The Community Lenten Caravan will continue its worship services in AME churches in Los Angeles from March 22 until Resurrection Day, April 9. 

Their next service will be on Wednesday at New Philadelphia AME Church in Long Beach. 

Community Lenten Caravan's AME Churches Worship

The Community Lenten Caravan's organizer, Rev. Dr. Kelvin T. Calloway, said seven AME churches present the online and in-person sessions to help people refresh their faith and collect money for two local charities. 

Pastors Calloway (Bethel AME), Mary S. Minor (Brookins-Kirkland Community AME), Dwaine Jackson (Bryant Temple AME), and Jeffery Clark (Price Chapel AME) make up the rest of the CLC clergy.

According to the Los Angeles Sentinel, on March 22, the first service occurred at the Ward AME Church on W. 25th Street in Los Angeles. Pastor Darryl E. Walker of New Philadelphia AME Church delivered the sermon. The Rev. Dr. Barry Settle served as the host pastor.

The New Philadelphia AME Church will be their next stop, where the March 29 service will occur. Per the report, Rev. Dr. Larry E. Campbell, pastor of First AME Church in Pasadena, will provide the sermon. 

On April 5, Bethel AME Church will host the final CLC service, but the service will be held at Bryant Temple AME Church, located at 2525 W. Vernon Ave. in Los Angeles.

Presented Financial Donations to Charities

In 2019, the Community Lenten Caravan donated financial funds to its charities.

Pastors from the sponsoring churches donated to the Department of Children and Family Services in Long Beach and Lakewood. 

They also donated funds to Rev. Dr. Francine Brookins, pastor of Bethel AME in Fontana and a candidate for bishop in the AME Church, keeping with longstanding practice.

According to the news published by the LA Sentinel in 2019, the AME Church Fifth Episcopal District Presiding Prelate Bishop Clement W. Fugh was also present to offer his congratulations to the honorees and support for Brookins' run.

In addition, the CLC created and disseminated a registry of churches' members' commercial enterprises. There are gift stores, plumbers, and entertainers among the businesses listed, as well as youth centers, and charter schools, among others. 

About AME Church

It is important to remember the rich and illustrious past of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Unlike any other Western religious group, its founding disagreements were not over doctrinal issues but social ones. 

According to its website, it pushed back against pessimistic readings of the Bible that devalued people of African descent. They proclaimed that God exists eternally and is accessible to everyone.

The church was founded as a form of resistance to slavery, specifically the dehumanization of African people transported to the Americas to provide labor.

African Methodist Episcopal Church seeks to serve the "spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and needs of all people."

The mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is to seek and save the lost and to help the needy, in the same spirit as the original Free African Society, from which the AME Church developed.

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