By Morris Lewis
Crested on a Knoll in Hartford’s Northeast end sits a little white church on the corner of Vineland Terrace and Enfield Street. For over 45 years, the Vineland Terrace New Testament Church of God has been a staple and pillar in the community. It was pastored by the late Bishop Austin J. Lewis and the late Reverend Martha J. Lewis. As a small family church, it was also affectionately known as “Aunt Martha’s church”. Having it roots entrenched in old time Pentacostalism, the fiery rhetoric from the pulpit was accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior or your souls will be doomed to hell. The church taught faithfulness, spiritual maturity, and life integrity. Sometime the stringent Holiness teachings felt difficult to accomplish in everyday life. What spared us from doom, was God’s grace and mercy. Overall, the experience was to convey God’s teachings and for us to have and live with moral integrity. No church is perfect, but we did our best.
Fast forward to today, the church finds itself in a quite precarious state. Having lost both pastors, the congregation collectively desires to grieve the losses and move on with a new pastor when God prepares us for that transitional period. During this time of grief, it is evident that we are vulnerable and may not comprehend what is occurring. Having been in the Church of God, headquartered in Cleveland, TN so long we had only past experiences of sister churches loss of leadership to go by. Based on those experiences, we all thought that the process to select another pastor was in our own decision-making rights. Supporting this theory is our 2018 Church of God Book of minutes, it specifically spells out the polices and procedures of how this should work.
Unfortunately, our regional overseer, Bishop Kenneth Hill has taken it upon himself to ram the process down our throats despite having been told numerous times by us that we are not ready. We all wondered why the rush and total disregard for our wishes. Well, on or around October 2020, Bishop Hill went to the City of Hartford Town Hall and filed an erroneous document on out church’s land records. He implied that we had abandoned the church henceforth he needed to place new trustees on our land documents. These three “minion” trustees have absolutely no affiliation with our local church. They are 3 other pastors within our Southern New England region. Be mindful, that neither was the church ever abandoned and the N.T. V.T.C.O.G. already had 4 trustees on the board which were voted in at our board meeting. Bishop Hill has not now nor ever recognized the trustees board at our church.
Initially, the bells didn’t ring in our heads of what his intentions were. Over time we realized that he has done similar nefarious things to other churches in the region where the churches owned property. For the most part, if a church rents their edifice, they are considered safe. “It’s the land Stupid!” A modest church it is with nothing pretentious going on architecturally, we never recognized it real estate value. It is nothing like the First Cathedral of Bloomfield with its towering spires and Mega Church Aura, we are quite simple. Nonetheless, it has value. It may be worth around $450,000 on the open market and we only paid $60,000 for it about 43 years ago. In the spectrum of things, $450,000 is considered low, but irrespective it ours and it is fully paid for, and it is the House of God. It was not until recent we came to recognize that this manipulation being thwarted upon us is nothing more than a “land grab”. Why buy your own church when you can get one for free! All you must do is wait for someone to die and then go for the jugular. We all worked in this church tirelessly for the past 45 years, chicken dinners, fish fries, building funds, candy cane sales and collectively over time we paid the church off and never had any need to refinance. This afforded us the opportunity to have a food pantry and aided with needs to meet some of the deficits in the community.
So, what are the next steps? Well, God didn’t place us in the ghetto for no reason. We plan to fight like Hell! No one is to take away our church. The Church of God, Cleveland, TN which has for so long had been dear to all our hearts has turned more into an organization that images the “Mafia” Overseers are more like crime bosses. It has turned into an “it’s all about the Benjamins” organization. This is truly a sad statement and testament of the affairs and direction of the church. It has chosen an alternate path. One that desires only to gain material wealth and power and has kicked all the teachings about love of Jesus and integrity to the curb. We should not have been no naïve for so long. Although we are in the twenty first century, the Church of God, Cleveland, TN prides itself on its rich ethnic diversity, but in 2019 we still had segregated Camp meetings in the region because the white churches refuse to worship with the black churches. Go figure? This should not be a surprise since the predominate force of the church are all white men on the executive board and all avid supporters of Donald J. Trump. Maybe it was my father’s innocence and kind heart that drew him into this organization as a child in Jamaica, WI. It was there when he found Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. He did not experience the racism there as it would not have made a good representation by the missionaries to offer Jesus to the islanders. So, coming to America he wanted to Pastor in what he perceived as a great Pentecostal organization, the Church of God. He loved the Church of God so much, that we had etched on his casket the Church of God insignia.
It is not up to me to make the determination as to what Bishop Kenneth Hills motives are. Basically, if I had to assume it appears that “masa” Timothy Hill, General Overseer in Cleveland, TN has given orders for the “house nigga” to acquire as much property as possible in the Southern New England region. Again, therefore churches that are renting are not threatened. Maybe there is a reward waiting for Kenneth Hill when his term is expected to be done at the General Assembly in San Antonio, TX in July of 2022. At the end of the day, only God can judge any of us. In the meantime, our local church will utilize the judge here on earth at the Superior in downtown Hartford.
