Reclaiming Prayer

There comes a moment when a people must decide whether they are preserving a tradition… or protecting a soul.

Silence the noise and hear me.

I, for one, have not stopped praying.

In truth, I may be praying now more deeply than ever.

But I have become increasingly convinced that I no longer wish to tether the sacred act of prayer to governmental sponsorship, political spectacle, or the machinery of national identity.

For years, many churches, including ours, participated in wha

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Neither Left Nor Right — But Deeper

Neither Left Nor Right — But Deeper

There are seasons in the life of the Spirit when the soul becomes aware that it is standing at the edge of waters too deep for easy language.

I find myself there now.

Not at the place of certainty.Not at the place of mastery.Not even at the place of full articulation.

But at the edge of a deepening.

For much of our public discourse—political, theological, cultural, even ecclesial—we are constantly being pulled toward the tyranny of horizontal

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May – Women’s Month Emphasis

Each year, during the month of May, New Unity Baptist Church pauses intentionally to celebrate, honor, and give thanks for the sacred witness, labor, leadership, wisdom, and enduring strength of women.

Some may ask why we do not follow the more traditional path of observing Women’s Emphasis Month in March.

The answer is simple: while we gladly recognize the national observance, we have chosen a rhythm that more fully reflects the spirit and life of this ministry.

May is the s

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When Waters Speak Back

Continue the Reflection

If you missed the first meditation in this series, read:

👉 When the Water Breaks: A City, A Sewer, and a Sacred Warning

From the River Reflections: Watching What Flows and What Fails

Last week, I wrote a reflection born out of what seemed, at the time, like a quiet and largely unnoticed concern.

Daily notices.

Broken lines.

Water escaping where it should not.

Nothing spectacular.

Nothing headline-worthy.

Just the slow accumulation of what we have learned to o

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When Waters Break

We have become a people who respond to collapse… but ignore corrosion.

When the Water Breaks: A City, A Sewer, and a Sacred Warning 

“From the River Reflections: Watching What Flows and What Fails”

Almost daily now, I receive a notice from the local sanitation department.

In Baltimore, aging sewer infrastructure regularly leads to spills that contaminate local waterways and raise serious concerns about water safety and environmental health.

THE BREAK BENEATH THE SURFACE

Another

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Honoring Dr. Harold Carter

From time to time, the church is graced with leaders whose influence extends far beyond the pulpit. Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter was one such servant of God.

For many, he was a renowned pastor and scholar. For others, he was a national voice shaped in the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement. For me, he was pastor-mentor-theological guide-friend.

Serving as the Assistant to the Pastor at the storied New Shiloh Baptist Church here in Baltimore afforded me proximity that reveale

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Ashes, Bread & Questions

A Lenten reflection on how the Spirit meets us between tradition, honest questions, and the slow schooling of the soul.

So it was Ash Wednesday, and as pastor, not seeking to add burdens of custom and tradition to the people, The spirit within drew me to Awareness.

What if this year we reversed some of the regular customs and conventions and entered this crucible in an entirely different way?

What might emerge from these forty days? Could the smoke rise a different color — so

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Witness in a Critical Hour

This reflection begins a four-part pastoral series exploring faith, freedom, and moral responsibility as our nation approaches its 250th year.

Beloved in Christ,

As our nation approaches its 250th year, I write not as a commentator on politics but as a shepherd of souls.

Milestone anniversaries invite celebration, but they also invite reflection—holy reflection that asks who we have been, who we are becoming, and who God is calling us to be.

The Church has always lived between

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The Sound No Family Should Know: A Pastoral Lament for Our Children

Pastor's Preface

This morning, before the sun rose, I heard the kind of sound no family should ever hear — the breaking, trembling sobs of a child grieving another child. A sixteen-year-old Black boy, a former classmate of my granddaughter while living in Philadelphia, gone by violence. More potential buried. More promise stolen. More trauma handed down like unwanted inheritance.

As your pastor, I cannot pretend this is normal.

As a church, we cannot treat this as routine.

As

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A First Fruits Reflection

In biblical theology—often called symbolic numeration or sacred numerology rather than mere numerology—numbers do more than count. They testify. They recur across Scripture, Old and New Testaments alike, as carriers of meaning, rhythm, and revelation.

Among these sacred numbers, seven appears with remarkable consistency. It is often over-simplified—or perhaps flattened—into a shorthand for “perfection.” Yet biblically, seven speaks less of flawlessness and more of maturity,

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Costly Grace. First Gifts. A Holy Beginning.

Costly Grace. First Gifts. A Holy Beginning.

The first thing we give always reveals what we believe.

First Fruits is not about leftovers.

It is not about convenience.

It is not about what remains after everything else has been handled.

It is about honor.

To bring first is to say:

“Before I secure myself, I trust God.”

“Before I calculate outcomes, I believe the promise.”

“Before I see the harvest, I acknowledge the Source.”

First Fruits is not transactional—it is theological.

Grace t

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Heaven Has Spoken: Standing at the Threshold

There are moments when time slows—not because the clock stops, but because the soul leans forward.

New Year’s Eve is one of those moments.

We do not rush past this night. We stand in it.

Between what has been and what is yet to come.

Between memory and mercy.

Between grief that still whispers and hope that refuses to die.

Watch Night is not a countdown—it is a listening post.

The prophet declared, “I will stand at my watch… and look to see what He will say to me.”

Not what the mar

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Emmanuel Has Come

A Christmas Morning Meditation

Beloved New Unity Family & Community,

If Christmas Eve taught us how to wait, Christmas morning teaches us how to receive.

On this sacred morning, when hope breaks open like dawn over weary earth, we gather our spirits around a manger. Christ is born. The Holy Child comes again — not as theory, nor symbol, but as incarnate Love entering the real conditions of our lives.

This season we journeyed through four Advent Saturdays and four Advent Sunday

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The Holy Scandal of God With Us

A Christmas Eve meditation on Incarnation, reverence, and holy wonder.

Opening Prayer

Holy God,

As night settles and the world grows quiet, still our hurried spirits.

Tune our hearts to wonder.

Peel back the noise so we may hear again the old, astonishing news—

that You chose nearness over distance, flesh over flight, love over fear.

Meet us here, Emmanuel.

Amen.

SCANDALOUS.

Yes, some of the excesses we witness—even in sacred spaces—can distract from the depth and dignity of worship

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World AIDS Day: A Pause for Memory, Mercy, and Movement

Beloved,

This year, as the calendar turns to December 1, we pause with reverence to recognize World AIDS Day, first observed in 1988—now 37 years of global remembrance, advocacy, and hope. We join hands with a world still aching, still fighting, still believing for healing.

We pray for the more than 40 million souls who have died from HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. Forty million lives — mothers and sons, artists and scholars, preachers and prophets, neighbors

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