Spirit of Service Helps Black Churches Thrive

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March 13, 2025 | UM News

Editor’s note: This is the second in a four-part UM News series on legacy Black United Methodist churches that are maintaining their traditions while also doing innovative ministries to serve the present age. Each installment, the series will feature venerable yet still vital African American churches in the United Methodist connection.

Two legacy Black United Methodist congregations in Texas celebrate their venerable histories, while also remaining vital as centers of faith development and community service through diverse ministries.

Trinity United Methodist Church in Houston is celebrating its 160th anniversary this month. The congregation is also forging new paths through intentional ministries to nurture discipleship, relationships and community partnerships.

St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas, at 92 years old, is demonstrating ageless energy and creativity in its various worship offerings, small groups, intergenerational ministries and community outreach that responds to the needs and concerns of its neighbors. 

Trinity United Methodist Church, Houston

Trinity United Methodist Church is celebrating its 160th anniversary as an influential spiritual home in the city’s predominantly African American Third Ward community. Its rich cultural legacy reflects a steadfast commitment to faith, community service and education.

The first members began worshipping together as slaves in 1848 and built a modest initial home in 1851. They were able to purchase and charter their own church in 1865.

Moving to its current site in 1951, the congregation kept building and growing, even overcoming a devastating fire and other hardships. Led by the Rev. David Elias Dibble, a former slave and Texas’ first Black ordained minister, the church created historic Olivewood Cemetery, where freed slaves and Houston’s earliest Black citizens are buried, and also Emancipation Park, the home of early Juneteenth celebrations.

“As the city grew, the church continued to expand its footprint,” said the Rev. Ed Jones III, Trinity’s pastor since 2017, in a Texas Conference article celebrating the church’s legacy. “People were developing relationships, particularly in the Third Ward area, where we have a deep and long-lasting history.”

Trinity has long been a strong advocate for community development and a champion for education, nurturing prominent civic, religious and educational leaders statewide and helping to birth Texas Southern University and United Methodist-related Wiley College in Marshall, Texas.  

With about 400 members, Trinity has struggled with the same decline in membership and resources that most historic Black churches face — especially since the COVID pandemic. But it nonetheless continues to serve and uplift its community, working with key partners to improve access to better food, education and health care, financial literacy, voter participation and other needs.

And the church serves as a hub for early childhood education and community events.  

Soon after COVID forced a shutdown of schools and Trinity’s own closure to worship services in 2020, the church became one of eight United Methodist churches in the city to adapt classrooms and other spaces to welcome children for virtual classes.

The “Sanctuary of Learning” program, in Texas’ largest school district, provided safe, stimulating environments for socially distanced online learning, including meals and snacks, and enrichment activities. Staffed mostly by volunteers, it was a major boon for working parents who had no other options for child care.

“Whenever there’s a problem, there’s an opportunity for a fresh vision to offer solutions,” Jones said. “Our church was able to bridge the gap for about 75 students and their parents.”

Now the church provides space for about 60 young students in the Generation One Academy, a nonprofit early childhood development program, described as “a living laboratory for education research and development.” Using a trauma-informed approach, it addresses the special needs of low-income children and also provides after-school programming and family support.

During COVID, Jones earned an executive MBA from the University of Houston, where he learned that constant, strategic innovation and fruitful partnerships are critical to developing any organization, including a church. Meanwhile, he led his church in a full year of strategic evaluation and values-centered planning.

“We knew everything would be different, and we would have to change,” he said. He cited not only the pandemic but also changes happening in the Texas Conference, as an anxious denomination struggled with the prospects of church disaffiliations and an uncertain future.

Trinity, whose members come from across the metropolitan area and beyond, adopted a new mission statement: “Building Transformation Through Christ-Centered Relationships.” Its new discipleship development plan focuses in part on fostering relationships that extend beyond its community, to gather people in active discipling groups where they live. 

Part of the vision is to go from “gathering to scattering,” Jones said, to take discipleship beyond the church walls, similar to the popular Fresh Expressions model of church expansion. For example, Trinity sponsors an Alpha course to teach basics of the Christian faith at Star of Hope, a residential program to help homeless women and families transition to independent living.  

“We’re doing a lot of discipleship covenant groups on Zoom calls and at the church, and also Emmaus Walks, which have been transformative for the church,” Jones said.

Trinity’s “4th-day community” — those who have experienced the three-day Emmaus Walk spiritual retreats — has grown to 50 members, and the church’s vision is to reach 100 by 2026. As a result, the experience is “empowering church leaders to expand their roles in worship, mission, evangelism, discipleship and stewardship,” the pastor said.

Jones was a church planter who started the Living Water United Methodist Church in Houston in 2005 and led it for 10 years before merging it with another church in 2015. In 2017, when the Rev. Robert McGee, Trinity’s former pastor of nearly 30 years, retired, Jones succeeded him.

Today, Trinity continues to address critical needs in its community. Food insecurity, maternal health disparities, and mentoring for children remain at the forefront of its outreach, thanks to several strategic partnerships. The church also offers workshops on health, wellness and financial literacy, equipping community members with essential life skills.

“We make it work,” said Cynthia Hicks Humphrey, a member of the church’s connection team, in the Texas Conference article. “I tell everybody we’re small but mighty.”

