Mt. Olive Freewill Baptist Church rebuilding after devastating blaze
About a year ago, I received calls at work on a storm-cloud filled day with news on the other line that one of Baltimore’s most historic churches had been struck by lightning. I jumped in the car and drove to the church and joined hundreds of others who gathered at the smoldering building trying to make sense of what happened. Tears, cheers, songs, and prayers went up as the faithful and the curious watched in amazement as the billows of smoke rose higher yet into the sky.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, news reports began to surface about the church’s financial struggles and gifts that the church had given their pastor – the most scrutinized of which was a bentley automobile.
One year later the smoke has cleared and in this WBAL news report, Bishop Oscar Brown talks about where the church is now – debt free and looking forward to a new building in 2010.
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God’s idea of a church success model differs invariably from what humans/Christians consider to be a success model. At Jerusalem, Jesus explained to his disciples that a day would come when one stone at the Temple would not remain atop the other. And don’t forget the letters to the 7 churches of Asia, for except for one church most of them had forsaken God’s mission and substituted it with a mission that they contrived!
Not only has the new generation changed the face of politics in America, it would appear that they have apparently transmogrified the mission of the church from that of saving and maintaining souls to one of show me the money thrills and excess! And to be fair, the spirit of capitalist excess is sweeping nations like China and India as well!
The hostile takeover at Bishop Reid’s AME church out in your area also showed up in the media; fortunately justice prevailed in the end, shame on him!
The spirit of greed and capitalism apparently ‘descended from somewhere like a mighty rushing wind’ during the past 2 decades on the American Christian church, and as a result the church roles and the financial portfolios of churches across the land have increased exponentially. Corporate churches are behaving like secular American corporations. And what has the church become as a result? It would appear that the church has become one big networking, religious-secular, capitalist enterprise – even Bishop Jakes proclaimed several years ago in Washington DC that the Church is a business! I call what I am witnessing as the Spirit of American Capitalist Church Syndrome.
And what has happened to the 3rd class in the church? Not only has a permanent underclass prevailed in most inner cities in America, a permanent underclass persists in most American black churches while some at the top continue to prosper, while promising those at the bottom trickle-down at some future date! Now where have we heard that before?
I am a member of Mt.Olive Freewill baptist Church. I have seen the hand of god move and the people, they are more at peace. They have more faith and god in what he is doing and their lives Bishop Oscar E Brown is a testiment of gods hand he is a understanding man who was tested on has faith in as like the rest of us he has came through just as god intened us to this was indeed a test of faith love understanding and to show his son Bishop Brown that he need to clean house and restore his place of worship. We got to comfortable and the way things were and god wanted us to more and what he wanted to show us and when we would not listen god him self had to make us move. We are at a place were we would have never been at this time and our lives.Two diffrent but equally improtant congregations have come together to praise has name. That is the hand of god. We have a black president look at bthe nmovement god is doing and this world today. Bless be to god on high.
So, let me get this straight Mildred, God burned down 1st Mt. Olive down because he needed to "clean house" and restore his place of worship? This church is stuck and at this point may never return back to its original location. Bishop Brown said that the church would rebuild by 2010, but its 2010 and the church is no where close to being rebuilt. It appears that the financial challenges that this ministry had is still restricting it from moving forward. Maybe this fire was God's way of exposing the cultural of financial irresponsibility that rest there.