The Morning Star’s rejoicing is twofold
Church members celebrate seeing each other again and paying off the mortgage, too
Congregants of an Albany church celebrate coming together again and paying off their mortgage, too.
When the congregants of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church returned to worship in person Aug. 8, it was a double celebration: the joy of seeing each other and the gratitude of having paid off the church’s mortgage earlier than expected.
The lovely brick and white frame church, at the corner of Spring and Quail streets, is the oldest Black church in the Capital Region, said the Rev. Christopher A. Hill Jr., pastor of the church that boasts more than 300 members. He served in Baltimore and then at Monumental Baptist Church for 25 years before coming to Morning Star five years ago, where he felt “welcome and embraced” by the congregation.
Morning Star was founded 127 years ago when the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church was a white church and had a Black congregation in the balcony.
“The Black people got tired of standing in the balcony, pulled out from the white congregation and started their own church,” said Hill, who lives in Albany with his wife, Dawn.
“In 1894, the church at the site of the present day Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church was called Tabernacle Baptist Church, and before that Temple Baptist Church,” said Teresa Graham, church historian and a 40-plus-year member of the congregation.
Her family’s roots at the church extend more than 70 years with her relatives having served as trustee, usher, choir participants and her grandfather, the Rev. Matthew Jordan, as pastor from 1977 to 1984.
Linda Dorsey of Rensselaer, a congregant and former trustee at the church, said the original mortgage for the church’s renovation was for $900,000 in 1997. To pay off the loan, many congregants committed to tithe, the Biblical mandate promising a percentage of the believer’s income to the church.
In 2009, the church refinanced its remaining loan of $465,000 for 15 years. By then, the congregation had reduced in size from 1997.
The church was paying $40,000 a year of the loan. In February 2020, about $98,000 of the mortgage remained.
“We felt if 58 people were to pledge $1,000 sacrificial commitment over two years on top of tithe, we could finish paying off the mortgage. We had been paying extra principal money and had a mortgage burning plan in place,” said Dorsey, who was coordinator of the project and used to be on the trustee board so she “realized how money comes in and how it is spent.”
Each year at Morning Star’s anniversary, “We do a sacrificial commitment for $1 a year of the church.” For the church’s 127th anniversary, “some of us paid $127,” she said.
Also, the pastor does a Lenten service every year and asked participants to make a sacrificial commitment of $40.
Not all attendees were church congregants, but many committed and donated, Dorsey said.
A local legislator and a sister church made financial donations too, she said.
All said, the church paid off the 15-year mortgage in 12 years.
According to the Independent Community Bankers of America, mortgage burning ceremonies became nationally popular in the 1940s when GIS returning from World War II found it easier to become homeowners than their grandparents, or even their parents had thanks to government programs and an economic boom. Mortgage burning ceremonies were being celebrated by churches, Veterans of Foreign Wars community halls as well as schools and small businesses through the 1980s and 1990s.
Sometimes a luncheon or picnic was included.
Hill is hoping for the “restrengthening of our church, more investment in our youth, strengthening our elders and picking up programs like feeding on the third Saturday of each month. We have given away clothing and 200 plus boxes of food during the pandemic. I would hate for people living in the shadow of our church to be hungry.”
“The Lord allowed us enough technology to keep us together virtually,” enabling the church to carry out services, Bible study and children’s activities during the pandemic lockdown, said Hill,
who was born and raised in Baltimore and has a doctorate in divinity from Judson University in Elgin, Ill. “It was difficult not seeing members. We longed for each other. As the saying goes, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”
The majority of congregants came back for the Aug. 8 celebration following COVID -19 guidelines, he said, adding, “People have come to realize they need someone bigger than themselves to help handle things in the world today.”
At last Sunday’s mortgage burning, congregants streamed out of the front door and followed the pastor to where a metal bowl had been placed on a table outside. Pieces of paper symbolizing the mortgage were placed in the bowl and burned in celebration of what worshippers had accomplished together for Morning Star.
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“The Lord allowed us enough technology to keep us together virtually. It was difficult not seeing members. We longed for each other. As the saying goes, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ ”
— The Rev. Christopher A. Hill Jr., pastor of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church