[videowaywire video_id=”1LYYYK0SKTMBF2BT”]
*A Black Lives Matter activist in Georgia has announced plans to start a new church in Memphis for African American men.
Christian pastor Jomo Kenyatta Johnson, a co-founder of BLM Savannah, will start “a new Christian denomination of house churches,” called Church For Black Men, here in February.
Johnson, who got national attention this summer during his hunger strike for suicide awareness, said the Church For Black Men is “not exclusively” for black men, “but primarily black.”
“Meaning, we will ask that if you are not a black male, to come as a guest of a black male who attends the church,” Johnson said.
Describing the weekly services, Johnson said “Sunday Home Meetings” will happen in homes, congregations will not exceed 25 people, and “it will be a familial setting not a formal one.”
Johnson, who served in several “predominantly white Presbyterian churches” after he graduated Westminster Seminary, spoke of the disconnect between white churches and black men: “The reason that black men do not connect with the American Evangelical church is because (the church refuses) to suffer with blacks and, therefore, are unable to communicate in a message by which black men can understand.”
The church won’t take money from its members. Johnson said it will also forfeit tax-exempt status so its leaders can speak on political issues.
“The belief is that by removing the church’s emphasis on money while also addressing political issues that lead to black oppression will enable a greater number of black males to partake,” Johnson said.
He said black men are the “least churched demographic in America” and “need of a safe place to be unapologetically black while learning and seeking spiritual truth.”