Member Billye Sexton, who is on the church stewardship committee, said she looks forward to welcoming more people. “This church has been a refuge and a resource for many people. This is where the culture of our community is able to come together. It’s where we’ve been able to thrive and survive.”

St. Luke Community United Methodist Church, Dallas

St. Luke Community United Methodist Church is thriving with vibrant worship and purposeful ministries that resonate across its community and generations. Founded in 1933, the small congregation relocated closer to a highway for more visibility and added “Community” to its original name after the renowned Rev. Zan Holmes, now pastor emeritus, became its pastor in 1974. He served there until 2002.

Now, the congregation has grown to about 4,000 under several innovative pastors and become “a leading voice for social justice and spiritual transformation,” according to its current pastor, the Rev. Richie Butler.  He describes the congregation as “multicultural, multigenerational, multiethnic and socially diverse.” 

St. Luke offers a mix of traditional and contemporary tastes in worship music, liturgy, preaching and arts.

“We merge the beauty of timeless traditions with the energy of modern expression,” Butler said, “creating a space where ancient hymns and contemporary rhythms join hands.”

That versatility embraces sacred dance and mime, spoken word and theatrical performances. It also includes “NextGen”creative worship for children and youth who gather separately as “mini-congregations.”

Special events, like a congregational prayer walk around the Dallas Metroplex in 2022, involve and generate interest in the surrounding community. 

In April, the church will host its fifth annual citywide Easter worship celebration in a popular downtown park. It’s planning for 5,000 guests, due to dramatic yearly growth in attendance. Families, from children to seniors, enjoy hope-filled music and preaching, plus fellowship, fun and games in what has become a highly anticipated “Resurrection Sunday” outdoor observance.

“This Is My Story” is a Black History Month worship event that features conversation with prominent church members, who share their life and faith testimonies. During the Feb. 23 service, Butler interviewed Reuben Cannon, Hollywood’s first Black casting director and now a film producer who helped launch the careers of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Willis and Tyler Perry. 

In 2024, the guest interviewee was 98-year-old Opal Lee, considered the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” She walked 1,600 miles from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., in 2016 with signed petitions to help make the longtime observance among African Americans a national holiday.

More about artist Jean Lacy

Jean Lacy was a distinguished African American artist and museum education specialist. She designed 53 resplendent stained-glass windows for St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas, as well as eight windows for Trinity United Methodist in Houston. The artist was inspired by creation myths and religious stories, the Civil Rights Movement and African American culture. Lacy died in Dallas in 2023 at the age of 90.

St. Luke has focused recent attention on two urgent concerns nationwide, especially in African American communities: mental health and gun violence.

The church’s Mental Health Ministry works to “educate, support and empower individuals and families affected by mental illness.” Its ninth annual Mental Health Symposium last July was offered virtually on Zoom during National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. Expert speakers addressed Decriminalizing Mental Illness in the Justice System, advocating for needed reforms and community-based solutions.

Topics included the impact of mental health crises on 911 calls, decision-making processes for first responders, alternatives to incarceration, mental health services within jails, probation challenges and new initiatives to improve mental health outcomes.

“We are committed to fostering dialogue and action around the urgent need to reform how our justice system addresses mental health,” Butler said.  “We need to destigmatize mental illness and advocate for systemic change by prioritizing compassion and support.”

A month earlier, the church hosted in its sanctuary a gun violence town hall event following several area shootings, including one at a nearby high school. Attendees came “looking for a cause and cure to fight back against gun violence.” U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia spoke on Sunday after the event, which the men in the congregation organized.

Butler was already focused on the daunting problem, a leading cause of death for teenagers. He even used a gun violence ticker to report to the congregation before preaching each Sunday how many people had died thus far from gun violence.

“You cannot turn a blind eye when it keeps smacking you in the face,” he said. “We continue to bring it up each week to say, ‘What are we going to do?’ We all have a responsibility to do our part.”

Meanwhile, the church also helps its neighbors with mortgage, rent and utility costs, supports temporary housing shelters and local schools, and provides access to healthy food and wellness services.

Lightpath Health is a new independent, affordable, comprehensive health care program housed at St. Luke that serves especially older members and other patients — referred to as “neighbors” — in the historically underserved South Dallas community. It began in 2020 as a public charity offering testing for residents disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then it became a physician-led nonprofit organization and community partner for the church.

Texas leads the nation in the ratio and number of uninsured residents, with more than 5 million or 17.7 percent of the population lacking health insurance — nearly double the national ratio.

In addition, St. Luke believes in the power of small groups to grow ministry participation. Several groups gather to stimulate candid conversations, education, mutual support and spiritual growth. Two conversational groups are named The Beauty Shop and The Barber Shop, led by Butler, whose motto is, “What’s said here stays here.”

Now St. Luke is launching into its future with Vision 2024, a $10 million capital campaign. Its ambitious plans include two new buildings for its NextGen youth campus, replacing buildings it demolished in 2023 that were erected in 1936 when the church was new. The new facilities will house a youth center, a children’s ministry area with an early childhood development center, and space for community gatherings, events and meetings.

John W. Coleman is a UM News correspondent and part-time pastor. The Texas Conference’s Brant Mills contributed to this report.