neighbor As Yourself —Even At 6 Feet Apart’
by | Mar 22, 2020 10:59 pm | Comments (0)
Agape Minister Jeremy McKain sings while Senior Pastor Willa Moody bobs on the dance floor.
The congregation of Agape Christian Center joined together in song as usual on Sunday morning. Instead of repeating after the pastor in person, however, many of the voices chimed in through Facebook Live.
by | Feb 3, 2020 4:54 pm | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
Thomas Jackson at St. Luke’s, where he now serves as pastor.
Thomas Jackson doesn’t see much difference between a good sermon and good journalism. Both, in his view, strive to make people see connections more deeply and build community.
Continue reading ‘Activist-Turned-Priest Returns In New Role’
by | Oct 16, 2019 4:39 pm | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Weekly Friday prayers at the masjid.
At a Jummah prayer service, leaders of Dixwell Avenue’s Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center made an announcement that heralds a new chapter for the Muslim community: the center will honor a Nation of Islam leader at its annual banquet in November.
by | Jul 15, 2019 7:39 am | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
“It’s not home but it’s special,” said Alton Johnson who attended and performed at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church for its annual State of South Carolina Gospel Brunch Fundraiser.
by and | Jul 5, 2019 8:52 am | Comments (2)
Almost every Friday evening, the Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at 2927 Dixwell Ave. gives back to the Hamden community by hosting “Dinner for a Dollar.” The tradition has been going on for eight years and is aimed at helping people get a nutritious, cheap and good tasting meal.
Continue reading ‘Hamden Church Celebrates Eight Years Of Dollar Dinners’