Well, here we are again. Another wonderful community caught in the cycle of haters, liars and those who want power without responsibility. I’ve been in Baltimore for the past 31 years. We have seen the good, the bad and the ugly.
In the desire to be salt and light, we’ve been working with hundreds of pastors, politicians and police. We started a group of pastors working together called “Peace for the City” back in the early ’90s. We have seen city blocks transformed by the power of God, through faithful men and women of God who were willing to make a sacrifice to make a difference.
We’ve seen people’s needs met at every level. We are currently giving away for free our 13th house to a family that’s never owned a home before. And this year, we give the house to a veteran. We move more than 3.5 million pounds of food to feed between 24 and 27 thousand people every month. We’ve adopted two local high schools so we can give their top academic students a generous financial gift for their future college pursuits.
The church in Baltimore has some great leaders, but there are way too many who want to live in the past, who love their race more than the whole human race. The inner city, which so many of my church families live in, has many challenges. One is the absentee fathers in the homes. You have so many young males with no father figure (fathers give identity), so it’s easy for the gangs to recruit them and make them feel like they belong. Then, you have some of the pastors stuck in their own fatherless prison, both spiritually and naturally. So they spew out their old messages of hate and blame.
It’s always someone else’s fault. I grew up without a mother or father influence and was in gangs and on drugs from the time I was 13 years old. I was in and out of jails and thrown out of school in the 5th grade, 8th grade, etc. But thank God I went into a church that preached the love of God. Not the hate of the past failure of a lost culture of racism, or mistakes made by many.
The church in America’s inner cities, needs to change its message, now! It’s not the police’s fault that inner city black, or Spanish, or white kids are being killed at an alarming rate! In Baltimore City, 90 percent of the homicides are happening with black teens killing black teens. We need to demand that our pulpits, in the inner city churches, stand up and tell the truth, no matter how it affects the offering!
We need healing in our homes, and in our relationships with those in our community called to protect us! I have police officers (men and women) in my church and they are superheroes to our kids. We need to elect righteous men and women to the offices of mayor and City Council. When the righteous rule, the people rejoice! But when the wicked rule, the people mourn.
Our inner cities, like Baltimore and many other cities in America, are hurting. Yes, they need jobs, better economic opportunities and much better educational systems. But we have to stop and fix the core problems before we can build bigger buildings and new malls. We have to build strong morals, strong faith and strong love into strong young people, who are the future of these cities.
Bishop Bart Pierce serves as the senior pastor of Rock City Church in Maryland.
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